Thursday 9 December 2010

LAW UPDATE (WEEK 11: REVISION)

Notes from the last law lecture of the term, which will cover the main points we have learnt.

1. Legal framework in the U.K

- Criminal and civil courts
- Criminal: state vs. individual (prison sentence if found guilty)
- Civil: disputes between organisations or individuals (i.e libel cases)

- Crown courts: cover indictable offences (carry sentence of 5+ years)
- Magistrates courts: summary offences (carry sentence of 5 years or less)

- Sometimes an offence can be seen as either indictable or summary, which is known as an 'either-way' offence funnily enough!

2. Court reporting

- Stage 1: After incident - report what happened (no danger)
- Stage 2: Warrant issued/someone arrested (case is active, kind of!)
- Stage 3: Police lay charges
- Stage 4: Trial

At stage 3, here are the uncontested things that you can report

- Name and age
- Address and occupation
- Charge(s)
- Date and place of Crown Court hearing
- Bail and legal aid conditions
- Names of counsel

REMEMBER: Prejudice leads to contempt, so be careful what you report and when you report it.

- During trial: no reporting when jury is not present.

3. Libel and defamation

REMEMBER: PUBLICATION + IDENTIFICATION + DEFAMATION = LIBEL

DEFAMATION is a tendency to...

1. lower individual(s) in the estimation of right thinking people
2. cause them to be shunned/avoided
3. disparage them in their business, trade or profession
4. expose them to hatred, ridicule or contempt

Libel defences

1. JUSTIFICATION: "It's true and I can prove it"
2. FAIR COMMENT: "This is my honestly held opinion based on the facts"
3. ABSOLUTE PRIVILEGE: court reporting
4. QUALIFIED PRIVILEGE: police quote, council meetings etc

Reynold's defence

- In basic terms, a journalist can be let off if the defamatory remarks are seen to be in the public interest.

- If you come to your conclusions after practising 'responsible journalism' (i.e - kept notes, diaries, recordings), your defence will be enhanced.

4. Privilege

- Read my notes from the privilege lecture.

5. Copyright

- In simple terms, copyright laws are in place to protect intellectual property that belongs to an individual.

- News organisations (print and tv) have an agreement to use a certain proportion of each other's material, such as sport highlights. This is known as fair dealing.

"Pictures courtesy of..."

- To give another example, if a paper picks up an exclusive, rivals are allowed to publish that information

- Same applies for internet/online material.

Read my notes on copyright.

6. Privacy and confidentiality

- WIKILEAKS SAGA! Perhaps the biggest breach of confidence story ever.

Three areas of concern. Do not report...

1. state (official) secrets (e.g - matters that may hinder home security)
2. commercial secrets
3. facts about somebody that they would prefer to remain private

Matters that fall under the public interest can often excuse breaching confidence of sources.

Read my notes on privacy and confidentiality.

Wednesday 8 December 2010

WINOL YEAR 3: WEEK 9

Here's what I did in the last news week on WINOL. Next week will focus on features to co-inside in In-Style's Maria Milano visit.

Monday

- Over the weekend, Chris worked hard to make the site look better and he has done a very good job. In all his excitement, he made a few spelling mistakes with the front page banner and other text he inserted. Like a good Chief Sub, I was on it in a flash!

- General clean up of the site. Got rid of old material, changed a few headlines for practical and editorial purposes.

- A bit of code forced Joomla to mangle the whole features page. Had to sort that!

Tuesday

- Chased up a picture for Stu's story: was going on the front page so particularly important.

- Found a poll module on good old Joomla extensions. Once it was downloaded, I put it on 'Extension manager' so I could add the poll about gay marriage onto the site.

- Spoke to our Picture Editor Jase Curtis about pictures(!) I found another fancy Joomla extension that could showcase his images. Maybe too late in the term for him to bother?!

- Another scan over the published articles. Checking the usual stuff: headlines, house style, legals, spelling etc.

Wednesday

- Subbed a lot of the Journalism Now! pieces from the first years and MA students. Didn't realise it wasn't really my job, but did them anyway!

- Then Output Editor of the BBC's Politics Show Tim Burke came in and we had some great discussions. We debated about the line between gay marriage and civil partnerships and whether the poll I put up was misleading as a result.

- He then went through the stories on the front page and made some advanced points about writing style and telling it properly. I learned a lot from spending the afternoon with him.

Monday 6 December 2010

WINOL YEAR 3 (WEEK 8 DEBRIEF)

Notes from Laura Barton and Brian's debriefs.

- We actually hit all our deadlines!

- Great presenting from Cara (news) and Will (sport). Handover banter was good too.

- Fantastic student report about the fee demos, but voice over could've been a bit more measured to let the pictures speak for themselves.

- Particularly good shots in sport this week; especially getting the Winchester City manager covering his face after conceding a goal.

- Despite technical issues (including the handback to news), the bulletin was quite bulky and had a lot of substance.

- The features programme was also good, had a One Show feel, and was another string to our bow this week.

Sunday 5 December 2010

LAW UPDATE (WEEK 10)

Ian Anderson's media law extravanganza canceled due to adverse weather conditions!

Tuesday 30 November 2010

WINOL YEAR 3: WEEK 8

Monday

The documentary about the tuition fee protests was on the front page, but had been replaced with our latest bulletin, so I took the YouTube embed code and put it on the sidebar of features.

The video was joined by Stu's feature interview with Chris Huhne. We're starting to get big names on the site, which is really encouraging.

Also, I generally updated the content, including news and sport articles submitted over the weekend.

Picture problems: Jase had copyrighted his (excellent) pictures, so the embed code for one of Stu's articles was not available.

Tuesday

I have been putting a lot of video content up this week. Catherine's behind the scenes video at the Echo is very good, so I put that on the front page. Veronica/Maddie etc's fee demo documentary is now on the features page as it had to be taken off the front page for the latest bulletin.

Hobbs has been securing some big names in the comment department, including Steve Brine and the Bishop of Winchester. The bishop piece had two parts to it, so me and Chris decided to keep one half back for next week. We also jazzed up his picture to more of a close up, feature style image.

Me and Jon decided it is best all-round for the site to have one column. Two columns cause far too many Joomla problems whilst one column looks good anyway. There are still drawbacks with one column, including the need to write long headlines to fill the excess space. So we went through and sorted that problem.

Wednesday

Sportsweek was getting a bit old on the front page and there wasn't a new one this week due to postponements.

Somehow the sidebars on the site started to look bare, especially on the news and sport pages. Grant put Mikey's new feature 'Hit the WINOL woodwork' onto YouTube so I could put that on sport along with links to popular and latest articles. Andy's bible bashers VT was looking old on the news sidebar, so I replaced that with two of Stu's latest pieces on the tuition fees and council housing.

Latest: Chris has been busy over the weekend to make the site look better, check it out at WINOL.

Sunday 28 November 2010

LAW UPDATE (WEEK 9)

This week's lecture was on codes of practice.

The main point about following the codes - as they are not actual laws like defamation - is that it helps to maintain a level of trust between you and the audience.

Three main bodies

1. PCC (Press Complaints Commission)

2. Ofcom: statutory body, covers broadcasting as a whole

3. BBC: has a code of its own (mainly because it is funded by the license fee)

EXAMPLE: Queengate row - led to Peter Fincham's resignation.

Why do codes matter?

1. guides us through ethical issues

2. how far to go on a story

3. guides us to do legitimate practices

4. makes us aware that circumstances can make a difference (i.e. - is it in the public interest?)

Key areas

1. ethical behaviour

2. fair treatment (e.g. - respect for privacy)

3. accuracy and impartiality (e.g. - your political affiliations should not be explicit, especially in broadcasting)

4. protecting vulnerable groups (e.g. making sure children aren't identified via jigsaw identification etc)

CODE ONE: Press Complaints Commission (PCC)

Often seen as the weakest code as it ultimately promotes self-regulation. In effect, this gives publications the license to 'make their own rules'

- Deals with 1000s of complaints per year
- Can force publications to publish apologies off the back of complaints. Always something journalists want to avoid
- A public interest defence can often override the need for a printed/broadcasted apology
- The code is still fairly effective, despite its apparent weakness

CODE TWO: Ofcom

Seen as a lot stronger than the PCC as it actually has statutory powers. Ofcom can fine an organisation up to £5.6m

EXAMPLE: BBC Radio scandal involving Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand

Ofcom can...

- order companies not to repeat programmes
- order a correction or apology to be broadcast
- impose fines of up to 5% of revenue
- take away broadcasting licenses

Ofcom is hot on 'undue prominence' (politics). Coverage of parties has to be proportional to seats won or who has a majority. For example, WINOL covers a constituency held by the tories, so we feature that MP (Steve Brine) more than anybody. If WINOL starts to include UKIP or the Greens etc weekly on the bulletin, this would not be tolerated by Ofcom.

