Critical Reflection

This semester on Winol has been a great success, building on the work of the previous semester and aiming for more ambitious stories and features. This has lead to improvements across all of Winol.

With the format of the website now well established, the focus was very much on content throughout the semester, and this saw an improvement on stories weekly. There was also extension across the site, particularly in features, with Absolute:ly and the New Winchester Review thriving, and the creation of The Volt and Travel and Adventure, diversifying the content that Winol covers and therefore increasing the potential readership.

The biggest News story of the semester was undoubtedly the Eastleigh by-election. As a team we were fortunate that such a large story landed on our doorstep, and we took full advantage, by producing extensive coverage in the build up and producing the election night special ‘The South Decides’. The coverage of the by-election showcased the strength of our reporting, speaking to each of the major candidates, as well as interviewing the biggest names in British politics, including Ed Miliband, Boris Johnson and Prime Minister David Cameron. This was a major success for the news team, and really raised the bar for Winol as a whole.

‘The South Decides’ itself was also a huge success. Providing extensive, through the night coverage live was a significant challenge, but the team excelled. The quality of the pre-recorded packages was very high and the presenters were strong, and with the support of the incredibly dedicated production team, we produced an outstanding election special.

Aside from the Eastleigh by-election, the overall quality was greatly improved this semester. We achieved a much better balance of light and shade across bulletins, with strong, serious stories at the top of each bulletin, and some fantastic ‘and finally’ pieces to close the bulletin. The court reporting from Luke and Christina was particularly impressive, with emotional stories handled very sensitively, a real highlight of the semester.

We maintained a good alexa ranking throughout the semester, regularly outperforming the Hampshire Chronicle and East London Lines, another strong showing after a lot of hard work last semester.

The major change to the bulletin this semester was the two redesigns of the opening titles. The titles now look far more professional, and the corresponding titles for Winol Sport creates some much needed consistency between the presentation of the two programmes.

In my role as Sports Editor this semester, I have tried to build on the existing strengths of Winol Sport and Sportsweek, while developing the areas that had lacked attention in the past.

I faced a difficult start to my tenure as we were told that we could no longer use footage of the Basingstoke Bison. This created two great difficulties for Sportsweek. The first was that the Bison had been one of our biggest draws for viewers, and the second was that the use of Ice Hockey footage had created some diversity in the coverage we offered, and without it we ran the risk of becoming exclusively a football show.

The issue of content was further hampered by the bad weather throughout the semester, meaning that often we had very little in the way of football highlights. The team reacted well to these setbacks however, and we decided to do a number of gonzo pieces investigating more obscure sports, an approach that we had on a few occasions in the previous semester. These pieces were of an increasingly high quality, as we learned how to most effectively use the go-pro to add an additional dimension to the packages. The first of these gonzo pieces was on wheelchair rugby, produced by Liam Garrahan, which featured a team GB athlete, Aaron Phipps. This package was incredibly impressive, and set a high bar for the future gonzo pieces that the sports team produced. Further packages, including fencing and skiing, were also well produced, and maintained a strong thread of gonzo work, as well as providing the desired diversity in our sports coverage. Jack Griffiths also provided a three part feature entitled ‘Challenge Griff’, in which he took on one of the University sports teams at their own events. This was a strong recurring feature, with good content. It also provided continuity which encouraged regular viewers, and the coverage of the University teams proved to be a good source of additional views, and we began to increase our coverage of the University teams as a result of the ‘Challenge Griff’ feature.

The issue of viewing figures for sportsweek was one we continually addressed throughout the semester. In previous semesters the views of Sportsweek had been relatively low, with the majority of views going to the individual packages of the Basingstoke Bison. Our target was to bring views specifically to the sportsweek bulletin, and increase the number of views towards the number it had been around two years ago, where it regularly exceeded 1000 views. I contacted the sports editor from that period, Will Cooper, for advice on how to increase views, and he proved very helpful, making a number of suggestions. We implemented these, and insured that the link was being posted weekly to forums and fan pages of the various football clubs we cover, as well using social media directed specifically at interested parties. We also reduced the number of football highlights that were featured in the bulletin sport, and showed them instead on sportsweek, meaning that the sport in the bulletin was diverse, and the football fans would come straight to sportsweek. This work did indeed increase views, with three editions exceeding 600 views, compared to the previous average of around 150 views. Despite the improvement, we struggled to maintain these viewing figures consistently, and there is still work to do to establish a regular audience that exceeds 500 on a weekly basis.

