Year 2, critical reflection - Final semester January - May 2013

WINOL - (www.winol.co.uk) has only been getting better and better this semester, our Alexa rank has has completely skyrocketed, at the time of writing this (21/ 5/13) our Alexa ranking for winol.co.uk is 88,939 in the UK and 550,042 worldwide. Our rivals, East London Lines, currently stand at 48,225 in the UK and 682,835 worldwide. We seem to have had a lull in our ranking as we have only produced one bulletin since we all got back from Easter break, which was on the 7th of May 2013, over April the site would've been ignored as we were all off at home with hardly anything new being added save a few features perhaps.

However, earlier in the year we were thrashing East London Lines, our site was being updated every day with new stories being put up as soon as we heard of them, it was a phenomenal turn around for student Journalist and our weekly bulletins were raking in the views, gaining around 200 - 300 views for each of our bulletins.

We brought further success by conducting a live show dedicated to the Eastleigh by-Election, this ran all night and had the results announced live as they came through from our team sent to the counting. This was a massive political feat for students to accomplish - we had political guests in the studio, a fantastic team of presenters who overcame the obstacles of presenting live and phenomenal reporters out there getting the information.

My role for WINOL from January to May has been the Community Correspondent, for a couple of weeks a political reporter and I got to put my grammatical and English language skills to the test by being on the website side of things for a change as I was acting as a dedicated sub for the website which means I was checking the language and format of articles being submitted to the site with Sam Ashton.

As Community Correspondent I was in a very similar position as I was last year as the Entertainments Reporter but I found that this role was far more diverse, which I found very appealing. This year I got my first stab at real news stories - my main news story was about Hampshire Council petitioning to ban wind farms on Council owned lands. I did this story as an update, two reporters had done it previously - Felicity Houston and Ellen Millard, their work allowed for me to cover this story which I am very grateful for.

Being very confident in my English language and writing skills I happily put myself forward to aid in the act of being a 'website sub' this meant that when reporters would get their stories every week they would write it up and submit it to the site through a very wonderful system which checks the facts and potency of the story - it is all done through WordPress and is a very nice touch.

This submission process was a great addition - what we do as subs for the website is read through the information that the reporters have filled out in the provided boxes; ranging from the source of the story (so we can see if people are lifting stories or not) to a ranking of how good of a quote the reporter has received from the story. From there we read what they have written and then we must thoroughly check the story they've written for any fatal errors, format problems and to make sure they are using the correct grammar, we make any necessary changes and then put them up on the website.

I myself have subbed many stories for the website and have done so with complete confidence they are correct I wouldn't have been able to do this without the work put in by Sam Ashton - he created a how-to guide for the website; it included format, font, tags and just the overall style of the website so it is consistent, for example how we enter numbers - the number or the spelling of the number - and where the reporters name goes; at the top or the bottom of the story. It is an invaluable asset of information and I'm confident it will help the website for a very long time.

This semester I found that again I was filling the 'and finally' spot of the bulletin - a highly sought after place in the bulletin. However, the first story this semester was a proper news story, but it fell through entirely. The story was that there were plans for a new school, a super school. I had 2 fixed interviews cancel on me thanks to the adverse weather and I was not allowed access to any pictures of the plans. This was a horrendous start to the semester and it put me back on my heels a bit.

The week after I my story was about the wind farm ban on Council owned lands in a place called Bullington Cross. This story would not have been possible if it wasn't for Faith Thomas being able to drive me to the location as it was a good 20 miles outside of Winchester and I had no way of reaching it. This goes to show that WINOL is very much a team effort, we all depend on each other to an extent and we all can work as one hell of a great team when put together. I receive good  feedback from my peers with this story, I started with a piece to camera which is usually not necessary but it was praised, said to do it's job very well. My interviews had balance - I spoke to two environmental groups; one the Friends of the Earth spokesman and the other, a spokesman from Keep Hampshire Green.

Previously, my voice was dreadful, I had so many problems with sound and projecting my voice, maybe it was due to being somewhat shy at the time but I definitely have flourished this year in terms of my confidence and it has shown through in my contributions. Some other criticisms I've had were with filming, however, over this semester I took my time to learn all the camera functions and just kept practicing with it and my affinity with the JVC cameras has reached great heights.

Hampshire was hit by a storm, a storm in the shape of Chris Huhne and the massive scandal surrounding him. This was phenomenal for us as a news outlet - the subsequent by-election brought the biggest political names to Eastleigh. I conducted a poll, the WINOL 100, around the University of Winchester to find out who, if students could, they would vote for. I did this poll two weeks in a row and both times asked 100 people the same thing. In previous elections people had gone for the Liberal Democrats, but my poll found the vote for Labour revived and a huge collapse of faith in the Liberal Democrats.

