AS Media 15: 2014

This is how to BLOG.

I have now inserted a video.

Planning our storyboard

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What should be in the AS Blogs by 21st October?

Completed Preliminary Task
Research and Planning Post.

of three local radio news broadcasts
showing their codes and conventions (genre research)
Understand News Values (10 of them)
Content Analysis - three column grid.

Introductory Paragraph (R & P)

So that I can know how to create my own Local Radio News Broadcast I need to understand the GENRE of NEWS. This entails analysing the codes and conventions of two or three existing Local Radio News broadcasts as well as finding out about what factors constitute NEWS.

I will be using Audacity to collect examples of Local Radio News and analysing three examples.

Researching RADIO AUDIENCES using SECONDARY and PRIMARY research methods.

RAJAR.

RADIO CENRE

OFCOM

Profiling Listeners

The following variables are available to RAJAR subscribers when analysing the data:

Demographics

sex
age
social grade
ethnic origin
region
working status
marital status
household composition
household tenure
employment status

Other media

media access
television viewing habits
internet use
mobile devices use
newspapers reading habits

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF ONE WEEK'S BLOGGING and

AN EXAMPLE of how to present the work around each of the

NEWS ITEMS I (and you) will be creating each week.

Experimenting with creating NEWS BROADCASTS.

I think one of the challenges of creating a news item is to make it:

informative
clear
interesting.

A second challenge is to make it technically assured.

We don't have the resources of a newsroom to be able to create a broadcast every hour of every day so that the final broadcast will be compiled from news over a six week period and package as if it is happening simultaneously.

Part of my job is to find LOCAL news items. I found this through the West Hampstead Digital Newspaper. My next challenge is to DEVISE an interesting angle. It's the festival's first run and I want to know if there's going to be another.

One challenge I had to try to meet was to write a script that sounded natural but also informative. I did this by practising again and again with writing and then recording. In this way I gradually built up a 30 second news item to include:

a presenter
a specialist reporter on an external location
an expert guest

Running Order	Script	Timing & Effects
4.	Presenter: Today is the fifth and final day of the very first Kilburn Literary Festival. Our Arts & Culture correspondent, Reece Tavares, is with the festival's organiser at the Sherriff Centre.	13 seconds SFX: Fade –in location sound effect
	Specialist Reporter: So tell me Margaret Hodge what are you most pleased about with this festival?	4 seconds
	Guest: Guest's Answer	7 seconds
	Presenter: With one day to go more than 800 visitors have enjoyed the 15 scheduled events	6 seconds

In composing the presenter's introduction I wanted to achieve two things:

to make the announcement easy to understand
to make it memorable.

I chose to use alliteration in the repeated 'f' sounds of 'fifth', 'final' 'first' and 'festival'. I don't think it sounds too artificial because I used 'chunking and light pauses to make it sound clear.

Arranging the different elements comprising the Kilburn Literary Festival NEWS ITEM. You can see that I have labelled each of the six tracks to make it easier to edit each of the tracks against one another. When Reece interviewed Margaret Hodge it was in an empty hall but I wanted the report to sound as if it was coming from a busy place to help build interest and audience enthusiasm for the event. To do this I searched for suitable 'atmos' soundtracks from the Cultural Commons website called Freesound. This is a wiki-site where people give their work free of charge for others to use in a creative way.

Understanding the Creative Commons movement is important because it anticipates the YEAR 13 topic where I (and you) will be studying TWO MEDIA (the press and music) in the on-line age.

In using Audacity you have to remember to SAVE projects as Audacity files so that they can carry on editing later on but when you have finished the POST PRODUCTION you then SAVE the whole piece as an MP3. When you do this second saving you keep a record of the meta-data so that you know the information about the recording.

Before embedding the finished MP3 file in my Blog I have to support it through SOUNDCLOUD. Like Audacity and Fressound, Soundcloud is also a free wiki-site. It is another example of wikinomics. Wikinomics is where people give their time and expertise to create CONTENT for others to use and enjoy. The most famous wiki-sites are Wikipedia and YouTube. Google who own YouTube use the time and effort of people from all around the world to create content the vast majority of these people don't make any money from it but Google do!

The audio tracks I have up-loaded in the last month.

My completed NEWS ITEM.

