[Pro-diary] Response To Brief

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.