R.I.P Britain's strict grandmother

When I was a young child and had been particularly naughty, my parents would threaten a sentence at Gran’s house where she would sort me out. This used to put the heebie jeebies up me and I would immediately start obeying my parent’s orders so I wouldn’t have to go. Now that I reminisce, I find it quite funny that I was so petrified to stay at my loving grandmother’s house – and she really is lovely – but I guess it’s because, despite her lovable nature and sense of fun… she did NOT take any crap.

The reason I tell you this…

 As I watched the social fall-out from the news of Maggie Thatcher’s death yesterday and tried to grasp a better idea of why she was so loved as a Prime Minister by some and despised by many more I came across a video clip of her in the house of Lord’s telling how the then President of the European Commission “wanted the European parliament to be the democratic body of the community, he wanted the commission to be the executive and he wanted the council of ministers to be the senate” to which she did not agree and quite simply barked, “NO, NO, NO!”.

(This reminded me of my Gran telling me off and now that I think about it they look quite similar…)

She then goes on to suggest that the Labour party would give up a degree of the country’s independence by agreeing to a single currency in line with Europe… a premonition perhaps?

This video clip speaks volumes on the type of leader she was. She made her decisions and she stuck with them. She had a mighty back-bone to go with her iron fist and I’ve never seen a Prime Minister like her in my lifetime so far. Sure, her politics didn’t benefit everyone but no Prime Minister realistically has that power.

It is very easy to remember a person’s failings. For example, my sister will never let me forget that the scar on her forehead is from when I hit her with a ‘skydancer’ when we were children. However, the good that people do can often be overlooked. I believe the same rule applied to Lady Thatcher. Yes she introduced the Poll Tax which was devastating for a lot of families, she took the children’s milk away and many people feel that the Falklands war could have been avoided… but she also reduced the country’s debt and turned us from one of the poorest in Europe to the third wealthiest. I personally don’t think we’d be in the economical state we’re in now if she were still in power.

Let me make it clear that I am in no way a right wing girl… or a left for that matter. My political knowledge is very limited and I simply agree with some ideas and disagree with others. I just feel that on the eve of her death, there was a little too much celebration and not enough respect for one of Britain’s most influential leaders so far.

R.I.P Margaret Thatcher – Britain’s strict grandmother.

                                   Kayleigh's Gran?

      Margaret Thatcher?

Equal Marriage

If there's one thing that I've noticed from the victorious result from parliament on the subject of equal marriage, it was the amount of my friends in same-sex relationships who stated to the world 'I will one day marry the person I love'. And it is this statement that makes me realise just how much prejudice there still is against homosexual people in a otherwise quite 'modern' and westernised world.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by the outcome because I honestly believed that a winning majority of politicians would rule against same-sex marriage because of their old fashioned views fueled by their religious connections...

I was, however, disappointed to learn that a Winchester Conservative politician - let's not name any names - voted against equal marriage but this is the same individual who voted in favour of the rise in tuition fees so he's not exactly flavour of the week anyway.

How has it taken so long for a large chunk of the population to be  entitled to the same nuptial rights as everybody else anyway? Why have I always had a special entitlement to be wed to the person I love - if that person is the opposite sex to me? It makes no sense really, especially considering - a study conducted by The Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that 45% of marriages will end in divorce before a couple's 50th anniversary anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong but, was getting a divorce at one time not thought to bring shame to a family... and we've managed to break down that stigma.

I believe it's because, every single person either knows what it feels like to be stuck in a  relationship with the wrong person - or at least emphasise of how that feels. But, not everybody know what it feels like when you love somebody of the same sex. Unless you are gay, you can only begin to imagine what sort of hate and prejudice you would need to face on a daily basis.

The ruling on equal marriage in the UK is a huge step in the right direction for humanity. That's not to say that there isn't a lot of bigoted people in the world and we still need to do a lot to ensure that the younger generation are able to go forward and extinguish hateful language/actions associated with prejudice of all kinds.

I hope that the term 'civil partnership' will become extinct as more and more of the gay community are able to legally cement their love in the same way as everybody else. Why should they have to use a term that automatically estranges them?

A friend of mine said she was once asked, 'How old were you when you realised you were gay?'

To which she replied, 'Well how old were you when you realised you were straight?'

Spot-on. We're all the same. Let's not allow ourselves to be identified by our sexuality.

GHOST DOG!

Yes, you heard correctly. Ghost dog. This is exactly what I convinced myself I had encountered a few mornings ago when I 'awoke' in my boyfriend's bedroom from something climbing on the bed and sitting on my legs. The sensation was exactly the same as when my dog at home climbs up and goes to sleep on my legs. But as the only canine pal my boyfriend had sadly met his doggy demise a couple of years back - there was absolutely no rational explanation for what had happened to me.

