Monday, 2 June 2014

News Broadcast Evaluation

News Broadcasts – Evaluation

In this assignment I will produce a detailed written evaluation on my two news broadcasts, I will discuss the process of choosing the news stories, the technical production of the news broadcasts, and audience feedback etc.

When preparing for the broadcast of the local news, Fay and I began researching current local stories in the news at the time, looking at news websites such as BBC and Google news, this was a lot of help as we took stories from the website and wrote them in our own words, most of which were based in Newcastle or the surrounding area. We did this to give a personal feeling, as it would be very close to home for the audience listening. To prepare, we also took the time to listen to other local news bulletins such as Metro Radio and BBC Radio 1. This news broadcast would most likely be aired on a station like Metro Radio, as they are a very local radio station for the North East and include many local stories in their news broadcasts. Of course we didn’t use all local news stories, we also included some national headlines from around the world, this was to inform the audience of what is happening in other news all around the world rather than just on their front door. The stories we had chosen were: a murder investigation that had taken place in 1992 as there was an update – this was shocking news for the North East as they were unaware for so many years of how the young girl was brutally murdered in Sunderland, this story was all copy and was fairly short as there wasn’t much information that had been released at the time, aside from the suspects name and how he was currently on bail pending further investigation.

Next, a story on a 9-year-old girl had been attacked in her car as an unknown assailant had thrown a glass beer bottle towards the moving vehicle and it flew straight through the open window and slashed all of the young girls face and hands, this is a shocking story and is there to add emotion to the bulletin. This story as copy and audio as it had an audio clip of an interview with the youngster, this adds colour to the report and keeps the audience interested by giving them a change of voice.

After, we talked about the new Washington Leisure Centre and when it is scheduled to be built, we added additional information on what facilities the centre will include. We incorporated this story into our news bulletin to inform the local North East audiences of the new fun activities they can participate in. The way this story is continuous and requires constant updates is very useful as it is something the listeners can look forward to hearing about in upcoming news reports. This story was in copy style.

Within the local news bulletin we discussed business and how two companies that are very big in the UK are merging (Carphone Warehouse and Dixons). We included this story as it is fairly big news for these businesses and the British public would like to hear about it. This is an example of National news as it affects the whole country not just the local area of the North East.

After this story we aired the local sport and football news, we included the player’s names and broadcasted the highlights of the games. We made sure we talked about both local football teams, Newcastle and Sunderland to appeal to the whole North East target audience. We chose to focus on football as it is the most popular sport in the North East and it gets the attention of the majority of the audience. Fay and I included audio from fans of both teams; this makes the style of the story copy and audio.

We ended our news bulletin on a light-hearted note; it was an entertainment story on celebrities and the BAFTA’s, which had just taken place. We did this to add the entertainment factor and end on a cheery story.

We edited our local new bulletin on Garageband, which allowed us to make it more exciting by adding a bed and also some stingers to separate the stories easier. By adding these, we kept the audience entertained and engaged with the news broadcast. I don’t recall any problems whilst editing, everything went very smoothly and efficiently. The feedback we received after presenting our local news broadcast to the class was mainly positive, we got many 4-5/5 for technical standard and fitness for purpose. The comments we received were mostly on how the beds and stingers were entertaining and how the stories ‘suited the localness’. Although, we did receive some feedback on how the volume of sound as different for different things such as the audio clips, saying that they needed to be slightly louder. Changing the volume on Garageband could easily solve this; I will take this as constructive criticism and keep a note of it for future reference.

After recording our local news bulletin we created another bulletin in the style of BBC Radio 1. But before we began, we listened to ‘Newsbeat’ to get a feel of the style of radio station and style of bulletin; we also looked at news websites such as BBC News and Sky News. We understood that the news bulletins included beds of new, recent songs and included stories all over the country and some from around the world. We wanted to begin the broadcast with the biggest story at the time, this was the story on the missing Malaysian airplane, in the broadcast we included the amount of passengers on board, where it was headed, where it was last seen, we did this in case the audience didn’t know all the information about the story and we began talking about it as if they automatically would know. We also included information on the other countries helping with the search. This was a copy story.

The next story was quite light-hearted and entertaining, but also was fairly serious; it was a story about the amount of women taking up roles in films. It was another copy story and we included facts and figures using percentages to make it more interesting. We felt that this would target the audience of 16 – 24 year olds not only interested in media but also film, this isn’t breaking news but it is quite easy listening and something good to know. These types of stories are quite popular on BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat so we thought it would go very well with the broadcast.

