Critical Review of WINOL: Semester 1 Year 3

This term Winchester News Online has published some excellent student journalism. The standards were set at a high level from previous WINOL term but this years team have maintained a good standard of work this year. Every news bulletin has had a key package that worked very well. Although I do think the consistency of the standard of work produced varies. This may be because the second year students will improve with practice. 

We monitor our traffic figures for our website. In early October, according to alexa ranking, we were placed at #38,579 in the UK. By the end of the semester we were placed at #32,323 in the UK. So we have improved by 6256 places this semester. But compared to the same semester last year we achieved a final rank of #10,338. There are many suggestions for why the ranking slipped. Most obviously its hard to come back after months without our website being updated over the summer period. It could also be due to inconsistencies of our work perhaps when the bulletin hasn’t gone out on time. Other than that our website has been improving. We have focused on raising the standard of our written news stories and in particularly we have worked on producing a successful looking front page. Our sub-editing team have worked hard on getting the written news stories to the right standard and altogether with better sub-editing management this has been a success. 

In an attempt to increase our viewing figures our social media editor has continued to post on various social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook about WINOL to help advertise the bulletin in particularly. This is our best way of telling people about the bulletin however we still need to establish who our target audience is. Without a clear target audience this may be having some effect on whether the social media is having a great impact. We have also tried to screen the bulletin around the university campus. Due to some debatable issues this has still been unsuccessful for this year. 

Looking at the bulletin this term the content produced varies in quality with some news packages really standing out and some being a good learning curve. Liam Garrahan, a third year student, produced an excellent structured package about scrap metal. He used sequences, an effective piece to camera on location and a case study. This news story should be a guide for us all on how to produce a successful news package. 

The third year students are a good example of how important it is to stick to a beat and to continue contacting all of your contacts made in the previous semester. Matt Spencer kept in good contact with the Police Crime Commissioner throughout the year leading him to produce a successful story. Our political editor, Nadine Forshaw, produced a series of high quality interviews with political names such as Rowenna Davis. Also our third year crime reporter Christina Michaels has managed to bag some outstanding contacts. Her interview with the Winchester prison governor is an example of this. 

The second year students, who are new to WINOL, will develop throughout their time on the course. Zeena Alobaidi constructed a good story about local care homes. It highlights how important a case study can be if you are struggling to find pictures. Her entire package was based on a case study therefore she overcame difficult obstacles that do arise when piecing together a story for tv. 

To produce the best bulletin I think we need to go back to basics in terms of our filming and technical issues. Too many times the white balance is incorrect and the sound is always a difficult aspect to get right. Without great sound and pictures a story becomes a challenge to edit.

I think the content that the sports team produced has improved from the beginning of term. They have shown more creativity with their match reports by interviewing players and managers at the match. To produce a good standard of match reports I think the team need to continue adding graphics to their packages. It’s very much like what our guest editor, Claudia Murg, said about bringing something new to the news and to aim higher. 

The features team is improving in particularly with with the launch of a new website. Having all five magazines proved to be struggle to maintain and access. We have bought the magazines together onto one platform, our new magazine called “Here and Now.” This is a step forward for features as it should make articles easier to find. Elsewhere on our features team the ambition has been high. The fashion team have used their creativity and produced video packages/tutorials. We have also introduced a what’s on show called Access Winchester this term that has been an ideal platform to introduce to increase viewing figures. 

My role this semester was entertainments reporter for the showbiz bulletin ‘Access Winchester,’ that acts as an additional weekly bulletin alongside the news bulletin. Access Winchester included packages containing coverage of local events such as new productions at the ‘Mayflower’ Theatre in Southampton, or ‘Coffee House Sessions’ being held at the University of Winchester Terrace Bar. ‘Access Winchester’ has established a new audience and this helps viewing figurers overall for WINOL, it generally is an easy watch. It is produced and made available online every week just like the news bulletin.

Myself Emma Jefferies and Jack Webb worked on the showbiz bulletin. We started it from nothing and built it up each week. In previous year the what’s on show has been produced before and this is what inspired us to do it. a new name, a logo and some jazzy headline sequence clips which are a lot more punchy than the usual news bulletin headlines. We had to establish new contacts to ensure we gained enough stories. I gained a good relationship with The Mayflower theatre in Southampton which provided me with some successful packages. 

We overcome a lot of problems with Access Winchester, Jack Webb worked hard on getting the headlines right. We also had to approach this showbiz style in a different way to news. We needed to take this less seriously and add humour to our pieces, by changing the way present and adding graphics to our packages. 

