Over Easter Plans for Projects

As said in a previous post, I have a lot to catch up on and get done due to ill health and time off for surgery. I was really relieved that Easter has come around. This gives me the perfect time to focus on my work and to try and get things ready for the upcoming deadlines. I am worried that I won’t be able to get everything finished in time for submission, but by planning and organising my time will give me a better chance.

I’ve outlined what needs to be done for the self-initiated project in a different post.

I also need to complete:

CATS unit

• Presentation on academic essay writing, looking at the strengths and weaknesses of my last semester essay.
• Dissertation proposal
• Dissertation presentation, what I will be doing and why chosen that subject matter.
• 2 Industry reflections;
  • look at the ethics and morality surrounding virtual reality. There’s lots of debate going on in the industry about a variety of issues connected to this – this article will prove a useful starting point for your research, as will this. The question you need to formulate an answer/argument around is this: What can publishers do to try to prevent public concern around the ethics of virtual reality?
  • You’ll be picking up on a theme from journalism day on Monday, and the fragmentation of mainstream media. Newspapers are in trouble. Circulation is dropping, ad revenue is shrinking, and the industry has experienced an unprecedented wave of layoffs and cutbacks. The reflection I want you to look at answers the question: Is print dead, and the future of journalism purely online? Conducting your own research, I want you to formulate and argument, either way, backing up your assertions through research (which should be Harvard Referenced).

 

Creative futures – Carmen

• Identify what feature story will be and how I will approach the subject.
• Write a draft, submit when back
• Research and plan a news story
• Identify what the news story will be and how I will approach the subject.
• Write a draft, submit when back

Work for Sally

• Make a mock up site on WordPress.
• Identify strength and weaknesses

Blog posting throughout to evidence where I am at and to show progression.

Speaking to NHS Press Office For my first story for the OOTS website

Today, I was given feedback that I need to make my organ harvesting feature more visual. Therefore, to do this I wanted to balance out the feature giving the legal ways of transplanting a comment. To make the piece visual I am going to try and interview a transplant surgeon at the NHS. This will be useful and give balance and make it a stronger and reliable piece.

To gain permission to interview with a surgeon from the NHS, I rang the NHS press office. I explain who I was and what I would like from them. They said that they would have to get back to me later today to find out more details and to work out the best ways they can help.

Reflection on Review

Planning what my review was vital as planning helped me to save time, help structure the piece and help with any relevant research into the topic. When researching for ideas, I noticed that there where a lot of gigs happening in the local area. I wanted to look for something a bit different.

In the end a friend told me about an event in that was taking place in the local area. The friend who I was told me about the event was Danielle Hayes. The event was about a music journalist who was discussing her new book that has just been published.

I decided that, this would be good for a review as it was local, so easy to get too and would make a good review. We had to try and get something free as a part of the assignment so I approached the place the event was going to be held, explained the situation. I received free entry for my friend and me.

I believe that my review would be best suited for a website called ‘Browze Magazine’ this is because they cover similar events and styles of reviews. I believe that my review will mainly appeal to those who have an interest in Journalism or Celebrity gossip. Another thing is because it is a local website and the event was held in Hull so will appeal to them.

Reflection on First Person Interview Piece

 

My first person interview was with a retired Paralympian called James Roberts. He was someone who has had an interesting and successful life within the disability sports scene. I came across the story through having a conversation with a friend, who knew him. I first contacted him over ‘Whatsapp’ and explained who I am and what I was doing as a part of the course. As a result to this I persuaded him to do an interview with me and answer a number of questions i though would be interesting for a news topic.

The type of feature I wanted to create was one that would be typically seen in specialised sports magazines (for instance ParaHEY) or ones, which could be used online as a long form piece. The demographic of my feature is to mainly aim at young teens and young adults who are interested in disability sports. I believe it would attract both male and female audiences as disability sports is more equally talked about. In comparison to abled bodied sports which focus more on it been male dominant. If I had to put an age bracket on my target audience I would have to say 16 – 35.

Final Version- Kardomah94 Event Review

Kardomah94, Alfred Gelder St. Hull

Thursday 9th November 2016

Kardomah94 hosts ‘The Humber Mouth Literature Festival’. This small intimate venue was the perfect location for the event to be held as it helps to create the sense that the audience is almost part of the action.

