Lovell Blogs...

iTrust you!

2010-01-20T10:56:00.010Z

Photo courtesy of:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sigalakos/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I've picked up on another article from The Guardian's Media Monkey which is about a new iPhone app that has been designed to catch out people who check their partners mobile phones!

The application, iTrust, has been written by a man named Bob Nerberg of Oslo who has designed the application with his girlfriend. He thinks it will make relationships stronger and was quoted as saying "It's something everybody thinks about in a relationship - is my partner reading my texts and emails? Now you can be sure."

The way it works is by producing a locked dummy screen to prevent access to texts, emails or social networking accounts, and stores a record of every button pressed on the display. The owner would then be able to see what buttons had been pressed etc.

This strikes me as pretty bizarre because realistically if you've got nothing to hide from your partner, then why would you be bothered about them reading emails and texts, most of which are probably from them anyway! And if your partner is reading your texts/emails or you're reading theirs, then surely something isn't right?

I love technology, it's fantastic and is always improving our way of life by making things simpler, faster and better but I don't think this is strictly necessary! But hey, for all you iPhone users out there that want to see if their partners trust you, then this is app is probably for you! Whilst you're there though I've found some more pointless apps here, but here are my favourite three:

1) Cold Beer - "There are two kinds of people in the world: normal people, and people who like to calculate how long it'll take to get their beer to a specific temperature in the fridge. Only the first group get invited to parties."

2) MyLighter - All the fun of a Zippo lighter without the actual lighter – great for concerts! Concerts for simpletons, that is.

3)UK Payphone - You're carrying a phone. So why on earth would you pay money to find out where the nearest payphone is? This is either a surrealist prank or The Worst iPhone App Ever.

Adrian in Trouble with the Fuzz....Face Fuzz that is!

2010-01-20T10:35:00.004Z

A Beardless Adrian Chiles courtesy of:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/damo1977/ / CC BY 2.0

I sat and wondered during Match of the Day Two this week who the scruffy looking chap who had replaced Adrian Chiles was, then I realised it was just Adrian complete with a beard!

Now although I thought he looked a little scruffy and made a few jokes with my friends about him not making the effort for MOTD2 anymore I think I could cope if he continued to sport the face fuzz. Unfortunately though, it's not down to me, The BBC have told him to "lose" the beard as it is "inconsistent" with role on The One Show. According the Media Monkey on the Guardian website, "Adrian's bush has not gone down well" so it looks like we'll be seeing the normal Adrian Chiles back on MOTD2 from now on!

Will you be welcoming back Adrian without his beard? Or do you think it's unfair for the BBC to tell him to lose it?

Interesting Debate on Responsible Journalism...

2010-01-13T12:04:00.004Z

Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RobbieSavage01.JPG

Original Author TuborgLight.

Having just listened to Robbie Savage's reaction to a local journalist who had reported 'rumours that the players think the club's backroom staff aren't up to the job' it raised a couple of issues to do with responsible journalism.

Savage was unhappy with the journalist who reported these rumours and his fury at the lack of support from local journalists to Derby County FC was clear. First off Savage asks the local journalist to tell him who his source for the rumours was, which rightly the journalist refuses to tell him. Savage doesn't think that it was responsible journalism to repeat these rumours on the radio, but if the journalist has a reliable and trustworthy source then the rumours could actually be closer to fact than Savage knows, and therefore the journalist probably feels the Derby fans deserve to know.

Savage also expects the local journalists to get behind the team and support the team, which by all rights they should do when the team are playing well and producing good results but when they are struggling, which Derby clearly are following their 4-1 defeat to Scunthorpe United, responsible journalism would be to report the fact that they are struggling and not gloss over it and make out that Derby are the best team in the world. Savage says that a journalist reported "Boos echo around Pride Park" and says "people can hear that for themselves" which of course they can, well the ones at Pride Park can! A home crowd booing their team at the end of the match is pretty important to a sport story, it shows the reader and the fans who didn't attend that the majority of home fans aren't happy with the way the team performed. I for one, would be quite annoyed if my local paper didn't report the unhappiness of the home fans just as they would report the delight of the same fans if their team had won the cup!

It is not the role of a local journalist to continually talk up the team and praise them and it is not the role of the footballer or the teams to dictate what the reporters can report. The journalist reports what is important to their audience and in this case, Derby's struggle is important local sports news to BBC Radio Derby!

You can hear the interview here:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/d/derby_county/8453055.stm

African Cup of Nations 2010

2010-01-12T21:25:00.005Z

Ghanaian supporters at the 2008 African Cup of Nations.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/manbeastextraordinaire/ / CC BY 2.0

This week saw the start of this year's African Cup of Nations in Angola. The return of Drogba, Essien, Toure and co back to Africa, a very enjoyable tournament but the headlines evolve around the gunmen that fired on the Togolese team on Friday. I understand this and I think it's right for journalists to cover this story and raise awareness for what is a problem in many African countries, especially with the World Cup heading to South Africa this summer. But I think to vilify the whole of Africa and suggest it isn't capable of hosting this year's World Cup is going too far.

So far the Cup of Nations has seen some exciting matches, including incredible comebacks (Angola looked home and dry in the opening match when they were leading 4-0 with 11 minutes to go, only for Mali to peg them back to draw 4-4!) Then we saw Malawi unexpectedly beat Algeria 3-0 and then minnows Burkina Faso drew 0-0 with tournament favourites Ivory Coast. The results kept coming as Egypt came from 1-0 down to beat Nigeria 3-1! So far the matches have been exciting and I expect that to continue.

Another aspect is the incredible spectacle that Angola has put on to host the tournament. The opening ceremony at the 11 de Novembre National Stadium in Luanda was spectacular and the match 4-4 draw to follow provided a great start to the tournament which it really needed following the shootings which had tarnished its image before it had begun. The fans have been fantastic so far also, producing an atmosphere full of passion which many African fans are renowned for.

I think column inches will continue to be written about the safety of holding tournaments in this part of the world for the next few weeks and even more so in the run up to the tournament. It's a shame as I think this tournament could have many more fantastic moments to remember it for but unfortunately there's only one thing people will ever remember about Angola 2010.

Has The Cup Lost It's Magic?

2010-01-04T21:33:00.004Z

Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_FA_Cup_Trophy.jpg

This weekend saw the FA Cup's Third Round take place and many of the match reports mention the dwindling stadium attendances and the disappearance of the magic which the Cup used to possess.

The Third Round is normally a big day for a football fan as the famous competition finally introduces the big boys and is the stage where famous giant killings are staged. We saw one this weekend when League One's Leeds United beat Premier League Champions Manchester United at Old Trafford which produced the type of magic and excitement we have come to expect from the competition. But some of the attendances around the country suggest that for many fans, going to the FA Cup isn't that important any more.

The weekend saw ten Premier League teams at home and just two of those (Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur) saw their attendances go above their average season attendance. That means Chelsea, Everton, West Ham (who faced Arsenal), Aston Villa (who faced Blackburn), Sunderland, Fulham, Portsmouth and Wigan all saw their attendances for the FA Cup fall below their season average. Wigan who entertained Hull, in an all Premier League tie, had a gate of just 5,335 which was only beaten by Torquay's home match with Brighton which had a crowd of 4,028.

The falling attendances make it clear that the FA Cup perhaps doesn't mean what it used to, but I think its not just a case of fans falling out of love with the cup. The average season attendances are made up mainly of season ticket holders whom are expected to then pay extra for the cup matches on top of the few hundred quid they pay at the start of the season. And another key fact here is that for many clubs, cup tickets aren't cheap, for example West Ham were charging between £28 and £40.50 for season ticket holders for their home tie against Arsenal and then people wonder why they only attracted 25,549 fans for the tie of the round (5,200 of which were Arsenal fans!)

The ticket prices coupled with managers fielding weaker sides to save their their best eleven for league ties makes the FA Cup a lot less glamorous. Realistically, who is that happy about paying upwards of £30 for to see their sides reserves? Fans are clearly falling out of love with the most prestigious trophy in domestic football and it's time the FA worked with the clubs to make sure the fans come first and the trophy gets the attendances and treatment it deserves.

Travel Review: Prague

2009-12-30T19:00:00.002Z

I visited Prague just before Christmas and decided to take the opportunity to write a short review about the trip.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised about Prague, I went with very little knowledge of the place and indeed the Czech Republic. And with the country having come out of the Communist regime 20 years ago so I was sceptical as to what the place and people would be like.

Like I said I was pleasantly surprised and found the place to very nice and indeed full of history and incredible architecture. The architecture of the area was what impressed me the most. The buildings, bridges and surrounding areas were very impressive.

In the main area of Prague there is many tourists attractions as the city if full of history and culture. This includes the Charles Bridge, which is decorated by 28 statues and stands at 520 m long and 10 m wide. It also produces some of the best views of The Vltava River and the Prague Castle at both night and day. You can see some photo's I took at the bottom of this blog!

The Prague Castle was another highlight to visit as it is where the President of the Republic currently resides and if often referred to as the political centre of the state. A huge area with many more impressive buildings including the New Palace and Royal Palace. The St. Vitus' Cathedral is in the third courtyard of the area is a fantastic building and is regarded as the most sacred place in all of the Czech lands.

Old Town Square is a hub of activity, especially during Christmas periods as it is where the Christmas market operates. It also plays host to many cafes and restaurants and is also a few minutes walk to New Town which is again full of cafes, restaurants, bars and shops. The Astronomical Clock and The Cathedral of Our Lady before Tyn and The Old Town Hall. A must visit for anybody going to Prague. Other places to visit include the Rudolfinum which plays host to the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and other classical concerts and The National Theatre. Both are again superb examples of the impressive architecture in this area of Prague.

Prague was a lovely place to visit, especially considering it's a country which has only been out of Communist Rule for 20 years, but with a a big inyerest in good (and cheap) beer, good food and of course history and culture, Prague offers something for almost everybody! Check out some of my pictures below:

Enjoying a Czech Dark Beer - Krusovice

Prague Castle

Rudolfinum

View from Charles Bridge at Night

Astronomical Clock

View of Old Town Square

View across the Vtlava River including Prague Castle

View from Charles Bridge in the Day

View of the Prague Castle Grounds

Snow Falling on Charles Bridge!

More Than A Club...

2009-12-26T17:06:00.006Z

Photo: http://picasaweb.google.com/facetani

Just under a week ago Barcelona won their sixth trophy of 2009 by winning the World Club Championship against Argentinian side Estudiantes.

The Spanish side claimed La Liga, the Copa del rey, The Champions League, The Spanish Super Cup and the European Super Cup before the most recent win which has led me to decide that this Barcelona side is probably the best team of my generation so far.

There's a number of reasons for this and it isn't just down to the fact that they have won 6 titles in 2009 (although that is a very important factor in my decision!) I always judge a European side on how well they have done against English opposition, mainly because that is where I know most of my football knowledge and what I watch more often. Barcelona beat Chelsea on route to the Champions League Final where they beat and outplayed Manchester United. So in order to be crowned the best in Europe they had to beat two of the best (if not the best) teams in England. So clearly they have produced the goods when playing English opposition.

The second factor is that they have repeatedly impressed and won in all competitions they have played in. A very impressive feat showing their squad depth, teamwork, fitness, and all around ability to consistently perform throughout every competition they have been involved in. The array of talent on show every week at the Camp Nou is very impressive with the likes of Xavi, Iniesta, Henry, Ibrahimovic, Pique, Alves and of Messi on show. This side has beaten sides across the globes, across all the competitions under young coach Pep Guardiola, another aspect I like about this side is that they have a young coach who seems to know his stuff!

This leads me on to my next point. The players that currently ply their trade for the Catalan giants really are special. The partnership between midfield duo Xavi and Iniesta is a testament to the clubs academy system as both came through the famous Barcelona academy learning to play the Barcelona way. This coupled with strikers such as Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the latter having joined over the summer, give them that vital edge in the attacking third and with the recently crowned World Player of the Year Lionel Messi (also winner of the Ballon d'Or) also in that third you have a force not to be reckoned with.

Fittingly, it was Messi who scored the winning goal in extra time to crown his side the World Club Champions. Barcelona clearly are, as the club motto reads, Mes Que Un Club.

Apologies!

2009-12-26T16:25:00.002Z

Apologies for the lack of Blog activity over the last week or so. I went to Prague and had Christmas etc! There'll be a few blogs going up over the next few days to make up for it!

Merry Christmas :)

Making it Easy for United isn't Really Necessary?!

