About Me
Producer and media engagement encourager. Ilkley, West Yorkshire
A passion for for photography and digital communication with a background at the BBC and ITV.
Currently director at the School Media Club making cinema films for schools and working for Oblong Leeds a community development organisation. Also a member of All Saints Church in Ilkley and involved with communications in the parish.
This blog features posts about photography including some of my photos, while the media posts will include thoughts about filmmaking and online media - particularly to do with PR activities.
read moreSchool Media Club
Tag Archives: media
Cutting the costs of ITV regional news. Perhaps more accessible?
I’m very interested to see how the professional media world is merging with consumer level media. Calendar News, part of the ITV news network, is using online tools that are accessible to everyone.
The ITV online news channel is basically a blog populated by videos hosted not by ITV but using Vimeo. Vimeo is a free video orientated social media channel a bit like Youtube.
I’m not sure what this does for the brand image of ITV as a big player, but it may be seen as a means of making the service feel more accessible and “ordinary”. I don’t have a problem with this especially if the journalism stands out as being excellent. ITV‘s great strength in Yorkshire is its approachability in my view.
The great news is that for any aspiring journalists, you can create a news website which follows this model and uses these very tools. The next step, I imagine, is to encourage the participation of citizen journalists in ITV’s news coverage – a step we began to take when my team established ITV Local Yorkshire a few years back but proved too expensive at the time.
Another interesting aspect is that if you have a Vimeo account you can get statistics about how many people have viewed the videos and for how long – introducing a daring competitive element.
Posted in ITV, Media
Also tagged blog, blogging, calendar news, citizen journalists, itv, journalism, news, news website, reporting, television, Video, vimeo
Leave a comment
How should large media organisations handle their blogs?
Twenty years ago that headline might have been misunderstood!
Interesting article in the Guardian about the use of blogs by large companies. It challenged me to think about how badly this blog is put together.
Shouldn't be random bursts of information from here or there but be focused around a specific and simple idea. Blog readers are looking for insiders who's expertese can't be found anrywhere else. Readers want a named writer who they can trust. They are looking for an angle.
First person accounts – casual, intimate stories
Named and trusted writer
Insiders view
A concept
An angle
The thing missed out of the article is around the accessibility of the writer to respond to comments and clarify any misunderstandings. Company blogs are perhaps seen as marketing tools rather than a means of honing the grasp of the issues. Comments without clarification carry risks – so how far are companies prepared to engage with the discussion that ensues?
Televising the revolution
A bit about the Media Team plans (one or two people have asked). Next week I'm kicking off a video focused team at Our Lady of Victories School in Keighley.
Many schools have radio stations and a few even do TV shows. OLV school already has a successful radio station which is brilliant.
Some projects, and those in higher education as well, seem to be modelled on very old production formats. Even the term TV has a lot of old fashioned baggage. So I hope the children will use the tools in a free and imaginative way – not just produce a show that looks like BBC regional news which has been around for half a century.
Thankfully I detect there is a loosening of old style media skills teaching. I don't know where it will go but I hope the media team next week will come up with some real innovations about how to organise, film, edit, present. Looking at all the potential platforms and audiences.
The plan is to achieve the following:
- Employ and develop a full range of creative skills within a complete team, not just the obvious technical bits like cameras.
- Allow the team to innovate and change for the better how media is made – doing it their way.
- Produce a high quality product.
- Have a real purpose for the product – e.g. enhancing communication between parents and school.
I am sure we are getting to a point where children already have a place in the media environment – without needing to be employed by it. So this would be no simulation.
We are aiming to do a termly show at OLV school and will be setting this up next week. I'll let you know how it goes.
Why do school media departments buy poor video camcorders?
I've been helping three schools in the Leeds area record interviews for a Leeds Council project. The schools have enthusiastic and able ICT teachers and the children are engaged with the project. Among the interviewees are some high profile political figures including Peter Hain MP. The process of researching, preparing and conducting these intyerviews is a superb learning experience.
One of the schools is even equipped with nine Final Cut edit workstations so you'd think that they were well placed to capitalise on this opportunity. But there's just one problem – there's been little or no investment in decent video cameras that can capture sound via an external microphone.
So if you are a school wanting to go out and conduct video interviews can I recommend a video camera with an external microphone input and a microphone on a long lead. Google these suggestions:
Sony XR550V Hard Disk Drive camcorder
JVC Memory Camcorder GZ-HM1SEK
Canon LEGRIA FS200
For higher end semi-professional, The Sony HVE AE1 is probably too expensive.
Microphones Audio Technica The high quality boundary mic is an interesting option for table interviews.
