Have I Got News For You? How to Write a News Story

News. We read it, we breathe it, we live it, and some of us even write it. But what is it? I'm so glad you asked. 'News' is simply what makes it into the papers every day. Sadly, this qualifies  Z-list celebrities as being news-worthy, but hey, it's not often George Osbourne gets breast enlargement surgery so someone's gotta fill the Sun and The Mirror.

I would go as far as to describe the world of news as like a washing line: It's bare, it's empty and it spins; but once you put a sheet on there it's pegged on. Now imagine that sheet is a news story and the washing line is actually a news room; you can now peg more stories relevent to the one hanging there. This is called a news peg. In recent years dogs and kids have had a bad relationship, mainly because the ferocious hounds just love to attack them. This is called a news peg. As soon as this happens once the floodgates open and there's loads of the stories doing the round, pegging themselves onto the sheet on the washing line.

There are two main reasons as to why news stories hit the press - both of which can be broken down into subsections:

Editorial Reasons

• Do people care? What would be the point in reporting something nobody cares about? This is a question I ask a lot when I see gossip mags in shops, but the blatant (and awful) truth is that there's an audience for that stuff. You'd be correct in thinking that someone who reads the Telegraph isn't going to be interested in seX Factor 'scandals', but that's the reason these publications exist: to reach a certain demographic. The Telegraph wouldn't publish anything related with reality TV because it's audience put the Parliament channel on then lost the remote. On purpose.
• Maybe a story is fresh and exclusive: I was talking to an interesting man going through my checkout at work who said that he gave The Southern Daily Echo their only ever world exclusive story; someone's wedding. He said that the "vultures of Fleet Street" were all over him but he would only give the rights to his local paper. Unsurprisingly, the edition sold in record numbers. Exclusive stories sell copies.
• Dramatic stories involving explosions and terrorism have gripped the world in the last decade. Nick Davies' Flat Earth News outlines how newspapers jumped on this frenzy and would publish any stories relating to terrorism without checking any facts, so most of them were false. This is a great example of the washing line in full spin; news pegs in action. Simple stories, however, counteract these and give you some nice ducklings to look at instead of a mangled body. The Awwwwh Factor.
• Branching off from the ideas of news pegs, anything that the public is currently obsessing with is printed because it sells papers.

Practical Reasons

• You'd be stupid to think that all the news in the world on a certain day just so happens to fit nicely into a tabloid newspaper. The issue of space brings up questions as to what can fit in and where, and ultimately, what can 'fit in' a paper is largely decided on by the audience demographic. That's why the Sun dedicates a third of a certain page to a certain aspect of a certain genders body. That's not important. At least 12 people die every day in Sudan due to a constant draught, at least 12, but white van drivers just want something to look at whilst they're in a customer's bathroom.
• Sometimes a story might be too similar to another one to print. However, it's possible to re-use old feature ideas from previous editions after a period of time, usually just enough for the article to be forgotten but the subject still relevant. You can call Dub-step a new craze, but you can't say the same about Jazz.

Next, we move on to how to write a news story. I'll try to explain it in this lovely diagram:

Facebook - Where Reality Becomes Virtual

Facebook – an online community of millions of potential farmers and gangsters with a side order of restaurant owners and gamblers. This appears to be quite an odd mixture on paper but wrap them all up in HTML and Flash encodings and you’re left with a mega-rich tycoon who wouldn’t pass on the extra toppings. However, remove this and you’re left with the bread without the butter, a person who has been sucked into a virtual world of fantasy. A world where the past becomes as pixellated as the quality of the camera-phone it was captured on and where repressed memories of the time you got your head stuck in a tree glisten as they once did, if only from the perspective of the ‘lolling’ onlookers… Your friends.

Right now, Facebook really is “where it’s at”. It knows everything before you do; it knows who’s going where and at what time, it knows who’s going through a rough patch in their relationship and sadly it remembers the nights you’ve forgotten and christ, you don’t usually want to be reminded. Regardless of this, it’s always there when you need it. It’s the trusting friend that holds out its hand and helps you rummage through priceless memories from a time when you once had a life outside of this social exclusion zone. You might think that broadcasting your daily-doings to your friends (we’ll call them comrades from now on) proves that you have a life away from your plain profile page, when in fact all you can see when you type it is your lonely reflection staring back at you from inside your computer monitor, almost as if you really are trapped in this virtual reality.