2009-12-16T10:50:00.004Z

Photo: TGIGreeny's

As anyone who has read a newspaper this morning will know, last night witnessed Mick McCarthy's Wolves team make ten first team changes to face Manchester United at Old Trafford. This strikes me as pretty crazy - we are talking about Manchester United aren't we? Last season's Premier League champions and runners up in the Champions League?

From last night's starting eleven, only goalkeeper Marcus Hanhnemann retained his place from the side who played Tottenham at the weekend, whilst players such as George Friend were given Premier League debuts. McCarthy's reason was that he wanted to "protected his players from injury" after their hard fought 1-0 win over Spurs. Wolves haven't picked up many points this season, but the win on Saturday marked their second win on the bounce, their best form of the season so far. So surely the best team morale to take to Old Trafford?

I can understand rotating his squad and keeping players fresh for the big matches that they have coming up, notably against Burnley on Sunday. But when the travelling Wolves fans pay £42 for a ticket and travel up to Manchester on a bitterly cold night, surely they deserve better? Let's not forget that last night represented a good chance for Wolves to have a decent go at the champions considering their current injury crisis and form? It's almost as if McCarthy had admitted defeat before kick off, instead United strolled home to a 3-0 victory.

I realise that some players would be tired, but all in all they are professional footballers, highly tuned athletic machines, three matches in a week shouldn't be too much of an issue. The Premier League is never going to be easy, but perhaps if the Wolves first eleven can't cope with the playing schedule, then there's something wrong with their training regime?

It's important that the Premier League doesn't become like the FA Cup or League Cup where several managers rotate their squads for the sake of keeping their players fresh for league matches. As I found out from the Reuters Soccer Blog, there is actually a rule against fielding weakened teams. "Premier League rule E20 states that clubs are required to field full-strength sides in every match", clearly this didn't happen last night.

The quality of league deserves better than that. It's going to be interesting to see what Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger and Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti think of McCarthy's early Christmas present to Manchester United.

Advertising Duffy or Diet Coke?

2009-12-14T13:19:00.003Z

I stumbled across this advert when browsing around the Guardian website. It bought two interesting points, 1) it seems to be more of an advert for Duffy rather than Diet Coke! 2) This is the interesting part, according to reports, Police in the area had to stop a number of "copy cats" who also cycled through supermarkets in tribute to Duffy! Perhaps not the response the advertising people of Diet Coke were looking for?!

WINOL Week 6 Critical Reflection...

2009-12-12T21:59:00.005Z

Another week brings another WINOL bulletin and I'm happy to report that this week was the strongest one we have produced so far. This was especially good for myself as this is the last bulletin that I will be running as Sports Editor, the third years we now hand over the editorial roles to the second years to take on in the second semester.

Once again I have to say I was extremely pleased with what my sports team and I produced in terms of the bulletin and the website. Editorially the bulletin was strong this week as the news packages were the strongest they've been so far.

This week we were well prepared for sports and by Tuesday afternoon our content was ready for the bulletin, which was a fantastic position to put ourselves in as it left us with a relatively stress free Wednesday. We used the Wednesday to tweak and perfect things which came through in the bulletin and in the impressive comments from our lecturers during the debrief. I spent the week again writing content for the website as I had allocated the packages to my reporters once again. I think used my time to help my reporters with their stories, suggesting changes and helping whenever needed. We got some fantastic shots in the Winchester FC match of two of the players doing a rehearsed dance for a celebration. This proved vital for Tom Otrebski and I as we used it as a platform for our links and it enabled us to have some fun and produce some well scripted work.

Football Clubs Bans Local Paper!

2009-12-11T21:08:00.001Z

Picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ingythewingy/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

My local newspaper, The Daily Echo, has been banned from from St Mary's football stadium by Southampton F.C.

The Saints banned the paper following a story it ran on the club's plans to re-develop it's existing training ground. The reason they were banned was that the club didn't want story to be published, even though it was already in the public domain. The plans had been published by the New Forest District Council following the club's planning application, and according to the Echo numerous other news sources, such as The BBC and Sky Sports News were also running details and pictures online. However, The Echo have been punished for running the story, which was officially announced on the club's own website on Wednesday, just one day after the Echo had ran it.

I think this is pretty interesting as it shows how the newspaper has perhaps overstepped the mark by going against the club's wishes and how the club has then decided to punish the paper. The Saints coverage is an important part of the Daily Echo, and is perhaps a source for many Saints fans for news, match reports, transfers, interviews etc. The decision marks the first time in the Daily Echo's 121 year history that they have been prevented from covering Southampton F.C.

The editor of the paper was quoted on the newspapers website saying that they will continue to provide "unbiased, balanced, well thought through, professional analysis of the Saints", which is all well and good but surely a large amount of their stories, especially match reports, come from St Mary's?

It's always interesting, especially from a trainee journalists' point of view, to see these tussles between newspapers and organisations. I imagine the paper will have thought that running the story would have been more influential on their sales than the lack of Saints reports will have whilst they try to solve this problem, providing they do! But perhaps for the sake of running the story a day earlier than the club's official website it could easily have been avoided, but then in the newspaper world, getting the story earlier than your rivals is the name of the game!

Media Law Notes

2009-12-10T17:06:00.016Z

Here are my notes from today's media law session:

Defamation

Definitions:

Defamation: Any statement which will cause a person to lose or diminish their reputation. A statement that exposes the person to ridicule, hatred, causes them to shunned & avoided or lowers them in the minds of right thinking people of society.

Malice: Writing down with intent anything you know to be untrue.

Public Interest: From the PCC code of conduct The Public Interest includes: 1) Exposing danger to the community or 2) Exposing a health risk to the community or 3) Exposing the fact that the public is being misled.

Malicious Falsehood: A statement that may not be defamatory but is damaging to a person's reputation. It is a statement that is written with the intent to damage the person it is written about even if it isn't actually defamatory to their reputation.

Innuendo: A statement that is used to imply that someone has done something. The idea that you are safe if you defame somebody without naming them isn't true.

Juxtaposition (libel): Unintentional libel arising from placing a defamatory article/picture/package next to an innocent article/picture/package.

Libel

Three Elements of Libel:

1) Publication - It is libel if the defamatory statement is published to a third party.

2) Identification - The person the statement is about has to be identified. Be careful of Jigsaw Identification where the person could be identified if the audience can work out who the person is from the description in the article.

3) Defamation - See above.

The plaintive has 1 year to take libel action - you must therefore keep your rushes and notes for at least a year.

Three Main Defences Available for Libel:

1) Justification: The statement is true & can be proved.

2) Fair Comment: 1) You believe the comment to be true, 2) The comment is based on fact, 3) The statement has to be in the public interest.

3) Qualified Privilege: There are two types. Statutory QP gives protection to things reported from law courts, parliaments, local authorities etc but are subject to refutation. The reports need to be accurate, contemporaneous and without malice. Common Law QP gives protection to bodies not mentioned in the statute.

How Media is Regulated in Relation to Political Bias:

According to the Representation of The People Act it is a crime for a broadcast to show political preference to any political party. Unless we are in a general election period, the broadcaster only has to show balance over time. If we are in a general election period, the broadcast has to give each political party time in proportion to the votes they received in the last election. It has to be precise and is called strict airtime.

Newspapers are not controlled by the Representation of The People Act and can therefore be biased for or against a political party.

Regulations to do with taste and decency:

Swearing in broadcasts:

The "F-Word": This can be used if it is not gratuitous and is it after the watershed.

Profoundly offensive language - "C-Word": Never allowed to say without special prior consent from Ofcom.

Material which may be offensive to religious viewers: You must be reporting on religious issues.

Interviewing Criminals: You must not pay criminals or glamourise them or their crime. (You musn't pay witnesses for interviews as well.)

Contempt of Court

Contempt of Court exists so that the accused can have a fair trial.

There are two types of court, Magistrates Court and Crown Court.

Functions of a Magistrates Court:

1) The starting point of all cases

2) Applications for injunctions in civil cases take place here

3) Bail hearings - applications for bail take place

Types of Cases at a Magistrates Court:

Summary Cases - Minor offences

Committal - Serious offences, a Magistrates Court does not have the power to deal with these cases and therefore commits the case to Crown Court

Bail - Bail cases take place at Magistrates Court - You can report that bail has been denied but the reasons for the denial cannot be reported.

*All are protected by Qualified Privilege when the court is session in the presence of a judge and jury or magistrate*

The case becomes active when the accused is arrested and charged - this means that you cannot be sued for libel for reporting what the defendant is accused of. The case is no longer active once a verdict has been given.

Accused on remand/bail/awaiting trial: Whilst on remand you must not report anything as there is danger of contempt of court as this is the time that a jury is being assembled.

You musn't report anything in a Crown Court when the jury is not present - contempt of court.

But you have Qualified Privilege to report when the Judge and Jury are present.

Interviewing the Jury:

You cannot interview members of the jury whilst the case is active.

You can interview members of the jury after the case but only very generally.

Interviewing the Witness(es)

It is permitted to interview the witness(es) but against the codes of conduct to pay them. You cannot interview a witness when the case is active.

Anything can be reported after conviction but before sentencing because the case is no longer active.

Privacy

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights deals with Privacy.

"Everyone is entitled to the 'normal enjoyment of family life.'

A good example of this is the case of Princess Caroline of Monaco. She won a major legal battle over the right of newspapers to publish pictures of her. The European Court of Human Rights said that the newspaper shouldn't have published photos of her and her children even if they were in a public place. The Court ruling said: "Every person, however well-known, must be able to enjoy a legitimate hope for the protection of... their private life ". You can see the BBC report on this here.

Practical Measures to be taken by a Photojournalist or Videojournalist:

Ensure that in GV's (general views) nobody is identifiable unless they have given their consent. Explicit consent is given by a signed consent form, waving at the camera etc.

Trespass:

You need permission to film on any private property. If you are filming on private property and are asked to leave you must do so. The person is not allowed to take your tapes.

Confidentiality:

The information protected by confidentiality must have:

1) Quality of confidentiality

2) It was imparted in circumstances implying confidentiality

3) It has to be proven that it caused detriment.

Ten Point Test: Reynolds Defence:

This is the ten point test of responsible journalism and if you have done these ten things then you have a degree of legal protection:

1) The allegation must be serious. The more serious, the more protection will be applied.

2) The nature of the information must be of public concern.

3) The source of the information must be good. The more authoritative source, the more you are entitled to report their allegations.

4) The steps taken to verify the allegation. You must try and put the allegations to the person.

5) Status of the information is not old, e.g. allegations are not being bought up that have already been denied.

6) The urgency of the matter - reasons for running the article now.

7 Whether comment was sought from the claimant.They may have information that others don't possess. It may be practical to get the other side of the story and give the person the opportunity to deny it but it is not always necessary.

8) Whether the article contains the jist of the claimant's side of the story.

9) The tone of the article - the article should be written in a sober way, sticking to the facts.

10) The circumstances of the publication. The allegations should be bought to public attention as quickly as possible.

More Jimmy's, Less Bobby's...

2009-12-08T22:31:00.009Z

Picture:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34517490@N00/ / CC BY 2.0

I've read an interesting article today explaining Bobby Zamora's bizarre celebration on Sunday. (I'll be honest my house-mate told me about the article, check his blog out here)

Anyway, after Zamora scored the only goal of the game against Sunderland on Sunday he celebrated by yelling "Shut your fucking mouths" towards a section of the home fans. A bizarre way to celebrate you'd think? The reasoning given was that a selection of Fulham fans have been badmouthing Zamora on a Fulham fans forum due to his lack of goals for the club, so this was his answer.

I find this pretty interesting for a number of factors. First of all, was he right to react this way to a small selection of fans? Secondly, Zamora now joins a list of players where the Internet has been involved in their careers recently. Thirdly, Zamora's goal scoring record for Fulham isn't fantastic, so do the fans have a right to voice their protests over his lack of goals?

I think reacting this way to a small selection of fans was somewhat naive, especially as a lot of the Fulham fans do actually like Zamora and regularly chant his name for his efforts, (he has even received some praise on the Fulham fan message board for Sunday's celebration!) So in voicing his opinions at Craven Cottage towards the home fans he has also abused perhaps the same fans that may have been chanting his name during the game. I don't think he was right to react the way he did, the perfect reaction was hitting the back of the net. Criticised for lack of goals, scores a goal - what could be a better way to answer critics?

