End of Term

So it's been a while since I last posted...I do have an excuse of sorts. I have been tied up with exams, assignments and moving house which leads to the Internet being cut off. Its never the best.

So I have completed the Online Journalism module, the reason for setting up this blog though I intend to keep it going. The main reason for this was finally getting access to the net and seeing my hit counter which had doubled despite no new postings. Our interactive went quite well in the end, Neil and I being in charge of the video section. The videos that I produced were...

Speedway explained:



Speedway Clips:



An interview with Brummies star Ulrich Ostergaard:



An interview with father of Brummies racer Aidan Collins, Les:



An interview with Brummies boss Graham Drury



I also had an interview with the club secretary Brian Buck, but unfortunately the wind was so loud that it could not be heard.

I had several problems creating the videos. Having never completed a television module I had little experience using the cameras and so on the Les Collins interview the sound quality is very poor. With the Ulrich Ostergaard one, it was a little dark although I managed to brighten it up somewhat in Movie Maker.

Ultimately, our flash interactive never made the UCE News website for a number of reasons. The file size was enormous, over 500mb, which meant that it was far too big to upload. We did not know how to make it smaller. This was probably due to the intricacy of the piece, with seven videos, an audio slideshow and around 14 pages to it, all interlinking. As lecturer Paul Bradshaw noted:

I decided to teach 'forms' (e.g. slideshow, video gallery) rather than 'skills' (frame navigation, audio) this year. It was the wrong decision.


This meant that whilst the individual pieces were good, we struggled to put them together and upload them to the website. This was unfortunate as I was particularly proud of our groups effort, as I had to work very hard to complete our groups flash interactive on deadline day.

New Website Procedure

So the ballgame has changed a little bit. New editor Azeem is in charge of our stories now and, as such, they don't go straight onto the site when you submit them. Now they have to be approved first, and this means that the site is only updates when Az goes on. I can understand this in the terms that the top story is now the most important one, and not the latest one which could be boring as the hills, but surely now, no new stories will appear for hours and then a few at once. This will surely mean that some get overlooked by our audience. I think that new stories need to go straight onto the site, and be edited later. They could be put in the slots underneath the top story and surely this would improve the site?

UPDATE: The procedure has been changed slightly. Now only the top story is chosen by the editor, with the three slots below it available for latest stories. Much better, in my opinion.

Hold the front page

My faithful audience, Iv neglected you of late. I would like to be able to say that it is because Iv been horribly ill, or on holiday to some distant part of the world for the last ten days, but I wont lie to you. Iv had deadlines coming out of my ears, and to be honest, havnt really been in the uni spirit lately. But Im coming back with a vengence, for I have news to tell. I can tell that you've been missing your updates into my sordid life.

My stories have been reaching large audiences. You may recall me pipping the Birmingham Mail to a story found on their own forum? Well that story made it onto Journalism news website Hold the Front Page. I thought that was pretty damn cool!

Also in the news update stakes, Azeem and I will be guest editors of local news website, The Stirrer, which will be an exciting challenge as it currently gets around 400,000 hits every month. Not exactly a small operation to be running!

In the news leads stakes, Im currently working on one good one. I was playing football last night for my team, Perry Barcelona, and got talking to one of their players who told me that they had been the victims of a racist attack at the brand new goals centre. So I'm following that one up with him, and it sounds like it could be quite a good, fresh, story as none of the other local media have covered it. Will get on the blower to Goals themselves and get myself a juicy little story!

Until next time

UCE News - the website that never sleeps

It seems that UCE News never stops in its quest to bring you the news from the region. Whether it ever started is another question entirely. My point being anyway, that on this fine evening when I cannot sleep, four stories have been posted to the website between the hours of 1am and 3am. Only one of these stories is mine (I have a penchant for evening work - I concentrate better but its nigh on impossible to contact anyone for quotes!) Are we super hard workaholics that shoot up caffeine like Pete Doherty does with 'other' substances. Allegedly. Anyways, I just found that quite amusing so thought I would share it with the world. My deadline is Thursday anyway, so technically Im right on time!

My caffeine high is over, I need some sleep.

Birmingham goes green

Another day, another story and this time its one about that jolly old piss up, St. Patrick's Day. I found that Selfridges had set up lots of lights that turns its exterior green in the evenings. I also found on the Birmingham Mail forums that there were a few people that weren't too happy because of the lack of attention St. George's Day gets in comparison. Obviously, the normal angle of Wow! isn't this great, was pretty much out the window as I never see the point of doing the same story as a rival only much later. So I searched the Birmingham Mail's archive for stories about banning England flags from Taxi's etc...I found this.

Strirring up some opinion I interviewed a couple of students on my favourite new toy, a big fancy interviewing recorder thing (I was never good with technology - if the phone rings I answer the TV remote). I was hoping to set up something much better for my interview this week, but a lack of ideas, interviewees and motivation meant that it got pushed to the bottom of my extensive list of things to think about doing.

Also, I was intending to write a story about the stabbing outside Matthew Boulton college but I refer you back to my post about repeating the news. I couldn't find anything 'new' about the incident and my report would have been the same as BBC News and the Birmingham Mail.

P.S. If anybody fancies leaving me a comment and proving to me that I'm not just writing to my tutor, Paul Bradshaw then that would be lovely.

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.