John Maynard Keynes the economist, can be described as both the destroyer and the hero of capitalism for different reasons. The Marxists hailed him as the destroyer of capitalism because of his theory to reject the laissez-faire economic structure that had dominated the western world up until this point. Keynes said that in order to get the economy moving we needed to employ people to do meaningless, pointless, domenial jobs such as digging holes and filling them up again. By doing this, we'd be putting money in peoples pockets which they in turn would spend and put back into the economy. There was of course great criticism of this theory. The main problem being that while giving people work would indeed provide funds for people, to maintain a profit the workers would need to work for less money that the cost of what they were making otherwise there was a risk of a market crash. The theory was seen as unsustainable.
Keynes however had another solution... the Government could print more money to provide benefits for the people who needed them. However, this caused a massive inflation and caused the value of money to go down. Keynes believed that money was only as valuable as it's interest rate. To put it simply, if there is more money to go around then the price of living goes up. That 50p loaf of bread will become 60p. This solution can be applied to modern day where Gordon Brown printed more money at the height of the recession. David Cameron is sort of anti-Keynes in the way he doesn't believe that printing more money will boost the economy and so he is now trying to take money out of the economy by cutting government spending.
Keynes can be seen as the hero of capitalism as his plan to get the economy working is still being used today.
Saturday, 29 May 2010
Friday, 28 May 2010
Lets Just Have One Pint... (The Drunken Ramblings Of Two Girls On A Mission For Greatness)
Well!! As you lovely creatures of the earth know (or should if you did your HCJ reading and indeed you should have as we had an exam today...) alot of the NEW JOURNALISM material was written under the influence of drugs, i.e. LSD and as me and my lover Gabs Louvel have just stumbled home from some post work pints into a bottle of Vodka I thought now would be as good a time as ever to get my thoughts out into the open.
I would like to start with...
Gabi wants a word...
"Okay, so my names Gabs, I'm not a student, and I basically never have been, but here we go, I'll give it a go anyway...
So me and Kayleigh were chatting today about this thing she has been learning about called existentialism, and then about death and such things, and pain, and meanings of life. All of that charming walakazam stuff.
Thing is way I see it, if I'ma gonna post an opionion out there...is that the meaning of life... well that's never going to be known, guess everyones minds works in too many different ways.
This is one of my biggest flaws, as people who don't know me, I'll fill you in, I like to look at every view point, and the worst bit... I can see everyone's understanding to how they got to that point of view and how they see things in that way, so how can I have an actual opinion myself you may ask?! Well, it doesn't matter.
That is it. You can have an opinion. You can argue it. You can let it go. You can learn from it. You can strengthen it. You can act like you agree with someone elses.
But at the end of the day, what ever your saying for those 5, 10 minute verbal struggles... they'll be forgotten by tomorrow, and whatever is happening in your life.
So what do you do?! You wake up in the morning and you live your life. No regrets, no thinking, just do it, you'll never be more alive than you are right now. You'll never be younger, more beautiful and more opinionated. So even if you don't know what to do, then thats brilliance in itself because how many people get to wake up and CHOOSE if they're going to "mong out" or "make a difference"
Remember the biggest difference you'll ever make in life is making someone that little be happier, that little more self assured, that little more confident that their life means something. Even though the happiest thing they'll ever learn, and perhaps are unable to ever understand is that happiness will never be theres."
Kayleigh returns...
Just one more thing. "Love." a feeling, or just a word? At the age of 21 I certainly don't feel like I have told somebody I'm in love with them and meant it. I care about some people more than others but that is all. Do feelings even exist? You can't hold a feeling, you can't touch a feeling so how can we determine whether it is there? I tell people I love them on a daily basis because I appreciate certain characteristics about them but society has built up the word 'love' to hold some sort of fairy tail meaning and I just havent experienced that!
Sometimes I wonder if I'm even here. How can you guarantee that everything you know isn't the result of a bigger forces imagination?
<3
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Sunday, 23 May 2010
General Election Coverage – Gonzo Journalism
I arrived at the newsroom at 10am. The atmosphere was tense. People were already getting stuck into their individual roles that would keep them busy for the next 20 hours. It felt like a normal day apart from the BBC News Channel on the projector screen being watched vigilantly for any updates on the big election race. Opinion and exit poll results were coming in all day filling the news team with excitement, dread, nerves and fear all in one. It was going to be a long day.
By 1pm the smell of Red Bull was rife. What a mistake. Don't these people know that drinking caffeine too early gives you a massive come down when you need to be most alert? I, myself decided on an early night with a hot chocolate to mentally prepare for the reporting marathon but I suspected others had refused to let a simple all nighter at University stop them from partying the night before.