The Internet is clearly becoming involved in football (like it is with pretty much everything) and is giving fans and players the chance to voice opinions, apologise, praise and discuss football even more so. Social networking sites such as Twitter have been used by Darren Bent to vent frustration over transfers, Thierry Henry used to apologise for his infamous handball which led to France qualifying for The World Cup over the Republic of Ireland. This could be a good thing though as it opens up another platform for people to discuss football, voice their concerns, praise players etc, this goes works for players and fans alike. But, clearly a problem that comes is with issues such as racism, for example, that plague football in certain areas can now be written anonymously.

Now, the obvious problem for Zamora was that he was receiving some bad treatment because of his lack of goals for Fulham. I looked into his goalscoring record for The Cottagers and to be fair it isn't fantastic. He has scored just 6 goals in 44 league starts (source: Soccerbase), so perhaps the criticism is justified? I think it's fine for fans to criticise players, after all they pay to watch and I would expect the players rather enjoy it when the same fans sing their names and praises (us football fans are notoriously fickle!!)

I think it's a shame to see Bobby celebrate the way he did, especially as it comes just a week after we saw one of the best Premier League celebrations of all time. Jimmy Bullard's celebration was full of banter, aimed at his manager of all people, and that's the sort of celebration and playful banter I like to see in football. The game needs more players like Jimmy Bullard, full of wit, banter and a general love for the game and it's people.

You can see Bullard's celebration here.

I'm A Celebrity...Gets Serious

2009-12-07T15:53:00.009Z

Picture:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/asplosh/ / CC BY 2.0

Having read the news surrounding I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here winner Gino D'Acampo and his fellow contestant Stuart Manning I decided it was worthy of a blog!

The two contestants took part in this years show and during their time in the jungle beheaded and turned a rat into risotto. This happened when the pair were living in exile and therefore were forced to live on inferior rations. Professional Chef, Gino, beheaded, skinned and cooked the rat which the group, including ex Hollyoaks actor Stuart, ate. They now both face criminal charges for animal cruelty as it has emerged that the reality TV show didn't have permission to slaughter the rat, even though the show is based around trials which often see celebrities eating live insects and constant use of animals, such as snakes, to scare them.

According to most newspaper reports, there are codes of conduct in New South Wales, Australia, that dictate how animals can be used and killing a rat is deemed as not acceptable. I know rules are rules and the law is the law etc but this strikes me as quite bizarre as Gino, who went on to be crowned King of the Jungle, had to eat a rhino beetle in one of the bushtucker trials as well as other contestants being subject to tasks involving other insects and animals. But, I guess the key thing here was that the beetle was served to him dead and is therefore allowed?

A statement in a report on the Sky website said that the rules would not relate to insects and grubs which had been eaten in the past. The allegation against the two is that an animal was creully treated, but judging by the fact that the two contestants were on a diet of rice and beans, I think it would be harsh to lay the blame at just their feet. Perhaps having a look at the conduct of ITV and the programmes producers, who put the celebrities in the this position, would be more just?

I am not particularly fond of the programme, or any other reality TV show for that matter, but I do find it bizarre that two people are being penalised for eating a rat on a programme that promotes the eating of kangaroo testicles, among other things!

A Gents Game?

2009-12-05T21:32:00.005Z

Photo: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/j23eRK0_g9QVyPx76xQTjQ

Arsene Wenger's recent touchline antics have caught my eye this week and have made me think differently of a man whom I have associated as being one of the best managers around.

Wenger refused to shake Manchester City manager Mark Hughes' hand on Wednesday night following his sides 3-0 defeat to City in the Carling Cup. Wenger has been one of the best managers of my lifetime but it's little things like this that spoil the great image I have for such a great manager.

There's no doubt things are tough at Arsenal at the moment, no trophy since 2005, big name stars leaving the club, a supposedly limited transfer budget (although this is something Wenger denies), struggling to compete with Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool...but surely the gentleman foundations that football was built on haven't left Arsenal as well?

Football was built as a gentleman's game and surely with all the problems that football has seen over recent years (diving, cheating, match fixing, dodgy transfers to name but a few) the common courtesy of shaking hands and being magnanimous in defeat is something that can easily be saved? Shaking a hand is easy, congratulating the winner is easy, being graceful in defeat is easy and are all things that, in my opinion, should be seen as mandatory by all managers and players.

And the thing I find most disheartening is that Wenger has no regrets about the incident, even with hindsight he couldn't even admit he was in the wrong.

Winol Week 5 Critical Reflection...

2009-12-02T18:07:00.004Z

www.winol.co.uk

So we had another week of WINOL last week and I have to say I think the overall bulletin this week took a step back as there were more errors than the previous week, however many of these were down to technical difficulties.

Once again I was very pleased with the Sport section that my team and I produced, I feel that it is perhaps the strongest part of the bulletin. Mainly because we always meet our deadlines and week on week the quality in terms of picture, sound and script quality has improved. The main reasons for these improvements is the feedback from the debriefs from our lecturers and the guest editors, as we have tried to work on the errors they have picked up on. For example, Brian asked me to work on Grant's voiceovers this week and we spent a long time (and probably a quite frustrating time for Grant) making him re-do his voice-overs until they sounded much better. I was very pleased when Brian picked up on the improvements during his debrief and I hope that I have helped Grant with his future voice-overs.

Unfortunately this bulletin was savaged by technical difficulties which affected the overall quality. We had problems with the auto cue again as well as the MAC which is used to play the VTs. So hopefully this coming week we can eradicate these problems and produce a seamless bulletin.

I feel that as a newsroom we need to make sure we are hitting 10 minutes (or under) for the bulletin as when we go over it cannot be uploaded to YouTube to go out at five. The other problem that comes with this is that a sports item is usually cut to make it go under 10 minutes, which I understand as the news is the more important section as we are a news bulletin, but I am disappointed that this has happened a few times now and hope that we can work to make it under 10 minutes so we can keep all the sports items that we have produced.

I spent the week writing news stories with the other members of my team before compiling a running order and then helping the rest of my team with their packages and suggesting improvements before we handed over to production. Unfortunately this week I wasn't available for the editor's meeting, so my deputy sports editor Tom Otrebski went in my place and I feel that Tom and I are working very well together on the editorial side of the Sport section. This week we sat down and rescripted the Sports script and links to improve them and found advice from Andy Steggall last week again helped us to produce better links.

Here are my other WINOL reflections:

The End of Free Online News?

2009-12-02T14:04:00.007Z

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dannysullivan/ / CC BY 2.0

A few blog posts ago I wrote about how Rupert Murdoch and other publishers have been discussing ways to charge the public for viewing online news from newspaper websites. This issue has been circulating the journalism world for a while now, especially as newspaper readerships continue to dwindle, which therefore sees advertising revenue decrease as a result.

This week has seen two big announcements which have made the possibility of charging for online news more real. Earlier this week, Johnston Press (The UK's largest regional newspaper publisher) announced plans to begin charging for access to six of it's online titles. A move which has come about following a 42% slump in advertising revenue. This is a clear indication that news in traditional newspaper format is a dieing trade as the Internet continues to dominate the media world.

The second announcement came today from search engine Google, which has said it will limit the amount of free news available to people using the site. Google plays a massive role when it comes to websites and their traffic. Getting into the Google Index (which makes your site available to Google searches) is pretty key when it comes to earning more traffic, purely down to the amount of traffic and users Google gets itself. The move follow claims that the search engine is profiting from from online news pages through online advertising revenue.

The new changes will mean that publishers can now limit users to no more than five pages per day without subscribing or registering and may mean that users will start to see registration screens when they click for a sixth time.

I think that over the new few years more and more news websites will be charging viewers to read their online content, especially as online news continues to win the battle against newspapers, an especially as newspaper revenue continues to suffer.

The battle between Old Media and New Media rages on, but these recent developments seem to suggest that the tide is continuing to turn in favour of New Media and inparticular, The Internet.

BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8389896.stm

Twitter Taking Over?

2009-12-01T21:20:00.006Z

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mager/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

I seem be to reading and seeing more and more about Twitter over the last few months, especially in news reports about celebrities.

Twitter now boasts millions of users and between February 2008 and February 2009 the social networking site saw it's number of users increase from 475,000 unique users to 7 million! Having recently been named as the most used word of 2009, 'Twitter' beat 'Barack Obama' which came in at number two, it clearly is becoming a very very popular social networking site.

Newspapers, especially sport sections, have found Twitter to be particularly useful. Over the Summer during the football transfer window Darren Bent got into a spot of trouble with this rant aimed at Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy over the delay in his transfer from Tottenham to Sunderland; "Do I wanna go Hull City NO. Do I wanna go Stoke NO. Do I wanna go Sunderland YES. So stop f*****g around Levy." That produced a decent story for many newspapers, I used to The Sun to source the quote (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/2564795/Darren-Bents-F-Word-Spurs-rant.html)

Just today there was a bit of a Twitter mystery when Gordon Brown's wife, Sarah, tweeted a random set of letters. Turns out her young son was behind the bizarre Twitter entry but even that made it onto the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8389286.stm)!

Twitter also provides a good opportunity for companies to promote brands, websites to promote themselves, blogs to be plugged (I am a culprit) and has proven very popular with celebrities. Just last week Cheryl Cole posted a Twitpic showing off her wedding to answer suggestions that her marriage to Chelsea footballer Ashley Cole is on the rocks: (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/x_factor/2738434/Cheryl-Cole-flashes-her-ring-on-Twitter.html)

It seems Twitter has many different uses and can be useful for pretty much anyone, whether you're just using to socialise or using it to promote your business!

World Aids Day - Go Red

2009-12-01T10:42:00.004Z

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glenscott/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Today is World Aids Day and brings this years fight against AIDS into the public domain. Today (RED) announced their partnership with Nike which sees football stars such as Didier Drogba promoting the cause. (RED) is a "is a simple idea that transforms our collective power as shoppers into a financial force that helps those affected by HIV in Africa."

Social networking sites are proving useful as well. By typing #red before you tweet on twitter you can turn your twitter (red) and you can also help turn facebook (red) here: http://www.facebook.com/joinred?ref=nf#/joinred?v=app_17037175766&ref=nf

Help turn the world (RED) and support World Aids Day.

http://www.worldaidsday.org/

Health & Safety Gone Mad!

2009-11-30T21:07:00.004Z

Photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hanuman/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I read an article today which basically told me that my childhood days at ten pin bowling alleys weren't good fun but actually a 'very dangerous' environment for my family!

It's another health and safety investigation which seem to plague society at the moment by making pretty much everything a hazard! Apparently the bowling alleys are dangerous because it was too easy for children or teenagers to run down the lanes and get trapped in the machinery...after all the children's parties I used to attend (around when I was 8, you could only be 'cool' if you had your party at megabowl), not once did any of us injure ourselves. The quote in the Daily Mail from a member of the Ten Pin Bowling Proprietors Association is pretty good at denying any "danger"; "I have been in this industry for 40 years and I have never known any member of the public injured by a bowling pinsetter. I have never heard of anybody going near the pins." Pretty clear.

After discovering this ridiculous and expensive (£250,000 expensive) Health and Safety Executive (HSE) report, it got me looking into some others, here and some of my favourites in reverse order...

5) Children at a primary school were banned from making daisy chains incase they pick up germs from the flowers. Handstands, tag, conkers and yo-yo's were among other things banned! (Full Story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-130322/Playtime-killjoys.html)

4) Students graduating from Anglia Ruskin Uni in Cambridge were banned from throwing their hats whilst posing for pictures incase somebody was injured by falling headgear. (http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/editors-choice/2008/11/20/the-crazy-world-of-health-and-safety-rules-86908-20909703/)

3) Carpenters were told to not use brooms to sweep up sawdust because it could provoke asthma and long term exposure could lead to nose cancer. Carpenters were told to buy state of the art vacuum cleaners instead! (Full Story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2433513/Ridiculous-health-and-safety-rules-tell-carpenters-to-ban-the-broom.html)

2) A lifeguard instructor and her husband were prevented from taking their three children into a toddlers' pool because there wasn't one adult per child! (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-401723/Chief-nanny-admits-cotton-wool-culture-gone-far.html)

1) Children are being made to wear goggles whilst handling Blu Tack! (Full Story http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1194055/Pupils-wear-goggles-handle-Blu-Tack-health-safety-reaches-ridiculous-new-heights.html)

Health and Safety gone mad?

The Joe Glenton Debate

2009-11-26T21:58:00.005Z

Photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotdmike/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I read an interesting article this evening in the Daily Mail about Joe Glenton. Joe is a soldier who has served in Afghanistan and from what the article says 'has always hoped to be a soldier', so an army man through and through?

