WINOL Week Five and Six

Week Five

It was a promising week in which I feel like I let myself down slightly.

I was chasing a story based on a report that the UCU had issued on the drop in variety of undergraduate courses available to students.

A whole variety of shots were open to me, but in the end I just didn't get it done; I also didn't let those on graphics know that I needed graphics well in advance, which made them look cheap and rushed when we tried to cobble them together on the day.

The pie-chart graphic was confusing and didn't really illustrate what I was trying to say - I also only had the one interview with a lecturer and UCU member at this university where ideally I should have provided both sides of the equation - although both parties said essentially the same thing.

As I said, the story initally looked quite promising and intriguing but due to complacency, illness and inertia it just didn't happen how I envisaged it. Not the best week.

Week Six

I didn't fare much better during Week Six. I had an OOV about the uni offering an air traffic control course to students in 2013 done and dusted by Tuesday morning, and had neglected the search for content for another proper news package. Completing an OOV doesn't feel like a very good contribution to the bulletin, so I was eager to grab anything else that came up - in this case, this happened to be the local Council Leader stepping down in order to persue the new Police Chief Commisioner job that is opening up, which was breaking news on a local newspaper's website.

While I was extremely pressed for time and only had an hour to research, script, film and edit a package about it, I failed as not only did I not meet the deadline but I managed to libel the Council Leader in my script as well.

This is a pretty serious error and something which can't be repeated. Not meeting the deadline was awful but I kept editing the package while the bulletin was going on just in case they needed it. In the end, the edited version was slotted in post production and then the bulletin was taken down and re-edited by Brian to catch something I'd missed.

It was a total disaster and next time I'll more carefully assess how much time I'd need for something like that, attempt to stay calmer and make sure that I control the script-writing myself rather than relying on someone else to do it for me.