Critical Reflection Year 3, Semester 1

Winchester News Online (WINOL) has grown from strength to strength each term and during my time working on WINOL I have seen this first hand. Our local-news and features based site is run by both second and third year Journalism students, each having their own personal role within the team. Throughout the past semester, we as a team have worked together to make WINOL a successful, professional and popular news site.

As a whole, I believe WINOL has become even more popular this term, with our website, features and weekly news bulletin coming together to do this. Circulation figures have improved throughout the term, being at it’s peak on the 8th December when we ranked #776,668 Globally and #27,807 in the UK on the 30th October. Unfortunately, these numbers have drastically slipped from last semester when we received a global rank of #373,953 and #12,025 in the UK. A main reason for this was due to the lack of news stories both on the bulletin and on the website. This term was slightly more difficult as this was the first time the second year students had participated in WINOL, making the first half of the term a learning curve. Once everyone got used to their new roles within the team, things starting to go smoother and the figures began to rise. Ultimately, after 4 months of nothing being updated on the site, it is inevitable that viewing figures would make a drastic decrease. 

This term I feel that the news team have done particularly well in adapting to their roles and improving on each of their packages in terms of scripting, filming and pictures. At the beginning of the semester, many of the packages had poor white balance, were over exposed and sometimes out of focus. However, this was due to inexperience and by the end of the term many of these issues were overcome. A main issue this term was the use of pictures and story telling. Packages need to be visually lead, and at the beginning of term, many of the packages didn’t use enough good pictures. Similarly to many other problems, these where rectified with time and practice, and by the end of the term packages were telling great stories with the use of pictures in a way that had the desired effect on the audience.

There has been a few particular news stories this term which have been a great success. The Elizabeth Stewart strike interview by Calum Warren-Piper received a lot of hits due to the way it was focussed on students and teachers which are some of our main target audiences. Another brilliant interview this term was by Nadine Forshaw, our Political editor, who did an exclusive interview with Rowenna Davis, Labour candidate for Southampton. This received a lot of hits as it was current and relevant to the local area. My personal favourite package of the term was done by Liam Garrahan on scrap metal. The reason for this was because I felt it had everything a good package should have. It included brilliant NAT SOT at the beginning, good piece to camera and the use of sequences. It is obvious that this package was planned before hand to make sure everything went well on the day and I believe it was one of the best packages of the term.

A major success for us as a team this term was winning a BJTC award for ‘best news day of the year‘ for our coverage of the budget, earlier on this year. This was a high point this term as a lot of work went in to this particular bulletin which was made by the third years and MA students from last term and the award was well deserved.

The features section of WINOL had a few rocky periods this term, with many of the magazines struggling to get off their feet. The reason for this was due to there being too many editors of specific magazines, and not enough actual writers, therefore content wasn’t being put up on the site regularly enough. By the end of the semester, this problem was overcome by merging all of the magazines into one named ‘Here and Now’. Next term, I believe the features will become even more popular as the new site allows audiences to find everything in one place and skip from one feature to another much easier than before. Absolute:ly magazine was the only magazine which maintained it’s content update. This was due to the new second year students updating the magazine weekly, including many good features and interviews with well-regarded industry people. In my opinion, a major triumph this term was Access Winchester, a what’s on guide. It was a weekly show which included a variety of packages from TV personality interviews, theatre show sneak peaks, what’s on in the area and a variation of TV/Showbiz packages. I believe Access worked so well because the team knew who their target audience was, and pushed to get the best packages possible. In my opinion, I think it would be very beneficial to carry on with Access in WINOL in the future, as I believe it brings in a lot of traffic to the site. 

Sport has improved a lot from the start of the term, with each sport reporter obviously becoming more familiar with what techniques they should be using when filming. By the end of term, reporters began adding graphics to their packages which I think was brilliant as it added something new and exciting to the bulletin. Laura Allen, created some good packages on sport such as her Volleyball package, where she got involved in the sport, which makes the story far more interesting. Ultimately, you have more leeway with sport as it’s fun and you can be more creative than you can with news. 