You might be wondering what I saw when this happened. The answer is nothing. I was completely paralysed no matter how hard I fought to sit up. It was actually a really odd experience. I went to sleep and when I woke up again a couple of hours later I was still convinced I had a phantom doggy pal.

Later, when my boyfriend arrived back from work I explained what had happened and he advised me to look up 'sleep paralysis'. My eyes were instantly drawn to this picture...

The Nightmare, by Henry Fuseli (1781) is thought to be one of the classic depictions of sleep paralysis perceived as a demonic visitation.

- Picture from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

I was very spooked by this, as I felt it depicted exactly what I had felt the other morning - except I thought a dog was sleeping on my legs. Obviously, I'd rather have a dog than a demon sharing my bed...

Anywho - upon some reading I have established that the phenomenon of sleep paralysis usually occurs when REM sleep is disrupted and comes at a transitional stage between wakefulness and rest, which makes sense as I had woken before 7am for a wee and gone back to bed.

No ghost doggys at all... :(

Oh please! I'm British Thank you...

Us Brits. We do like to beat around the bush don't we. With that in mind, here is a selection of phrases often dropped before an insult to minimise the offence taken by the receiver.

• No offence but...  (I am about to say something offensive)
• I'm not being funny but...  (I am about to say something which could be construed as 'funny')
• With all due respect... (I have absolutely no respect for you and your views)
• Forgive me but... (I'm using naivety to get my point across)

Why can we all not just say our honest opinions without the fear that the person you are talking to might not like it? Why must we justify ourselves with these pointless phrases before making a bold statement? I'll tell you why. The intense subconscious need we all have inside us to be liked. Whether you believe this point to be true or not, ask yourself this.

If you had a very controversial view on something and felt very strongly about it, be it; the government, immigration, religion - what have you...

WOULD YOU EXPRESS THIS OPINION OPENLY IN PUBLIC? ...well you might, but the likelihood is that you would respectively keep it to yourself until you were in quieter and more trusted company.

...and why...?

Because everybody has opinions and every opinion has an opposite argument and to air your own too often would invite your points to be queried and argued thus causing friction among your peers. Why do you think Winston Churchill had no friends?

The British public in general don't like to rattle any bones. We're all so polite with our 'thank you's and 'please's. I spent a weekend in Paris once and had spent a whole week learning such pleasantries in French and was quite perplexed to find their manners were not as apparent as our own.

Although, our P's and Q's have seen the light of sarcasm and cursing. "F**k off, please." "Err excuse me but you are giving me a migraine"

If you're feeling up to taking a little survey - next time you're out, count the amount of times somebody says 'thank you' to you. And then count how many times you believe they meant it - perhaps we throw the terms around and the people of Paris only say it when it is heart-felt. They are, after all, the most romantic people on the planet. Allegedly. 

The Face of Hate.

This man is Chet Walken. Chet lives in Texas and believes that people who aren't white are of a 'degenerate' race and believes the term 'nigger' is perfectly acceptable.

Chet thinks President Obama needs to leave the White House purely because of his skin colour.

Chet believes the earth can be no older than 8000 years old because the 'Lord' made the earth and put all his creatures on it. 

In short - Chet Walken, is a moron.

At first I thought the Twitter page could be a wind-up. Some sort of ironic gag poking fun at the ignorance of Southern Americans - as hypocritical as that might sound to the argument of this blog. However, as I read on I realised this was not the case.

This Family Guy clip comes to mind when witnessing his pure ignorance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE_OehRLH3s

Chet pretty much wished 23 year old Bolton footballer dead after his collapse on Saturday and tweeted "#Muamba is a British nigger? I thought he was stinking up my beautiful #USA! In that case I care even less if he lives or dies" 

Wayne Rooney hit back at the racist 'christian' and 'conservative' Chet with the following; "u are a sick person. U should be ashamed of yourself. U make me sick. #blackorwhitewereallgodschildren"

He has been using religion as a crutch for his racism but believes he lives a good Christian life-style.

After Chet's timeline became inundated with abuse from Muamba well-wishers and other members of the British public, he suggested that people in the UK were 'pussies' for not appreciating his freedom of speech. Chet is inciting hatred everyday on his Twitter feed but outraged that anybody might actually be offended by his 'free speech'.

I cannot explain the frustration I have felt at reading this man's Tweets but I have come across a hashtag #GetWalken4GOPOffTwitter which is gradually gaining popularity. Please. If you have already taken two minutes out of your day to read this blog then please take a further 30 seconds to contribute in seeing Chet's hateful Twitter page removed.

