Critical Reflection: WINOL - Chief Reporter

Winchester News Online, Jan-May 2013

Winchester News Online is an extraordinary working environment that takes place through interviews, social networks, emails and day-to-day life on a weekly basis. WINOL is leading all rankings for independent student journalism. You only have to look at our website to see why. Viewing figures are forever leaping over themselves as our readership grows due to increased content quality and quantity. Now expanding across news, sports, fashion, travel and adventure, music and high-class academic reviews and interviews (New Winchester Review: The Arts) - that broadcasts to a now global audience due to the niche markets within which it explores – www.winol.co.uk has taken the prowess of say, www.guardian.co.uk, and applied it within a local news station.

With news bringing our viewers to our now ‘live’, daily updated website, our social media co-ordinator Hazny Hayesmore has been able to utilize social networks in a professional manner to push our content out to readers it would most interest. An example of this can be seen through our numerous @WINOL twitter accounts, each catering to their own audience, practicing frequently which hashtags and key words bring in greater viewing figures. This role has coincided with the constant experiments of our web editor, Jason French. Jason this year has redesigned the site, and with editorial decisions made by Sam Ashton we have firmly branded ourselves as a reliable and respected broadsheet-styled news outlet. Jason’s work has allowed us to keep track of viewing figures for individual stories, topics, keywords etc. And following advice from Suzie Boniface (@FleetstreetFox) we have aimed to take advantage of the Internet’s ‘rush hours’. Promoting our content at peak times so that a larger collective sees it. Also with advice from ex-WINOL’er Paul Wood (@PaulWould) we have seen the importance of SEO and have taken his tips to better navigate readers to our site, using such methods as key-wording URL’s for individual stories, and working towards getting our website indexed by GoogleNews. As well as this the web team have looked into reducing the amount of ‘broken links’ within the site to gain better page rankings in search engines.

As pre-mentioned content on WINOL has grown in both quality and quantity, this area of providing content is what I will now focus on, as it is the area in which my role lies within. As Chief Reporter on WINOL, my main challenge to myself was to produce a bulletin-worthy package every single week. This meant 60-90 seconds of footage, that was legally safe, attention grabbing, and most of all, relevant. Without having a regular beat to stick to, it meant investing a lot more time into researching multiple areas, however once invested the time paid off giving me some great stories to work with.

My first lead this year actually came from a friend who works as a magistrate in the Hampshire area who heard word that the Chief Constable was retiring. Immediately I set about contacting those involved and learnt of a Police and Crime Panel, which was being held by Simon Hayes to vote over his nomination of Andy Marsh to be the new Chief Constable. Attending this meeting gave me direct quotes, and instant access to the reveal of the new Chief Constable. However, we had a week before he started the job, so I set up the interviews with the key figures. This story aired in the third bulletin of the semester, with interviews from Chairman of Hampshire Police Federation, newly appointed Chief Constable and the Police and Crime Commissioner. This was an exclusive, as it was the first broadcasted interview with both Simon Hayes and Andy Marsh in their new positions. The interviews have clocked up over 200 views across different re-versions.  It opened up a world of contacts for me; I would personally receive updates as to the Crime Commissioner’s monthly schedules and was invited to attend events set out by the Commissioner’s offices. This led me to my final package, which was the launch of a £310m police budget, created by Simon Hayes, and backed by over 70 leading police, political and business figures at a launch event in Winchester. Attending the evening with Christina Michaels, I interviewed Simon Hayes and Andy Marsh again, and also Chairman of the Police and Crime Panel, Dave Stewart. I have now become a first point of call for press relations with the PCC office meaning this was another exclusive, with over 140 views, and the footage of the nights proceedings has been used as part of Crime commissioner presentations around the UK, copyrighted with my name and WINOL. With both the Police stories though, the challenge (after getting access and interviews sorted) was the angle to take the story. This was something I’ve always made a priority since talking to Claudia Murg when she visited WINOL. I had to somehow find an interesting angle that was relevant and truthful, but would also not push the contacts away from me. I believe I managed to find a perfect equilibrium here, the first story I focused on the scrutiny that Andy Marsh would face, and whether or not he would be challenged if doing a bad job, instead of just having the story that he had got the job. With the police budget package, I again didn’t focus the story on the fact the budget had happened, but asked the right questions to get quotes such as ‘The real test, is the delivery’ that looked into whether or not the budget would be effective.

