WINOL;

Semester two -
week one;

My role in WINOL thissemester is sport reporter - despite knowing almost nothing about sport. My assignedbeat is the Basingstoke Ice hockey team and so  I amexpected to report on league home games.

The first week didnt have the bestof starts – the snow prevented myself and Lewis booking out cameras headingdown to the Bison game, though despite how daunting sports are to me, i was looking forward to it. 
This meant that I had no input into the first sportsweek. 

The second week bought some joy; I successfully managed to line up two packages a skiing feature influenced by the dreadful weather and the highlights of a Basingstoke Bison league game.
Filming ice hockey seemed incredibly easy - just follow the puck - but when it got down to it following the puck was harder than it looked, so Lewis helped out. I did thoroughly enjoy the experience and was happy I hadn't being given football to cover!

The skiing feature I produced was not the best, for a first attempt, it wasn't awful. The package was a gonzo piece all about my very first (and last) attempt at skiing - my tumble down the slope made a few people laugh, so its good for something. On reflection Id most definitely take more than one camera (even though I did have a GoPro camera for action shots). Having the camera stationary and zooming in when needed effected how easy it was to edit. 

In week three I returned to Basingstoke to film another bison hockey game. This wasn't the most successful trip as I managed to miss the first period. Luckily I managed to catch the rest of the game and the rest of the goals that were scored. This package was interesting as I had no clue what hockey was about or any of the rules so I struggled writing a script even after a bit of research. I hoped it'd get easier as the weeks went on but the following week we were told that we could no longer film the games because we were unable to guarantee that the games would be reported on every week.

History and Context of Journalism - lecture/seminar three;

Existentialism - Heidegger and Sartre;

Nihilism is the idea that there is no point to anything; there is no god and no order in life. Existentialists take this idea further – what do you do if there is no point? Make choices because we have the freedom to do so. 

Nietzsche;

‘God is dead’, by this he means that there is no longer any certainty and we are all faced with a crisis – we need something to sustain us. This crisis is in fact not a problem as it means we have freedom. Nietzsche believed we have our own morals and that human nature is not universal. This opposes the position of natural rights (Locke) and credits Fanon’s violence. His idea of the Ubermensch overcomes what defines us as humans and renounces it. 

Heidegger;

Being and time was highly influential and highlighted Heidegger's interest in what is means to exist and the problems of human life. Before we know this we must investigate the nature of being as such and to do this we must question the nature of being. This he calls Dasein and is in all of us.

Heidegger directs his philosophy against Descartes. Cartesian dualism is something that makes philosophy impossible and understanding ourselves impossible. How do we get out of our minds to know the world in itself? (skeptics like Hume doubted we could ever know the world.)

In place of consciousness and subjectivity, Heidegger talks of Dasein. Existence is in our engagement in the world. Dualism is absurd - for Dasein to exist it must exist in the world. Therefore wouldn’t exist without the world.

Das man self – the inauthentic self – is a social contrast of the self, based on facticity rather than the potential of the choices there is to be made. Existence is possibilities and choices. The inauthentic self is turning existence into an object by no making a choice.

Facticity – events that bought you to this place. We are thrown into the world ‘throwness’ and where we end up is pure luck. It is the choices we are faced with that determine our existence. In existentialism the future is most important and living by past events is denying the freedom we have to choose, making you inauthentic. The past is irrelevant.

Transcendence = the reaction we have to facticity. 

Sartre;

Sartre believed that existence precedes essence; we create our own purpose. There is no guiding spirit, no teleological driving force. Stuff happens without reason; life is ridiculous and absurd.

The life of a person is not determined in advance by moral laws or by god, the only thing that we cannot escape is the need to choose. The possibility of recreating oneself is frightening – people try to avoid this freedom. This is bad faith.

The alternative is to take responsibility for your actions and be defined by your choices. The next choice you make could recreate you.

