The collaboration of WINOL with TJG was one of the biggest changes this semester. TJG website underwent a complete makeover at the start of the term to increase search engine optimisation, and it now receives approximately 500 views daily. Contributors are legal professionals including lawyers and top QCs; which results in content that is opinionated and biased. This is why Winchester journalism students become a valuable partnership, we write objective reports steering away from the vision of campaigning. On average the time spent on TJG is approximately 4 minutes, (Alexa data 6/12/2013) regular content, including videos, is uploaded throughout the week with something new uploaded every day.
Next semester, I think the collaboration of WINOL and TJG should have a greater online presence, showcasing the partnership through a picture logo linking to a direct Winchester journalism page on TJG. Similarly this could be done with Radio so viewers can click on a picture icon to listen to the podcasts.
Social media has played a vital role in spreading stories around; with over 4500 followers on TJG, articles receive a lot of attention and approx 5-15 re-tweets for each of my articles. WINOL has just over 1500 followers on twitter which has only increased by about 150 followers since May this year. We should be following all the local charities, organisations and groups that our stories target; we are not following enough people that would be interested in our stories, and I think this would have a huge domino effect on the number of views our bulletin and website receive if we maximised the use of social media. Although we have built up a brilliant reputation on WINOL with the authorities that we interview, we need to advertise it more to make residents aware that we are a reliable source of news. If a small business group was set up we could aim to increase advertisement and marketing for WINOL.
With an assigned sub team this semester, text stories have started to improve in terms of SEO, ensuring articles have tags, focus keywords and photographs which was re-enforced by guest editor Paul Wood. Appointing a front page editor was a good decision as we can focus on what story is the most popular and continue to shuffle the website around to give a sense of a live feed. However, stories are very static from one Wednesday to the next, and in comparison to last year, where reporters were assigned to days the amount of content uploaded to the site has dipped. Earlier this year visitors to the site were spending approximately 5.16 minutes (19/5/13) and this has halved to 2.44minutes now.(Alexa figures 6/12/13) We can improve this by setting up a small team interested in news writing to turn around stories that go unused in the Google mail account, this would avoid the excuse of trying to cover a story that lacked pictures, because it was simply a text story. An example of this are the Inquests I attended at a coroner’s court, all three cases worked very well as interesting text stories but certainly not for TV, so I think we need to pay as close attention to other articles online to improve news writing skills as well as broadcast skills.
A big achievement for the team this year was winning the BJTC award: ‘Best News Day of the year’. Students received certificates for coming runner up in two other categories: 'Website of the year' and 'Radio feature of the year'. This highlights the success and commitment from the team who take pride in our student broadcast.
The first week as a Justice Gap reporter was a leap from my role as court reporter on WINOL, I found the role similar to a legal correspondent, researching and gaining knowledge in areas of civil rights and criminal justice, and often reporting on law reforms. I still attended court weekly, but took a more editorial approach allowing the other crime reporters to gain experience. I continued to offer up story ideas and coach them through what I had learned over the past year with finding out about court listings, scripting PTC, getting mugshots from Police and abiding by laws of contempt ensuring the defendant was positively identified to prevent defamation.
A personal achievement for me was breaking a big story that cameras were to begin filming inside the Court of Appeal before any other news broadcaster. I received this information after calling the press office with the initial impression that it was going to happen next week, but they informed me it was due to take place tomorrow and they sent me a press release embargoed to 6pm that day. I was proud to be part of this national buzz by sharing this exclusive news, moments ahead of SkyNews on Twitter.
