30th November Strike Live Coverage

On Wednesday, 30th of November the Winol team is traveling all the way to Southampton to broadcast a LIVE strike coverage from the Unite the Union office on the Avenue. Originally, we were planning to do it in the studio but we decided we want to be as close to the heart of strikes as possible, so the union office seemed perfect. It is the first time we broadcast something outside of the studio so it is a big challenge for us but the preparation is going well so far, so lets hope for the best.

There will be over 20 unions striking all over the UK over pensions. This will cause disruptions in places such as schools, hospitals, airports, courts and libraries. It will be the largest co-ordinated action ever seen in the UK.

WINOL reporters and producers are preparing for a 6-hour Live coverage. It will include in studio special guests discussing the issue, outside broadcasts from Winchester, Southampton, Basingstoke and London. We will be delivering breaking news stories as they happen on the day. This is going to be a UK-wide live coverage as we have our own correspondents from other universities who will be working with us on the day. That includes: London Met, Buckingham and Manchester,. We will not be missing anything.

My role for the day is director which I share with Dan, who will be taking over from me after 3 hours, at 15.00, or whenever I need a quick  break. Directing is going to be quite difficult in the office as I will be in the same room as the presenters who will, of course, be mic-ed up so anything I say will be picked up by their mics, therefore Cara, Hana (the presenters) and I have worked out a sign language that will help us communicate, if unnecessary, during their links and during an in studio discussion with guests. Otherwise we will only be able to communicate when the packages are running. We are hoping to get plenty of rehearsals done in the studio tomorrow so everyone knows exactly what it's all going to be like on the actual day.

The in studio guests are highly important during the coverage. So far we have:
1. Councilor Keith House: Leader of Eastleigh Borough Council/ Liberal Democrat opposition leader of Hampshire County Council. He will be coming in at 3.00 pm.
2. Ian Woodland: Unite representative for Southampton. He will be coming in at 2.00 pm
3. Seb Miell: University of Winchester Studen Union president.

I have also managed to get in touch with Tommy Geddes, the Deputy Vice Chancellor, who is willing to give us an interview on the day from campus where our Winchester correspondents will be. We are also pre recording an interview with Councillor Royston Smith. The Conservative Leader of Southampton City Council.


I think there are more guests still to confirm their attendance 

Here is the Production Rota for the day. I will print out and put it on the wall in the union office. But have a quick look now anyway.

Winol Life with Lorelei Reddin

It has been three weeks since last Winol Life. The delay is due to my going away to Estonia for a week, but also the lack of packages last week. Fortunately, we managed to produce it this week with the help of Lorelei Reddin who kindly agreed to join our show this week. She has been the entertainment editor of Southern Daily Echo for the past 6 years and she is still really enjoying it. Lorelei was very friendly and bubbly and provided our features reporters with a good, constructive criticism and good advice for their future video features.

There were no technical problems at all this week. Not major ones anyway. Lorelei came in at 11.40, as I went to meet her the rest of the team stayed in the gallery and rehearsed the script. We used three video packages this week: The re-edited Giraffe restaurant review, games review and an exclusive interview with the marketing manager of Coldplay- Alex Eden-Smith. Lorelei really enjoyed watching the packages and she thought they were really good.

I feel that Winol Life is getting better and better, the team knows the show well now and understands what it needs to look like. We also work really well together as a team, I think this is really important that we know how to communicate with each other. Everyone is always supportive and positive. Well done everyone, great job this week!

Enjoy watching Winol Life.

Freedom of Information Act

Freedom of Information Act allows people, including journalists to have the right to access any information held by public authorities, such as Government departments, local authorities, the police and hospitals. It can be any any information. This is important for the citizens to know everything they need to in order to make democracy work. By having a access to essential information they can plan for the future, as well as choose which politicians to vote for.
This is also an interesting source of information for investigative journalists. The Freedom of Information Act allows them to produces free exclusive news stories. We had one of them at WINOL a few weeks ago produced by Julie. She investigated the number of previous convictions of police officers in Winchester, by sending a request to Freedom of Information Act. 

The frustrating thing that journalists have to go through while investigating is the fact that they information can be really delayed, so the story has to be planned in advance. If a public authority receives a request for information it must make a response within 20 working days, either giving the requested information or explaining why it can not be supplied. 

There are various reason for why the information may not be supplied. That includes the possibility that the public authority does not hold the information, or the request would exceed the cost limits for the provision of free information or that the information is covered by exemptions under the Act, and therefore need to be supplied.

The information that is held by the public authority will be provided free of charge if it costs government department £600 or less to provide, or any other public authority £450 or less to provide. 

Law lecture- Confidentiality and Privacy

Confidentiality – official secret act and test of confidentiality

Privacy - Disputed territory between Article 8 (right to private family life) and Article 10 (right to freedom of expression)
In the public interest- not just of interest to the public.

Confidentiality

Here is yet another rule to the selection of important rules that Journalists have to obtain every day of their work life while reporting on current affairs. Confidentiality is run by Common Law

Everyone is allowed to keep secrets as long as it is not in the matter of public interest ( as long as it doesn’t have an effect on the public)

If confidential secrets given to somone, that don’t affect the public were passed onto the third party without a permission then they committed breach of confidence which is a crime that may be a subject to a civil action for compensation.

