Channel 5 News Review 27.11.12

There was a good variety of stories in the bulletin, the top story was the extreme flooding that has occurred across Britain. There was a good variety of shots in this story, with a mixture of vox pops, pieces to camera, graphics and interviews. The graphic was very clear and helped to illustrate where in the country had been affected and gave the information people needed to know. However although I appreciate the fact that this is an important story, it seemed excessively long and took up a disproportionate amount of the bulletin. There didn’t seem to be a need for two correspondents on the same story.

 I found it unusual that the back of the interviewers head was in shot for many of the interviews, it was quite uncomfortable to watch and didn’t add anything to the interview as the interviewees eye line would have been the same if they were out of shot.  Another touch which I found quite unusual was the intense creepy music underlying the image of the norovirus. It seemed like an unnecessary addition and made it seem like the norovirus is a lot more dangerous than it actually is. The relaxed presenting style was comfortable to watch but her speech still remained far too light hearted during the more serious stories so there was no contrast between the hard and soft news.  

Tuesday Takeover

WINOL has officially kicked off its radio take over! Every Tuesday between 10am and 2pm WINOL will be producing live shows with our enthusiastic team of presenters, and news at the top of every hour.

10am- 11am Myself and Kirsty Phillips kick off the take over with a female orientated show. Every week we will be joined by Dr Fashion (Georgia Spears) to discuss the fashion do’s and don’ts of the season and she will be keeping us up to date on her search for her latest fashion victim. Our show will also be jam packed with music, chat, and gossip from all of those guilty pleasure TV programmes everyone secretly loves.

11am- 12am The Sportsweek team take over and pack their show full of their expert opinions and reports on everything that is happening in the local sports world. From football to ice hockey, this is the show to tune into for your sports fix.

2am- 2pm Harry Parkhill makes the most of our last two hours and gives you a show crammed with music, chat and a flavour of what’s coming up from the features team in the upcoming weeks. You couldn’t ask for a better soundtrack to your lunchtime.

Freud

Freud’s theory of the human condition is an all-encompassing theory. Freud’s work addresses the problem that is the misery of the human condition. We are unhappy because we are alienated from ourselves, we don’t know what we want. Freud believed he had found the solution in psychoanalysis as the way to gain access to the understanding of why we act the way we do. Freudian slips, dreams and neurosis, are all evidence that an unconscious mind exists and are gateways to your true thoughts.

Freud sexualised everything and believed that sex is the cause of our motives. He challenged the idea of the enlightenment that we are calculated beings, and he damaged our idea of ourselves as noble creatures. Freud was very pessimistic and had a dark view of humanity; he likened his ideas to the artwork of Rembrandt, a little light but a lot of darkness.

Marx also thought that we are alienated, but he had a teleological view that it was going towards a brighter thing – communism. Marx believed that we can evolve and become better. Freud rejects this and thinks it is nonsense. Our deepest needs are aggression, the wilful desire to hurt others and hurt ourselves. We seek our own destruction.

Freud followed Plato’s idea of the tripartite self (reason, spirit, desire – allegory of the two horses and a chariot). However where Plato believed that reason was the strongest, Freud actually believed it was the weakest.  Freud split the self into the Id, the Ego, and the Super Ego. The Id is the dominating part of our lives and is at our core from the moment we are born. It is made up of aggression and sexuality, it is the spoiled brat in us. “A cauldron seething in excitations” demanding fulfilment, always demanding we hurt others. The Ego is the least powerful part of the personality and is the voice of reason. We think it is the most dominant part of us but we are wrong. The Super Ego comes from the outside, initially from our parents and then the wider society. It is irrational. It is the policeman in your head, and punishes you with guilt when you don’t achieve perfection.

Society is full of suffering because it is full of pain:
1) Our own decaying body- nature
2) The external world – fate
3) Interaction with other people – the greatest pain. People are out to get us, but we are also inclined to hurt others.

Freud believes the answer to this is psychoanalysis, but this isn’t available to everyone. The masses will continue on their own destructive path. Freud outlines ways to contain these urges but he doesn’t recommend them:
1) Intoxication- but it is temporary and expensive
2) Isolation – stay away from other people
3) Religion – mass delusion

Civilisation is a collective super ego imposing moral limits on the Id.  The best example of this is religion “love our neighbour as ourselves” but how is that possible if the Id wants you to hurt them and for them to hurt you? Religion puts impossible demands on us.