My stories centring around the Police department in Hampshire were just local news stories that broke into a niche and although had the biggest names in that niche, only catered to a certain audience. However, with the next two packages I will talk about, I had the ‘celebrity’ factor to help pick up a lot more views.

Prince Edward coming to Winchester was the very first package I had aired this semester and it led the bulletin in the second week. This was my first ‘as live’ package, as in one in which I hadn’t set up interviews etc. Getting access was initially a struggle, but after popping into the offices in person instead of over emails it was fine, and I set out the day alongside ITV reporters who used me for my local knowledge of getting around the university to get the best shots. I was also approached after the days events by Hampshire Chronicle to use my footage, but due to the Prince making an appearance in town as well they ran with the that story over mine. This decision for them was probably made because a large percentage of their readers live locally, and therefore would prefer reading about the Prince in the city centre, however, a large proportion of our audience are students, and therefore the university visit was the priority for us. Within the first few hours of airing, my ‘bulletin-edit’ had amassed over 400 views, after being re-edited it has received another 400 views, and with a fully extended version as well, my Prince Edward coverage has received 900+views.

The second of my ‘celebrity’ packages was during the Eastleigh by-election period. This period was the best two weeks of WINOL’s history content-wise, showcasing names such as David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband, Nigel Farage, and my catch of the day, Boris Johnson. The challenge with Boris was access. We had been tipped off about his visit to Eastleigh, but had very little indication as to timings or locations. With confident cameraman Luke Garratt and local area expert Faith Thomas, we managed to navigate around following tweets and rumours in the Eastleigh area until tracking Boris to a residential area. After finding him we had to convince his press team to allow the interview, they were not at all keen on the idea. And when Boris came out of a local Café I had to shout him over towards us and then let the well-known chatterbox do his own thing. Another challenge here for me was trying to sound as neutral as possible. I have no bias towards the conservative party but due to wanting to keep the Mayor of London talking I engaged in jokes and spurred him on a little, however I think on the whole I kept balance between parties very well, and got another exclusive with the quote of the day ‘Liberal democrats are great big quivering jellies’. My Boris package led the bulletin this week, as a breaking news item; due to the quick turn around and editing I had to do. I both led the bulletin, and ended the bulletin this week with Boris Johnson, and Chlamydia packages. Over all versions the Boris Johnson coverage has received 4100+ views, and numerous Boris Johnson ‘fan-sites’ have approached me to allow them to use the footage, accredited to WINOL and myself respectively.

This package and entire Eastleigh coverage was a complete team effort of reporters and production to ensure a high standard of content reflected the access we were gaining, and was again echoed in our live coverage of the Eastleigh by-election results, of which I presented two hours. Presenting live coverage is something I find quite challenging, as would anyone, but on the night I felt comfortable and confident that I could lead a two-hour slot despite some technical difficulties. I’d written the script for the results show in a way that would allow it to be flexible around the news we were getting from the count, and believe all in all the entire night was a success, with over 1500 individual viewers on our online stream.

I believe I’ve already talked about my big four packages that fitted into the role of Chief Reporter, but wanting to diversify and really explore the role I looked into other methods of news gathering and have a few lesser known gems. The first was through an FOI request response that told me the statistics for cases of Chlamydia and Herpes at the Winchester GUM clinic. Looking for an angle here I learnt of a world record attempt by Solent NHS trust, for the most amount of Chlamydia tests in 24 hours, which was happening on Valentine’s Day. Having now already made contacts with press officers, SU executive team and the Bar Manager at the University of Winchester I was given full access to film the event. Putting this all together gave me a great piece which allowed me to use the statistics gathered, alongside an interview with the Lead Chlamydia screening nurse for Solent NHS. In this package I also incorporated fair dealing from NHS awareness adverts. This package received over 160 views, and has been used by the NHS Solent Trust in a presentation of their world record. It was used as an ‘and finally’ in the bulletin, due to there being a heavy focus on Eastleigh. However, I feel on any other week it could comfortably sit in the headlines.