The packages on Access were initially too positive and we were faced with the problem of the just promoting an event. When reporting events we still needed our reports to be fair and include balance. Therefore we spent a lot of time in our editing sessions to add balance to our scripting of our voice overs. Eventually we achieved the right tone we needed to set by offering the viewers not only a positive opinion of the event but also a more negative opinion. People only want to know the truth at the end of the day. Overall by adding these changes to our packages improved them completely. An example of my own work where this played effect was my report from the Mayflower theatre about the English National Ballet Le Corsaire. In my piece to camera my tone was too positive. I then needed to add a fair review to the piece when I was voicing over the pictures of the ballet. By adding humour and factual knowledge in my voice it sounded like I was a real expert about the ballet and overall the package was much more successful. 

The editing transitions of this new bulletin need to be a lot more quicker than the news bulletin. We spent a lot of time editing our packages to make them shorter and quicker. The cuts between shots needed to be quick and by simply cutting things down made it more effective. 

When editing my interviews I had to take a step back and remember that the my voice over must include the facts and the interviewee will provide the opinion. Obviously when reviewing I could put in my opinion but when editing an interview we literally just needed opinions. With my Keith Chegwin interview I initially had too many facts in his voice so to improve the package I cut the interview length down and voiced the facts in my own voice which straight away looked more effective. 

We used a lot of fair dealing on Access Winchester as we were reviewing a lot of events/films. The fair dealing shots editorially look fantastic. We had a lot of help from our fellow students. Liam Garrahan produced many packages from his specialised beat technology. He bought us a package from the App Convention in London, Beaulieu motor museum and a PS4 review. Harry Parkhill our film reviewer made some successful reviewing packages like his ‘top five halloween films.’ Liam and Harry naturally had the right approach in terms of their presenting skills and their contributions have been a great help. 

To improve Access Winchester further I would suggest more time was spent on editing. We produced a show every week just like the news bulletin. It might be something to think about whether to produce it at the same pace when more editing needs to take place. 

On an overall outlook of WINOL I think improvements can be made. Investigative reporter, Claudia Murg, made a good point about pushing ourselves more editorial. This could be something to consider, maybe we do play it too safe. 

The majority of guest editors have highlighted the issue that we do not know who our target audience is. It’s always been a debatable question for us whether it is simply our students on campus or a broader audience scanning from across the South. Many of the stories we produce are for a niche audience. Whether it is a theatre piece from myself or a police crime commissioner story. We need to establish who are audience is so we can tap into the audience more. Access Winchester has been successful because we know who are target audience is and therefore know how to produce our packages. 

WINOL Week 9

At WINOL we are award winning journalists now as we won the news day of the year at the BJTC awards. Our special bulletin on The Budget won the award.

Head of ITV praised us: http://winol.co.uk/2013/11/head-itn-news-praises-winol-another-national-award-7571

I contributed to this bulletin with my economics report from outside the bank of England in London.

This weeks WINOL bulletin came together even though we were limited in terms of the amount of stories we had. I think we should of led with the BJTC awards but luckily we did manage to put it into our bulletin on the day when Liam Garrahan turned the story around in a few hours.

This week Angus particularly told us to focus more on getting our sound quality right. Myself and Emma Jeffieres experienced some technical sound problems this week with our radio mics not working. Angus said we should always have a back up and in particularly we should focus on getting the sound of our PTC right. Zeena's PTC in her care home story was too noisy. The gun mic could of been nearer her mouth and we could of filmed her in a closer shot so the microphone wasn't in vision, this is what Angus Scott advised us. But other than that the care home package was excellent as Zeena found a case study and started with it. This shows she overcome filming issues as she may have been limited in terms of what shots she could get from a care home. The case study is illustrate and works really well.

In the headlines we used two still shots. Angus advised us that this shouldn't happen again. Headlines are all about moving pictures and having two still images just isn't really acceptable.

Lucy Wilson's world vision story was turned around really well. She foucused more on the interview as this was great. She decided to focus more on the one to one exlcusive interview rather than the speech the world vision man made. Angus advised us that if we do here a speech before you interview someone listen to it and make notes as you can bring up the issues the person raises in the public speech in your own private interview. Lucy then voiced over the pictures which worked much better than just hearing him speak to the public. Her package included three SOT of the interviewee this was fine but it shouldn't be repeated in other stories and we shouldn't always make our packages like this.

On Emma's choir OOV piece somebody turned off the sound completely. I helped edit this and this wasn't the case when I edited it. I ensured I left the sound on so that was a shame to not hear it on the bulletin. The SOT was really nice of the choir and I am disappointed that the sound wasn't used.

WINOL week 8

Guest Editor this week was Paul Wood who has previously studied Journalism at the University of Winchester too. He now specialises in online marketing. It's important for us to receive advise on how to improve our website which provides our audience with all our news stories, bulletin and features work. The website is doing great in terms of progress. We have just recently launched our new features magazine Here and Now which is an overall magazine of all our great features we produce from previously separate magazines. Putting them all in one place should help our audience find features. 

