Critical Reflection 2013

WINOL has improved significantly over the past two and a half years. This semester we have worked harder to interest our target audience of students and engage the local public by our careful choice of stories. Our Alexa Ranking, (04/11/13) shows that we are ranked 32,503 in the UK which is better than our local rivals, ‘The Hampshire Chronicle’ who are ranked 56,493. We are currently quite far behind ‘The Daily Echo’ that stands at 1,700 in the UK. This could be attributed to the fact that the Echo covers a larger area and has built up a bigger audience over the years.

WINOL is trying to widen its audience by varying stories from Marwell Zoo, to court reporting and covering events that are happening in the local community. We use the website to promote our stories, but also to cover other local stories that we may not be able to put into the bulletin.

We are keeping up to date with social networking by having our twitter account linked to the news site. This is important for reporters as they can keep everyone up to date with their stories and progress. It also works as a system to keep the site ‘alive’ whilst text stories are waiting to be published. We are moving further towards using social media to promote WINOL in order to get us recognised in the local community.

I think this is something that we could improve on further next semester; by making sure that we all use key words in our tweets. By getting people involved in the story to simply ‘re-tweet’ can multiply the people that can view it. The social media editor also needs to work on promoting WINOL further, by handing out leaflets or putting up signs around the campus to make people more aware of its existence.

Our WINOL team has improved vastly in terms of the stories we have managed to cover. We have had stories that the likes of the BBC cover such as the lamb story a couple of weeks ago. We even managed to use our social media to an advantage to tweet the verdict on cameras in court and scoop all other organisations. This is a great achievement and gained a lot of attention, as we were first to announce the outcome.

In terms of audience diversity, I would say the introduction of ‘Access’ is a great way to widen our current audience. The team go into the community and attend events that many people locally will be interested in. Gaining access to things such as the ‘Nutcracker on Ice’ and ‘Apps world’ reach out to different audiences such as families and the majority of society who will own an Apple product.

This semester, we changed the role of the news editor weekly. I think it was a good opportunity for everyone to experience the role; but I feel that the bulletin reflected the change in editor at times. I think by keeping the editor the same each week, the bulletins will flow better and the conferences will be better organised. It also means that all of the news team are aware of their news editor and how to contact them with any problems.

In terms of the bulletin itself, there have been a few production issues this semester. It is evident that our highest viewing figures are on a Wednesday when the bulletin goes out. If for any reason it doesn’t go live at 5 p.m., the audience will presume that it is not happening resulting in our viewings dropping. To prevent this happening, the production team need to be well organised and reporters need to check their work carefully to eliminate any possible legal issues. However if this is the case, we could distract the audience by putting up a game or a feature for them to enjoy whilst they wait for the bulletin.

I think the newsreaders this semester have been very professional. They have used their voices well and expressed emotion relating to the story. This keeps the audience engaged and eager to find out more. To improve WINOL’s presentation further, I would suggest updating the backdrop of the bulletin as it’s starting to look dated and makes it appear less professional.

The sports team have achieved in terms of getting the football highlights weekly. However, the viewing figures seem to have dropped to on average 150 per week for sports week. I think the packages need to be more engaging to encourage people to watch. However some individual matches such as the Basingstoke Town VS Hampton and Richmond have received over 400 views, which show there is a larger audience for Basingstoke Town. Therefore we should make sure we have good coverage for each of their games.

The sports team could improve by playing around with the highlights and making it more fun by adding graphics such as the league table at the side of the screen. They could even use a split screen and show two games at the same time and feature the full highlights at winol.co.uk. Getting interviews and footage of top local athletes would interest the local audiences but also increase viewing figures from their friends and families.

My role for this semester was the fashion editor for our Absolute:ly magazine. This magazine covers beauty, hair and fashion to relate directly to its target audience of young women.  I recruited my own fashion team and made sure that our site was updated with at least two articles a week for each category. I took over the twitter account and have managed to increase the followers of the magazine from 30 to 120 at present. This was by re-tweeting larger magazines such as Elle and by tweeting our work and any trends/styles we like this season. I think this could be improved on further by having a member of the team concentrating on the social media aspect and tweeting hundreds of tweets and images daily.

