WINOL: Week 5 Review

This week I knew I would be presenting the news. It seems to be an unwritten rule in WINOL that the person presenting does not do a full video package, but instead does an OOV (Out of Vision-pictures with the presenter speaking over the top.)

My story involved Joy Carter (Vice-Chancellor of the uni) signing up to an open letter to the Government in an attempt to persuade them not to change immigration rules for foreign students. This is quite an important story in education as many universities rely on income from foreign students.

I interviewed the head of the International student society as part of this but decided against using it as no strong answers were given. I was also supposed to interview the university's foreign student officer but she cancelled on me after her boss told her not to speak to the press. So my OOV only consisted of shots of the uni again. I did try to be quite innovative this week; I took shots through flowers and shots of reflections in order to make the uni look more interesting.

On the day there was some confusion as to who whould be presenting what as Katy also thought she was presenting news. I settled the problem by saying I would present sport if the managing director (Karen) guaranteed me another chance at presenting news after Easter. This felt like my first real deal within the newsroom environment.

Part of the job as presenter is scripting, writing links etc. I would have to write a script for an OOV of a streaker at a local football game. I managed to work the pun “bare-faced cheek” into the script, and although it was massively cheesy I think it worked well. Thank to Jake Gable and Gareth Messenger for help with the scripting (having been on sport all term they know more about the local teams than I do).

I think the presenting went quite well for a first go. I only stumbled over one word and that was a double-barrelled name in a long list of names. I must admit to being quite nervous beforehand but once the cameras were rolling that all disappeared. I think I came across quite naturally on screen although I could have relaxed my posture a little and given my eyebrows a bit of a rest!

I also spent much of the week helping Sam shoot his story. His story involved a protest by mums against the closure of their Sure Start centres. We took two cameras down to the protest and got some superb footage, managing to interview the head of Hampshire County Council, a man who manages a budget of over £1Billion.

Sam's package was brilliant this week, he did really well editing it. I'm sure he won't mind me saying I came up with his outline about the centres floating away as he cut to a shot of a baloon floating away. It may have been a cheesy line but I think it worked in this situation and didn't step over the line into cringe worthy. It was perfect for local TV.

WINOL: Week 4 Review

I found my story on Monday morning in a small piece about tuition fees in the Times. In a box that accompanied the story they revealed the amount Winchester University would be charging for tuition fees in the future.

This was obviously a massive story for a university news service, one that would interest staff and students alike and I was given top story for the week.

My first step was attempting to varify the claims with the university. I attempted to speak to Tommy Geddes who is in charge of finances, but he refused to speak to me. I later emailed him and was given a rather swift “no comment” in return. This was great news as effectively the university was refusing to deny the story.

As I am education correspondent I am more often than not using shots of the university. It is becoming quite tough to not just use my standard “shot of student without revealing the identity” so I had to find some new shots of the uni. These included a blurred shot of students in the learning cafe (blurred in post production) and some zooms and pans to make buildings and signs more appealing.

My interviews this week were with students at the university. I asked them if they would still be here if they were charged £7,500 a year. One of my interviewees gave a particularly good set of answers. After some advice from our guest editor (Tom Hepworth from South Today) I now think it would have been better to have used him in a case study, perhaps highlighting his financial situation by going shopping with him or cooking baked beans to produce a good shot sequence.

The backgrounds to my interviews were again poor. I placed my interviewees in front of a window and therefore there faces looked quite dark when I got the footage back to the news room. Again, with the help of FinalCut I managed to make them look half decent by making their faces lighter.

I worked with Sam Harper this week to produce some graphics to illustrate how much the fees would be in comparison with now. I was really happy with the outcome, Sam had done a great job. But, as Tom was watching it back I could see the confusion on his face. Basically, I had asked for too much detail on screen at one time. He advised me to keep them much simpler in future.

During the week I actually managed to find the source of the leak of the Times but decided to keep that under wraps.

