Re: The media's representation of court cases. COMMENT

http://www.thepaperboy.com/uk/2014/01/15/front-pages-archive.cfm

As I'm sure we're all aware, everybody who has been on TV or radio during the 80's is probably a paedophile. At least this is the impression you would get should you have watched the news a couple of days ago, or picked up the Daily Mirror or Daily Star yesterday (which can be seen via the link above).

The reason for all this sensation is due to the prosecution's opening statement, where they outline their accusations and what they hope to charge the defendant with. Due to the absolute privilege provided by the court, this means that the media can print or broadcast any of these accusations as a quote. However, my gripe is not with illegality of the media's actions, but with the ethics of their sensationalism.

The way in which the media portrays this information intentionally implies the guilt of the defendant, defending itself legally with the use of quotation marks; which, if removed, would be outright liable or in contempt of court. Tip-toeing the line of legality has replaced the responsibility of thinking for oneself in an empathetic manner it would seem.

At this point, I feel it's important to mention that I am in no way defending the accused individuals, for all I know they could have done it. The point is; should the media really be using what is purely an allegation in as close to a declaration as they can? Especially when considering that, if acquitted, the story would move to the middle of the paper, and may not even appear in the broadcast agenda. Forever tainting them with the public knowledge that they were certainly accused of being a paedophile.

These people are becoming martyrs to media profits, which seems to be overcoming any sense of dignity that mainstream journalism once had, a sentiment that I found was refreshed by seeing Anchorman 2 of all things. In light of the Leveson inquiry, can journalists really afford to be lectured on their integrity by Will Ferrell?

Innocent until proven guilty, and, for now, the media really are proving themselves guilty of irresponsibility.

A small update on Joy Carter's pay rise.

Following my last email, the university have replied swiftly for the first time:

Dear Alex,

 

Thank you for your email. I will pass on your response and further enquiries, though it may be after Christmas before you receive a response, as the Clerk to the Governors is out of the office at the moment.

 

Kind regards

Not suprising that whilst some student are still working hard at the university, important staff are taking a holiday. I wonder if they will get a bonus for it.

Re: Joy Carter's unbelievable pay rise.

I have received a reply regarding Vice-chancellor Joy Carter's recent pay rise:

Dear Alex,

The press office have forwarded your email to us. The response from Professor Carter is below.

The Vice-Chancellor’s salary is determined by the Board of Governors – it is not subject to national negotiations. Conversely, the pay negotiations for other members of staff working in higher education does take place at a national level and not at a local level. The University remains sympathetic to the trade unions' case. The University of Winchester gives the national debate great consideration and will continue to do all it can to bring the dispute to a swift and just resolution.

Kind regards

Of course, this email has merely given their official position on the pay strikes whilst trying to pass the burden of justification to the 'Board of Governors'. As a side note, it strikes me entirely unfair that the top paid staff can easily improve their lot at a rate six times that of inflation when other staff are entirely controlled by an unresponsive national system. Such is state capitalism I suppose. Obviously this response is far from adequate, this is my reply: 

Hi again,

I understand that you wish to pass the burden of justification onto a differing layer of Winchester University's bureaucratic system (the Board of Governors). In light of this I will send my response to you, trusting that either you will be able to expand and answer my questions in the first email (which I have reformed below) or forward my email to those that can, so that I may get a satisfactory response.

Besides the fact that it seems entirely unjust that the top earners at the university can alter their wage via a local board of their friends and peers, when those lower down on the chain must go to an unresponsive  national system, these questions have still not been answered:

I will number them to make your response easier:

1) Why, in light of the current struggle for fair pay for some staff, did the Board of Governors think it an appropriate action to give an already very well paid member of staff a pay increase six times that of inflation and more than twice that of the entire wage of the lowest paid members of staff?

2) What justification can there possibly be for this open insult, which it is, to those members of staff genuinely struggling?

3) Is it possible to see a report by the Board of Governors on this matter? And if so, where?

Kind Regards,
Alex Mason.


Once again, I will be posting their response on this blog.

A letter to the university regarding Joy Carters pay rise.