Thank you for reading.

Udder madness!

"Breast milk, to be specific human milk, is the milk produced by the breasts (or mammary glands) of a human female for her infant offspring. Milk is the primary source of nutrition for newborns before they are able to eat and digest other foods; older infants and toddlers may continue to be breastfed, either exclusively or in combination with other foods."  Unknown. (2012). Human Breast Milk. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_breast_milk. Last accessed 19th January 2012

Perhaps one of the most natural events in the world is that of a mother feeding her newborn baby with the milk that her body has produced for that child. But what about a mother feeding another young mother's child? Is this socially acceptable? What about a mother expressing milk for her pals to taste? 

A friend of mine at work who has just given birth to a lovely baby boy, recently celebrated her birthday. While around friends under the influence of alcoholic beverages, she did exactly that. One by one the friends around her tasted her milk. When I heard of this I was quite disgusted to be frank but when I asked myself why I was disgusted, I couldn't really back up my opinion with a valid reason.

Most of us drink cow milk everyday; on our cereal, in our tea. It really is one of the most versatile ingredients in the kitchen. What most of us try to block out is the fact this milk had to be squeezed out of a cow's wobbly bits! 

Why is it okay for us to drink another species milk which nature intended for its calves but the idea of drinking another human's milk past the age of two is absolutely 'disgusting' and actually quite a taboo topic.

I realise I've asked a lot of questions in this blog post and I don't have any answers for them but I would love to hear any opinions on the topic so please leave a comment!

"What do you do with a BA in Journalism...?"

...Write a review on Avenue Q of course!

If you've ever sat and watched Sesame Street with a younger family member and wished life were as simple now as it were when you were young enough to appreciate it - enduring hours of puppets mindlessly singing about letters in the alphabet and eating cookies - then Avenue Q is for you.

The story surrounds a young college graduate (puppet), Princeton, who has left college full of the ideologies one collects through early life. He wants to know what his purpose in life is and why he is alive. He comes to Avenue Q -a suburb full of sell-outs and nobodies - to begin a new job, however he's laid off before the first day!

In comes Kate Monster... the girl next door (puppet). The first character to say the word 'fuck' which set the tone pretty accurately for the rest of the show. Kate has a dream to open a school just for monster children as she feels they're discriminated against... Princeton and Kate have a heated debate about racism which leads nicely into a cheeky little number, "Everyone's a little bit racist" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM&feature=related Avenue Q manages to tackle everyday 'grown up' problems in a elementary - oddly sensible way!

Well to cut a long story short, Kate falls in love with Princeton who in turn falls in love with her but finishes things as he thinks being with her will stop him from finding his 'purpose'. Princeton has a one night stand with a slutty puppet, aptly named - Lucy the slut (so genius!). But when he realises there are many types of dream and you can find happiness in helping others they get back together at the end of the story.

The set is very cleverly done with only five or six cast members and countless puppets. The cast are very skilled are precise with their switching of characters and choreography. It can be hard to ignore the cast members at first as they are actually 'invisible' - grown ups like to use their imagination too! However, it becomes normal and the cast members also portray how the puppet is feeling through their facial expressions.

A nice little personal touch came in the form of a Pompey jibe which had the Southampton fans cheering and hooting.

An absolutely brilliant show. Luckily for me I went with a friend who works at the Mayflower and acquired a front row seat for £12.25 but I would pay full price to see it again tomorrow. I feel Avenue Q tackle just about every sensitive issue about growing up and leaving college and manage to put a optimistic spin on life's pissers!

Must see.

Everything in life is only for now...

My first published article!

So yesterday I was let loose on a program called inews which is the 'newscity' of the real world! I was asked to write an article on the latest happenings on Japan using the news wires coming in. My final draft was tweaked as there were a few stylistic preferences of ITN but here it is...

Radiation from the stricken Japanese nuclear plant will reach North America in days, a Swedish official has claimed.
The particles are expected to travel across the Atlantic to Europe but they are not thought to be harmful to health.
Meanwhile, rescue efforts have been hampered by a cold-snap which has brought heavy snow to some of the areas worst hit by last week's tsunami and earthquake.
Some evacuation centres are also experiencing water and heating shortages, and many parts of the country, including Tokyo, are bracing themselves for rolling blackouts.

Experiencing ITN...

This week I have left the safety of humble Winchester for the hustle and bustle of London to take part in a two week work attachment at ITN. Now obviously as I expected, upon entering the building on my first day there was one word on everybodies lips. Japan. Words cannot describe the devastation that has been caused and pictures say more than a thousand words.

