Radio Newsday 17.02.10: Talbot FM.

Similar to Fire Radio, Talbot FM has a much younger target audience of 16-30 year olds and covers the South East Dorset area; factors which we considered throughout our broadcasts. Fire Radio has a relatively young audience and the news they broadcast is typically aimed at young people, concerning topics like music, graduate jobs and items which will impact on young people. As editor I started the day by assessing news worthiness of ideas, delegating stories and organising the running order. Good quality news must be relevant to listeners so we localised the national stories and included some local stories, such as the re-launching of a community project, the protest on the Wessex Way, and road works on the A338.

Considering the young target audience, a story concerning the Brit awards would be entertaining. It is important to draw the listener in immediately, therefore we took a fresh angle on this story and looked at how the awards had affected album sales rather than simply list who won what at the ceremony, which other local radio stations were doing. Similarly, the McQueen inquest would have been interesting to fashion students, and we spoke to the design school at Bournemouth Arts College University to localise the story.

Most of our stories in this first bulletin were local or national with a local angle, for example the national unemployment figures were broken down regionally. One of the BBC’s fundamental editorial guidelines is accuracy; therefore we checked the stories we used were correct using many reliable sources and verified facts by using official unemployment figures.

We were fully prepared for our first broadcast; the bulletin was presented clearly and we did not encounter any problems. We had a few voice clips and sports news included in the broadcast. Overall I was very pleased with this bulletin:




In preparation for the second bulletin, I made sure that stories were already lined up before 11:00 for the 12:00 broadcast so that we were not rushed or left without stories. We changed the running order by including different stories; we decided to drop the council story in particular because there were no developments. However, Edward Sherry from BBC Solent recommended that in a professional radio newsroom, most big stories would be carried through all bulletins, because audiences tend to only listen for a certain period of time and may miss other bulletins. In future, I shall make sure that headlining stories are carried through.

The bulletin included two new clips which were edited in time for the broadcast, and new local sports stories. Our feedback was very positive; Edward complimented the writing style of the traffic stories which I had written, and praised the presenting and time keeping:



Fortunately, our 1pm bulletin was longer so we could include more stories. This bulletin was also successful; it included a variety of stories, either new or ones we had used previously which were re-written with a fresh angle. Again, we had fresh clips and a voice piece:



All three news bulletins were successful because they were well planned, presented well, included a variety of stories and had plenty interesting, appropriate clips. In future bulletins, I will ensure that there is more continuity throughout, for example, using the same introduction, especially stating the time. Edward also stressed the importance of signing off effectively to make the listener want to listen to the next bulletin, which I will consider in future.

TV Newsday 2: Rolling News

TV as a medium allows the audience to see for themselves what is happening in the world around them, and make their own opinions or judgements about what they see. It came to our attention that a new council funding system will result in some pre-schools in the area facing closure or losing staff. Considering this story is relevant to local families, we visited one of the affected pre-schools to find out more. We spoke to the leader of the pre-school, interviewed him, and took some great GVs of the school. Pictures sometimes tell the story more powerfully than words; the images of the children’s play areas and work they have done are poignant considering the playgroup may close.

We also went to Bournemouth high street to film GVs of Skipton Building Society, to correspond to a bulletin concerning the bank. As a news story, it was in the interest of the public as the bank had revealed some customer’s bank details accidentally to others. This is another reason why TV is an appropriate medium to report the news; arguably pure storytelling of this news item without footage would have been fairly boring to an audience, whereas the pictures add interest as people can see exactly which building society was concerned. When we arrived back at university, I edited the pictures of the building society and scripted some national news bulletins.

We worked extremely well as a team, as we all met our deadlines and we were in the studio for a rehearsal an hour before we were broadcasting, with an abundance of pictures. Effective teamwork is essential, as we each rely on one another to make the programme a success. Today we were presenting the rolling news programme, and I was one of the presenters. After a few run-throughs, we corrected mistakes in the autocue. At the last minute, we received some breaking news which we included in the bulletin. By adding a story into the running order, this reset the autocue, which coincidentally reset all of the changes we had made. This unfortunately resulted in a few problems during the live broadcast, but overall the news programme went well.

TV news programmes are more interesting as the news can be presented in a variety of interesting ways. One strength of the programme was that it covered a variety of news stories. The programme contained a mix of oovs, upsots, packages, a phone interview, and a third presenter who provided the background on the lead story on Alzheimer's disease. Accidentally, we left a symbol on the screen for the entire broadcast stating that the show was live, however the phone interview was pre-recorded and this would be seen as deceiving audiences.