Just to catch anyone up who hasn't seen this story, Joe served 6 months in Afghanistan and before being sent for his second tour in 2007, AWOL and returned earlier this year. Although his full salary was re-instated and he was allowed to continue in the Royal Logistic Corps, he was still unhappy with the war in Afghanistan and began to speak out about it. He has written a personal letter to Gordon Brown and after that disobeyed a direct order from his commanding officer to 'stop giving interviews' by speaking at the Stop The War rally in October. Joe is now in a cell of the military corrective training centre awaiting trial for which he faces a court martial for disloyalty and desertion - a charge that carries up to ten years in prison.

The debate now is whether or not his actions were right or wrong, whether he can be viewed as a war hero or whether he is a traitor to his fellow comrades. I for one feel that if anybody has a right to speak out about the war in Afghanistan, it is the soldiers. Who better can say what it is really like? What they are really there for? What is really happening? He told the Daily Mail; "When I joined the Army I was lean, green and keen. I was proud of being a soldier. After I came back from my first tour I couldn't see what we had given our country. I felt ashamed."

I understand that speaking out against the war, as a soldier is something that 'shouldn't happen' but at the same time if this is how he feels, this is what he has seen, does it owe it to the public, the government and more importantly the 235 soldiers than have died in Afghanistan (source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7531254.stm)?

Then there is the other side, is he causing the reportedly low morale amongst troops to become even lower? if he betraying his country? is he tarnishing the very reason those soldiers have died serving their country?

I think the soldiers who feel that by speaking out they can do some good for themselves and fellow soldiers then I think is something that can be an important aspect in this war. However I see why this would be an cause for concern for Army personnel.

The surveys quoted in the Mail state that "64 per cent of the public now say the Afghan conflict cannot be won and 63 per cent want our forces to come home 'as soon as possible'." So it seems majority of the public agree with what Joe Glenton is saying but at the same time whether is his opinions are correct isn't the case here, it's whether his decisions are correct.

Being an Asthmatic is Officially Cool!

2009-11-26T15:03:00.005Z

Photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anders_young/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

That's right folks, this week is the week that Asthma has become cool! And it's all down to one person David Beckham!

This week saw the 'revelation' that Golden Balls has Asthma and it sort of got me wondering a few things but most of it all it bought me to the conclusion of, so what? The guy is a superb athlete, a spokesman, a role model, a gent and although I realise he is a world phenomenon I fail to see why this is such a big deal. Of course it signals to many kids growing up with asthma (much like I have done) that being asthmatic needn't stop you from becoming a global sports star (obviously that's the only reason I ply my trade in the Winchester Sunday league and not The Premier League!) But, Becks isn't the only sport's person to have it. As I learnt from various news; Frank Lampard, Paula Radcliffe, Paul Scholes and Rebecca Adlington all have the condition.

I suppose a key part for the publicity is that for many kids that have asthma, using their inhalers when they are playing with friends is sometimes considered a nuisance or 'uncool' and the news that Beckham has it may make more kids more comfortable with using their inhaler etc. Which is great and hopefully it'll just bring good things for the 5.4 million or so sufferers in Britain.

I'm just waiting for the next Beckham billboard where his inhaler is as important as the bottle of Pepsi!!

WINOL Week 4 Critical Reflection

2009-11-25T22:04:00.003Z

Another week of WINOL brings another reflection blog! On the whole I feel that this week's bulletin was better than last week's.

The newsroom has a very calm and collected feel to it now, even when packages are late or things are going quite right there are a few of us that keep things calm and keep things ticking along which is a credit to how we work as a team.

As for the sport section this week, we were lucky enough that the guest editor was a sports broadcaster. Andy Steggall joined us and was a great help to myself. I found I learnt a lot more about how a the sports section should operate within in a bulletin.

This week we were again a man short when it came to producing content for the website and for the bulletin. We had a good pool of stories and I think our two minute section was a strong part of the bulletin as it incorporated a variety of sports and also some university sport. This is the first time we have managed to use university sport in our bulletin. It was a bit tight to get the university basketball footage ready in time for the bulletin as they tipped off at 12pm but we managed to get it in the bulletin which I was pleased about.

I am most pleased about the quality of sound in the sports packages this week as this is something I have wanted to fix for the last few weeks. My team really nailed it this week as the quality of the sounds on voiceovers, interviews and crowd noise were much much improved.

Next week I will look to improve on some of the points Andy Steggall made, especially with regards to links and really having a bit more fun with some of the stories and making the links much more interesting and making sure they reflect why that story has made the bulletin. So for example making sure there is a news angle on match highlights so that there is a reason to have the highlights in the bulletin.

I look forward to trying to improve on this week in a week's time!

Cowes Sports vs Winchester City FC Match Report

2009-11-23T12:59:00.006Z

Winchester City avoided an embarrassing defeat on Saturday by producing a superb comeback to win 4-3 away to Cowes Sports.

City traveled to the Isle of Wight on the back of two convincing victories against Laverstock & Ford and Alton Town to face a Cowes side currently propping up the Wessex Premier, having failed to win in their last seven matches.

Cowes started the brighter and made the most of the wet weather when City 'keeper Rory Anderson dropped the ball to allow Lee Davies to slot home inside three minutes.

Things were made worse for City when Craig Thomas curled his shot into the top corner to give the league's bottom side a surprise 2-0 lead. Winchester replied quickly when Zak Glasspool headed home an Adam Roberts corner to reduce the deficit to one goal.

City then piled on the pressure and were level just before the half hour mark when Ian Davies fired home from Zak Glasspool's pass. The turn around was then compete as Sol Asajile beat three players to fire home from 25 yards and send Winchester in 3-2 up at the break.

The second half failed to live up the standards set by the first half but Cowes' misery was compounded when substitute Nathan Lynch put City 4-2 to seal the victory. Cowes then attempted a comeback of their own when Gareth Bricknell scored a diving header but it proved to be too late as Winchester ran out 4-3 winners.

The result means City remain in 9th place and they will look to continue their impressive form at home to 5th place Fareham Town on Saturday. Saturday also brings a top against bottom clash as Cowes entertain league leaders Bournemouth Poppies.

I am a DJ Hero...

2009-11-20T14:32:00.006Z

I am a DJ Hero...well at least that's how I feel after having my first taste of playing action on Activision's latest game offering, DJ Hero.

I played it for the first time on Monday night when we had a "mini" party for my house mates 21st and it is an incredible game for a party. For anybody who loves the Guitar Hero series of games (and I know a fair few people that do) this game is right up your street, bringing a fresh outlook to the Guitar Hero idea.

The game features over 100 tracks from various artists which you can scratch, cross-fade and beat match to on the DJ Hero turntable controller. It includes a wide range of genres, such as Hip Hop, Electronica, R&B, Motown, Pop and Rock to give the game a an array of mixes and artists to play with. The game also offers the opportunity for another player to use a Guitar Hero guitar controller to play alongside the DJ on some of the rock mixes - an excellent aspect for a two player mode.

I am totally and utterly useless when it comes to using musical instruments, it would be fair to say that I am musically illiterate but the Guitar Hero and now DJ Hero games give people like me a chance to pretend we're Dave Grohl or Pete Tong instead of trying (and failing) to do it for real. I mean, I'm never going to become a rock star by using a recorder am I!

Just like the Guitar Hero games, DJ Hero makes a party that little bit different and provides an all round good time! Check out this video of one of my friends being a DJ Hero...

WINOL Goes Live! Week 3 Reflection

2009-11-19T15:57:00.007Z

So this week was the week that WINOL went live for real and I have to say I think overall it was a great success! We've had an excellent response in terms of traffic to the site and to watch the news bulletin as well. I also think this news bulletin was the best we have produced so far which was great timing!!

As a sports team we decided to select stories we would cover at the end of last week so that we would be prepared and we had a really good selection of stories lined up, covering a variety of teams, sports and types. However, three of our stories fell through over the weekend due a number of reasons and come Monday it seemed like we would be short, but Tom Otrebski (deputy sports editor) and I managed to come up with a pretty decent running order in the end as we fulfilled our two minute slot pretty well which included two different sports. One thing I was disappointed about was the sound quality of our packages, this was something that I wanted to improve on from the week before but is still something we need to work on as a team and hopefully we can get it right this week.

I am very happy with the way we are working as a team due to the fact that we have been a man down for the majority of the time due to illness and we are still producing a good sports section for our bulletin. The same goes for our section of the website which I feel is a very strong part of http://www.winol.co.uk/ as a whole as the sport section contains the most amount of stories and is drawing in a good number of hits, for example we get a good number of hits for our non league football coverage.

I spent most of my time this week organising my reporters and sorting out which stories we could run (especially on Monday due to losing the three over the weekend.) Once we had decided and I had sent reporters for each story I began writing more copy for the website. On the Tuesday I attended the Winchester match for which I produced the match report and then helped Grant and Arnold with their packages on the Wednesday. Tom and I wrote the sports script and links which I think were pretty strong.

Due to problems with uploading last week the bulletin was shortened to 10 minutes so had we still had the good pool of stories we started with it would've left me with some tough decisions over which stories to run as we only had 2 minutes to fill instead of 3-4! This is a challenge I look forward to over the next few weeks. We filled our sports section with a variety of sports and a variety of story types by using NIBs, a VT and a graphic which I was happy with.

Winchester City 1-0 Alton Town 17/11/09

2009-11-18T17:19:00.002Z

Winchester City extended their unbeaten run to four matches last night with a 1-0 win over Alton Town at the Denplan City Ground.

City have won three and drawn one in their last four matches whilst Alton had failed to win at their last three attempts.

The first half produced a tightly contested midfield battle with neither side having a clear-cut chance. Despite a difference of nine league places between the two sides the first half was evenly matched and ended goalless.

Winchester manager Stuart Hussey’s half time team talk seemed to have an effect as his side produced a dominant display straight after the break.

Winchester winger Zak Glasspool was guilty of missing a guilt edged chance as he fired his shot over the bar from six yards with only the 'keeper to beat.

A few minutes later, in form midfielder, turned striker Danny Cox beat Alton ‘keeper Dan Hill from outside the area but saw his curling effort hit the crossbar.

Winchester continued to press their opponents and had more chances to break the deadlock. Ian Davies, who replaced the injured Nathan Lynch after 15 minutes, tested Hill but the Alton 'keeper
kept his side in the game once again.

Moments later, Davies was again causing the Alton defence problems when he broke through on goal but was brought down in the box to earn his side a clear penalty with twenty minutes remaining.

Danny Cox fired the penalty home to break the deadlock and score his fourth goal in as many matches.

Alton then came back into the match and with just five minutes left the away side sent a free header over the bar to give Winchester the three points.

Stuart Hussey was pleased with his side’s performance;

“I think it was for all to see in the second half that we totally dominated. We really played some great football and that’s pleasing to see."

The result leaves Winchester in 11th place on goal difference, whilst Alton Town stay in the bottom three.

Moneyfields FC vs Winchester City FC Match Report

2009-11-16T22:18:00.004Z

Moneyfields vs. Winchester

Moneyfields Sports and Social Club. 07/11/09

Winchester notched their 11^th draw of the season on Saturday as they played out a goalless draw with in form Moneyfields.

Winchester travelled to Moneyfields on the back of a midweek victory to face a side that had lost just once in their last four matches.

City once again lacked the finishing touch as they were unable to capitalise on their dominance and left Moneyfields Sports and Social Club disappointed with just one point.

Winchester’s front man Shane Flooks was guilty of missing his side’s best chance in the first half on the 25-minute mark. Flooks managed to get through on goal but dragged his shot wide from the edge of the Moneyfields area.

Five minutes later, City's Nathan Lynch was causing problems for the opposition defence but squandered the chance by hitting his shot straight at the Moneyfields’ keeper.

Winchester continued to press as half time loomed as Adam ‘Pedro’ George produced a good save from the Moneyfields’ keeper with a curling shot from the edge of the area.

The first half ended goalless with Winchester having failed to take the lead despite their dominance. Moneyfields rarely threatened the City centre backs Guy Butters and Connor McCarthy who produced a solid defensive display.

The second half produced a rather dull affair with both sides having few chances. Winchester’s best chance was in the form of a free kick on the edge of the area which Zak Glasspool sent over the bar.

Winchester boss Stuart Hussey thought his side had deserved the three points;

“Coming away to Moneyfields is never an easy place to come, but over the 90 minutes I think we deserved the win,” said Hussey.

“We’ll go away a little disappointed, but that’s one defeat in 11 for us now, so overall reasonably pleased,” he added.

The result leaves Winchester in 11^th place, six points outside their season aim of a top eight finish, whilst Moneyfields are five points better off in 10^th place.

