Great Quality journalism
Along with practising script writing I have also got to cover one of the news stories and film Totton football mach on Tuesday night. As script writing is not a role that would fill all the three days of WINOL production I decided to get myself involved in other departments helping whenever and wherever it is needed. On Monday I managed to study my role a as an Output Editor a little more theoretically through going through the BBC College of Journalism website (I published the conclusions in the separate post “Studying the role in week 5 of WINOL- Output Editor” ).
On Thursday afternoon Maddline and I decided to help the news team since no other reporter was available at the time, we covered the story about the spam fault in IT department of our University. Sarah Fulford, the User Services Manager posted a message on the portal that due to two people ignoring the rules of not giving out personal details via spam the University was attacked with vast amounts of spam. All that caused the Outlook Web access to go offline for some time and made the access to university emails unavailable for students from outside the campus. We had to rush to try to get more details from the Services Manager so that we could cover the story while the problem was still being dealt with. This story became an excellent practise for us from the legal point of view. Sara Fulford agreed to give as more details about the issue but didn’t allow for having herself on camera nor the inside of the building that the problem was at that moment being tackled. We left the room with more details but no pictures for the package. We decided to get Maddline to do PTC in front of the building to at least show the viewers where the problem was being dealt with. We were unfortunately not able to do that either as Mrs Fulford decided that she did not wish us to film the IT services building even from the outside, despite the fact that legally there were no restrictions for us to do so, we were acting within the public interest and there were no signs or legal restrictions about not filming that building but a pure personal concern from Mrs Fulford and wish not to allow as for filming it.
We were not sure what to do in that matter and so we came back to the newsroom to reach a professional advise from our tutors. In that moment we were reminded about the The NUJ's Code of Conduct which has set out the main principles of British and Irish journalism since 1936. And that it is “part of the rules and all journalists joining the union must sign that they will strive to adhere to it.” It is stated in point one that:
“Members of the National Union of Journalists are expected to abide by the following professional principles: A journalist:
1. At all times upholds and defends the principle of media freedom, the right of freedom of expression and the right of the public to be informed “And since that IT building is even named and given a direction to on the way to it (sign saying “IT services”which we have on tape) and there were no signs forbidding filming or stated in the University’s regulations that, that building should not be identified by filming and so we were legally not only allowed but also obliged as journalists to film it pointing at the place of the event happening with the pure intention for the public interest. We were advised to film from the public footpath instead of directly from in front of it, and so we followed that advise, additionally I took pictures of where the camera was standing proving that we did it from the public footpath. If we were asked by the security not to film it even though we were in the public area outside of the University premises we would try to explain the Code of Conduct legal obligations and reasons behind our decision to have gone back to film the building having a full legal and professional justification for it. We would probably not leave until we would be aggressively shouted at or physically removed but then we would have a legal right to put a complaint against the guard that would remove us thanks to the Article 10 Right to freedom of expression in European Convention on Human Rights Act 1998 :
“1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by a public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent states from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema. (...)”
In other words, as it is written in Your Rights Liberty website in The Liberty Guide to Human Rights, “Article 10 protects your right to freedom of expression. This includes the right to hold and express opinions yourself as well as to receive and impart information and ideas to others. Before the Human Rights Act came into force, the right to freedom of expression was a negative one: you were free to express yourself, unless the law otherwise prevented you from doing so. With the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into English and Welsh domestic law, the right to freedom of expression is now expressly guaranteed.(…)”
We broke no law and we fulfilled an informative responsibility as journalists in the public interest, we can also prove that the building is identified in other ways (sign on the way up), there are no signs forbidding filming or picture taking of the building and we can prove that our camera was on the public footpath when filming (we have pictures). We stated only facts that we were given by the Services Manager so everything was within the rule of fast accurate and fair. Everything was truth and we could prove it, we were covered by law and NUJ Code of Conduct. The next day Maddline managed to get an additional interview to fulfill the balance of the package and update on the story.
On Monday night I also went along to film the Totton football match with the sports team, it was amazing to gain a new experience and practice something different. Most challenging were probably weather conditions and late hours of filming apart from that I found it quite enjoyable. I tried to keep tighter shots on the players and use some wacky and artistic shots from behind the net angle to make the peace more interesting.
In Overall, the bulletin was quite strong editorially. There was a timing issue as when I finished the script it was showing around 12minutes and the bulletin ended up taking 13minutes instead. I was told that we could still upload 12 minutes but 13 was too much. Some cuts had to be done in post production. We have to make sure of keeping it within 10minutes for the following scripts.
The Spam issue story (mine and Maddie’s was given as a perfect example of using knowledge about our legal rights and the NUJ Code of Conduct. We also found out that the university has its own policy where we can speak directly to people without speaking with the press officers. The Green party story was well balanced and was generally really well done. There was a suggestion that we broaden the area of covering story and stretch it onto the Winchester City rather than keeping it on the campus. Catherine’s piece contained interesting and effecting shots of fashion but came out as a ‘puff piece’. The sports story had to be cut for legal reasons (libel), there was a good example on 'No denial - denial' (no comment) in the same story. Joey’s story had strong quotes, good PTC and was generally an impressive news piece apart from a little bit boring pictures. The Army story’s link was well formed, which I was pleased to hear. Additionally, our “Date with Fate” is back and already ‘working on getting' our traffic up.
NUJ Code of CONDUCT: http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=174
Your Rights Liberty website in The Liberty Guide to Human Rights: http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/right-of-free-expression/article-10-of-the-european-convention-on-human-rights.html
The University of Winchester Journalism Course
Multimedia Produvtion , WINCHESTER NEWS ONLINE WEBSITE
