Critical Evaluation of Winol, 27th October

After three weeks working as a sub editor and working on production for Winol, I have decided that it is time for me to evaluate the work we have done. Now that I know the work that needs to go in to the weekly bulletin, the different sections coming together and how the bulletin can look, I feel I can now have valuable input.

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to write for features on a magazine. This was all I thought I would ever want to do but after working on production for four bulletins I have found another facet of journalism that I like to work on. It may be the fact that the craziness is happening around me and that the jobs I do, I feel, won't mess the bulletin up too much, or it may be the buzz around the room and the studio doing rehearsals and going live; but I really enjoy production. I enjoy watching the different sections come together to create a bulletin, I really like being a part of it and I love the feeling when the bulletin is done, recorded and ready to be uploaded. It is a sort of "phew, it's done and I didn't mess it up" kind of feeling.

Now that I know what has to be done and I am starting to understand why we include some items and why we do not include other, why we do it in one order etc. I feel my contribution can now be correct and that I am not criticising a point that has been done correctly.

To begin with I'll start with the negatives as you will finish reading my piece happy. There were a few black holes again. This can easily be fixed with the packages being left to run a couple seconds more to allow the mixer to click back without a black hole. A simple problem but we should not be having them in our fourth week now.

The audio levels in some packages were not correct. Again this is something we should not be doing in our fourth week but can easily happen. We just need to take more care when setting up the camera for an interview that we check the audio levels.

In Stuart Appleby's piece there was a shot of the pavement with puddles. It lasted for about eight seconds and juse made me a little bored. It did not go with the story at all and even though writing came after it and it was used for a background I believe there could have been better backgrounds used.

In the same package, it opened with a guilty building. I believe it was hard to get many shots because of the nature of the story but it was another guilty building.

Lastly, Jake Gable, the news presenter was situated in the middle of the screen. I would prefer him to be sat slightly to the right. Meaning that his head didn't interrupt the title, "Winol News," but that Jakes head was right next to the letter, 's'. I know that this may not be popular and that it would leave open space to the left but I just prefer it that way.

Now, the good news. I think that it was nice to have two new presenters and I think that Karen Purnell and Jake Gable did really well. In Stuart Appleby's piece he did some really good sequences of the woman he was interviewing. This was better than more guilty buildings.

I also really liked the interview of Joey Lipscombe in the news room. It was different and allowed a story to be shown without making a package of it.

Lastly, I love the feature at the end. We did it last week and again this week and it leaves the viewer with a bit of colour. It also advertises the Winol website where the viewer can see the full feature and re-view the bulletin again. If these wern't included in the bulletin, the viewer may not know about them and only view the bulletin.

Below is a link to watch the bulletin for yourself, enjoy.

http://www.winol.co.uk/

Notes on Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

I am going to try and make these notes as simple and as easy to understand as I possibly can. This way I hope to make Zarathustra understandable for me and you, my reader.

To begin with I shall give you as much information on Nietzsche as I can and try to make it simple in a bulleted list.

Nietzsche -

• Not a Christian, an atheist.
• He did not like Rome and didnt feel very creative whilst he was there. This may be because of his religion of an atheist and not a christian.
• He said that the late 19th Century in Europe was nihilistic. This meant that they no longer believed in God and that there was nothing to believe in at all. People didn't believe in themselves and this meant that no one believed in anything. Their lives became meaningless. He rightly foresaw that nihilism may lead to nationalism which would then cause wars. For example Hitler and the holocaust. Zarathustra says that everything must obey something. If one cant obey oneself they have to obey someone else. True freedom is only granted to those that can command themselves and obey onyl themselves; no one and nothing else.
• He calls the fundamental force that drives all of life is a 'will to power' although it may also be described as 'an instinct for freedom'.
• He was a lonely man and believed that nobody understood him or his writings. He believed that they would think his writings were ramblings to be ignored. This was mostly true as only very few people believed him to be the genius he was.
• This lead Nietzsche to make his best friend the preacher of his work, Zarathustra.
• The book is about Nietzsches most personal work, "it's about his experiences, friendships and ideals."
• He wrote the book in ten days bursts, which is why he repeats himself and it is quite long. If he had look over his work he may not have repeated himself so much.
• He believed that mankind should strive to create great men and nothing else.
• Nietzsche didn't make it clear if Zarathustra was the overman or not but if he was it wasn't until the fourth book that he became the overman.

Now you have some small facts about Nietzsche, I will explain some of the key points of the book and of Zarathustra.

"God Is Dead"

This is what Zarathustra said to a saint living alone in the forest. It means that God is dead and that although he was alive at some point and preaching he no longer is and people no longer are living their lives by him and his rules.

I hope that these notes have been able to help and that it has made the book seem a little easier to grasp.