If the secret information is revealed to a journalist then this has the potential to be Third Party Breach of Confidentiality.

Breach of confidence is committed when someone passes on secret information that has:
1. The necessary quality of confidence
2. There has been no permission to pass on the information
3. The detriment is likely to be caused to the person who gave info.
4. The information must have been imparted in circumstances imposing an obligation of confidence

All of above must be used for the information to be confidential.

In order to stop confidential information from being published the person to whom the secret belongs to has to get a temporary injunction preventing publication of confidential material. An injunction against one media organisation is an injunction against all publishers.

Super injunctions are different. They have been broken by MPs using parliamentary privilege – and journalists using qualified privilege.

Privacy

Also known as personal secrets.

Article 8 of the human right states that everyone has the right to respect for their private and family life, their home and their correspondence.  It is unacceptable to photograph anyone in a private place without their consent.

Privacy mainly affects tabloid and celebrity Journalism.

As in every other set of rules, there are expectations in the privacy code set on grounds of public interest:
1. Detecting or exposing crime or serious impropriety
2. Protecting public health and safety
3. Preventing the public from being misled by an action or statement of an individual or organisation.

Consent is an essential part in video and photo journalism. There are two types of consent. A journalist has to get one of them to be able to either film or photograph the scene/person.
1. Explicit consent: is when someone signs a written permission/ contract that allows to publish a picture or an article
2. Implicit consent: understanding of being filmed, for example in the crowed when everyone knows that the camera has a purpose to get shots of the crowed. If a person doesn’t want to be included in the shot they can just move away from it.

Public Interest

There is no legitimate public interest in knowing the whereabouts and behaviour of individuals generally in their private life despite appearing in public, regardless of their private live. A legitimate expectation of protection of one's private life is to be extended to be the criteria for assessment. A fair balance is to be struck between the right to privacy and the freedom of press

WINOL LIFE with Elizabeth Barnett

The new episode of Winol Life is now ready for you to watch. This week has been a high success compare to our last show. The organisation, preparation, and the overall outlook of the show improved dramatically. We should all be proud of our hard work and great effort.

This week we were honored to have the editor of Hampshire Life magazine on our show. Elizabeth Barnett kindly took out of her busy schedule to join our on-sofa discussion. Elizabeth was very nice and chatty, which made the show look so professional, relaxed and informal, which is what we are aiming for. She gave a very good constructive criticism to our features reporters but also gave all of us a really good advice on how to get into the industry after we graduate. I think many of us felt more confident about the future after our lovely chat with Elizabeth.

We used a variety of shots this time. We used 4 cameras instead of 3. The fourth camera was a PD170 that we had plug into an OB box outside the studio to make it work. That camera was set especially for the short yoga show. I thought it would be a good idea to have one of the presenters demonstrate yoga. I thought it would look like one of big morning shows such Daybreak. We also used radio mics, rather than long poles with gun mics on the top of them. The studio as a whole took a long time to set up, as in terms of production I would consider this show to be the most complicated one out of all the other things we do, which is Sportsweek and the news bulletin.

I also slightly changed the style of WINOL LIFE, trying to give it a little bit more character and making it look like a professional chat show. I knew we were lacking something last time we filmed it. This time I added headlines- a 'coming up on the show' character, which I think is essential to keep the audience interested and intrigued. I also made new WINOL LIFE strap lines for the in studio guest as well as the reporters, which I think also looks quite effective, but please do give your opinions.

The problem of the sofas:
THERE IS NO PROBLEM! No longer, anyway. We had a slight issue in the first show, as there were no sofas on the campus available for us till I spoke to Tommy Geddes, and who kindly let us borrow the sofas for the first show. However, he wanted us find out own sofas after that which was impossible. We even tried to get some money which would allow us to go to IKEA and choose our own perfect sofas, but that wasn't an option. After negotiating with Tommy, he allowed us have the sofas for the rest of this term, so for the next 3 episodes of WINOL LIFE

Elizabeth arrived at 1.30 and I took her to the news room where our WINOL LIFE team was waiting to meet her. I introduced her to everyone and showed her around our news rooms. Soon after we went through the script explaining what the show was going to look like. We explained the questions that we were going to ask her about her and we also showed her our features packages to help her get an idea of what feedback she would be giving live in the studio.

Once we were in the studio we didn't have any technical difficulties in the gallery (Hallelujah!) therefore the show went smoothly and fairly   quickly. Elizabeth is a natural speaker so she seemed like the task of giving feedback was a simple task and she did it brilliantly.

The post production was a simple process once again. The show was 15 minutes long and my aim was to have only 13 minutes which would be simple to upload onto, whereas 15 minutes is too long and we would use the good quality like last time and I wanted to avoid that. Cutting over 2 minutes seemed almost impossible. But with Chris' help I managed to cut out the most unnecessary bits.

Overall, brilliant show and brilliant production work so WELL DONE everyone and thank you for your hard work.



Hope you enjoy the show, please leave comments, critics and thoughts.