Attacks on Freud’s theories:
1) Falsifiability –Popper – Freud was so vague that his theories could not be tested. There is no proof that psychoanalysis works.
2) Freud was not the discoverer of unconsciousness  - Schopenhauer said something similar.
3) Reich believed the complete opposite. The unconscious forces inside the mind are good and it was their suppression by society that distorted them and made people dangerous. Reich believed that the underlying energy was sexuality and if it was released then people would flourish.

Ethics

There are many moral philosophers, dating back to Plato and Aristotle, which have treated happiness as the supreme good. However Kant in his “Groundwork” stated that duty, not happiness, was the supreme moral motive.

Bentham is one of the philosophers who does identify happiness as the supreme moral principle, but Bentham identifies happiness as pleasure. Bentham is a Utilitarian so he argues that pleasure is the main cause of all action, and an action should be considered in regards to the amount it increases pleasure or reduces pain. He not only regarded happiness as being the equivalent of pleasure, but he also regarded pleasure in itself as simply a sensation. “Pain and pleasure are what everybody feels to be such”. The relation between an activity and whether it causes pleasure or pain is just cause and effect. The value of every pleasure is the same, regardless of what has caused it, so the happiness you feel when you see a fine piece of art, and the happiness you feel when you when you itch that scratch you couldn’t reach, are the exact same. The important thing is the quantity of pleasure or pain caused, not the value of the action. Bentham offered systems for measuring pleasure and pain which are laid out in his “Felicific Calculus”. There are seven elements that have to be considered;

1.       Intensity

2.       Duration

3.       Certainty (how likely is it that the pleasure will happen?)

4.       How soon it will occur

5.       Fecundity (how likely is it that it will result in a subsequent series of pleasures?)  

6.       Purity (how likely is it that it will subsequently cause pain?)

7.       Extent (how many people will it affect?)

Number 7 is the most important one as the main foundation of utilitarianism is “the greatest happiness for the greatest number”. Bentham contrasted utilitarianism with asceticism, which is to judge an action by the amount it reduces happiness. However Bentham admitted that this principle of self-inflicted misery could never be upheld by any living thing.

John Stuart Mill was also a utilitarian, but in his “utilitarianism” he laid out that some kinds of pleasure are more valuable than others. This solved the criticism that utilitarianism reduces humans to being no better than swine by simply following our pleasures. It is this ability to distinguish between higher and lower pleasures which sets us apart from the animals, “it’s better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied”.

Schopenhauer  links his ethics to his metaphysical view that the world of experience is merely an illusion, and true reality (the thing in itself) is the universal will. Morality is a matter of training the character. The will is free from eternity to eternity but everything in nature, including human nature, is determined by necessity. If you could get complete knowledge of a persons character and the motives which drive them, then you could predict all of their future conduct. We believe we are free to decide because prior to the choice we have no knowledge of how “the will” is going to decide. The belief we can decide for ourselves is merely an illusion. Our wills can never change but there are different degrees of awareness of will. Repentance or regret never comes from the will, but from a greater sense of self awareness. Schopenhauer believes that it is unlikely we will ever be content. The will by nature is insatiable. The basis of all will is need and pain, we suffer until our needs are satisfied, but if the will becomes satisfied and loses desire then life becomes boring.

Kierkegaard’s moral system is similar to Schopenhauer’s in that they both take a pessimistic view. However whereas Schopenhauer’s ethics aims towards erasing individuality, Kierkegaard aims to put the individual in full possession of their own character as a unique creature of God.

Nietzsche says that history shows two types of morality; master morality and a morality for the herd (the poor and weak). Nietzsche argued that the revolt of the slaves triumphed with Christianity, “the success of Christianity lead to the degeneration of the human race”. To save the human race we must reverse the values of Christianity. Life forces us to establish values, and human life is the highest form of life so far, but it has sunk back to the levels of those which had preceded it. We must bring life to a new level past the system of master and slave, the Ubermensch (superman). The Ubermensch would be the highest form of life, the will to live. The will to live must not favour the weak, it must favour power, “man is a bridge, not a goal”. The Ubermensch will not be achieved through evolution, but only through the exercise of the will. Nietzsche encouraged war, war is an education in freedom.    

Radio News Recap

What sets radio apart from other methods of broadcast is that it is immediate, intimate and personal.

