Winchester News Online (WINOL) is an entirely student run
project that now covers every area of broadcast; television, online and radio.
Constantly producing content in an area where there isn’t a lot of news to
report on is no easy task, yet WINOL has managed to become the highest ranking
student broadcast in the UK. Our main competition this semester, in terms of
other student broadcasters, has been “East London Lines” which is run by
journalism students at Goldsmiths, The University of London.
At the beginning of this semester East London Lines were overtaking
WINOL by a significant amount and had a much higher Alexa ranking. This was due
to the fact that their website had been constantly updated, whereas WINOL had
been left slightly neglected over the summer and towards the start of the
semester. However once a dedicated web team had been assigned and WINOL began
uploading stories on a regular basis our Alexa ranking began to rise. The WINOL
website had a complete re-design and after several different approaches it has
taken a broadsheet style, leaving it simple and professional. There are now
also dedicated “Features” and “Fashion” sections, so there is more content
which appeals to a wider
audience. The use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook, has also helped
to promote WINOL along with us all plugging our own work individually. Our
current Alexa ranking has shown that WINOL is the highest ranking student
publication at 12,005 in the UK, and 532,284 globally, whereas East London
Lines is only at 23,915 in the UK, and 581,311 globally (Figures from Alexa.com
and accurate on the 7/12/2012 at 3.48pm).
Our first big
task of the semester was hosting the BJTC awards, as I am a member of the
production team I was on the sound desk for the event. Fortunately I have used
sound desks in the past so this role wasn’t too daunting for me. The awards
were presented by ITN’s Alastair Stewart and were attended by nominees and
representatives of the BJTC so the pressure was on for us to present Winchester
as a professional university. The award ceremony was a great success for the
university and our journalism course, and the fact that the ceremony was so
important got me used to working in a slightly higher pressured environment
than I am used to.
On the production
team our roles rotated weekly to ensure that we were all fully trained on every
aspect of the studio. Most of the roles are technical and therefore quite easy
to pick up, however the autocue seemed to be the one piece of equipment that
dumbfounded everyone at first, including myself. The role that is under the
most pressure in the gallery is the director as they are responsible for
keeping the broadcast in time and must keep the rest of the gallery ordered and
calm. I have taken the role of director twice over this semester. The first
time I directed was during the second week of WINOL, so at this point in time
we were all still relatively new to how things worked and how organised we
needed to be. WINOL must be broadcast as live at 15.00 and the previous week we
had failed to go out on time so I was determined that this would not happen
again. The VT’s were organised and we had half an hour of rehearsing time,
which isn’t ideal but with an experienced presenter it was possible to go out at
15:00. However two minutes into our broadcast we realised that we hadn’t put a
tape in so the broadcast wasn’t recorded, we then went out at 15:05. This all
went out smoothly, but in post-production there were several issues including
the fact that the presenter sounded like they were under water, so the bulletin
had to be re-filmed in the news room. This experience taught me the importance
of double checking everything before we broadcast, especially the little things
which seem obvious like putting a tape in. It also made me aware of the fact
that we may come across issues in post-production which were unavoidable, so we
must always be prepared to find a solution quickly so we can get WINOL online
for 17:00. The second time I directed I made sure the tape was in and we had a
good amount of rehearsal time in which everything went smoothly. I felt a lot
more confident in the role and was comfortable with giving clear direction when
it was needed. However at 15:00 when we broadcast there were several occasions
where the VT went out without any sound. This really tested me as I had to
constantly reassure and inform the presenter of what was happening, and try to
keep the gallery calm whilst we attempted to find out what the cause of the
problem was.
I found that
it is very important for the production team to work closely as a unit so we
can identify any problem areas within the bulletin and make sure everyone is
comfortable in their role on that day. There also has to be very clear
communication between the news team and production so that deadlines can be met
and to ensure that everyone is notified of any changes that have been made. On
several occasions this semester news stories have had to be spiked at the last
minute which changes the script and can change the running order of the VT’s,
which could have potentially caused serious problems for the presenter. We have
also encountered the reoccurring issue that the link in the script would repeat
the first sentence within a VT, so the presenter and the reporter would say the
same thing which makes it sound like an echo. This was a mistake I made when I
helped to write the script. Where I hadn’t viewed all of the VT’s and just used
the links the reporters gave me, when it came to running through the bulletin
in rehearsal I quickly realised that some of the links were being repeated in
the VT’s, and also that the script for the OOV’s was too long. This then caused
a last minute rush as we tried to re-write the problem areas. Although it got
better throughout the semester, I still think there is room for improvement
when it comes to organisation and communication.
Another big
event for WINOL this semester was our coverage of the American Presidential
Elections. This took months of preparation and my role for this event was
Managing Editor, which mainly consisted of constantly e-mailing and phoning
people, organising interviews and trying to get people to come in as guests.