One upcoming event I had let slip to the back of my mind until Monday was the Royal Wedding. Well that all came crashing back to the forefront of my mind as I was given the task of sorting through the ITN Royal Wedding Channel and changing the format of the public videos for SMS. Exciting stuff, until 5 hours later when I was still muddling through them and getting sick of any word even slightly associated with royalty. I guess the reality of it all though is that you do have to spend hours and days staring at the same thing in the journalism industry. The trick is to find ways to look at the material with fresh eyes every time you come back to it. I myself decided to imagine Prince William in his birthday suit and with a full head of hair...

Day two arrived, nerves were starting to subside and I felt a bit more at ease around the newsroom. While I was at a loss for something to do I took a walk over to the entertainments department and started talking to a guy called Johnny about his job. He is a games news reporter. Him and his side-kick make daily bulletins rounding up the must-have games and offering their professional opinion on them. We got chatting about how the games world is taking over the movie world in that the public excitement for upcoming games is absolutely phenomenal. At this point I was asked to let Johnny get back to his busy work. Oops!

I spent the rest of yesterday arranging showbiz tapes with the promise of being sent on a uber cool shoot on Monday... this has got me quite excited!

I'm not sure what today has instore for me but so far it has involved administrative tasks of ordering couriers and writing labels. After that I hope to have a bash at Avid which is the editing software they use here. I've been looking over peoples shoulders and in theory it looks very similar to Final Cut Pro, just with different buttons. How hard can it be?

Flawless UK Tour Review

Flawless UK Tour

When I was asked my friend Mike to go to Portsmouth and watch Britains Got Talent's dance reject act Flawless, I thought "Oh god, this is going to be TERRIBLE". However Mike promised we'd take a cheeky detour to my favourite restaurant first and I needed a good distraction from my dissertation anyway so I went.

When we took our seats there were a pair of white gloves on each seat - a sure sign that this show was going to involve the audience is some highly cringy way. I sat down and set the gloves a side and decided to open my mind like a parachute to the figures who were flip-flopping and sliding on to the stage.

What I was expecting was a group of young lads, slightly full of themselves, simply breakdancing for 2 hours. What I got was a production of emotions. Each dance telling a different narrative. Each dancer took on their own personal character – if you will – and in the audience I felt like I had gotten to know them on a personal level. Ok, they had all the components of a manufactured phenomenon, the cheesy catchphrase, “Chase the dream not the competition”, the flock of screaming girls and the general swagger of jesus at the second coming. Despite all this you could not deny they had such raw talent – and very desirable torsos but that is neither here nor there!

The team of dancers prove in their tour that they are not one trick ponies, with hints of disco, ballet and contemporary styles blended in with their own street dance genre came a fantastic hybrid of genius that got even the most huffy of grandparents squirming and boogying in their seats.

A big egg shaped face emerged on the screen in some sort of intergalactic theme and it became clear that the dreaded glove moment had come. Instructions boomed out throughout the theatre for a simple but effective hand routine to occupy us while the dancers changed for the next big projection they were about to give us. It was actually very amusing, and the screen threw back images of the audiences attempts which provided eruptions of laughter.

Despite my initial apprehension I would definitely recommend this show to people of all ages for a feel good evening – and if you're a student like me then it will only cost your Jaegermeister piggybank £5. Bargain! 

Magazine Journalism Lecture 4

Reviews and Critics

'Theatrical Viagra' - Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room

Basics - 

Simple format; What is it? Is it any good? Does it do what it says on the tin?

Subjects; Music, theatre, comedy, dance, food, books

Gonzo reviews - 
A piece where the reporter is so outspoken that it become mores about the reporter than the actual subject. Michael Winner - Sunday Times. AA Gill -The Sunday Times. Matthew Norman - The Independent.

Reader service - 
ie. Sight and sound magazine

Judgement - marks out of 10?

Literary Criticism -


The Quarterly
The Fortnightly
The Westminster
Edinburgh Review
Punch (Thackeray)
Household Words (Dickens)
Times Literary Supplement (Virginia Woolf)
Daily Telegraph (John Betjemen)

Book Reviews - 

Badly paid
Have to read whole book
Freelance
Experts in fields
Authors themselves
Perks - Gastons - send 3 copies
Staff - Booker judges


History


Crusading "consumer rights" movement pioneered in the US by journalist Ralph Nadar. 
Consumers' Association 1957


What not to do


Avoid personal preference, ie. "I like this because..." No good in serious consumer journalism.

2010... You've been wonderful!