Guest Editor Paul Wood created the winol website. He writes on his blog: "I was involved with the creation of a news website which was a relative success with even people who weren’t directly involved with the project visiting the website. The site that I helped to make a success became known as WINOL and is now a fundamental part of the award winning course at the University of Winchester."

Now our website winol.co.uk is doing very well and continuing to progress since Paul Wood created it. The general feedback that I have heard from our audience is that it is professional. Some people have even given me interviews after viewing our website and seeing and understanding that what we do is as good as the professional news websites.

Paul Wood advised us to get our story up as soon as it happens even if it is only a paragraph. We can always come back to the story and update our viewers with what has happened. 

He then particularly made our sub editing team think about the way that they work. He advised them not to worry about the 'green' and to use words in tags that we would type into a search engine. We need to make our tags more specific and aim towards the niche topic. Names are a good in tags as people locally will search for a specific person if they are interested in them and doing so it is likely your story will appear. 

The bulletin this week: 
There were a few legal problems with the script which were luckily sorted before the script went live. The image on the headline of the female bishop story wasn't very strong and debatably not the best picture. Also this is our top story which isn't very hard hitting. The sport headline needed some more emotion or excitement to catch peoples attention. Sports in general needs some more excitement and maybe more editing on final cut I would think graphics would work well on sports, maybe a league table? 

-Don't open your story on a mid-shot. The Bishop story begins with a a mid- shot and this is something we all need to avoid now because the shot doesn't really focus on anything. An establishing shot or a close shot on someone is much more effective. Moving the camera is good and using a variety of shots can be more effective. 

We should always write to pictures. 

Ben gained great access to the grit vehicle site for his story but again the opening shot could of been stronger. Ben really got into this package by wearing the high visibility jacket but I think he could of done even more when doing his piece to camera. Maybe he could of picked up the grit or anything with a bit more movement. 

Success: Christina's court story was very successful as her delivery is very powerful and emotive and overall the package contained some fantastic quotes. The impact statement that is written by the victims and read in court to explain the damage the attacker has done to them was summarised effectively as a piece to camera. Quotes included words such as 'violated and ' 'disgusted' are hard effective quotes. The interview from the policewoman gave it that extra piece which made it different from usual reports. Christina believes in the story and this is shown in the way she reads the report and exaggerates hard hitting words.

Christina clearly knew how she wanted this package edited therefore a good point for everyone is that it is important that you need to know the story before you edit it. This will mean that you know what you are going to say and how you are going to edit it.

Features: 

The new website "Here and Now" has launched on winol.co.uk. It has all our feature magazines in one place, making it more accessible for viewers to reach.

In features we need more picture led features as our pictures in features are everything.

Winol Week 7: Claudia Murg "Journalism is like hunting," "be fearless."

Guest Editor this week was Claudia Murg. Her main comments were that the bulletin was 'watchable,' and that it was good work so far and 'good process from last year.' As a journalist you need to "be fearless." She advised us to all aim higher in terms of our aspirations and we should bring something new to the news and not just repeat the news.

Guest editor Claudia Murg's feedback:

She begun her feedback by telling the team it was 'watchable' it flows and it's better then last year.
She then asked us what our temperature reading was on the bulletin. Give yourself a mark over 5. Do you have a plan when you go out before you film. What are the first things you think about before the story. Who you want to speak to? What pictures would you like to see? Interview questions what answers do you want.

She then added that the bulletin did not reflect high aspirations.You need to think about who would be effected. Write a list. You've got to aim higher.

What is the justification for a story now. Ask yourself how do I just justify what I am doing. Don't reflect what other news have said. Bring something new.

Harry presenting- good attitude.

Flybe story: tell us you tried to interview them right at the beginning of the story.
Tell people if people refused to reply. What is new in my report?
Talk to people 'real people' not just gvs. What why when how? Address all of those.
Portsmouth cuts and shipbuilding.
Rubber company jobs cuts?
Police commissioner:Matt demeanor professional and confident. Simon Hayes talks about his year in office. Throw in your own questions. Don't just offer the a platform for them to react, people expect that, try and bring something new challenge them that's your role!

Christina police package: what counts is what you have learnt from your mistakes. We talked about control of the interview. Challenge them. Think about the person you're interviewing are they going to be bored out of their heads? They want a journalist to ask a different question. Show them that you know the facts of the story, remind them that you are a journalist and not just wasting their time.
"I like the interview but you are too formal at the beginning" " be yourself and be normal.
You really need to listen. We are thinking about the next question too much.

Kate Drummond crime story:

Driving offences: interview driving offence person.