This is a letter to the University of Winchester regarding the recent anger at Vice Chancellor Joy Carter's recent £28,000 pay increase in the midst of staff protests over insufficient pay. I will be posting the reply on this blog. 




Hi there,

              it has recently come to my attention that Joy Carter has been given a £28,000 per year pay increase. To the outsider, this looks like an outrageous kick in the teeth for all of the staff that have been protesting against the insufficient 1% pay increase, especially when one considers the fact that some of the staff protesting take home wages smaller than their bosses recent bonus.

The excuse given for this pay rise was one of poverty, yet, it does not surprise me that a university professing the beliefs of the Christian church should have such a skewed view of poverty, with the wages of Joy Carter, before this recent hike, hardly being one even remotely comparable to poverty of any kind.

As a student, who pays a significant fee to the university, I demand to hear what justification can be given for this abhorrent injustice.

Eagerly awaiting your reply,

Alex Mason.

WINOL 16th October 2013

Another relatively solid bulletin.

Good points:
Alex Delaney did well to link forward to next week's WINOL in his PTC

A good volleyball story although it was mentioned that the participation was perhaps excessive in the story.

Liam literally managed to get 'it's a dream come true' from his interview.

Bad points:

Exiting the title sequence is still awkward a definite point to come out of it should be decided.

The green screen background hasn't been cleaned.

The focus of the camera was off in Calum's package

between Calum and Alex's parts there was a bizarre resurgence of the title music, this occurred again heading into the sports.

Framing in interviews and PTC's for Alex, Harvey and Drew was poor the rule of thirds shouldn't be applied in a PTC go central, and avoid giving too much headroom.

A mistake in sound with the OOV which faded the presenters mic down briefly.

The right idea with the walking PTC for the graduation piece, but a better route was needed as Matt walked almost out of vision as he went through the crowd.

Sports choice to film outside was poor, it makes no sense.

WINOL 9th October 2013

Good points:

A solid bulletin overall, with Matt Spencer doing well to capitalise on the 'legs' of the C.O.M.P.A.S.S meeting story as it was hard-hitting and relevant to any audience in Winchester.

Ellen's bee story was very well put together with a great 'it's a nightmare' quote from the beekeeper and good commitment wearing the beekeeper outfit to sign off.

The UKIP OOV had some great UPSOT of Farage laughing, well done at the sound desk.

Good establishing shots by Zeena in her STOPtober story, awkward to organise but they do make the package much better.

Tom Wright's pacing in his PTC was greatly improved and made for a good court report.

Sports' introduction of 3 cameras makes for much better footage. Although, graphics would add to the overall production.

Not so good points:

The mixing up of the final part of the intro music is really quite distracting.

Emma Wright's education story was faded out a little bit too early.

STOPtober interview with nurse was poorly framed, just needed the application of rule of thirds.

On screen quotes have been criticised, however, they do appear regularly in regional and national news broadcasts.

Critical Reflection

Critical Reflection

WINOL overall:

This term, WINOL has once again improved upon its news output, most notably in terms of quantity; with stories being rejected from the bulletin, not because of a lack of quality, but, simply because of the sheer quantity of alternative stories available to the editor. Whilst this may be disappointing to those whose packages were declined, it can only be seen as a positive. The choice available to the news editors means that more care can be taken in what genres of story are to be included in the bulletin, which gives a better editorial learning experience. This increase in quantity is attributed to the ability of the news team to produce newsworthy stories from what is available in such a quiet area, and shows a great level of journalistic competence in all areas of the course.

Circulation:

This term our circulation figures have steadily increased from the drought in traffic that unavoidably occurs over the summer break, with the highest global and UK Alexa rankings being on the 8^th of December (776,668) and 30^th of October (27,807) respectively. Despite the positive trend, we are down by comparison to this time last year when we reached an Alexa rank of 373,953 globally and 12,025 in the UK. Whilst this could be seen as representative of a decrease in quality or quantity, it is important to mention that last year WINOL had easy access to interviews with top political figures such as London mayor Boris Johnson and UKIP Leader Nigel Farage etc. due to the Eastleigh by-election which generated a lot of traffic for the site. This year however, even though the quality of journalism has remained the same, if not improved, the national interest created by the Eastleigh by-election was not available for us to capitalise upon.