It's a new year, a fresh start, a clean slate but I was just not ready to say goodbye to 2010 before a quick look back at the highlights...


January

This is New Years eve 2010 with my good friends Lorna and Mike. I don't know the other girl. 2010 was an important year for me from the start. I had closed doors in 2009 and was ready to move on. This night started at Mikes house and several bottles of Vodka and Archers and ended with us trying to 'interview' some Polish girl on her night - which she believed would appear on ITV news the next day. Amazing stuff.


February

This right here is my pre-drinks on my 21st birthday. Notice the disapproving looks from my peers. Their concerns were justified later that night....


March

Lucy's 20th Birthday... and what a fun night we all had! Each of us donning a different colour to transform into our favourite Mr.Men character... although I kept being asked if I was a sick smurf. I don't think I had the Little Miss Naughty look down :(


April

After what felt like the longest. winter. EVER... the sun made a cheeky appearance in April. And BOY were we pleased to see him!


May

Well, the results of the night may have left our country in a dire position but for us at WINOL as budding journalists we were given a golden opportunity by our lecturers to do an overnight 8 hour continuous broadcast covering the election. It was tiring but exhilerating and I'm so proud of everybody involved for pulling it off. We did good. BRIIIIIIIIIIINE! :)



June

June was a particularly good month for me so I have chosen two pictures! The first is of the stage at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow on my trip to see Snow Patrol. I have family in Glasgow and had seen they had a date there so on a complete impulse I bought two tickets and phoned my auntie to let her know I'd be paying a visit. I took my crazy uncle with me and we had a great day making friends from across the country and drinking Gamers cider! The fact that Editors were one of the support acts was the icing on the cake and spending the rest of the week with my little cousins was the cherry :)

The second picture needs a little more background info. This is a picture of me and my friend Gabi on Bournemouth beach one night. After a lunch date where we both spent the afternoon moaning about life and how we needed to do something spontaneous... Don't Stop Believing by Journey came to mind and we both decided we wanted to get the midnight train going anywhere! She had to get back to work but we arranged to meet outside her work at 11pm and jump on the last train - which happened to be heading to Bournemouth! Our friend Marina met us at the station, a few cans of cider, couple of towels and a few hoodies in tow and we left to spend the night on the beach telling life stories and discussing the future and what-not. The next morning we were £30 worse off (we were mugged... don't ask!) and we got caught coming back without tickets so got fines too. Financially the worst spontaneous adventure ever but it was so much fun I don't regret it!


July
According to photographic evidence, July doesn't exist...
I do happen to remember this being an iconic month for me and one of my, at the time, very close friends. July was very fun!



August

In August I quickly went blonde... and then quickly went back again. The decision was made over a bottle of pear vodka with Gabi where she told me she had always wanted to see me blonde. It, of course, went orange on account of the redness before  hand. There was some minor swearing and teary eyes. I stuck it out for a week or two though before going brunette again. August brought with it a very wise lesson for me. Don't make hair style choices when drunk...


September

September brought with it a new face for the Milner Place family. Katey Marshall joined us and the house was instantly a more homely place. Before Katey I lived with the two boys and another girl but she didn't socialise or even acknowledge any of us and so there was generally a bad atmosphere. Katey changed things and we've all become very good friends!

October

Anybody who knows me well will know I'm a bit of a fitness dodger... at secondary school I famously avoided football in P.E. for a whole term with notes written by my 'mum' telling of a 'bad back'. I hated it so much! In October my housemate Dom got all of us in the house to sign up for Hockey try outs. At first I was adament he would never find me on a hockey pitch, but I joined and I love it!! The above picture is me with the hockey girls on the high street during a stop, drop and roll on a social.


November

November... the month of Chesney Hawkes! November saw me ousted from my News Editor role at WINOL and plonked into a new one of Entertainments Editor and within 24 hours I had an interview with the one and only set up for the very next day. Probably my proudest moment of the year, academically.


December

December... my little sisters turned 18. I chose this picture because my sister Sammy's hair is absolutely outrageous where we are giving her birthday bumps. It always makes me laugh :) Unfortunately my other sister Danielled saw what was happening and ran out the room before we could catch her too! The disadvantages of twins... We got her in the end though... we got her good!

So this was my year! I've bid a sad farewell to 2010. It really was a pretty amazing year. Here's to 2011... and my New Year Resolution which I've just decided is to never stop making memories. Thanks for reading. Kisses <3 xx

Privacy/Confidentiality

Privacy

The UK has no written constitutions but the nearest thing to one is the Human Rights Act passed in 1998. Section 8 of the Human Rights act states that everyone has a right to privacy and the right to enjoy a private family life. This means that when a journalist reports on an individual, there are certain hurdles they face.