Mark Lovell

Moneyfields vs Winchester City FC Highlights

2009-11-16T22:07:00.006Z

Highlights produced by me for Winchester City FC's away match to Moneyfields on 07/11/09. From now on I will post the match reports and highlights packages I produce here, whilst highlights and match reports produced by other members of the sports team can be found at www.winol.co.uk

Mark Lovell

New Milton vs Winchester City FC Match Report

2009-11-16T22:00:00.005Z

New Milton FC vs Winchester City FC

Fawcett's Field 03/11/09

WINCHESTER city earned their third victory of the season on Tuesday night with a one nil win over local rivals New Milton Town.

City travelled to Fawcetts Field to face a New Milton side lying in 17^th place with just three wins from their 15 matches. Winchester sat just two places higher having drawn ten of their matches so far this season.

The visitors pressured New Milton for majority of the first half but as has been a problem for City this season they were unable to find the end product to kill off their opponents and the first half ended goalless.

After the break it was New Milton who came out the livelier and put their opponents under a lot of pressure and forced City keeper Rory Anderson into a good save.

It was the introduction of Adam Roberts as a second half substitute for Adam ‘Pedro’ George on the 53^rd minute. Roberts turned the game in Winchester’s favour as he began to dominate the midfield battle.

Just past the hour mark Winchester forced the New Milton ‘keeper into two great saves who kept his side in the game on a number of occasions.

However, City’s dominance proved too much for their opponents as they sealed victory on the 75^th minute when Danny Cox slotted home Adam Roberts’ cross.

The relief for many of the travelling Winchester fans was clear as their side had finally closed a game out and added to this season’s number of victories and not the growing number of draws.

Mark Lovell

Same old Rooney?

2009-11-16T15:00:00.006Z

Picture courtesy of dullhunk.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/2237368858/

I read an article in the Times today about Wayne Rooney by their Chief Sports Writer Simon Barnes. He starts by describing how Rooney used to be; "an unstoppable teenager who tore football matches in half just for the hell of it, the player who made the world afraid", but goes onto suggest that Rooney isn't that player anymore. We must be watching a different Rooney.

Rooney has been in superb form these last two seasons and I'm sure his current form especially will strike fear into many defences when the World Cup kicks off next year. Having captained England for the first time on Saturday in the 1-0 friendly loss to Brazil, Barnes suggests "nobody was really sure if he was playing," well I was. Rooney was one of the few players to come out of the match with any credit in my opinion. And before we start to slate the England performance, lets not forget that it was our second string against Brazil's first string. A first string that has the capabilities to lift the trophy in South Africa next year!

He suggests that Rooney has changed over the last five years. Let's have a look at his goalscoring record over the last five years...

2004/05 = 24 (5) Premier League appearances - 11 goals

2005/06 = 34 (2) Premier League appearances - 16 goals

2006/07 = 33 (2) Premier League appearances - 14 goals

2007/08 = 25 (2) Premier League appearances - 12 goals

2008/09 = 25 (5) Premier League appearances - 12 goals

2009/10 = 11 Premier League appearances - 7 goals so far.

So this season Rooney score the most Premier League goals for Manchester United ever. Seems like if anything he's improved? I got my stats from the Manchester United website.

Then there's his England goal scoring record; 25 goals in 57 appearances, a very impressive record. The same guy who goes "missing" for England was also voted England player of the year by fans for 2008 after scoring 5 goals in his 8 competitive appearances.

To suggest Rooney is a different player is fine, of course he will have changed from the 16 year old that was thrust into the limelight. He's matured, he's grown, but to suggest that has made him a worse player for England is a joke. Let's wait until the World Cup before we slate the team and one of our best players!

How To Get Into The Google Index

2009-11-14T21:14:00.007Z

Getting into the Google Index is vital for all websites and blogs. Google is the number 1 website in the Alexa rankings (www.alexa.com.) That means that it is the most used search engine and therefore having your site in it's index can be vital for increasing site traffic. If your site isn't in it then it cannot be returned by a Google search. Here's how to get into it:

Step 1. Sign into Google Webmaster Tools with a Google account at www.google.com/webmasters/tools.

Step 2. Click 'Add a Site' and enter your site's URL.

Step 3. Select which verification method you wish to use, for this example we will use Meta Tag. You will then need to insert the Meta Tag html code into your site's home page. You will then have to wait until the Google 'spiders' have crawled your site to check and analyse your page.

Google spiders follow links and analyse the pages to put them into the index. The more times they crawl your page the better meaning regular updates are very important. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is very important also. You can check your sites progress at places like Alexa (above) and also www.seoworkers.com, on seoworkers, under tools and then analyser to analyse and check your SEO.

How to Avoid Copyright Issues - Flickr

2009-11-14T11:36:00.017Z

Flickr is a fantastic website for uploading photo's and images. It's especially useful for wannabe photographers to produce a portfolio of their photo's but it's becoming increasingly useful in my world of blogging. Here's how to use the photo's and avoid copyright issues:

Step 1. Go to www.flickr.com and click 'search'

Step 2. Click 'Advanced Search'

Step 3. Scroll down to the bottom to "Creative Commons" section and select "only search within Creative Commons-licensed content." (You can also select for commercial use or adaptation.)

Step 4. Search for the Photo you wish to use, scroll to the bottom to see these options.

Step 5. Check what options are available for this photo. You must check you are free to "to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work". If this is the case the person may require you to attribute their flickr account. You can do this by pasting the code into your website. If this isn't the case the you cannot use the image.

Step 6. Insert the image into your blog with attribution. Job Done!

WINOL Week 2 Critical Reflection

2009-11-11T21:46:00.005Z

We had the second (and final) dummy run of WINOL this week and I think, overall, it was a much better production.

I feel that as a group of editors we ran our editorial conferences and production meetings much better. We didn't discuss the stories at length in the editorial conferences, just let the reporter sell his or her story and then we set deadlines and time limits etc which I found to be a much more efficient method.

As far as the sports side goes, I was fairly happy with what we put out but was disappointed to have only had football content. The reason for this was that our rugby story was cut due to the bulletin being too long, for next week, my team and I have arranged to cover a wider variety of sports. This is something I will look to continue to do when possible.

Another aspect I will work on with my team is sound quality of packages for the remaining productions as I want our bulletins to tick all the boxes in terms of production quality.

Once we had uploaded all of our sports content onto the hard drive I started to make myself available to help other members of the WINOL team, for example with editing packages that were getting close to deadlines.

We are in a fortunate position on Sports in the respect that the majority of our events are scheduled so filling our section of the bulletin should be easier than news. I have found in the first two weeks that it has been so this should allow us to work towards better quality packages for the rest of our WINOL bulletins.

We have also continued adding content to the Winchester Journalism website which can be found under the sports section.

This week's bulletin was much better as we managed to fill the 15 minutes and had full content, but there is still room for improvement which is something we will continue to work towards.

Points for improvement:

1) Sound quality of packages

2) Voice overs on highlights packages (so my reporters and I aren't just saying what we can see)

3) Cover a wider variety of sports

4) Improve the shots used for headlines

Paying for Online Content...

2009-11-09T21:55:00.008Z

Image:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adambowie/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I read in the Independent today that Rupert Murdoch let slip last week that he has been talking to other publishers about how to charge online readers for the content produced on newspaper websites.

The principle behind it is that many people are turning to websites for their primary source of news as opposed to buying newspapers. Newspapers are obviously losing money from this as many people will choose to use the Internet and get the news from newspaper websites for free, instead of buying the actual paper. The Internet has had a massive effect on traditional media, especially newspapers, and will continue to run them out of business as many media experts have predicted. This year has seen two of the newspapers in the above image already go bust, The London Paper and The London Lite (admittedly these were freesheets!)

I found this article from 2006 in Time which states "Newspapers on paper are on the way out. Whether newspaper companies are on the way out too depends. Some of them are going to find the answers. And some are going to fritter away the years quarreling about staff cuts." (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1538652-2,00.html)

I think a key player in all of this is advertising. As it says in the article above, newspaper companies could survive if they can keep advertising revenue from the online content, even if the newspapers themselves go bust. Increasing the advertising could also be key as advertising really is the lucrative market here.

The main opposition will come from people not wanting to pay for the content, especially as they are paying for their Internet connection already. But I think that this is something that could easily be counteracted.

I think if newspapers were to become extinct I'd consider paying for news from a professional news source, written by a professional journalist, mainly because I think the credibility of that compared to a blog written by 'some acned 12-year-old in his parents' basement recycling rumors from the Internet echo chamber' as the above article humorously suggests, would clearly be much more reliable. Credible journalism costs money so I would have to say that it isn't fair for readers to expect this for free. I'd still prefer a paper though!

The Magic of The Cup!

2009-11-08T16:45:00.008Z

The first proper round of the FA Cup kicked off this weekend and once again I caught Cup fever! I only managed to catch today's match between Northwich Victoria and Charlton. It was a typical FA Cup match with the underdogs overcoming the bigger side and producing a really fantastic performance.

Northwich put in a performance to be proud of and deserve their place in the second round. Teenage substitute, Wayne Riley scored the decisive goal and that will surely be a moment he'll remember for all of his career.

Another Cup upset was Staines Town beating League Two Shrewsbury, whilst local side to me Eastleigh, making their debut in this round of the competition, lost to an injury time goal against Barrow.

The Cup is something that brings all football fans together and the thought of more giant killings is something I look forward to, especially when the Premier League teams come in and Saints beat Arsenal 5-0 at the Emirates!!

Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_FA_Cup_Trophy.jpg

WINOL Week 1 Critical Reflection...

2009-11-08T14:54:00.008Z

So, we had the first week of WINOL(Winchester News Online) last week, the first dummy run I should say before we get going properly.

WINOL is a news programme that is being run by second and third year journalism students at The University of Winchester. We cover news and sports in Winchester and the surrounding areas. Third Year students have taken on the editorial positions whilst second years have taken on the staff positions.

As I have taken on the role of Sports Editor, my main tasks include organising my sports team, deciding which stories we are going to run and ensuring that these stories are produced on time and to the required broadcasting standard.

I think as a whole the sports section of the news bulletin this week was good as we included a good variety of packages which included different sports. We had two highlights packages (one football and one ice hockey), one NIB (news in brief) about the local rugby team and a graphic used as a NIB to preview the local sides involved in the FA Cup first round this weekend.

As a sports team we are required to produce content for the sports section of the news bulletin and also produce content for the news website (http://www.winchesterjournalism.co.uk/). We managed to fulfill our duties on both parts and I am very proud to say that the first published content on the WINOL website was from the sports team. This week I will be looking to get more content published on the website and will be aiming to have more content written regularly.

I think that my sports team worked very hard to produce the content they did. One thing I will make sure of next time is that all of the content is produced on Final Cut Pro instead of Premiere Pro as this caused some problems when it came to stacking the VT's ready for the bulletin. I have also told my reporters for this coming week to have content ready earlier, not because they were late last time (in fact they were all near enough on time...ish!) but because it all became a bit of a rush when we were nearing live time so it made sense to ensure that our deadline was earlier so that the run up to live time was smoother and more relaxed.

I will also try to ensure that all of my sports reporters are made available to other teams once they have completed their sports requirements as WINOL is a team effort and it is important that once individual team tasks have been completed that we work as a team to produce the best bulletin possible.

I think the main points to improve are perhaps the commentary on sports highlights packages, ensure my reporters write their own links, make sure we have standby packages in case some fall through and also to make sure I give the production team the precise timings for each story including the in and out words to make VT operation smoother.

Drunken Mistake?

2009-11-05T21:36:00.005Z

After reading an opinion piece in The Times today by Melanie Reid I was left in two minds as to whether or not I agree with what she was saying. She was discussing the recent pictures that were printed in the national newspapers of a drunk 19 year old student urinating on a war memorial.

Melanie Reid explains how this student came to be in this awful position, he had been on a pub crawl called Carnage, which if you're a student reading this, I'm sure you've head of and many have probably been on! In some respects, I feel sorry for the student as many people in Britain have been in the position where they've consumed far too much alcohol and have done 'silly' things but in the same respect I think it is an absolutely disgusting act.

She goes on to blame the drinks industry and with her last line asks the question "Why weren't Carnage in the dock? That they weren't says it all." This is a reference to the fact that the student who urinated on the war memorial has been in court and could possibly face a jail sentence. I think that blaming the drinks industry is a cop out when it comes to people facing responsibility. Yes these bar crawls promote drinking and many people get extremely drunk when on them but surely that is the choice of the person? They are not forced to go on these crawls and many people I know who have been on them have always had an excellent time. The act of urinating on a war memorial is perhaps a result of going on the bar crawl organised by Carnage but he himself got into the state he was in and he himself urinated on the war memorial.

