Blog Party

WNOL package on student loans

2007-08-10T14:51:00.000+01:00

Back in April, students looking forward to the easter break were told that when they returned to Westminster they wouldn't be getting the loan instalments they were expecting for their final terms. This is my report on the story for Westminster News.

WNOL report on the pain of Valentine's Day

2007-08-10T14:07:00.000+01:00

This Valentine's Day a book was published documenting the dangers of going on dates with "psychos". This is my piece for WNOL.

WNOL report on drug trials

2007-06-25T20:18:00.000+01:00

This is a package I did for WNOL about students from Westminster University taking part in drug trials for cash.

Westminster News Online driving package

2007-06-25T18:38:00.000+01:00

Here's my report for WNOL on the claim by a driving school that young people are driving dangerously because of video games.

From Coventry to Normandy (via Faslane)

2007-04-18T17:46:00.000+01:00

I'm off to Scotland on Friday for the NATO exercise I'm taking part in with a group of people from my course and I sure hope we'll have a swell time, just like these fellows.

I had a good few days at the BBC in Coventry - this afternoon I got to interview the chairman of the Haemophilia Society at Warwick University, who spoke to me about the start of an inquiry into how a generation of people were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C in the 1970s and 80s.

The patients were made ill when they were given blood transfusions from contaminated supplies, but until now the government has resisted calls to allow an inquiry to go ahead.

I also did a couple of telephone interviews and a few sets of the inevitable vox pops.

While my documentary progress has been lamentably slow (for which I mainly blame Rachael), I've enjoyed working at BBC Coventry and Warwickshire again and am really looking forward to ten days on an aircraft carrier.

Sent to Coventry - again!!

2007-04-16T16:02:00.000+01:00

I'm back at BBC Coventry and Warwickshire for a few days of voluntary work experience.

There still doesn't appear to be a logo for the station on the internet so I've had to make do with this little gem, showing the delectable Mrs Pru Poretta, who somebody has decided looks like Lady Godiva.

I've been chasing a couple of Coventry stories today, including an initiative announced by Coventry Police Force that is supposed to help them stamp out antisocial behaviour.

So what resources are being devoted to this ambitious project? Hundreds of officers? Extra CCTV cameras across the city? Community Support Officers?

Nope.

A grand total of one patrol car is being solely dedicated to eradicate antisocial behaviour from the whole of Coventry.

I can almost hear the hoodies running for cover.

Nonsense!!!

2007-03-24T16:43:00.000Z

In my opinion, there aren't enough notices up in shop windows that are essentially meaningless.

So here's one:

What does it mean? A fine prize* to the first person to correctly guess where this sign appears and what it means.

* Prize not available. Competition not open to anyone who was in the bar last night that I showed the picture to. You know who you are.

Westminster News is go!!

2007-03-15T22:25:00.000Z

Since I last blogged back in January I've been absurdly busy, completing my second work experience placement at Sky News (where I disappointingly failed to make it on air) and back on the course, where we've started our TV Journalism course.

We've been broadcasting a daily news programme, Westminster News, for the last few weeks and it's been a challenging but amazing experience so far.

Technical problems have been common but we've taken it all in stride and have managed to get some really good programmes on air.

I'm presenting a lunchtime show with Vix next Tuesday, which will no doubt be a fine addition to my showreel.

Two weeks down, one to go

2007-01-27T00:17:00.000Z

I finished my work experience placement at BBC Coventry and Warwickshire today, having really enjoyed the fortnight I spent there.

I was given loads to do and never felt like I was sitting around bored, or that I was being handed the crap jobs becauase I was 'only the work experience boy' (I did make coffee a couple of times and I've noted the details for the discussion we'll inevitably have in our radio class when we all get back).

I worked on some interesting stories and got to do loads of interviews and voicers as well as some vox pops, although not as many of those as I expected.