For the whole of my second year, I was the editor of Absolute:ly magazine, our fashion features section. Although I was happy with how things were going within my role, I was given the new role of Social Media Editor this semester which was a pleasant surprise. Despite my apprehension at the beginning of term, I have tried my hardest to do the best job possible.

On a weekly basis, I maintained our WINOL twitter feed, tweeting what was going on that week and re-tweeting anything good the reporters had said about their package. I also used Facebook to update what was going on in regards to the bulletin. Every Monday morning I used Google Analytics to see how many hits www.winol.co.uk had received each day in the past week. Google Analytics simply relates to how many people have gone on our site through typing it into Google. I also used alexa.com to see how we were ranking both globally and in the UK in comparison to other student journalism sites and other local news websites. Most weeks I sent an email out on a Wednesday to faculty groups around the Uni letting them know what our top headlines were in the bulletin, what time it was on and also about features and other things going on in WINOL.

One of my aims this term as the new social media editor was to try and get reporters and feature writers to send me pictures of their stories/features to put on to a Tumblr website. Unfortunately, this didn’t go to plan as I wasn’t getting enough pictures in regularly to make the Tumblr account look professional enough. For the next social media editor, I would recommend making it a necessity for people to take a good picture on every package or feature they do, therefore it will mean there is enough images coming in to make it look professional. 

A main success this term has been the use of Twitter. At the beginning of the term I told the rest of the team how it would be beneficial to start using their Twitter accounts to talk about their particular package/feature that week, and step by step tweet about what was going on. Not only this, but to tag relevant people in to each tweet, as it then promotes WINOL as a whole, gets us more followers and individually makes people look more professional. All in all I think this had a positive effect in terms of social media, as we now have a total of 1,566 followers on Twitter and are getting more each week. Not only this but names such as Geoff Hill, editor of ITV, Rowenna Davis and other well known names have praised the work we do at WINOL, which is something extremely positive to take away.

One of my favourite parts of this term was my interview with Rosie Mullender, Deputy Features Editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine. Shona Race and I, along with Faith Thomas who filmed the interview, went up to London to interview Rosie. Although the interview itself went extremely well, we occurred a few problems on the way. One of which was the use of both the cameras, unfortunately due to the small space we were allocated, we set up the cameras so we were ‘crossing the line‘ which made the editing process very difficult. Ultimately, it is something we have all learnt from and all in all it was a great experience.

There are many things that can improved upon in terms of social media for next term. One of those things is the way sport and social media connect. The sport team have some brilliant contacts with many local sports teams and if social media can be used correctly alongside the sport team it could achieve a lot of success. All of the local sports teams have many followers and if we can target them in the correct way, using social media sites and things like forums, we could create a great bond with specific clubs and their fans. Another thing is to find the best way to access circulation figures. At the beginning of the term slim stat, an app on wordpress, was causing problems to our site so it had to be taken off. For a certain amount of time we could only using google analytics, which only showed the figures from the google search when a lot of our views come through Twitter.

As a whole, WINOL has done well this term however there is room for some improvements. In relation to features, we need to have less editorial roles, and more writers as it will then mean we will get more content put up on the site on a regular basis. More care and attention needs to be put in to the text stories on the website, assigning people to do this on certain days of the week like last term, may be a way to get around this problem. Regarding news, I believe sometimes by changing our news editor on a weekly basis, it makes it slightly more difficult to stay on top of what is going on. Maybe assigning a third year pupil the role of news editor for a term, would allow for more consistency and hopefully an easier run when dealing with the bulletin each week. 

A large issue that needs to be addressed is our target audience. Many of our guest editors this term have highlighted the fact that we need to be more certain on who our target audience actually is. We have always been unsure whether to focus simply on students and around the campus, or be a local news outlet. Ultimately I think we can push ourselves to be a local news outlet as these are the types of stories we have been covering. Once we are certain on who are target audience is, I believe WINOL was start to thrive.