I’ve also spread further afield to the New Forest, after seeing some pictures crop up online of an artist planning on living inside an egg for a year. Initially this seemed a bit of a written story, but with the bulletin looking completely bare, I worked hard to get access to the egg and make it work. This is an on-going story so I have made sure to keep in contact with the designers and the artists press team. Over Easter I was invited down to witness the joining of two halves of the Exbury Egg, and have also been invited to film the launch, however due to other arrangements I haven’t been able to attend.

Finally reporting wise, I settled back into what for me has become my comfort zone, pieces to camera and economics. As a team we made the decision to cover the Budget 2013 in great detail sending teams down to Westminster to get the latest scoops. For me however, this meant producing a package, which was heavily facts based, and left very little pictures or images. After ringing a fair few numbers I was allowed to film at ‘Elliotts Brothers’, Hampshires leading independent builders merchant. This was perfect to allow me to analyse the effect this budget and previous budgets had had on the construction industry, something, which I knew from my interest in economics, was the founding problem in economies such as Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. I believe the package worked very well within the budget special, and really rounded off a great variety of reporting for me, having reliably delivered something different every single week.

As I mentioned, WINOL is a massively active news centre, and reporting isn’t all that I’ve done. I’ve been news editor for two weeks, the very first week in which my main challenge was pushing new reporters to take on stories and guiding people through constructing and editing packages. And also the very last week, in which I had to collate all of the best WINOL content into one airtight, perfectly produced bulletin. These weeks were enjoyable and stressful at the same time, although not producing content of my own, it allowed me to really understand the need of natural sound, scripting and maintaining a flow/rhythm across packages that keep the viewers watching. It was an invaluable experience. One, which I believe, improved my reporting sevenfold, having had no issues with sound, lack of pictures, or poor scripting in my packages this semester. This obviously has come through practice; having had the chance to film a feature (from which I have been nominated as Fundraiser of the Year), student union election speeches, and dozens of stories that weren’t my own I’ve really grasped how to use a camera proficiently to make editing easier. I feel confident that I can walk to a story with the package planned and laid out in my mind already. My mantra now is that if a package is planned well, all you have to do is arrive on time and turn the camera on.

            Outside of my experience on WINOL I have also had the chance to work as a BBC Elections Stringer in East Hampshire on the night of local election results. This was a purely newsgathering task but one, which helped me to network, whilst providing instant, reliable news to the BBC. And get paid for it.

                                                                                                           

Points on which WINOL can improve:
- What is our style? The bulletins seem tabloid-y what with the use of puns and breaking headlines, however or online news stories are broadsheet. Is this a mixture of our aims? Or is it something affecting the whole industry now that news is becoming more and more accessible for everyone. Do major news corporations have to be both broadsheet and tabloid to cater to their audience? Are we just copying that trend?

WINOL Profile: Chief Reporter

This is a little profile of myself done by first year Journalism students, Zeena Al-Obaidi and Laura Allen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3KZnrmgkXM

The New Journalism

This paper will look into how journalism has developed into what it is today. Rather than just reporting one events, journalists find out the events. They back the innocent, and research the corrupt. Journalists are becoming a police force that aren't paid to follow the rules but to find the secrets. To start we head overseas to America.

American Journalism - Brief History
The Penny Papers: This is where the competitiveness of journalism began. The Penny papers were just that, papers selling for the price of a penny. They were however political party funded which would mean on the whole they'd be partisan and favoured one way or the other. These were produced mainly by politicians and merchants promoting ways of life or products.