Claudia Murg was a standout guest editor for me, she taught me the importance of self-reflection, planning, control and inquisitiveness she emphasised that journalism is all about contacts. Building relationships and keeping in touch with people gives you the advantage of finding out inside scoops. Taking this on board, I kept in close contact with a woman from the witness services at Winchester Crown Court, after interviewing her on a story regarding the new victim's code. I saw this as my closest chance to establish a contact from inside the court who could inform me of upcoming high profile cases, as unfortunately unlike big media agencies we cannot find out in advance what are the big cases to cover. I kept in touch with her via e-mail following the interview which led me to find out about an upcoming sexual offence case that she believed would receive a lot of media attention. To our surprise not many broadcasters covered the case and when I brought this to BBC South producer Poonam Bahal’s attention she was surprised they hadn’t covered it also. Ahead of Basingstoke Gazette who covered the trial, WINOL was the first source to break the news of this sentencing as I tweeted the judges summing up upon leaving the courtroom. This was one of my strongest packages, although it was lacking pictures, I set up an interview with the officer in charge of the case, and I was praised for having a genuine interest in the story, which came across in my PTC. For the first time I heard the victim statements read by the barrister in full before sentencing, so I did a follow up from the new code using this court report as a case study on TJG, and incorporating the view of a defence lawyer to see if it raised unrealistic expectations for victims.
In my first week the editor gave me feedback that I should be leading with the original source of quotes in regard to my article on the IPCC sign off into Cardiff Three Police corruption. I interviewed the investigative journalist Satish Sekar who worked closely on the case, and what he had to say had the power to lead the article. Journalism is about human interest and reaction, so I shouldn’t have buried his quotes lower down. I took this advice on and made a personal goal to lead every article with a top line unique to TJG.
A few examples of this are the interviews I set up with the Prison Reform Trust to get their reaction to government changes to prisoner’s privileges, the NSPCC’s response to the blocking of child abuse pornography online, and following criminal investigations into recent deaths in custody, I interviewed the director of ‘Inquest’ - a charity that carries out case work on the matter.
Common feedback in debriefs, was that we were not getting any case studies to add human interest to the story, e.g. coverage of job losses - we needed to hear from someone who had lost their job. When covering the Hillsborough Inquest, I interviewed a man who lost his brother in the crush which is a good example of getting comment from someone who it directly affects. This article alone received nearly 400 views which was ranked top three for Winchester student articles, amongst the Mansfield articles.
This was one of the first phone interviews I did, and I would jot down the key quotes throughout the conversation, this is where shorthand would come in handy, despite passing 60wpm, I found it easier to record the interview on a separate device.
The most memorable day for me was our trip to London. In one day I interviewed the country’s leading human rights Barrister Michael Mansfield and filmed David Jessel commissioner for the CCRC interviewing Eddie Gilfoyle, an alleged miscarriage of justice. The interview between Jessel and Gilfoyle was approx 40minutes, which I edited down to get to the heart of the punchy emotional impact. As you would with a voice over facts in our voice, opinion in theirs, the facts went into the article and the video highlighted his emotions.
I prepared for the Mansfield interview by researching into the high profile cases he covered and reading his book 'Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer'. That morning I was told he was launching his new chambers that day which he made clear was the news agenda he wanted to cover. I set up a YouTube account in order to upload video content to the website, and the Mansfield interview was posted online the following day receiving over 300 YouTube views. Speaking to such an influential man, there was an array of articles that could be covered on different news agendas; the privilege of keeping a shed load of stories in the can means you can pick the most suitable time to publish it. An example of this was the second Mansfield clipping on police corruption, which was topical around the time of the Plebgate scandal. I learnt that it is important to give someone the right to reply when covering a story - two legal giants Mansfield and Zander had conflicting views over legal aid funding, which is a good example of this, as I threw Zander’s opinion to Mansfield to spark a response therefore it was only fair to give Zander the right to reply. The Mansfield and Zander articles combined received over 1700 unique page views online.
The role of news editor rotated amongst reporters; although practising this role had good education value I personally think it affected the quality of WINOL's output. If it was someone’s sole responsibility they could continue to progress and enforce improvements each week. The standard of management alternates each time the role changes, affecting communication and output standard. Appointing a shadow editor would serve the same educational value, but allow one person to establish a recurring house style.