Features this year have been condensed into one online magazine ‘Here & Now’ in which the formerly individual categories still have a space, but now it’s easy to browse the varying categories from one place, which should serve to keep visitors on the site for longer, as the technicalities of getting from one feature to another has been simplified greatly. The content covered by features this year has been of great variety, with travel providing light-hearted features following groups as they partake in local pastimes to the serious comment on issues such as the unimportance of Tom Daley’s homosexuality. Not to mention the great media content provided by the fashion site.

My role:

This term, my role has been mainly in production, being part of the team working behind the scenes on WINOL, sports week and in-studio features.

My usual routine for Tuesday and Wednesday involves setting up the studio as I enter the building, sorting out the green screen, positioning the table and cameras properly and making sure that the camera is focused etc., before heading up to the gallery to apply the appropriate background on the green screen and making sure it is functioning properly, e.g. cleaning up the background and foreground (I have posted a tutorial on how to do this on my blog). I also provided this service for the interviews of Labour's Rowenna Davis and The governor of Winchester Prison David Rodgers as well as the COMPASS meeting for the police and crime commissioner.

Once this has been done, I enter the newsroom, aiding the news team until we are ready to begin filming in the studio. Helping out has taken many forms, such as helping to film packages down in Winchester, as I did in Harvey's package for WINOL on 4/12/13, writing the headlines on multiple occasions, phoning the courts to verify details for packages and doing odd jobs to speed up the production of packages, so as to increase the potential time for rehearsal in the studio.

At the beginning of the term, due to technical difficulties when converting packages to the VT machine in the studio, I also had the role of converting the packages manually, once they had been completed, via the older versions of final cut in the MMC, but this was later resolved, meaning that it was no longer necessary and upped the efficiency of the process considerably (To do this, we consulted Corin the technician, who often helps in the studio when there is a more technical problem, from this experience, it would perhaps be a good idea to ask him to join WINOL one Wednesday to look over the entire process of converting packages, preparing the studio, using OOV’s and OB’s so that he might be able to help the team become more efficient in terms of the technical side of production, especially regarding OB’s, which we have yet to have complete success with).

Another improvement that has occurred in production has been the use of the radio studio to record the headlines. Whilst a simplistic change, it saves time and effort when going in to film the rest of the bulletin, as headlines often aren't completed until late on in the day. The ease of recording in the radio studio, which doesn’t require the production team, also allows time for production to chase the last of the packages and head into the final stages comfortably.

As for the production of the bulletin in the studio, I have performed every role: The most demanding of these for me has been sound, due to the sensitivity of the sliders combined with my tendency to acquire shaky hands in high pressure situations, but, I feel that I have overcome this issue quite easily and as a result I am confident in my understanding of the role. The main technicalities when in the role of sound is the multi-tasking required when bringing two sets of audio together, as is the case in the opening and closing credits as well as any UPSOT in OOV’s.

Directing, as a role, is fairly straightforward, providing adequate rehearsal time is available so as to see the OOVs, in-studio discussions and other more technical features of the bulletin prior to going 'live'. This is something I have learned from experience, with my first foray into the world of directing being subject to the issue of insufficient rehearsal time, this being said, the bulletin was still out on time without any fatal errors which I feel is an achievement on the basis that the production team managed to perform adequately with a bulletin they had never seen before. I also learned from said experience and applied a more hands on technique when making sure that those producing the packages and writing the script etc. were motivated to keep to schedule the second time round. My second experience as a director was much more successful as a result, although the issue of discrepancy between the timings given by the VT machine and the appropriate time to come out of a package in reality still causes problems when counting down for the sake of those in production roles. To fix this issue, I suggest a strict set of rules for reporters when filming their ‘outs’ for packages.