Mid 19th Century brought about a huge consensus of objectivity within journalism. This was because of the creation of the wire services which would push the audiences of journalism further across fields. The Associated Press (AP) becomes objective to become profitable. By being one-sided or opinionated you are limiting your readership, but by being objective and neutral you are becoming a clear representative of the news, and that is readable by everyone. They aimed to satisfy a wider audience.

The Late 19th Century showed a big movement of the 'Yellow Press' and was the first form of new Journalism, bringing some great figurehead names like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer into the mix. I've mentioned this somewhere before, and actually use it as the introduction to my personal statement on applying to my course at Winchester, but Pulitzer holds the award for my favourite quote. Followed closely by Heraclitus.

'Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will guided by its light.' Joseph Pulitzer.

Pulitzer's mantra is a great example of the competitiveness at this time between journalists. They didn't just want to tell the story they wanted their readers to live it. Instead of having the scoop they also wanted the best story. The inside gossip, the eyewitness quotes and the best pictures. This was a period of sensationalism.

Many called 'Yellow Journalism' the new journalism without a soul. All stories were about sin, sex and violence, because action sells. The yellow press became frozen television. Hollywood was producing explosions and monsters, and yellow press was exposing the shocks and monsters of the real world.

America of 60s and 70s:
This period was similar to Hearst and the Yellow press. There was a great deal of political and social upheaval. America was fighting foreign wars, competing in global markets and the world was shrinking. It is rumoured that Hearst was involved in the initiating of a war, just because he had men on the ground who could get the best pictures.

Journalists would report the news in a formulaic way, using the 5 w's. Who, What, When, Where, Why. This would expand a story greatly. They'd tell the news as they would a novel. They wanted the story to 'bleed into the copy'. They wanted the reader to be able to feel the story, not just read it. To hear the screams, the tears, smell the burning, feel the blood on their fingertips. Hearst aimed to remove the barriers between the reader and the events.

Political and Cultural Scene:
The 60's was particularly turbulent. The hope of JFK was destroyed with his assassination in 1963. The Vietnam war brought about controversy across America. The idea of being drafted and conscripted into the army was widely hated. Muhammed Ali refused to be conscripted stating he had no quarrel with the Vietcong. This was a view shared by many.

Reasons for the turbulence/unrest:
Demographics: After the war there was a period of celebration which created a baby boom. This was a huge spike in the population, bringing about the largest generation across the globe. This created a powerful youth movement. Baby boomers were in their teens by the 60's and grew up in a completely different world to those of their parents.
Sexual Revolution: Sexual freedom was becoming a large protest with the introduction of the pill, women were able to have the choice over careers or families. They didn't have to marry the first person they slept with. The student movement held worldwide protests in 1968.
Prohibition of Drugs: This created sub-cultures and black-markets. Hippies, communes and an ever growing established youth culture.
Music: For Sartre jazz was authentic. 60s music was an attack on the norm, drug fuelled and anti-establishment with the aim to subvert and be political.

Influence of Existentialism
Ideas informed by Existentialism: Heidegger's Authenticity and Sartre's belief in Bad Faith. The key ideas here was that of Freedom and choice. Fanon's view of a path to freedom was via accelerated choice, this was the use and rise of violence. 'Do what i want' kind of attitude.

There was also a definite anti-establishment feeling: 'there is a policeman inside your head, he must be destroyed'. This concept has sunk in Journalism. The police are just another force which could be corrupt. With more and more being exposed in the BBC the journalists themselves are now becoming a force which have been corrupted.

Journalists begin to question their belief in press releases, press conferences and official statements. They start to research their own facts, double check quotes, get their own interviews. To truly believe something, they would have to see it themselves. Questioning everything was the new style of journalism.

New forms of Journalism began to emerge, the inclusion of settings, plots, sounds, feelings, quotes and images. Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer are all leading names here.

This alternative journalism was personal. It expressed an individual point of view, it was unconventional, disagreeable, disruptive and anti-power structured. 'How can we remain objective, if we only write that which we are told?'

There was a shift in the form of narration from Diegetic to Mimetic. Telling the story became seeing the story. If we were feeding you stories, we wanted you to taste them as well as gain nourishment from them. Putting the news in the readers face, they don't read about it happening, but they see it happening, unravelling in front of them.