As the fashion editor, I made the decision along with the features editor and the web team to change the site. I wanted to get rid of the ‘gossip’ section on the site, as it didn’t really fit the style of the magazine, which is supposed to be more upmarket like ‘Glamour’.  We also made the images on the front page smaller as they were too big and meant the audience had to continuously scroll down to see each article. 

I was also involved in making the decision to move all features into one large magazine called ‘Here and Now’. I think this was a good decision as the editor can easily oversee what is being produced for each topic. It also means that all the magazines look like they are updated frequently as some were more than others. I think to make the site look more professional, we need to make sure each magazine has strong images, especially on the home page of the site.

As the editor, I made sure that I gave everyone a deadline to have work submitted by. If this was not met then I had to decide to scrap the work, as it would be out of date or no longer relevant. I did manage to find a columnist, ‘Pamela Davies’ who writes for ‘Essex Style,’ a popular magazine in Essex. She is an ex model who organises fashion shows and is also a stylist. Unfortunately she did not keep to deadlines or produce a regular piece so I had to scrap the column, as it was not frequent enough.

One of my biggest achievements this semester was managing to get four press passes for the biggest hair, beauty and fashion show in the country, ‘The Clothes Show Live’. This show suited our magazine perfectly as it covered all of our categories and gained great publicity around the country. Unfortunately, due to the show being held at the NEC in Birmingham, we could not afford the travel costs as it’s the end of term and funds are low.

I contacted Paul Manning regarding possible funding but there wasn’t anything that he could offer, which was a shame. I tried to get the names on the press passes changed for others to use if they were interested but it was too close to the event to be sorted out. I made the best of an unfortunate situation by contacting the PR Department to arrange to receive some images from the event, including the catwalk, once it finishes on Tuesday 10^th December. This means that the magazine will feature some brilliant images from a top fashion event that has been trending on twitter since it started and thousands of people are talking about.

 My biggest achievement this semester has to be the final photo shoot that I organised and directed. It was decided that the theme for this shoot was going to be existentialism and modernism as it links in nicely with our philosophy. I knew from that point that this shoot was going to be the hardest one to organise. I used the likes of Malcolm X, Audrey Hepburn and ‘The Great Gatsby’ that released a modern version of the film earlier this year to be the inspiration behind my shoot.

My shoots have produced some stunning images for the magazine in the past and I wanted to continue in the same vein. I decided to let my fashion team help out in trying to arrange the shoot, to understand how it works and the months of planning that takes place. I think this was a good idea in terms of allowing them to see the effort that goes into the shoots.

I usually have the shoot all planned and arranged 2-3 weeks prior to the date. I decided to give my team certain aspects to organise but unfortunately were not arranged a week prior to the shoot. I think this shoot taught us that there is no need to give up and that you should work with what you have and keep contacting people until the very last minute. The team learnt it is harder to get makeup and hair stylists booked in with little advance notice. I learnt that by having contacts such as hair stylists and makeup technicians it is achievable to get someone the week before the shoot date. I managed to get a Benefit makeup artist to do the different aspects of makeup and also a local freelance hair stylist.

 The clothing was the hardest to organise as the style itself tends to be quite expensive. We did have an appointment with Hampshire Wardrobe, however they wanted a large amount of money when they knew what we wanted. I managed to get a local designer ‘Airyn Erickson designs’ to make the flapper dress style that I had researched. I also borrowed other clothing from various contacts and was lucky that the male models used most of their own.

I feel that I really improved when directing this shoot. I was more confident and knew from my research the variety of shots I wanted to get. I also directed the hair and makeup to ensure it was the exact look that I had planned for. I found the shoot harder without the use of the infinity screen as it makes the floor appear darker when editing. For this particular shoot it suited the style so it wasn’t such a problem, but I think it is something the university should invest in again. I feel that I really improved in terms of editing the images and making the magazine spreads as I had more time after the shoot. I think this is an important aspect to consider when planning the shoot in advance.

Overall, this shoot was a success and has produced some stunning content for the magazine. Not only have we got the images, we have produced a video containing the history and inspiration behind the shoot. I have also created some magazine spreads that feature the images whilst explaining the history and the background behind the shoot. I really enjoy planning and directing these shoots and it may be something I look into doing in the future.

I think I fulfilled my role as the fashion editor as I made sure that the site was current and updated to interest our target audience directly. I also made sure that the team worked together to keep up to date on the newest trends and styles of both the high street and catwalk.