As with any big project, things didn't run perfectly in the run up to broadcast. Everyone was pretty excited at the prospect of having outside broadcasts from across the country but it wasn't until very late in the afternoon that the Skype connection was even confirmed with many of the contacts. Several of these posed problems but nothing too major! The initiative within the outside broadcasts (OB's) was to be able to send reporters to the different constituencies so we wouldn't have to rely on other news channel sources. This made the whole experience feel even more real. We were all there and we were making the news happen. An experience each and every one of us would take away with us and utilize in our future careers in Journalism.
Towards late afternoon, time began to evaporate. The regular newsroom routine had been abolished and so it was necessary to avoid the clock at all costs if I was to keep my head about me. Otherwise I risked losing motivation. I was becoming swamped with pressure from the election editor, Chris Horrie, to keep in contact with the world and his mother, so I was forced to find a way to juggle all this correspondance and also find time to revise every leader of every party in every constituency - I wanted to be properly prepared for my on camera role that would come later on.
With 10pm fast approaching like a cross country train, the pressure on everybody was immense. Rehearsals had been scheduled to start at 7.30pm but with some bodies missing and some slight technical issues there wasn't a huge amount of time to devote to run throughs.
I was introduced to Graham Bell, the anchor for the first 2 hour stint who would be throwing over to me and my screen for news from the different counts. He was a charming, confident guy who showed no sign of nerves. He had graduated from this very course 2 years previous and moved on to the likes of Sky... he had bigger fish to fry now and it was clear this was just something to do for him.
The gallery was not an inviting place during the 8 hour broadcast. I avoided it like the plague... I was not about to subject myself to any frustrated outbursts from overworked directors and stressed out vision mixers. That was not my game for the day. I put on a smile and made my way down to my post in the corner of the studio. While I wasn't on air I was making calls to the OB reporters to find out what was going on so I could decide which person to line up for when Graham was ready to throw over to me. This allowed me to establish an idea of what questions I could ask them.
The first 2 hours went by like a dream. The night was still a massive novelty for everybody involved and the reality that we wouldn't be walking out until 6am had not sunk in yet. Graham took to it like a duck to water, even improvising when the script didn't seem relevant at the time. I assume sources such as Google and Twitter were his Bibles as he seemed to churn out news about the three running candidates as it happened like a reporting machine. I had a few pre-broadcast nerves but unlike a WINOL bulletin, this was not going to be all over in 10 minutes so I decided to try and address the OB reporters as I would normally. I didn't want to look all stiff and formal.
Between midnight and 2am Lucy took over my role in a sort of tagteam effort. Five minutes was all we had to get the microphone and earpiece off off me and onto Lucy and for me to get acquainted with the autocue... which would be my new companion for the following 2 hours. And while the studio was filled with a guilt trip attempting 'adopt an Orangutan' advert I soon found a scripting issue. The autocue contained material that we couldn't use in this part of the night. A few strops later and Rob was enticed to come and help me out.
Autocue issues aside, things continued to run smoothly. Claire was given the difficult job of following on from Grahams more than impressive performance, but she stepped up to the mark and delivered a faultless performance. The studio erupted in giggles when Claire recovered from a vision mistake with a Orangutan gag. Everyone was still in very high spirits.
The final 2 hours were not the final 2 at all. We had expected results for Winchester in shortly after 4am but as luck would not have it, they came in at 5.30am. Everything that happened after 4am was a daze. I had been given a sudden burst of energy one hour earlier and was on a bit of a come down by this point. Adrenaline was running low and the finish mark was on my mind. I spent the last 2 hours making calls to my reporters to make sure they were safe and I found myself returning to the studio for a final stint in OB presenting. I don't remember if it went well.
Coffee.
The end was nigh and everybody had put in a sterling effort to keep this ball rolling. Everybody gathered in the studio on tenterhooks waiting for news from Stu. He was about to reveal the new leader for Winchester. A few moments silence and the words "It's Brine!" became audible. Stu was the man of the hour, he'd taken the results before anybody. Winchester was now a Conservative city. A few moments as we faded to black and then a round of applause. Tiredness always makes me emotional and the clapping brought it all home. We'd done it.
By 1pm the smell of Red Bull was rife. What a mistake. Don't these people know that drinking caffeine too early gives you a massive come down when you need to be most alert? I, myself decided on an early night with a hot chocolate to mentally prepare for the reporting marathon but I suspected others had refused to let a simple all nighter at University stop them from partying the night before.