For Sartre, humanity is;

ABANDONMENT; god is dead – there are no divine set of rules to follow; we are alone and there is no one to guide us.

ANGUISH; humans are fundamentally free ‘ condemned to be free.’ We are responsible for everything we are, no excuses.

DISPAIR; the realisation that the world may prevent us from getting what we want, but we still have the choice of how we react to the setback. We are the totality of what we do.

Bad faith;
We are radically free - we have no obligation. People are making a metaphysical mistake - turning themselves into an object.

The moral ascent in Kierkegaard;

Kierkegaard’s moral system is similar to Schopenhauer in many ways;

-          They have a pessimistic view human kind’s ethical condition.

-          They have spiritual career which leads to renunciation.

But Kierkegaard’s ideas evolve against a background of protestant Christianity. Schopenhauer’s are built on aesthetic metaphysics. He believed that renunciation is the high point of the ethical life and is only a preliminary to an ultimate leap of faith.

Kierkegaard aim to put the individual in full possession of his own personality as a unique creature of god. 

The ethical;

An aesthetic person is governed by his feelngs and is blind to spiritual values. He is portrayed as one of two protagonists. He is cultured, law abiding popular in society and not without consideration for others.

The aesthetic person is distinguished from serious moral agent – he avoids anything that limits their pursuit of what is immediately attractive.

Kierkegaard believes he aesthetic person is deluded when he thinks he was free, really he is limited. He also believes this person is in despair – no hope of anything other than his present life, ‘they pawn themselves to the world.’

Kierkegaard believed the first step to a cure is realization. The aesthetic person will be faced with the choice of abandoning himself to despair or moving upward by committing to an ethical existence.

Kierkegaard attaches great importance to the concept of self. In the aesthetic stage the self is undeveloped and undifferentiated. To enter the ethical stage is to undertake the formation of ones true ‘self’ – self is a freely chosen character. It is a duty.

 

History and context of journalism - lecture/seminar two;

Natural numbers are words used to count things. To count is to create an abstract category or group. Words/abstract symbols for plural categories requires a system of words and logical syntax to combine those number words to imply further or predicate number words.

Syntax – logical system using rule.

There are three attitudes to numbers;

-          They are natural and can be empirically observed.

-          They are intuitions of harmonic, perfect platonic world. (Pythagoras)

-          They are abstract, logical objects constructed of syntax (Frege/ early Russell)

Numerical naturalism/ Evolutionary psychology;

We are only able to judge simple plurality;

0 – the absence of a thing

1 – one thing

2 – more than one thing/ many things

Simple numbers are seen as a plurality with no need to count them. Theres no need to count the number of people in a room. 

Pythagoreanism/ Platonism;

Prime numbers are pre-existing, eternal super natural forms. All other numbers are rational combinations of prime numbers.

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Frege on Logic, Psychology and Epistemology; 

Frege was interested in epistemology for its on sake, butwas concerned to set out the relationship between it and other relativedisciples.

In the tradition of Descartes, Frege believed epistemologyhad been given a fundamental role in philosophy and should be assigned tologic. It was though empiricists had confused logic with psychology.

Making him anxious to show the differences in the nature androle between logic, psychology and epistemology.

Frege adopted and took over Kants distinction between apriori and a posteriori knowledge.To ensure there is no confusion between a priori knowledge and psychology and logic Frege reminds us that it’s possible to discover the content of a proposition before we have hit on proof of it. We the must distinguish between how me first come to believe a proposition and how we justify it. There must be justification – it is absurd to find mistakes in a priori propositions because we only know what is true.

If the proposition is a mathematical one, its justification must be mathematical. It cannot be a psychological matter of processes in the mathematical mind. Sensations and mental images mathematicians have are nothing to do with what arithmetic is about. Different mathematicians have different images with the same number.

Arithmetic is concerned with the truth of propositions. Psychology with the occurrence in thought – a proposition may be thought of without being true and true without being thought of.