Impartiality is also an interesting area. It is strongly required for all broadcasters, but newspapers are allowed to subtly show their affiliation. The idea is that buying a paper is a choice, where as the tv bulletins are often there whether you like it or not.

CODE THREE: BBC Editorial Guidelines

The BBC Editorial Guidelines serve a dual purpose: to act as a manual working document to judge complaints to it and as a general guide for journalists.

It is a useful reference tool, set up lie an encyclopaedia, covering everything fincluding:
- violence in the news
- publish taste
- electoral law
- reporting of war/terrorism

Thursday 25 November 2010

WINOL YEAR 3: WEEK 7

Monday

Me and Chris only really had time to talk about the fancy slideshow we want for the site. Besides, Jon has taken over the visual side of things to leave me to the boring legal, spelling, grammar stuff etc.

A large chunk of this day was taken up by news meetings. News conference then features conference then editorial conference. They seem to get longer every week, which isn't good.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a lot more productive. Features was looking a bit bare, so I added a sidebar on the right to improve it visually. This had a knock-on effect on the stories, which had to be sorted ('read mores' etc)

Veronica worked on a picture slideshow for the features page. Flickr wouldn't host it on an external site (ours), so she had to re-do it on Final Cut Pro for YouTube.

Me and Jon decided to change the layout of news, sport and features. Joomla was too problematic with two columns, so we changed it to one column. The stories being under each other one after the other looks pretty good anyway.

Wednesday

HEADLINE: I may have saved next week's bulletin. No one spotted that 'league' was spelt wrong on the results graphic AGAIN, until I casually walked by and told them! Surely Horrie would have pulled the plug on next week if we made that mistake again!

More features work in the morning. I worked on filling up the new features sidebar. It now includes: behind the scenes video, two landscape photoessays, mine and Veronica's fly-on-the-wall election docs and the winter fashion thing, which apparently will be replaced soon.

There was a lot of football over last weekend and early in the week, so I put all of that up on the site with video. The code to wrap it around text is so difficult.

Monday 22 November 2010

HORRIE'S HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT TRAINING (WINOL WEEK 7)

Millbank (Tory HQ) became a 'hostile environment' when we were covering it. Here's some tips for anybody who may be in this type of environment in the future...

1. Make sure you have an exit route.

2. Communication: Make sure the newsroom knows your location at all times.

3. Have a clear plan: Where will you be at certain times

4. Have a 'fixer' - somebody who can guide you around the dangerous area in question. For example, NUS were our fixers at Millbank.

5. If you do get in a sticky situation: immediately give in and give up your camera.

6. Don't try and fight back.

7. Don't resist if police go to arrest you.

Friday 19 November 2010

LAW UPDATE (WEEK 8)

More notes on Freedom of Information. This time we had the pleasure of Brian's expertise.

The essence of FOI: The public have a legal right of access to any piece of of information held by public authorities because they pay their taxes.

100,000 FOI requests are submitted every year. It costs around £34m to answer that number.

Anybody can send an FOI request. In fact, only 12% are sent by journalists.

EXAMPLE: Kingsnorth Climate Protest (August 2008)
- Initial statement: 70 police injured
- After FOI request: 12 police injured, only 4 seriously

Journalists believe this is the 'golden era' of FOI.

When can they say 'no'?

If it costs more than £600 to find out the information.
(£450 for smaller organisations)

Other exemptions

ABSOLUTE: Security, intelligence, court records etc

QUALIFIED: e.g. - ministerial communication, commercial confidentiality etc.
There are 23 reasons for exemption in total.

Responding time

Body in question must acknowledge request within 20 days.

They are allowed a further 40 days to deal with the information.

Tip

Keep questions simple and to the point.

Wednesday 17 November 2010

WINOL YEAR 3 (WEEK 6 DEBRIEF)

TONY STOLLER, BBC/OFCOM

- Need to be careful of opinion.

- Sport too cliched.

- Believable bulletin.

- Production shaky.

BRIAN

- Talkback in newsroom with Lucy very useful.

- Presenters: Seb got over nervousness. Also, very good from Stu.

Hopefully production lessons learned.

Need talkback for Floor Manager and Prod Ed.

Moving to another program so that VTs run smoother...

WINOL YEAR 3: WEEK 6

Didn't do much on Monday because I was ill!

On Tuesday, we worked on putting a slideshow module on the front page to replace the bulletin that gets old over the weekend. Picture Editor Jason Curtis took some brilliant pictures of the Millbank riots, which would look really good on the front page.

I also added 'Sportsweek' to the side of the front page to flag up our sports page.

The ticker is very hard to monitor and keep up-to-date, so we unpublished that from the front page until Wednesday when we trail the bulletin.

Wednesday was used to iron out production issues such as handovers, vision mixing and scripting.

A lot of us had the chance to present. I read the sport in one of the run-throughs when Catherine read the news. We worked on making the handover more natural, which was fairly successful.

Monday 15 November 2010

WINOL YEAR 3 (WEEK 5 DEBRIEF)

Sorry, nothing to tell! I was ill!

Friday 12 November 2010

LAW UPDATE (WEEK 7)

Week 7's lecture was on copyright.

Copyright, Design & Patents Act 1988

Copyright laws are in place because they protect an individual's intellectual property.

You are infringing copyright law if you make beneficial use or exploit material that belongs to somebody else - without their permission.

Any initial ideas you bring to the floor aren't protected. Copyright laws only come into force when they start to be put into practice.

Why should we respect the laws?

- Without this protection, journalism may never have flourished.

- Maintains the material's exclusivity and therefore its value.

- Works both ways: you can't steal intellectual property anymore than anybody can steal yours.

- Ignoring the laws will cost you money and a whole lot of stress...and perhaps your career!

Copyright Law In Practise

Ian's Aston Martin VT, in which he used...

1. Archive footage of an Aston Martin factory
2. James Bond film clips
3. James Bond theme music

On the surface, all three potentially infringe copyright laws but none actually do. Here's why...

i. Number 1 already belonged to the BBC as part of their library.
ii. Numbers 2 and 3 were covered as the VT coincided with the release of a Bond movie. During the promotion of movies, news corporations have a window of three weeks when they can legally use clips/music from the new release. Luckily the sale of Aston Martin came within this window.

It would usually cost up to £2,000 to use this sort of film clip.

BUT we should be aware that material is often lifted, though only to a point.

Rivals regularly 'steal' stories from one another. This is known as 'fair dealing'.

Conditions

1. Must be attributed (i.e. - 'x' told News of the World...)
2. Must be in the public interest to a degree
3. Must be fair and mustn't go 'bigger' than the original story. For example, don't give any more detail than what the original publication did. You can only go bigger by doing your own unique follow-up.

You are also exempt from copyright law when you use material for purposes of comment and review. For example, it is fine to run clips in obits involving the individual that has recently passed.

BUT photos are never eligible for fair dealing.

Tuesday 9 November 2010

WINOL YEAR 3: WEEK 5

First thing on Monday, I updated the ticker with breaking news as well as saturday's football results/mid-week fixtures.

We also changed the layout of the site to a degree, adding modules to make the content more dense.

There was a Basingstoke game that evening, so I had to go back on the ticker at around half 9 to change it from a fixture to a score. I want to make the ticker as fresh as possible as it's a lot quicker than subbing stories.

On Tuesday, I cleaned up the news page to try and make headlines/stories line up. The only snag is: making these changes is to the detriment of the front page. As a result, we will unfortunately have to compromise the look of news to make the front page look clean.

No such problems with features as none crossover with the front page. I asked Dom and Cara to line everything up on features. All running orders got sorted too.

On Wednesday, the newsroom was pretty stressed out, so I temporarily took over as Managing Editor to pull everything together. Headline clips, VT clips and reporter presence were needed.

During the bulletin, I stayed in the newsroom to update the ticker and preview the bulletin. At this point, the Millbank riots were in full flow so there were plenty of breaking lines to keep me busy. We were also had an exclusive line from the riots thanks to Maddie who found out protestors had got onto roofs before anyone else.

On Thursday and Friday I updated the ticker again - putting up latest news from the tuition fee protests and taking off older news that had since developed. I also put up text stories from this week's bulletin - or at least all those without potential issues. One of the problems is pictures: COULD REPORTERS PLEASE PUT A FLICKR LINK TO THEIR PICTURE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ARTICLE THEY SUBMIT!

Monday 8 November 2010

WINOL YEAR 3 (WEEK 4 DEBRIEF)

Notes on the debrief of our bulletin, which was probably our best to date.

Most hits: Win with WINOL and James Knight profile
Reminiscent of the industry - competitions and 'celebs' most popular

We had a comment on the bible story, which shows that people are starting to listen to and recognise us. As a result, we need to keep a relationship with our contacts and portray them in a good as well as bad light.

Still not using our best pictures in headlines.

Too many establishing shots - looks stupid to have 4/5 in a bullletin, becomes a bit of a cliche.

Blurred out reg plates - very professional

OB presenting was fairly slick

Huge success with Chesney Hawkes interview. Proper celebrity.

