Last years WINOL - a little journey back in time

Just sitting here, watching and criticising my news reports from last year.

My very first news report was made for the dummy run we had at Winol. It happened during the week when Armistice Day took place and I made a report on what was going on around campus on this day. It was a very nice ceremony that took place, and I learnt all about working under pressure. This mainly due to the fact that Armistice Day (11/11) took place on a Wednesday, at 11am, and my deadline for a finished story was for 1pm - I made it and was very happy with my outcome. But looking back on it, I know that with the knowledge I have today, I could have done even better!

First story I covered, that went on air, was about being homeless in Winchester and what the councils and the government are doing in general to handle the numbers of people sleeping rough. More than 500 people got turned away in 2008 from Winchester Churches Nightshelter, and manager, Michele Price, let's us know what they are experience through cooperating with the local council etcetera. A very interesting story where my views on society changed quite a lot, and also made me realise how organisations like this do incredibly much to be able to help the sometimes forgotten ones in society.

The following week I got trapped in the middle of a news story as a car smash happened right in front of the bus I was travelling in. Unfortunately I did not have any technical equipment with me and couldn't record anything, but was able to get in contact with the news room and get a few reporters out on the road to cover the story. I felt really excited, at the same time as I felt sick. A very weird thing but a very good learning experience. Instead, I covered the Christmas Lights being switched on in Winchester and from this I made a little interview with the people involved in getting this all together and angeled it with the huuuge amounts of money being spent each year to get this up and running. Quite interesting as I just a few weeks earlier explored the decline of money wihtin organisations that deal with major society issues such as homelessness and now finding this amounts of money going into sparkling lights...

I also managed to produce a report on how Winchester has been affected of the unemployment during the ongoing recession, and I interviewed Martin Tod and Steve Brine and got their views on the job climate as well as the publics. Interesting, but hard to find a proper nice angle, it's much easier to do that with fluffy news!

Throughout this period of time I also helped Maxine to puzzle together her news report considering mushrooms growing in students homes around Erasmus Park in Winchester, and yes, it was disgusting!! An experience that was everything but pleasent, but we were very pleased with the end product!

A period of time where I have learnt a LOT! But it seems I have still got some more work to do before I can feel 100% pleased about my contributions to Winol - if 100% ever will be reached as a journalist.. I think not..

WINOLive

Another couple of weeks with WINOL live have passed since I last updated this blog. Two weeks ago we had quite a good bulletin up and running almost at 5pm (a little bit delayed due to technical issues) but we felt good to be able to produce an even better bulletin than the previous ones. This week the headline news included a car crash taking place in Winchester and the various Children in Need events that took place on campus.



I went out to get some photos from the annual Christmas lights that were put up in town and also to interview BID's manager Keith Wilson to find out more about the annual event. In the end, my package got scrapped - even though I absolutely loved it - and I ended up helping Maxine Erasmus putting together her package on the dreadful conditions students at Erasmus Park lives under in their student halls.



Interesting right? Well better check out bulletins out every week to be sure not to miss anything!!

Everything from the first sparks of news ideas to producing the final product seemed to go so much smoother and easier this week than the three weeks before, which is a good sign - hopefully! Also, teamwork and communication appeared to exist in a much larger scale then earlier, which I think helped everyone in all positions to not feel as stressed and concerned about getting everything ready in time.

Unfortunately I was sick last week and could not participate in the bulletin being put together then, but from what I have seen and heard it did not go as smoothly as the previous week. The wonderful world of technical equipment was not on our side and even though packages were produced on time, things fell through due to dodgy equipment and such.

Hopefully this week will be a super hit, since it is our last real bulletin before our Christmas break! So do not forget to tune in on Wednesday at 5pm when our bulletin goes live :)