November 11, 2014
Generating ideas
If you are too close to something, you struggle to realise
how impressive it may be. It was something I noticed when I was in Budapest.
Something which was shocking to me, may not have been treated with similar
dismay by a local because they are used to it.
Since I returned to Ireland I have tried to put aside my
prior knowledge in certain instances. When it comes to deciding on whether a
story is newsworthy or not, the less you know at the beginning can sometimes be
an advantage. Fresh eyes on a particular topic can do wonderful things. For
example, the Irish Water saga has received so much attention that there doesn’t
seem to be any angle with the story that has not yet been covered in detail.
However I believe that somebody from outside the country who is reading the
story for the first time could possibly discover a hidden angle that seemed so
obvious it was never fully appreciated.
When it came to preparing ideas for the Limerick Voice, the
thoughts of the reader always had to be kept in mind. Interviews with sports
people and sports managers are ‘ten a penny’ in the modern media. It is
important that we go at things differently, ask questions about unusual topics
and give interviewees the opportunity to be more creative in their responses.
If you ask a local rugby player what he thinks about the
opposition they are facing at the weekend, you know what you will get- “Obviously
things are going well for them at the moment. They have a number of fantastic
players so we will have to be on top of our game.” Even the interviewees are
bored saying it.
Consequently the most interesting things from these
interviewees are when they are asked quirky questions about their local
communities, local characters, what their first rugby ball was? It generates
ideas in their mind about what else to say, and they are usually delighted to
get the opportunity to spout anything other than monotonous praise of teammates
or opposition.
I think I am going off point. Where was I? Oh yeah…generating
ideas.
What is a unique idea in my mind may not interest the
readers, and vice versa. The mentality of the reader must always be understood.
I think that the stories which will form the sports section combine fresh
interview ideas with interesting news stories as well. When you broke down the section
into all the constituent parts (i.e. the sports worth covering in Limerick) it
was easy to generate ideas which are unique to our publication.
Now the time has come to put those ideas into print, but I
am fully confident it will happen.
November 7, 2014
Discovering my ‘calling’
It’s been a week of many phone calls. Some answer, some
don’t, and some get back to you at a pace which suits them. This blog is not
about criticising people for their lack of speed in answering a phone, but
about my thoughts on making the phone call in the first place.
Until I went on work placement in June 2013, I had only
carried out the bare minimum of professional phone calls (i.e. those that don’t
involve friends or family). I had done a number of articles as part of the
course which involved ringing individuals for comment, and none of them had
gone particularly well.
I remember vividly the first proper journalistic interview I
did over the phone. It took me the bones of a minute to finish asking my first
question, such was the extent of my stuttering and stumbling of words.
Starting in KCLR96FM on work placement last year, I was
worried about how I would adapt. I thought I would have a couple of days to
acclimatise myself to the place and just ‘shadow’ those working in the
newsroom. The reality was however that I was making phone calls and organising
interviews within an hour of my arrival. It was the best thing that could have
happened.
As time went by, my confidence when talking to complete
strangers over the phone began to subside. Parish priests, councillors, TDs,
hurling/football managers, Gardaí- it became second nature to pick up the phone
and ring them for an interview/comment.
While I am by no means a fully confident individual on the
phone at present, it is amazing how much I have advanced in the space of the
year. It is vital to be that way when carrying out a project such as the
Limerick Voice. Deadlines have to be met, and there is little time for dawdling
about how you will approach a certain person over the phone.
There is no substitute for being thrown in at the deep end,
and that is exactly what happened on my work placement. It was a daunting
experience at the time but it has paid huge dividends as I come towards the end
of the opening semester of fourth year.
October 29, 2014
Design is coming along nicely
Having spent the bulk of two years away from Adobe InDesign, I am pleased with my progress so far in fourth year. I always found myself capable with the software in first year, when we had two modules dedicated to mastering it’s many basic tools.
I was also Design Editor for the sports section of the Limerick Voice two years ago, which helped me to put what I learned into practical use. The pressure of arranging pages, subbing copy and writing headlines has helped me to carry through my knowledge of the software until this semester.
When it comes to design I try to keep it as conservative as possible. It is a newspaper we are trying to produce in early December, and it is a fine opportunity to sell ourselves to future employers. They will be more interested in the content of our stories than the flamboyant way they are laid out on the page.
As a result, I tried to keep the design of my assessment as simple as possible. They were three stories about Irish Water, so it is as hard as hard news gets in Ireland at the moment. I was pleased with the consistency of the design. There were little or no white spaces left in the headlines, straplines or captions.
I was disappointed to see my failure to align properly the caption and picture to the column, but I know now to look out for such issues over the coming weeks.
As for the sports section, the design does not worry me. In certain areas we can be creative with Photoshop but I don’t think it’s necessary to do so just for the sake of it. Attention grabbing headlines, good subbing and the correct placement of images will make the section stand out for its professional look.
October 15, 2014
My favourite features
writer-
I have a confession to make. I’m not much of a reader.
Despite getting involved in journalism I have never had much of a ‘grá’ for
reading my worries away. That is not to say that I dislike reading. I enjoy it
very much but once I feel that I have gained enough information on a particular
topic, my mind has no intention of cramming more details within it.