Background image on green screen much improved.

Talking over talking heads in headlines. Shows the need for rehearsals.

WINOL Radio...great - another string to our bow

Sunday 7 November 2010

LAW UPDATE (WEEK 6)

This week's lecture was on Freedom of Information.

'Freedom of Information' was introduced by Tony Blair in the form of the Freedom of Information Act (2000), which came into effect in 2005.

"Unnecessary secrecy in government leads to arrogance in government and defective policy decisions"
- Tony Blair 1995
(Hmm, looks like FOI did little to stop this!)

Any publicly funded body must publish their internal documents on request. This means they must...
- Keep a schedule and backlog this information
- Give it to you at no cost (unless the task takes over four hours)
- Give it to you in 'reasonable' time

Exempt are issues surrounding national security and intelligence etc (common sense really!)

The man with the plan when it comes to FOI is Matthew Davies who visited our studio a while back.

Wednesday 3 November 2010

WINOL YEAR 3: WEEK 4


ALSO: How to use the ticker

On Monday, I got News Editor Claire to ask for text stories straight after her news reporters finish their packages on Wednesday. Unfortunately, still only a few have done this. Apart from that, I looked over any outstanding stories that had been subbed.

On Tuedsday, me and Chris tidied/sexed up the site by writing some sharper tabloid headlines and top lines. I also gave Becky a mini-tutorial on writing summary style sport stories.

On Wednesday, me and Chris cleaned up the front page so that everything lined up and headlines didn't bust (i.e. - stayed on one line). We did the same for the sport front page.

Some of this involved changing the running order of stories, which is made very difficult by Joomla! If an article is at the top (number 1 on Joomla), it doesn't appear to give you the option to drop it down.

Then it was all about the bulletin from around 2.30! Just like last week, we replaced last week's streaming bulletin with a graphic promoting the new one.

Along with this, I updated the ticker previewing the top stories of the week. The ticker was previewing what was in the previous week's bulletin - equivalent to the day before in the industry.

The sport needed updating, so I spent two hours of thursday morning on their front page. It was very frustrating as it ignored the running order the changed it to, so it was very difficult not to mangle the whole page.

But on Friday, I finally beat Joomla! I thought there must have been a reason why Joomla kept ignoring the order I changed the articles to. In the menu item manager, it was set to custom or 'order' on news but 'default' on sport. All I had to was change the sport to 'order' on the drop down menu and this enabled me to move articles around to my heart's content.

Monday 1 November 2010

WINOL YEAR 3 (WEEK 3 DEBRIEF)

Mixed reaction from last week's bulletin...

ITV Senior Political Correspondent Chris Ship

- We did well to pull it together at the last minute

- looked after guests: good habit to get into

- headlines should have been recorded
- should have used GBH victim in them as well

- Andrew Giddings' GBH story was very good. Chris said it wouldn't have been out of place on a local bulletin. Even the pauses in his voiceover were timed well.

- The job losses story was a typical example of making news out of other output on a slow news day. Joey's OB was very well done, but we did see too much of the newsroom ceiling while he was on.

- Stu's story about stress in the council was picture challenged, so he did very well to bash out a VT on it. Good pay off too.

- Aimee did well with her David Gower piece. He was framed nice and tightly and she included good actuality and a classic graduate hat shot.

- Handovers were smooth, but guest could have stayed just to the side to avoid WINOL musical chairs.

- In sport, the questions to Winchester City manager Guy Butters were good. For rehearsals, get production staff to act it out.

- Black holes in news and sport: need to leave packages long.

- And finally, Chris thought the halloween teaser was a bit short if anything.

General WINOL Expert(!) Brian Thornton

- In the gallery, we were too nervy and panicy. But it looked good in the end, so it was worth the stress.

- presenters should be praised on their calmness and general performance.

- good OB from Jake and Joey.

- fashion feature: was great for adding colour to the bulletin.

WINOL Founder(!) Chris Horrie

Safe to say he was disappointed...

- Andy's story was the only piece of real journalism

- we need more options in news, to raise the bar in terms of content

- lack of direction in features

- political discussion: unbalanced, shouldn't have been edited down
- got a complaint for it: good as it shows we have an audience but bad...because it's a complaint!

- 'How to live on £20'
- good idea, but needs re-editing

- it would be good to for Hobbs to commission comment pieces from MPs, SU people etc

- sport is pretty good as always

- audience is down, need to put that right


Sunday 31 October 2010

LAW UPDATE (WEEK 5)

This week's media law topic was privacy and confidentiality.

Section 8 of the Human Rights Act states that everybody has a right to privacy, including the right to enjoy private family life.

Civil Law

IN THE PAPERS THIS WEEK: Wayne Rooney on the front page of The Sun on holiday in Dubai. It is bigger news than it would have been because this has come just after questions over his loyalty to Manchester United.

So this is a clear breach of Section 8...

BUT...

1. The Sun would have got clearance to run these pictures from Rooney's agents.
2. It is likely money changed hands before permission was given.

Therefore, The Sun are in the clear, even though there needs to be consent from the subject of the picture in normal circumstances. The only time consent is not necessary is when the subject is on a clear public duty.

One of the most famous cases of picture rights is the HELLO! vs. OK! case

- Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas had given exclusive right to OK! for their wedding pictures, but not Hello! which also published them.
- In 2003, the judge said there was no law of privacy in which the celebs and OK! could recover damages from Hello!
- In 2005, the Court of Appeal decided the stars' confidence had been breached, so were allowed to sue Hello!
- But the decision that OK! could sue Hello was not overturned. See page 401 in McNae's.

If you breach any of the above, you can be sued, but if you breach the Official Secrets Act (1911), it could be a criminal offence.

Section 1 (see page 503) covers anything that could hinder a war effort or homeland security.
- For example, it is illegal to take pictures of army bases or power stations etc.
- You can be arrested on the spot under Section 33 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Other sections cover what are known as 'silly secrets'.

Common Law

Everybody has a right to privacy (i.e. to keep secrets), so long as it is not in the public interest.

As a journalist, you have committed a crime and may have to pay compensation if you fail to uphold this right. This is known as BREACH OF CONFIDENCE.

A claimant has show all four of the following in court to prove you have breached their confidence:

1. The information has the necessary quality of confidence. This is serious information, which is not known (e.g. - your medical record). Things such as your birthplace and date of birth are regarded as 'tittle-tattle' so is not classed as breach of confidence.

2. The circumstances/place in which the information was imparted lends itself to private matters. For example, if you shout "I am gay" in the middle of town, your case will not get to court!

3. There was no permission to pass on the information.

4. Detriment to well-being has been caused as a result.

N.B. - the claimant has to prove every single one of these points to prove breach of confidence, where as in defamation, he/she only has to prove a tendency to one of the points.

Gagging clauses (in employment)

Although not part of a worker's contract of employment, they owe a common law 'duty of confidence' to their employer. This is so that any issues can be solved quietly and internally.

As a journalist, if you are interviewing anyone who is unhappy with their company (e.g. NHS?), it your duty to warn your subject that you are breaching this confidence if with what they are about to give you.

If they are still happy to carry on, fire away!

Wednesday 27 October 2010

WINOL YEAR 3: WEEK 3

We had a big push on features this week, partly because of the WINOL magazine that is coming next week.

On Monday, only me and Cara were in so we worked to get everything up to speed. Veronica gave me 13 features to be done by Wednesday (27th).

Chris then joined us and we looked through some stories/features with legal problems. We also worked out what HTML was needed to embed the YouTube videos so they wrap around text.

On Tuesday, we had another massive onslaught on the features and did a 'first sub' on all the outstanding news and sport.

On Wednesday, Paul took over as director, which meant I could focus on the site more - and trailing the bulletin.

Chris showed me how to use the ticker (scrolling thing on the site). We put what was coming up in the bulletin with sensationalised tabloid headlines.

Brian also gave me a masterclass on how to write top lines and the like. It'd be useful if he gave the same advice to the reporters, would be very constructive.

Then we had a debrief from ITV's Senior Political Correspondent Chris Ship.

Monday 25 October 2010

WINOL YEAR 3 (WEEK 2 DEBRIEF)

Winchester News Online Editor Catherine Hayes

General point: We still need to get in control of the script and the processes that will coe with it

1. Homeless people (Jack)

- good use of actuality
- juxtaposition libel? Was the busker actually homeless?
- weird interview
- funny jump cut

2. Spending cut chat: pretty well done

3. Court (Giddings)

- identification of reg. plate, potential danger
- excellent pull focus
- PTC slightly over-exposed
- very good scripting

4. Train fares (Julie)

- first shot quite long
- vary GVs more
- tense problems: used "this morning" when it was not possible in time

5. Last-min piece (Stu)

- Awesome to turn it around in a day
- PTC a bit close up
- Allotment thing slight overlooked in my opinion...was very good for pictures

6. Bishop (Mike)

- interview needs to be eye-level
- GVs: lack of relevance

SPORT...

