News Day Editor
On the second news day of third year, I was the editor, alongside deputy editor, Grace.
I'm quite a natural when it comes to leading a group, so this role didn't worry me. I learnt the key to success was the researching and planning during the run up to the day. I produced and edited a document on Google Docs that both myself and Grace could edit in our own time ready for the morning meeting.
The day ran very smoothly. I used skills from similar roles and adapted them when being the editor significantly. This meant that I was confident and ready to take on the challenge.
There were a couple of hiccups on the day (due to the weather!) but, due to my extensive planning and organisation, I was able to hand out other stories to my team which they would be able to conduct in drier weather. This highlights how well prepared I was in my role because I did not let anything get in the way of story production, and worked around it.
17/10/19
A section of my news day plan where I placed my story ideas, groups, arranged interviews and what I wanted from each story.
When it came to planning, I used the week prior to look out for possible news stories to cover. This proved quite challenging for me because the stories needed to be relevant on the day, meaning I had to be on the look out for the latest breaking news. However, this is what a journalist does every day, so the task was preparing me well for future jobs. It also allowed me to understand the hard work that journalists in the industry go through every day when it comes to finding new, yet relevant stories.
I found my stories by looking on local news sites and social media, as well as seeing what local events were happening. This enabled me to have a wide variety of different stories prepared. Once I had enough, I split the team up into groups for each story that I thought would produce good content for me. This planning process happened over a week.
The planning meeting in the morning of the news day went well. I went with enough story ideas to bring to the table.
The meeting is really important to attend because all editors for the day (TV & Radio) are able to talk to each other and further plan the stories for the day ready for when teams arrive. I then had a second meeting with the whole team, giving them their stories and then after that, I went round to all of my story teams to double check they knew what I was asking for. After this, my job for the rest of the day was to check on all teams every now and then, making sure they were on task.
One part of the day which I found challenging was when I realised that it was obvious that some individuals in their groups worked at a slower rate and were less committed to their work than others. This is something that I experienced quite a lot. However, to overcome this, I made sure to work with those people to ensure they had further guidance and were clear on what tasks had to be done. I also made sure to check on them more frequently than others, asking them questions about their story to double check they were fully engaged. Lastly, I also praised those who were working harder for all the efforts they were putting in during the day.
One of the stories from my News Day that I was proud
of.
During my day as an editor, I was able to gain even more valuable experience as one of our key broadcast lecturers who runs the TV bulletins was not present. Therefore, I chose to take on the role of producer for the 3:30pm TV Bulletin. My job role included cuing the presenter of the show throughout the programme.
Also, myself and the rest of the Television team helped to choose the style of the new bulletins for the term. It has been amazing to see the progression of the bulletin styles since being part of the university, so to have that kind of input as a third year meant a lot to me.
Overall, considering I was editor on the second news day back, I believe the day ran very well. There were obviously a couple of slip ups such as videos were not uploaded on time for the bulletin and not all content safely made its way onto "Solent Journalism". However, apart from that, I was very happy with the day, the stories produced and thoroughly enjoyed leading the editor role solo.