No brain, no gain

We've all been told many many many times by Brian and Chris that
being a reporter/journalist is hard work. But the thing is, you never realise how hard it is until you actually do it. Well, I have learnt a lot this week.

The first thing I have learnt is that you have to be organised. You need to know where you're going with your story idea, and you should have thought through every details of your news package. When reporting a news story (okay, I admit that my news story this week wasn't brilliant), I have the feeling that if I don't plan everything in advance, I am not doing my job properly.

My news story this week was about Student Finance.

On Sunday night, I researched some figures and the history background. I looked for the people I could talk to on the University website and prepared my interviews.

On Monday morning, I went to talk to the two people I wanted to interview. They both agreed to do an interview within 24 hours with me. I then started to think about the pictures I would put in the package, so I went to get permission to film from the Student Union president and the Catering Manager.

At 12:00 we had our first news team meeting of the year.

At 12:30 I had an interview with the Welfare and Equality Officer. Stu came along to help me with the filming, which was really helpful. It's really nice to be able to fully concentrate on the interview without having to worry about the camera. Thanks Stu!

In the afternoon, I filmed some pictures on the campus - students in the learning cafe, SU bar and SU shop.

I then carried on with some vox pops, helped by Madeleine with the filming. She gave me some very useful advice about the different angles you should take when doing vox pops. Don't film them all from the same angle. Each vox pop should be visually different and interesting.

On Monday night, I work on the editing. I didn't want to arrive the next day in from of my computer, not knowing how to start the package. Therefore I planned each picture of it, the voice over, where and how they would be etc. I didn't quite stick to this plan, but I thought it was a safer option to work like this.

On Tuesday morning, I arrived early at Uni to get more pictures to illustrate my package. It turned out I didn't use these ones because it just felt like it wouldn't fit well into the package.

At 10:00, I went to interview the Student Finance Officer. I was helped by Maddie once again, which explains the great quality of the picture!

At 10:30, I was ready to edit my footage. Don't worry, I'll spare you the long and painful -but necessary editing part. I left TAB9 at 18:00.

The next morning, I had to "polish" it. Catherine helped me to adjust the sound levels.

At around 11:30, my news package was finally ready.

This is how I produced my first news story. Many thanks to everybody who helped me!