- champagne thing a bit weirdly done, but great idea
- basketball: funny lighting and interview a bit echoey

BBC South Editor Lee Desty

General points: Good to get rehearsals in, gallery plugged away well, changes to stories worth the stress!

- Didn't grab our audience enough in first 30 seconds. Very important point for South Today.
- Maybe four headlines: two news, two sport?
- No actuality in headlines and we need to make sure we use our very best shots (e.g. - busker?)

1. Homeless people (Jack)

- interview a long shot. Get tighter!

2. Spending cut chat

- someone said "it's bad for us", understand the pressure of the situation, but need to remain impartial
- good initiative though

3. Court (Giddings)

- questions over paedo stories in bulletins at all, due to the family aspect...kids watching
- needed a mug shot
- good command of facts

4. Train fares (Julie)

- vox pops weak
- PTC well framed
- v/o needed more energy

5. Last-min piece (Stu)

- he really liked it!
- PTC a bit long but tried to get a lot of facts in

6. Bishop (Mike)

- Not great for an 'and finally'
- cutaway to a hedge???

SPORT...

- A big divider for a family watching, so three mins out of ten perhaps too long
- South Today has five minutes in 30

- Winchester City highlights needed a bit more colour and stats to add to the action we can see anyway

- Good graphic, lucky we can use proper logo for the league.

- Interview with Basketball coach: Basketball on desk...why?! Quite funny though.

Thursday 21 October 2010

LAW UPDATE (WEEK 4)

Blog about this week's lecture on privilege.

IN THE NEWS THIS WEEK: Pre-nuptual agreements, more legal standing from now on. Read more...

Anyway, privilege allows us to write material that is defamatory and could be untrue (i.e. protection/immunity from being sued).

Two types

1. Absolute privilege - records from parliament and usually in court

2. Qualified privilege - but needs to be fast, accurate, fair and without malice.
And has to be a member of public interest.

Two levels of QP

1. with or 'subject to' EXPLANATION or CONTRADICTION
2. without explanation or contradiction

You have privilege...

1. legislature*
2. court*
3. public inquiry*
4. public proceedings of an international organisation or conference*
* - anywhere in the world

The following areas contain a grey area of privilege. They are subject to explanation and contradiction.

1. public meetings
2. local council meetings
3. tribunals etc
4. UK companies

N.B. - Associations (FA/GMC etc) - findings/decisions covered, conference type bit NOT the actual proceedings!

Pressers

Public meetings, officially public from only 2000 because of the Human Rights Act and the Clegg Case. Read more...
Written handouts are now covered because of the Clegg Case.

BUT consider risks for live broadcasting...put in delay if necessary!

Summary

- Must be fair
- Accurate
- Without malice
- On a matter of public interest

Privilege immediately disappears once outside the proceedings.

Interestingly, if someone shouts from the gallery you can report it to add colour - as long as it is not defamatory.
BUT it's okay if they have been a witness.

Read my (slightly late!) post on defamation/libel

WINOL YEAR 3: WEEK 2

I attended the Monday conference this week to ask all reporters for text stories. Not every reporter has met their deadline though.

Apart from that, we caught up with everything that was already on Joomla for subbing. I'm perfectly aware that certain people don't think that we're doing enough, but there are so many problems with the articles in the first place that we find ourselves doing half the reporters' job before even checking for errors.

Obviously this isn't always the case, some stories have been really good, but some people aren't following simple grammatical rules and then subs don't follow the house style. We need a meeting!

On Tuesday, had a bit of a masterclass from Horrie regarding Stu's brilliant investigative report. The story was about councillor's allowances and how an anti-tax group was against the level of them. One problem was the credibility of the source IsItFair, leading to a lack of balance. The other reason why there was a lack of balance was the fact that the councillor at the heart of the story didn't comment. Stu did try several times but it was a bit dodgy, which I should have realised.

On Wednesday, there was a sport story that I had to sub before Chris kicked me out into the studio to direct the bulletin.

Amazingly, we were pretty much on time to rehearse but that soon changed when we put in two stories in place of two weaker ones. It involved changing the running order, headlines, the script etc and it was worth the effort. But frankly, it wasn't executed well enough.

As director, I hold my hands up for not dealing with the changes; I feel disappointed with fulfilling that role, but when you are still trying to direct a bulletin with a old script, it's not going to help.

After complete carnage in the studio, we managed to get the bulletin out on time and to a decent standard, which is what it's all about.

But it didn't stop there, Chris was onto me to update the content on the front page straight after the bulletin. I also had stories to approve for publishing.

Then I subbed a sports story myself after all of that. Let's just say it took me until 9pm to finish, but enough said about one for now!

Monday 18 October 2010

WINOL YEAR 3 (WEEK 1 DEBRIEF)

Debrief for our second bulletin of the term.

Jack's piece about international students ID problems probably shouldn't have been top story, but had a lot of potential. It started with a 'drop intro', which is usually synonymous with stories just before the sport or an 'and finally', so that is almost proof that is should have been dropped lower. Plus, we only saw Jack in vision for a millisecond during his PTC, which looked slightly odd.

Julie's tuition fee story started with an excellent pull focus. Content wise, the quote didn't qualify the fact that they were supposedly "demonstrating" against the fees. We needed to find somebody who was directly effected, so we could get quotes strong enough.

Gareth's housing story (OOV) had a good opening shot. Also, the sound was disappointing on the councillor - be careful!

Aimee's OOV about the Queen Elizabeth naming ceremony was very well done and just helped to fill the bulletin, which is obviously the name of the game. We don't keep enough natural sound in, but Aimee did well to add colour to the piece in this way.

And in sport, the spelling errors! I won't say anything else because this is such a serious/needless issue that others fade into obscurity.

The BJTC thing was also good and the presenters did very well when ad-libbing about it...but we could drive this even more...

Thursday 14 October 2010

LAW UPDATE (WEEK 3)

Catch-up blog on our lecture about defamation and libel.

REMEMBER: PUBLICATION + IDENTIFICATION + DEFAMATION = LIBEL

Introduction

- This area of law can be a very expensive business, although there has been a lack of recent high profile cases - perhaps due to the current economic climate.

- 1998: Kieran Fallon sued the Sporting Life newspaper for accusing him of deliberately not winning a race.

- To avoid getting sued, it is always important to remember balance. If you talk to both sides, you will pretty much have your legal defence.

DEFAMATION is a tendency to...

1. lower individual(s) in the estimation of right thinking people
2. cause them to be shunned/avoided
3. disparage them in their business, trade or profession
4. expose them to hatred, ridicule or contempt

- Notice the apparent vagueness of these conditions. In statute, what you print only needs to have a tendency to do any of the above.

- Think about the individual(s) reputation at the time of printing. How much do they have to lose? And would an upstanding member of a community think less of them as a result?


Defamation via pictures (juxtaposition libel)

- A big danger in television. Voiceovers - in OOVs for example - need to match the shots on-screen. If we are too careless, we could be defaming somebody without even knowing it.

- Be careful with imprecise shots. For example, if you are asked to go and get GVs of a terrorists house that has been raided and you include the door of a neighbour in the shot, you're in hot water.

- Therefore, people/companies must not be identified in the wrong context.

Reputation and meaning

- Reputation is precious, remembering this as a journalist is just as vital.
- Meaning: how what you print is interpreted by a 'right-thinking' person.
Inference and innuendo our hazards here

Former Cabinet Minister Lord Gowrie sued over an article that created the innuendo that he was taking drugs (see page 307 in McNae or read this)

Journalists' defences

1. JUSTIFICATION: "It's true and I can prove it"
2. FAIR COMMENT: "This is my honestly held opinion based on the facts"
3. ABSOLUTE PRIVILEGE: court reporting
4. QUALIFIED PRIVILEGE: police quote, council meetings etc

Reynold's defence

- In basic terms, a journalist can be let off if the defamatory remarks are seen to be in the public interest.

- If you come to your conclusions after practising 'responsible journalism' (i.e - kept notes, diaries, recordings), your defence will be enhanced.

EXAMPLE: The Sunday Times v Albert Reynolds

Former head of the Republic of Ireland Government Albert Reynolds sued the Sunday Times after a story that hinted at the fact he was misleading his country's parliament.

The Sunday Times argued that the report was necessary as it was clearly a matter of public interest. The newspaper lost, but a year or so later on appeal, it was officially ruled that the media have a duty to perform public duties of this ilk.

See page 357 for more or read this parliament document.

Bane and antidote

Accusation of libel removed by whole context (of the article or string of articles)

- BANE = the offence, ANTIDOTE = the defence - perhaps something said later on in the article that draws on a more balanced opinion about the subject)

Antidote can be in the form of an apology or clarification, which can usually be found tucked away in the bottom corner of page 20!

However, you have no defence when you...

- haven't checked facts
- haven't referred it up
- haven't put yourself in the shoes of the party in question
- get carried away by a spicy story
- don't bother to wait for your lawyer's opinion.

