First articles online at kingstoncourier.co.uk

This week, I got to experience the thrill of seeing two of my articles published on a newsite.

The articles were written for and published on our university newsite, The Kingston Courier , and have given me a taste of the whole experience of publishing an article online; Although I have been published online before, (Keeping in Touch and Just Get On With It) I have never had anything published on a news site before, or been involved in the entire process of publishing a story – having the idea approved, general research, interviewing, reviewing, rewriting etc)

One of the articles was a joint effort between myself and my fellow journalism student Ellie Chambers (whose work you can also find on www.kingstoncourier.co.uk) and was a report on a drugs bust in Kingston that uncovered £10,000 worth of unlicensed sex drugs This was the first story for which I have conducted primary research – ringing up the press office for The Medicines and Healthcare product Regulatory Agency to speak to a spokesperson about the raid while Ellie spoke to the Police. Interviewing the spokesperson was a challenge; while we had looked at the press release online, there was not much information available so thinking up worthy questions was difficult as was stopping myself from crying with laughter at the names of some of the discovered drugs, which included “Stiff Nights” and “Weekend Prince”. Although neither source could give us any more information other than what was in their standard press release, it was a good experience and helped me get over my fear of interviewing someone over the phone!

The other article was written in response to viral video footage of a man being chased by a stag in Bushy Park. The video, watched thousands of times in the last few weeks, prompted a response from the Royal Parks, who had established a safety campaign before the incident. During my interview with a spokesperson from the park, they insisted that the parks were still safe to use as long as you followed the safety guidelines that were available in the park. Wanting to expand the story, I decided to focus on the angle of the campaign, rather than the “stag attack” as it had been covered by both local and national press already, thanks to the footage going viral on youtube.

So, wanting to get some photos of the deer and see the campaign for myself, I took an early morning stroll down to Bushy Park, armed with camera. On the way, I picked up a few bits of Sainsbury’s shopping to save myself some time on the way back. I also bought a pair of really pretty ballet pumps and, being a typical girl, decided to wear them straight away. While they looked pretty, let me tell you now, it is really not a good idea to wear new, dainty shoes when you are trying to stalk deer in a muddy park. Also, as I’d been told only a few hours earlier by a park representative, it is really stupid to get too close to the stags.

But, the zoom on my camera is a bit rubbish and wasnt up to the job of photographing deer, in shadowy woods, from the recommended distance of metres away. So, ignoring all the advice that I had spent the last few days typing up and researching, I crept closer and closer.

Just before I was able to snap a perfect photo, one of the stags noticed me. Not wanting to run away and cause a scene (and admittedly still hoping to get a good shot on my camera) I froze, hoping that the stag would realise I wasn’t a threat and go back to happily feeding. But no. He turned, ROARED and began to charge at me.

Luckily, although I was too close, I had kept a road in between myself and the deer and just as I was about to completely lose my cool and start crying, a car drove past. This distracted the stag (a Smart Car is apparently more threatening than me) and I took the opportunity to leg it to a safe distance.

Thankfully, I didn’t end up in the ironic position of having to climb a tree to escape a stag while researching a story on how to avoid that very circumstance, but it was a close run thing.

Two rather different reporting experiences, both of which were enjoyable and terrifying at the same time but both of which I thoughrally enjoyed. Seeing them on our site is the icing on the cake. So, have a read , hopefully you will enjoy them but if not, you can instead enjoy the amusing image of me, running hell for leather through a muddy, waterlogged wood, in my ballet pumps, shopping bags flapping, from an enormous angry stag.

The trauma of writing a blog post...

So… blogging. A new venture for me. Having spent the last ten years writing a regular personal diary, I initially felt that blogging was the next easy logical step and one that I would be able to make without the slightest wobble in my usual stupidly high heels.

But.

 

Actually, blogging is quite tricky. On sitting down at my laptop to write my first post last week, my brain decided to wipe its memory clean of any topic that my fellow bloggers might find the slightest bit interesting, with the exception of debating Strictly vs X-factor.

 

Confused as to why I was finding it such a struggle to find a topic that was remotely blog worthy, a bit of research into what a blog should actually do seemed appropriate.

 

Paul Bradshaw and Lisa Rohumaa, Online Journalism Handbook: “If we are to try to define blogging as a genre, it is first, and perhaps above all else, conversational . It is social. It is networked. Two key features to a blog are links and comments. Fail to include either and you risk talking to yourself…Secondly blogging is typically incomplete,open and ongoing. It is about process, not product.”

 

The quote above, cheakily pinched from my University’s MA Journalism blog (http://kingstonma2012.wordpress.com/) seems to sum up what I should be aiming to achieve. Hence the reason I have spent the last 40 minutes attempting to connect my Facebook and Twitter accounts to this blog (not that I actually have very much on here for people to read at the moment but it’s a start!) Another handy hint seems to be that focussed niche blogs attract more followers. (Could be a problem: off the top of my head, all I feel like I am doing at the moment is trying to juggle a new job, my uni work and trying to avoid spending too much money on coffee in the uni canteen.)

 

But I am feeling positive. After scrolling through pages and pages of other blogs, I feel that I have a better grip on what a blog needs. I know I have the ability to write a coherent sentence and I enjoy using social networks too, so linking everything up isn’t a problem. Seems to me, that all I need to do is carve myself a little niche subject in the world-wide web and the words will come.

 

I just need to figure out what it is going to be first…

To print or not to print?

I don’t know about you, but I quite like a newspaper. It doesn’t even seem to matter what newspaper to be honest; I’ll just as happily settle for a copy of The Evening Standard or The Metro as I will The Telegraph or The Independent. It’s not just the content that appeals but also the physical form; being able to flick through the pages, before settling down with a huge cup of coffee to mull over the worlds news is all part of the fun.

But recently, I’ve found that I am switching on my laptop for my daily fix of news. While I hate to abandon my beloved dailies for the internet, it is very easy to understand why this has become such a habit. The convenience of and – let’s be honest – the freeness of the internet is a huge incentive; money stricken students can Facebook The Guardian, businessmen can “app” The Times on the tube and lazy lay-ins have been transformed, with people climbing back into bed with their laptop on a Saturday morning rather than trotting down the road for their copy of The Telegraph.

However, despite this seemingly unstoppable march towards a print free future, most newspapers are now discovering how difficult it is to make the web pay; readers are fickle creatures, distracted easily by weight loss tips and cute kitten videos and most tend to literally switch off at the slightest hint of a pay-wall, no matter how loyal a reader they may be. Compare the readership and predicted revenue of The Daily Mail Online, an admittedly shoddy publication at best, to the prestigious, now fully pay-walled-up Times and despite the obvious difference in quality, the Mail comes out on top.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jul/29/mail-online-revenue-paywall)

I reckon then, once online sites are forced to bring in more pay-walls, subscriptions and “premium-content-for-paying-customers”, the novelty will wear off. Reportedly, a “survey in April by Deloitte found that 88% of magazine readers in the UK still prefer to consume articles via print” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/03/who-says-print-is-dead) so it seems that all hope for print is not yet lost.

So all hail the humble newspaper, get off The Mail Online and for goodness sake, turn off that kitten.