WINOL week 4-5: The Eastleigh By-Election

For the last two weeks I have been working on the Eastleigh by-election and getting heavily involved. 

I followed the Labour party and their campaigning at the start of last week. I handed  out leaflets and knocked on peoples doors. By doing this I was able to meet everyone from the Labour party and gain the contacts I needed. The following day the Labour press officer emailed me. 

I filmed an event that the Labour candidate was holding at Barton Peveril College. John O’Farrell the Labour candidate was joined by MP Harriet Harman. This was my first media scrum event. The room was flooded with cameras and reporters. It would be the first time John O’Farrell had spoken to the cameras since being selected. 

I managed to grab an interview with Harriet Harman at this event. 

The following day I had the fantastic opportunity of filming David Cameron and his Tory candidate Maria Hutchings. Although we did not get an interview with David Cameron this was a brilliant opportunity for my journalism career. 

Whilst filming these events during the first week I also did a PTC representing the Labour party. This was went on the WINOL bulletin as a round up of everything that was going on. This was my first PTC this term. It was successful however my technique could be improved. 

During the second week of the Eastleigh By-Election I helped Luke Garrett film and interview the Labour candidate John O’Farrell. I wanted to help him with this event as I was following the Labour party closely. MP Kevin Brennan was campaigning alongside O’Farrell and I interviewed him about state schools, as he is the minister of state schools and it was reported in many newspapers that Maria Hutchings (tory candidate) had said that it would be “impossible to find a state school” for her child. The labour party felt this wasn’t acceptable. Kevin Brennan even described her as “Out of touch.”

So for this week’s WINOL I had bagged interviews with Labour MPs: Harriet Harman and Kevin Brennan. 

Luke Garret was using the John O’Farrell interview for his package and we both decided it would look bizarre if we had two separate packages when the Kevin Brennan interview linked well with O’Farrell’s. So I gave Luke my interviews of the MP’S this gave him a successful Labour package. 

During this week I also helped filmed Boris Johnson. After an hour of searching for him in Eastleigh and me jumping out of the car and asking people where Boris could be.. I received a very good tip of to say that Boris was in a cafe. I took a random guess of what cafe/village Boris could be in. And by luck or fate I was correct. We had found him.

Three of us from WINOL went to film Boris. Two of us had camera’s. I filmed the interview and even had time to put the camera on a tripod. We had a very lucky opportunity to interview Boris, after speaking to his press team. They told us we could have “One question” but instead when Boris saw us he couldn’t stop talking. 

This was my most successful day so far. I think the filming I did went very well, it was a nice clear day and Boris was a character to film. 

-A very proud moment

Although I haven’t produced a package I have interviewed two MP’s and filmed John O’Farrell, David Cameron and Boris Johnson. 

A very good week :)

Although my PTC was scrapped for the bulletin this week as it was irrelevant. I was talking about what had happened during the week rather than what is/will be happening- which made the PTC repetitive to what Luke’s labour package had included. 

Full length interview with Boris Johnson here: By Matt Spencer