Public Affairs, Council.. Chris Huhne

The Council Meeting
So for this semester we've been introduced to public affairs. Last week we were encouraged to go to a council meeting in Winchester for the city council public forum. The meeting was held in the Guildhall, I was very impressed with the interior it was very modern, not what I had expected. I tried my best to get the gist of what was going on.

17 councillors (yes I did try and count so this may not be exact) were sat around a table. They all had microphones, again I was impressed!
Oh and there was a reporter from the Hampshire Chronicle, Andrew Napier. He was sat on a separate table with water and sweets! What a luxury!

The chairmen introduced his self to us and asked if we were studying politics of course we corrected him here. I did feel a bit out of place to be honest. Politics has never been my 'thing'.

The reporter for The Chronicle did manage to get 4/5 stories from this meeting. I stayed for a while but not the whole night I think it lasted for four hours. The main issues that were discussed whilst I was there was about parking and the market. Obviously both these topics will be in the public interest for the local residents so I can see how the reporter used these topics to produce a story.
All in all the evening was ok, the councillors did have a few disputes among them, this seemed to spice things up a bit.

Here's some brief notes to introduce the public affairs module.
County council are the most powerful.
Hampshire County Council control 1.8 billion
Winchester city council- 12 million
Unitary authority are single tier councils. Southampton county council is unitary.
Two tier systems are for district councils- Winchester city

Can I report on council meetings?So I was sat in this Winchester city council meeting last week and I took various amounts of note taking. I took a lot of quotes from the councillors. As you can see this is the first time I have blogged about it as I wasn't too sure what I could and couldn't say.
And the answer is.. Yes you can report anything from council meetings as Journalists have qualified privilege. The defamation act 1996 allows journalists to report from council meetings. You can take quotes but if the quote is defamatory you must allow the person a right to defend themselves.
Basically if a councillor asks us are you going to report this? We tell them yes we can as the defamatory act 1996 allows me to. I'm pretty sure you will know more about this than the councillor will so that should sort out that issue.

The Local Conservative MP for Winchester and Chandlers Ford is Steve Brian.  Here is his website

The MP for Eastleigh is Chris Huhne. He was also former cabinet minister.

A big story in the news today, Chris Huhme has resigned as cabinet minister after learning he was charged with perverting the course of Justice over a 2003 speeding penalty fine. 
Here's the story from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16866127
Chris Huhne is the Local Lib Dem MP for Eastleigh. He was elected as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change following the 2010 election.
If Chris Huhne is found guilty it will be impossible for him to remain MP for Eastleigh.
There will have to be a by-election if this does happen and this might put strain on the Coalition.

The Daily Mirror

The Daily Mirror was founded in 1903. Originally the paper was made for a female audience. Over time this has changed and The Daily Mirror now looks like your average tabloid newspaper. Looking at statistics from the rate card, the male readership is higher than the female readership. However the newspaper is still women friendly, and attacks the female reader. For instance there is no page 3, unlike The Sun. On the third page of the Mirror there is usually a story based on a female celebrity figure. I have often seen images of Pippa and Kate Middleton on the third page. There is a dominant ideological idea focused around fashion and idolising famous people. However these figures are representing women positively and reflect the interests of female readership. On the front page today in the ‘win, free, sex’ section there is no sport, unlike many other tabloid newspapers.

The Mirror is divided into two sections, main news stories and features. I think this paper edges towards looking like a magazine which links back to the demographic audience. It can be said that the amount of actual news within the Mirror is limited. As this is shown by the balance of serious news and celebrity news. There are scheduled news stories however you can find an irrelevant story on the same page, opposing the serious nature of the paper. There can be a story based on a murder trial on one side of the page and this can be opposed with a different story based on a celebrity. The main news stories are sensationalised and use ‘vox pox’ material. For example the story on how youth unemployment has risen focused on hearing what young people had to say, using images and interviews.

The features are separated into sub categories. There is a beauty section, your life section, health section, television and also an agony aunt section. The features are light hearted and engrossed by celebrity culture.  They are visibly interesting and reflect the layout found in magazines. The clothes used in the ‘fashion clinic’ are affordable high street fashion. This reflects the C1 C2 and DE demographic audience that the paper targets towards.

Although the male readership is higher than the female readership, the paper is strategic to insure that the female audience is satisfied. A focus around sex and relationships is a dominant idea throughout the paper. ‘I had sex off Patz’ and ‘Single life’s all white, eh?’ are examples of the type of sub headings found in the features section. The language is colloquial and chatty which reflects the way the target audience may speak. The non-grammatical expressions used such as ‘eh’ and ‘eurgh’ lower the tone.