Working on the autocue is a role that produces little in the way of a challenge, requiring that the user keep in time with the presenter and only causes problems when the script has been submitted to the production team with errors, as was the case in the 4/12/13 WINOL. This issue was dealt with very professionally by the entire in-studio team, with good communication being key to the resolution. With regards to autocue, I have been able to offer grammatical changes and alternatives throughout the year that may otherwise have gone unnoticed.

Working on the VT machine is by far the easiest role in production, requiring only that play is pressed on cue so long as the running order has been accurately applied. This is a role I have performed but have chosen to avoid due the lack of a challenge it presents.

The vision mixer has been the most rewarding role in production for me, as I have enjoyed becoming fluent in the technicalities of the green screen, as well as enjoying the creative license afforded to the role during in-studio discussions as seen on the 20/11/13 WINOL (http://m.youtube.com/user/Winchesterjournalism/videos?desktop_uri=%2Fuser%2FWinchesterjournalism%2Fvideos), although, I did have the same opportunity in the discussion between Harry Parkhill and Nadine Forshaw during a bulletin that I directed, but in a more detached sense.

SUPERWINOL:

For the final WINOL I have produced a features package with Andrew and Emma, where I used my knowledge of final cut, acquired from my editing of Matt Collinge’s acoustic performance on VOLT, to edit the package, which can be seen on the final WINOL of the year.

I also played my usual part in the production process, this time being in control of the vision mixer when it came to the filming.

Besides my role in production, I have partaken in the filming of the Coffeehouse session involving Stephanie Fraser (http://youtu.be/DmkKLe6jJ1I), the filming of the aforementioned David Rodgers interview and the filming of Harvey's job losses story in the 4/12/13 Bulletin, which contained what I believe to be the most entertaining sign off for a package that I have seen on WINOL. This sign off also aided our circulation, as the members of the public in attendance questioned us on how they might be able to see the finished version of what we were filming.

Advertise:

Advertising is a key element in raising viewing figures and building the notoriety for any news brand. WINOL is restricted in this respect due to a lack of finances, but, having noticed the attention film crews receive when collecting footage out in the field, an easy way to attract viewers would be to print branded stickers, posters and business cards with all the necessary information so that we might apply them to the equipment such as camera bags, tripods, cameras etc. when venturing out to film, a point that was also raised by guest editor Paul Wood.

Another possible improvement, that has been mentioned relatively frequently by guest editors, is our lack of a defined target audience, as, whilst we are making packages of a good quality, they are somewhat vague in terms of defining our target audience. This being said, it is easy to see why this is the case, as our ‘beat’ is often lacking in enough stories to pander to just one section of Winchester’s population. It is a grave shame that WINOL cannot cover negative stories surrounding the university (of which there are a lot) and hold them to account, as this could provide a backbone to the bulletin that meant that students could be sure that they would find stories relevant to them every week on WINOL. The down side of this form of coverage would be that there would be less time to cover stories of national importance, which are often our most impressive packages.

This ethic could also be applied to sports, as we currently cover the home fixtures of AFC Totton and Basingstoke Town, which, unfortunately only generates viewers from the small numbers of supporters and staff at those clubs. As an alternative, it would possible to create a sports site that compiles all the information for all the university sports teams in one place (much like the features site has done with its varying genres), which is currently not available anywhere. This would mean covering the university football as we do in Basingstoke and Totton, but at a much lower financial cost to the reporters (which is quite restrictive to a number of students in the WINOL team), as they would be able to join the team on the buses to their away games. University sports teams would also be much keener to take part in interviews and ‘Soccer AM’ style sports features than staff at Basingstoke Town and AFC Totton have been, allowing for more in depth content, player profiles etc. Applying this idea across the wide variety of sports teams competing in national and regional leagues would address the relatively huge potential audience as well as enhancing our presence around the university campus through social networks involving sports team members. The site itself could contain league tables and league news (which could be commissioned, as I’m sure members of the sports teams would get involved) as well as pages for more in depth coverage (features etc.) of the more popular sports e.g. football, rugby, cricket and so on.

Overall, I have been impressed by the professionalism displayed across the WINOLverse, it has fully deserved all the awards and nominations it has received and it would seem that it is set up very well for further successes in the future.