New forest ponies: again write a list of people you want to interview. Where is the horse meat going?

Sports interview: "mesmerised" " I couldn't stop looking at why he is not at a football pitch." If I missed the beginning of the interview I wouldn't of known who he is. Needed more images.  Liam said he was restricted to where he could film it. " you need to aim high" ask him where can it be filmed before you go to aim high.

I quite liked Laura's match report. But think about how it could look better.

You are going into the big world with a lot of competition. Be creative.

Brian: "Follow the structure. But editorially you should push it. The point Claudia is making is that we are being safe. Blandvilee"

Ian
: Do your homework before an interview that way you will get respect from your interviewee.

Say "I don't want to waste your time" to your interviewee.

Chris  we call the cameras "quote grabbing machines." Lack of confidence need to establish what is fact and what is opinion.

Claudia: "Journalism is like hunting" Chris Horrie: " or chess"


Claudia: Good work so far, good process from last year.

Curiosity and contacts. "I source all my contacts so I'm fit for purpose"

How to deal with unresponsive interviewees. Claudia said think about why they are being like that and reassure them that your job and your story will be worth their while. Be specific to clarify your expectations. Think first what is stopping them from talking to be. "Be fearless"
Generate your contacts... Sometimes you find contacts in the most unexpected places.

Contact the person before you have a story. Otherwise you are just getting the quote and then you are dropping them. Keep ringing them it's the human element. We don't have any contacts with the unions.


Feedback from Ian Anderson: "Bag on three well done production."
Guest editor Harvey said "it was ok."

Lots of animal stories on winol. Headlines were very good this week they included the best visuals.

Tyres package- never a visual story but it was constructed well. Elements of beginning middle and end.

Bmp interview eyeline is wrong. We don't want to see the side of someone's face.
Job loss in the south- needed some context.

PCC story great access. Journalistic Enterprise. And you got the reaction from the local commissioner. Top marks for getting the interview.

Prison boss- Great enterprise to get the interview again.

Driving story: "tremendous" amazing middle market hit news that's great. I think that you need to get our gramma right with the visuals. It could of been better package lower down. The pictures were great. (Motorway shots)

Acorn ponies story: We needed to see some ponies first not pigs. But it is a great story.

Sport. Shoot the interview better.
Match report- good coverage

Dogs and finally story:
Production problems

WINOL week 6

This week's guest editor was Will Boden, deputy editor of BBC Politics. He said he was "very impressed" and "blown away" with the bulletin. We also had feedback from Angus Scott this week and they both agreed that there was a good mix of stories and Angus particularly liked Liam Garrahan's story about scrap metal and Will Boden said he 'echoes' what Angus said about it. Angus said it should be a template of how to produce a news package ready for broadcast. He said it was "fantastically constructed" Liam's package worked so well because he thought of his pictures. His piece to camera was in front of a crane and he even had three lots of sequences.

This week's bulletin was very successful, with Angus giving everyones stories a lot of praise. It finally feels like reporters have understood how to tell a story after Ian Anderson gave everyone a masterclass last week on how to do so. People have thought about their pictures, their natsot and this has allowed them to really tell the story.

Angus also highlighted that the team work in the news room this week was fantastic. Editors and reporters were challenging the problems and everyone was helping each other to overcome them.- Angus said this really reflects a real news room.

A big national story hit our headlines Wednesday morning, the day of our news bulletin. Shipyard production in Portsmouth was announced to end effecting thousands of jobs. Our finance reporter Harvey Taylor covered this story by doing a piece to camera live from our news room. I think this works best as the news room is more interesting that the green room.

From the feedback from Angus and Will we have been given a few pointers to focus on:

- Rehearse presenting earlier if we can to reduce the chances of mistakes and to be sure of the script.

- Extend headlines so there are no black holes.

- Need to know what the story is about before hearing an interview

- Sports links need to be improved

- Put the reporters personality into the 'and finally' story

- Don't assume your audience know what you are talking about, explain it. This point has popped up every week from the guest editors so i think this should be our biggest focus now.

- Be aware of jump cuts when editing.

- Be careful not to repeat facts and sentences with what the presenter has said in the link and in the package.

Will Boden also gave us some general tips as a journalist.

- Be polite when you interview people but don't be afraid to go back to a question and ask it again if they haven't answered it properly.

- Tell your interviewee what you want from the interviewee. If its a 20 second grab then tell them that.

WINOL week 5 review/feedback

In this week's bulletin the sports section really stood out for me.  I particularly like the sports section this week that seems to have finally reached a standard that would be near ready for broadcast. All the packages were nicely filmed and the football match included a well shot interview and the footage was clear and held enough time following the goals.