The structure and timings of our show was constantly changing so trying to get
people to come in as guests proved to be very difficult. I did however, manage
to organise WINOL to get access to the US Embassy party on the night of the
elections. I also organised several interviews including one with Professor
Robert Singh, who Harry and I met in London to interview before attending a
screening of the final presidential debates. The interview itself went very
smoothly and was used in several VT’s for the elections. The screening was
organised by Republicans Abroad and we went there to film the voters’ reactions
and responses to the screening. However unfortunately we had not anticipated
how dark the theatre would be during the screening so we couldn’t get any
footage of the people watching the debate, but we did get some very
entertaining sound bites of their reactions. In hindsight we should have
realised that we wouldn’t have been able to film during the screening as
theatres are always very dimly lit. Our interviews with the audience members
provided some great quotes but we did end up missing out on some of the
interviews because we hadn’t plugged the microphone in the correct place. We
also managed to get an interview with Bonnie Greer OBE which was a fantastic
experience. It
was a very hectic day, running through London with heavy filming equipment, and
it was also very nerve wracking for me as this was the first time I had ever conducted
any interviews.
During the
lead up to the elections we had an intense few days of rehearsals and I created
a VT on postal voting, which contained several interviews with voters in the
UK. We had a script and a running order all planned for a two hour morning show
called “America Decides” with two presenters, each taking an hour slot. The
whole basis of the script was that we still would not yet know who had won the
election, and this seemed like a realistic prediction considering how close the
election was. However, on waking up on the 7th we discovered that
Obama had already won, which threw off our whole show. This meant that unfortunately
my VT, and many other VT’s, had to be dropped or edited. It was a stressful
morning to say the least. As I was going to be running the VT machine during
our broadcast I was responsible for gathering all of the VT’s we would be
using, and helping to edit those that needed to be changed. The actual
broadcast went surprisingly smoothly considering we were only getting the
script in half an hour intervals as it was written, and we also managed to make
it onto the front page of journalism.co.uk. This was an all-round team effort and is a
great example of how well everyone on WINOL works together, despite the demanding
circumstances.
Radio News
Editor was my other role on WINOL this semester, and at first I was unsure what
exactly I would be doing, because as it stood WINOL didn’t have constant
interaction with the university radio. After attempting on several occasions to
organise a bulletin to go at the top of the hour of the radios existing shows, I
found that it was too inconsistent so I could never be sure if a bulletin would
actually be aired. At this point I decided that WINOL should have complete
control of a slot time so we could be sure there was a basis for our bulletins
to go out. From this point WINOL has taken control of the radio from 10.00
until 14:00 every Tuesday, which we have branded as the “Tuesday Takeover”. During
this slot there are three different shows; Kirsty and I present the morning
show 10:00-11:00, which has a “Loose Women” feel to it. This is then followed
by a Sportsweek show which is presented by the various members of the sports
team, 11:00-12:00. Harry then takes the 12:00-14:00 slot, where he often brings
in members of the features team to discuss the success of their recent features
and their upcoming plans. I ensured that all of the presenters had the necessary
training required so they could get out any equipment and studios they would
need. We have produced local news bulletins which go out at the top of every
hour and get updated as news comes in.
The radio has
just completed its fourth week and I would definitely consider it to be a
success. Being in an editorial role has
really tested me because if we face any issues, be they technical or to do with
the news content, it is my responsibility to ensure they are fixed. Mine and
Kirsty’s show is growing in confidence each week, however something I really think
we need to improve upon next semester is promoting the radio and WINOL as a
whole. We have a whole university on our doorstep as a potential audience, and we
need to make them more aware of WINOL as a reliable source not only for their
local news, but also for fashion and entertainment in the form of features.
Alongside my
role in production and as Radio News Editor, I also helped to produce the 99
News for WINOL, which is the first daily student news broadcast. We worked as a
small team to write the script, set up the equipment, film the bulletin, and
then edit and upload it for our 13:00 deadline. I also presented the Thursday’s
edition of the 99 News, which looking back on it, illustrates that my news
presenting has a lot of room for improvement. I look somewhat uncomfortable and
moved my head an excessive amount, however this was only my second time presenting
having previously presented Sportsweek, so I am hoping this will improve with
practice. I also tried my hand at creating a feature on the nitrogen cocktail
craze which was hitting the headlines at the time. I organised to have a
professional cocktail maker come to a local club to create extreme cocktails,
including one which involved the use of a fire extinguisher. I went to film
with the assistance of Ben, however due to the poor lighting the footage was
unusable but we did get some very good still photographs. Unfortunately the
production of my feature clashed with the American Elections so I failed to
edit my piece by the deadline. A long time had then passed between by feature
and the news story it was based upon so it was no longer relevant and without
the video footage it was a very weak piece, because of this my feature got
spiked. I think my error in regards to features was that I didn’t dedicate
enough time to it, I was too pre-occupied with the other jobs I was doing at
the time.
