WINOL - Week Three

Week three... ALREADY! So this week I was informed that I was going to be the presenter for sports! EEK. I know what you're thinking... "Oh no!" Do you know how i know that? Becuase I thought the EXACT same thing!
I went to the news meeting Monday morning, but before anything kicked off I was asked by the news editor to go and sit in on a meeting of the Hampshire cabinet. I was quite nervous. I hadn't done it before and could picture myself saying something pretty stupid and being laughed out of the place! I was greeted by the press officer who introduced me to a few of the members and then the meeting kicked off, not before the head of the meeting welcomed me (all very embarrassing when everyone turns to look at you and your fumbling with an umbrella!) but I smiled and the meeting began! Mostly they were talking about reaching 80% of the targets that had been set for them and what they were going to do with the reward grants that were given to them. So I took a few notes and then came back to the newsroom. I missed the meeting unfortunately but had been told by the union president that there was a staff and student car parking forum that I could cover on Tuesday afternoon. I booked out a camera and tripod and went down there. Tommy Geddes was holding the meeting and was discussing the new park and ride opening in April. I got a few GV's and an interview with the guy in charge of campus travel etc and managed to get a good clip of him talking about how they had huge trouble with parking and that it was massively in demand.
There was one problem. I was presenter so I was unable to do a PTC or a voice over. Myself and the news editor decided to make it a nib. But because we made this decision so last minute I had already edited it as a VT so there were silent gaps on either side of the interview for a voiceover where usually it should just be an interview at the end. Because I had to practice the script and do run throughs I had no time to write a script or do timing so I left that to another member of the team. A mistake as when it came to the bulletin the timing was off and the script was not long enough for the presenter to cover the silent parts of the nib.
However, the studio element of the bulletin is improving week by week (no i'm not just saying that because I was one of the presenters) production members had said it felt alot calmer and although I was nervous, when it came to the live broadcast I was feeling alot more confident. All it came down to was being calm and reading the autocue slowly and clearly. If I had panicked it would have been a completely different story!
Well done this week! Hope it goes just as smooth in the coming weeks!

WINOL - Week 2

So Winol in general this week was alot better than last week. But still not upto scratch. The lack of news on Mondays news meeting made it difficult for everyone to get kick started. Two of our reporters Claire and Jon had already filmed things where the rest of us produced ideas that were simply put down to not being very news worthy.
I had come in with a couple of ideas, but for various reasons i've had to either push them back a bit, or not do them at all. Our news editor had told us it had been a slow news week, and it was. In the end I had decided to go with a nib for the national NUS elections, it was only going to be twenty seconds and could fit in with Jon's story on the general elections and how students were not doing enough.
Luckily on tuesday the student union president Jimmy Weighall and the rest of his team were holding a meeting about it so I decided to get in touch to see if I could go down and interview him about the elections and whether he thought students paid enough attention or even really cared about voting in someone that was supposed to be representing THEM at a conference discussing policies that solely affected them. He said that it was always and always will be a big debate. But really they should do because its discussions about things like student loans, a big problem currently among students, and if you don't pick someone who is going to represent YOUR ideas then things will simply not change.
I thought he had made a valid point. I then worked hard to get some GV's. Footage of students, of the uni and also of the meeting itself and thought I had done a good job. Even my news editor had said that it was good. I then had to write a script and organise a link with on of the production team so that it fitted in with what Jon had already covered in his own.
Editing was easier and quicker this week. I felt confident that i knew what to do, there were one or two little hiccups where I had to ask for help, but overall i felt the process was alot easier and faster.
I finally had everything finished and it now just needed to be put in the bulletin. Paul (the managing editor) asked if I could be on one of the cameras in the studio to help them film. I thought this would be a good oppertunity to see what goes on in the studio as eventually I will probably be in there so I decided to go and do it. After the seven attempt shambles of last week Brian had told everyone they had one take and one take only. The team had a quick run through/rehersal and then went for it. It was going really well until... sods law... my package.
Now, I still don't really know what happened, but they started running my nib as planned and then started reading out another reporters audio for their own nib about a flasher who had flashed children. I believe the suspect being a peadophile was mentioned or something along those lines and then low and behold, MY interviewee appeared talking about the NUS elections, making him look like a suspect. So the whole thing had to be taken out of the bulletin as that simply wasnt the truth. Gutting for me because I wouldnt get any credit or feedback and it was an entire waste of my week!
However, I felt like the bulletin went ALOT better this week and Joey did a really good job presenting and kept his cool when there was a hiccup in production so well done to him, and well done to everyone else for pulling together especially after the ear bashing we got last week haha!
So next week is another week of WINOL, and i'll just work harder so this time my package will hopefully be even better!

Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche was a nineteenth century German philosopher who in the end went insane and died!
Its often claimed by people of religion that he was a Nazi because of his hatred of religion. He believed that religion like judaism and christianity was a religion of slaves. The Jews and christians were restricted by moral codes that were largely based on following this one 'God.' Nietzsche himself believed that 'God is dead'. He believed that there was no creator of the universe, and that time was just a continuous thing with no beginning or end.