I managed to get three packages and four sets of vox pops on air, as well as three clips of me in an RAC driving test simulator with hands-free mobile phone kits in my ear and all of them attracted fewer complaints than Big Brother, so I was obviously doing something right.

The one thing I didn't achieve was my original aim of presenting a show by the end of the placement, so I'll have to rectify that next week at Sky News. Adam Boulton should watch his back.

Another day, another package

2007-01-23T20:48:00.000Z

I don't have anything profound or original to say about the story in the news at the moment of the guy who got attacked by a Great White shark in Australia, but the picture's cool.

I started working on my second package for BBC C & W today. It's a piece about some disgruntled shopkeepers in Hertford Street who are unhappy about an enourmous carousel being set up in a narrow, busy shopping street over Christmas.

I feel really bad for them - whoever came up with these plans must be completely insane, and I feel sorry for the people who are unable to get into their own shops to open up because the 40 foot truck parked with an inch of space on either side is directly outside their front door.

The piece is due to go out on Thursday morning on the Breakfast Show, ahead of an interview with a representative of the group responsible for maintaining the city centre.

It'll be cool to hear another piece of my work go out on air and I'll enjoy it even more if the presenter doesn't call me Jane this time.

What's in a name?

2007-01-23T07:23:00.000Z

My package about the regeneration of Far Gosford Street in Coventry was played yesterday morning on the Breakfast Show, introduced with the cue 'Our reporter Jane Hassam reports'.

That's going to be a sweet addition to my burgeoning demo tape.

It does, nevertheless, mean that in my week or so here at BBC C& W I've had a package, three voicers and four sets of vox pops played out, which is quite satisfying.

I was called into action on yesterday morning's Breakfast Show as a makeshift Broadcast Assistant as a result of a mix-up with the rota that meant nobody had turned up, so I had to answer calls from listeners and put them through to the studio if they needed to get on air.

I also had to log answers to the competition that callers gave and call them back to get some participants on air.

I spent the rest of the day chasing contributors for a story about Land Rover, which is based nearby, although my efforts went largely unrewarded. My only success was managing to book the editor of Top Gear Magazine to appear on Tuesday's show.

I also called James May, the presenter of Top Gear on BBC Two, on his mobile to ask if he would be available. Despite my expectation that I would be swiftly dismissed with a 'BBC Where? P*** off', he was really helpful and put me in touch with the guy from the magazine.

One week and many vox pops later...

2007-01-21T12:19:00.000Z

On Friday I had the great pleasure of waking up at 5:30a.m. in order to go into BBC Coventry and Warwickshire at 7:00. I was supposed to be working on the breakfast programme, although within hour of getting in I was asked by the producer of the mid-morning show if I would go out and get some vox pops. Didn't see that one coming.

I was asking people for their thoughts on the Labour government, and I got some good responses suggesting that the people of Coventry who know/care about politics are pretty fed up. There are also an alarming number of Coventrians who don't know anything or care about politics for whom I suppose ignorance is bliss.

I got a call back from the local councillor I'd been chasing for an interview on the Far Gosford Street story, who agreed to meet with me later in the morning. I interviewed him and cut the package in record time by my standards, i.e. less than four days, so barring any more freak weather that hijacks the news agenda my first package will be broadcast on Monday morning.

BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, 94.8FM, 104FM, 103.7FM - Get on those DABs people!!

A bad case of wind

2007-01-19T07:19:00.000Z

On Thursday the big story of the day in Coventry and Warwickshire was the gale force winds that wreaked havoc across the region, causing extensive damage to property and injuries to many people.

It was the first time I'd seen the BBC team here deal with a big breaking story as they kept up with all the reports coming in from various sources of what was happening. Although it may not sound like the most electrifying issue, for a local radio station it was massively important to keep listeners up to date.

Big Brother also received far more coverage than I would normally think justified, but in this case I think the media are right to be discussing it and people are right to be outraged. Whether or not the bullies are outright racists or not, what's scary is the fact that it took such a short time for the confrontation to take a racist turn.

