WINOL Week 8!

I think people were concerned that this wasn't an especially good bulletin. Personally, I think we did okay considering the pressure we were under, what with the BJTC being here.

Luckily it seems they were very impressed with the set-up we have in Winchester. It appeared to me that they were taken aback with what we've done. In particular, they were very keen on our election coverage. I think they also liked that we weren't given an easy ride. The semi-pro method of working was also something I don't think they were expecting.

As for the bulletin itself, I thought it was okay. We've certainly produced better, but also a lot worse. As was pointed out in our de-brief, our links and script are none too great. There was also a breakdown in communication at one stage, as our bulletin ran over time in the rehearsals.

Despite this, we were able to get back on track with a hasty re-edit of some packages just before we went live. I like to this this shows how well we work as a team now as it was done calmly and with minimum fuss.

Now that we've done the hard work and finished our genuine news broadcasts, it's time to kick back, relax and do a best-of package for this coming Wednesday. The end is nigh...

WINOL Election Coverage!

WINOL's first ever election broadcast was a fantastic success. It wasn't flawless, but nothing is. What we have to look at is what we accomplished and the context in which we managed that.

To an outsider, the task we set ourselves would have seemed insurmountable. Here we were, a collection of students, giving live election coverage with outside broadcasts and news packages to provide context for the viewers.

This is, as far as I can tell, no different to what Channel 4, the BBC or Sky News provided for their viewers. The only difference was the failings of modern technology. In terms of journalistic integrity, we were no worse off than any of the big guns.

I think we may have tried to go a bit too far with our Skype link to Austria. While a nice idea in principle, the technology wasn't good enough and having an expert who couldn't speak English also proved to be a bit too much of a hinderance.

Presenting was a consistent strong point. Graham Bell is a total pro and Claire did excellently, especially considering she had no script and everything went a bit Pete Tong around then. On a personal note I was absolutely bricking it about being on camera, but as soon as I answered that first question I felt far more comfortable and even wanted to answer more questions!

It seems likely that we'll be having another election soon. If that results in another WINOL election night, I think we can bank on another success and hopefully an even better show!

WINOL Week Six!

A much better week this week, at least in my opinion. Far less legal issues that we had last week and I think our stories were a little stronger. Admittedly, they may not have been particularly heavy stories, but they were solid.

I think that sport had a much better week as well. Yes we had to drop the ladies hockey story which was a shame considering we'd finally got some women's sport. However, the match report was far better than the one in last weeks bulletin.

I also got some good advice from Angus on how to improve my packages. Bleeding the sound together is something I mean to do and often forget because of time constraints, but I'll be striving harder to do it from now on. He also recommended doing a University sports team round-up instead of a non-league football round up. That way we can get women's sports in on a regular basis, even if it's not as a package. It also works well as a way to name drop.

So in short, there's still room for improvement, but we're by no means getting worse. All in all, good!

WINOL Week Five!

Back down to Earth with a bump this week it seems. After last weeks went well, I think we maybe got a little complacent. It wasn't a bad bulletin, but it wasn't a great one either. WINOL by numbers, if you will.

Certainly sport wasn't up to our usual high standard. We had no rights being the lead story and it showed. We had neither the images of the "oomph" that goes with a good lead and we were rightly torn a new one. Additionally, the match report wasn't as tight as previous ones have been.

We also seem to have a real problem with our legal aspect. One story was dropped and the lead story was dubious at the very least. We're also still having issues with our scripting, something which I thought we'd got over.

I'm glad the BJTC weren't in this week. It would've been a disservice to us and to them to show them something that wasn't as good as we can make it.

WINOL Week Four!

I love it when a plan comes together. This weeks edition of WINOL was by far the best we've done. This was easily due to the amount of practice that we got before we actually recorded it. The headlines were done early, packages were in on time and the timings were accurate. Success!