Summary

- Who am I writing about? Could they sue?
- Is it potentially defamatory?
- DO I have a defence? Which one?

WINOL YEAR 3: WEEK 1

Notes on what I got up to on our first proper week of WINOL.

On Monday, I went to Southampton with Showbiz Reporter(?!) Aimee to cover the naming ceremony of the Queen's new cruise ship.

We couldn't get near her at Dock Gate 4, so had to make do with filming her on a big screen! But we managed to get the shots we needed (e.g. "I name this ship..."). News Editor Kayleigh decided to make it a NIB, but it was a good piece to fill 30 seconds of the bulletin.

Meanwhile, my sub-editing team were stressing out in the newsroom over articles being published inexplicably. Hopefully this won't happen again as we are tracking it all on the whiteboard now!

On Tuesday, we spent the day pushing for pictures so that we could publish stories that had already been looked over.

On Wednesday, I turned up to find out that the bulletin was scheduled for the earlier time of 2pm. Not everybody knew that the time had been changed, which unsurprisingly hindered our prepartion for the bulletin.

We got there in the end, but had to keep delaying the start, which is the last thing we want to do.

I thought that my directing was better than last week. We have only been in our new roles for a few weeks, so communication in the gallery is poor, but I tried my best to pull things together as well as keep Presenters Tom and Claire in the loop.

Monday 11 October 2010

WINOL YEAR 3 (DUMMY EDITION DEBRIEF)

Here is my debrief for our dummy bulletin, the first of the year.

Let's get me out of the way: I was directing. Angus said I did well in the end, but I need to be unafraid of being bossy to get things done.

Joey's piece on the Tory Party Conference was excellent, one of the best ever on WINOL. Execution of the story from conference to submission was brilliant. PTC was very confident. Could've started piece with Brine, but that's about the only criticism.

Stu's piece on the St. Paul's by-election was good, but not one of his best. The "walking billboard" was a bit of a stitch-up! And contrary to Brian's comments, I loved the tie!

Julie's piece on student finance was very well scripted (that Glenn helped her with it...whoever he is!). Great range of shots and exemplary vox pops. Needed a stronger angle though, too descriptive.

Non-rape alley by Andrew. Voice over was clear, but lack of angle in story/scripting. Needed camera right then camera left for vox pops. Oh well, talented man - just an off day!

And in Sport...

As Chris put it, to get exclusive rights to from the fifth tier of English football is a fantastic achievement...so why didn't we plug it more?! After the post-mortem, sounds like it was because Grant took on too much last week. It can be sorted for sure and we will look even better!

Karen's PTC at the start of her package was a great idea, perhaps could have been executed better and went on too long. And after all, when that Clem guy does it on The Football League Show, it's bound to look better because he has the best equipment...and he's at St. Mary's or Hillsborough!!! But great highlights for a first time shot!

Dave - voice very good.

Women's Football. We flagged it up a little bit, need to keep driving it now.

General points: Don't say what you see and only include your best bits (i.e. not chances that are barely half chances etc).

Overall, bulletin was too heavy...we need to focus on light and shade more and cater for our audience. Presenters were brilliant as usual, although we could work on banter between handovers like South Today do 'n' that!

Saturday 9 October 2010

LAW UPDATE (WEEK 2)

Here are my notes on this week's lecture about court reporting.

The main point: Risk of PREJUDICE leads to CONTEMPT.

As journalists, we need to know when there is risk of printing certain details and when there isn't.

Here is a simple example...

EVENT 1: (10am) Man steals £4,000 from a post office. Press release to that effect sent out by police.

At this point, we can use the information given to us to print that story. We are at the (short-lived) safe point. No one has been arrested. For example, we would take audio from Mrs Ivy Jones (the victim/owner who was supervising the shop at the time).

EVENT 2: (4pm) Man arrested in connection with alleged offence.

Case is now legally active.

Story will be similar to the morning's, still beware of accidental identification at this point and keep checking with the police as to whether an arrest is about to be made. If your next bulletin is at 4.30pm and you think there is a good chance he may be arrested before then, air on the side of caution (e.g - don't include audio from victim etc).


EVENT 3: (5pm) Man charged.

The case will now go to Crown Court as it is an indictable offence, meaning a possible sentence of five years or more. For this reason, anything that may be used as evidence, such as the audio used earlier, has to be omitted and made untracable.

A case is legally active when:

1. Police make arrest
2. An arrest warrant has been issued
3. Magistrates issue summons
4. A person is charged

- Police normally have 24 hours to question a suspect
- It can be extended by 12 hours by a senior officer
- It can be extended a further 36 hours if magistrates agree

- It cannot exceed 96 hours

The limit for terror suspects is a lot longer. The controversial 28 days.


Cases are always sexed up and ridiculously unrealistic on TV and always happen at a Crown Court. On the other hand, Magistrates Courts are the place for minor crimes/disputes - basically the non-juicy stuff!

However, Magistrates still have significant powers, which are:

1. Six months jail sentence or £5,000 fine
2. Suspended sentence
3. Conditional discharge (e.g - don't offend within 12 months)
4. Community service orders (may be worth covering if the person plays for Winchester City or Southampton, depending on what publication you work for)
5. Binding over (e.g. - sum of £500)
6. ASBOs (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders)

IMPORTANT: Here are the only things you can say when reporting to avoid avoid prejudicing potential jurors.

- Name and age
- Address and occupation
- Charge(s)
- Date and place of Crown Court hearing
- Bail and legal aid conditions
- Names of counsel

REMEMBER: Any risk of PREJUDICE leads to CONTEMPT...Contempt of Court to be exact, which is a strict liability offence.

Key Stages of trial

1. Opening
2. Prosecution opening
3. Key prosecution witness
4. Defence opening
5. Key defence witnesses
6. Judge's summary
7. Jury sent out (deliberation/verdict)
8. Sentencing

This is where you need to convince your News Editor to give you time to cover the trial. You have to cover days when the defence speak as well as the prosecution, otherwise your reporting of the trial will appear unbalanced if you decide. Therefore, your News Editor has to decide whether it is high profile enough.

Qualified privilege (QP)

Journalists have legal protection when reporting the courts. It prevents them from being accused of contempt of court and getting an action for libel. This is known as qualified privilege (QP). However, this privilege is lost if your reporting is not fast (in the next available bulletin/edition), accurate (importance of shorthand) and fair (free from malice).

Links

BBC College of Journalism - The Reynolds Defence

Chris' notes from course site

Thursday 7 October 2010

WINOL YEAR 3: DUMMY EDITION

First of many posts to come informing my (extremely) small audience of what I'm up to at WINOL.

On Monday morning, Chris refreshed us on how Joomla, the content management system for WINOL. If anybody wasn't there and needs to know how to use Joomla, click here for a tutorial.

Then, as I am WINOL's No. 1 taxi service, News Editor Kayleigh James asked me to take Jack into Winchester to cover the 'controversial' opening of Primark. They were weary of our presence there to say the least.

On my return, Production Editor Josh Duffy asked me to direct for the bulletin on Wednesday.

As Chief Sub Editor, I was eager to refine WINOL's house style. On Tuesday, Brian sent me a copy of the mammoth BBC Style Guide, which I looked through and adapted the site. Don't worry, our style guide won't be hundreds of pages, but I will put one up pretty soon for the subs.

Then I went into the studio to do my first ever bit of directing! Veronica interviewed Seb Miell and Jez Davis about student issues and I had three camera angles to work with, depending on who was talking. Veronica told me the shots she wanted, we sorted them and she seemed happy with the vision mixing and how it went generally.

On Wednesday, we hit our first subbing issues (i.e. - we had our first stories in!) so I went through that - mainly with Seb. One of the main problems with reporters subbing stories on Word is it creates an annoying white border when it is copied into Joomla.

Then I went into the studio to prepare for directing the bulletin. Not enough time to prepare to be fair, but hey, it's a dummy! I left Rob to vision mix, thank goodness for him!

More on that on the debrief post.

Thursday 26 August 2010

EXISTENTIALISM: NEW NIKE ADVERT

The new Nike and Foot Locker advertisement very much reminds me of Existentialist attitudes, which of course is the marketing aim of the companies.

The main slogan is: 'I Am the Rules' in an attempt to make the consumer feel in control - false consciousness.

Amongst other superstars, Arsenal midfielder Andrei Arshavin is endorsing the new 'Air Max 90 Colorway' Trainers.

Nike are famous for their 'be whoever you want to be' campaigns with their most famous slogan being 'Just Do It'. They have taken these techniques into marketing straight from the Existentialist movement.

Sunday 25 July 2010

VISUAL AUDIO MIX #002

The summer break presents University students an opportunity...to do next to nothing!

But I say no! Along with my right honourable friend Chris Lovelock, we are mixing some of our favourite tunes. Together we are...Visual Audio!

Enjoy!