In New Journalism the long sought after 'objectivity' is dropped in favour of subjective experience. Most famous example here being the work of Tom Wolfe.

Wolfe was a fan of Emile Zola (natural realism), Wolfe noticed that journalism was nothing but a 'status contest', reporters fought to have the best scoop, the exclusive. Sky - 'First for breaking news'. BBC - 'Updated every minute of every day'. Feature writers were those covering any story that fell outside the category of hard news. The game here was to hold your own until you could get out.

New Journalism articles were becoming real. They had intimate dialogue straight from the mouths of those involved. This requires the reporter to up their hours, to be at every event, to see it, collect the data first hand. Putting the events down on paper exactly as it happens, developing short-hand and recording devices.

Wolfe set out how to write features in this style. It required scene-by-scene construction, with intense detail. Realistic dialogue, involving the reader more completely than any other simple device. Third-person point of view, giving the reader a more relatable experience. Recording of every gesture, habit, manner. One motion could be the symbolic key to unlocking a person's status and life.

Totalitarianism

This paper will take us through the conception of Totalitarianism, looking into the use of control language to control thought (Orwell's 1984 works) and a little thought of what is our personal responsibility in society?

How can good people do evil things?
There were nearly 100 years of relative peace before World War I shock up the global system. Then huge atrocities in Russia, China and Germany (supposedly the most cultured nations in the world) wreaked havoc to the 'boring' state of mind.

Previous 'Totalitarian' regimes such as Plato's republic were contrasting to those brought about in World War I. They used a contract theory, which held ideas that powers should be limited. Even Hobbes put limitations on his leaders. however this 20th century totalitarianism, according to Hannah Arendt, was different to anything that had come before. She was fascinated by the newness of the political model.

Mussolini: 'Outside the State there can be neither individuals or groups. Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.'

Arendt saw imperialism as a pre-cursor to totalitarianism, because it contained so many traits which the new regimes could use. One example here was the development of racism. Categorically grouping people and deciding superiority/inferiority.

Our individuality makes us difficult to control and gather up into a collective movement. To destroy this individuality two methods are used: state terror and ideology. Terror is used not just to murder individuals but to degrade them, to make them less than individuals/humans. Capital punishment in the UK tried the same thing but came to an end when many would use their hanging as a spectacle, a protest movement. They were no longer embarrassed or degraded and crowds would gather in support rather than hate.

Ideology compliments terror. It eliminates the need for individual thoughts and experience amongst executioners. E.g. Executioner kills just because that's the way it is. Never questions his orders as it absolves himself from responsibility. Any Game of Thrones fans reading will see the resemblance here to the slave army the 'Unsullied', they do as they are told, and have no questions.

Ideology is also a type of specialist knowledge, as Popper pointed out it is often used as justification for rulers. It frees the mind from the constraints of common sense and reality.

Arendt states that the first move the Nazi's made on the road to the 'final solution' was to deny Jews citizenship, making them stateless and removing their rights. She argues that rights are only relevant within nations not not natural rights. These stateless people, without any rights, were superfluous and therefore perfect victims to a totalitarian regime.

Here she highlights the fragility of civilisation how quickly groups and whole people can fall through the cracks, even in the heart of Europe. To be civilised human beings we need to inhabit a man-made web of structures. With laws, rights and a society which gives us access to common sense and shared reality.

Control Language:
'Don't you see that the whole aim of NewsSpeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make hate-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words to express it.' Orwell, 1984.

Orwell was horrified by totalitarian regimes who were controlling the language we use, by removing or replacing words. If we got rid of the word 'hate' how would we express anger/anguish towards someone?

In the USSR there we experiments with linguistics, much like modern day use of politically correct terminology  In 1984 the Ministry of Peace, organised war. The Ministry of Love, organised police. The Ministry of Plenty, organised taxes.