As a result, choosing my favourite features writer is quite
difficult. My favourite features have usually been about sport, so I thought it
best to explore that avenue. My mind then wandered back to February 2013 when I
recalled talking about my favourite feature article of all time. I was not too
imaginative when I chose a feature that had only been published days earlier.
The article was by Bill Simmons, and it was revelatory because of its timing and content.
Published on the morning of the Super Bowl between the Baltimore Ravens and the
San Francisco 49ers, Simmons decided to call out Ravens player Ray Lewis as a
drug cheat.
The article is a fascinating piece of sports writing. The
significance of what he is writing hits you instantly. His passion for the
fight against drugs in sport, or at least the fight for the right to question
possible dopers, is immediately prevalent. His inner torment at having to
separate his more honest self from the ‘blinkered’ persona which he exudes when
writing for ESPN and Grantland, give his article a cutting realism.
His honesty when it comes to sport has got him into more
trouble in recent times. Following revelations in the US that American Football
star Ray Rice had knocked his girlfriend (now wife) unconscious, Bill Simmons
became agitated at the lack of accountability of NFL Commissioner Roger
Goodell. Simmons called Goodell a “liar” on his podcast ‘The B.S. Report’,
after the Commissioner denied that he had already seen the tapes before they
were leaked to the media.
He is now in the middle of a three week suspension from ESPN
for his comments (Read more here). His honesty when it comes to the gravest issues in sport is dangerous
but also necessary. Writers like Simmons are necessary to generate an honest
debate on the big issues in sport, instead of happily drowning in the PR
tsunami.
Of course, it is his long and successful career as a sports
writer which has allowed him to become so critical. Making enemies early in a
journalistic career could be difficult to recover from.
His areas of expertise are many. Grantland, the website
which he created, covers many areas of popular culture rather than purely sport.
Another article of note is his review of a superb documentary on American band,the Eagles.
His articles are extensive. You could be spending 20 minutes
reading one, but they are all entertaining. You never get the sense that he is
writing just for the sake of a byline. Everything he writes means a lot to him
and that makes him appealing as a feature writer.
What's in store for journalists over the next 20 years?
Friday September 26, 2014.
As part of class this week, we were asked to analyse an
article in the Irish Independent from
July 28, 2013 titled, ‘Calling Higgins gay my worst nightmare’. It was written
by journalist David Monagan in an attempt to explain a Forbes article in which he
mistakenly called Irish president Michael D Higgins an “acknowledged homosexual”. Read here.
I felt worried reading the article. On a personal note, his
disclosure of the amount of money he was recouping from working for Forbes was
depressing. It made me wonder whether all the work being put into the
profession would be worth it if you were just making enough money to get by.
Journalists have a role in informing the public to the best of its ability, and
should be rewarded financially as such.
However journalists have become dispensable in a lot of
media organisations. More and more attention is placed on the marketing and
sales staff who bring in the revenue for a particular media company.
Journalists are being asked to do a lot more work for the same pay, and the
standard of the stories which they then publish are going to drop in standard
as a consequence.
In the short period of time where I have been a student
journalist, I have enjoyed it. But I don’t want to work myself to the bone in a
profession where my work is not adequately recognised. This article shines a
light on the issues which a journalist must deal with on a personal level.
In a professional sense the article emphasises the changing
face of the modern newsroom, and not for the better. Subeditors have become
largely redundant and journalists are responsible now for surveying their
writing for errors. That may sound reasonable to most people outside of the industry,
but other factors need to be considered. Most notable is the strain that
journalists are under.
Those working in the media are under pressure to churn out
stories on a daily and even hourly basis. Fact checking is not always possible
and errors occur as a result of not having ‘fresh eyes’ looking at your copy.
It makes you wonder what the next 20 years will have in
store for journalists and society in general. The public still relies hugely on
newspapers, radio and television news to keep them informed. If journalists are
under pressure to focus on quantity rather than quality of articles, then
society will suffer. The media will always be the primary watchdog for the
public, but is that watchdog losing it’s bite?
A little bit done. A lot more to do.
It's a pity that slogan never took off in Fianna Fail, but that behemoth of Irish politics has nothing to do with the message above.
It refers to my inDesign skills.
After a year of navigating the toggle switches and rectangle tools on Adobe inDesign, I had a reasonably efficient skill set with the software. After two years however, my capabilities on inDesign have diminished greatly.
I was pleased with the first class within the 'Limerick Voice' module. The inDesign skills came back reasonably quickly. I did have issues with adding images to the document but after discovering the picture boxes, that problem is no more.
Reacquainting myself with Photoshop was much more difficult.
In first year, very little emphasis was put on the software, which was
disappointing considering the importance of images to a publication. I still
need some practice with trimming paths and cutting out uneven images.
These are all areas that I believe will improve with time.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that I could not gain access to the Newsroom
outside of class, and the fact that I don’t have InDesign software on my
computer, I could not practice it ahead of the second week. I will source a 30
day trial from which I can work on InDesign outside of the college.
Otherwise, I am pleased with what I have heard about this year's Limerick Voice. After participating in the process two years ago I was disappointed that the work was all left until the last minute. I believe it's important to maintain a steady degree of work with the paper throughout the semester so as to make things easier on us as we come up to Christmas.
I feel there is a good deal of enthusiasm about the paper at this part of the year, and hopefully that will persist over the weeks.
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