Is it worth re-writing stories?!

Well butts got well and truly kicked in Online Journalism this week with the appointment of 'hard-man' editor Azeem. A meeting was held, and no ideas were flowing from his direction so I threw mine forward. I suggested having a moodle forum for helping each other out with ideas, and having staggered deadlines so that not all stories came in on the same day. They were pretty well-recieved but my main talking point came from the notion of what UCE News is supposed to be. What does it represent? Who is it targeting?

These were all things that had not really been discussed before. People were unsure as to what was expected of them, were we meant to be putting opinion in or cold hard facts? One student even asked if we were supposed to be just copying stories from other websites. Hmm, that was a tough one.

I tried to give the site some sort of edge with my suggestions. Original stories are the way to go, nobody is going to choose our website over BBC News for their local news. That is ridiculous, because nine times out of ten the BBC will get the news before we do. So we have to focus on original stories, from different sources or from different angles. For example, my shopkeeper story that I previously blogged about came about from a story on the BBC website. I took a new angle though and decided to interview a local shopkeeper. With his quotes, which are exclusive to UCE News, the story is completely different from the original offering. This is what we need to do.

So, onwards and upwards to the notion of re-writing stories. I am not necessarily talking about from other news websites, but also from the Press Association website and so on. As anyone who reads this regularly will know, I am not a fan of churning out stories from press releases and whilst I appreciate that it is sometimes necessary, I try to avoid it wherever possible. Focusing on our UCE News website, what is the point of copying mundane stories from PA? Our competitors will no doubt already have them, using the same angles but with a bigger audience. If audiences are to come to UCE News, it will be because they want something different from what they are offered.

Having said that, there is the obvious position where a story is just so big that it has to feature on the website, in whatever form possible. But, if we cannot find a new angle on a story, is it worth just posting it as is? Is a re-written story better than no story at all? I would be tempted to say yes, but there is always the danger that a poor story will replace one with potential. There is always the temptation to post said story and say "right, Iv achieved my story quota this week now." This shouldn't be the case.

This post has gone a little swings and roundabouts, but I wanted to convey a few of my opinions. Hopefully it made a little sense.