Not Now Who You Know But Who Your Parents Are

Following on the family profession is being taken to all new heights. Many fathers want their son's to take over the family company of plumbing, shop keeping, hotelier and so on but lately children have been following their famous parents in to the entertainment world at a much younger age.

Will and Jada Pinkett Smith have two children together, Jaden Christopher Syre (12) and Willow Camille Reign (9). Both children have entered the entertainment industry, Jaden worked in his first movie with his father, The Pursuit of Happyness at the age of 8 whilst his sister is a year ahead and worked on her first film with her father at the age of 7 in, I am Legend. She has now signed to Jay-Z's record label with her first song, "Whip My Hair." I don't think that Roc Nation would sign someone so young if their parent was not Will Smith. I believe that the children may have talent in their chosen field of work but I don't believe they would be offered this deal if their parent wasn't so famous.

Next up: Georgia May Jagger, daughter to legendary rock artist, Mick Jagger. Working as a model, I first remember her appearing on the front of British Vogue in November 2009. She looks fabulous and has the body of a model but when she opens her mouth to reveal her teeth, (as she so often does in many of her photos) they are not screaming out, "model!" No other wannabe model would be able to sign a contract before she straightened out her teeth, or if she did would not get the highly priced jobs. After snapping up the contract for Rimmel spring/summer 2010 she is the new up and coming model, the one to look out for but surely this was true from her very first picture? Her father being Mick Jagger hasn't helped at all? Or has it? Famous parents are helping their children in to the family business. I hope that Brangelina manage to do their six children justice when handing out the family roles to overtake in the entertainment industry. Surely a few models and actors, maybe even a singer or two. After being in the limelight from such a young age I assume it is second nature to be stood in front a camera, getting paid for it is just the icing on the cake.

Students Forever in Debt?

There are articles all over the papers about the Governments spending costs and the rise of tuition fees. As a student myself paying £3,290 a year to attend the university and be taught on the subject I wish to have as a career one day I am already in debt. The question is, "how much debt is too much debt?" £3000 or so is a lot of money to pay for an education, however it is nothing in contrast with how much the potential hike to £12,000 a year is. I am looking at paying back about £20,000 when I have finished university and I am in a full time job. If the rise happens students could be facing a pay back of £40,000 after they have finished their course.

I have always wanted to be a journalist, for as long as I can remember, attending university was just the next step in accomplishing the career I want. However I question if I would attend university if, at the end of it I had to pay back around £40,000. There are other ways of becoming a journalist. Courses sometimes run by newspapers, the British College of Journalism run a 12 or 24 week course on how to be a freelance journalist and even ''Guarantees Your Success'. From the site you can request a free 24 page booklet about the program and your preferred news you would like to write about. Alternatively it is also recommended for you to get work experience and build on it until you become hired. With all these different ways of becoming a journalist, could university's become irrelevant when the debt is so high and it is possible to work in the industry without a BA in that subject.

I read in the Daily Echo an article, written by the editor, Ian Murray, about tuition fees and university life. After not attending university himself and still working in the top post of a newspaper, this shows for itself that the university degree may not be as important as actual experience; or maybe just sheer luck. In the article he writes how it is understandable that the university's need more money and that the Government have to make changes for the economy but he also adds a solution.

Murray's solution is to turn three year courses in to two years of study. I currently spend about five and a half months in University, not counting the month off for Christmas or the month for Easter. I also have roughly have about four months off for summer. This would then mean that if we halved the summer break and had two weeks for Christmas and Easter we could spend only two years at university; leaving with a debt of £30,000 instead of the proposed £40,000. Of course this would work for a majority of courses but not the extra long ones like Architecture and Medicine.

As a student that is desperate to start my chosen career with as little debt as possible I would be very happy to do an immense two year course. However if the only change is the rise of tuition fees I can't help but ask, "could this lessen the amount of people that attend university in the long run?"

www.britishcollegeofjournalism.com

Tabloid Nation Seminar Paper

Tabloid Nation is mainly about the Daily Mirror. It documents the papers timeline and owners, including parts of the Daily Mail’s history too. The two papers have grown up together. The Daily Mail being the big brother and the Daily Mirror being the younger; always taking a back seat to the eldest. Both owners, Northcliffe and Rothermere took more interest in the Daily Mail and much less in the Mirror; and it showed.

Alfred Harmsworth, made Baron Northcliffe in 1905 owned both the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail. He once described the Mirror as his, “bastard offspring”. It was given a bad name and looked upon as a trashy newspaper. However, Northcliffe first started the paper with women in mind of reading, and producing it. This is didn’t go down too well as they didn’t write about news, they wrote about their own daily lives and articles that no lady in Britain would care about; such as the weather in Cairo. This didn’t work but was an idea that works today. The Daily Mail, today is a paper very much for women. They have a section called, ‘femail’ in which there are story’s that women care about. These articles include fashion, cookery and news stories that take the female perspective. This is the paper that has most of its circulation read by women, meaning that advertisers who are aiming towards the female market choose this newspaper to put their articles in. This was a pioneering idea, just for the wrong century.