Tracklist

1. Gareth Emery - Harmonies (Sound of Garuda Intro Mix)
2. Dubguru - U Got 2 Know (Jupiter Ace Mix)
3. Ronski Speed - Denva (Club Mix)
4. Susana Feat. Omnia & The Blizzard - Closer
5. Arty - Hope
6. Lange Feat. Emma Hewitt - Live Forever (Mat Zo Remix)
7. Aly & Fila - Listening (Brave Remix)
8. Tiësto Feat. BT - Love Comes Again (Bart Claessen Remix)
9. Ummet Ozcan - Trinity
10. Rex Mundi Feat. Susana - Nothing At All (Funabashi Uplifting Mix)

Download Mix

Tuesday 20 July 2010

GLENNERS ON ENGLAND'S WORLD CUP FLOP

Where do we go from here?

That's the question on the lips of anyone with some interest in English football.

After an almost faultless qualifying campaign under Fabio Capello, England were rewarded with an 'easy' group. We couldn't believe our luck when Algeria, Slovenia and the USA came out of the hat in December last year

But, as the English colloquialism goes, we made a right pig's ear out of it.

Expectations were great, yet performances were so poor. A goalkeeping howler, schoolboy defending, no imagination going forward, in the end it was no wonder we finished runners-up to our friends across the pond.

Then there was Germany in the last 16. Pundits and journalists cooked up the usual storm: "we can do it". The 2010 crop certainly weren't Germany's strongest, but they had enough to kick England off the park.

It was so easy for the German's it seemed like one of their warm-up games.

And with that the 'golden generation' became the 'lacklustre lions'. Given their obscene salaries and performances put together, criticism couldn't really be hard enough.

Moving up in the FIFA rankings was as farcicle as the decision to allow vuvuzelas into the South African venues. It's simple: as a footballing nation, we are not as good as we thought.

Realistic ambitions of England fans were distorted by the perception of the Premier League. Great domestic league equals great international squad? Wrong.

The mediocrity of the England internationals is concealed by the foreign imports beside them that provide the flair for the Liverpools and Arsenals of this world.

It's scary to guess what the Premier League would look like with no foreign players. I'm sure Frank Lampard would rather cross the ball for Didier Drogba than Emile Heskey.

I reckon Steven Gerrard would rather feed Fernando 'El Niño' Torres than Jermain Defoe. The strikers featured on the bench for their respective countries. Seeing Spain winning the tournament in such style underlines the gulf in class England need to reduce.

There is no way Torres would have sat on the bench if he was English. Meanwhile, I doubt Vicente Del Bosque would have given Defoe much thought at all if he was Spanish.

Another 40 years of hurt? Most probably.

Sunday 20 June 2010

GLENNERS ON THE WORLD CUP

The World Cup is a convenient distraction for what is really going on in South Africa.

It cost the South Africans $3.7 million to put on this tournament. Okay, the stadiums are impressive, it's a spectacle (at times), but what about the towns on their knees across the country? Somewhat of a kick in the teeth.

Same old story: "Let's show them how 'far' we've come...just hide the poverty while the world is here".

But not for long. The media haven't had to go far from Sun City to discover the cloudy backdrop that we shouldn't ignore.

Alan Shearer went to Guguletu, one of the wealthier townships of Cape Town, to find a black man who had lived through apartheid. He spoke of drugs and prostitution - not vuvuzelas and the 'beautiful' game.

"After the show is over, it's back to square one", he said.

Over in Nyanga, a young boy told Shearer of his excitement of the world's biggest tournament coming to his doorstep. But he will realise it won't pay for roads, it won't cut crime, it won't improve the poor conditions that he has to live with.

A BBC 5Live reporter saw how dirty water went straight from a reservoir into the stomachs of South Africans.

After all, this is what those people need. Blatter didn't want to bring the World Cup to 'ordinary' people anymore than I would want to be deafened by those ridiculous vuvuzelas.

Talking of Blatter, he couldn't even get the ball right. They might as well be playing with a balloon.

And what about the half-empty stadiums? I'm sure the kids of the South African townships would happily fill the empty seats left by FIFA's "corporate family" who are back home watching the games safe in their mansions.

$3.7 million. To think of what those hidden communities would do with a shred of that figure...

Wednesday 9 June 2010

AT THE DOCTORS...

I have to say, I'm liking this observational form of journalism, I seem to be doing it in my head a lot.

Here's something I wrote out on my phone while I was waiting to be called by the nurse.


Waiting for the nurse. Late as usual. Four kids make incessant noise with their toys. So aggravating. To my right, a TV with advice on skin cancer and diabetes. So grim, is this what's in store? One trip a year, then one a month, then one a week. I don't think I could handle too much medication. Certainly couldn't handle too many trips to this place. A picture of a needle. I hate needles. I always get nervous at the doctors or the dentist or some place like that. Why?

I was only waiting five minutes or so. It seems so much longer when you're in a place like that. Just think what I could have moaned about if I had half an hour there...!

Sunday 30 May 2010

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES AND FRIEDRICH VON HAYEK

The Keynesian economic theory has been praised as much as it has been refuted.

According to Keynes, the real driving force behind the economy is not money - it is the desire to keep producing goods, which in turn makes money. Keynes calls this 'the real economy'.

Therefore, he argued that spending was almost always a good thing as it encouraged businesses and their employees to contribute more to the economy.

Keynes blamed the Great Depression in America on a lack of goods production and mass unemployment as a result of high wages. His methods of pumping in money and regaining trust in the economy helped to get the country out of this era. He was acclaimed for saving capitalism as a result.

It involved the theory of the 'multiplier effect', which is triggered by extra government spending (or 'quantitative easing').

1. Employ worker
2. Worker makes widget for £1
3. Employer sells widget for £2

However, Economists like Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman saw limitations in the multiplier effect...

4. Worker can't afford widget
5. Less demand for their production as it is to expensive
6. Worker loses job

Hayek identified, as shown in point 6, pumping money into creating jobs cannot last forever. He was strongly against Keynes as he felt his attitudes devalued money, which would lead to hyper-inflation and mass social unrest.

Hayek said: "The widespread emotional aversion to capitalism is closely connected with this belief that undeniable growth of wealth was purchased at the price of depressing the standard of life of the weakest elements of society*".

It seems that this unrest was evident in one of the most unstable states of the 20th century - the Weimar Republic. Weimar was relying on short-term loans from the USA until the Wall Street Crash of 1929. It was effectively spending money that it did not have, which Keynes said would work in the long-term.

"The economic position is only flourishing on the surface. Germany is in fact dancing on a volcano. If the short-term credits are called in, a large section of our economy would collapse."
- Gustav Stresemann, served as Chancellor and Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic

Hyperinflation kept coming and going during the Weimar years, here is an anecdote from 1923.

"The price increases began to be dizzying. Menus in cafes could not be revised quickly enough. A student at Freiburg University ordered a cup of coffee at a cafe. The price on the menu was 5,000 Marks. He had two cups. When the bill came, it was for 14,000 Marks. "If you want to save money," he was told, "and you want two cups of coffee, you should order them both at the same time.""

The 1918 Treaty of Versailles ordered harsh repayment packages to the allies, which the Weimar government could not keep up with. It kept printing money to avoid raising taxes, but this Keynesian approach did not work as it did in 19th century America. The level of hyperinflation in the ensuing years was shocking, the German wholesale price index went from 2.6 (Jan 1919) to 726,000,000,000 (Nov 1923). Hence, here is an example of Keynes destroying capitalism.

READ MORE: 'A German nightmare' (usagold.com)

* - F. A. Hayek - 'Capitalism and the Historians'

Wednesday 26 May 2010

HCJ 10-MIN GONZO PIECE: UKIP's RAY FINCH



This video follows the UKIP candidate for Eastleigh, Ray Finch. It was part of the Election 2010 coverage from Winchester News Online.

Tuesday 25 May 2010

HCJ PART 4 (REVISION NOTES)

1. Was Nietzche a Nazi?

- No, he was dead 30 years before the NSDAP was formed
- Christians and Jews say he was a Nazi. Neech said Judeo-Christianity is a religion of slave mentality
- "God is dead"
- Anti-semitism was the norm in the 19th Century
- Neech's big idea was individualism, so any group, religious or otherwise, is less important in his eyes
- Zarathustra: Idea of the 'superman' (Ubermensch)
- His ideas are compatible with Charles Darwin (Social Darwinism), as in 'Space Odyssey'. Darwin's ideas were used and moulded by Hitler
- 1960s: Artistic community clear Neech's name somewhat...

2. Was Mersault a bad man?

- Use Existentialism in your answer
- Mersault is bored, murders someone for no reason
[LINK TO EXI] - Life is pointless and has no meaning
- He killed a black man in a time of extreme racism towards them, even in the CJS
- White judges desperate to clear him as long as he apologises
BUT, he doesn't care about anything - whether he is convicted or not
- Reflected in cold, matter of fact writing style
- Subject verb format. Cold. Observational journalism
- "Existence proceeds essence"

3. To what extent does the 'New Journalism' reflect cultural and intellectual trends such as psychoanalysis and politics of the 'me generation'?