When the fixture list was not impacted by weather, our football coverage continued in much the same fashion as it had in previous semesters. We regained access to Eastleigh FC, which was an important step in expanding our potential audience, as it is one of the best attended clubs in our patch. The coverage we initially provided, however, was not of the quality we should have been achieving. I made the decision that we would only use highlights that featured a minimum of two cameras, so as to improve the overall quality of the coverage. On the whole this was adhered to, although on occasion reporters failed to secure an operator for a second camera, which obviously negatively impacted the quality. By the end of the semester however, the culture of the team had changed, and multi –camera coverage was the default position. We then looked to go above the minimum two camera setup and take even more cameras. The Hampshire Senior Cup semi final between AFC Totton and AFC Bournemouth was filmed using three cameras, one in the stand and one behind each goal. Again this improved the quality, and proved to be the best highlights package produced of the semester at the time.

At the end of the semester we then looked to improve again, and took five cameras to the Play Off semi-final between Eastleigh FC and Dover Athletic. We again had one camera in the stand and one behind each goal, but we also placed one camera facing across each 18 yard line, giving us a much more dynamic and professional looking highlights package, with multiple angles, which us allowed to show a variety of replays. We also worked hard on the production, with Liam Garrahan, Thomas Baxter and I looking to ensure the package was of the highest possible standard. Liam created a number of high quality graphics for the package, which gave it a professional edge, while Tom and I edited the footage and looked to make the most of the multiple angles. The end product was of a very high standard, and proved to be the biggest success of the semester for our sports team, setting a new standard for the next sports team.

As well as overseeing the work of the sports team and helping out wherever possible with filming, I also used this semester to try presenting for the first time. I tried to ensure that everyone on the sports team was able to have a go at presenting sportsweek and the sports links for the bulletin, which worked out well, and everyone presented at least once. I enjoyed presenting and found it a very natural role for me, which encouraged me to volunteer for on-camera work for ‘The South Decides’. I was one of two newsroom on-screen reporters on the night and I felt it was very successful, and has encouraged me to pursue more on screen opportunities when possible.

One of the biggest struggles I faced this semester was ensuring that the sports package for the Winol bulletin was in the correct aspect ratio. Despite regularly seeking advice from other members of the team, the production team and from the IT department, it took much of the semester to find a permanent solution to this problem, which we eventually discovered, however the failure to find the solution earlier meant that on multiple occasions sport had to be edited into the bulletin in post production, which was incredibly disappointing, especially considering that editing was, with few exceptions, complete long before the deadline for the package. This was without doubt my biggest failure of the semester, but I was pleased when we found a permanent solution, and this should no longer be a problem.

Overall, I feel that this was a successful semester. Winol as a whole developed well, with features broadening to cover more specific areas and the quality of the stories in the bulletin improving every week, with some incredibly high quality packages. We matched improved content with high production standards to produce some of the most consistently high quality bulletins in the history of Winol. As Sports Editor I feel that I oversaw a period of positive development, with increased quality of content. As the majority of the team were already familiar with filming sport, the standard of camera work was consistently good, as was the production. We worked to improve the content through the number of cameras used, and sought to improve the voiceover work through more careful scripting and greater use of light and shade in the tone of voice. This has resulted in higher quality highlights packages, a clear improvement on those earlier in the semester and the year. We have also been able to diversify our sports coverage to include increased University teams and minority sports, which in turn has expanded our potential audience. Viewing figures showed overall growth with a few standout weeks, and there is a clear blueprint for how to increase viewing figures. I feel that as the term passed we have managed to reach a high standard of coverage which sets a new bar for Winol Sport, which hopefully can then be built upon further in future years.