Our next story was about a more serious matter. It was about young criminals and whether or not they should serve tougher sentences. We felt that with story suited Radio 1’s target audience well as it is about their same age group. We made this story copy and audio to give the audience another voice to listen to, and keep the listeners engaged, it also adds colour and depth to the bulletin, producing more emotion.

We then decided to broadcast an entertainment story about David Cameron and Sir Patrick Steward. We added this story to create some humour to our news bulletin and surprise the audience by showing a member of parliament around on a social networking site, its not something you see everyday! This story was quite long but in the end we decided to keep it as copy as there wasn’t much audio we could add.

The following story was another light-hearted one to entertain and inform the audience about the new and upcoming Disney Remix CD, songs on the album include Frozen’s ‘Let It Go’ and The Lion King’s ‘Circle Of Life’ with a twist, they are all remixed by current DJ’s such as Avicii and Armin Van Buuren. We thought this was an effective story to include on our Radio 1 news bulletin as the CD’s fits perfectly with the target audience of the radio station. We kept this as copy but added a fun bed of a popular song to keep the audience entertained.

We ended the bulletin on a sports report; this was a copy story and was fairly short. As BBC Radio 1 is national we needed to cover the most anticipated games that had take place. To find this out we researched by listening to Newsbeat and understood what teams they talk about the most, showing which teams and type of sports the audience enjoy hearing about the most. We found out that they mainly enjoy football and rugby. After researching this information we then went onto the BBC Sport website and discussed the highlights of the games in our news bulletin.

The feedback we received after presenting our BBC Radio 1 styled news broadcast to the class was mainly all positive, everyone enjoyed listening to the stories we had chosen and liked the order they were placed in. The personal feedback I received was very good although I did receive a few comments on how I spoke quite fast at some points, I will take this as constructive criticism and try to slow down my speech for next time, but other than that my personal feedback was all positive. The only one negative comment we received for our overall new broadcast was the sound quality. Sometimes Fay and I spoke too close to the microphone, which created a muffled sound, this is because we didn’t live record the show - it was pre-recorded. Next time we create a news bulletin we will have to record it live to make it sound professional, just like BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat.


Overall I was very pleased with our two news broadcasts, but I do think there is room for improvement to make them sound much more professional. The sound quality could be easily improved for next time, but other than that I am happy with the way it has turned out.

Monday, 24 March 2014

Saturday, 15 March 2014

Task 3 - Forms and Styles of News Reporting

Assignment 3 – Forms and Styles of News Reporting
·       Bulletin
A news bulletin includes 3-6 stories, showing international and national news, local news, sport, entertainment and weather.

·       Headline
A brief outline of the big news stories at the time, including a small amount of information.

·       Copy Only
Copy only stories have no need for audio; they are often used for public service information and local events. Sometimes they also include funny one liners when concluding the story with a “and finally.”

·       Copy with Audio
These are stories that are made up of clips from an interview; these clips would be 8-20 seconds long each. These clips would create an audio impact – it lets the audio tell the story. To make the audience feel the sense of atmosphere, the microphone would be placed somewhere there is background noise.

·       Wrap
This is a completely wrapped package, everything into one; it includes another reporter plus audio. It slots into a bulletin and is set out ‘intro – clip – conclusion’.

·       Vox Pop
A vox pop is recording of a member/members of the public discussing their views on something that is being discussed on the radio. It would usually be recorded outdoors usually in a city centre where there’s a lot of general public.

·       Two Way
A two way is when there are two people talking in the same room.

·       Live Cross
This is when the presenter goes live to another presenter in a different location, for example a report from the war in Iraq, which would include the background sound of the war-taking place.

·       Ident
This is a small recording to remind the audience what radio station they are listening too, this can go in-between the news stories to break the news broadcast up.



·       Voicers
A voicer is a short report read by another reporter and unlike a wrap it does not include an audio clip.