He truly HATED religion and in his theory of the ubermensch and untermensch he deemed those that followed religion as the weaker race. Basically in this theory he outlined that there was a race made of higher beings and that these 'supermen' would evolve and rule over the weaker race. Many of these 'supermen' were influential cultural figures such as Napoleon and Wagnar, people who changed history, or were unique and different.

Another substantial theory was Nietzsche's theory on what drove man, or the 'will to power'. He believed that things like ambition, achievement, the drive to reach top goals in life were all examples of the will to power. There are many different theories on what drives man, for instance Freuds theory on the will to pleasure, or another, the will to live. Each have very different outlines on what drives man, but with Nietzsche, he believes that the determination to be great is what pushes man.

I guess a lot of this can be seen in journalism. Newspapers, news channels even magazines strive to be the ubermensch or claim to be so. The drive to be the best source for news pushes people to go to extreme measures to get the best story. But I guess it can be seen in all measures of society. Everyone wants to be the best they can, but it doesn't mean we are weaker or stronger than anyone else. Just different.

WINOL - Semester 2

This week was the re launch of WINOL - Winchester News Online. I'm not going to lie, being given the new role of news reporter absolutely terrified me! I don't say that easily... but I was scared! Scared of being the one to mess up, the one to let people down but I thought what the hell! A new role, more hands on a chance to really put in some good work. I was nervous but looking forward to it!
We had our first weekly news meeting at twelve on monday. This is where we discussed ideas that we had for the upcoming bulletin. Ideally we should probably have a few ideas or even have something already rolling just incase our initial idea falls through and we're left with nothing as we discovered on Tuesday when pretty much every story had been left dead in the water. Myself and the news editor decided it might be a good idea for me to book out a camera and go and film the universitys 'green day' as part of 'Go Green Week', my beat was the union and the students so as this had been organised by an events management student it was a good idea for me to cover.
I booked out a camera and went to see what I could film (after a refreshment on cameras given by Kayleigh James). As expected there were a few stalls but... something that might be fun! An energy bike. Surely if I got shots of a student on the bike it may make the package a bit more interesting! We managed to get the student union president on the bike, but unfortunately I did not use as much of this as i should have in the package. I thought that my package might have needed to be a bit serious as I didn't know it was going to be an 'An Finally..." peice. So I didn't really use much of the light hearted footage I filmed.
I decided to get an interview with the organiser and also the environment manager for the university. Unfortunately the first interview was over exposed and then when I went back to redo the interview it was too dark!! I decided to use the darker one as it was the better interview to use. Although I feel like it has taught me to always go with the prefect location and always to check the camera!
So the time eventually came to edit it. In all honesty once I was out filming the time flew by and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be (minus the one dodgy interview). With careful planning it would have been much better! Editing it... was going to be a different story. I literally sat there in front of the computor like 'OHHHHHH SHOOT' with probably more choice language. I didn't know what I was doing! Luckily my lovely group mates were one hand to answer any question and eventually I had the hang of it! "Lucy its literally just A and B" as Kayleigh AND Catherine had told me. And it was! Once I had the hang of it I literally got it edited inside a day and managed to get my voiceover and headline done the next day. Although in future i'll make sure I need a headline clip I will do it first, just so its the best bit! My voiceover was a bit quiet so i've decided to book out a camera and practice with the audio levels just so I can test out what works best in different situations. I think nerves didn't help the voice over too much which is something I WILL learn to control!!
There are LOADS of things I have to work on next week but Brian suggested that we take one thing that we're week on and kick it completely. Which is what I aim to do. On the brighter side... Loads of people said I sounded well posh! HAHAA!

Newspeak in Consumer Society - SUNNY DELIGHT!

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I chose ‘Sunny Delight’ as an Orwellian example in modern society because I thought that it demonstrated where the fictional language newspeak, in ‘1984’ is most used… Consumerism.
The company responsible for Sunny Delight promoted it as being healthy and something that kids would pick over fizzy junk drinks like coca cola and cherryade despite the fact it was actually good for them. Sunny Delight was marketed on the basis that it was an orange juice. Technically this was right, but by neglecting to mention it was largely made of water and corn syrup and only 2% juice and had additives in it such as Beta Carotene (used for the orange colour) consumers were manipulated both visually and psychologically into believing that the drink was in fact a type of orange juice.
So mum’s all over the UK rushed out to buy a drink that their children finally enjoyed that was healthier than the ‘yummy’ soft drinks like coca cola, this was because they were manipulated by the use of language and the removal of certain facts which lead them to believe they simply had to go out and buy the drink.
The marketing hype lead the food commission to launch an investigation into the drink. The BBC later released a report saying that the food commission agency had actually found it to be “roughly equivalent to a Coca Cola-type product.” Their expensive marketing campaign which had been extremely successful finally crashed when it emerged that a little girl had actually turned orange as a result of drinking too much, largely because of the beta carotene.
Sunny delight had to be redesigned and re-launched as ‘SunnyD’ which contains 70% juice and NO added sugar or additives.
Overall, the company behind sunny delight decided to omit certain facts from their advertisements and made the drink to be something it wasn’t. To think otherwise would have been completely ridiculous. Simply by marketing it on being orange juice it became “the healthy alternative” thus making mums rush out and buy it for their children.
I think that this applies a lot to our consumer society. So many adverts omit certain facts about their products in an attempt to manipulate the audience into buying/behaving in a certain way. Their control of language allows them to manipulate people into thinking a certain way, for instance, for men, if you buy lynx you will instantly become attractive to hot women.
So next time you watch an advert, just remember, who know what they’re trying to make you do!