All in all a good week editorially, I'm more than happy with getting top story, but still a lot to work on technically.  

WINOL: Week 3 Review

News broke on Monday morning that the president of the NUS (Aaron Porter) would not be standing for re-election at the end of his first term. As a controversial national figure on the student scene it was vital that we covered this story. It was a story that was covered at a national level by the BBC so I decided to put a local spin on it by evaluating the effect it may have on Winchester students.

I tried to get a hold of Aaron Porter through his PA. Unfortunately he was too busy to do a phone interview. (However, I continued down this route and managed to get an interview for Colin with Porter a few weeks later that he did over Skype.)

My interview with Seb, the Student President at Winchester, was good. However, he was very polished and unfortunately did not say anything controversial. Again, I have to work on the backgrounds for my interviews. This one was too white, we were in an all white room and perhaps should have asked to do it somewhere else. When I got back to the news room the colours were off as well, so I really must remember to white balance etc. This was sorted out in post-production using coulour corrector on FinalCut with help from Andy Giddings.

The voxpops I got were OK. I had to go through a ridiculous amount of students before anyone actually recognised the name Aaron Porter, which was pretty frustrating. As I was shooting on my own I framed them with quite a bit of headroom. I squeezed the shot closer to their faces, again in post-production with help from Andy.

I tried to get some new and innovative shots of uni. I did this my using zooms and pans. A shot I like a lot was the one of the canteen zoomed in through a window before zooming out to reveal the main university building. I also liked the shots of students that I took without idntifying anyone (Human Rights Act) showing people and movement, which is always more interesting than a shot of a building.

Thanks to Julie for helping me with the archive footage of Aaron Porter and the strikes. This really helped colour the story, as well as give it some context within other news stories.

"UNFAIR" FUEL FACTORY FOR SOUTHAMPTON

Angry residents have protested against plans to build a new biomass power station in central Southampton.

Local people are angry at “completely unfair” plans that could see a 100m chimney tower over the city.

Campaigners have set up the No Southampton Biomass group in an attempt to stop construction of the fuel factory. Protests over the weekend have been followed by smaller scale demonstrations outside public exhibitions. If the plans are approved the factory will be built on land in the western docks, near the Freemantle area of the city.

The company behind the scheme are Helius Energy,who admitted there are “understandable concerns” from local residents but that they will press ahead with the scheme. They have held public exhibitions this week in an effort to calm fears that the plant will cause excess pollution. Helius insist that the plant will meet environmental standards.

But Eloisa Gil Arranz, one of the leaders of the campaign against the plant, said: “To take away a landscape that we've got and put something else in it's place to me seems completely unfair and I don't know how they can think that that's anything that we're going to look upon positively.”

“I really don't think they understand what people of Southampton actually want. We don't want this, we don't want it on our doorstep, we don't want it on the gateway to our city and we'll never be proud of it.”

Biomass plants burn wood to produce energy. The station planned for Southampton will produce enough energy for 200,000 homes. Biomass plants are seen as an environmentally friendly option as the wood used is usually sourced from sustainable forests and emissions produced are less than that for burning oil.

Paul Brighton, Helius' Planning Director, said: “There are understandable concerns about traffic movement and impact of the plant on air quality, visual impact, noise issues and so on, but we have addressed all of those through very detailed environmental studies as part of the ongoing work.”

Helius say that production of the power station will create hundreds of jobs during construction and then around 40 permanent jobs when the plant is up and running.

In a statement to WINOL Southampton City Council said they would not support the plans in their current format. Councillor Royston Smith, Leader of Southampton City Council, said: “I have reviewed these proposals in detail and I share the concerns of residents. We will oppose the plans if they are submitted. The public has reacted passionately about this issue and I completely understand why. Green energy creation and jobs for local people could be good if done in the right way, however in this instance we agree with residents that the current proposals would not be suitable for this area, particularly for those residents living close by to the development site.”

In response, Helius have now said that they will attempt to rework plans to make the plant smaller, minimising the visual impact on the area.