- Tom Wolfe's anthology of articles is called 'The New Journalism'
- He uses 19th Century realist narrative style (Dickens/Zola)
- BIG SHIFT...
News = Digetic (telling)
Features = Mimetic (seeing) - Objective role
- Everything is strange

- REFLECTED in PSYCHOANALYSIS
Stepping back and listening to people
- 'Century of the Self' looks at Freud's theories
- Wilhelm Reich: disagreements with Freud
- Psychoanalysis: Getting behind the subject (following them) = GONZO!

- 'ME' GENERATION
- Reich: the total individual [LINK BACK TO FREUD]
- Self-fulfilment = happiness
(If it feels good, do it!)
EXAMPLE: Sex - Sexual liberation
- New agenda in Journalism - the personal aspect...surrounds the individual
EXAMPLE: Agony aunts, horoscopes

4. Why might journalists find logical positivist ideas useful or appealing? What faults have been identified in the approach of logical positivists?

- Vienna Circle rejects Existentialism
- They rejects all philosophy
- They only like SCIENCE

- 'VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE'
Their epistemology (the theory about knowledge) is based on the Verification Principle
EXAMPLE: It could be true that there are people that can run three times faster than Usain Bolt on Mars, but can't be verified scientifically)
SO...Logical positivists don't bother with it as it can't be proved in this way)

- APPEALING TO JOURNALISTS because...
We are 90% into FACTS and 10% into COMMENT
Fact [Link back to Ver. Principle] CAN be checked (verified)
- Separating fact from comment is a big thing in journalism

- FALSIFICATION PRINCIPLE (Karl Popper)
Popper destroys 'Verification Principle'
Things can only be true if their opposite exists, and can be proved that it exists

- Wittgenstein - 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'
"That of which we cannot speak, we must stay silent"
- Destroyed Freud and Marx
Destroyed Id etc (asserted it is not verifiable)
- Freud = Another form of metaphysics

5. John Keynes has been hailed as both the saviour and destroyer of the capitalist system. Why?

- Adam Smith - free market
Market will go up and down continuously
Class economy is self-regulated

- Keynes: the more you cut, the more unemployment there will be
'Multiplier effect' - spend money, give money to others...then they can spend and so on

- OPPOSITION: Marx
To maintain profit, you need to pay people less than what they produce

LIMITATION OF KEYNES' 'Multiplier effect' (Marx)
1. Worker makes widget for £1
2. Sold for £2
3. Worker can't buy widget
4. Sales cut widget production
5. Worker unemployed

- Why not keep printing money?
You get inflation (Keynes)
Keynesians say: keep expanding

Click here to download Chris Horrie's HCJ Revision Webcast

Thursday 20 May 2010

WINOL (WEEK 4 DEBRIEF)

Debrief from Guest Editor Andy Steggall

- Slow news day: this is where you prove your mettle as a journalist. We had some big challenges, including cutting down packages minutes before 5 o'clock.

- Sound was bad for voiceovers, but only because we didn't have the sound booth. But there were sound levels in some packages that could have been controlled better.

- Half-hearted links and stings. The writing, particularly of the links didn't draw in the viewers enough. It lets down the hard work that goes into the packages as less people will watch on.

- Clear angles...they weren't stuck to very well this week.

Stories

1. Stu - Council/Housing

- Had potential to be a great (and very relevant) story for people of Winchester
- Great to get a story from a boring council meeting
- Made FOI request about housing changes, which would have opened up amny more avenues

2. Grant - Crime Down

- One-line link, doesn't sound great or give enough colour
- Link was a 'what's on link'
- ...but PTC did sell the story a lot better (needed to be in link)
- Library pictures: needed to say it was "last month" or have a caption saying 'Library pictures'

3. James - Walk to School

- One-line link. Bad!
- Had a really good shot of busy crowd going to school, was the best shot so use it first

Sport

- Maybe should have started with World Cup story

A. Jason - Athletics

- Started VT with gun shot, caught attention brilliantly
- But link didn't sell it

B. Josh - World Cup Review

- Great PTC
- Could've done with a little stat (e.g. - "English fans will drink 'x' million gallons in pubs during the World Cup")

4. Chanin - Art Gallery (And Finally)

- Another 'what's on' link, lack of angle. But was changed to a terrific link that made the viewer think
- VT started out of focus, really good camera work and drew audience in
- Framing: could've used visual backdrop even more, in order to avoid fire exit sign etc

Tuesday 18 May 2010

WINOL 3 (WEEK 4)

On Monday, Chris made me focus on a few things to make the bulletin better...

- Make reporters stick to their angle rigidly
- It's my responsibility to check spelling (e.g - strap lines)
- Make script more precise/tight (S V O)
- Legal issues, as always

I also decided to specifically ask for text stories this week, as we had none last week.

Chris made a point about the importance of deadlines. Our content and then production will be better if we stick to them. It was my job to tell all reporters about their different deadlines for VTs and links.

On Tuesday, as usual, some stories grew, some began to fell down. Claire's volcanic ash story had to be killed, James' walk to school story grew with some strong interviewees but Joey's stories fell down.

We then looked at updating the site with text stories and/or making NIBs as back up for stories that may fall through. On Wednesday, Paul did a NIB on the SU Elections after his 'And Finally' didn't stand up.

It all turned out to be a nightmare this week.

I repeat: it was my job to tell reporters about their different deadlines for VTs and links. I did do this. Some did not keep to these deadlines, not at all. It made it so hard to get anything sorted properly.

Lack of communication left, right and centre...everything left to the last minute...so everything I did had to be last minute. Everything we normally do well, we didn't.

It's a real shame but I'm not going to dwell on this. We all know what's coming in the debrief!

Thursday 13 May 2010

WINOL 3 (WEEK 3 DEBRIEF)

NOTE: Weeks 1 and 2 set aside for election coverage.

Stories

1. Stu/Chanin - Westminster

- Excellent footage, I was really worried that you two would be disappointed with your material after making the effort to go to Westminster on such a busy day, but brilliant!
- Very strong PTC from Stu
- A genuine/real story - you made it feel real, probably the best VT of this year on WINOL.

2. Grant - Council Election Results

- Confident PTC
- Good interviews; showed perseverance
- Noddie! Gives us all a laugh but maybe we shouldn't use it anymore!
- "Remains to be seen" in sting - NO!
- Sound issues
- "Council is in such financial trouble" - this needed to be probed into more.

3. Joey - Race Row

- Genuine news story, so was given the time he wanted
- Good shots/interviews
- I should be held to account for not checking the spelling of a name
- Very confident PTC, but: "remains to be seen"!!!!!

4. Claire - Teen Pregnancy

- Too many vox pops, not enough experts
- Clear PTC/voiceover as always

Sport

-Josh very good as presenter
- NO moving images?!
- 1 minute?!

5. Paul - Tea!

- Perfect 'And Finally'
- Good scripting, have to disagree with Chris. Funny to hear a 'Tea Council' even exists
- Did a very good job for the 'light and shade'. 'Light' in a very shady bulletin!

Overall

- We appear to be getting more confident/efficient as a team
- We are making stories happen for the most part
- More in control with editing and camera
- Thanks to Veronica for doing a NIB last minute as we expected one to fall through
- Disappointment with headline sequence
- Good job Jon!
- Reporters: Try and aim for an OB next week

- BANNED: "It remains to be seen"

Well done everyone!

Tuesday 11 May 2010

GENERAL ELECTION - EASTLEIGH

Last night I followed events at the Eastleigh count for Winchester News Online and Play Radio.

I had trouble all week getting permission to film at the count. The hostility I received put me off somewhat, but I was glad that I made it in the end. It was a great experience, so let's not dwell on that.

Being my first count, I didn't know what to expect and I could feel some pressure - especially as Eastleigh was a marginal Lib Dem seat.

I'm pretty sure I was the first journalist to arrive, but the likes of the BBC and the Echo soon followed.

The internet connection was poor, there were no mains that we could plug our equipment into, but we got through it.

For a lot of the night my laptop was charging in the Duty Manager's office at Fleming Park, so I could only do one OB for WINOL.

But I did manage to get onto Play Radio a couple of times, as I was covering for their reporter. It was a great experience to be live on such an important night.

Overall, the standard of our student journalism is very high and we should be proud with the all night effort we put in.

WINOL: The South Decides

Saturday 1 May 2010

LOCAL ELECTION 2010

After filming with Eastleigh's UKIP candidate Ray Finch, I have arranged an interview with the Tory candidate Maria Hutchings.

These may be shown on WINOL's 'The South Decides'.

Tuesday 13 April 2010

I HAVE MY LOCAL CANDIDATE!

Eastleigh's UKIP candidate Ray Finch has agreed to let me follow him on the campaign trail.

Finch is not happy about plans to build 6,000 new homes in the area.