P.S – Hope you like our mock advert. We did this to show just how manipulative advertisements can be!!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSK0RJFxJNQ

The 'Political' english language.

George Orwell wrote an essay about the English language and how contemporary English language has just become manipulative and very 'political.' Orwell said that political English was simply created to "make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." Basically, to manipulate voters into thinking that the politicians were whiter than white and being truthful even if they were the most immoral of people. But he argued that this manipulative creation had spread to those that didn't even need to decorate lies, the general population. I think this is true 100%, journalism has taught me that school teacher English as it has been called by our lecturers, is designed to make you decorate the basics. Fill out a sentence. Rather than just get to the point. The point of a sentence is to provide information to your reader, audience, whatever. But how can you do this when half of your readers don't know what you are talking about! By using 'political English' a writer can distract himself from the purpose of writing in the first place, constantly trying to make what he is saying sound interesting, controversial or intelligent and drown the information in a sea of over complicated, alienating bullshit.

Orwell in his essay "Politics and the English Language", lays out six rules to avoid political English language:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
   

Even Orwell said that these bad writing habits can be easily picked up by anyone. He said that he had even committed the same bad habits that his essay was against! So why is it so easy to pick up these bad habits. In a society where most jobs, schools and even people require us to be intelligent it is easy for us to cover our basic/sloppy ideas and transform them into something brilliant by decorating the idea with elaborate language. I am also guilty of doing this!
I think developing these bad habits goes way back to the schoolroom. Teachers were always pushing you to use descriptive language and forcing you away from the basic words, "what is wrong with the word but", what's wrong with umbrella words? Why can we not just say what we think. That is the purpose of a word, to show exactly what you mean. Why should I point at a wall and go "that solid object formed of a red stone that prevents access" when I can just say, "that wall that stops me getting in". Teachers were always handing me back essays with 'describe this in more detail', why? She's sad. That's how she feels now please get stuffed! I don't want to pick up a paper and read a pompous article about a load of facts. I want the facts and that is what Orwell is saying. Lets not have unnecessary words that take away the feeling of the article/story just so that a writer can dress it up. Lets leave that to the politicians!

WINOL - The new term

So, a new year a new module. I know it is a bit late to start blogging but I thought I would get back into it. I have sat down so many times and just had complete writers block! Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Starting our second year we are now part of the team that produces WINOL - Winchester News Online - a university based news channel that brings the local news from all over Winchester to the people that take an interest. Not many right?
Although I didn't think that WINOL was going to be as big as BBC news or any other news channel for that matter I still didn't feel confident enough in being in front of or behind the camera. So I decided to opt for a features job - more specifically - the features role of people and celebrity. I know what you're thinking... "People and celebrity? In Winchester!" Yes I know that when you walk down the street you're hardly likely to bump into Kate moss or Peter Andre but I had to make the best of it!

So people and celebrity. What was I going to do. Who could I possibly use? Then I realised, WINOL is a university based news channel, with a majority of the audience being staff and students. So why not just used well recognised people from the university, people who everyone knew but wouldn't necessarily be able to talk to everyday. People like the student union president or the DJ's of well known university events! So that is where my idea came from. I decided every week that I would do a feature interview on the people whose names were known but not necessarily what they were like or what they did. Similar to a celebrity.
Who would be my first victim! I only came up with the idea at the features meeting and when the editor asked me who I was going to interview I panicked... "I haven't actually got anyone... I could ask the DJ at LKD (another student event)?" So that's what she put me down to do and to have it in by 6pm on the following day! So I rushed home to try and get in contact... but did not hear anything back. Then my friend put me in touch with Jimmy Weighall the student union president. He asked me if I was available to do it right there and then... of course I said yes! So I rushed up to the union armed with a digital camera and no questions. Great!
Luckily on the way I thought of some questions, just the basic get to know you questions though, stuff about his role and about how he felt doing the job bla bla bla. From doing that interview Irealised in the next one I needed a few 'curve balls' questions that would cause a bit of panic. After all, if a interview isn't interesting... no one is going to read it right?
Well I wrote up the interview in the style of a magazine. The standard question and answer format but after talking to Chris (my lecturer) I realised it wasn't enough. I was writing for a feature not the news, so I had to be creative and somehow convey myself through the article. He told me to write it as though I was going on some sort of adventure of discovery to include my own opinions and thoughts as well as the interviewee. So in my future interviews this is something I will take on board. I will be creative and put an element of myself in the interview. So... all I have to do now is re write my original interview!

If you want... take a look at WINOL every Wednesday! The team do a really good job!

www.winol.co.uk