I guess they started out arguing about some inane dispute in the house but as it dragged on, it seems that the real feelings of the people involved came to the surface and to see that develop is very unpleasant and alarming. Whether it justified parliamentary debate I'm not sure, but I do think politicians are right to condemn the show and its contestants.

Needless to say, I was working on something completely different. I looked into a story about Far Gosford Street, the oldest shopping street in Coventry that's threatened by redevelopment by the city, and an idea I came up with in the morning meeting about St George's Day. I also got in touch with a friend of mine at Warwick Uni for an interview about an event she's working on.

Having suffered what I'm sure is bullying for long enough, I'm getting my hair cut this weekend.

I just presented a news bulletin!

2007-01-17T18:35:00.000Z

I didn't really, but if Mike Dodd reads my blog then maybe he'll panic a little when he sees the title of this post and I'll get some small measure of revenge for being dubbed an alcoholic sex pest during our Radio News Reporting class.

Today was much better than yesterday for the simple reason that I got to do something other than vox pops. Variety truly is the spice of life.

I wrote and recorded a voicer this afternoon on the story of a guy who was stabbed after a row with a motorist that hopefully will get used in a bulletin this evening, and I wrote a couple of copy stories that made it into bulletins.

I'm also in the process of chasing an interview for a story tomorrow about thieves stealing satellite navigation systems from ambulances which would be quite interesting if it comes off.

Doesn't anybody in Coventry have an opinion?

2007-01-17T12:04:00.000Z

‘Excuse me, madam; do you have a minute to spare? I’m from the BBC.’

‘Ooh, no, I couldn’t.

‘Excuse me, sir; do you have a minute to spare? I’m from the BBC.’

‘No, I’m in a terrible hurry.’

‘Excuse me, madam; do you have a minute to spare? I’m from the BBC.’

‘No.’

‘Excuse me, sir; do you have a minute to spare? I’m from the BBC.’

‘You’re from where?’

The BBC.’

‘What are you asking about?’

‘Well, we’re asking local people if they think it’s a good idea for England to have its own parliament that sets laws exclusively for England.’

‘Why’s that, then?’

‘Because today is the 300th anniversary of the signing of the treaty that formed the union between England and Scotland, and we’re wondering if local people think it’s still relevant.’

‘Oh, right. That’s interesting.’

‘So would you be happy to answer a couple of brief questions?’

‘No.’

Vox pops suck.

A far cry from Harrow FM

2007-01-15T17:47:00.000Z

I started my two week work experience placement at BBC Coventry and Warwickshire today.

I wasn't able to find a logo for the station on the internet so I decided I'd use this one of Bob Brolly, one of BBC C & W's reporters learning the can-can at the Open Centre in Coventry in July 2006 instead.

I had a good first day, which started with a bids meeting at which I was caught off guard when asked for an idea by the news editor. I'd only been there an hour, and my idea (which I won't reveal) probably reflected that quite clearly.

The day went on to include the obligatory vox pops in the city centre that went out on air in the drive time show, which was pretty cool. Note to Rachael - saying you're from the BBC doesn't guarantee the punters will stop to talk.

I'm still getting used to Radioman, which is the BBC's editing programme, and ENPS, the newsroom system, but everyone here seems really nice and willing to explain things.

Adam Westbrook from City is doing a placement at C & W as well, and it's been good to catch up with him. He seems to have done a lot during the two weeks he's been here, getting voicers, interviews and a package on air, so I'm aiming to be presenting Drive Time by the end of my placement.

Fog? In England? In December? Surely not!

2006-12-27T16:37:00.000Z

Having lived on this fair isle for all my years of existence I've witnessed quite a lot of fog, snow, rain, wind and hail and I'm confident that all of these things are commonplace in December.

Last week my girlfriend and I were turned away from Heathrow when our flight to Munich was among the hundreds cancelled due to the weather. The cancellation of the flight was completely understandable given the conditions - the visibility was so bad that flying would surely not have been safe.

