Critical Reflection - Year Two, Semester 1

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 7^th 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.