My next step is to invite my TARGET AUDIENCE to listen to my finished NEWS ITEM and collect their opinions because this could help me to improve my production skills.

Week Two's BLOGGING

My second news item is a surprising good news item which I plan to place low down in the running order. I choose to do this to lighten the mood of previous items. I am including it in news broadcast because it has impact. There are many people with metal health problems like depression and this combination of mental health, Rap and Cambridge University has an interesting novelty.

This is an attention grabbing question which makes for potentially good journalism because it is a combination of unusual elements.

Running Order	Script	Timing & Effects
6.
	World can’t hold me, too much ambition / Always knew it’d be like this when I was in the kitchen DELIBERATE DEAD AIR	Jay-Z extract 5.3 seconds 0.5 seconds
	Presenter Academics from Cambridge University Dr Akeen Sule and Dr Becky Inskter are publishing an article in The Lancet this week arguing that a great deal of rap music displays a 'positive mental imagery' that enables those suffering from depression to make progress to better mental health.	18.5 seconds
	Get the text in here.	6 seconds

Notice the language of the Jay-Z song which emphasises the attitude of ambition, of not giving in to negative feelings. I think that the line about 'being ..in the kitchen' expresses the pressure of routine work, of being at the bottom of the job market. Jay-Z is saying that even when life appears to be hard and relentless, even then it is advisable to have a optimistic and confident outlook.

Here I'm beginning to build the introduction to my news item which I think I will be placing near the end of my broadcast. You can see that I have removed part of the audio at about 5.3 to 5.8 seconds this is because I am quoting from a part of Jay-Z's song entitled On to the Nest One because I want to select the lyrics which suit the CONTENT of the news story. Unfortunately for me but not for Jay-Z's INTENDED AUDIENCE he uses the
'n-word' so I have had to use AUDACITY to edit out this potentially offensive word when using it in my LOCAL RADIO NEWS BROADCAST.

This whole news item is 30 seconds long even though the presenter's section is just 18 seconds it is topped and tailed by an intro and an outro. The purpose of the intro is to set the content of the news item BEFORE the explanation of the presenter's copy. It is designed to get the listener to wonder what a Jay-Z song is doing in a news broadcast. I want the listener to think, 'What's this doing in a NEWS broadcast?' This is followed by the news content explaining the unusual news and then it is tailed by the outro of six second of Pharrell Williams' Happy. I chose this for two reasons: nearly everyone I know is physically affected by the catchiness of the song and it kind of says that the research is probably correct and the second reason is that I wanted a musical pause immediately after the news content to allow the listeners to absorb the message of the news item. Immediately after this is going to be another news item and I didn't want the impact of this item to be lost.

As you can see from the image of the finished workspace I experimented with THREE different versions of the presenter's voice to microphone to try to discover the best combination of clarity and efficiency. Although I think that the 20 second version is clear it is just a bit too 'lazy' for the topic and the target audience (I imagine a morning audience.

This version pauses before announcing that the research is being published in The Lancet. It does this because The Lancet is a highly respected scientific publication and I wanted the AUDIENCE to take note of this detail.

While I think is is clear enough almost all the phrases are spoken at the same speed and I wanted there to be better chunking to make the whole thing clearer.

This is my preferred version because it is lively while also emphasising key aspects such as the key message about supporting improvements in mental health. This would not be expected in a news item using rap music.

The Completed 30 second News Item.

Its news values.

PROGRESS SO FAR: 25th NOVEMBER 2014

Completed 3 new stories - 1.30-2.00 minutes in total
Screenshots of Production Progress (Photos of interviewing taking place)
Evidence of Using Audacity's tools (i.e trim tool, envelope, time shift, effect menu - amplification)
News Sources - show where you get it from (newspaper, other radio broadcasts, police station, museum, uni, community centres, news blog - like one in West Hampstead, listening to conversations in street - local, news streams - Reuters, news streams on web)
Analysis of News Values - Every time you create a news item, you have to analyse it in terms of its news values (proximity, impact, timeliness, good news, bad news, soft news, hard news, entertainment (celebrities/elite)

The next three news stories are:

Numbers of 18 year old exceed a half a million for the first time in 2014, some cancers are simply a result of bad luck and the responsibility for communicating allergens is with food providers -fast food providers too take photograph.