A person needs to give consent to have their photograph taken unless they are engaging in a public duty. The two types of consent are; explicet consent which is all very official with a signed contract or such and implied consent when the individual is posing in the photo or it is clear they had no objections to being photographed.

Other main areas a journalist should beware of is; revealing state secrets or ‘official’ secrets, revealing commercial secrets or revealing facts about a person they would have expected to remain private.
Confidentiality

McNae's states that traditionally there are three elements that work towards a breach of confidence. Namely;

• Information obtained must have a 'necessary quality of confidence'. Information CAN be freely used if it is within the public domain BUT if it is obtained in a way that breaches confidence of a person or organisation then it cannot be used
• If there is an obligation to keep the information private then you cannot use it freely
• There must be an unauthorised use of the information to the detriment of the part communicating it. The person who the confidence is being breached must not suffer in any form of detriment as a direct result.

For a claimant to successfully prove a breach of confidentiality has been made they must prove every one of these points.

One big case which reflects privacy and confidentiality is the Max Mosely case from 2008. Max Mosely was the head of Formula 1 racing and was caught to have hired five prostitutes for a Nazi based orgy in London by the News Of The World but the High Court ruled that this was not within the public interest and that Mosely had a right of provacy and so damanges had to be awarded.

WINOL happenings

A Ramble -

I haven't been blogging about WINOL of late, for many reasons. Mostly because after I leave TAB9 and go home I can't bring myself to write about the week as I'm usually low in spirits. However, I will be writing a critical reflection very soon so I thought I should write about the last few weeks.

The last time I blogged on WINOL was the really bad news week so to continue from that, the next day I was ushered into a meeting with the editor, Chris and Brian and stripped of my news editor role as 'didn't seem happy' doing it. This translates roughly to; 'You are shit and we're replacing you'. Fair enough. It was a very bad week but I think sometimes people lose sight that WINOL is a University course and everyone is on a learning curve. Never mind... I was given a new role as Entertainments Editor and as upset and embarrassed as I initially was I decided to get stuck in and try my best to come back from it.

Enter Chesney Hawkes...

I noticed that Chesney was due to play at The Railway Inn on Wednesday night, the day of the bulletin so I thought if I could only get hold of him I could ask him to come in before the show to promote it and talk to us about what he's upto at the moment. I emailed The Railway begging for contact details to no avail, and emailed a media officer in connection with him but still nothing. Then as a last resort I tracked him down to his Twitter account and found a personal email address. I sent a quick email asking if he would be interested and 'tweeted' him to check his emails. I didn't expect a reply but thought there was no harm in trying and of course there wasn't... in fact he replied within half an hour agreeing to come down to the studio before his sound-check. After ALOT of running around and organising here is the final outcome...



...needless to say it didn't go exactly smoothly in the live run and I'm sure I will have "Can I start again, oh are we live?" haunting me through-out my career. I definitely let nerves get the better of me but managed to hold it together for the interview.

I haven't managed to bag any other big names since then, as of yet. But as the saying goes - watch this space. My role as Entertainments Editor seems to differ each week depending on what I can get hold of. One week I was presenting 'What's On' which we ran into a package - by my entertainments reporter at the time - about the fireworks procession which worked quite well.


The Training Week -

As I have touched upon, WINOL morale was at an all time low recently and this started to show in the output that was being produced. Chris intervened and called for a training week so everybody could spend the week training up on roles they've been wanting to turn their hand to but haven't had the chance and there wouldn't be too much pressure to perform.

Initially I wasn't keen on the idea and thought it was pointless producing lots of bulletins of perfected old packages as I felt this was time we could be spending producing a fresh bulletin but the outcome was good. All the 2nd years got involved with different roles throughout the three days and some 3rd years dedicated the time to making a show-reel for their portfolio.

During training week it was decided that my 'What's On' section and 'Win With Winol' should collaborate with two presenters bringing an element of relaxed studio chat to the table. With Lucy as the 'Win With Winol' presenter we went out about ways to do this. In the end we decided on standing and addressing each other informally. It worked ok but I felt we rehearsed it too much and the end result looked a bit wooden. During this week I had a local band as a guest to interview who gave us a performance. Here is how it went...



Up To Now -


This week the dynamics of Win With Winol and What's On changed once more when I went out to film on location. I went down to the Winchester Christmas market ice rink to film it as I thought it would be relevant to what I was talking about and would look visually more attractive than yet another studio produced piece. I think the extra effort and time paid off and I'm quite happy with the out-come.