Rosie Mullender, Deputy Features Editor of Cosmopolitan UK Interview

Week 10 Wednesday De-brief

Week 10, Wednesday Bulletin De-brief

Angus
We should have a shed load of stories with many more waiting in the side lines. Sometimes we struggle to get the right stories, but 7 days is a long time to get stories for just one day. We should have bulletins fit to burst. 
We are a team, we have to pull up our own ideas and bring them in, rather than relying on the news editor.
Some really good stories this week, could of spiced up some of the headlines however. We got slightly over excited with the voice of god, some of the levels were peaking.

Callum Uni Strike Package - NAT SOT at the beginning is perfect and gives a good idea of what’s going on. The interviewee was very tall in comparison to Callum so it was hard with the sound etc. Good angles, good interviews, but Angus still wanted to know what it was about. More flesh about why lecturers are striking.
It’s lazy journalism when a microphone is in shot as the audience don’t need to see it.

Sam - The script is the most important thing. Covered that as well as any professional did it, very good as he could of easily panicked and stared at the camera but he covered it.

Liam Sir George Young Package - Sir George Young his sound levels are way too high. Not Liam’s normal beat and the political story was different to what he normally does but he did a good job. He’s in the right place, it looks professional, he’s thought about what he was doing. Although he didn’t get an interview with Sir George Young and a previous interview with him was used.

Zeena Drivers Package- Best thing would of been to see Police going on Bus’s to see drivers on their phones etc as they have better eye-line to see this on buses. However, the fact Zeena has used the use of filming the piece to camera on bus was very good. Graphics were used well as well. Phone interview was better than no interview.

Harvey Unemployment Package - Lovely seeing him with the Virgin Mary and looking christmassy, but he needed to say something as it looked like someone made him do it. Made a bit out of one interview, it just needs case studies and people involved otherwise it can become slightly dry.

Tom Death Row Package - Angus isn’t sure where it sits in the bulletin or where it’s place is. When he says ‘more is being done by Journalism students than Law students‘ we could of mentioned the Innocence Project since it’s right on our doorstep and the package missed this. You also need to talk to students, and how this could of empowered them to do something to help innocent people. Sometimes you need to look outside and think what could be added to this and the innocence project would of be brilliant in this story.

Sport - It needs to be softened up, it’s only sport. Drew needs to not say what he says sometimes, however the story was very nicely paced. Laura fell in to two places on where the story should be. Either really be a part of it, or just make it more of them and interview the people who are doing it. Always take a spare battery as often many people have problems with the cameras and equipment.

Access Winchester And Finally - ‘It’s a tongue and cheek guide‘ there was nothing tongue and cheek about what was put in so it needed to be set up properly.

We worked on the underlays and we got it timed in the end. No matter how many times you time something in the office, once you are in the studio it changes so sometimes it needs practice and changing slightly e.g. too many words etc. Angus was not sure about the order of the stories today, he would be guided by the editorial value first.
A pretty good end to this term of WINOL.

Poonam Pahal - BBC South

Really impressed with the set up, Poonam thinks we are very lucky to have what we have here. All in all, she was very impressed with today’s bulletin, we had a good choice of stories and they were the right ones to plug. Something to start to think about when filming, is what shots would look good where, it’s a good thing to bear in mind as it helps editors putting things together. 

Callum Strike - The opening and end shot of the VT worked well as that is where all the action was. The story was very relevant and current. The link needed a bit more about exactly what the story was about, why are the lecturers actually striking etc. Maybe think about how else you could of filmed the interviewee. Not much script is good when you have good interviews.

Liam Sir George Young - Very impressed with the graphics use in this, there was a lot to tell so the use of graphics was really important. What Poonam would of liked to know is what George Young did locally as that’s important. Could of done some vox pops on what people thought about what he did etc just to break it up. Check facts!

Zeena Drivers Package - With a bit of forward planning with that one, we could of got the police on the bus etc. A phone clip is better than no interview. ‘Putting the breaks on’ is a good line. What is the view out of the window, why is it a vantage point to police to view things from this angle? That would of been a good extra shot to use.