What is our responsibility in a dictatorship? Would you collaborate?
In May 1960, Israeli secret service kidnapped Nazi fugitive, Adolf Eichmann. He stood trial in Jerusalem for crimes he committed during the 'Final Solution'. Eichmann's main responsibility during the Holocaust was to organise the transport that was used to move Jews across Europe to camps. (He basically ran the trains, remember the Fat Controller in Thomas the Tank engine? This was Eichmann.)

For the Israeli's the trial served three purposes. To try Eichmann for his crimes. To educate the world about the nature and extent of the Holocaust, and to legitimise the Jewish state.

For Arendt it was a shock to see how bureaucratic Eichmann was. He argued he was a law abiding citizen. He was just doing his job, following the orders, earning a living, feeding his family. She concluded that it was not necessary to possess great wickedness to commit crimes, the banality of evil.

Arendt agrees he should be put to death but says his crime was that he did not choose. He just followed the state. By being law abiding, he followed laws that were written for chaos. Eichmann's defence was that ti was his duty to follow the law. For Sartre 'the only thing we cannot escape is the need to choose.' Eichmann had a choice, but he passed it on by just following those in 'authority'.

The New Industrial State - Existentialism vs. Nihilism

The New Industrial State was the work of Galbriath in the 60's exploring the economics of production, and how the scales of companies could impose power and influence over the state.

The United States

In the United States the New Industrial Estate meant that everything was to be available at the touch of a button. This would eventually lead to cultural exhaustion, routine days and boredom. This theory is that when every need is dealt with, every problem would have a solution And is what we characterise today as a first world society. This has brought about the trend of #firstworldproblems on twitter. This is demonstrated very well here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxyhfiCO_XQ. We become comfortable in our world as everything can be solved, meaning it is the littlest things that become our biggest worry and the idea of education, water, internet etc all becomes to be taken for granted.


Max Weber talked of the rise of bureaucracy. This 'rise' meant that we would be ruled by 'officials' They would gain authority through charisma and then maintain their power through legalities. Adding ranks after ranks into a bureaucratic hierarchy. Digging holes and filling them again.


Keynes:
Keynes raises the point that during a depression, or an increased time of competition across global markets, people will be forced to work for less and less because of a surplus in Labour. Everyone will need a job, but no-one will be buying products. This means that the demand will fall, so business' will supply less, therefore will either need less labour, or will reduce wages as someone will work for less money as desperation will grow. Keynes suggested to solve this, we should just print more money. Buy injecting the economy with money, we can give businesses subsidies to employ people, or create government schemes that seem pointless. E.g. digging holes and filling them again. This was known as military Keynesianism and is a massive point of stimulus in the American economy that spends billions and trillions on 'defence' every year.

Keynes can be compared to Marx and Communism, but is however, more leaning towards a style known as 'Command Economics'. Very similar to the central/material planning of communism, however is strictly Capitalist whereas communism would work towards no profit. Keynes's model of intervention was to stimulate spending and consumption as a multiplier effect. The money printed would be injected in a way to create profit.

1950s America: Era of American prosperity
Keynes is the great god of economics. Neo-classical economics is a museum piece, something which is rhetorical only, a laughing stock when it comes to it's implementation of monetary policies.

However, this 'managed' society of Keynes has received a lot of attacks over the years. The far left/far right (Heidegger, Sartre, Fanon) label the American civilisation is 'bureaucratic-technological militaristic nihilism'. It is bound for violent destruction. (Maoism/Third World-ism).

New Industrial State: The military industrial complex (Eisenhower)

This was based on a bureaucratic power-structure within which democracy is a sifting 'meritocracy' run by a leadership model, not a masonic society but a structure in which everyone is morally the same, despite what their political parties say. What is the aim of this system? There isn't one. It becomes essentially nihilistic, pragmatic 'technological bureaucratic' predicted Heidegger. The new industrial state is ran by an elite.

Critiques of managed society:
Hayek predicted that Keynes's managed society would lead to being completely corrupt that at some point everyone would become bureaucrats with the only moral compass being to gain greater promotions/have more subordinates underneath them.

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