I am fast becoming the cheese queen of WINOL but to be honest... I'm quite happy with that title :) Bridget Jones eat your heart out!

Ciao x

Law lecture notes Week 8

Freedom Of Information Act


130,000 bodies covered by the act
100,000 requests a year - cost £34m
Journalists requests only accounts for 12%

Politicians claim the FOI has a "chilling effect" on government as they don't feel safe or free to discuss issues that could become  damaging to them if they found their way into a document.

Tony Blair, who brought in the act - "FOI was not a good idea... makes it hard for government to have confidential conversations."

Basic principle of the FOI act;

"Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled to have that information communicated to him."

An FOI request must be in writing, email included and it is free.

If it costs more than £600 (£450 for smaller authorities) or if the information is EXEMPT. But you do not have to accept this decision.

Exemptions:
Absolute (eg security services, court records)
Qualified (eg ministerial communications, commercial confidentiality)
Where the information is covered by a qualified exemption, you should still be given it if the balance of the 'pubic interest' favours disclosure.

Public interest - within the publics interest, not just interesting to the public.

The public authority has to respond to an FOI request within 20 days unless there is a public interest consideration then they can take a further 40 days.

What if they say no?
Internal review
Information Commisioner
Information Tribunal
High Court

Law - Privilege

Privilege allows us as journalists to write or broadcast material which may be defamatory or untrue or even both at the same time. It gives us protection from being sued.

Absolute Privilege -
Anything said in court. Judges, lawyers and MP’s have it

It is from the monarch, so as it is to do with the trial they can't be prosecuted for it.

Qualified Privilege -
As long as reports are fair, accurate, without malice and on a matter of public concern
Journalists have Qualified Privilege in Parliament/Court/public meetings Reporting


Statements that qualify for qualified privilege without explanation are as follows;

• Fair and accurate reports of public proceedings of legislatures, courts, government appointed public inquiries, international organisations/conferences anywhere in the world.
• A fair and accurate copy of or extract from any register or other document required by law to be open to public inspection.
• A notice or advertisement published by or on the authority of a court, or of a judge or officer of a court, anywhere in the world.
• A fair and accurate copy of or extract from matter published by or on the authority of a government or legislature or by an international organisation or an international conference anywhere in the world.

- Lee Clegg case, significant



Privilege Part 1

• Public proceedings in a legislature anywhere in world (ie Russia)
• Public proceedings in a court anywhere in world
• Public proceedings of a public inquiry anywhere in world
• Public proceedings of an international organisation or conference

Privilege part 2

• Subject to explanation and contradiction
• Public meetings
• Local councils and committees
• Associations have different status
• Findings or decisions are covered - official
• Proceedings are not 

Pressers

• Pressers are public meetings
• Written hand outs also covered
• Consider risks of live broadcasting

Privilege summed up

• Report must be;
• Fair
• Accurate
• Without malice
• On a matter of public interest
• No privilege outside main proceedings

Page 340

Defamation and Libel

  After a year of HCJ learning all about exciting philosophers and their work I was more than underwhelmed to say goodbye to the likes of Emile Zola, Fredrich Nietzche and Freud and welcome Law for Journalists back into my life. It would be fair to say that law is definitely a weak point of mine BUT after two lectures I found it all coming back. Here are some notes so far.

Defamation and Libel 

To break it down in simple terms, defamation is taking away a reputation to which a person is entitled. There are two types of defamation. These are; slander (defamation in the temporary form) and libel (defamation in the permanent form)

Reputation is precious to those who have a public life, money or both. To say something about someone in the public eye that you know to be untrue would be said with malice. If it threatens that persons reputation then you have defamed them and therefore committed a libel.

However, most mere abuse has a certain degree of legal safety. "You smell" for example. Most defamatory is about a persons qualifications. A doctors professional reputation is absolutely vital for them to carry on in their profession. You wouldn't seek out a doctor to help your ailments if they've been accused of raping, poisoning or misdiagnosing patients... would you?

One famous case where this happened was, Rahamin vs. Channel 4/ITN
In July 1998 channel 4 broadcast a major news report on the 7o’clock news that made allegations against locum consultant Joseph Rahamin that he claimed were not only untrue but also defamatory as they damaged his personal AND professional reputations. The accusations made were that:

• Mr. Rahamim was probably responsible for the death or serious injury of many of his patients including two who had died during their operations
• Mr Rahamim was not competent to practice as a consultant thoracic surgeon and was seriously under qualified and inadequately trained.
• That he had fraudulently obtained his post as a Consultant by misrepresenting his qualifications and employment history.
• That he had dishonestly sent out letters to local GP’s in which he had falsely described himself as an FRCS
• That he had dishonestly concealed from his employers the fact that as a result of injuries sustained in a road accident he was unable to operate safely and
• That by reason of these matters the GMC ought to have Mr. Rahamim struck off.