A few weeks into your stay everything seems to be going swimmingly – you’ve got your profile, you have your comrades, you have your farm in Dorset and you have the odd half-decent photo scattered among many of what can only be described as ‘atrocities’. Where can it honestly all go wrong? Well, remember that person who’s had your heart ever since you can remember? That’s right, they’re now married to someone you’re “obviously better than”, they have four kids and they live in Angola. Chances of bumping into them randomly in your local Starbucks? Pretty slim. That person who’s owed you fifty of your Great British Pounds from when you didn’t shave for three years? He’s in jail for a chain of murders, good luck getting that back. Oh and who can forget that bastard who used to beat you up for your lunch money? He’s just won multiple-millions in the lottery, there goes your belief in Karma then. Ah well, at least you still have your farm, but OH WAIT! You forgot to get someone to tend to your crops while you were in Spain for a week drinking vodka on the beach – yet another week you can’t remember, but at least the photos will be online soon. Looks like all of those hours of loving care have also been wasted. Facebook appears to have an evil and relentless underbelly.

This leads me very nicely onto what seems to be one of the key features of Facebook: changing your ‘status’. Now this is presented to you in the form of a very personal question, “what’s on your mind?” This encourages you to think about what you’re planning on telling your comrades next. Did you have a nice breakfast? Have you had a funny thought cross your mind that you just have to share with the ‘world’? Or of course there’s my personal favourite, who’s got on your nerves today who you fancy having a spiteful dig at? This all gets added to the ‘news feed’ which is there to make you think that everything you do has a certain amount of importance that’s on an equal par with, let’s say, the war on the terror. This isn’t real news. If someone’s turned the world on its head and had chicken nuggets for breakfast and lunch but had a bowl of cereal for tea, nobody cares. Whereas, if someone updates their status to “just killed my neighbour while having sex with a donkey ROFL” and means it then this would be news. In essence though, nobody ever does that.

Then you have the growing number of ‘fan pages’ where you can show your appreciation for whatever subject appears in the title. These are just getting more and more ridiculous, so much so that I’m pretty sure that there won’t be much more to become a fan of. Currently the ‘trend’ doing the rounds seems to be racist ‘jokes’ about turbans looking slutty or wondering if your arse looks too big while wearing one. Sure, it’s not the worse form of racism around but when you go on these pages and you see the obscene comments coming from some chavvy twelve year old kids, you can’t help but wonder why they haven’t been shot yet to stop them growing up into the future generation of prison fodder and a waste of the tax payers hard-earned cash.

But despite all of these clear problems, millions of people are hooked to the site. They want to know what their friends had for breakfast and what they’re going to do this evening. This is what Facebook is really about – staying in touch with your friends new and old and finding new ways to ‘connect’ with them that ultimately lead to bringing them closer, even if they do live on the other side of the world. If anything, modern society has become reliant on the social networking phenomena. Sites such as this make life so much easier for so many of the users; can’t be bothered to buy party invites? No problem, just go on facebook and select your friends before simply clicking ‘send’ to give them all of the information they need to know, all at the same time. What if you don’t know the address of an old colleague but you still want to contact them? Just simply send them a message or write on their wall. It even brings you closer to people you don’t really know, even with things as simple as the ‘poke’ application.

Social networking is bringing the world closer together. I’m a member of Facebook and if I left it now I’d feel left out, I’d feel slightly neglected and most of all I’d have no way of keeping in touch with so many people, even if I don’t contact them on there. In reality, it would be like cutting myself off from the outside world from the inside of my computer monitor.

Exploring the Relationship Between the Southern Daily Echo and Southampton F.C.

For years the number one source of news for fans of Southampton Football Club (the Saints) was the Southern Daily Echo, a newspaper who had a close relationship with the club due to its locality. They would publish interviews with the manager, extensive match reports and features that were written by club legends.