Our Guest editor this week was BBC South Today's Chris Coneybeer. He produces, films and edits vt's every week so he gave us constructive feedback on our bulletin and individuals news packages.
He told us all to focus on:
- Our pictures. Show and tell your viewers what is going on. For example if you mention the council remind people what their local council does by showing them.

- Graphics on VT's take a lot of work but they need to be understood by viewers. This weeks gas figures were too complicated and needed more explanation

- If you can't interview the person you intended to then get vox-pox. Chris Coneybeer said we should "Talk to people on the street to respond to your story." He also said it would give you more sound bites for your package. Making it more interesting overall.

- Don't stay in vision for long piece to camera's. If you have to do a lengthy piece to camera, like Kate Drummond's crime story this week, then use the accused photo more than once to break the piece to camera up.

- Keep the link for the 'coming up' shorter. This week's was too wordy.

Ian Anderson also gave us more to focus on:

- Develop your story and make sure you get plenty of pictures to tell your story.

- In the Prince Edward story the reporter needed to tell people why Prince Edward visited previously as the old pictures were confusing. And if you're going to use still shots make sure they are focused and not blurry.

Winol Week Four

Guest Editor Graham Bell:

This weeks guest editor was Graham Bell who is a Journalism graduate from the University of Winchester. He did exactly the same course 4 years ago. He now is the boss at Omnisport and has employed people who have also graduated from this Journalism course over the past few years and told us that we should make the most of the opportunity we have here at Winchester News Online and our skills on winol are 'valuable' for the job. I think he is a great guest editor for us to meet and receive advice from because he has been exactly where I am today. Along with advice from Chris and Brian, we had Ian Anderson and Angus Scott, helping out with each journalists packages and giving their own personal advice on packages and the bulletin as a whole.

Angus pointed out: 

- We must not use excuses anymore. Nobody cares why you haven't achieved certain things in your story. The viewers only see the finished product so we should all focus on making the best we can out of our stories. 

-Focus on getting the best pictures. We are a visual media therefore our bulletin relys on pictures. This week was great in terms of stories but the pictures were weak we didn't have any sequences. 

- GET COVERING SHOTS on interviews. Every time you interview someone you should get some shots of them to use to establish who the interviewee is or use as cutaways. Ben's Brine interview in London looked great but no covering shots were used. Not even of Big Ben. 

- Get a reaction side to your story/ the opposing side. 

- Make graphics interesting. Nadine's gas price graphic had great moving arrows but the background was grey/white and not very interesting. 

- The crime states package wasn't strong because no story was told. Make interviews worth while by constructing the story. Rather than just uploading the interview. 

- Always use a gun mic/ radio mic when interviewing. 

- Always explain what you are talking about. (Spencer's Egg piece didn't do this) We shouldn't assume our viewers will know. 

- BANNED: 'I'm here at' 

- Always film sequences and a range of shots to give yourself a lot to work with when editing. 

- Always use NATSOT if it will be useful/ make sense. 

Graham Bell added: 

- Drag your shot to get a better flow. Drag the sound before the picture. 

- Don't presume audience know about everything you reference to. Explain!

- Always get a reaction interview. 

Ian Anderson added: 

- We need to develop our stories, get the reaction. 

- Technical problems need to be sorted especially the sound. 

- Work on filming sequences

Overall this weeks bulletin was 'story rich' with some fantastic interviews which show off our capability on winol. But the news stories lacked good pictures. And Angus Scott highlighted that this was a problem. We are a visual media so our main focus should be our pictures eg, sequences and range of shots. The questions we are faced with this week is how improve our packages through our pictures? 

WINOL Week Three Review

In terms of circulation I think our website winol.co.uk could be doing a lot better considering the quantity of work that is submitted every week. With five online magazines, news stories and live weekly bulletin and Access Winchester with the showbiz events we should be generating a lot more viewers with the amount of choice the website offers people.

The specialist magazines are generating the most views since we've been back in September. Where as it should be people viewing our news first and then people 'staying for features,' it seems to be the other way around.

Our new publication Access Winchester which myself, Jack Webb and Emma Jefferies have been working on is doing well in traffic terms and considering it is new its harder to get it out there. It has received more views on YouTube this could be because the stories are more national topics and more niche for example War Horse fans can view our footage here. 

The Minecraft story and VT produced by Liam Garraham has been the biggest single article out of them all on WINOL. Again this is a national topic which attracts a niche audience of people who love Minecraft. The second biggest read story is Tom Wright's crime story about the fugitive who was jailed. 

 This could be because his story was on the front page of the website and Tom got his story online early even before his VT was ready giving it more shelf life. (People should be fighting to get their story published on the front page more) 

In Angus Scott's feedback of the bulletin he highlighted that we didn't focus on Matt Spencers graduation story where he found the fact that people are 20% more likely to get a job if they are from Winchester Uni. I think because the focus of this package was the graduation the viewer got distracted from the biggest point. We should of pushed this line to the top and pushed it out more. 

