I would describe this week’s WINOL as a car smash.
We did not have a news rich bulletin; a lot of the team were in Coventry for the BJTC awards and some production members were away. I think that just because a newsroom is a bit thin on the ground, it shouldn’t compromise the output – if this was a news corporation it wouldn’t have.
This week, communication was the one thing we needed to step up with and we didn’t. This was with both the news editor and production wise, organisation would have helped everyone. It was proved so much that reporters need to be versatile and extremely flexible. If it’s not your beat, cover it. If your story falls through, find another one and pester everyone. Keep everybody in the loop. Employers aren’t going to care if it’s a dry week, you either have a story or you don’t.
We, on WINOL, need to work out how to have a bank of news stories to bring to Monday conferences so that there is always a back up.
Production analysis
Director: Bracken
Vision Mixer: Sean
Autocue: Katherine
Sound: Alex
VT: Me
I think production this week worked really well as a team, we delegated but also came together when we needed to – we did the heads together with Tom’s help. Despite being two members down, we got the bulletin out on time just even with packages coming into the studio later than five to three. Normally, packages are in on an okay time but this week the bulletin was full of last minute stories which Ian loved but production wise is a nightmare. The script came in very close to the wire but we managed to practice with a paper script about ten minutes before. Bracken stayed extremely calm throughout the whole process and just went for the broadcast which was brilliant. Post production went up fairly smoothly, it was just the uploading to YouTube that took a lot longer than we anticipated but me, Katherine and Bracken worked with it and did the best we could.
We did have some vision mixer issues because it was rushed and we had little if any time to rehearse, there were some glitches but Sean has not done it often. Sound this week was very strong and autocue flowed well as Spence did not stumble. This was tweaked in post production anyway but I think the team really pulled together.
Subbing took more of a back seat this week as we had big features projects to complete – the photoshoot with Katherine and Bracken and I went to the West End to film about Wicked. Emma, now being Website Editor, took on a bulk of the subbing with a few checks and tweaks from the team when we got a chance. Next week, focus will fully be back on subbing to get the best possible content we can up on the site. Reporters just need to remember the subbing bible and to just think about your story/its newsline because overall this week’s stories were weak and there wasn’t much to work with.
megrosefisher 