Psychology is uninterested in the cause of our thinking. Maths is proof of our thoughts. Cause and proof are completely different.

Thoughts deal with the laws of thought. Logical laws are laws of thought only in the same sense as moral laws are laws of behaviour. Actual thinking doesn’t always obey the laws of logic any more than actual behaviour obeys moral law.

History and Context of Journalism - Lecture/Seminar one;

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Husserls phenomenology;

Husserl was influenced my the lectures of Franz Brentano, who sought to relate philosophy of mind to contemporary experimental enquiry.

The data of consciousness comes in two kinds of phenomena; Mental – thoughts characterised by having content or immanent objects. Physical – colours and smells.

Husserl continually focused on mathematics – philosophy of arithmetic sought to explain our numerical concepts by identifying the mental acts that were their psychological origin.

This led him to several conclusions – zero an one are not numbers – which meant that he had to make a distinction between the arithmetic of small and large numbers. With out minds eye we only see tiny groups, so only a small part of arithmetic can rest on an intuitive basis. Once we move to large numbers we move away from intuition into a symbolic realm.

Frege complained it contained confusion between imagination and thought. Those mental events are subject matter of psychology, which is private, and could not be the foundation of a public science.

Husserl then abandoned his early psychologism.

Logical investigations;

Logic cannot be derived from psychology; any attempt to do so must involve a vicious circle since it will have to appeal to logic in the course of deduction and therefore maintaining separation of logic and psychology.

Husserl followed continental tradition and saw the psychological side as a philosophy’s rightful home, stepping away from Frege.

Husserl took over from Bentano and the notion of intentionality – the idea that what is characteristic of mental phenomena,  as opposed to physical phenomena, is that they are directed to objects.

Husserl believed there were two essential parts to a thought; it should have content and it should have a possessor – an act of mine with a particular matter – its ntetional object.

Its was believed that concepts are logical investigations defined on the basis of psychological items. He proceeded to go further an draw a line between psychology and epistemology – reinvented as a discipline of phenomenology.

The aim of phenomenology was to study the data of consciousness without references to anything that consciousness might tell us, or might no about the extra-mental world.

The phenomenologist should make a close study of the psychological phenomena and place in brackets the work of extra-mental objects.

Phenomenological reduction;

Husserl did not assert in ideas that there are no realities other than phenomena; he left it open to the possibility that there is a world of non-phenomenal, because he believed we have infallible immediate knowledge of objects of our own consciousness. While we only have inferential and conjectural information about the external world.  
 

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The existentialism, of Heidegger;

Heidegger believed that Phenomenology was too half-hearted and aimed to examine the data of consciousness but employed the ideas of ‘subject’, ‘object’, ‘act’ and ‘content.’ Which are not discovered in consciousness, but earlier philosophy.

Husserl accepted framework of Descartes – two correlative realms consciousness and reality. Consciousness was the focus for phenomenology. Heidegger maintained that phenomenology was to study the subject of being. The experience that leads us to contrast these as two polar opposites is the primary phenomenon to be examined.

Heidegger set himself the task of inventing a pristine vocabulary that would enable us to philosophize in the nude – influenced by ideas of the pre-Socratic.

Dasein – is a kind of capable asking philosophical questions and sounds suspiciously like Cartesian ego, but Descartes’ ego was a thinking thing. Thinking is only a part of Daseins being. It is a caring and thinking thing.

Only if I care about the world, will I ask questions to give answers in a form of knowledge claims.

Dasein uses primitive tools to be fully engrossed in a task, it is ‘ready to hand. The spatiality of the world depends on whether something is ready to hand or not.