THIRD NEWS ITEM

NEWS SOURCE

As a trainee journalist I need to be alert to where I can find news stories which will be informative and of interest to my TARGET AUDIENCE in Kilburn and Maida Vale. One of the sources for NEWS is the government website this is because it collects information on how the country is running. Other places I might find potential NEWS STORIES are:

The Law Courts
Police Station
Local Community Centre
Local Education Office (Westminster)
Westminster University
West Hampstead Life
Kilburn Times

With these last two examples I have to be careful not to add to all the 'churnalism' which takes place.

In addition I might pick up potential news stories from:

Facebook
BuzzFeed
Twitter
Vice News

It is really challenging trying to say a complex sentence like: 'Figures published today by UCAS show that for the first time more than half a million 18 year olds are on university courses'. I have now tried recording this sentence FIVE times and each time it sounds too hard for me to say never mind my listeners understanding what I'm actually saying.

Re-write: I am going to try to make the first statement easy to hear. How about:

For the first time there are now more than half a million 18 years at university.

I can then follow it up with:

Today's UCAS figures show that ten out of twenty 18 year old are studying for degrees.

The reference to UCAS shows that the news source is reliable and trustworthy.

But this is not true for every part of Britain. In Cornwall, for example only THREE out of TWENTY 18 year are attend university whereas here in Maida Vale the figure is TWELVE out of TWENTY. Our Education correspondent, Celyn Dizon, is out and about finding why?

Running Order	Script	Timing and Effects
	For the first time there are now more than half a million 18 years at university.	5 seconds
	Today's UCAS figures show that ten out of twenty 18 year old are studying for degrees.	7 seconds
	But this is not true for every part of Britain. In Cornwall, for example only THREE out of TWENTY 18 year olds attend university whereas here in Maida Vale the figure is TWELVE out of TWENTY. Our Education correspondent, Celyn Dizon, is out and about….. discovering why?	12.5 seconds
	Interview question and vox pop responses.	Street Sounds

In collecting my 'vox pops' I asked the questions: 'What's the appeal of a university education?' and 'Aren't you bothered by the large debt entailed in studying for a degree?' As I was collecting the responses I kept the recording running knowing that I was going to edit it down to just 10-15 seconds and also not wanting to miss anything that was said by my respondents. You never know what might be said spontaneously that will sound good and it's not possible to 'do it again.'

FOURTH NEWS ITEM

Science and health news often sits around as potential news for the general listener and is published when there's a convenient slot. This is not the kind of news where the NEWS VALUE of CURRENCY is really important as long as it becomes general news at about the right time. This is really a judgement for journalists. The content was first published by a science specialist journal in November 2014 but mass media news only decided to use it at the beginning of January before the working world got going again and started the activities that generates harder time bound news: politics, law, business, entertainment and sport.

I think this is a really good time to publish this news item because post Christmas many adults (especially the ones who listen to local radio news) are thinking about their health having eaten and drunk too much during the Christmas holidays. Magazine style stories often try making their readers feel a bit guilty about their lifestyle habits so that they will listen to advice on how to be healthier in the new year.

This news item fits into this time agenda really well.

SETTING UP MY WORKSPACE

Setting up my workspace so that I can read my revised script and see my Audacity software at the same time.

It is not an easy job to write straightforward 'copy' when you are reporting science. In my first draft I wanted to use 'bad' twice and then in my second draft' I tried using 'poor' twice, before settling on three different adjectives to describe luck, lifestyle and diet. I think in this way it becomes easier for the listener to distinguish between the three things.

Running Order	Script	Timing and effects
	MAIN PRESENTER Canadian research scientists report that some cancers arise from bad luck and are not the result of poor lifestyle choices such as smoking, lack of exercise or a fatty diet.	12 seconds
	The cells in some parts of the body just have to reproduce themselves more quickly than others: including the brain, pancreas and blood. Cancers here (are down to bad luck) and cannot be prevented.	12.5 seconds
	Many cancers though are caused by our behaviour: colorectal, skin and lung cancers among them. The research team urge everyone to lead healthier lives.