What was amazing to me was the fact that nobody at Heathrow seemed to be in any way prepared for the prospect of bad weather at this time of year. We arrived on Wednesday to a terminal packed so full of people that as soon as we entered we were unable to move and were soon turned away and told to call the airline from home.

There were no staff explaining what was going on, no announcements and no notices displayed anywhere, nor were there any alternative facilities for getting inside the airport to escape the cold.

On Thursday (Day 4 of the bad weather) we returned to discover that a long, narrow, unheated tent had been erected outside the entrance to the terminal. Once again, however, there was nobody telling people where to go, no signs displaying information and no obvious system for processing the vast numbers of people who were unable to fly.

If we'd been attempting to fly from a provincial airport in a third world country staffed by part-timers who needed to get back to their goat herds the crap organisation would have been understandable. For the busiest airport in the world to be so utterly incapable of handling such mindblowing twists of fate as inclement British weather in December is a joke.

Having said all that, we had a lovely time and Munich is an amazing city. Just don't try and get there from Heathrow if the sun isn't shining.

Binge drinkers FM

2006-12-13T22:09:00.000Z

This is the package I recorded for my Radio News Reporting class that I handed in on Monday.

The piece examines an initiative that has been announced by Lambeth Council to curb binge drinking in the borough in the run up to Christmas by means of a poster campaign warning people of the dangers of overdoing it in the pub.

I spoke to a Labour councillor, bar manager and police officers about the scheme and they were all really helpful in making contributions to the story.

I also put in some long hard hours in various pubs in Lambeth to ensure the story was as balanced and thorough as possible. It was tough but I'm glad I stuck at it.

It was hard work getting it all done (24 hour Cool Edit Pro marathons are definitely not for me) but I'm really pleased with the end result. Thanks to everyone that contributed to the piece.

One for the paedants

2006-12-10T12:09:00.000Z

As I was travelling to university on the tube this morning, I heard an announcement that brought to mind Chris Horrie's 'Fresh fish sold here' story in an early lecture on my journalism course:

'Ladies and gentlemen, due to necessary engineering works there is no service on the Waterloo and City line this weekend.'

I think a Freedom of Information Act request into how much unnecessary work London Transport carries out on tube lines might be in order.

Privacy laws in The Times

2006-12-06T09:53:00.000Z

There was an interesting article in The Times yesterday that I think would be useful ahead of the law exam I'm really looking forward to taking next week.

A judge has granted an injunction preventing a man whose wife had an affair with a public figure from revealing the identity of the celebrity on the grounds that it will adversely affect his own wife and children.

He ruled that the husband owed a duty of confidence to the adulterer and that revealing his identity would cause undue stress to the adulterer's wife, who has already threatened suicide.

The article in full is here and there's a comment piece that accompanied that article by The Times legal editor here.

NUS Student Accommodation Survey launch

2006-12-05T15:20:00.000Z

I went to the launch of the NUS Student Accommodation Cost Survey at the Marylebone campus of Westminster University yesterday.

The survey is intended to define accommodation costs for UK students and to improve the value for money that they get, be it in institutional accommodation, private halls of residence or privately rented housing.

The aim of the survey is a valid one and will hopefully lead to significant improvements in the standard of student accommodation. The talk was interesting, with the ever-entertaining Boris Johnson pitting the Tory point of view against Bill Rammell, the Higher Education Minister.

Veronica King, the NUS VP for welfare, was also on the panel and she made a strong case for the need for action to ensure students are not frozen out of higher education by spiralling accommodation costs. Despite the success of the debate I came away from the event wondering how much difference the NUS is actually capable of making.

Nobody could deny that it is very good at organising events, rallying support and getting its message across, but as with the march against increasing tuition fees that Rachael and I covered for Smoke News, I'm not convinced that the government takes it seriously enough.

As I'm writing this I can find no evidence on the internet that the Admission:Impossible campaign earlier this year has prompted any revision of government policy. I hope that's not a pattern.