I see that this student has been made an example of and is in someways a scapegoat for the binge culture that is often plastered across the tabloids but in the same way I think after such a disgraceful act it was just, a war memorial is a place of remembrance and place that deserves so much better.

You can see the picture here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1220579/Carnage-Shame-drunken-student-caught-urinating-war-memorial-mass-pub-crawl.html

The Football Fan Always Knows Best...

2009-11-02T20:22:00.006Z

Image:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/isriya/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

A lot of this weeks sports coverage has revolved around the security of Rafa Benitez's job as Liverpool F.C. manager. Liverpool have had a pretty bad run of results recently (if you take away the 2-0 win over Manchester United!) But as the tabloids were busy rolling out the Halloween puns ("Hell-oween" and "Liverghoul" were too crackers) after Liverpool's latest loss against Fulham, I was thinking about Rafa's Liverpool achievements so far.

This poor form has made a lot of people to call for Rafa's head as Liverpool lie in sixth place after 11 games. I agree their current form does cause concern and I can understand many Liverpool fans being gutted to see their side seven points behind Manchester United and nine behind Chelsea but at the same time Rafa Benitez has done a fantastic job for his side. I think too many people believe Liverpool have a right to win the league this year after last season. Finishing second last year was a fantastic achievement and to push Fergie's men most of the way is even more of an achievement and clearly shows the improvement under Rafa. Then there's the Champions League win in his first season at the club, the F.A. Cup win the following year which was followed by a Champions League runners up medal the following season (which was then followed by the already mentioned runners up Premier League season the year after!)

Rafa has clearly been a success at Liverpool and perhaps another huge success can be the signing of Fernando Torres, probably, if not, THE best striker in the world? An absolute bargain at around £20million. But that has also caused a problem for the Spaniard. Rafa's use of Torres when he hasn't been fully fit or use of him in his 'rotation' policy has also drawn criticism from fans and the press. If Torres wasn't fully fit then taking him off against Fulham was the right decision as even if it isn't the top priority of the Kop (compared with Premier League glory), The Champions League game against Lyon is financially very important for Liverpool and Torres could be vital. That is unfortunately the fault of money driven modern football, not Rafa Benitez.

Perhaps Liverpool aren't title contenders this season but I wouldn't say they are totally dead and buried, there is bound to be more success and improvements under Benitez at Anfield and I am sure if he is left to carry on he can improve on the second place in the Premier League that he achieved last season.

Football commentators, football pundits and more importantly football fans (myself included) always think they know better than the manager, and think they could do a better job. Clearly, I'd have Southampton F.C. in the Champions League by now, right?

New Plans to Tackle Illegal Downloaders...

2009-10-29T21:18:00.010Z

Photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bisgovuk/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

I have been following an interesting story this week about how Lord Mandelson plans to tackle illegal downloaders on the Internet. Pirate downloads of music and films has been a hot topic over recent years and stopping it completely has proven to be a difficult task. However, Lord Mandelson has come up with a plan that might just work, even though it has already been met with criticism.

According to a newspaper, The Business Secretary plans to tackle serial pirates by temporarily suspending their home Internet services, however this would be a method only used after a series of offences. The initial contact will be made via a letter which will warn the Internet user, whilst their details will be passed onto music and other companies, leaving them the option to sue the person or not.

I think this tactic seems like a good way to tackle music and video piracy, as I think it will deter a lot of people who use the Internet on a daily basis and in many respects couldn't comprehend life without the Internet. However it does have it's drawbacks, say for example in a family home of two adults and two children. If one member of that household is a serial downloader and the Internet is cut off because of that one person, is it fair on the remainder of the house? Especially if they were unaware of the person's illegal activities!

The main opposition has come from Internet service providers who think that the scheme won't work due to the cost and technical issues but also because modern technology makes it possible for people to disguise their Internet identities. Clearly the people most against Internet piracy are those that produce the content that is being stolen. Musicians, actors, directors, record companies etc are all against illegal downloading of their content and in fairness why should they produce this content (which isn't cheap to produce) to have it stolen?

It's always going to create an interesting debate until it's either resolved or if there is no resolution it just continues so I guess it's a waiting game to see if Mandelson's plan comes into force and then if it's going to work!

The Return of Frank Turner...

2009-10-29T08:58:00.013Z

Last night I witnessed what has to be one of the best live shows Winchester has ever seen.Frank Turner returned to Winchester for his biggest home town show to date and the packed Guildhall is a clear indication of his success as a solo artist.

Frank's live shows really are full of energy and with a combination of brilliant songs and witty banter he captivates his audience from start to finish. Last night was a mixture of old songs from his previous Cd's Sleep is for the Week and Love, Ire & Song and tracks from his new album Poetry of the Deed. Frank also threw in a track from his previous band Million Dead called Smiling at Strangers on a train which was a surprising highlight of the show for me.

At first I was sceptical about the full band feel that features on his new stuff but eventually following a mixture of band orientated tracks and acoustic tracks I was blown away. His live presence is really something and he leaves the audience wanting more and from a personal point of view he leaves me wanting to learn to play guitar!

Frank Turner was recently quoted on the London Evening Standard website as saying "live performances are what I live for" and this is clear to see in any of his live shows. Last night he couldn't be faulted and right now I can't think of a reason why anybody wouldn't like Frank Turner.

Here's the interview on the Standard site:http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/music/article-23761754-frank-turner-from-punk-rocker-to-self-taught-troubadour.do

The image above is from the first Frank Turner gig I went to at the Railway in Winchester in 2008!

Here's Frank's website: http://www.frank-turner.com/

Ian Anderson Comes to Town...

2009-10-27T20:48:00.006Z

Yesterday at University we had the pleasure of a guest lecture from Ian Anderson, recently the editor of the BBC 10 o'clock news. It was a very interesting couple of hours in which Ian analysed some news packages we had prepared earlier in the week. This seemed a terrifying prospect when we were told this and we put a lot of work into trying to make sure our package was perfect!!

All in all it went pretty well for our whole class, we got some good comments but I think the most useful thing for me was the improvement tips he gave us as a group.

There were a lot of tips on how to improve so I have just explained the one I found particularly useful. I found Ian's tips on the importance of a Piece to Camera (PTC) and how it can be used to turn a standard story towards the angle you are aiming for, most useful. For example, we did our package about University of Winchester students graduating and the possible problems they may have finding a job due to the current economic climate. Our PTC was pretty short and we didn't use it well enough to emphasise the angle of our story, and Ian recommended that we aim for longer PTC's, around 20-30 seconds long, to improve this.

I also found it very interesting to look into his career as a journalist and his rise from The Reading Evening Post, where he started, to eventually being the editor of the BBC 10 o'clock news.

I didn't take any photo's on the day so if you would like to see some of Ian looking around the TV studio at the University of Winchester and talking to students please see my friend's blog who did take some photos: http://mattcliff.blogspot.com/2009/10/university-of-winchester-welcomes-ian.html

E-books not the end of Libraries?

2009-10-27T10:09:00.015Z

Photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marvel/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I read an interesting article today about E-books and how they have impacted on libraries around the country. The reason I found it interesting was because it was praising the fact that E-books have actually increased library membership in some areas.

I was always of the mindset that new technology would replace old traditional methods and would affect the number of people still using them, for example how more and more people are using the internet as a news source instead of newspapers. E-books offer the user the chance to read a book on a computer screen or via an E-book reader (which to a certain extent is a portable screen which allows the user to read a book off of it.) The reason I figured this would cause libraries numerous problems and perhaps even force some to close was the key fact that E-books are downloaded and therefore the actual books are only required so that they can be uploaded onto a database.

The reason that the libraries have seen a surge in members isn't because stubborn people are refusing to engage with new technology, it's because libraries have started to engage. Libraries have seen a decrease in the number of members over recent years and the fears that the public were no longer interested in borrowing books were there to see, but technology seems to have saved the day. So far Luton, Essex and Windsor & Maidenhead are offering the service where members can download the E-books to their computer via the library website and then have 14 days to read them before they are automatically deleted, saving the reader the trouble of having to remember when it is due back.

I think the E-book system offers a number of benefits especially with regards to encouraging children to read. Children are growing up with more and more technology and if that technology can be used to encourage a child to read more often then it can only be a good thing. Although there are no official statistics available at the moment a librarian quoted in the Telegraph article (see link below) said there have been "more than 250 members signing up, even though only local residents could use the service."

It seems like it's a great system which can enable libraries to stay open and use it to run along side the actual books which some people still like to borrow in the traditional way. It's also fantastic to see technology enhancing tradtional methods instead of replacing them.

Here's the Daily Teleraph Article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6417660/E-books-helping-surge-in-library-members.html

Question Time for The BBC...

2009-10-23T19:19:00.011+01:00

Photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/imran/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

So THE Question Time of the year has happened as Nick Griffin leader of the BNP appeared on the show last night and to be perfectly honest I was disappointed with the way the BBC handled it.

It was always going to be a hostile affair and Griffin would've known that he was in for a tough night but I was surprised to see how the BBC changed the show for this week. The programme was almost entirely focused on the BNP and perhaps in some respects this is probably what Griffin was hoping for.

This is where I was disappointed, I was looking for the usual Question Time debate, discussing a variety of topics and offering various political parties their chance to show what their view was, but last night was just a chance to attack the BNP. Whether you agree with the BNP or not (and I don't) the BBC show was not objective last night like it should be. The BBC should represent an impartial opportunity for political parties to answer questions from the public and in my opinion last night it became an anti BNP show. Whether they deserve it or not, whether their policies are totally racist or not, Question Time should be an objective political debate.

The show has given Griffin and the BNP the ammunition they need to attack institutions like the BBC and play the victim, especially as Griffin has already indicated that he will be complaining about the show. Also the BNP believe that the show has actually helped increase their membership with "with no fewer than 3,000 new people registering" (http://bnp.org.uk/2009/10/lynch-mob-question-time-becomes-biggest-recruitment-night-ever-for-bnp-%e2%80%93-30-increase-in-membership-interest/) which is a slightly worrying issue as Griffin endured a tough time on the show by being constantly jeered and booed by the audience.

The BNP don't deserve the attention they are receiving, the policies they represent are disgraceful but unfortunately I think the way the BBC handled the Griffin affair last night may have just helped, rather than hindered their cause.

Protests Over Question Time at Television Centre...

2009-10-22T19:55:00.007+01:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/flem007_uk/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

I've just been watching the footage from the BBC of protesters breaking into the BBC grounds to voice their feelings about BNP leader Nick Griffin appearing on Question Time.

Griffin's appearance has been very much the media focal point this week, and rightly so, but I think when it comes to breaking barriers and storming into the grounds of the BBC then the protests have gone too far. In my previous post you can see I don't agree with the BNP and am hoping that tonight is a negative experience for the party with regards to politics but I think that it's an important, and perhaps even more importantly, correct decision to have the BNP leader on the show.

People voted for the BNP and the party won seats in the European elections and therefore he deserves the publicity and position on Question Time in the same way that the representatives from Labour or the Conservatives do for example. The people that voted for the BNP deserve the chance to see the party they voted for on the show giving his views in the same way Tory voters would expect to see Conservatives on there.

I'm not agreeing with the BNP in anyway here but I think by breaching security at the BBC today then the protesters overstepped the mark. We live in a democracy after all and although some of the BNP's policies are very questionable, whilst they are a legal political party and whilst they have voters then the BBC is right to give them the airtime.

Tonight's Question Time isn't one to miss! 10.35 p.m. BBC 1.

Here's the link to the video of the protests from today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8321199.stm

BNP Debate Rages On...

2009-10-20T13:21:00.007+01:00

Photo originally from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishnationalism/3622546100/

The debate over The BBC's decision to invite BNP leader Nick Griffin onto this week's Question Time continued this morning with more column inches discussing the the far right party.

I've been very much a fence sitter on this issue as I haven't been able to decide as to whether or not Nick Griffin's appearance on the politics show can be justified as good or bad. But today I decided to make my decision.

I think it's important to remember that the BNP did win two seats and nearly one million votes at the European elections, so I think the main questions are; does the BBC have an obligation to offer them the chance on Question Time? Does it have an obligation to the licence payer and more importantly to those licence payers who may have voted for the BNP? I think it does have an obligation to the licence payers who may have voted for the party and although I don't agree with the BNP, I think it's important that all parties that are receiving a significant amount of votes should be entitled to the publicity.

