Supporting Material
May 5, 2011
nicole169
Supporting material
Daily Diary
Day 1- Introduced to the news team and how Coventry Telegraph works
Day 2- Went to an Inquest for a woman who died in a house fire
Day 3- Learnt how filler stories come about, wrote some up from letters sent in
Day 4- Investigated if people are going away abroad instead of watching Royal Wedding, Interviewed a local citizen who wanted people to hear his concerns about Coventry.
Day 5- Visited a couple who are celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary
Day 6- Sent out to visit a school who were celebrating National Book day by dressing up and another who were dressing up for charity and in aid of Lent.
Day 7- Had to research what social clubs and pubs were still open, and what events they had on for the ‘Whats On’ feature by ringing them. I also had to write up an old article about how the streets were named, and make editorial choices of what to cut and keep in.
Day 8 -(7th March)- Went to a sentencing of two boys who set their dog upon a kitten
Day 9- Visited friends and shopkeepers of a boy who died in a motorbike crash for a tribute piece
Day 10- Visited Kenilworth Library and found out what was happening with the local police.
Day 11- Visited Refugee centre and conducted my own interview and report
Day 12 -(11th March) Final day at Coventry Telegraph, reported on Japanese Earthquake
Day 13 -Japan Earthquake story featured in Coventry Telegraph
Day 14- Continued to read how my stories had been placed within the paper over the weekend
——————————————————————————————————–
Day 15- I wanted to do some of my own crime writing so looked into free lance companies and how they get stories, and publish them.
Day 16- Networked with owners of Century PR of Coventry, who are freelance journalists
Day 17- Wrote some more fillers for Coventry Telegraph
Day 18- Started on researching and writing my own stories, using my contacts, court visits and the internet for local news
Day 19- Researching the best way to get my work noticed, using Blog.
Day 20- Bringing all my work together and considering how I can further my professional experience, looking at bigger companies.
I now have an established network of professional journalists from the Coventry Telegraph, these included:
Steve Chilton- Line Manager, Editor
Emma Stone- Crime Reporter
Cara Simpson
Duncan Gibbons
Sam Dimmer
Martin Bagot
Tina Junday
John Clarke & Celeste Clarke- Century PR
These will aid me in any future work experience and I have contact with them for any future stories, whether its for extra information, further contacts or to go along with them on future stories.
During my two weeks at Coventry Telegraph, my tasks included:
I attended an Inquest for a woman who died in a house fire at Coventry’s Magistrate courts, I then wrote my version and compared it to Duncan Gibbons, I showed the editor/ Steve Chilton who analysed my style of writing and if it fits in Coventry Telegraph’s style and conventions. I learnt that I have a more essay style of writing and for a telegraph report, my sentences and paragraphs need to be shorter and more factual, to tell the key points of a story suitable for a telegraph report.
Visited the memorial of a boy who died in a motorbike crash, talked to friends and shop keepers to write up a tribute for him. The family were not happy with the previous stories written and I then encountered for the first time the negative and scary aspects of journalism, where the journalist is verbally threatened. Though it was negative, it gave me a chance to see it and how if I was writing a story on a certain subject, that you have to take people’s feelings into consideration.
To further my experience of crime reporting, I visited Coventry’s Magistrates court for the second time to report on the sentencing of two youths who set their Pitbull dog onto a kitten. The process was very long and it showed me that you can be at a court for days on end just to find out the outcome of something so small, but because it was such an upsetting story that will get the local audience talking, it was right for the Coventry Telegraph to report on it, as it was also a follow up to a previous story.
When some people write letters to the telegraph, it is sometimes a request for a story, people giving information about a certain event or organisation. These are the stories that are used for fillers down the side of the pages that don’t have a by-line, so I wrote some of these to get examples of my work in the paper. I keep in contact with Steve Chilton if he needs some writing up.
I also partook in general local journalism, I went on stories with Sam Dimmer and Tina Junday including the Kenilworth Library joining forces with the Local Police and a couple celebrating their 50th Golden wedding anniversary and talked to local people, and had an insight into how such stories appear in the Coventry Telegraph.
This then developed into going out on my own to report on a story about FairTrade week at the local refugee centre, I worked alongside a photographer to get the story which then appeared in the newspaper the following day.
As my two weeks at Coventry Telegraph came to end, on the final day it was during the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, I was given the task of talking to local experts and members of the public it may of affected, and was asked to write the story on it from a local perspective. This helped me gain confidence in talking to people over the phone, conducting a phone interview and having a by-line in the local news paper.
Entry Filed under: Work Experience
Leave a Reply
Trackback this post | Subscribe to comments via RSS Feed