Metro Radio
The news report began with a story about a convicted murderer on the run, he has also escaped twice before, this was a copy and audio broadcast as it included a recording of a police officer giving some information on the situation. This is to show the public that they are in safe hands and the police are working hard to get the situation under control. The next story was a Murder enquiry by a 37-year-old man in Huddersfield, there are currently children being treated in hospital. A 39-year-old man has been arrested. This was an audio report, as they couldn’t include audio, as they haven’t got enough information about the situation yet. After, there was a story on how BT are creating 1600 engineering jobs, and 180 of those are in the North East, this is appealing to Metro Radio’s target audience as it is based in the North East and people in the North East would find it useful to know there are jobs going near home. Next, there was a story on Ryan Air and how they have had a fall in profit, they made £426 million; this was also a copy piece as it didn’t include an audio clip as it wasn’t a very important story so it didn’t require one. The next story was about Ant and Dec and how there should be more acting jobs for children in the North East and how they are thinking about buying the building Byker Grove was filmed in, to help the cause. This was a copy and audio story as Dec was interviewed and voiced his opinion on the matter. This is an effective story to feature on Metro Radio as it is specific to their target audience as it talks about the North East and includes Ant and Dec – some of the biggest stars to come out of the North East. The broadcast then continued by talking about how they won an award at the BAFTA’s and then continued onto talking about the other winners of the night. This was a copy file, as it didn’t include any audio, as it didn’t require one. This was the last news story but the weather followed, this was jus general weather.

BBC Radio 1

This news report began with a story on how police want ticket inspectors for concerts to be stricter as more and more people are making it into the concerts with fake tickets, this is specific to the stations target audience as the ages range is 16 – 24 which is the most common age of people who go to concerts. This story was a two way as there were two presenters talking. The next story was on Turkey and how there have been protests against the government because of the worst mining experience, killing 200 people, this story was copy as it didn’t require any audio, it was all information. Next, was a story on how charities are working with paedophiles helping them with their ‘views’ towards children, and how the charity can’t cope with the amount of offenders who require help. This was copy and audio as it included a female charity worker talking about how they can’t deal with the amount of calls they are receiving. Next, was the sports reports which were all copy, which lead straight into the weather which was also copy.

Monday, 10 March 2014

Task 2 - News Values

News Values
In 1965, media researchers Galtung & Ruge analysed international news stories to find out what factors they had in common, and what factors placed them at the top of the news agenda worldwide. They came up with a “scoring system” of news values, with stories that score highly in each having more chance of making a lead / front-page story. Every media organisation will have its own news values, based upon what their audience expects, and what is important to the organisation. News Values are separated into 12 different sections which are; negativity, proximity, recency, currency, continuity, uniqueness, simplicity, personality, expectedness, elite nations/people, exclusivity, and size.

Negativity:
This states that bad news is better than good news and it will always be rated higher as people enjoy hearing that other people are worse off than them. An example of bad news would be floods, bankruptcy, natural disasters and violence etc.

Proximity:
This is stories close to home that audiences can relate to, for example anything that happens locally or within the same country, stories with local geographical values will have better ratings.

Recency:
News will get a better audience if they have very recent stories so most news broadcasters try to get the most recent stories to get the best ratings. For example, Justin Bieber’s court case was streamed live on the news to keep the audience completely up to date.

Currency:
Currency would be stories that stay in the public eye for a long period of time. An example of this would be the Madeline McCann story as it has been in the news for 7 years now.

Continuity:
Continuity stories have a continuing impact on readers with every single development on the story.  An example of this would be the floods and bad weather in the UK as every development would affect the audience in some way, whether it be affecting them personally or people they know.

Uniqueness:
Unique stories are stories that you wouldn’t expect, they are there to intrigue the audience and shock them, unique stories are usually humorous. An example of this would be Miley Cyrus’ performance at the EMA Awards as this was completely unexpected and shocked the world.

Simplicity:
These would be stories that are easy to explain and easy for the audience to understand. An example of this would be the story about the Galleries in Washington being rebuilt as it requires no thought when reading it and it is a very easy story to understand.

Personality:
These are stories you can relate to which centre around a particular person, mainly celebrities. An example of this could be Khloe Kardashian as she is currently going through a divorce.

Expectedness:
These are stories you predict will be mentioned. An example of this could be the floods down south as it has been on the news for quite some time now and the audience would be expecting updates on what is happening.

Elite Nations/People:
These are stories that are close to Britain e.g anything to do with America, Germany etc. An example of this could be the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as it affects Europe.

Exclusivity:
These would be stories that are breaking news that no one knows about yet, they are exclusive stories and are there to surprise and shock the audience. And example of this would be Sky News as they are always the first to have breaking news stories.

Size:

These are stories that rely on how big the story is. The news teams rely on these stories as the bigger the story the bigger the value. An example of this would be the plane that has gone missing and completely disappeared off the radar as this affects many people so it is a big story.