The paper circulates around every suburb in Southampton and western Hampshire, from Eastleigh to Lyndhurst, from Totton to Thornhill, Winchester to Alresford, and sells upwards of 30,000 copies a day. Their website shows the top ten most commented and most viewed articles of the day, most of which are Saints related. What this tells me is that the people who purchase the paper and read the website enjoy digesting information about their local club, or may even be swayed to support them due to their local exposure and relevance. What's more, the readership is C2DE, football's main audience.

Directly after Saturdays fixtures, the Daily Echo prints its sister-paper ‘The Pink’ which is dedicated to local league and non-league sports sides. Southampton Football Club plays a prominent role in selling the paper; they are the biggest side on the South coast so fans from around the region will buy it to read the match report and player ratings. In this respect, the Echo relies on Saints to sell the paper. You could argue that the public buy it because the paper covers non-league football and other sports that rarely get coverage elsewhere, but the front page, the main selling point, is usually dedicated to Southampton FC.

In December 2009 this close-knit relationship soured when Saints were planning a press conference to announce an extension to their current training ground, Staplewood. Nicola Cortese, Southampton’s Chief Executive, asked the press if they could refrain from printing the story until after the plans were officially unveiled. The Daily Echo went ahead and printed the plans in the day’s edition before they were announced. Acting swiftly, Cortese banned the Echo and their reporters from St. Mary’s stadium.

In a statement, the Daily Echo insisted that they had done nothing wrong. They say that they reported the plans once they had become available to the public and also state that other media outlets such as the BBC and Sky Sports News were also running the story. In response to confusion from the paper’s readership, Editor Ian Murray spoke of the issue in January 2010, saying that an embargo was not in place to halt the reports. A few months later, Cortese slammed the Echo, insinuating that it printed the story to extend their readership.

This was the first of two occasions where the club got on the wrong side of the local press. On the second it extended to the national papers as well. In an aim to make more profit, Cortese banned photographers from the stadium, insisting that if the press want pictures from the game they would have to buy them from the club. Although the ban was eventually lifted, the rift towards the Daily Echo continued as the ban on them remained in place.

Media Law Lecture #8 - The Freedom of Information Act

This act is what we know as 'Journalistic Heaven'. The premise of it is very basic: You think of what makes a good story then prove it by requesting the information from the parties involved. They have 20 days to respond to you and if they don't they're breaking the law. Brilliant! But how do you do it? I'm so glad you asked; here's your answer:

1. Think of a really juicy story. TV chef's restaurant is poisoning their customers.
2. Immerse yourself in the language, then ease it into proper English once you're reporting it.
3. Don't over-complicate the questions, short is best. Lots of short questions will still get you the same, and maybe even more precise answers than long ones.
4. Use your knowledge to your advantage. Maybe if you're a chef you know that rat poison isn't a main ingredient in a ratatouille.
5. Include comparative stats in your question if need be.
6. Check the organisations Freedom of Information scheduled.
7. Ask to speak to the FOI officer.
8. Once you've asked your question make sure you get a brief descrition of events.

And of course, here's the obligatory DO NOT'S:

• Speak to press officers. They are the bane of your life and are in place to send you away. They lie.
• No personal questions, rephrase questions so you avoid these.

History of Western Philosophy - Notes on Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

• Founder of modern philosophy - Outlook altered by new physics and astromony
• Didn't publish book - two strange doctrines about the earth's rotation and infinite universe
• Philosopher, mathematician, man of science
• Geometry
• Co-ordinates
• Regarded bodies of men and animals as 'machines'.
• Animals controlled by physics, devoid of feeling/conciousness
• Men have souls which reside in the pineal gland, contact with vital spirits
• Mechanics
• Accepts first law of motion
• No vacuum, no atoms, just nature of impact
• Says world created in Genesis BUT:
• Thinks it could be natural
• Theory of formation of vortices: around sun immense vortex in plenum which carries planets
• Discourse on Method (1637) & Meditations (1642)
• Method of 'Cartisan Doubt' - Doubting everything to clear mind
• Scepticism
• Dreams give us copies of real things
• Theory of Knowledge
• 'I think, therefore I am' - mind more certain than matter
• Questions knowledge of our bodies
• Things can change when burnt etc - smell, taste different
• "I understand by the sole power of judgement, which resides in my mind, what I thought I saw with my eyes." - You don't know if what you're seeing is true, you can only think it
• Errors
• To think that ideas are  like outside things
• Three sorts of ideas
• Innate
• foreign and come from without
• Invented by me
• Method of critical doubt
• Indubitle facts
• own thoughts
• Thoughts are more certain than external objects
• Indubitable principles of inference