Sketchbeat rocks Kentish Town

2006-11-26T12:56:00.000Z

Last night I went to see a great band called Sketchbeat play a gig at the Bull & Gate in Kentish Town. My girlfriend's friend's brother, Mike Spencer-Chapman, is in the middle on stage in this picture.

They formed in autumn 2005, and play regularly in London and the South East. They were touted as a potential breakthrough band by a Radio One DJ after winning the NME's national battle of the bands competition in September 2006.

The band's Myspace page explains how thanks to their 'punchy drums, funky riffs, trumpet hooks and massive stage presence, they have been likened to a blend of Queen, Muse and James Brown.'

It took a couple of songs before I realised that their lyrics are infused with more than a little irony, but once I figured that out, I loved it. It's very difficult to carry off ironic rock music successfully, but these guys are talented enough that they do it very well.

They are playing at the Metro Club on Oxford Street soon. It's well worth checking them out.

Before the gig, we went for dinner at a restaurant on Tottenham Court Road, which unwittingly led us out of the Tube into a throng of marching women.

Apparently it was International Day to End Violence Against Women yesterday, and the women were marching against rape and male violence.

I looked at the GNN website which explains some of the reasons behind the march. The issues that prompted the campaign to be launched are important ones, but despite this there's no mention of it anywhere on the BBC or Sky News websites that I could see. Apparently students protesting against top-up fees are more newsworthy.

Ten minutes is a long time in radio

2006-11-24T19:26:00.000Z

We produced our longest radio bulletin to date on Wednesday; a ten minute news programme of which I was appointed producer.

Into those ten minutes, we managed to cram a disco between David (our Middle East editor), Cherie (presenter) and Shaimaa (Mideast expert) on the phone from Mike's office, sports and business reports from a separate studio, up-to-date domestic and international news stories. Oh, and a telephone interview with Sofia in Kenya. Amazing.

Everybody did such a good job, and despite the above-average amounts of profanity leaving my lips during the show, I thought it went really well. Well played to everyone involved.

Next news day is Monday - another ten minute show for which we have considerably less time to prepare. If you 're averse to swearing, probably best to steer clear of the radio department until lunchtime.

Kurt Schork Memorial Awards

2006-11-20T20:52:00.000Z

I went to the above event at the Frontline Club last Thursday with Rachael, Victoria and David.

The evening was hosted by Christiane Amanpour of CNN, who I interviewed at the end of the ceremony for View Magazine.

Kurt Schork was a New York Times reporter who, along with cameraman Miguel Gil Moreno di Mora, was killed in an ambush in Sierra Leone in May 2000.

A trust was set up in Kurt's memory, and honours two journalists every year - one freelance foreign correspondent and a local reporter who has covered contentious or controversial stories for the local media.

The winner in the first category this year was Steven Vincent, a freelance foreign correspondent and art critic for the New York Times who was killed in Iraq in 2005, after claiming in an article that Basra's police had been infiltrated by Shia death squads.

The award was accepted by his wife, Lisa, who has since his death spoken out on behalf of journalists who travel to perilous locations to report on stories about which they care passionately. She discusses her thoughts on her husband a year after his death in an interview with the National Review Online.

The winner of the award for a local reporter went to Massoud Ansari, an investigative journalist working for Pakistan's Newsline magazine. Ansari rose to prominence when he published an article that brought to light a link between Pakistani extremists and the July 7 London bombers.

Listening to the presentation of the awards was a humbling experience. Hearing the terms in which both Schork and Vincent were described by all those who spoke about them revealed a passion for their work that would inspire anyone with a goal of working as a journalist, and reinforced my belief that the work journalists do in unimaginably trying circumstances is hugely important.

Following the presentation of the awards, a panel discussion was held on the question: With technology forcing huge changes in the media and will the future belong to local and freelance journalists?