The final news programme exceeded my expectations. I was concerned that we would not all be able to meet the deadline, however through working as a team we managed it. I am pleased that our group were in the studio so well in advance, although it was a shame we had a mishap with the autocue in the live broadcast.

> iNews 3rd Feb 2010 from Adam Parker on Vimeo.

Radio Newsday 1: South Coast Radio

Our target audience was for people aged over forty over a wide range including Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Since we were broadcasting for South Coast Radio, we considered the regions and tried to make ourselves relevant to different areas by covering stories in various places, however due to the lack of interesting stories around, this meant that we focused a bit too heavily on Dorset stories. We also mentioned Weymouth, the Isle of Wight and Bournemouth, and in the sports news we mentioned Southampton FC, however ideally a radio broadcast would have a much broader range to include as many listeners as possible, and in future I would try to achieve this.

Because the media is constantly changing it is important to accurately report the news so that a radio station is trusted. The BBC aim to inform, educate and entertain audiences, and we attempted to embody these news values into our bulletins, by discussing stories which were relevant to our audiences. We discussed stories which were in the public interest, such as Holocaust Memorial Day and also included lighter stories such as sport to entertain.

A station with a similar geographical audience range, such as BBC Solent, tends to include local and national stories, and commercial stations such as Heart FM usually lead with regional stories. We led with a story about the Iraq inquiry, as this had been covered in all local and national radio stations and was the main story of the day. Some stories we included throughout the day such as Holocaust Memorial Day, the end of the recession, Haiti, and speed cameras were all national stories with a local spin; for example, we focused on events happening locally marking Holocaust Memorial Day. The other stories we included were regional. Considering it was a particularly challenging radio news day, I think we did well with these stories.




I did not make any mistakes when reading the script, so I am pleased with how the first broadcast went overall, although we realised that certain scripts needed tweaking. For example, the recession story lost it's immediacy as it started with yesterday’s news. It is important that radio scripts are as polished as possible; if a story starts with the word “yesterday”, listeners will lose interest, therefore we should avoid this in future.

The second bulletin also went rather well. I think I spoke clearly, although I did stumble over a few words in a story. We were frustrated with the 1.30pm bulletin. An error in the audio clip line up meant that the clip did not correspond with the story. Also, the sport was lacking the audio the reporter had prepared, therefore the sports news was cut short. We were late getting into the studio and could not check that everything was in the correct order, which impacted on our broadcast:




We were very ambitious, and mistakes were unfortunately made during the 1:30pm bulletin, however we definitely learnt from the incident to make sure we have all the scripts printed at least fifteen minutes before the broadcast and to double check the audio clips on Burli to make sure they correspond with the clips.

REVIEW: Journey’s End at The Lighthouse Theatre

Eighty-two years since its first performance in London, the renowned wartime play Journey’s End is still touching, heartbreaking, and relevant. As dead soldiers have been paraded in Wooten Basset upon their return from Afghanistan, Journey’s End reminds audiences about the sacrifices made in 1914-1918.

After the war, R. C. Sherriff’s play was wrongly interpreted as “anti-war”, and it is obvious why. Harrowing screams of pain, sporadic whimpers of fear, and endless, tedious waiting, all seem to emphasise the futility of war. Yet, this was not Sheriff’s intention; camaraderie, friendship and love are entrenched into the play and shed a positive light on the war.

Based on Sherriff’s own experiences, Journey’s End is set in the trenches at Saint-Quentin, France, towards the end of the First World War. The play follows the lives of six officers awaiting a German offensive, focusing on one particular officer, Stanhope.

Once a fine young gentleman at school and an exceptional “rugger” player, after three years of war he is an alcoholic veteran, and must inspire his comrades to face their imminent deaths. Time passes slowly as the soldiers wait, before racing to a heart wrenching climax as the soldiers face their “journey’s end.”

Directed by Alastair Whatley, the performances were magnificent; in particular, Rhys King’s portrayal of the agitated Hibbert was sensational and heartbreaking. Tom Hackney’s performance of Raleigh was also thoroughly compelling, and Graham Seed (Osbourne) and Christopher Harper (Stanhope) were consistently strong throughout the play.

The set was simple, but the atmosphere was remarkably believable. The lighting and sound effects complemented each other to produce frightening action scenes, and the smell of tobacco filled the theatre, enveloping the audience and drawing us in to their tiny dugout.