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.
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!
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.
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).
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!
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.
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.