Discuss the inclusion of 'Canadian'. I want to use this adjective because it gives a high quality edge to the the 'research'. 'Canada' is an elite country and has the resources to conduct reliable science. I think this is resposnsible journalism because it informs our listeners and might make them better patients, certainly more philosophical ones because some things just happen and they are not anybody's fault.

Notice that at between 9.1 and 9.7 seconds and between 10.6-11.4 second there are pauses in the presenter's voice this is because the speaker wants his listeners to comprehend what he is saying. Pauses as long as they are no longer than 3/4 of a second can be useful communication aids. The pauses occur just before 'smoking', 'lack of exercise' and 'fatty diet'. The pauses occur here because these are key bits of information.

You will also notice the db scale tool which I have taken from Audacity's tool box and organised into a vertical scale so I can see where my voice is peaking.

Another tool I have used is the zoom tool.

The zoom tool enables to get really close to a detail in the audio file. In this case the detail is the repeated use of pauses between the words and phrases.

The RULE OF THREE. Because this news item was a bit technical I wanted to help the listeners as much as possible and used the rule of three to make the news content easier to hear and understand. I did this in each of the THREE parts of the news item script. You can see in the highlighted script and I hope you can hear in the recorded audio.

News Items

7. Kilburn Literary Festival (Leisure)
8. Rap Music psychologically good for you. (Health)
4. Cancer a matter of chance (Health)
5. 18 years in Maida Vale (Education)
3. Old people in Camden and the internet. (Citizenship)
2. Elite people in Westminster/Camden/Brent. (Politics)
1. Isis murderer is a local Kilburn man (Crime)
6. Maida Vale video store is the last to close in London (Business)
9. Record Store Day (Leisure)
10. Voting intentions (Politics)

I am choosing to organise my eight LOCAL RADIO NEWS ITEMS in the numbered order because of their NEWS VALUES and because I want to create a good structure.

What I mean by structure is to create contrast between the items so that as the audience listen they are able to distingush between one iem and the next item instead of it just being one thng after another. One way I want to do this is through consecutive items that address different parts of the broadcast's demographic.

Fifth NEWS ITEM

Click on the above

Sixth NEWS ITEM

Record Store Day 2015: 18th April 2015

While most Local Radio Station journalists are employed to play out the NEWS from an internet feed or access their news from big agencies like Reuters I chose to actually attend a local event and report directly from the heart of RECORD STORE DAY in Berwick Street. I knew that the event would be happening months before because it is an annual event and is being attended by more and more people each year and has been very well advertised through emailings, posters and radio commentaries.

Here is an audio snippet I recorded from Berwick Street itself which was the site of the busiest Record Store Day Event in the whole of London.

The vinyl buying public with wads of cash.

Notice the Event Logo is a central eye-catching position

If you look closely you can see that there's a queue to get into the store

Running Order	Script	Timing and effects
Fade-in OB atmos at 16.5 secs.	MAIN PRESENTER Today one of the main shopping streets of Soho became a concert venue supported by food stalls and shopping advice on how best to buy the premier music carrier - 12 inch vinyl. Our entertainment correspondent...NAME reports from Berwick Street.....	18.6 seconds
	Specialist Reporter:

I recorded the OB on a phone and when I imported it into Audacity I wanted to create an edit where the atmospheric sound of the OB linked into the studio based sound before the end of the presenter's introduction. I did this because it lifts the tempo of the broadcast and builds expectation in the listeners.

Here I have selected the Time Shift Tool. This is an essential tool in Audacity because it enables the editor to organise the different tracks against one another. I particularly wanted to make sure that the link to the OB came into the overall audio mix while the Main Presenter was still talking.

SEVENTH NEWS ITEM

One of the considerations that a radio news journalist has to make is the trade off between perfectly recorded sound and the authenticity of the voices captured. This extract which appears on BBC world service radio opts for the quality of the content above the absolute quality of the recording levels. This is a valuable lesson sometimes.

The FILM SOUNDTRACK

Running Order	Script	Timing and effects
	MAIN PRESENTER West London's last remaining video store has ceased trading for good. The closure of Maida Vale's Channel Films marks a sea-change in home entertainment habits.	Soundbed of 3 famous film soundtracks cut in sequence.
	The store favoured by famous customers such as Kate Moss and Daniel Radcliffe had been serving our local film fans with expertise and charm for more than 25 years.