However, for the most part I think it's a case of giving the BNP the chance to showcase to the members of the public who are unsure about them or their policies and after a few tough questions hopefully they'll see the real side to Nick Griffin and the BNP.

The BNP have put a clock on their website counting down the time until their leader appears on the BBC show and are perhaps viewing it as a positive exercise to publicise the party, but I'm hoping that this will infact be a negative exercise for the BNP and cause more people to join the campaigns against them instead.

I agree with the recent campaign "There is Nothing British about the BNP" (http://www.nothingbritish.com/news/) which "is a campaign against the politics of hate which aims to promote the British values of democracy, tolerance, fair-play and respect for one another." However, I am very intrigued as to how Griffin will use his airtime on the show and how the BNP will come across so in a way I am looking forward to his inclusion on the programme.

Although I agree that the BBC should allow Nick Griffin to appear on the show, I think it will only reinforce my negative feelings against the party and I'm hoping it will do for many other people. I think a phrase I read today is very apt; "Cockroaches only flourish in the dark: Shine a light on them and they scuttle away."

Final Cut Pro...

2009-10-19T15:57:00.005+01:00

Today we got going with a Final Cut Pro tutorial and I was very impressed with the programme as a whole. I was particularly pleased with the fact that it is very similar to Premiere Pro as I have become quite confident with Premiere Pro so hopefully the transition to this new programme shouldn't be too much of an issue.

The main principles of Final Cut Pro are very similar to what we've been taught previously and key recommendation that I am always keen to remember is where you save you're work.

All aspects of projects need to be saved to the same place, the same folder on the same drive as it's pretty vital for it to work properly. This goes along with making sure all the settings are correct, If you go to Final Cut Pro (menu) - Audio/Video Settings then the settings should be set to DV PAL 48 Khz for the first two lines and the third should be set to Firewire PAL.

Once that is set it is pretty important to save your work to a specific folder on the particularly drive, so if you are using an external hard drive make sure you select that when going to save. Then if you check your scratch disks in File - System Settings you can check that all aspects of your work are going into the same folder.

Now you can start, either by placing your tape into one of the tape decks or if there aren't any available it is possible to edit your package straight from the camera by using a firewire (I expect these are available at the Loan Counter at Uni?!).

You're now ready to get editing and producing your package/film/documentary or whatever it is you're editing. I think the best way to get used to this programme is to use it, play around with it and discover things for yourself, but here are a few hot keys that might make progress faster:

Hot Keys:

Apple Key + 8 = Capture Mode - Where you can capture the sections of filmed material you want to use.

Shift + L = Link Selection - Can be used separates your audio and video sections when in the timeline so that you delete the audio if you just want to use the video for example.

A = Arrow - Gives you back the arrow which can be used to drag clips, shorten them and is generally the tool you will probably need most.

B = Razor - Very useful tool which can be used to chop clips to delete parts or separate etc.

Below is a pretty useful video of the basics of Final Cut Pro which I found on YouTube, there are loads of videos for the programme on YouTube and there are some excellent tutorials on there.

Ruining Stalin's Reputation...

2009-10-17T12:27:00.004+01:00

Photo: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Stalin.jpg

Defamation and Libel are two big issues for journalists and is something that we are currently going over at Uni as it serves a very important purpose.

During a lecture we were given two examples of cases, first was the case of Dr Joe Rahamim who successfully sued Channel Four and ITN who defamed him by questioning his ability to do his job. Rahamim won £175,000 in damages....see http://www.scts.org/doc/2026 for full details of that case.

The second was of Britney Spears sued American magazine Us Weekly, which claimed her and then husband Kevin Federline made a sexually explicit video. Spears failed to win $10m dollars she sued for as the judge said that as Britney Spears had "put her modern sexuality squarely, and profitably, before the public eye"the report was unlikely to be seen as defamatory (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6123694.stm.)

After these cases I started to look at others and I came across this rather bizarre one which caught my eye. It is a case in Russia where a Stalin's grandson is seeking a case against a Russian newspaper in defence of Stalin's reputation. He is demanding ten million roubles which is around £200,000 after a newspaper accused Stalin of personally approving executions.

The first thing that struck me about this case was that Stalin is in fact dead and in the UK wouldn't be entitled to his reputation and therefore the case wouldn't have been considered or the report considered defamatory. Also, under Stalin's rule there was millions of deaths and therefore articles claiming he personally approved executions wouldn't harm his reputation, especially as the newspaper in question printed proof from Soviet archives with Stalin's signature on them approving executions, so there's the justification.

But Stalin is being in turned in somewhat of a hero in Russia who has turned The Soviet Union into a superpower and as the Times online article says, "Vladimir Putin, during his time as President, endorsed a new school textbook describing Stalin as an “efficient manager” who behaved “entirely rationally, as the guardian of a system”. So perhaps this case is another step towards achieving a better reputation for Stalin?

As this is a case that wouldn't be pursued in the UK, it is an interesting defamation case to look into as it shows how other countries deal with this issue and how other countries perhaps have stricter and tighter defamation rules than the ones here in the UK. If it was in the UK and you could defame a dead person, I can't see how it would be seen as defamatory as it is well known that there were millions of deaths under Stalin and also the newspaper has produced proof and therefore has justification to the accusations.

Here is the Times online article...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6866958.ece

Channel Four Continues to Lead The Way...

2009-10-16T18:22:00.005+01:00

Photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/galaxyfm/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Channel Four announced plans with YouTube today which will allow YouTube users to watch full length Channel Four shows, free of charge. The broadcaster is now the first in the world to make content available on the Google owned video sharing website.

The videos on YouTube would be very similar to the ones on Channel Fours' 4OD service which allows Internet users to watch repeats of shows such as Hollyoaks and Skins. Ther will be around 3,000 hours of programmes being uploaded to the video sharing website.

The move by Channel Four is another move by the broadcaster to lead the way in online television viewing as it was also the first broadcaster to allow viewers to watch programmes online via their 4OD service. The move into online television was followed by other broadcasters such as the BBC who created the i-player.

In return for giving the video content to YouTube, Channel Four will be allowed to sell advertising space around the very popular website and according to The Times, it is expected that Channel Four will take around 70 per cent of revenue from the ads whilst also being able to advertise around other videos. With advertising playing such an importnat role in new media technologies, and more importantly the Internet, this could prove to be a lucrative deal for Channel Four as it continues to run as an independent broadcaster with no access to the licence fee that the BBC receives.

The content will be available in the coming months but will be fully available come 2010.

Half of NHS Trusts are failing...

2009-10-15T21:46:00.006+01:00

Photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/preef/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I've read in a few papers today that half of NHS trusts are failing.

It's to no great surprise to hear negative media coverage of the NHS as it's fair to say that it hasn't always been very successful. But it is surprising to know that almost half of the hospitals fail to meet the core standards of care. The Care Quality Commission has even gone as far to say that more than 40 of the health trusts are at risk of being refused licences to operate come April when they are up for renewal.

The article I read said that there had been improvements in areas such as; waiting times, tackling superbugs and controlling budgets but many are still failing on the basic requirements of good care. It's fantastic that they have improved in the areas that they have, but surely something like the basic requirements of good care is something that should always been well maintained? And is something that should come as a top priority?

The government has invested a lot of time and money into the NHS and still basic issues of hygiene, patient safety, staff training, and good care of patients are still troubling many of the failing hospitals. The NHS trusts that are not meeting standards won't warrant a licence so improvements need to be made.

It's certainly worrying to know that almost half of hospitals fail to meet requirements but it's reassuring to know that there is a regulator cracking down on the failing hospitals and offering little choice but to improve. Let's hope they do.

If you want to check out how your local NHS trust is performing, enter your postcode here at The Times newspaper website: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6875618.ece

GolfCross

2009-10-13T14:53:00.006+01:00

After discovering Chessboxing for the first time yesterday, I got chatting to my friends and researching about Chessboxing and ended up discovering another sport that is a combination of two others.

The sport I have come across is called GolfCross. The game of GolfCross is very similar to Golf, where players on golf courses, using golf equipment aim balls at a target...but that's where the similarities stop. Replace the standard circular golf ball with one shaped like an rugby and replace the hole golfers usually aim for with a net (the goal) raised above the ground and you have GolfCross. The pictures on the left shows both the new shaped ball and the goal.

The creators believe that the shape of the ball is more controllable than the round ones used in standard golf and due to the "amazing characteristics anddesign of the course" they have created three distinct game styles for players to follow. These are 'The Stroke Play' Game, 'The Tactical or Matchplay' Game and 'The One Hour Game'. You can find the differences between the three here: http://www.golfcross.co.uk/the_game.asp

GolfCross was officially launched in 2001, although the creator a New Zealander called Burton Silver began working on the game in 1989 when he created the oval shaped ball. There are now 8 fully open GolfCross courses in the UK, whilst also being playable in New Zealand, France, Denmark, Hungary, Argentina, Asia, Australia, Canada, South Africa, South America and the USA.

The game seems pretty revolutionary as isn't just a case of putting two sports together (a la ChessBoxing) it is a case of changing a traditional sport played by millions. ChessBoxing is different in the sense that it is just a combination of both Chess and Boxing whereas GolfCross is almost a different game, OK it uses the same equipment and most of the same golf rules but by changing the actual aim of the game it's like a new sport has been created, sort of.

I guess what my indecisive rambling above is trying to say is that I am rather impressed with GolfCross and would love to give it a go. I haven't been able to find any videos of the game being played so if anybody can help me out there I'd be very appreciative!

More information can be found at http://www.golfcross.co.uk/index.asp. If anybody out there in the world wide web plays GolfCross or has played or is intending to play, please comment and let me know what it's like!

Chessboxing!

2009-10-12T13:35:00.009+01:00

Photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/saschapohflepp/ / CC BY 2.0

I have come across a rather bizarre sport this morning, that of chessboxing. It does exactly what it says on the tin, it's a gentlemanly game of chess combined with the bloody onslaught that is boxing!

The basics behind it are that chessboxers alternate rounds of chess for rounds of boxing in a boxing ring, whilst wearing full boxing gear. The only difference is that during the chess rounds they replace their boxing gloves and helmets for earplugs and headphones (to aid concentration.) The chess rounds last a gruelling four minutes followed by a tactical three minutes of boxing, after a one minute break. There a total of 11 rounds, six chess and five boxing, with the winner being the first to either checkmate or knock out his opponent.

The game was created in 2003 by Dutch artist Iepe Rubingh and even has WCBO (World Chess Boxing Organization) which "propagates the spread of chessboxing to all five continents." The WCBO motto reads :"Fighting is done in the ring and wars are waged on the board"

This all seems very bizarre to me, of all the sports to combine, chess and boxing?! But then again with the basic principles of the game being to combine a physically challenging sport with a mentally challenging sport to create the ultimate all round sport, it kind of, just kind of, makes sense!

Here is part of the first ever World Chessboxing Championship (check out http://www.youtube.com/user/worldchessboxing for more videos) :

and part two:

If this has intrigued you, interested you, perhaps even made you consider a new sporting venture, then be sure to check out the WCBO website at: http://wcbo.org/content/index_en.html and be sure to leave me a comment letting me know what you think of the sport that "demands the most of it's competitors - both physically and mentally."

Student Rent Prices on the Rise...

2009-10-11T21:34:00.004+01:00

Another article caught my eye this weekend, again in The Sunday Times, but this time about student accommodation costing as much as £548 a week, yep that's right, a week.

The accommodation that costs £548 is in London which doesn't come as a massive surprise as far as location is concerned, as housing in London is widely acknowledged as being more expensive, but as a student myself that sort of price is truly shocking. This halls of residence is run by a private company whose owner is endorsed by University College, London and is part of a growing trend where traditional halls of residences are being replaced by housing blocks managed by private companies.

This comes in the same week as an academic at Queen Mary College, Kevin Sharpe claimed that students had "posh pads" and wrote about their supposed 'high spending power.' But I can't imagine the students that are having to fork out £548 a week on rent, having much money left over!

This can only add to the worries of many students who leave home for the first time to move into halls of residence and even more so for international students who leave their home countries to come to university. This is something that many universities should be looking to resolve as it is their responsibility to make affordable accommodation available to all students. The vice president for welfare at The National Union of Students said in The Sunday Times that "universities should take this more seriously," and I couldn't agree more. Students already leave university lumbered with debt, and I know that this is something that we all accept and know before deciding to go to university, but surely these sort of rent prices are just plain ridiculous?