Publication + defamation + identification = Libel

The only libel defences are as follows;

Justification - If it is true and you can prove it in court
Fair comment - An honest held opinion which is based upon facts or privileged material within the public interest.
Absolute Privilege - Court reporting
Qualified Privilege - Anything said by the police or pressers
Bane + Antidote - when the defamation is removed or cancelled out by the rest of the context

Cartoons are totally exempt from libel, this is why you can often find cartoons in the first few pages of The Sun newspaper that poke fun at celebrities or politicians who have been in the public eye during the week.

If a libel is present without any of these defences then steps should be taken to apologise in a later edition of the publication.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3065451/Marlon-King-An-apology.html

Here is a recent example of arguably the biggest tabloid newspaper in Britain apologising for defaming imprisoned footballer, Marlon King.

Reynolds defence

Named after a defence raised in the late 1990s by Times Newspapers after the Sunday Times published an article about the former Irish prime minister, Albert Reynolds. Mr Reynolds sued, arguing the allegations in the article were not true and were defamatory. The newspaper argued that the allegations it published were serious and that it had a duty to publish them. They were, it argued, made in the public interest and after they'd exercised all reasonable care in checking. Even if the allegations were not true, they argued they should have been able to report them and be legally protected by 'qualified privilege'. - Kevin Marsh BBC News


Material must be in the public interest... a product of responsible journalism.

WINOL week two!

Apologies for this late blog entry... I've been dying of chest and throat infections. Phlegm and snot flying everywhere! Not pretty.

Anywho... week two. The news meeting on the monday showed a bit more promise than the first week with our top story affecting international students, a high profile court case and even a story about the Queen. Unfortunately things didn't go quite to plan as the week progressed. Andy fell ill on Tuesday forcing us to postpone the court case story, we had new information emerge changing the context of Jacks international students story and Aimee struggled getting interviews on her trip to Southampton to film the Queens naming of the Queen Elizabeth ship so we had to make it into a NIB (News In Brief).

Further to this. In production the tricaster blew up meaning WINOL went backwards in technical progression and we had to upload the bulletin to Youtube instead. This takes longer so we aimed to film the bulletin at 2pm by bringing all the VT deadlines forward but the Macs in TAB9 have become so slow since we came back after summer that they crash every two minutes so of course these new early deadlines were impossible to be met! We ended up filming just before 3pm and somehow managed to get the bulletin out at 5pm as planned.

Scripting was much better, largely the story links submitted. This was helped by the presence of guest editor Graham Bell.

WINOL IS BACK! Week one....

It's Wednesday, it's 2pm and it's a WINOL week which could only mean one thing. Absolute mayhem in the news room. As news editor I have taken on a role which has enforced me to drop my niceties and become less passive in my mannerisms.

The Monday morning news meeting was okay, but I've a long way to go before I will feel like I can say I've managed to bring the group together as a successful unit. The second years who have produced a package have done a great job for a first attempt. Certainly miles ahead of what I could have achieved this time last year. There is a slight disrespect of deadlines though and that is something I will be pushing on next week.

As far as the bulletin goes I am very excited as our political editor, Joey managed to become Winchester Mp, Steve Brine's plus one for the Conservative conference in Birmingham. This is leading the bulletin today and we have a story about a Lib Dem by election to follow by Stu. As Joey and Stu are third year reporters I knew I wouldn't have many technical issues with their VT's and so left them at their own devices.

The other stories being reported today are; a student finance story by Julie Cordier, a story investigating a winchester area dubbed 'stabby alley' by Andrew Giddings and... some teams played sports.

I am very anxious to see how the bulletin is going to go, considering for many of the reporters this is their first shot but from what I've seen they're doing ok and if worst comes to worst this is only scheduled as a dummy week so we can draw a line under it and move on.

Tune into www.winol.co.uk after 4pm to see how we did.

Kisses x

Earlier I was walking home from the railway station and just crossing the busy road by the roundabout just near the airport, but I was distracted on the phone and whilst crossing came within inches of being run over. I saw that flash of headbeam from the car and for a second as I sprinted across the road my mind was clear. As I continued to walk down the road an ambulance came screeching up the opposite way and I got this odd feeling that WHAT IF... I actually HAD of been hit and that ambulance was for me? But I was unaware of it in some other parallel world and so carried on with my journey home?

What if I'm dead?

Somebody please help me confirm my existence.