Chris Ship, our Guest Editor on Feb 3rd 2013 and Political Editor for ITV advised me to match my words with the pictures. To begin with I was talking about the Labour vote in my poll when the Conservative data was showing and so on. So I re-tried until it was perfect to which he praised greatly - it had good tempo and it was bang on with the timing.

The story I'm most proud of covering was of Derek, a teddy bear sent into space.

This particular 'and finally' may well be my crowning achievement. I was so happy to cover this, the key thing to this story was the access I was given by the team that organised it. They allowed me to use the footage of the journey that was captured which made the story but I still put in the work to receive it. People in the news room we're genuinely interested to see this and I had people crowding my desk to watch. This story gained 148 views, which is my highest viewed packaged that I've produced for WINOL.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story, I went full throttle with it because it was just so amazing, it had reference to 2001 Space Odyssey in the intro, the Moon landing and it was riddled with puns - really everything an 'and finally' should be.

Derek was a tough act to follow for the spot of 'and finally' but I'm confident I pulled the rabbit out of the hat on this one... almost literally. My story was about Heidi, a Continental Giant rabbit that has arthritis and so has been encouraged to take up swimming to help ease pressure on her joints.

This proved a challenge to get to though as the story was all the way in Milford, quite a distance away from Winchester - I would have never been able to get there if it wasn't for Matt Spencer being able to drive me there and I would not have been able to film it if I didn't get in touch with the owner as early as I did - my organisation for this story set the precedent for me really, all of my stories should be this well planned ahead and I will now continue to do this.

I am brimming with pride on this 'and finally' it just delivered on all fronts, it was adorable, it was funny and it pulled the heart strings. It was a wonderful thing to witness as well, I enjoyed myself so much. I was especially proud of the puns I worked into the scripting of the voice over and I've been credited by my peers as to being great at scripting.

Along with everything else I've done this year, we all had a week each to be the News Editor for WINOL. My time as the News Editor was exceedingly rewarding to me. I got one hell of an experience from it. The week I was the Editor we had lined up for the bulletin the power houses of political figures - we had Miliband, Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. If that wasn't enough to make a phenomenal bulletin we had rumors circulating our people that the Mayor of London, the one and only Boris Johnson was going to make an appearance in Eastleigh.

Naturally, I wanted him to get into the bulletin at any cost. It was cut so close in the end, I had a team of reporters - Matt Spencer, Faith Thomas and Luke Garratt on standby to race to Eastleigh when they caught wind of Boris. There came a time nearing our deadline that things were looking dire, there was no sign of Boris and our reporters were being fed false information. It was cut so close that I was ready to forget putting him in the bulletin, but just as I was going to tell them to come back, to forget it, they called me up and they had been successful.

The features section of WINOL is astounding. The features team have progressed in leaps and bounds - ranging from the amazing fashion magazine Absolute:ly to the highly in depth New Winchester Review. The fashion magazine instantly draws you in, the images are striking  and the huge banner at the top of the page is an eye catching way to intrigue readers.

The New Winchester Review just oozes culture - it is an amazing addition to WINOL which shows a very profound and romantic way of writing - it contains the likes of Theater and Opera reviews, something that you will most likely never find in a student lead operation. The font, the logo and the layout are all very striking - they will be remembered and they will be looked at. It's as they say: people come for the news and stay for the features.

I have had a phenomenal time on WINOL this semester and I'm extremely proud to be part of the News team here, I cannot wait to see this wonderful site grow and flourish as it no doubt will over the years.

WINOL Critical Reflection - Year 2, Semester 1

WINOL (www.winol.co.uk) has gone through a vast transformation this term, the website to begin with was very up and down - it took some time to get it off the ground but now, I believe it's fair to say that the site is now flying high and will not stop soaring. The site has been changed to a broadsheet newspaper format, which was received as more appropriate for our news. The decision to change the site to Wordpress instead of Joomla is also a noticeable difference in the site, Wordpress does limit flexibility with what we can actually do and post to the site in terms of format, but it seems to be highly, if not more, fit for the purpose of WINOL. The massive overhaul of the website has been a fantastic move for the site and the results speak for themselves - the Alexa traffic rank now places the WINOL website currently 10,424 in the UK and 477,045 worldwide.

My role in WINOL this term has been the Entertainments Reporter and occasional presenter. I believe that this term I've done a good job, but, especially to begin with, there was and probably still is room for improvement. Overall, I feel that my contribution to WINOL has been of a good standard, every week bar 2 I have delivered a VT, which has then either been used as an OOV, been scrapped or used as a full package in the bulletin. My role as entertainments reporter has taught me that I need to be proactive; organisation is the key - insofar as if there is an event a few months away, depending on the event, I would need to get in touch with the event managers in advance, to ask for permission if necessary and to set up what I want to do with the event and how I want to report on it.