Harvey Unemployment - Explain where the jobs have gone, numbers etc. We are talking about the mass job losses in Hampshire, would of been good to put it in context. It’s a story that keeps giving, and it’s good to bring it back around Christmas as it’s relevant. When you only have one interviewee it’s harder to expand it so a piece to camera outside somewhere different would of been beneficial.

Tom Death Row - A nice talker, the interviewee helped out quite a lot with exactly what he said. Good clips, good talker. This package was slightly pictured challenged so a few different shots of books he has wrote or something would of been beneficial. When using the shot of the lecture hall, there are tons of students so it would of been good to get quotes and vox pops of some of those students about what they thought of him.

Sport - Would of been nice for Tom to introduce himself, as we are all friends and a team. The football story was about how many goals they got, so many some ticks as they got the goals would of sped the story up slightly. Laura’s handball story was good with lots of action, good to have a go as it breaks it up a bit. Lots of reference to it’s success at the Olympics but nothing more so that could of been brought up slightly more and explained.

Access - A good tease, made Poonam want a bit more which is always a good thing. If we are thinking about the student audience, that is relevant and the teasers were good.

Don’t be afraid with OOV’s, you can bring the pictures in whenever you like i.e. after four or five words. Beaulieu was a relevant OOV as it’s local. Nice to have some short sharp OOV’s in the programme. 

Ian
Really pleased to see proper packaging going on with sequences of shots, NAT SOT etc. We are still coming back with not quite enough shots, it makes it so much easier when editing to have loads of shots to choose from then you can make the best package possible. We once again did a piece on the day, generally to have this it’s authentic and that’s what we want to be doing. Although it’s tougher for production, that is how it is sometimes. Ian agree’s with Angus that we are too light this week, without some of the set pieces we would be even more light. We all have to work harder to find more local stories, we need to be news junkies and ask questions such as how can I develop this, what would improve this etc. We want to be in the position where we can drop something, if it’s not working, then move on to something else. If necessary, be editing on the Wednesday morning. No one should sit back and think there is already enough stories as there is never enough, we all need to be pushing more as we have great facilities and options.

Alexa Rankings 3/12/2013

Above are the most recent Alexa ranking of WINOL in comparison to other student journalism sites and professional local publications. From last term we have got higher globally, however when looking at the UK ranking, we have gone down slightly, although not by much at all. Consequently, although we haven't gained as many new Twitter followers as I had hoped this semester, we have gone up in our Global Rank and have also been getting a lot of page views for www.winol.co.uk as a whole.

Gossip Feature - Megan Fox

For many men across the world, Megan Fox can be seen as perfect. From the moment she stared in the 2007 blockbuster Transformers, staring Shia LaBeouf, Megan was seen one of the ‘hottest’ girls in the world. For the past few years Megan can be seen in the top 10 of FHM’s sexiest women in the world list, with this year winning the 7th spot. She is known mostly for her ‘perfect’ body and recently the A-List beauty has got back into shape after giving birth to her first son Noah at the end of September. The actress knew how to dress to compliment her figure when seen out at a recent Q and A session, wearing all black allowing any lumps and bumps (as if) to be hidden. The whole pregnancy of Megan was kept quite secretive as the actress didn’t show signs until 2 months before giving birth, leaving most men in the country in anticipation to see if they have ‘lost her forever’. The natural beauty, who makes men drool and women go green with jealousy, seems to be back on top despite giving birth 2 months ago and being in the mist of new motherhood. Even more of a reason for most of us women to be even more jealous!

Google Circulation 25th November - 1st December

These are the figures for the past week, relating to how many people have visited the WINOL site through typing 'WINOL' into Google. Consequently, we do get most of our viewers through twitter and linking straight to the site itself but we could still do with these figures being higher than they are.

On a positive note, in the past week WINOL has won the award for 'News Day of the Year' at the BJTC awards and we have had praise from Geoff Hill who is the Editor of ITV News! Ultimately, it portrays what a fantastic course we have here at Winchester and also how we work as a team and can make professional and outstanding work for students of our age.