Spinoza (1632-1677)

• Book: Ethics
• Metaphysics: Parimenides, One substance 'god or nature'
• Thought and extension both attributes of god
• No free will, everything is controlled by god
• leads to problems with sin
• Spinoza argued back that negation is only in the eye of the finite beholder, not the infinite god
• Theory of emotions
• Passions distract us and obstruct us from our intellectual vision of the whole
• Hatred can be increased when recipricated but destroyed by love
• All wrong actions are due to error - like Socrates and Plato
• self-seeking/preservation governs behaviour
• Time is unreal
• Disasters in our time are considered worse than those in the past
• Spinoza says time should be irrelevant and that a disaster then is a disaster now.
• Events are part of god's eternal, timeless world as he sees it. God sees the date as irrelevant
• The theory of evil is an inadequate knowledge - God has no knowledge of evil, everything is his good-doing
• Does not object to all emotions, only those that are passions
• God is not affected by emotions or pleasure or pain
• He who loves god should not expect love in return
• Logical monoism
• The world only exists because everything exists together. Not one bit could exist without the rest
• Political theory derived from Hobbes
• Disagrees that all rights should be submitted to sovereign and that democracy is 'most natural' form of government

Leibniz Thanks to - Tom Baxter

• Substances

•  Extension is the centre of matter 

•  Extension isn't an attribute of a substance - extension is an attribute of plurality (more than one) so can't be linked to just one substance. Each single substance becomes more than one once extended. 
• Arguments for existence of god
•  Ontological argument: Existence vs Essence, God is the greatest thing imaginable, it is greater to exist than not to exist, God exists
•  Cosmological Argument: Every finite has a cause and a meaning, a casual loop can't exist, a casual chain can't be an infinite length, a cause and an effect must exist
• The Argument for Eternal Truths: Statements can be either true or false, those that are always true (such as numbers) are the eternal truths
• The Argument for Pre-Established Harmony: All clocks keep time with each other without interacting, if there's no interaction how do the others know they exist? 

How Not to Promote the Olympic Games

Last week the posters to be used in the 2012 London Olympics were unveiled to the public. The UK's top artists were called in to have a crack at creating something memorable, something remarkable, something that can be compared to the works of champions. And they failed. Sensationally, in fact. What they seem to have created is a mish-mash of colour that my seven year old sister wouldn't be proud of, and then justified it with talk about how this represents a tennis ball and that oblong is actually a person. That's all very well and good IF the object is slightly recognisable, but for the most part they aren't. All images discussed can be found here on the BBC website.

Anthea Hamilton - 'Divers'

The organisers say that the first image, called 'Diver', could represent a gymnastic pose. Now, forgive me for stating the obvious, but the image is called 'Diver', it shows a pair of legs, a swimming pool and the olympic rings. Does this not scream at them that maybe, just maybe, this is representing a... Diver? I don't know, I'm just speculating, but to me it's fairly obvious. Out of all of the images it's the only one that is clearly about the olympic games. How do we know this? Oh, yeah, it has the Olympic rings on it. Clarification, thank you.

Martin Creed - 'Work No 1273'

This is a lot more than what can be said about the next poster in the slideshow which shows five coloured rectangles placed in a pyramid shape. The artist says that this represents an 'extended podium' where there are places beyond first, second and third. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but surely there's no way someone can come any higher than first in a race. You're either first or you're not. It's that simple. A better justification for the image would be a reverse of this, maybe suggesting that the fourth and fifth spots on the podium are just as high an achievement because the athletes made it to the games. You could argue that he's saying that the Olympic legends hold places beyond first on the podium, but in reality they don't. Unless they win the race before it starts, but then they still come first. So the idea is absurd.