"We don't need them. The immigration that we have in this country is taking up the new homes", he said.

He blames this on being part of the EU.

"Once we are an independent sovereign nation, [housing] will not be an issue", he added.

He also wants to bring manufacturing jobs back to Eastleigh.

"The manufacturing industry has been sold down the river for the past sixty years by old parties".

He is up against Chris Huhne (Lib Dem), Maria Hutchings (Con) and Leo Barraclough (Labour).

Read the full article from the Daily Echo.

THE UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER'S QUESTION TIME IS NEXT WEEK

The University of Winchester's Vice Chancellor Joy Carter will be chairing a Question Time-style debate on Monday.

The event will have greater importance now Gordon Brown has called a General Election for 6 May.

Click here for more details.

Friday 2 April 2010

WINOL 2 (BULLETIN FROM WEEK 7)



Great bulletin, but we're going to be even better next term!

Monday 29 March 2010

EXISTENTIALISM IN MUSIC...

...Trance to be exact!

In Kaskade's 'Move For Me', the lines below remind me of the kind of things that were said in 'Wings of Desire'

"Here we go, another night out
Waited all week, just to get out
Where do we come from?
Do I know your name?
Doesn't really matter
In this life we're all the same"


To an Existentialist, it is irrelevant who that person is that she is singing about. It doesn't matter whether there is a reason for being in that situation or not, they are just there (existing), making their own story.

A modern version of Damiel and Marion methinks!

Saturday 27 March 2010

HCJ PART 4 (WEEK 7)

The New Journalism

The two main figures in 'The New Journalism', now known as 'features', are Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson.

This movement was heavily influenced by the taking of LSD. The drug (apparently) makes boring things interesting and interesting things boring.

If you wanna write features, take LSD. If you wanna write the news, take alcohol.

People like Wolfe began looking at these boring things and writing about them for hours on end - one of the triggers that brought about 'long form journalism' or 'features'.

Techniques involved included floating around in Existentialist 'Wings of Desire' stylie and observing a situation.

One of the highlights of Wolfe's career was his invention of the term 'radical chic'. The term describes somebody who is seen as collaborating with a radical group to increase their reputation and stir up politics.

The first example came when American musician Leonard Bernstein held a fundraising party for the Black Panther Party who campaigned for self-defense for black people. Wolfe wrote down everything that happened in this weird event. The feature ended up being reprinted in his books 'Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers' and 'The Purple Decades'.

Hunter S. Thompson wrote a detailed commentary decadency and depravity of the Kentucky Derby called 'The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved' (funnily enough!). Thompson focused on what was going on around him, rather than the race itself - the querky style being one of the first examples of 'gonzo journalism'.

Thompson made his name with his novel 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas', which took on a similar style. It told the story of two men and the darker side of 'The American Dream' in times of racial tension

Overall, this was a literary movement in journalism that was mimetic not diegetic in its narration. That's to say it shows rather than tells what is going on (as in news).

The mimetic style figures like these led to 'performance journalism' where the journalist/filmmaker involved in the piece is also the 'star'. Example: Morgan Spurlock in 'Super Size Me'.

FOUR TOOLS FOR STORY TELLING (IN NEW JOURNALISM)

1. Scene-by-scene construction - Raw style, jump cuts, be sure to set the scene, hand held camera etc.

2. Phonetic dialogue (if written) - Recording actual speech in the way it has been said (i.e - 'ain't' or 'hangin').

3. Third person point of view - Never use 'I' and in video form never make yourself the main subject. You are the observer.

4. Concentration on 'status life' - Try and establish, through your chosen style, who is the big dog and who are the underlings.

Friday 26 March 2010

WINOL 2 (WEEK 7)


Last week as Deputy News Editor of WINOL.

The last week supplied a nice surprise in the planning section. It now appears WINOL are on a media database as I received an E-Mail from BIS (The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills) without contacting them myself.

It spat up figures about the education sector (watch report above) and Editor-in-Chief Chris put me on the story.

I spent Monday getting (almost) everything in order and planning the structure of this - my first VT!

On Tuesday, I filmed an interview with a student teacher at the Uni in the morning. I then went to double check whether the Dean of the Faculty of Education etc could talk to me.

On Wednesday, I turned up at her office at the crack of dawn only for her to tell me she didn't want to go on camera. Okay, I didn't say: "I will be filming you" but I did have a PD170 in my hand when I asked for the interview the previous day.

LESSON LEARNED: Say "I will be filming you".

However...she did agree that I could turn the quotes into a statement, which is what I did. It's a shame as the piece would've been stronger if I could've had it on video. I also polished the VT off with fillers and voiceovers.

Jason put the voiceovers and stuff in the right place while I was picking up the Winchester City Manager Stuart Hussey (the studio guest). Thanks mate!

End of WINOL...for now! Looking forward to the challenge of News Editor next semester.

Saturday 20 March 2010

HCJ PART 4 (WEEK 6)

Notes from the screening of the documentary 'Century of the Self'.

The documentary enforced a lot of points from last week's lecture.


"There is a policeman inside our heads - he must be destroyed."

Recap

- Sigmund Freud: Our subconscious thoughts should be controlled.

- WIlhelm Reich: Our subconscious thoughts should not be controlled. Our inner self should be embraced.

Screening

Edward Bernays brought in Freud's idea of the unconscious mind in advertising. These techniques involved subtly playing to the repressed desires of the masses.

It was observed that this form of consumerism kept the masses docile.

Wilhelm Reich's contrasting ideas about the mind were largely ignored at the time. Lore Reich blamed Freud's daughter Anna for this.

Former Student Activist Robert Pardun said: "advertising was manipulation, it was a way to get you to do something that didn't come out of you".

Herbert Markuse, another critic of Freud said: "People are reduced to expressing their feelings through manufactured objects".

Wilhelm Reich's contrasting ideas were largely ignored at the time. Lore Reich blamed Freud's daughter Anna for this.

Personal becomes political

The public turned to Reich from the 1960s - in advertising and politics.

"The whole system of government and economy is based on profit, on personal greed and selfishness

Politically, it was asserted that society couldn't be changed unless enough individuals changed themselves.

So, "the personal became the political".

An interviewee said that Reich's ideas could be summed up by "taking ownership of who you are".

Minority groups, designed to express marginal opinions, began to develop.

Black/white encounter groups were an example of these groups, in which intense racial arguments would take place. It was seen as healthier to air feelings publicly rather than keeping them inside or behind closed doors.

Another group, the Human Potential Movement (HPM), was designed to bring out the best in people. The idea was to transmit these human qualities to make positive changes to society.

HPM was rooted heavily in Existentialism as it encouraged individualism and having control of one's destiny.

Reich and American corporations

Reich had a massive effect on corporate America as his ideas became more prominent. (Marketing) values were now challenged more often.

Additionally, the consumer could be seen no longer as passive and one of a 'mass'. The consumer now wanted to feel like an individual, and wanted to be offered products to reflect that.

Advertisers had to monitor the habits of the consumer a lot more as a result.

However, to add a WINOL-like sting, self-expression was not unlimited. Individuals could be grouped into 'lifestyles,' which inevitably helped corporations.

Thursday 18 March 2010

WINOL 2 (WEEK 6 DEBRIEF)

Notes from Angus and Brian's debrief...

Stu's story was about the only 'shade' in the bulletin, and a strong piece as usual. Well-framed interviews, interesting shots. He persevered to get the material in the first place. Problems with sound levels but only because he was pushed for time.

For the vending machine break-in (my OOV). Done at short notice. Never been a reporter, so first proper thing I've edited. Libel (identification) problems, but never called him a "thief" - don't know what happened there.

Jon's SU piece was up to his usual high standards. His voice/scripting continues to improve while his sign off was to the point, more so than others this week.

Claire's Doormice/Park & Ride story was well done. It left too much suspense in the scripting though. AND don't introduce interviewee unless it's Radio!

In Sport, the highlights package had a few sound issues and neede softer edits, but the team are doing really well.

CVs 'And Finally' was pretty decent. She is one of the most confident in the group, as her PTC proved. Didn't quite make enough connection with our local audience though...

WINOL 2 (WEEK 6)

New week, same old WINOL.

On Monday, me and Tom did our usual scrapping for stories on the internet, radio and TV and in the papers.

In the afternoon, Paul gave me some sub-editing to do. We need to make the site look as good as possible and it is always better if it is done in HTML mode. It might be a good idea if me and Paul go through this with Production.

On Tuesday, I went into Winchester to help Stu with his package on the upcoming road closure. We managed to get the Agent's business card, which will be useful when the road actually closes. I was pleasantly surprised at my imagination when I was on the camera!

We were light on Wednesday, so we looked for other last minute stories. We opted for the thefts that had gone on this week and I went to do an OOV on it. It had libel issues (apparently), as I (apparently) called the matey a thief.

...Oh well, what doesn't kill you and all that...

I then put some Sport on the site as well as some Hobbs pieces.