Northcliffe also head hunted two of William Randolph Hearst’s employees. These were Kennedy ‘KJ’ Jones and Alexander Kenealy. Northcliffe knew that Hearst was pushing the frontier forwards with newspapers and that Kenealy and Jones would be great at helping him pull up The Mirror from the dumps. Both had worked on yellow journalism with Hearst and would be able to apply what they had learned to The Mirror. Yellow journalism had come about because of the competition between Hearst at the New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer from The New York World. Hearst stole the yellow kid from Pulitzer and reinvented the normal newspaper to a tabloid paper. This focused on more pictures, less writing and punchier headlines in a large, bold font. This is what Northcliffe knew would help with the Mirror in upping circulation. The Mirror was one of the first newspapers to turn in to a Tabloid in Britain and has stayed true to itself today with the large red banner, plenty of photos and simple, small articles.

Hannen Swaffer was the very first photo-journalist. He worked at The Mirror with Northcliffe and Kenealy. Though they often fought they worked well together. Circulations improved with Kenealy doing the writing and Swaffer providing the photos. Swaffer turned the Daily Mirror in to the Illustrated Mirror and had a circulation of 71,000. This was largely due to the picture on the front page of King Edward 7th, dead. Pictures were largely never used in those days. This is why the paper sold so well. People would normally never see the King and most definitely would never see him on his deathbed, so the fact that The Illustrated Mirror was allowing this and showing the Nation their King was new to the readers. This allowed them to see their King, disasters in other countries, Mount Vesuvias in Italy, the man that had his shop burgled, et cetera. The readers were able to see for themselves instead of having it described to them in a lengthy article. This, of course, made the paper more appealing and increased circulation.

When Northcliffe died in 1922, his younger brother, Rothermere took over the Daily Mail. He had already bought the Daily Mirror from Northcliffe a few years before for a £100. Rothermere spent a lot of the Mirrors money on competitions and promotions as well as investing in £8 million on The Daily Mail Trust. Rothermere had to dig The Mirror out of low circulation but wasted the money on trying to profit The Mail. Once again The Mirror was being left on the backburner whilst its older brother reeked the rewards.

Rothermere made the circulation of The Mirror sink further after using it to promote Oswald Mosley, The black shirts, Hitler and the fascist movement. These next few years were the worst for The Mirror and was only improved when Harry Guy Bartholomew, or Bart to his friends took control and tried to focus the yellow journalism again. Bart invented the ‘Bartlane’, a system where pictures are sent over radio wires. Bart accomplished this with Captain Mcfarlane. This made it possible to share pictures between America and Britain within hours, not weeks or months. This was innovative journalism and helped The Mirror have better pictures, thus enticing a larger readership.

Bart, together with Cecil Harmsworth King, Northcliffe and Rothermere’s cousin started work on The Mirror with The Daily News in mind. The Daily News was the best selling American Tabloid. Together they pulled The Mirrors circulations figures back up and set it as a tabloid, a tabloid that still follows the same rules today. Many pictures, small, simple articles and large, attention grabbing headlines.

Throughout it's history it has been sidelined by its owners but the editors have been the ones to turn it around, to put it ahead of the rest and to put in the forefront for breaking news and new ways of developing papers and tabloids. At the beginning there was Northcliffe that made it in to a women's newspaper, which didn't work, but only because of the decade it was in. Then there was Swaffer with his pictures. Newspapers used to just be lines and lines of words with no pictures. Pictures are the essence of Tabloid journalism and Swaffer was the first photo journalist. Lastly Cecil and Bart bought the paper in to its true identity of a Tabloid. After a messy start The Daily Mirror has become what it is today and is going strong with a circulation of 1,232,961 daily.

Tabloid Nation Notes

An easy and interesting read by Chris Horrie. I actually found myself reading on from the allocated section because it was so intriguing, which is not normal for HCJ reading. I decided to write a few facts from the reading down to take all the facts in and make sure that I didn't get too confused with its history.

The book is mainly about the Daily Mirror. It documents the papers timeline and owners, including parts of the Daily Mails history too. The two papers have grown up together. The Daily Mail being the big brother and the Daily Mirror being the younger; always taking a back seat to the eldest. Both owners, Northcliffe and Rothermere took more interest in the Daily Mail and much less in the Mirror; and it showed.