CAREERS ADVICE CUTS TO AFFECT YOUNG PEOPLE

Thousands of young people in the area could go without careers advice as the Government plans to change its current advisory system.

The warning comes from the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), who say plans to change the system could leave “a big cohort” of students without professional advice.

Currently careers advice for young people is given by the Government's Connexions service, they provide information for those aged 13-19 in schools and in individual centres around the country.

But with funding being withdrawn from services there is a risk that young people will be left with no advice at all.

The Government plans to introduce a new universal advisory system in April 2012, but the ASCL fears that cuts to funding will leave an advice gap before the new system is up and running. Sara Gadzik, Communications Director of the ASCL, said: “In a lot of places that service is being withdrawn by local authorities that just can't afford to fund it anymore. There's a new service coming into effect that the Government is putting into place but that's not going to be in place until April of 2012.”

“There's a year gap where there is just really nothing in place and schools are scrambling around trying to fill that gap. There is a real risk that there is a big cohort of students who are just not going to have access to good professional, impartial careers advice.”

Although it is a national scheme the funding for Connexions services is decided upon by local authorities. Hampshire County Council say that no decision has been made on the future of the it's scheme.

UNIVERSITY BOSSES WARN AGAINST VISA RESTRICTIONS

The Vice-Chancellor of Winchester University has warned that courses could close if student visas are restricted.

Winchester's Joy Carter is one of 16 university bosses to sign an open letter to the Government predicting financial hardship if proposed limits are enforced.

The fears are a response to measures proposed by Home Secretary Theresa May after an extensive consultation process. Her plans will limit student immigration by imposing strict new guidelines for possible students. These include restricting places to those who fall below new english language standards.

The letter, published in the Observer, includes a stark warning for the future of science and engineering courses. There are fears this will cut the selection of courses available to British students. They said: “Without international students, many university courses, particularly science and engineering ones, may no longer be viable. This will in turn reduce the courses available to UK students.”

The vice-chancellors insist they appreciate concerns that immigration rules could be misused but believe the overwhelming majority of international students are blameless. The letter said: “Universities are fully aware of public concern about abuse of immigration rules. Any abuse must be tackled robustly and Universities UK will co-operate fully in ensuring that cases of abuse are minimised. But evidence shows that international students in universities overwhelmingly do not abuse the system.”

In a statement the Home Office said that no final decision has been made. "Any criticism can only be based on speculation as no decisions have yet been made on the changes to the student visa route. However, universities that are confident in the product they have to offer genuine students should have nothing to fear from policies that root out abuses in the student visa system."

WINCHESTER UNIVERSITY FEES LEAKED TO NATIONAL NEWSPAPER

Governors at the University of Winchester have refused to deny that students could pay £7,500 a year for tuition from 2012.

Speculation in The Times suggests that the amount has been agreed on, despite no official word from university officials.

When quizzed by WINOL Vice Chancellor Tommy Geddes refused to comment.

The news follows a tumultuous few months for universities, in which the coalition government has come under increasing pressure from students following the publication of the Browne Review.

Students at Winchester University currently pay £3,290 a year in tuition. Under government plans universities could charge up to £9,000. Many are unsure they would be at the university if they were charged the proposed amount.

Josh Finch, an accounts student, said: “It would be too much to come to university. You could look to do something else like get an apprenticeship, where it would be cheaper. And you're actually learning the skills day to day, instead of actually paying to learn and then coming out with the debt.”

Tom Mereweather, who is studying for a business management degree, said: “I wouldn't be here if I was being charged £7,500. It's really too much for a university like Winchester.”

However, some students are worried about getting good value for money, not increased fees.

Steven Phillips, a sports science student, said: “In the long run even though the fees are quite high the university itself is quite good so hopefully the quality of degree I would get would help me a get a job.”

An official announcement is expected in the next few months. Any final decision on fees will be subject to approval from the Office for Fair Access.

By Kieran Brannigan