·         Grab people’s attention immediately and focus on the main point of the story.

·         Think “Headlines”. Don’t use 10 words if 2 will do.

·         Avoid long fancy words and complicated sentences. Keep it as simple, clear and concise as you possibly can.

·         Avoid clichés and emotive language. Don’t make stories sound more dramatic than they need to be.

·         Check your grammar, check it again, and then check it one extra time because if you get it wrong it will completely alter the meaning of your story. This also applies to your sentence structure.

·         Remember your target audience. The audience we are aiming at are students at the University of Winchester, this means you can afford to be a little more informal with your choice of words and sentence structure.

·         Make sure your story can be carried by the words alone, as there is nothing else to fall back on in radio.

When producing radio it is important to keep in mind your target audience, this is organised in terms of social grade:
A (Upper Middle Class)
B (Middle Class)
C1 (Lower Middle Class)
C2 (Skilled Working Class)
D (Working Class)
E (Casual/Lowest Grade Workers)

Tips to a successful radio interview:

·         Ensure you are fully acquainted with the controls on the audio equipment and as simple as it may seem, make sure it is fully charged and is recording.

·         Microphones are sensitive so keep them still and avoid rustling paper around them. They should be held about six inches from the mouth so you shall have to forget about your love of personal space.

·         When recording don’t keep turning the equipment on and off, or pausing it, just keep it running, this will be far easier to edit.

·         At the end of the interview keep the equipment recording for a few extra seconds as this adds ambience and avoids an awkward, abrupt stop.

·          Avoid rooms with noticeable echo but also consider what sounds around you will add texture to your audio.

·         A good interview will sound like an unscripted chat, so rather than have a long list of set questions, just have a few and then have key points you want to focus on.

·         Avoid closed questions and do your research so you understand what your interviewee is saying.

Script Structure:
1 ½ line spacing.
One side of the page only (they will rustle if you turn them over)
Always typed, NEVER hand write your story or script.
Audio cuts must be written as:
NAME: Mr Blog
IN WORDS: I have always…
OUT WORDS: …can never happen
DURATION: 0’14’’


Our news bulletins will go out at 11.00am, 1.00pm, 3.00pm. They will be updated in between those hours as news comes in. We are aiming for the finished bulletin to be 90seconds long, but the absolute maximum will be 2minutes. There should be an audio cut in at least one story in the bulletin. Audio cuts can be of interviews, expert comment, press conferences etc. Or you can use vox pops, however they don’t always add much to a story so make sure they’re relevant and don’t depend on them.


We are aiming for at least 4 News stories per bulletin, 1 sports story, and a quick recap on weather.

WINOL Weeks 1-5

I think it’s safe to say that moving into second year was a shock to the system for everyone studying Journalism. The comfort of regular lecture times and the structure of learning information that you would have to relay at some point throughout the year has long gone. We are now deep in the world of being real journalists, which all depends on self-motivation and a constant intake of coffee.

As a member of the production team working on WINOL (Winchester News Online)we are saved from the panicked Mondays which reporters have to go through as they try to get their story organised for Wednesday. Every Monday morning everyone meets for the WINOL de-brief during which we are taken through the highs and lows of the previous weeks bulletin and given a hearty dose of constructive criticism, after all we are constantly striving to make our output better. On a Tuesday the production team comes in early to set up the TV Studio and we then produce Sportsweek. We use any spare time we have to help others with filming or work on the other roles we have, for example I am also a member of the features team and I am the Radio News Editor.

Wednesday comes and the pressure is on. We come in early to set up the TV Studio, and once every button and every switch has been turned on we then return to the news room to collect the headlines from the reporters. We then pre-record the headlines with the presenter, after which we return to the news room and become incredibly irritating for the reporters as we badger them all for their final packages. As soon as we have the finalised script and everyone’s packages we rehearse the bulletin as many times as we possibly can and try to fix any of the problems which will inevitably arise, before we go out as live at 3.00pm. The bulletin is then published online for 5.00pm

Every week our roles change on production so you have a chance to try your hand at everything. The roles within production are; Director, VT Machine, Vision Mixer, Autocue, Sound, and we also always have someone stand on camera so they can communicate with the presenter if the presenters talk back fails for whatever reason.