Critical Reflection Semester One, Year Two:

WINOL is a student run editorial package, simulating every aspect of a fully functional news operation so that we students are get a real taste of what it is to be a journalist and therefore preparing us for transition into a working environment within journalism. It is presented to its audience on multiple platforms with an online TV news bulletin broadcast each week being the main focus of the project, live, on YouTube. Alongside the bulletin, the news and features team publish written stories and videos on the WINOL website. The website is regularly updated and allows stories that happen before the next bulletin to be published, and those in the bulletins, and more recently the weekly radio bulletin, so that the site users are kept up to date with local news. 

Even though most would assume that a student lead project would be of mediocre attempt at replicating a commercial news broadcast, the reporters at WINOL throw themselves into stories and illustrate thinking outside the box with WINOL specials such as the Police commissioner’s debate and the American election coverage - all produced to a high, professional standard with the help of the production team, tying up all of the knots. All of this hard work is reflected in the website Alexa rankings which stood at 50000 at the beginning of the semester and has steadily lowered in number since. 

To widen the audience and add value to the WINOL online presence the website has been completely redesigned to look more like broadsheet news website, as well as the addition of online features and fashion magazines and a 99 second daily bulletin - which all seem to have boosted viewings and Alexa  rankings have improved dramatically. This is made clearer when the website is compared to the rankings of our rival student project East London Lines, which currently stands at 25000, but at the beginning of the semester had much better ranking than WINOL at just over 37500. WINOL has now over-taken with an Alexa ranking of 12500. 

Being thrown into the deep-end doesn’t quite describe the first week or two of WINOL; my role on production didn’t seem like much to stress about compared to the work that the news team had been putting into their packages. It wasn’t until the first bulletin was underway that myself and the rest of the team realised how important our roles were - without us there would be a bunch of packages and no bulletin.

The first role assigned to me for WINOL was to be part of the production team;. Each of the roles in the gallery, and out of the gallery, were explained to us in great detail and we had plenty of time to play around with the new pieces of equipment, which now seem like second nature to use. Every week, everyone swapped roles so that we were able to build our confidence using the machines. For the first and many of the bulletins throughout the semester I was vision mixer. For the second bulletin, my role in the gallery was to control the sound – this was a little trickier than vision mixing and didn’t rely on the director’s cue. That particular week the sound in post-production was awful and had to be rerecorded in the newsroom. The problem with sound was something that could have been avoided if we had known there was a problem with the microphone we were using. For the third bulletin I was in charge of the VT machine, which in very simple to use, but also very simple to mess up the whole bulletin if VT’s weren’t played at the correct time.

It wasn’t until week seven that I was given the role of director – a role I was avoiding like the plague, that and autocue. Despite being incredibly nervous my fifteen minutes or so in charge went smoother than I thought, but it would have been much smoother if there was more time to rehearse, in particular, the OOVs; when I was directing the script was too short for the length of footage, leaving  empty air. The most useful criticism I got was from Angus, who said I needed to communicate more with everyone in the studio and I needed to rehearse earlier – with or without the presenter. I then directed the next bulletin and tried to meet Angus’ requests. Feeling more confident and more comfortable, I realised it was my favourite role and I should have tried directing sooner. 

Away from the gallery the production team still had plenty to do; collecting packages, creating the headline clips and credits, along with the more experienced third years editing the final bulletin (if needed) and uploading it for its live stream. To give the bulletin a new dynamic we tried out a ‘coming-up’ clip in the middle of the bulletin and a VT highlighting other new stories on the website. These were all made by the production team, another part of the being on production I really enjoyed because it was more relaxed than the goings on in the gallery. I was able to produce a fair few whilst the gallery wasn’t in use, they became easier to make and choosing the best pictures out of the footage the reporters gave us became easier. 

During our weekly debriefs the problems that the lack of organisation, in terms of equipment, were having on the bulletin – it needed to be checked the day before the bulletin because fixing silly things wasted rehearsal time. The most problematic was figuring out the correct format for the VT’s so that they could be played correctly in the gallery.  