The partnership between the crime unit on WINOL with TJG helped me to broaden my skills in news gathering, writing, researching, interviewing and enrich my knowledge of national legal affairs that could be localised for WINOL. For instance I organised an interview with the Governor of Winchester Prison in our studio, which worked on both a local and national scale. This feature interview allowed me to cover several topics in depth, in comparison to needing a 20 second quote. I also got an exclusive news line here that was not covered elsewhere, regarding a new working regime for prisoners.
Finally, I feel I have demonstrated that I can carry out responsible journalism, reporting on current legal affairs and court proceedings has been an invaluable experience for me, putting myself in situations sometimes out of my comfort zone enhanced my learning. As Claudia Murg said, journalism is about being fearless and taking risks particularly at time where we have the support of our mentors and by following their expert advice we can shape our foundations in establishing a career in journalism.
Common feedback in debriefs, was that we were not getting any case studies to add human interest to the story, e.g. coverage of job losses - we needed to hear from someone who had lost their job. When covering the Hillsborough Inquest, I interviewed a man who lost his brother in the crush which is a good example of getting comment from someone who it directly affects. This article alone received nearly 400 views which was ranked top three for Winchester student articles, amongst the Mansfield articles.
This was one of the first phone interviews I did, and I would jot down the key quotes throughout the conversation, this is where shorthand would come in handy, despite passing 60wpm, I found it easier to record the interview on a separate device.
The most memorable day for me was our trip to London. In one day I interviewed the country’s leading human rights Barrister Michael Mansfield and filmed David Jessel commissioner for the CCRC interviewing Eddie Gilfoyle, an alleged miscarriage of justice. The interview between Jessel and Gilfoyle was approx 40minutes, which I edited down to get to the heart of the punchy emotional impact. As you would with a voice over facts in our voice, opinion in theirs, the facts went into the article and the video highlighted his emotions.
I prepared for the Mansfield interview by researching into the high profile cases he covered and reading his book 'Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer'. That morning I was told he was launching his new chambers that day which he made clear was the news agenda he wanted to cover. I set up a YouTube account in order to upload video content to the website, and the Mansfield interview was posted online the following day receiving over 300 YouTube views. Speaking to such an influential man, there was an array of articles that could be covered on different news agendas; the privilege of keeping a shed load of stories in the can means you can pick the most suitable time to publish it. An example of this was the second Mansfield clipping on police corruption, which was topical around the time of the Plebgate scandal. I learnt that it is important to give someone the right to reply when covering a story - two legal giants Mansfield and Zander had conflicting views over legal aid funding, which is a good example of this, as I threw Zander’s opinion to Mansfield to spark a response therefore it was only fair to give Zander the right to reply. The Mansfield and Zander articles combined received over 1700 unique page views online.
The role of news editor rotated amongst reporters; although practising this role had good education value I personally think it affected the quality of WINOL's output. If it was someone’s sole responsibility they could continue to progress and enforce improvements each week. The standard of management alternates each time the role changes, affecting communication and output standard. Appointing a shadow editor would serve the same educational value, but allow one person to establish a recurring house style.
The partnership between the crime unit on WINOL with TJG helped me to broaden my skills in news gathering, writing, researching, interviewing and enrich my knowledge of national legal affairs that could be localised for WINOL. For instance I organised an interview with the Governor of Winchester Prison in our studio, which worked on both a local and national scale. This feature interview allowed me to cover several topics in depth, in comparison to needing a 20 second quote. I also got an exclusive news line here that was not covered elsewhere, regarding a new working regime for prisoners.
Finally, I feel I have demonstrated that I can carry out responsible journalism, reporting on current legal affairs and court proceedings has been an invaluable experience for me, putting myself in situations sometimes out of my comfort zone enhanced my learning. As Claudia Murg said, journalism is about being fearless and taking risks particularly at time where we have the support of our mentors and by following their expert advice we can shape our foundations in establishing a career in journalism.