Tonight’s event, The Humber Mouth Literature Festival: Interviews Sylvia Patterson, she is one of pops best-known journalists and has been in the business over, 30 years. In the 80s she was writing for Smash Hits. Also in her career she was a writer for some of the most well-known papers and magazines including; NME, Q, Sunday Times, The Observer, The Word and The Face.

During the talk, Sylvia gave readings from her recently published memoir “I’m Not with the Band”. Which explores her rock and roll lifestyle and her interviews with some of the most famous superstars and celebrities including The House Martins, Kylie Minogue.

She spoke about an encounter she had with Prince in 1996, who she referred to as “The Purple Perv”.  She was given the opportunity to interview Prince, “it surprised me when he came into the room, he was a lot smaller in person.” She said he was utterly bonkers and there wasn’t any real communication because there was no eye contact. She said they talked about silly things like washing up and wearing household marigolds, he dropped in that he does wash his dishes. He asked Sylvia “do you think people will mind if they find out I’m ordinary.”

‘I’m Not with the Band’ is a captivating and extremely honest memoir, that showcased the lifestyle of the journalist and the role she fulfilled over the years, she explained how she smoked marijuana and took to drink and drugs with celebrities in order for her to fit in and get the most information from them.

The account is written deep emotive way with elements of wit. She spoke about her life which made it humanised and helped others to relate to her. For instance, her mum had an addiction and she herself battled a long addiction with drink and drugs. She explained how her life was like a roller-coaster but now is back on her feet. This book gave her a focus.

The staging of the event was minimal with just a few pieces of furniture, which really allowed you to focus on the discussions taking place between Dave Windass and Sylvia Patterson, with very little distractions. This helped the audience listen to what Sylvia had to say.

The talk touched upon some very culturally and important subjects within the industry of journalism, creative freedoms and how the platform has evolved over the last three decades. Sylvia spoke openly about how she feels about the future of journalism and how it is so much easier to get content out to an audience through blogs, social media and other platforms and how it isn’t a job that pays very well for most. In comparisons to the 80s where journalism paid well and it was print based predominantly.

The event drew a decent crowd of roughly 85 people. The audience had the opportunities to ask questions at the end, this helped the audience to be even more immersed. Malcolm Scott the owner of Kardomah94 said he had positive feedback and plans on holding more events similar to this.

wordcount 542

Final version of First person feature

Experience: I went to multiple Paralympic Games but retired just before 2016. James Roberts, aged 3o speaks out about his sporting career and disability.

“It blew my mind to see how many people turned out to support all of us Paralympic athletes – it meant the world.” I never truly thought I would ever have been an elite Paralympian. Growing up it never crossed my mind. However, my life, lead me to be the man I am today – This is my story.

My name is James Roberts. I was born with a congenital disability called femoral dysplasia and a floating hip of the left leg as well as scoliosis of the spine. Dysplasia is caused when the joint has not formed properly, it can cause pain but in many cases, it is painless, like mine. The condition tends to cause people to walk with a limp because of either weak muscles, limited flexibility of the hip joint, or bone deformity.

I never really saw myself as having a disability despite the challenges I faced. I would try a hand at everything I could such as swimming, rowing and volleyball. The reasons in which enabled me to give everything a try is the fact that I adapted to using a prosthetic leg. However, because of my supportive family and friends it wasn’t that difficult for me growing up. I was pushed to do as much as I could for myself. I learned how to deal with daily life challenges. For instance, I loved doing the normal kid activities like playing in the park, but I adapted my own techniques of using the monkey bars – it might have taken me a day or two, but I got there in the end. I never let my disability stop me.

Originally from Belgium, I moved across to the UK when I was just 19 years old because I had been selected as a part of the British Swimming Disabled Potential Squad. Also, Swansea had an amazing performance Centre, so my family decided it was best to reside in Prestatyn, North Wales.

My inspiration came from having a fairly sporty family background. My family has competed at county level in numerous sports over the years. I grew up on an international military base called NATO in SHAPE, back in Belgium, I was brought up around multiple nationalities and their passions for their respective sports. I think rubbed off on me. Being also half American, sport is hugely popular over there so I guess it runs in the veins.

Taking part in swimming was great as it allowed me to achieve goals and have a competitive edge, I held both the SB8 200m breaststroke and 50m breaststroke national records. These were a great motivation and helped me set the bar for my go-getting personality.