WINOL Week One Review

Review of the WINOL bulletin: Week One

Ian Anderson Debrief:
Ian was impressed on how the bulletin was shot 'bang of three' and said the production from Nicole and team was very smooth. Ian expressed how critical it was to be on time and he was impressed by the rehearsal by Harry which exceeded him being on time. In the professional world the presenter always checks the scripts and rehearsal is crucial.

There was a slight production hiccup with the new final cut pro 10 and the old version that will be worked on for next week.

Ian said our focus next time needs to be the choice of stories and quality of them. He also added that we need to establish who our target audience is.

He pointed out that the Minecraft story produced by Liam Garraham was 'nicely done' and the the key ingredient is natural sound. The VT started with natural sound taken from the game.

Vaccine story: Very good access into the laboratory and filmed a sequence which was a great first VT
Student Stats: This VT had great sound, which is one of the hardest things to achieve. Visually the shots could be improved and the length of the interview was too long. I think we keep our interviews to no longer than 10-15 seconds where you grab the best quote from the interviewee.

The crime package was accurate and fair. The piece to camera needs to be slower but other than that it was very professional.

The OOV belt: there was a nice move on the image. Images only work if they have a move on them so this made it successful.

The ECO home owner story: The interview was shot very well and this story relied on the case study which worked.

The sports section had nice clear shots and clear voice over but more camera's were needed the capture the right angle of the goals.

Overall this was a successful first bulletin. Well done everyone and especailly the second years whose first attempt this was.

Winol week 10, Super Casino

Here is my package this week.

The Budget 2013

Today I went to London to interview bankers outside the Bank of England to discuss the budget that was announced today by George Osbourne.

Here's my package: 

........................................................................................................................................

Bankers call on Osborne to grow the economy

By Faith Thomas: 

Bankers in London hope that Chancellor George Osborne will focus on stimulating growth and investment to improve the economy in this year’s budget.
The new governor of the Bank of England is set to start this July and with little room to adjust on spending and tax, Osborne is expected to review whether to allow the bank to target growth as well as inflation.
This could involve giving the 2% inflation target more leeway.
A banker, outside the Bank of England, commented on inflation and advised the chancellor not to “mess with the inflation target.”
He added: “they need to let the new governor settle in before they make government change.”

The bankers demanded that Osborne focused on spending in infrastructure to stimulate growth.

Another banker commented on the Budget and the deficit today in the UK and said we are “turning a blind eye” on it.
......................................................................................................................................

In one day we went to London filmed and got back to Winchester to upload this package by 4. The day went really well- much to help me Anja Elen Ekenes filmed all of this for me-she did super! So thank you Anja!
Overall the vibe i felt from London and outside the bank was that these voxpox interviews weren't just any normal vox pox's. These people knew what they were talking about in terms of the economy. They majority told me they wanted to see more spending being made on infrastructure to bring in new jobs and money. 

Here is the WINOL bulletin this week, a very succsessful week highlighting a special round-up about the Budget. 

Myself and another reporter reported from London and we had two packages based on the budget that were localised- one on fuel consumption and one on capital spending, both worked very well.
This weeks bulletin also features a in studio guest supporting labours views towards the economy.
In other news Christina, our court reporter reported on a court case.
And we even had a swimming rabbit for our an final.
A very busy and yet again another successful week from everyone.

What i'm expecting from The Budget on Wednesday

With the UK struggling to grow chancellor George Osbourne will be under pressure when he announces this years budget on Wednesday. 

I will be outside The Bank of England on the day as George Osbourne announces the changes he is willing to make to our economy. 

As Economic and Business Reporter for WINOL this day will be the most important for me. 

From reading around and researching here's what I might expect to hear.

The deficit 

The deficit is the amount that the government has to borrow every year to cover the gap between the amount it spends and the amount it receives in tax.

From 2009-10 to 2011-12, borrowings have ben cut by nearly 25%.

But borrowing is still considerably higher than before the start of the recession in 2008.

On Budget day we will know the new amounts as to how much the government has borrowed in 2012-13 and how much it expects to borrow in futher years to come. 

It looks like the deficit will last longer now until 2017-18 rather than the expected time that it would end in 2014-15. 

The Bank of England

There may be change for the Bank of England's remit so it can help drive an economic recovery. (This may involve giving it more leeway over the 2% inflation target or adding a growth target.) 

The Bank of England's Funding for Lending Scheme may be adjusted or expanded which, though designed to increase lending to small businesses and individuals, but has so far failed to boost the number of loans being offered by banks.