Howard Hodgkin - 'Swimming'

Next up we have what is definitely the result of an over-excited four year old who likes the colour blue, and then pretended that a darker bit is actually a person. In fairness, I can tell that this blue splash is a wave, but the shadow of the person looks more like a giant turtle trying to help a clown fish find his son. This does not represent the London games, but I have a suggestion to make it a bit more recognisable: The artist should mix his lovely blue with some murky browns and greens, THEN try again. Why? Because the Thames is horrendously polluted and is not a perfect blue. We also don't see many waves like that down the river, so maybe he should make it look a little less violent.

Chris Ofili - 'For the Unknown Runner'

Chris Ofili's attempt shows a half man/half ape creature with a mohican/mullet crossover. He says it's inspired by runners he can see going past his window. In that case he must live in the Amazon Rainforest. The vase that frames this beast apparently represents the ancient Olympic games, not that that's what I instantly thought when I first saw it. To me, it looks like the thing has been captured by a giant, much like we catch spiders.

Bridget Riley - 'Rose Rose'

Poster number five is supposed to represent the lanes on a running track but it looks nothing like this. How many running tracks have you seen with green lines? Here's my golden rule for art: if you want to paint something, even in an abstract form, make sure it at least looks like it could be what you're saying it is; don't just make up any old rubbish to try to justify your decision to design something that's completely inaccurate. Another issue I have with this poster is that I could make exactly the same thing in photoshop within minutes, would that be classified as art? I'll leave that for you to decide.

Rachel Whiteread - 'LOndOn 2012'

I actually quite like the next poster, it's pretty funky. I like the idea of the olympic rings being scattered about the page in such a dysfunctional manner because to me it represents how the event is likely to unfold. It'll start swimmingly with an outstanding opening ceremony (being English we tend to do pomp and glorification fairly well) but then something will happen (and it could be anything) which will make it all go down hill. Clearly the organisers aren't going to say this, so their explanation for the poster is that the rings look like stains caused by bottles and glasses after a social gathering. That's binge drinking then.

Fiona Banner - 'Superhuman Nude'

Fiona Banner's effort is interesting if you've got the time to admire it for what it is: a lot of text and what looks like a man in a wheelchair with a jetpack on his back. Although it's unclear to me what relevence jetpacks have to the Paralympics, that isn't the burning issue. The problem I have with it is that the text takes so long to read. I can see countless accidents being caused by motorists slowing down to be able to read all the text. Great idea.

Michael Craig-Martin - 'GO'

I'm sure I've seen this poster somewhere before, but where? Oh yeah, I remember, in my school corridor. This is the same sort of design that you would find in the PE department of a senior school, so Craig-Martin's choice to use it as an Olympics poster was a bold move. However, I feel that it's justified because it's something people can relate to. It's one of the few designs that has symbols that relate to atheletics. The stopwatch has always been prominent in track and field events, how else would you be able to time runs to compete against? It's not like putting a gun on the poster with the words 'GO' plastered on it would be a good move, it could have all sorts of meanings. The stopwatch is perfect.

Tracy Emin - Birds 2012

I'd love to have some of what Tracy's having - where did she get the idea that this would make a good poster for the Olympic games, one of the biggest events the city has ever hosted? Someone important must like it, otherwise it wouldn't have been chosen, but come on, what does it even mean? Through my analytical skills I can see two key words that could be linked to the occasion; the first is inspire because Olympic athletes do have a tendency to inspire people to run or whatever; the second is determination as it takes great determination and persistence to be the best in the world, after all, that's a lot of people to be better than. But this poster doesn't even come close to advertising the Olympics: it's plain, colourless, boring and lacks any punch. The Olympic games are vibrant with bold colours, they're culturally significant and anything but boring. This poster has got it all wrong.

Gary Hume - Capital

Here's a challenge for you: Can you spot A) the wheel from a wheel chair and B)  a tennis ball in this poster? No? Me neither, but that's what Gary Hume's trying to pass the little and large circles off as. At the very most this poster is an incredibly abstract way of showing a forest and it's thriving, over-sized berries. I'm struggling to find any relevance this has to the games whatsoever; it's nothing but some dull shapes. When I look at this I just wish they'd asked an infant school to run a competition to design a poster instead of giving the job to a well known artist. At least that way a small child could have something to look back on with great pride, something that the whole world could see, and the London games would have a better poster than this to show off.

