For our 'News and Current Affairs' package, we are required to write and produce a News package as our first group-based television project.
There are only a few requirements:
- The assignment has to be an informative package that is relevant to The Manchester College
- Has to follow some of the rules and conventions that are used in contemporary news packages
- The sequence must be between 30seconds and 1 minute
We responded to the brief by sitting in our group and discussing possible angles that we could approach this assignment from. We brainstormed our ideas using knowledge that we already had of The Manchester College to see if our combined knowledge could create a unique, interesting and informative news story.
As we have only just started the course, collectively we have a fairly limited knowledge of the college so some research into its history needed to be done. The best way for us to acquire some knowledge of the college would be to talk to some of the more seasoned staff members to see if they had any insider knowledge. I responded by quizzing the reception and library staff on the merger that happened between the two colleges. The librarian went on her computer for a few minutes and responded by handing me a piece of paper with this website written on it: “www.themanchestercollege.ac.uk/about/history”
She told me that all the information I needed to know about the merger could be found on the website she had given me. This, although was very helpful of her, it created a problem for me as when I checked the website, I found all the information I needed to know to create a news package. This meant that if I were to produce news package on the history of the college, it would lack uniqueness and originality as I would just be pulling information from an alternative source and reproducing it, and the aims of a journalist is to research, probe and find out new information worthy of a report. Although this technique of reproducing information to create a news package is still very present in the industry, it was not what I was looking for in an original and personal news package.
Our brainstorm continued, and we looked at fairly broad and general topics in the hope that we could find a new angle on an already covered story. Some of the ideas we came up with were quite generic and felt that those areas had already been explored, and would not produce any new and exclusive information.
An extremely half-hearted mind map shows our initial discussions- (or the lack of it). It turned out that we, as a group, were better at communicating on a verbal level and that not much pen was put to paper during that first group discussion. Although the information on the mind map is almost useless to assess from an educational standpoint, what it does represent is that start of us working together, a wall that has to be broken down when starting any new course.
As is evident, we didn't really find anything of descent quality. One of the 'unique' ideas that we looked into was regarding the headmaster of The Manchester College. As 1st years at the college, we are yet to meet the head teacher of our institution. I looked into, and developed an innovative take on a very classic situation, giving it a twist.
As the Manchester College is split up into 17 different campuses/sites - the odds of bumping into the Principal of the whole college are very low. We looked at this unusual "phenomenon" as none of the members of our group had met the Principal - let alone knew his name. I thought this was odd for a college, as all of the educational institutes I had attended before had provided a figure of institution, whereas The Manchester College had not provided any information about the controller of the Higher Education establishment, which I thought was odd. After a brief information gathering/fact finding session, we found a page of information on the college website about the Principal - which provided even more of an enigma, as there was little information about the person in question.
Here is a link to the page on the college website: http://www.themanchestercollege.ac.uk/about/welcome
As is apparent from this page - there is little to no information on the character himself and therefore nothing we could use to get a good angle if we were to per sue it as a news package, so we decided, despite it being an interesting concept, it wasn't really the right direction for our assignment, and in all honesty, a slightly silly idea we had run away with. Although we pursued this no further, it still benefitted us as it showed us our boundaries and helped us to move on to better and more focused ideas.
Whilst browsing the news archives on the Manchester College looking for a "scoop", I came across an article talking about one of the students attending the Manchester College. Her name is Emily Rawlins. Further research into the student revealed a possible story/angle for me to pursue.
I decided to look further into this person as the base of a very possible and credible news article to persue. The news package would be about an aspect of The Manchester College that is, now more than ever, relevant in current news/affairs and a key talking point throughout the country.
The Olympics have obviously had a large impact on the UK since 6th July 2005. This decision, made by the IOC, has had a great effect on London and the entire country throughout the past 6 years. As soon as the London 2012 BID, backed by former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe, was announced, there was an influx of individuals and companies trying to get involved/prepare for the waves of foreign supporters that will inevitably flood the UK and exhaust every resource available here. This planning/preparation for the heavy flow of travellers has given a large chunk of the population a 'stake' in next year's Olympics, which means that there is usually a fairly huge interest in all news related to the event. Currently, almost all large companies based/selling in the UK have released advertising campaigns related to sport and more importantly, the London Olympics 2012.
Here are some examples of advertising campaigns that are using the international event to promote their company/product:
This is an advert, produced in association with the London 2012 Games, promoting the company British Telecom with their BT INFINITY promotion, an advertising campaign promoting faster broadband speeds. Here is a great example of how the Olympics are being used by a company to promote their product, and gives us evidence that there is natural interest from companies as well as the general public, which is why there would be the same level of interest in the story that I would be producing about Emily’s possible inclusion in the 2012 games.
This is another example of how the Olympics are being shamelessly used and related to certain products in order to gain higher volume of sales and to give the company a better image, suggesting that their involvement in the games is crucial to the success of London’s triumph. . . whether this statement is true is not something that cannot be proved. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJeLGj3o54Q
I can do nothing but to speculate as to whether more energy will help people run round a track faster, but nonetheless, these companies feel that the Olympics are so prominent in today’s media that it can only be beneficial for the large companies to be involved, which is why a news package related to it would gather interest from large potential audiences. The vast majority of my audience in the UK would have some sort of stake in the Olympics, whether it be business related or just national pride.
Here is the article I found on Emily Rawlins, a Manchester College student who is attempting to qualify for the 2012 Paralympics:
This article, regarding Emily Rawlins’ possible inclusion in next year's Paralympics, gave me an idea into the possible new direction I could take my group. This was the article that helped me to develop my idea from what, is essentially a story about a Paralympics hopeful, into a story that could potentially promote The Manchester College and the facilities they provide for their students.
I looked at another article about The Manchester College’s inclusion in the Olympics, in which students from the college were given the opportunity to help make repairs and improvements to TeamGB’s bobsleighs – which are to be used in the 2014 Winter Olympics. This brought forward another string to the already strong bow of the college’s relationship with the Olympic teams. I would be able to developed this idea and manipulate it in such a way that it would be beneficial to the College, with the broadcast giving a positive image to not only the skill of the students at the college, but the college’s inclusion in international events. This would create a symbiotic relationship with the college, in which both parties are benefiting.
This is the article relating to TeamGB’s involvement with The Manchester College:
Emily Rawlins, like all other professional athletes, is looking for funding and sponsorship which would add yet another layer of interest to this already mutually beneficial relationship between regular people and broadcast media
Unfortunately, we decided to drop my lead of a story when communications with Emily Rawlins broke down and appeared uninterested in appearing in our news package. As is the same with all journalism, you can’t always produce the stories that appear to be very interesting. As it stood, before collapse in communication, there was potentially a very good story that involved The Manchester College and would be extremely relevant to current events, but without there being a possibility of an interview with Emily Rawlins, our news package wouldn’t contain enough substance and would lose the personal touch that it would’ve had, were the interview to have taken place.
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