The most vital lesson I learned during the first few weeks was forward planning and preparation – getting packages, headlines, the script etc. in the at a reasonable time. This was why a few of the bulletins missed the three o’clock deadline. From then on we worked as a team to get things done properly and on time. This helped a lot when packages were spiked from the bulletin or when OB’s didn’t quite go to plan, which happened several times during the semester. 

Of all the areas making up WINOL that I have been able to take part in, features was the area I produced little content for. Despite having feature ideas that worked in theory, actually achieving them was harder than it looked. The first feature I produced was for the fashion magazine on winter fashion accessories and required mastering Fireworks/Photoshop to fit the style that we had decided on. It wasn’t the greatest piece of work; I had attempted to replicate what I had seen in magazines but I wasn’t entirely sure of how to manipulate it to fit a website. I knew what needed to be improved after we have once again discussed a style for the website. The second piece for the fashion magazine I produced fit the style that we had agreed on and relied heavily on production rather than text. I think it was more successful than the first, but definitely could have been improved. 

I also attempted a 'gonzo' style piece – I would live on the budget of a student living only from a student loan/grant. I worked this out to be around £50 and spent seven days trying to stick to it, while still spending as I normally would. I started out with a daily video diary, explaining what I had spent money on every day. When I was watching it back is was incredibly boring and figured it needed something to give it a little bit of life. My answer was cutaways - the problem was that the cut-aways looked awkward and didn’t seem to make any sense and so I decided not to continue with it.

Half way through the semester the radio news bulletin became a reality, allowing us to connect with our audience on another medium – in my opinion successfully. Even though it is a small team, there is input from the masters students, and the news team  who re-write their copy for radio, if it’s needed. For the short amount of time the bulletins have been going out, majority of which have gone out at the top of the hour (with some small technical glitches), I have helped out by submitting a few ‘and finally’ stories and news stories. Being on production means that there isn’t much time for news gathering and the radio bulletins have given me the opportunity to produce some content for WINOL, even though it may not be to the high standard of what is in the TV bulletin. The radio team also have a set, four hour slot in sound radio to fill in the air-time in between news bulletins. Nadine and I present our own radio show which aims to reach a female audience, by discussing current affairs and celebrity gossip, as well as reality TV. 

Although I was assigned roles, in production, features and more recently radio news, I was able to help out others with bigger projects which took place in the early part of the semester. The first project was briefed to us before we had started WINOL, and this was the BJTC awards. This was the first chance the production team had to practice with the equipment we would be using during WINOL bulletins, but also see what goes into a television show so that it looks good. My role for the BJTC was floor manager, which meant I had to keep everything going smoothly when the director couldn’t be there, to communicate with guests, to cue audience reactions and mic-up those in the show. 

The second of the projects was the Hampshire Police Commissioners debate, and event Louis O’Brien had spent months preparing and planning. This bought the production team together outside of the WINOL bulletin. For this I was floor manager again and attempted to keep the audience in the right places. The entire WINOL team pulled the event off and Louis packaged the debate (and candidate profiles) to a very high standard. 

The third project need the entire WINOL team to pull off; this was Ali Al-Jamri’s American Election special which incorporated news packages, summaries of the nights events, live updates throughout the morning and interviews. For this project I volunteered to be part of the OB team, who were allowed access to the American embassy on the night of the elections. During the weeks leading up to the special the OB teams brief changed – a lot. We were first asked to do a live OB over Skype to the studio. This changed because of the scheduling of the show and the length of the show being shortened. Instead we were asked to film interviews and elements of a package that was edited back in the newsroom. While we were there, myself and Sam were also tweeting the goings on at the Embassy and taking photos of the event. The live broadcast was success and a range of content was broadcast, giving a broad overview of the election night. 

WINOL has been enjoyable, but tough at times. I feel I have learned a large number of skills though-out this semester and will be able to put them to good use in the next. Mistakes were made, but as a team, and individually, our best was done to correct them - otherwise lessons we’re learned for next time those problems arise.