Along with going out and getting a story, I have presented the WINOL bulletin once this semester and I thoroughly enjoyed myself while doing it. I know that it wasn't the best but I had gone into this ordeal with no previous training, for example, voice coaching and I felt like I had been thrown in the deep end, especially considering that I only had about 15 - 20 minutes or rehearsal to get used to the setting of the whole thing, it really was a sink or swim moment, and I feel that I managed to stay afloat because I don't think that there was anything majorly wrong with it. That being said, I was picked up on my voice, I needed to change my tone according to the story, for example while reading out a link for a court report, I sounded strangely cheerful, contrasted to when I read the link out for the baby giraffe story where I sounded monotonous and uninterested. Given the circumstances, I feel that I did well presenting and I would very much like a chance to try again and do myself justice, as I know I can do better.

Over the course of this semester, I have produced 7 VT's, of these 7, 4 have been placed into the bulletin, usually filling the spot of "and finally” When I first started however, I was not very organised with my contacts and I failed to get in touch with a few people who would have been key to my packages being that much better and worthy of being in the bulletin, put simply, I was not proactive enough and thought that I could send an E-mail and maybe make a call, then just turn up on my own volition. With that in mind I feel that after I stopped only sending E-mails to people and actually started ringing and planning through my stories a good week or so in advance is when I got my real results.

The first ever story I produced for WINOL was the story of a willow installation being added to the Winchester Discovery Centre this package was not used for the bulletin and this is because I feel that I failed to hit the right angle with this story, instead of it being just about this woman, Laura Ellen Bacon, using twigs of willow to create works of art, I could have potentially taken the focus away from that and had a bit of fun with it, instead of taking it so seriously. This was my first story, it was not a good one in my eyes and I could have done a lot better, but that being said, I managed to produce a package for the first WINOL, regardless of if it was used.

The second story I did was the Chronicles of Light event at Winchester Cathedral, this was also not featured in the bulletin, this is because of many reasons, this package was somewhat doomed from the start because I couldn't get my hands on any footage of the event actually happening, for example I was not allowed to film the event happening in Winchester Cathedral, because of copy right issues. This means that my package turned into an interview with the event manager of Winchester Cathedral, Simon Barwood, which just told people that the event was happening. If I had been more proactive I could have done something more with it, but then again everything looks better in retrospect.

My third story was covering an event held by Naomi House Hospice they hosted a James Bond charity event in the shop to raise money for the charity, this was one of my better packages but it didn't get used in the bulletin or as an oov, this is because, I think anyway, that the other 'and finally' package that we had was just better in every way and far more engaging. I worked very hard on that package and was disheartened when it didn't get put into the bulletin or used as an oov, but as i said, the alternative story was better in my opinion, just because of content and the level of interest.

This is where I hit my stride, the story I covered was about pub owner, Colin Flitter, located in the New Forest, has converted a double decker bus into a mobile pub. This story was my debut into the bulletin as a full package. I thought that this went very well overall and the guest editor that week, Graham Bell, told me that it was a great story and just the kind of thing you want to see as an 'and finally' because it's just a brilliant, fun and light hearted story to end on. However, the package really needed to be more than just one long interview with Colin, and more me explaining the whole idea, with shots of the bus and then cut to an interview with him just for a fun little snippet just to make it a great light hearted story. The other thing I was picked up on was that during my sign off I took a sip of beer, which would make me appear highly unprofessional.

The next story of mine to go into the bulletin was the graduation ceremony at Winchester Cathedral. This could have been a lot better than it was, I should have gotten vox pops of the people there, even the graduates parents talking about how happy they are would have been good, but while I was there i only managed to get one interview and no vox pops - people just were not willing to talk to me or to be filmed which really impeded the progression of my story and made it less than what it could have been. The shots i took needed to have been better, for example I didn't get any natural sound of cheering or anything to that effect, the best i managed was to capture the all important hat throw, but that was not enough to save the package. It was used, but I feel that I should have done a lot better with this. This is where I had massive issues with my voice over, it sounded like I was under water at the least, it just sounded bad no matter what I did and I must have re-recorded it about 6 times to try and get it, but to no avail.

I covered the Winchester Christmas lights for my story and I had very good natural sound with this in the beginning, with the countdown and cheering. I was told that it was well scripted and I took on the advice of my peers to be more enthusiastic and assertive that it is now officially Christmas in my voice over, it really raised the tone of the news bulletin because it was all doom and gloom. However, the shots did need to be better, they were all very dark and I didn't get enough footage to match all the celebration I was talking about in my voice over, if I'm talking about people loving the event, I need to show it happening.