The discussion was chaired by Amanpour, and the panel comprised Ansari, David Dunkley-Gyimah, Paul Eadle (founder of OutThere News) and Nazerin Ansari (diplomatic editor of Kayhan, a Persian weekly paper).

While some interesting points were raised by the panel and the audience, I felt that the discussion failed to really get a hold of the question. What I wanted to gain from listening to people with such a wealth of experience in the industry was a clear vision of where things are headed. Instead, I think too many of the questions asked of the panel were motivated by the desire of many journalists to get their own opinion heard.

I spoke to Christian Amanpour after the discussion ended, and as soon as the interview has been edited I will post it up.

A final bonus of the evening was that we got the chance to meet Ada m W estbrook, who is on the PGDip course at City University. As well as writing a blog that is regularly championed by David Dunkley-Gyimah, he is a really nice bloke and it was good to talk to him about the differences between our respective courses.

Thanks again to David for getting us into the event (and the bar afterwards).

My Smoke Screen debut

2006-11-12T23:23:00.000Z

This is the first story I worked on for Smoke News - a piece that Rachael and I put together a couple of weeks ago on student recycling at Westminster. It was edited and uploaded onto YouTube by Ruth Owen (who spelt my name wrong, for the record).

*For the benefit of Chris Horrie, my hairdresser, Laverne, was attending a Gay Pride rally in Brighton and my lilac suit was at the dry cleaner's in Old Compton Street.

Guardian Student Media Conference

2006-11-09T17:39:00.000Z

I went to this event at the Rich Mix Centre in Bethnal Green with Rachael and David yesterday courtesy of Julian March at Sky News, who managed to get us some passes for a very heavily-subscribed event.

It was fascinating listening to the talk that Jules and Rob Kirk (also from Sky) gave on the future of Sky News, if for no other reason than to make it clear that what David Dunkley-Gyimah taught us during our online journalism module is in line with what big media companies are working towards.

We were shown a picture of what a Sky News service of the future might look like - moving away from the idea of 'linear' news broadacasting and developing an interactive, largely user-generated service. In the model, the viewer goes through a series of menus at the setup stage, selecting the device they will use to receive Sky News on (television, PDA, ipod, PSP etc) and then chooses the specific types of news items they want to be shown (current affairs, politics, sport, showbusiness etc).

The system allows the user to download news programmes to the portable device and watch at his/her leisure, with the programme compiled from existing Sky material but tailored to the user's individual preferences.

The other key development we heard about was the rise of user-generated content in news programmes. Just as members of the public sent video from their mobile phones to broadcasters on July 7, much of the content on the preview we saw was footage (of the airport security alert in the summer, for example) was made up of footage shot by the public and included people speaking live on air to the studio presenters via their phones.

We also attended a session chaired by Mark Lawson from The Guardian on interview techniques which was interesting, although difficult to follow due to the horrible acoustics in the room and the prevalence of questions that followed this format: 'I am a journalist. I recently interviewed (insert name)/attended (insert event)/reported on (insert anything)... and I would like to know your thoughts.' The future's bright.

Busted!!

2006-11-07T18:26:00.000Z

Just read a piece in The Times about Ellenor Bland, a Tory councillor, who has been suspended for sending a racist poem about immigrants by e-mail. I put this story in a bulletin yesterday in my Radio News Reporting class, but this is the first time I've actually read the whole piece.

Not too keen on populating my blog with racist literature, so The Times article in full is here.

I particularly like the fact that in her defence, she claims that she isn't the only one to use the e-mail account the poem was sent from:

"I haven't sent anything that I'm accused
of sending. Someone else did. My e-mail
address is something that's used by my
husband too. It's not my personal e-mail
account."

So it's only her husband that's a fan of racist poetry. Well, that's alright then.

So many fireworks, so little time...

2006-11-07T10:38:00.000Z

Belatedly, I have managed to upload some pictures of the fireworks display I went to on Saturday night at Battersea Park. It's apparently the second-best in the South-East (according to The Times) and didn't disappoint, with animated chants of 'oooohh' and 'aaaahh' leaving my lips almost involuntarily.