I was dropped from the GB swimming programme because I wasn’t improving to the standard I should have been. I went on to do a university course. In 2006, I moved on to rowing. The transition happened fairly quickly as I made my first senior international competition that summer at the 2006 World Championships in Dorney Lake. I came 6th overall but that was a good finish for me and I am proud. I carried on competing in the sport and I made the final at my very first Paralympic Games in Beijing, it was a dream come true. I didn’t win, I came 5^th but that didn’t matter – I was so humbled just to get there. This was a highlight of my sporting success as it was the height of my career.

I made another transition of sports, on this occasion because of a classification change, this time to sitting volleyball. From 2010 until 2012, I amassed 56 caps for Great Britain. My first international was a surprise selection to compete at the 2010 World Championships in Edmund, Oklahoma, USA. I was lucky enough that my time with the squad, to have competed for Great Britain at my only European Championships in my repertoire as well as a Continental and Intercontinental Cup.

My career concluded at the London 2012 Paralympics were the GB sitting volleyball squad lost in the quarterfinal to eventual silver medallist Iran. It was an honour to represent team GB. Even though I retired after 2012, I feel like it was the right time for me to do so as injuries were starting to catch up with me. Also, I mentally didn’t want to put my body through the rigours of training day in day out. This is the time when athletes should stop as they either lose the love for the sport or mentally they don’t want to put the necessary effort in that is required to compete at that level. I do believe I was still fit enough to compete and probably would have done well at 2016 Tokyo Games but I knew I could use my knowledge and experiences to help others, instead.

Life after retiring as an elite athlete hasn’t stopped my love for sport. I still participate in a local league in basketball and wheelchair rugby. I now coach people in fitness and nutrition which I enjoy it incredibly. I have my own podcast where I speak to some fantastic professionals within the industry. For instance, I did a podcast on the 29 September 2016 with a posture corrective exercise specialist Jeremy McCann. My career hasn’t stopped. It’s just beginning. Training and helping others is so important to me. Everyone has a different background and needs some guidance. I want to inspire others to show if you want something and train hard enough you can achieve. That is cliché but it’s so true. The advice I would give to others is just try everything.

(Word count 880) That is without the title and standfirst

Statement of Intent for my Review

I have been looking for ideas for my review. I want to look for something interesting and local as travelling would be difficult. Through talking to a friend, she mentioned that there was something happening at Kardomah94. It is a restaurant and has a small theatre space.

I conducted further research into what the event was and have just contacted the owner of Kardomah (Malcolm Scott) to try and get free entry to the event. He gave me permission and free entry to the event. He also mentioned that I could invite a friend to come along with me.

List of Questions for my First person feature

1. What are your name and occupation? Even though this is clear to me, my readers may not know what the story is about or who he is or what he does.
2. Could you please tell me a little bit about you? This helps the audience to gain a better insight into who he is. This can help to humanise the piece and make people connect with the story.
3. So why did you get into sports? and how has it impacted on your life? Just a massage question to get the interview going.  It is not a heavy question and it is something I felt that the interviewee.

I only prepared a few things and had a notebook with key facts about the interviewee, in case I got stuck for conversational points. Also so that I could build points upon what he said. I used both open and closed questions. This was so that I got a variety of responses.

At the end, The last question was ‘Is there anything you would like to add?’ and thanked them for doing the interview.

Draft-My First Person Feature Piece

Experience: I went to multiple Paralympic Games but retired just before 2016. James Roberts, aged 3o speaks out about his sporting career and disability.

“It blew my mind to see how many people turned out to support all of us Paralympic athletes – it meant the world.” I never truly thought I would ever have been an elite Paralympian. Growing up it never crossed my mind. However, my life, lead me to be the man I am today – This is my story.

My name is James Roberts. I was born with a congenital disability called femoral dysplasia and a floating hip of the left leg as well as scoliosis of the spine. Dysplasia is caused when the joint has not formed properly, it can cause pain but in many cases, it can be painless, like mine. The condition tends to cause people to walk with a limp. This is caused by weak muscles, limited flexibility of the hip joint, or bone deformity.

Even though I knew I had this condition, I never really saw myself as having a disability but obviously, there are challenges. I would try a hand at everything I could when I was younger such as swimming, rowing and volleyball. The reasons in which enabled me to try my hand at everything is the fact that I adapted to using a prosthetic leg over the years. However, because of my very supportive family and friends it wasn’t that difficult for me growing up. I learned how to deal with daily life challenges. For instance, I loved to do the normal kid activities like playing in the park, but I adapted my own techniques of using the monkey bars – it might have taken me a day or two, but I got there in the end. I never let my disability stop me.