Readers also have the chance to send letters about their relationship and family issues to celebrity figures such as Coleen Nolan and Jeff Brazier. This type of ‘question and answering’ feature is consistent throughout the features. These celebrity figures, that supposedly write back, have no specialist training in counselling. The fact that they are celebrities gives them this high status that readers find appealing.

Winol Review 9th November

This weeks Winol was bulletin was the best so far. The student march against tuition fee's story was very professional and newsworthy. The local MP interview with Chris Huhne also stood out. To be able to interview an important figure really gives the bulletin credibility and I'm sure even that professional news programmes such as South Today are at the same level as you.

Using a close up shot of Chris Huhne was effective. It allowed the interview to be heard clearly. However with the fencing coverage with Jon Rhodes didn't work as well. The sports hall echoes and it may of been better if the shot was more of a close up, to reduce the background noise. I'm not a sound expert, so I'm not sure how this could be solved.

There are only a few small negative points to make this week, and that's just me being picky. The recap on the bins story was good to look at as this is an ongoing story that may be of public interest. But it seems very similar to last weeks bulletin where the councillors have promised the same thing but yet it hasn't changed.

I thought the latest news on Barton Farm was professional, Louis O'Brien reported it well. His voice sounds professional and very clear. The interview with the city councillor George Beckett was effective and clear as well. The montage of footage used in this story was good, it was nice to see different locations being used as the footage of the housing may have become a bit boring. But splitting this up with the footage of Winchester city made it more interesting.

Another favourite of mine this week was the school report, the team did well not to break laws of Human rights by not showing footage of children, that was probably obvious to you. It must of been hard to gain access to film in the school, however you achieved this well.

Today's Programme; Chris Jefferies Case

BBC Radio 4's today programme was very relevant to what I've learnt about libel cases. There was a good arguement about how privacy, comtempt should be regulated on the Media show.

Today they covered the story of Chris Jefferies who had a ssubstantial libel payout, due to being made to look guilty of murdering Joanna Yeates. This was not a fact, he hadn't been proven guilty. The Sun and The Mirror were in contempt of court. His character was 'assisanted' by the papers, and he may have well of been convicted.

A spokesman from the the Scotsman paper said it was a 'mistake' and 'human error'. For papers that are not profit making it's hugely significant when hit with a financial penalty, but for those papers who are making a lot of profit these penalty's are not that important. But reputation is important.

I've learnt that there is something called the PCC, public complaints commision.

The court said Chris Jefferies reputation was completely destroyed, allegations he was a pedophile, stalker etc for which he has received libel damages. The whole scheme of justice is being distorted because witnesses didn't want to get involved.

Watch out...Journalists must be careful that when they write something it must not deter witnesses from coming forward.

Read Newspapers = Pass degree

This was the clear message today. Basically if I want to pass this degree I must divert my learning habits away from lower education where I was spoon fed information of 'how to pass an exam' and READ, read lots of newspapers. I love watching Television, this is my opinion, and I'm pretty sure everyone else does too. BUT for this term I must stop watching BBC news, and absorb my brain with papers and listen to BBC Radio 4's Today's programme at 8am everyday.

Today we were introduced to the Journalism Now part of the course, this is basically getting nitty gritty with newspapers at first hand. I must attend all my news clinics and seminars with The Mirror. Only 45p a day i  think i can manage that.

I've learnt some newspaper jargon to show off today, I may as well get used to saying it.

All newspapers have a standing head, its the title of the newspapers and includes the headline. All newspapers are published in a modular layout, in boxes. Everything is written in para's.

There are things called barkers, this go through to features. They are mainly there to power sell.

There is two types of content in newspapers, advertising and editorial.

Advertising is completely separate to journalistic work, if you wrote about the advert this could create malice.

Editorial is basically all the news in the paper, some people get this messed up with the 'editors letter'. The editors letter is a feature at the end of the paper which includes comment from the editor about the top stories of the day.

There are two types of news, scheduled and breaking news. Scheduled news has to be produced in a time scale and breaking news, the most exciting rarely happens.

Here's what the front page of The I newspaper will look tomorrow, 29th October. As you can see Vincent Tabak has been proven guilty to murdering Joanna Yeates and has been sentenced to life in prision. This story has been spirlling for days so it is interesting to see the case end.

I'm following @SkyNews on Twitter, its good to see the front pages for tomorrows newspapers, keeps me a little bit more up to date.