Alfred Harmsworth, made Baron Northcliffe in 1905 made Fyfe the Editor in 1865 of the Daily Mirror. Northcliffe's hope was that Fyfe would be able to turn around the paper and improve circulation. Fyfe's first job was to get rid of the female journalists and change the stories the paper printed. It was said that on the Friday it was a women's paper, writing about weather reports, gossip and what was happening in their day to day lives to Monday morning being a men's run, man reading paper. Fyfe fired every female journalist apart from the editor, Mary Howarth who stayed on as a fashion writer.

Northcliffe later said that he didn't know how he talked himself into, "so mad a frolic as a paper for ladies". It cost him £3,000 a week with circulation figures quickly dropping to 25,000, something needed to be done.

Hannen Swaffer turned the paper round from a circulation of 25,000 to just under a million in a few years by making it a picture paper. It wasn't meant to be a serious paper that provided information but a paper that was something for people to look at on their way to work.

Northcliffe also head hunted Kennedy 'KJ' Jones from William Randolph Hearst in New York. Jones had been working with Hearst for a while and was an old hat at 'yellow journalism'. Yellow journalism started when Hearst stole the yellow kid from Joseph Pulitzer's paper, The New York World, a cartoon strip about a working class boy standing up against the rich. New York being the City of thousands of poor immigrates from all over Europe, was the prime location for the yellow kid. Kennedy Jones worked with Swaffer to make the Mirror in to a tabloid.

It was officially a tabloid after King Edward the sevenths death. Keneally and Swaffer overheard a rival newspaper talking about having the pictures of the King on his death bed and maybe writing about the pictures. Swaffer then got the pictures and put them over the front page; after Keneally had given him the money to purchase the pictures. This copy of the newspaper sold 71,000 copies over two days. These were pictures that the public would never normally see, this is why the circulation was so high. This also put The Mirror ahead of the game, with having the confidence to put the photos straight on to the front page rather than just writing about the pictures. These pictures blasted the paper to the category of the Tabloid and the relationship with the Royals began. The readers will always be interested in their Royal Family.

Northcliffe, yet again, head hunted Alexander Kenealy from Hearst to take over from Fyfe. Swaffer argued with Kenealy and Northcliffe frequently about the pictures he bought in. They were exotic and a first for any newspaper. Swaffer once had a photographer take pictures from inside the mouth of Mount Vesuvias. These pictures meant a lot to Swaffer as he was the one to be redesigning the paper with them. Swaffer made the circulation sky-rocket with some of the pictures he bought. This made it inevitable when Northcliffe wanted Swaffer to allow The Mail for first sign off on pictures, this was not Swaffer's paper he was improving and not the paper he cared about with the circulation.

They then argued about pictures of the Titanic. Swaffer wanted them throughout the newspaper, including the back page but Northcliffe wouldn't allow it. Then the final argument came about some boxing photos that Swaffer wanted printed but, again, Northcliffe wouldn't allow it. The boxing had been between a white man and a black man; who then won. This caused riots, racism and killing. Northcliffe said that he didn't want his paper associated with such things and as a result the pictures wouldn't be in the paper. This was the final blow for Swaffer, he quit and joined the Daily Sketch; the competition for the Daily Mirror.

After naming The Mirror, Northcliffe's, "bastard offspring", he sold it to his younger brother, Rothermere for £100. He neglected the paper with his penny-pinching ways and using more of his time on his other job of the Air Ministry.

Ed Flynn took over from Kenealy and made The Mirror, the 'forces paper', and arranged for distribution in the trenches. This increased the circulation to 1.7 million in the first year of war.

After Northcliffe died in 1922, Rothermere took over his other papers, including The Daily Mail. Once again The Mirror was given a back seat to its older brother. Rothermere started campaigning for the fascist movement, Hitler and Oswald Mosley. The next few years were the worst for The Mirror.

Harry Guy 'Bart' Bartholomew took over in 1934 of The Mirror. He was the inventor of the 'Bartlane'. Together with Captain Mcfarlane they were able to send pictures via radio wire between America and Britain. This meant that they could share pictures within hours not weeks or maybe months.

The Nephew of Northcliffe and Rothermere, Cecil Harmsworth King worked with Bart to take The Mirror in another direction. The direction of the New York style tabloid, a direct copy of The Daily News - America's best selling tabloid newspaper.

Throughout it's history it has been sidelined by its owners but the editors have been the ones to turn it around, to put it ahead of the rest and to put in the forefront for breaking news and new ways of developing papers and tabloids. At the beginning there was Northcliffe that made it in to a women's newspaper, which didn't work, but only because of the decade it was in. Then there was Swaffer with his pictures. Newspapers used to just be lines and lines of words with no pictures. Pictures are the essence of Tabloid journalism and Swaffer was the first photo journalist. Making the paper follow the forces and have a reason behind the paper is done many times today; including following the war in Iraq. Lastly Cecil and Bart bought the paper in to its true identity of a Tabloid. After a messy start The Daily Mirror has become what it is today and is going strong.