5 Sept 2010 Next year & NUS Summit

 
So I stayed in Portsmouth for the summer, lots of pros and cons for this, cons including no one being around other then a select few, but thats going to change very quickly as everyone heads back for the new uni year. Apprehensive about the new year, nervous excitement regarding the arrival of thousands of freshers to Pure FM and me being in charge of making sure everything happens right.

Got back from a two day NUS Media "summit" in London, which, with the different company and the more journalistic topics, was very entertaining and educational. Really great couple of days, met some really interesting people and got quite inspired as well as getting some confidence restored in what I'm doing. I've just opened my notebook, lets see if any of this is useful.

The first breakout session I went to was by Alister Bunkall, currently a news reporter on Sky News. He showed us a promo video which was a behind the scenes look at how the coverage of Gordon Brown resigning and Cameron becoming PM was handled. Which showed how much Twitter is now used to both collect and broadcast news. He was very honest about Sky compared to BBC and ITV, he explained that Sky News doesn't try to compete with the 10 O'Clock news on BBC, it would be wasted efforts, their focus is on being there when people want it, the audience should be able to tune in for 5 minutes anytime during the day and be up to speed with exactly what's going on. Also, tailoring news to whos watching at that time of the day, Lunchtime news is often more "housewives" friendly, health etc, whereas 10pm will be much more business and political driven.

The focus of news is being scattered onto multi platforms, likewise with all media now, he told us that there more and more being put online, on Sky News Radio (who took over from IRN providing radio stations all over the country with news bulletins, he also added that this is often the quickest way to get news out to the largest audience), they've also been looking at the rise of the App, (which he couldn't show us on his iPhone as he'd dropped it on a night out), and they also provide news to Billboards in London.

He told us that TV is often challenging to produce news on, you need a picture, which aren't always easy to come by (Reminded me of the wonderful News Blooper where they failed with a photo of Rodney Stanger http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxvvdGBBm6E) Radio is much simpler, and just like papers, its quite simple to get quotes, just phone them.

The trick to getting good news stories is getting the best relationships built with the right people, so lots of PR smooching and the such, but only approach your parallels he said, the people you work with now, the people further down the ladder, will, some of them at least, end up higher in the ranks. He said that's how Robert Peston got to where he is now.

(I wasn't planning on writing so much detail! Thats two sides of a little notebook!)

Sunny Hundal - Liberal Conspiracy
Blogger background, no journalistic training.
He told us the way he found success, find a niche! Medias already so crowded, don't be re-churning out stuff people would have already read (which was a piece of advice re-churned out during a few of the sessions when referring to how Student Media should run), don't be general!

Once you have your niche, persevere, get your friends to read and comment, if others see comments, then they'll see it as a community, somewhere they will find people with similar interests, or opposing ones that will spark debate, and they'll want to be part of it.

Tap into existing networks, comment on them, with a link to your blog, similar places will have people looking for somewhere like your blog. Tell them about your new post, tell them why they want to read your blog.

He said that you should be offering people another perspective on things, Britain is made up of so many different identities, you'll always be able to offer a different perspective to someone. Identity's can be class, religion, country... all sorts of things. Again, find your niche.

He said "If I don't have anything interesting to say, I won't say anything", it keeps your blog interesting, don't write them rubbish just because they're asking for something to read. maintain your credibility.



Then we heard from Aaron Porter, ("The lord almighty himself" as he was referred to on the Friday), he talked to us about finances of uni's. He was very impressive, was very engaging and interesting.

The vote for increase of tuition fees during Tony Blairs government was the closest vote in the whole of his government, a swing of 3 votes the other way would have seen the opposite to what was decided.

Aaron told us that Part Time, Post Grad and International Students are still being asked to pay unregulated fees upfront, these are often the student that are the most vulnerable to the cost.

Women are 5% more likely to go to University, but still earn 12% less then Men.

Apparently there are 5% more September born students who go to uni then August, reasons for this were put down them being 11 months less developed when put into school then their September counterparts.

150,000 qualifies students missed out on places in University this year due to too few spaces.

Socio Economic has an impact on whether they go to uni near home or away from home, 22% of A band stay at home, 53% of DE stay at home.

Arts and Lingistic students only earn on average £34,000 and £71,000 respectively more than if they didn't go to University, does this even justify the £28,000ish cost of University?





Niall Couper - Interview Skills
Rules - Code of Conducts - NUJ & Press Complaints Committee
Be Accurate, Honesty, Respect Privacy, Protect Sources & Don't Discriminate

What you want to get out of the interview - Facts
What, Where, Who, When, Why, How... and Entertainment!

Reading Ages - Age who should be able to understand your piece
Guardian - 14 year old reading age
Sun - 8 year old reading age.

ALWAYS GET THE INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING STORY NUGGETS.

Soundbites - Should be engaging quotes
Visual Imagery - Make images EG Second Fiddle, Chipping away & Drawing a line in the sand, cliches good, but not too many!
Succienct- Reading age, Jargonless
Clear
Punchy
Power of 3 - Three points flow nicely, just ask "can you give me 3 examples" to get these.

Preparing - Before the interview
Equipment - Pens, Paper, Phone, Recording Equipment, Batteries, SPARES of EVERYTHING
Judgement - Know how important the relationship is and how to approach person.

Relationships - Some examples
Long Term
EG - Council Worker, Police
Approach - Cosy, off the record briefing.

Novice
EG - The Witness
Approach - Bestmate

Media Pro
EG - Football Manager
Approach - Feed them lines, such as "so your formation was rubbish", they'll say yes of repeat it back.

The Death Knock
EG - Friends, family of death.
Approach - KNOW YOUR STUFF (Names, Age, Everything), but be sensitive, don't over stay welcome.

Someone with something to hide
EG - The politician (ONE OFFS!)
Approach - Rotteweiller (relentless like Paxman, works on Radio TV, not so well for print unless you get the answer) or Fluffy Assassin (Lure them into false security)

Prepare! Have a list of questions, if you loose your thread ask them a nonsense q to give you time to recatch, such as "where did you grow up"
Double and Triple check facts if you want to keep rep
Be correct and be sure if you are going to take risks
Don't feel the need to fill silence, let them do it, they'll open up



Writing for the Web - Sean Coughlan (BBC)
BBC is now structed by disipline and not by media,
Web articles should be 300 words or less (I've failed with this here!), Web news doesn't stop, but its interactive.

Is a blogger the same as a Journalist?
The amount of information people take in is huge, news comes to the journalist instead of finding it themselves, they process news from professionals whos job it is to provide the news, such as PR People

Should people have to pay for news (RE The Times Paywall), if they don't, online news can only be provided by the really rich who can afford to provide it free, journalist cost money. If only the rich can provide news then only the rich will provide news, becomes very monopoliesd and biased.

A lot of news is case studies and spokesperson, less and less actually asking people involved, whereas student media can get hold of students oppions from them very easily and should do!

Facebook helps cause the "Amplification Process", campaigns from facebook makes the news. Useful for Journalism, can get access to people really quickly.

Make people care about news! Even if it means "london lite"ing it to give papers to them direct. Exploit Niche (again, echoed a lot during the two days, but very true)

Get peoples names in the paper, they'll take a copy, and try and get in it again.

Tailor it to how they feel when they take it, if people pick up the paper when they are bored and stressed out from exams, offer them light hearted relief.




And that'll do, that's all the practical advice I got from the two days, hope it will be useful to you too.

Emma