Despite our obvious brilliance there are still things that we can tighten up on. We still need to remember what the story's about and not lose focus. Our stories are still pretty waffle-y at times. If we can maintain the high production values that we had this week with a concise method of storytelling then I see no reason why we can't rival the local publications. 

On a personal level, sport was again good. We need to focus on women's sports apparently, which should be interesting to say the least, but we've really got our stuff nailed down. There's a few minor production issues we can improve on, such as maybe ball watching a bit too much, but content wise we're spot on.

Next week we've really got to ensure that we don't drop the ball. The last time that we did a great bulletin we cocked up the following week. The fact that the BJTC are in next week means that we have to do an even better bulletin than this week. 

WINOL Week Two!

Well this was an improvement over last week, albeit by the skin of our teeth! I really thought this was going to be another disaster week but I was thoroughly impressed by the professionalism that everyone showed. We went through the bulletin with little to no rehearsal, the technology being a bit shitty and people not being quite sure how it worked or what they were supposed to be doing and still managed to get a decent bulletin out on time!

I like to think how we would've reacted in our first year if we'd been given responsibility like this. I think it shows how far we've come in so short a time because we'd have panicked like there was no tomorrow!

The stories this week I felt were stronger as well. We had a good exclusive with the man from the Orange Wednesday adverts revealing that they wouldn't be running them. Our stories were generally stronger overall and there didn't seem to be a weak area at all.

I was personally a bit disappointed with our sport coverage this week. We had a major problem with the football match that we'd put all our work into actually being cancelled. This left us with very little content for the bulletin besides the non-league round up and the (now very short) report on the cancelled game. However, getting the news story about the collapsed player at the Totton vs Gosport game was something I'm rather pleased with.

Hopefully next week we'll be more confident, know how to use the equipment more and have settled fully into our roles. One thing's for sure, I'm not working the sound desk in the studio!!

FAO: Journalism Students

Yes it's a piss take of creating news packages, but if it's good enough for mainstream news then it's good enough for WINOL!

This is the end, beautiful friend.

It's hard to think that WINOL is almost over for the year. We've a special bulletin tomorrow, showcasing the best of our work but after that it'll be a new decade before we're on air again!

It's a shame it has to end so soon, especially as we've really settled in our roles and got comfortable with what we're doing. It's been a really useful exercise, I certainly know now what I want to do in journalism, which is become a sports photographer. Oringally I wanted to work on features but since working on WINOL I've realised that's not really for me. Hopefully I'll be able to sort that out after Christmas as I'd like to join the sports desk and get some first hand experience.

I think we've made the most of the opportunity and have come up with some cracking stories such as our most recent gem, which was the Lib Dem poll rigging on our site. Without the third years after Christmas the pressure's on us to maintain such a high quality of work. Personally I like to think we can do it. We know how this works now and while there may be less of us, I think we know enough to keep the WINOL machine ticking over.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1! We have lift-off!

Yesterday saw the launch of the second and third years collective baby; WINOL. After two dummy runs the previous two weeks, confidence was high in the newsroom of a fantastic first live airing. I'm glad to say we didn't disappoint and all went well! Word on the street (okay, the word of my girlfriend) is that it was a good broadcast so it's not just me being big headed.

Despite being beset with difficulties and unexpected problems (such as our main presenter being ill, network and loan counter problems etc) we soldiered on and put out a news broadcast we can all be proud of.

It's weird viewing the bulletin from the point of view of a feature writer. The news, sport and production desks and the people who work on it are a flurry of activity trying to get packages done and dusted. However, us feature writers aren't quite as pressured. Sure, we have our own stories to get in and editing and the like to do, but it seems we spend a fair whack of time on a Wednesday trying to assist the other desks in any stuff they need doing.

Obviously the more we do this the better we'll become. I just hope that we don't get really settled into our roles just as we have to leave them after Christmas. Not quite sure how we're going to be running it all on our own as well. Oh well, we'll manage, we're journos.