Alcohol & Fuel 

I think a lot of people will be interested in this one. Alcohol taxes will automatically rise by 2% above inflation in April but a bigger increase may come. 

This is not necessarily bad. It could help pay for a potential suspension of a fuel increase planned for the autumn. Therefore motorists will be happy. 

Tax

Increase personal tax allowance, the amount that you can earn before you have to pay tax?- to £10,000 ( Liberal Democrats have lobbied the chancellor for this) 

Cut to corporation (large companies) tax rate to 20%. .

All those tax cuts should help stimulate growth. 

Austerity has been used to reduce public expenditure but England cannot get public spending to fall. 

Unfortunately there are no simple ways to create growth. Governments simply spending more money won’t solve it. Perhaps tax cuts would help. 

WINOL week 6: News Editor

I was assigned a different role on WINOL this week, I was the News Editor.

After a long three days the bulletin is up and here:

Click here: Chris Huhne sentenced, Dead Dogs and the Pope

The bulletin was very light in terms of news story. The Huhne sentencing story was the only hard hitting story. This was followed by the mystery toxin in the New Forest that seems to be causing Dogs to die. I really liked this story as it was local, interesting (visually too) and I know a lot of dog walkers would be concerned.

Working as a News Editor was more of a challenge than I did predict. I hoped that we would have a lot more stories from all the reporters. On monday night I only had the Huhne story and the dead dogs story confirmed, this left me quite nervous about the rest of the bulletin.

A couple of other planned stories fell though. The swimming rabbit story and the coastal erosion story. I took my initiative and assigned the reporters new stories. One of them visited a dementia awareness charity event and the other focused on making a package about the selection of the Pope. I thought it was a nice national story that we have localised before and we could interview a Catholic priest again.

After persuasion and not giving up on the faith we were giving authorisation that we could use the Vatican's youtube footage for this package.

The dementia package was a risk but I needed more packages and therefore pushed it into the bulletin.

I really had to find things to pad this bulletin out. A tree fell down in Southampton and we made this an oov. I would of liked this as a package but the lady whose house the tree fell on did not want to comment to WINOL and her neighbours didn't either. It still worked as a good OOV though. And I made sure the OOV belt was padded out in this bulletin because we were very short on stories.

The guest editor this week was Joseph Curtis. He offered us all good advise on how to find stories, because this seemed to be a biggie for us this week. He advised we use our contacts to provide us with story ideas, Ian Tait and Steve Brine could always know what is going on in Winchester.
He also added that he would of like to have seen a news story from Winchester. Very True!

Back to Reporting next week.

Eastleigh by-election packages

WINOL Eastleigh By-Election Packages 

Labour party round-up.

Employment in Eastleigh

Labour continues to campaign, Ed Balls joins John O'Farrell

Today I interviewed MP and Labour shadow Chancellor Ed Balls. I did very well to get this interview as all of the big names were there today and the media scrum has yet again joined me on my Eastleigh mission.

I asked Ed two simple questions. The first about why young people should vote Labour. And I challenged him on what it is Labour will do differently.
The second question was about unemployment and the Ford Factory. I asked him if he thought it could of been handled differently.

The first question is a national question that applies to the Eastleigh by-election and the national election which will soon come round.

Ed Balls: ‘Lib Dems have lost the trust of young people’

Labour MP and shadow Chancellor Ed Balls visited Eastleigh today to support the Labour candidate John O’Farrell in the run up to the Eastleigh By-Election.

Ed Balls told WINOL: “Many young people voted liberal democrats in the last general including here in Eastleigh because Nick Clegg made a promise he said he wouldn’t increase tuition fees and he broke that promise.”

He added that the Liberal Democrats have “lost trust and “young people feel very badly let down by Nick Clegg.”

His alternative would be to cut tuition fees down by three thousand pounds.

By Faith Thomas

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 

WHERE ARE ALL THE WOMEN IN THE MEDIA SCRUM?-COVERING DAVID CAMERON'S EASTLEIGH VISIT

It’s a usual sight to turn up to a media event and be singled out as the only women. 

Most women may like to be in front of the camera but I am interested about what goes on behind the camera. 

As a student Journalist I had a fantastic opportunity to film David Cameron visiting Eastleigh. Not a likely sight to see. 

I went along with two fellow student Journalists, both male. 

I don’t know what it is in journalism, whether or not it has scientifically be proven, to say that men are better than women at filming and interviewing. I only question this because the ratio of women to men is shocking. 

When I turn up to a media event like this I know what to expect. A handful of male camera men. It doesn’t intimidate me but it is very alienating and in fact does this confirm that sexism in the media industry still exits?

When I arrived there were a handful of cameramen already set up and ready to go. 

They stood near their equipment very proud and relaxed, showing off their confidence. It was actually like they had found their spot to film and this was their territory. 