Originally from Belgium, I moved across to the UK when I was just 19 years old. I moved because I was selected as a part of the British Swimming Disabled Potential Squad at the time. Also, Swansea had an amazing performance Centre, so my family decided it was best to reside in Prestatyn, North Wales.

My inspiration came from mainly having a fairly sporty family background. My family has competed at county level in a number of different sports over the years. I grew up on an international Military base called NATO in SHAPE, back in Belgium, I was brought up around multiple nationalities and their passions for their respective sports. This I think rubbed off on me in some way. Being also half American, sport is hugely popular over there so I guess it runs in the veins.

Taking part in swimming was great for me as it allowed me to achieve goals and have a competitive edge, I held both the SB8 200m breaststroke and 50m breaststroke national records. These for me were a great motivation and helped me set the bar for my competitive personality.

After being dropped from the GB swimming programme because I wasn’t improving to the standard I should have been progressing. It also allowed me to go on to do a university course. In 2006, I moved on to rowing. The transition happened fairly quickly as I made my first senior international competition that summer at the 2006 World Championships in Dorney Lake. I came 6th overall but that was a good finish for me and I am proud. Over the next few years, I carried on competing in the sport. I made the final at my very first Paralympic Games in Beijing, it was a dream come true. I didn’t win, I came 5^th but that didn’t matter – I was so humbled just to get there. This was a highlight of my sporting success as it was the height of my career.

I made another transition of sports, on this occasion because of a classification change, this time to sitting volleyball. From 2010 until 2012, I amassed 56 caps for Great Britain. My first international was a surprise selection to compete at the 2010 World Championships in Edmund, Oklahoma, USA. I was lucky enough that my time with the squad, to have competed for Great Britain at my only European Championships in my repertoire as well as a Continental and Intercontinental Cup.

My career concluded at the London 2012 Paralympics were the GB sitting volleyball squad lost in the quarterfinal to eventual silver medalist Iran. It was an honour to represent team GB. Even though I retired after 2012, I feel like it was the right time for me to do so as injuries were starting to catch up with me. Also, I mentally didn’t want to put my body through the rigours of training day in day out. This is the time when athletes should stop when that happens as they either lose the love for the sport or mentally they don’t want to put the necessary effort in that is required to compete at that level. I do believe I was still fit enough to compete and probably would have done well at 2016 Tokyo Games but I knew I could use my knowledge and experiences to help others, instead.

Life after retiring as an elite athlete hasn’t stopped my love for sport. I still participate in a local league in basketball and wheelchair rugby. I now coach people in fitness and nutrition and enjoy it incredibly. I have my own podcast where I speak to some fantastic professionals within the industry. For instance, I did a podcast on the 29 September 2016 with a posture corrective exercise specialist Jeremy McCann. My career hasn’t stopped. It’s just beginning. Training and helping others is so important to me. Everyone has a different background and needs some guidance. I want to inspire others to show if you want something and train hard enough you can achieve. That is cliché but it’s so true. The advice I would give to others is just try everything.

Statement of Intent for First person feature story.

For my feature, I wanted to get behind the mind and dig deeper into the world of a Paralympian. This is because it really is a topic that I have a passion about and it is been a topic which has hit lots of headlines in the last year, because of the Rio paralympic games.

I thought about the angle I wanted to take and who I wanted to interview. In the end, I narrowed down my list to three potential interviewees.

• Katie Morrow
• James Roberts
• Jamie Carter

The angle I struggled with in the end I wanted to do a simple angle of what it was like to be a Paralympian. This, in my opinion, was not creative enough so I conducted research on all three potential interviewees to see if anything about them or their career jumped out as a potential topic.

The best thing I found was that James Roberts retired just before 2016 and that it wasn’t covered to why. This is what I wanted to find out. I contacted him and got access to an interview with himself. I prepared some questions to get me started and did my research so that I could build report when interviewing. This helps to add more depth and build upon things based on facts.

As a journalist, it is important for me to consider the best possible angles of a topic and to conduct the relevant research in the planning stage. Planning help to make everything run smoother and makes sure that I can depict the best possible information in order for me to get the best responses possible.