Here is a week by week recap of WINOL including what role I was in and how it went:

Week 1: Autocue
This was our first WINOL of the year and it definitely felt as though we had been thrown in the deep end. I never thought that the autocue would be too difficult, and when I practised without a presenter it seemed simple. However once the presenter sat in front of the camera I found it became much more difficult, as you have to keep with the speed of the presenter and make sure it’s in the correct place for when the camera goes back to them after a VT. Unfortunately we did not go out on time at 3.00pm which was mainly due to it being our first WINOL of the year and those of us that were new to WINOL were not used to the time constraints we have to stick to.

Week 2: DirectorI cannot deny that I was terrified when I was told I would be directing, but I’m also a firm believer that if you don’t give something a go as soon as the opportunity arises, your fear of it will only increase over time. I was right to be scared as there is a lot of responsibility being the director. You have to keep the gallery calm and under control whilst making sure you cue them and the presenter at the correct times. We were ready to go out at 3.00pm however unfortunately we made the error of forgetting to put a tape in so we had to go out at 3.05pm. There were also issues in post-production which meant that the presenter’s links had to be re-filmed out of the studio.` 

Week 3: Vision MixerThe vision mixer was one of the roles I enjoyed more however it didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked. I cut out of a VT too early so we had to re-film part of the bulletin. This week we managed to go out at 3.00pm.

Week 4: VT Machine
This was the first time I had ever used the VT machine and in my opinion it’s one of the easier roles, as long as you make sure in advance that the packages are lined up in the correct order as they are on the script. The main issue with the VT machine is that sometimes the packages won’t work so they come up with a big red X when you put them in. However this is easily resolved by re-exporting them on that computer in Final Cut 7. This week we went out at 3.00pm.

Week 5: VT Machine
By this point I was very comfortable using the VT machine as I had also been in that role earlier in the day, during the American Election live broadcast. This was our smoothest week production-wise and we went out at 3.00pm.



Economics

The first economist was Adam Smith who wrote the publication “The Wealth of Nations” which raised the question; why is one country richer than another? Smith argued that wealthy countries are categorised by free people and free trade. Countries that have too much government intervention are poorer. He believed that money has no actual value in itself, it just keeps score on how much value has been created. Before “The Wealth of Nations” Smith published a book focusing on philosophy which contained theories similar to that of Kant. Smith had the view that everyone is out for themselves, people are not altruistic. There is no point trying to live out your life helping others, it is damaging, all you achieve is an ego boost. Smith believed there was a “hidden hand of the market”.

David Ricardo – Took the opposite view to Smith, amore metaphysical view. He believed there is a spirit of value in things. Value only arises when humans apply labour towards it, the more labour involved the higher its value. For example diamonds are more valuable than matchsticks as there is more human effort and labour put towards getting a diamond than there is making a matchstick. Water has more value in some places than others as it is harder to gain access to.

Thomas Malthus – Stated there was an “iron law of population”; humans will always starve to death. The natural condition of men  is to constantly be on the brink of extinction. If the food system broke down in the UK people would be suffering starvation within days. Marriage and chastity is the way to prevent starvation. Malthus’s theories are coming back into fashion with peoples growing concerns about climate change.

Karl Marx – An epistemologist and economist and his theories on economy are similar to that of Ricardo and Malthus. Labour is the only source of value, the pay for labour will decrease as the population increases. The people who grow the food, at the end of the day, will not be able to afford to buy it. For example, “widget” costs £10, the person who owns the factory takes £5 as profit and the employees take £5 as wage. The employees then go to the shop to buy a widget, but they cost £10 and they only have £5 to spend. This is the iron law of wages. In a system of profit they will always look to reduce the wage, this is known as the crisis of capitalism. It can result in overproduction and under-consumption.
1844 - The Bank of England created currency. The amount of money the country had depended on the amount of gold.
1848 - The year of revolutions.
1849 - Gold rush- they discovered gold in California and Australia.

JM Keynes – The 2^nd Wold War brought an end to the depression and the superstition about gold. They went off the gold standard and onto paper money. Every economist at the time were Keynesians. Keynes solved Marx’s “widget” problem, his solution was to simply print more money. If you print more money then companies have more money to invest in their business and can employ more people at a higher wage.
Problems of the Keynesian system:
- Inflation and “stagflation” so unemployment would return.
- Increased role of the state so there is a decline of freedom.
- Destruction of profitability.
- Orientation towards arms spending and militarism.
- Collapse of rational expectations, creates and entitlement culture.
- Failure to innovate