Sarah Morris - Big Ben 2012

Big Ben, a large clock tower in central London, is a landmark that the whole world recognises. If you showed a picture of it to a tribe in Madagascar they would tell you how it's situated in London, the land where the whole country stops to eat scones and drink tea at five o'clock sharp. So there's a lot of things Morris could've done with Big Ben to make it a stand-out landmark at the 2012 games. This is not one of them. If you showed this to the same Madagascan tribe they'd laugh at you then eat you for breakfast. Apart from the circle that slightly resembles a clock face there's nothing here that links to the world famous tower. All of the British class and history has been sucked away, which isn't great because those are two aspects that the event organisers wanted to highlight.

Bob and Roberta Smith - Love

You can tell that this poster is a joint effort because it's actually quite good; I really like the colours, the font and the fact it mentions the Paralympics. In fact, I'll even go as far to say that this is a good example of what a poster should be: it stands out amongst the rest, it tells you the name of the event it's promoting and it's simple and easy to read. Out of the words chosen, courage stands out the most to me because it's exactly what Paralympians needed to get through the adversity that their disability brought them, and then hone it to become someone truly unique.

After reading this 'critique' you probably feel like I'm being a little bit too harsh on the posters. These artists have won their acclaim through their own excellence and deserve every second of the limelight they receive, but I truly believe that I could make a better poster for the Olympic games, so I have:

Liam Garrahan - London 2012 Olympics, WELL DONE EVERYONE, GOOD SHOW

This is the best poster to promote the games: it's eye catching, it has national pride, it congratulates the athletes on the (correct-sized) podium, it says the umbrella name for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, and most of all it doesn't have the British flag on it because that would be deemed as not being politically correct.

Media Law Lecture #7 - Investigative Journalism

Most journalists focus around 'every day' news stories that are planned and have a set agenda; maybe the government is releasing the budget, or announcing the resignation of the home secretary because of slack border control (hi, Theresa). Investigative journalists, on the other hand, have no set agenda - instead they ask why things happen and push until they get an answer. This is known as 'off-diary reporting' because the news is not scheduled.

A classic example of good investigative journalism  involves the drug Thalidomide, which was given to pregnant women to help prevent morning sickness. As time progressed and these people started having their babies, they realised that the children were being born deformed. Harry Evans of the Sunday Times and his Insight Team pressed the company who produced Thalidomide to give them answers to why it was happening, but they insisted that it was nothing to do with them. Eventually though, they acknowledged that they knew Thalidomide could cause these effects in children. They had to pay the families compensation.

Most investigative journalism takes place in the justice system where miscarriages of justice can lead to innocent people being jailed for crimes they did not commit. Maybe the system was corrupt? In the case of the Birmingham Bombings in the 80s the police tortured those accused of the acts into false confessions. In an attempt to cut down on miscarriages of justice the government set up the Criminal Cases Review Commission. People convicted of crimes who maintained their innocense could approach them and ask them to review their case, which would, they hope, gain them their freedom. However, the CCRC was not without it's issues as it was so tied up within the system that it became ineffective. If experienced barristers and judges handled the case they would state that and chuck the appeal aside.

Man Bites Snake

A Kenyan man chomped on a snake as it tried to drag him into a tree for an afternoon snack, in the Malindi area of Kenya.


Ben Nyaumbe was engaged in a tense, life-threatening struggle as a 13ft (4m) python wrapped around him and hauled him up a tree, when he decided to lay his gnashers into the hungry beast's tail.


"I stepped on a spongy thing on the ground and suddenly my leg was entangled with the body of a huge python," he said, "I had to bite it."


Nyaumbe managed to grab his phone and call for help but only once he'd covered up the monster's jaws to stop himself from being swallowed whole. His only injury was a bleeding lip which was caused by his toothy fightback.


