News Editor - Learn by doing?

Winol - Winchester News Online. This is a project journalism students at Winchester university are being graded on. Essentially we've been tasked with setting up our own news organisation, we have an online news and features site and weekly we'll produce a 15 minute live news program. We've just had our first dry run and blimey was it hard work. The temptation to wander around mumbling 'student', 'just learning' and mistakes will happen' is growing by the second.



I'm in the role of news editor and my tasks are to choose the right stories to pursue, manage my reporters and ensure the content is delivered on time. This week I think I failed on all accounts. So either this bizarre optimism I'm feeling is insanity creeping in or I'm confident the next run through will be many times better. Let's hope it's the latter eh?

News is a unique and unpredictable beast, no amount of sitting around planning and discussing will change local events and give us an amazing Hampshire news bulletin. We have to find the news and then report it in the most engaging and informative way possible. So the most important aspect of news journalism is also the most difficult, tracking down interesting happenings somewhere as sleepy as Winchester.

I honestly believe reporting news is much more demanding than feature writing - not to knock features or those who write them, we have a fantastic features team at Winchester that's working extremely hard and coming up with great ideas. It takes a completely different skills set to write features, one I lack completely and I admire those who do. But they do have that luxury of being able to make up ideas, try that in news and people tend to get a little narked off...

All news teams, no matter whether they work for TV, radio or print will meet frequently in a meeting chaired by the editor. They share the stories they've found and the editor decides which ones make the cut. Now being able to speak from experience - this is the make or break part of the entire news day.

If the right stories are pitched and chosen then everything after will go down like a cold beer on a hot summers afternoon. Running with weak ideas will be forced, frustrating and ultimately make for a very weak final product. The problems this week were evident: a lack of communication and preparation.

And the solutions? As the news editor I need to be available all the time, I can't go out to work on a story myself. I'll be there on the end of the phone if I'm needed and I'll keep track of my reporters, know where they are and what they're doing. But I need to trust them more rather than trying to micromanage every aspect of every story. If they pitch a story to me and I like it then I'll give them the go ahead. My team are enthusiastic and committed, everything else will come with time and practice.

We've started an online calendar of upcoming events, our news diary that we can all access and update. By looking ahead we can build up a list of news prospects that will make it easier in the Monday news meeting to find the right stories fill a bulletin. We'll also bring the meeting forward to earlier in the day, the more time we have to work on the pieces, the better they will be.

The week was as difficult as it was rewarding. It was a start and there's definitely something there that can be built upon in the coming weeks. It wasn't until I made these mistakes that I knew how to avoid them. I've tried, and missed the mark. Now I've learnt from it and now I'll do a better job because of it.

The Papers 08/10

As well as the papers, I try to catch the Today show on BBC Radio 4 whenever I can. If nothing else I think I'm learning a lot about having an aggressive interview style and not letting the interviewee dictate the agenda. In particular, I enjoy James Naughtie's style.

So, the papers. The biggest stories today seem to be the Royal Mail strikes (in the Telegraph and accompanied horribly on the front page of the Guardian with an ugly moist close up of a letter box), Sharon Shoesmith's challenge of her dismissal and continuing coverage of the Tory party conference.

The tabloids have thrown in a few good unique headlines that broaden the scope of coverage. The Daily Express scaring us with claims that anti ageing creams might cause cancer and the sun has Robbie William's confession that he nearly died from drugs. A classic red top crowd pleaser, a well known and loved celebrity and a 'drugs are bad' message can't go wrong.

The coverage of the Sharon Shoesmith trial differs in the broadsheets and the tabloids. Both the Sun and the Daily Mail choosing to attack the council for initially supporting her before turning her into a scapegoat. The Times and Guardian both emphasising her revelation that she considered suicide. Regardless of whether it's true, she must really want to make herself appear the victim to make a personal confession like that.

Front page of the day goes to the Times for leading with Berlusconi and choosing a suitably morbid picture of Shoesmith in all black with a black background to go with their tag: 'Furore over baby P left me suicidal'. Now that Berlusconi has lost his Presidential immunity from prosecution it hails the start of more turmoil in Italy that will surely signal lost more headlines to come.

The Papers 05/10

Reading he papers is more than just a good habit for a journalism student to be in, when there aren't any in 20 years time we can annoy our kids and grand children about the good old days when everything wasn't online. Not that I'm planning to have grand children in 20 years time.

Anyway.

As well as reading two papers a day, whenever possible I'm going to grab all the papers together and compare their leads. Based on the front pages, which would I buy today?


The Independent - A lovely beach ball like picture of a stem cell and the story of how research is being 'driven out' of the UK. The left wing connotations of it being wrong and unfair are plain to see. Oh and Monty Python too, a bit of culture always sells well.

Daily Telegraph - Looking very blue today and not just the banner at the top. Boris Johnson has his comment 'I bet a fiver it wont be President Blair' and the main story is Cameron making promises. It's clear that almost everyone has accepted he'll be the next PM now, attacking benefit frauds is a nice safe bet, about the only people less defensible in the public eye are pedophiles. And lets face it, he doesn't want his name and pedophile in the same headline.

In an odd coincidence both the Daily Express and local Daily Echo are leading with breakthroughs in cancer research, albiet one in New York and the other at Southampton University. The Echo is celebrating Southampton FC's first big win of the season, if you're a fan then clearly this is the paper to get, which national would devote this much time to a fallen club? There are great niches that local papers can fill.

The Mirror wins the pun of the day award (by default!) with 'Fright Said Fred', the story being Gary Lineker and Freddie Flintoff being caught near a Taliban attack. Throw in some pictures of said celebrities in protective army gear and it's a winner. The Mirror is still keeping its celeb focus, I still haven't quite gotten over how many weeks in a row they managed to have Jordan on the front page.

But I think the best front page today has to be the Sun. They've managed to track down the mother of the child Elton John is trying to adopt and plastered a picture of her looking very much the victim with 'I wont let Elton take my baby!'. What a thief! What a villain! And that picture of him kissing the child is just creepy! Drama sells, celebrity drama doubly so.