The Winchester Christmas Market was my final package for WINOL this semester and I thought that it was a very good package. The guest editor, Geoff Hill, the Channel 5 news editor, said that the camera work was fantastic because it was very dark and in the package the lighting was perfect, the focus was dead on and the camera work was just altogether brilliant considering it was pitch black when it was filmed, along with this, he said that it was also well scripted. However, this certain package was just screaming out for vox pops, I've said in the package that everyone was having a great time but I should have reinforced this with the stall owners or just people attending to voice this.

The issues that I have encountered during my filming have been: wind noise, not enough shots of the area or not enough relevant shots, for example I found that when it came to editing, especially in my first few packages, that I really did not have enough footage of people 'doing things' which made it difficult to get a good, solid VT out of it. Moreover, other issues include, filming in the dark (Christmas Lights and Christmas Market) I feel that the most trouble I've had through all of my VT's is my voice over. My voice overs have tended to sound dreadful, every time I tried to make them better they either sounded the same or they just deteriorated - I tried recording them with the gun microphone, the radio microphone, the lip microphone but nothing sounded good, the only time my audio has been good is when I've been out on location for my story. Perhaps in the future to remedy this I should plan and draft my script ready for going out and filming, just to avoid the terrible audio issues when it comes to voice overs I always seem to have throughout my video packages.

Overall, I have enjoyed my time on WINOL this semester and I am looking forward to next semester after Christmas and I plan on being far more efficient at news reporting and I will take all of this into great consideration to constantly strive to better myself.

FRIGHT-NIGHT AT MARWELL WILDLIFE

30/10/2013. By Jack Webb, Entertainments Reporter:

Prepare for a scare the next time you visit Marwell Wildlife in Winchester over the next month, as they are hosting a spooky Halloween event.

The animal enclosures are being given pumpkins as a festive treat, all carved by visitors of the zoo.

The night will have a host of interactive events to partake in and you'll be scared witless by spooky storytelling from the resident witch. To top things off, the event will feature a chilling ride on a ghost train that goes throughout the park

GOLDEN, EYE CATCHING EVENT

24/10/2012. By Jack Webb, Entertainments Reporter: The Naomi House charity in Winchester hosted a James Bond themed event to raise money for the hospice.

The event featured James Bond look-a-likes, cocktails and a great deal of Bond merchandise, ranging from books to posters to DVD's. The charity enlisted help from a number of volunteers; who would go from handing out drinks to standing outside the shop to promote the charity.

Karen Landor, the Donations Manager said "The Bond theme is something that is very eye-catching and topical, what with the new Bond film coming out the end of this week".

She went on to say that there would be many more events similar to this one, being held in the store, all to raise money for the charity.

Winchester Cathedral lighting up History

The history of Winchester is being re-told in the form of a multi-media musical.

The event manager Simon Barwood said “All the money raised will go towards buying an enhanced sound and lighting system for the Cathedral”.

Celebrities such as Dame Judi Dench, John Rhys-Davies and Alan Titchmarsh are all at Winchester Cathedral but in a more ghostly form – through a projector.

The Chronicles of Light will delve into the past of famous historical figures such as Jane Austen and St. Swithun; the event will run until the 28^th of October.

Journalism Now and WINOL Review!

The Journalism now module is pretty much happening, well, now. We've had our first berating of not reading enough newspapers, enough to scare me into reading newspapers every second of the day, because well, reading newspapers = passing our course is the word on the street. Along with journalism now we had our very first "news clinic" which is pretty much our seminar groups being assigned a certain newspaper to read and then start to talk about what we've read in it while answering questions from our lecturers and so on.

Another thing from our journalism now lecture is that we have to review Winchester's online news feature "WINOL" this is Winchester News Online. So after watching through WINOL I have formed the following critique, sorry if im being harsh guys, but im pretty sure you won’t find it all bad! *looks awkwardly away* For the sake of simplicity I’ll just bullet point stuff out

• The intro is pretty cool, though sometime the music does interrupt but thats just down to the editing really
• The majority of the stories were very well reported I found, the one that I liked the most was about the laser machines being implemented into Southampton, insofar as the report was well spoken and well informed
• Some stories seemed a little unprepared, what with them having to look back and forth from camera to their notes - it kind of detracted from the story cause you would notice this quite easily
• I firmly believe that the sports section needs to be shorted, but this is because I have pretty much zero interest in sports and find it utterly dull, so really don’t listen to this point :)
• Some of the animations and transitions were very laggy, they just seemed a bit off
• Pretty much loved the animation in the whole WINOL Life thing, was a very nice touch
• Now, im sure it was just a small slip up but while the anchor was doing the all important sign-off, the music came in too early and interrupted it
• Sorry if im being too harsh, im being purposefully picky - you guys don’t want me to lie to you right? Didn’t think so, however, all in all it was done very well, there were definitely more good things than bad and it was an improvement from last week.

Good job guys and keep up the good work, I only hope that when we start WINOL we do nearly as good! With that, bye and stuff x