The article states that the move from university run halls of residence to those run by private companies has already "hiked rents by 8% in the past year alone." Edinburgh is the most expensive city outside of London with a maximum rent of £216 a week, according to The Sunday Times University Guide. Again an excessive amount for student, which for most, will only increase the debt they will leave with.

My rent in Winchester is expensive compared to a lot of my friends who go to university further north but surely something has to be done to protect students from extortionate rent prices?

Tweet Tweet

2009-10-11T16:23:00.005+01:00

Photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mfilej/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I read in the Sunday Times today that Twitter (http://twitter.com/) is set to add video to it's current social networking service.

'Video-tweeting' as it's being called, would allow users to broadcast their thoughts live via video and could prove very popular especially with regards to the number of celebrities using Twitter. Many celebrities use Twitter and have many followers and fans who follow their updates to see what they are up to. The site has also been used by footballers, such as Darren Bent, who displayed his feelings over his protracted transfer from Tottenham to Sunderland over the summer. Some of Britain's biggest Tweeters include Stephen Fry and the Prime Minister's wife Sarah Brown.

I've never really used Twitter but I think the introduction of video-tweeting could tempt me to begin using as I think it offers a much more interesting option than just reading updates from friends or celebrities, sportsman or musicians I am interested in.

The site proved very popular when it first came to the forefront of social networking sites and currently has around 54 million users worldwide, every month and is reportedly hoped that the introduction of video-tweeting will keep users interested and perhaps attract more users to the site.

Powerful Blogging...

2009-10-10T19:34:00.007+01:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/barnett/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Since starting this blog I been interested in trying to improve it, regularly update it, make it more popular and increase the number of hits it receives a day. I have also taken an interest in blogging in general and have started to research different blogs and have started to realise how these free blogs, available and accessible to a majority of the world, can have a large impact on everyday life.

In truth, the first time i realised blogs could be powerful was last year at university when being told about Mayhill Fowler and her scoops in America, using the very popular Huffington Post blog website (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/). Here is an article from LA Times explaining what Fowler managed to do using her blog...http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fowler7-2008jun07,0,4901600.story.

But tonight I discovered a BBC article from Thursday showing how blogs in Cuba are causing a concern for it's communist run Government. In a country where only 2.1% of the population have access to the global Internet, it's impressive that ordinary Cuban citizens can cause this sort of fuss using just online blogs.

This also displays how freedom of expression can even exist in an country like Cuba and quote from the BBC article sums this up well;

"The emergence of independent bloggers is "evidence of a generation shift, a sign that even a country as isolated as Cuba is slowly moving into the 21st Century," Daniel Erikson, an expert at the Washington-based organisation Inter-American Dialogue said recently on US-based thedialogue.org." Here's the BBC article i got this from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8295503.stm

As the BBC article says, these blogs have been causing a bit of a stir with the Cuban government due to people speaking their minds and beginning to question aspects of the communist state. But the power these blogs can hold is shown by the fact that a blog from the Cuban blog community Generación Y (http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/) was named as one of the best 25 blogs in the world by Time Magazine.

It's impressive stuff, feel free to post any blogs you find interesting in the comment section below. Blog on.

The Tories "Public School Boy" Image

2009-10-09T14:34:00.013+01:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/edublogger/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

After watching Question Time on the BBC last night and reading this morning's Times, I have started to dislike the stick The Conservatives get for their reputation of being from wealthy, public school backgrounds.

To make it clear, I didn't go to public school, I went to a State School with a shoddy reputation. But after watching the programme last night and reading the newspaper this morning I've decided that "The Tory background" is something that I 1) Don't envy them for, 2) dislike them for or 3) use against when it comes to politics.

During Question Time last night a member of the audience stood up and asked The Shadow Chancellor George Osborne how he could say that; "Britain was in this together" when he was the heir to a multi million pound fortune. I'm sorry but how does that make the slightest bit of difference? If anything, his father who owns a very successful fabric and wallpaper business will have been hit hard by the credit crunch, which is shown here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/6259728/Wallpaper-company-chaired-by-Shadow-Chancellor-George-Osbornes-father-hit-by-7.5m-loss.html

Does this boil down to just jealousy? George Osborne's family have loads of money so he doesn't know what it's like is the usual excuse made by people. And yeah ok maybe he doesn't know what it's like to be short of money or not being able to afford things but so what? I fail to see how this would affect his role as Chancellor. His Dad has earnt the life he has and it certainly shouldn't be held against George Osborne, after all they have both lived in Britain during the recession and witnessed the effect it can have.

There was a similar tone in the The Times this morning with regards to what David and Samantha Cameron were wearing at the Conservative party conference. A lot of the papers show pictures of Samantha wearing a £65 M&S dress whilst David is wearing a £1,185 suit, I wasn't aware what they wearing had a bearing on how he would perform as Prime Minister? "Samantha Cameron may stock her wardrobe from the high street, but her husband has more lavish taste" reads the caption, did it occur to people that maybe Mrs Cameron happened to just like the dress regardless of the fact that it was "less than £100." If anything that's a good thing and demonstrates wise spending in tough economical times.

The country should give The Tories a chance by listening to their policies and ignoring all this public school boy stuff and perhaps focus on the fact that he could be a good Prime Minister. His background or Mr Osborne's background is not a reason to vote against them.

There is of course another option, slate Cameron for wearing a nice suit and vote for Gordon Brown. I know which I'd prefer.

Rule of Thirds

2009-10-08T21:41:00.008+01:00

As an up and coming Journalist being 'multi-skilled' is becoming very important and a key aspect of this is transforming froma a standard journalist into a videojournalist (VJ). A key lesson we have been going over recently was the rule of thirds when interviewing or filming shots for our news packages.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/unleashingmephotography/ / CC BY 2.0

The rule of thirds: Splitting your screen into thirds like the image on the left is important as it gives you four main

focus points. You should place your subject into one third, with their eye or nose crossing over one

of the lines (see image below). This should leave your interviewee with two thirds looking room. The subject's looking room should be in the direction of the reporter who should be stood to the side of the camera (this also helps to encourage the interviewee to look at the reporter and not into the camera.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/annamorphic/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

This video here helps explain the rule of thirds but more from a cinema/film making point of view, although the same principles still apply: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjFUGAV2dqM

The user 'video maker' on youtube has numerous videos with hints and tips for making films etc which may be of use to journalism students so you can check some of them out here: http://www.youtube.com/user/videomaker

Hopefully they can be of use to some fellow students!

American Advert Slots...

2009-10-08T10:01:00.007+01:00

After a comment on my blog post, 'The Power of The Sun', I started looking into how American television is used to attack political candidates in the Advertising Slots.

This example is the one posted on the comment of the famous Willie Horton ad used by Bush The First in the 1988 election; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMSSEZ0Y. The Slots in America are used similarly to the tabloid newspapers here to support or attack political candidates, however the tabloid newspapers in the UK seem friendly compared to some of these ads.

These adverts are just pure negativity from one campaign team against their rivals. In the same way that The Sun has power to make readers vote for a particular candidate, these adverts can draw in the same people (in America) but over the bigger medium of television.

Here's a recent one from President Obama's campaign team against his then rival candidate John McCain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK3Y1KPzW9k&feature=related

and another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xukbiS8q9s&feature=channel

You'll notice at the end they are personally approved by Barack Obama making this sort of thing common place and a fundamental tactic for American politicians. Due to regulation in the UK, television channels are prohibited from doing such adverts or programmes promoting either side of the political debate, hence the use of the tabloids like The Sun where they don't have to be balanced.

The first link of the Willie Horton ad is probably the most famous but here are some more that I've found...

This one is a news report showing a McCain ad against Obama http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phBBnxXJdoM&NR=1

The ever popular Mr George W Bush attacking rival John Kerry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu2oO6W6NUg&feature=related

John Kerry fighting back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQra-dAOyIQ&NR=1

Jeese Helms: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIyewCdXMzk

I think I'd take a dressing down by The Sun anyday of the week, wouldn't you?

Brown Comes Up Short....

2009-10-06T11:12:00.011+01:00

After reading a few newspaper websites this morning I came across a story from the former head of the army, General Sir Richard Dannatt.

He claims that Gordon Brown refused to send an extra 2000 troops to Afghanistan against military advice, although this has been denied by Downing Street. Sir Dannatt has repeatedly spoken out against supply shortages and had finally had enough when he had to borrow an American Black Hawk Down helicopter to complete his farwell tour of Afghanistan, clearly demonstrating a lack of UK helicopters.

The lack of supplies and personnel is something General Dannatt has spoken of before and is something he pursued right up to his retirement in August 2009. Here's an article one month before his retirement: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/5848881/General-Sir-Richard-Dannatt-more-troops-needed-in-Afghanistan.html#

I'm sure Mr Brown and his government are doing their best to help the soldiers who are putting their lives on the line for this country, but I think when there are clear shortages of supplies and personnel then they need to step up and support the troops at all costs.

After all, Brown isn't fighting a war everyday, he's just fighting to save his position as Prime Minister.

Here are some of today's articles: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8291935.stm, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6862777.ece

Photo: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:General_Sir_Francis_Richard_Dannatt,_KCB,_CBE,_MC_-_York_2007-09-22_(RLH).jpg

President Blair

2009-10-05T17:40:00.004+01:00

A lot of the recent news coverage over the last week and so far this week has been about Tony Blair heading towards becoming Europe's first President. The main jist of it, as predicted, are the pro's and con's of him taking on this role.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkl, was supposedly against Mr Blair due to his decisions not to back EU projects such as the euro and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. However it is rumoured that Ms Merkl has since softened her opposition, whilst French President Sarkozy has reportedly decided that Mr Blair is the best candidate.

However, the main opposition, again as predicted comes from The Conservatives. William Hague, The Shadow Foreign Secretary and former leader of The Tories who suffered a heavy defeat against Blair in 2001, has slammed the decision, labelling it "the worst option for Britain" (The Times). But although it was fairly obvious that The Tories would be against a Blair Presidency due to his obvious Labour connections, I find myself having to agree with a lot of their reasons.

If, the people of Britain vote in favour of a Conservative government, I can't see there being many happy voters if there is a member of the party they have just ousted in charge of Europe. And with all due respects, Mr Blair wasn't the most popular figure at the end of his reign as Prime Minister.

It certainly creates an interesting debate and is something I will look to pursue as the coverage continues.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

The Ridiculous Side to The Sun...

2009-10-02T18:02:00.001+01:00

My last post was about The Sun's power in UK's politics with regards to who is to become the next Prime Minister of Great Britain, but today the same newspaper demonstrated and reminded me of the sort of journalism that it is regularly capable of.

For those of you with today's copy head to page 45 where the headline reads "Are we Gaydees?". Here The Sun is talking about Little Britain's David Walliams and friends posing for a photo after watching fellow Little Britain star Matt Lucas' new theatre play. The main point of this story is that the newspaper's "gay-o-meter" is detecting how homosexual these two are along with celebrity friends Mika, Graham Norton and Sir Ian Mckellen.

A little more info than just five lines about the theatre play might have been useful too!

This just adds to my surprise that the power it has over the race to Number Ten, I shouldn't really be surprised that this type of story is in The Sun, but perhaps I should stick to The Times!

For those of you without a copy of The Sun, check out the story here: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/2664529/Picture-that-nearly-broke-The-Suns-gay-o-meter-Matt-Lucas-and-his-mates.html

The Power of the Sun...

2009-10-01T15:22:00.002+01:00

In today's lecture we were discussing today's newspapers and in particular The Sun's decision to attack the Labour government. I was aware of The Sun's power in the race to Number Ten, however I do find it strange that it is a tabloid that holds this power.

As our we discussed in the lecture, The Sun doesn't necessarily support the Conservatives instead of Labour but it does attack Labour and the performance of the Labour government over the last twelve years. So through negativity towards Labour it sways viewers towards the Conservatives.

The reason The Sun holds has this influence on the political battle in the UK is because many of the newspaper's readers aren't particularly interested in politics and therefore perhaps don't have a particular allegiance to one political party and therefore come general election day will vote the way of The Sun.

But what surprises me most is that it's the tabloid that holds the power, not the broadsheets like The Times or The Guardian, that's what interests me. I realise that most broadsheet readers read that particular paper due to their political allegiance and therefore are unlikely to be swayed by the newspaper but for a tabloid, mostly renowned for it's page three nudity, to become a key player in who becomes the Prime Minister of Great Britain is an interesting fact nonetheless.

Yesterday's article in The Sun:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2663087/Voters-Reds-blew-it-for-us-too.html