Whereas there is me, a blonde female holding up the equipment and trying to suss out the situation.

I always put the camera up on my own. I am capable even though you may not think it because I might take longer to put it up than a man would or I might look awkward doing it. 

But when there are males there to put the equipment up they want to do it all by themselves. I don’t know whether its because they are trying to prove themselves of being good at putting equipment up but when a male takes over a women takes a few steps back.

The cameramen that were ready and waiting in the press pen were casually chatting to other men. They were dressed casually too, wearing jeans and tee’s. 

To say I was the only women at this event would not be telling the truth. The reporter from Sky was in fact a women, and very well known too.

There was one young female photographer in the scrum and one female radio reporter. But compared to the crowds of tall men these three women and four if  counting me in, is obviously inadequate.

Because we are students and our news team is not well known this makes the situation between me and the professionals a little more distance not only because I am a female. 

Being a female in the media industry is not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong. You can use it to your advantage. For one, you stand out from the crowd.

Men in the media do look more ballsy. They can ask the toughest questions and make it look natural. 

As a women I am wary and conscious and I don’t think any of these male reporters would feel like that. 

As a female I feel like I have to act a certain way. 

I was planning on shouting out a question to David Cameron. And its a big regret that I didn’t. Straight after i kicking myself about it.

But all the press at that the event were wary that the political reporter Michael Crick was there and he was ready to throw a question at Cameron.  

If a women shouted out a question, especially me being young as well, I think all the men would be surprised. I cannot prove this but I could sense that would be the case. 

It’s so unusual to see a equal amount of men and women in the media industry, especially out on the job. Maybe women prefer to stay in the office and in the warm. But I’m pretty sure we are all just as adventurous as most men, aren't we girls?

David Cameron visits Eastleigh for the by-election

David Cameron and Maria Hutchings visiting B&Q Eastleigh
Me pictured far left 

Luke Garrett, Me, Louis O'Brien, 

Yesterday I had the opportunity to help film the Prime Minister's appearance at Eastleigh. He visited the B&Q headquarters to speak to the workers they are support Conservative candidate Maria Hutchings with her campaigning. 

Me and too fellow students went to the headquarters to film the event. Although we were not allowed to enter the building, because the press officers had already arranged who was allowed in, this being Sky who had the main coverage of the event and then BBC, ITV and C4. 

Through the help of useful contacts we were able to hear about his event. 

We have some very nice footage of David Cameron that will be up on our University's news website winol.co.uk very soon. 

Things are getting underway with the by-election. I have been following the Labour party and their campaigning and interviewed MP Harriet Harman whilst she visited a Barton Peveril, a local college, to help labour candidate, John O'Farrell, on his campaign. 

I'll also be posting an article very soon about women working in broadcast journalism. I was one of very few girls who was at the press event for David Cameron. It was interesting to see how many men do this as their profession and very few women. Is that because men are better and suited? Or are women put off? I most certainly enjoy doing it and it gives you a little confidence boost when you realise you are the only girl. I'll be writing a piece about this in some days to come. 

Cheeky look at the WINOL camera

Eastleigh By-Election:A day with the Labour activists

Labour Campaigning in Hedge End today with Southampton MP  John Denham

A day in the life of a Labour Campaigner...

After 7 hours door knocking with the Labour campaigners I can officially say I am exhausted! It was a brilliant opportunity to see how hard they campaign. 

Eastleigh hasn't have a labour MP since 1944! These people I met today really want to change that.

They hope that the people in Eastleigh are disappointed with the Lib-Dems and Labour wants to split up the Tory and Lib Dem domination especially since Chris Huhme lied to them and they hope to win the votes this time round. 

I door-knocked in Fair Oak and Hedge End. We knocked on around 500 houses in Hedge End and about 160 people told us they would be voting for Labour, they got around 1 in 5 votes. The majority was split between people saying they were undecided with who they would vote for. UKIP seemed to of impressed the Hedge End community with labour votes being in competition with them. 

We also put a stand up in Hedge End village to talk to the people their. Local Southampton MP, John Denham joined in and asked people to write down what it is they want to see change. 

I think door-knocking today was very successful for Labour. The team are then able to see who is likely to vote for them and they can keep in contact with them during the lead up to the vote- this insures they won't lose potential voters. 

The by-election is on the 28th February so vote if you live in the constituencies, its an important decision and it doesn't come around often. 

The person standing for Labour will be announced tonight. 

Candidates:

John O'Farrell, who writer and sometime presenter for Have I got News For You.

Mark Latham, has worked in network television production.

Sarah Rabbits, is a communications professional and consultant who has worked from the BBC and grew up in Surrey.

Southampton Cllr Andrew Pope 

Southampton Cllr Darren Paffey