A police spokesman said that this event was very mysterious as he has not known a snake to yank a human into a tree before. The police also said that the snake was taken to a sanctuary in a local town but later escaped. They say they want to "arrest" the snake before it snatches another victim.

V for Explosions

So last night was bonfire night - the one night that sticking a firework up a cat's behind may pass as legal. Or not, but it's the closest you can get. In fact, for stoners it's almost definitely the most confusing night of the year as the colours explode into life with ear-shattering bangs to crazy techno music and dodgy cover versions of Disney classics. It's also the night that dogs everywhere decide to run rampant around houses and small children cower behind their parents in fear of the explosions. But what's the point?

Everyone knows the story: Guy Fawkes, a small man with a massive agenda, tries to blow up parliament and fails, gets caught and consequently set alight. But why celebrate this with MORE explosions? I don't mean to be a kill-joy in any shape or form, but Fawkes' ashes are probably spinning with rage: "If they can blow stuff up then why can't I?" Talk about having double-standards! I suppose he was a terrorist.

You could say that fireworks are a family friendly spectacle but it's only a spectacle if you've got upwards of a grand to send soaring into the sky. It's guaranteed that your splash of cash will only be remembered because the biggest and best firework set fire to the 700 year old oak tree in your back garden. Personally, I think it would've been more of a spectacle to have let Guy Fawkes blow up Big Ben, at least then a time traveller could film it and put it on YouTube. The film V for Vendetta proved that this would be an event to remember. The rest of it pales in comparison to the rousing finale.

As I've already touched upon, there are issues that the stereotypical family will have to deal with: the parents seemingly aren't allowed to enjoy bonfire night because if they do their kids will never let them live it down. They'll hit 18, leave home, then file a law suit against them saying that they tortured them with loud noises and bright lights with smiles on their faces, and that the sticks they bought set fire to their hands. Whilst all this is going on their Doberman is at home tearing up their furniture, smashing their glasses and destroying every television set in the house in a state of uncontrollable fear. Sounds like a pretty expensive night out in the long run - and that's without mentioning the fact that there's a thief rummaging around their underwear drawer and stealing anything of worth whilst they're out.

Maybe I'm being too pessimistic about the whole experience? I admit that I do enjoy the displays, but at the same time I feel that it should be moved early spring. Think about it, everyone who attends a public display ends up covered in mud and cow pat from standing in a sloppy field, and they end up leaving with hypothermia because it gets so cold. If I was Mr. Bonfire and I had a say I would certainly move it to a wonderful evening in April. There's enough daylight to help you find a space to stand away from cow poo and there's no chance of slipping up in a mini swamp because it's April - our new summer.

I'm also over-looking the unavoidable community spirit at such events. It's not often that masses of people from all cultures gather together to share an experience, so that in itself is quite breathtaking. It's the only time we see Cameron's fabled Big Society coming into fruition, and it's not like it's his work causing it, it's a 400 year old tradition. Then you get the inevitable spew of local 'celebrities' appearing to press buttons and pose for photos. Usually they're from a local radio station, but you tend not to remember who they are when your mum shows your partner the photo of you, seemingly willingly, having a photo with the anonymous man. Anyway, this tends to get everyone talking and a bit excited.

So you're probably wondering how I spent bonfire night? Seeing as three of my neighbours are burning money and and setting the sky alight with colours and sparkles, I did the sensible thing: I sat in my room in the warm and watched out of my window. I wasn't struggling for breath through smoke, nor was I burning my hands or putting myself in danger by being too close. And the house was safe because the dog's locked in the hallway where there's nothing to destroy, and the thief's knocked out and tied up in the attic.

Introduction to Journalism Lecture #2 - Audiences

Audiences may seem very hard to define, but newspapers and advertisers in particular have hit the nail on the head. They know how to attract the demographic they want.

For local newspapers their general audience is very easy to establish: People in the local community. These papers will include stories about local court cases and may even have snippets from the national news, but generally they'll stick to stories that are specifically aimed at those in the local area. On the front page of the Southern Daily Echo today there's a story about a local woman who's been sentenced to prison for two years for conning her employers out of 10% of their profits. Local news for the local people - but not national news; there's far more pressing issues for those to address. Also found in local news reporting is a round up of the sport from geographically relevant teams.