Battersea Park put Friday night's fireworks at Clapham Common (no such thing as bonfire overkill in my book) to shame. Clapham's display was free, a shockingly generous move by Lambeth Council which is the money-grabbing bane of my life, but the main attraction for the locals was probably the cover the bang of the fireworks provided while they shot each other.

Met a girl and her boyfriend on Saturday at Battersea, both of whom are print journalists on local papers in South London. They both confidently rejected the notion that the medium in which they work has its days numbered, although they had some really interesting thoughts on the rise of citizen journalism.

They also told me that they make work experience kids go out and knock on the doors of people who have recently suffered bereavements to try and get a comment. Now that's a crap job.

Getting used to being a journalist

2006-11-01T14:30:00.000Z

Had a really interesting couple of days going out and 'being a journalist'. On Sunday Rachael and I - ably assisted by my good friend Clive Coupe (BA Hons)- went to film the march against student top-up fees. We started out at the University of London Union at a press conference (where we realised we didn't have a microphone stand, and were bailed out by the BBC's cameraman who had some tape) and then moved onto the rally in Trafalgar Square. We got some good footage of the speakers, who included Tony Benn, and also a lot of vox pops with the students themselves who came across really well. It's so funny to see how people look at you when you turn up somewhere with a camera - hopefully we looked professional enough to fool them into thinking we knew what we were doing.

Yesterday I went to Westminster with Cherie and Neil from the course to get an interview about a vote that was being held on the government's actions over Iraq. We were all amazed by how easily anyone can turn up to lobby their MP over any issue - democracy at work! Not convinced that we could have influenced the vote, but it's nice to know you can try. We did our interviews outside in Parliament Square, talking to the protestors who live in tents out there. Neil got accosted by Brian Haw, who animatedly informed him that he is not an anti-war protestor, but a pro-peace advocate, and I interviewed a woman who spoke really clearly about what their hopes were ahead of the vote. Unfortunately for the protestors, the government narrowly won, but I have a feeling they won't be abandoning their posts any time soon.

Student journalism rocks (and doesn't always have to upset people)

2006-10-24T18:55:00.000+01:00

Well, after a badly needed two week break, I feel I've mustered the energy to add a second post to my blog.

Rachael and I spent last week putting a story together for Smoke News, Westminster's student TV news programme. It was a great experience, and although I haven't seen the final edit of the piece yet, the director of the show seems pleased with it which is cool. Doing the piece raised some interesting questions about what constitutes a good piece of student journalism - is it really true that you've only done a good piece if you have managed to piss somebody off? I'm not convinced that making enemies should really be a goal for budding journalists, and I think we produced a piece that addresses an issue without getting on anybody's nerves.

Next assignment looks like being a protest on Sunday against top-up fees for students, so if you see either Rachael or me approaching you with a camera and microphone, please don't run away!

A daunting place to start

2006-10-10T20:00:00.000+01:00

The internet is intimidating enough when all you're used to doing is buying music, reading about sport and watching films that my mother wouldn't approve of. It's therefore pretty terrifying to start a course in Broadcast Journalism and discover that it's not only the future of the industry I'm trying to break into, but pretty much the future of the whole world. To someone more knowledgeable that's probably been common knowledge for 20 years but to me it's very daunting.

In that spirit of initial trepidation I'm therefore truly amazed to find myself blogging at 8:00pm having spent the afternoon working on the website I'm designing, a week after doing my first ever powerpoint presentation. We're not even a month into the course! It's awesome! I am so glad I finally decided to take the plunge and give up my job to do this course, it's been fantastic so far (even shorthand is growing on me) and my hesitation about the wisdom of leaving my job at Sky News has completely faded.

The people I'm studying with are really cool and as unlikely as it may sound, the heavy workload we've had to contend with since we started has been lightened by the fact that it's all really interesting. Long may it continue.