12 May Interactive Journalism Workbook
This is a workbook log keeping track on what I’ve done over the course of this module and the weekly output of any content, shows or reports I have made.
Week 1 – Voice training + Newsroom refresher
Overview: Our first week back in our last semester had us revisit voice training to strengthen our abilities to present, what ways you can physically prepare yourself to present and some theory work about what goes into voice training and how you can practice flexing your muscles. This week we also got re-acquainted with the newsroom equipment and making content to broadcast a show.
January 28th – First class back to university, the beginning session was an introduction to the Interactive Journalism module, outlining what we would learn and what the final submission was, which was to produce a piece of content fit for a contest that could be submitted during our time on the course.
The second half of the session was voice coaching, and the year group was split into two groups – one to do the coaching on this afternoon and one to do it on Wednesday. I chose to stay and do my coaching on this day, in which we was given some simple exercises reading different genres of scrips and appropriately presenting them in accordance to how they were written. My script was a very formal piece about science which also included statistical data, so I read mine trying to keep a formal tone and professional posture when reading to the class. I feel I did well, though I did stumble by reading a bit too fast ahead.
January 30th – This session was a news writing workshop on how to write in style of a news piece, what kind of content it includes and tips to keep it relevant and professional to read.
January 31st – Today’s lesson was a practical in the newsroom refreshing our class of the equipment and making content to be broadcasted, as well as working with inception and within a multimedia team. We had short practice shows, both for live TV and radio where we got acquainted with our roles, but including some newer roles that we haven’t incorporated in our shows as much: press reviewers and a studio discussion segment.
Week 2 – Voice training and Live show
Overview: This week was about extended voice training sessions in small groups to help practice some live scenarios, such as presenting on location and on the sofa. We also broadcasted a live show this week on Thursday.
February 4th – Today’s lesson was replaced with a 45 min slot for voice training in groups of 3-4, and could be done today or next monday. I opted to do mine next week.
February 7th – We created a live show today where my role was sofa presenter and we had small exercised to have a “discussion panel” of people talking about press releases and stories that had happened, and discuss the aftermath and report on any facts, statistics or statements made during the time. I personally feel I did well for the role, but I still slipped up on segments where it was just me presenting and found a casual debate-style of presenting was much stronger for me than presenting to a camera reading off a script.
Week 3 – Audio
Overview: This week featured my voice coaching session, workshop for choosing a competition to enter and audiograms on Thursday’s session.
February 11th – I had a 45min session with three other people to work on practical situations where we’d be presenting in two situations: on the sofa and in front of the interactive board as if we were presenting on location. The other two roles would be director on the newsdesk and someone to work the audio. We each rotated roles so we could do everything.
February 13th – This workshop was also for working on contest entries.
February 14th – Today’s lesson was about working with audiograms and producing content for websites and social media using an app called Headliner.
Week 4 – Mobile + trip
Overview: This week we looked at mobile journalism and was also the day of our NSS trip
February 18th – This lesson was about mobile journalism, and how to create a live show using content primarily gathered from our phones – learning the different video setting modern day smartphones have and where you should and shouldn’t use them to gather material.
February 20th – Another workshop for working on our competition pieces.
February 21st – Today was our National Student Survey day, upon completion our year group had a trip around London with the tutors participating in a interactive hunt for the day.
Week 5 – Mobile cont
Overview: Another week focusing on mobile journalism and the practical applications it has for creating online content, as well as reflective writing.
February 27th – Today’s workshop was about reflective writing, looking at analysing your own content and being able to detail, critique and give your opinion when writing about yourself or a piece of content you have produced.
February 28th – In this class, we looked at some detailed examples of mobile journalism and how some companies, such as the BBC, configure their phones and what applications they use to collect content to be broadcasted live on TV. We did a exercise where we selected the optimal settings to record on our phone and took some shots to get used to framing, white-balancing etc so we could get quality footage to be published. Another part of this exercise was to record audio using our phones and getting used to the mic input and familiarising ourselves with the kind of quality our phones could get for audio.
Week 7 – Student live shows
Overview: Producing live content and a guest speaker from CCSkills
March 14th – Jennie Godsalve, who was a guest speaker for CCSkills came into class to talk about what her service can offer creative industry students and the opportunities in this area in and around London are.
Week 8 – Student assessed live show
Overview: Our assessed liveshow for this module as well as briefing on music journalism and covering live gigs.
March 18th – Today was our assessed newsday for this module. I joined with the radio team and my role was assistant editor and producer, I work alongside the news editor and helped plan the running order, gathering the packages and making sure we had all the content we needed. We was set up to go live and I was on the desk, but unfortunately due to major technical difficulties we couldn’t go live on the day, and instead had to record our programme and we’re still unsure if the program even recorded properly. We tried to keep working around it and have everything set up and ready, and despite the problems I think we did the best we could.
March 21st – Thursdays lesson was about music journalism and covering live gigs, where we was told about what show we’d be covering and broadcasting – a gig called “Below The Surface” and we’d make multimedia content around it, for TV, radio and news articles/features.
Week 9 – Wikimedia guest
Overview: This week we had a guess come into class from Wikimedia to teach us how to use Wikipedia and learn more about the role it can play in presenting news.
March 28th – This lesson a guest speaker from Wikimedia, John Lubbock, came in to talk about how to use and work around Wikipedia, creating articles and finding sources and citing them. We also learnt what role Wikipedia plays in modern day society and now how many people go to Wikipedia to find up to date news on what’s going on in world news.
Week 10 – Music journalism/Voice AI
Overview: This week was the Beneath The Surface event and learning how AI such as Amazon Echo can be a useful tools to present news.
April 3rd – End of year show workshop for prepping and planning.
April 4th – Today we looked at working with voice AI from products such as Amazon Echo and Google Home and what benefits they could bring to presenting news. The focus of the lession was looking at what keywords you could ask the AI to give you news and follow-up questions to learn more about a particular story. We did an exercise where we had news stories and had to caption what words or phrases people might pick out of the story being read to ask the AI what more information there is about that subject.
Week 11 – Careers – showreels + Symposium
Overview: Our symposium of our projects was to be presented to the class as well as the second years, as well as looking at showreels and putting our highlights into a reel to show future employers.
April 29th – This session was about creating a showreel of out best content and work to show to future employers, creating a piece that best reflects us and our strengths. Some of these showreels were also suggested to be played in our final show.
May 1st – Today’s workshop was for preparing for the symposium. I started to put together a presentation but for personal points to make during the presentation and not to be shown itself.
May 2nd – My symposium was today, and I was presenting my journalism project I worked on beside this module, which was a multimedia article about the growth of the eSport title Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. I spoke about how the process went whilst creating my feature, the problems I faced and how I could improve if I were to do the project again – even suggesting some alternative ideas.
I had the article up on the board and I went through it highlighting points where I think the article works, where it doesn’t and tried to give some advice to the second years on what they can do to their projects when they come round to making theirs.
Week 12 – Final show prep + Submissions
Overview: Final show planning and roles, as well as working on our contest submissions
May 8th – Today we got together with the news editor for our final live show which is June 6th, and discuss roles, content and the running order that would be made for the live day. I chose my role to be VFX and editing the opening/closing credits, as this role reflects on what i’d want to do the most in the media industry; editing and post production or working behind the desk to edit content in some way.