Now we move on to the foggy territory of politics. A paper's political leaning does a lot to define an audience. Below is a list of newspapers and their 'general' readership:

• The Sun: Used to be a leading paper for the left wing Labour party, but having changed their alagiance in the last general election they now bat for the other side (so to speak) and support the Conservative party. Typically, a Tory will be middle class and a little bit snobby, so what does that make the Sun's readers? Well judging by their slack-jaw expressions, tanned right arms and pale lefts, and their grazed knuckles I'm going to plump for the opposite. The working class man. These two concepts collide, so what is it that attracts them to a paper that rallies against their general interest? Is it the 30p price tag? Or is it the sport or the picture on page 3?
• The Daily Sport: This leads me on nicely to this little joy of a publication, one which has a cheap price, more 'pictures' and loads of sport. The Daily Sport is for the apes of civilisation, they who have not been shown the true world by the philosopher in Plato's cave theory.
  
• The Daily Mail: The Mail is famously a right wing newspaper, mainly read by people who fear they'll end up in an asylum and scarred for life if they look a teenager in the eye. Saying that, it's mainly read by those in middle class occupations such as doctors or teachers. It's also a hit with the ladies, who they aim most of their features at.
• The Independent: Like Locke, The Independent has a very liberal point of view; it doesn't lean any way in the political spectrum and leaves it up to their readers to craft their own opinions. It assumes that they're intelligent, unlike other papers. An example of this is the lack of  the poppy on the front cover so to cater for those anti-war protestors.
• The Guardian: Left wing, middle class and new media-savvy are the words you could use to describe the guardian. It's mainly read by students.
• The Mirror: The polar opposite to the Sun, this red-top is left wing and aimed at woman.

Introduction to Journalism Lecture #1 - The Lingo of the Journo

Here are some of the key terms in print journalism:

• The Standing Head - Header & Title
• Para - Paragraph
• Layout - Modula (Boxes)
• Columns
• Barker - Top of the page sales and features
• Content
• Advertising - Including 'advertorials' which look like features
• Editorial
• News - Scheduled News / Breaking News
• Features
• Leading Article - Editors comment

Media Law Lecture #6 - Copyright

Copyright is an important legal issue within the media; if you don't follow the law closely enough you're setting yourself up for a loss of cash.

Let's first look at general copyright issues, before later applying them to Journalism. Copyright in music has been hitting the headlines a lot in recent years; illegal downloads are rising and different musicians are realising their ownership of their own material is coming to the end, so are fighting tooth and nail to keep it. Generally speaking, anything original that you create belongs to you, but in the music world this only lasts for 50 years. When it comes to purchasing music the general assumption is that if you buy it, you own, although this is not the case. What you buy is the license to play the music in certain settings. If you wanted to broadcast it you would need a further license and would probably owe the musician royalties. Another way to look at this is to watch a DVD and take note of the copyright notices at the start of the disc. Now imagine someone shouting this at you whilst you play an album. Some music, though, is free of any copyright so you may just have to credit the musician to gain the rights to it.

Applying this to Journalism, you can sell the license to your work in the same way, except in this instance the consumer is replaced by the media organisation; this would be an example of free-lancing. However, you can also sell ALL of your rights and be bought out by an organisation. This will mean that you lose all rights to any further profit from your own work, even if it's sold on and the company make a fortune from you. It's your hard luck. Likewise, if you work for a media organisation, any work you do becomes their property so they can distribute it however they like. You can't stop them.

'Fair Dealing' is a way past copyright. This enables you to use copyrighted material if you acknowledge the author of the work. This includes 'lifting' stories from newspapers: you can keep the facts, but you should not copy them word for word and use any of their pictures. You can, however, use this work for comment or criticism. If I was reviewing a film I would be allowed to show a clip of the film if I talk over it and credit the owners, so not to pass it off as my own work.

The Creative Commons is a law that was passed so people are able to use copyright free material without paying royalties, but you must comply to the author's conditions - they may say that you can't manipulate the image or that they'd like to be credited.