As with any big project, things didn't run perfectly in the run up to broadcast. Everyone was pretty excited at the prospect of having outside broadcasts from across the country but it wasn't until very late in the afternoon that the Skype connection was even confirmed with many of the contacts. Several of these posed problems but nothing too major! The initiative within the outside broadcasts (OB's) was to be able to send reporters to the different constituencies so we wouldn't have to rely on other news channel sources. This made the whole experience feel even more real. We were all there and we were making the news happen. An experience each and every one of us would take away with us and utilize in our future careers in Journalism.
Towards late afternoon, time began to evaporate. The regular newsroom routine had been abolished and so it was necessary to avoid the clock at all costs if I was to keep my head about me. Otherwise I risked losing motivation. I was becoming swamped with pressure from the election editor, Chris Horrie, to keep in contact with the world and his mother, so I was forced to find a way to juggle all this correspondance and also find time to revise every leader of every party in every constituency - I wanted to be properly prepared for my on camera role that would come later on.
With 10pm fast approaching like a cross country train, the pressure on everybody was immense. Rehearsals had been scheduled to start at 7.30pm but with some bodies missing and some slight technical issues there wasn't a huge amount of time to devote to run throughs.
I was introduced to Graham Bell, the anchor for the first 2 hour stint who would be throwing over to me and my screen for news from the different counts. He was a charming, confident guy who showed no sign of nerves. He had graduated from this very course 2 years previous and moved on to the likes of Sky... he had bigger fish to fry now and it was clear this was just something to do for him.
The gallery was not an inviting place during the 8 hour broadcast. I avoided it like the plague... I was not about to subject myself to any frustrated outbursts from overworked directors and stressed out vision mixers. That was not my game for the day. I put on a smile and made my way down to my post in the corner of the studio. While I wasn't on air I was making calls to the OB reporters to find out what was going on so I could decide which person to line up for when Graham was ready to throw over to me. This allowed me to establish an idea of what questions I could ask them.
The first 2 hours went by like a dream. The night was still a massive novelty for everybody involved and the reality that we wouldn't be walking out until 6am had not sunk in yet. Graham took to it like a duck to water, even improvising when the script didn't seem relevant at the time. I assume sources such as Google and Twitter were his Bibles as he seemed to churn out news about the three running candidates as it happened like a reporting machine. I had a few pre-broadcast nerves but unlike a WINOL bulletin, this was not going to be all over in 10 minutes so I decided to try and address the OB reporters as I would normally. I didn't want to look all stiff and formal.
Between midnight and 2am Lucy took over my role in a sort of tagteam effort. Five minutes was all we had to get the microphone and earpiece off off me and onto Lucy and for me to get acquainted with the autocue... which would be my new companion for the following 2 hours. And while the studio was filled with a guilt trip attempting 'adopt an Orangutan' advert I soon found a scripting issue. The autocue contained material that we couldn't use in this part of the night. A few strops later and Rob was enticed to come and help me out.
Autocue issues aside, things continued to run smoothly. Claire was given the difficult job of following on from Grahams more than impressive performance, but she stepped up to the mark and delivered a faultless performance. The studio erupted in giggles when Claire recovered from a vision mistake with a Orangutan gag. Everyone was still in very high spirits.
The final 2 hours were not the final 2 at all. We had expected results for Winchester in shortly after 4am but as luck would not have it, they came in at 5.30am. Everything that happened after 4am was a daze. I had been given a sudden burst of energy one hour earlier and was on a bit of a come down by this point. Adrenaline was running low and the finish mark was on my mind. I spent the last 2 hours making calls to my reporters to make sure they were safe and I found myself returning to the studio for a final stint in OB presenting. I don't remember if it went well.
Coffee.
The end was nigh and everybody had put in a sterling effort to keep this ball rolling. Everybody gathered in the studio on tenterhooks waiting for news from Stu. He was about to reveal the new leader for Winchester. A few moments silence and the words "It's Brine!" became audible. Stu was the man of the hour, he'd taken the results before anybody. Winchester was now a Conservative city. A few moments as we faded to black and then a round of applause. Tiredness always makes me emotional and the clapping brought it all home. We'd done it.
Friday, 7 May 2010
LIVE ELECTION COVERAGE!
It's approaching 3am and the Winchester News Online team are still working very hard bringing live election coverage to the public, as we will be until the very last results come out... whenever that may be. If you happen to stumble across this blog in the next couple of hours then you should check it out.
www.winol.co.uk
<3
www.winol.co.uk
<3
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