newspapers

University workplacement: My first front page story

My article on Albie-Joe Ramshaw is featured on the front page of today’s Echo! 💙
Check it online here: 
http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/health/how-you-can-help-albie-s-fight-with-just-one-donation-1-8658910

University work experience – First Year

As part of my course at Birmingham City University I am required to complete 70 hours worth of work experience in the media sector to pass, every year.

I have completed this year’s work experience at the Birmingham Mail (Trinity Mirror) and Sunderland Echo (Johnson Press) newspapers since I specialise in Journalism on the media and communications course at BCU. I want to share my experiences at these places with you and give myself an opportunity to reflect on what I have learned from being there.

Birmingham Mail – 5th-10th June 2017

Monday through to Wednesday the work was really independent and I was blitzing through stories despite struggling to find leads due to millions of Twitter posts about the general election. 

I spent Thursday in Birmingham Crown Court shadowing a journalist on stories and follow ups of trials that he needed to do. This was my first time court reporting since I started my course. I did enjoy court but I don’t see that being part of my future specialisms.

I was given the opportunity to do some investigative journalism while on this placement which is what I really wanted to do. It was these articles that I was told will be put in the paper the following week depending on if they could get comments on the issues I covered.

They also gave me the opportunity to speak to award winning investigative journalist, Jeanette Oldham. She was so nice and encouraging. She even asked me to stay in touch incase I needed any help with future stories.

I loved working for a newspaper and was invited back next year. I just wish I was made to feel more welcomed by staff as I was just put in a corner to work on my own and wasn’t involved in conversation. They did say they’d work on this in future.

Sunderland Echo – 9th-14th July 2017

The staff here were much more welcoming than at the Birmingham Mail. I felt so much more welcomed here. Although finding leads were still a struggle because most of the news coverage were reserved for Bradley Lowery’s memorial and funeral (God rest his beautiful soul).


I passed this banner while out chasing a story, the love showed by the whole city was so moving. 

I wrote many stories this week and my first article that I completed was said to be a front page story about Albie Joe Ramshaw’s fight against Luekemia. Although it won’t be published until next week because they didn’t want to confuse readers with reading about two poorly little boys in the same week.

I did get a story in about Natalia Rook’s fundraisers to get her to America for life saving treatment against Ewing Sarcoma.


They spelled my name correctly online but misspelled it in print. I don’t mind though, the article is still there and I’m still proud.

I really hope I can go back next year! I loved every minute of it. 

Read my article on Natalia Rooks here: Sunderland Echo: Natalia Rooks

It’s #NotACompliment to Birmingham Students

Jennens Court residence have been made uncomfortable by men lingering outside the halls to ‘catcall’ young women.

Charis Pardoe said that there is often a black car spotted need the Jennens Court Halls of Residence for Birmingham City University in which a group of men will sit and “shout at girls all the time.”

Catcalling has been an issue that’s spread UK wide through the #NotACompliment campaign that has aimed to get misogynistic acts such as street harassment to be taken more seriously under the category ‘hate crime.’

It has gained success in areas several areas nationwide but is still being dismissed by West Midlands Police.

West Midlands Police stated that ‘catcalling’ among other forms of street harassment ‘is not a crime as it isn’t aggressive. Being attacked because of your race, religion, because you’re gay or have an alternative gender identity is a hate crime.’

Despite it’s apparent “non-aggressive” nature, Birmingham Students have said that it makes them feel unsafe.

“I believe that street harassment should be considered a hate crime because of how offended it makes me feel,” says Vicky Bentley (18), Birmingham City University Student, “Harassment like this could lead to sexual assault.”

. A recent poll done by End Violence Against Women states that 85% of women in the UK have faced unwanted sexual attention between the ages of 18 to 24, 45% of these cases also experienced unwanted sexual contact and the majority of these women had their first ‘catcalling’ experience between the ages of 11 and 17.

As the evidence suggests street harassment has fast become a common problem but the #NotACompliment campaign is still aiming to get the issue taken seriously so that young women are able to walk the streets and feel safe.

 

Media Regulation

The values that are deemed acceptable by society are constantly changing.  IPSO (press regulation) and the BBFC (film/video game regulator) have been shown to change to accommodate this as IPSO was formerly the PCC and the ‘C’ in BBFC now stands for classification rather than censorship. Although, regulatory bodies such as these are in charge of keeping the public in place by placing guidelines but some areas of media are more heavily regulated than others.

The BBFC was originally in charge of allowing films to be released in cinema but the release of video tapes caused outrage over ‘video nasties’ which is a list of films that were controversial at the time. The Video Recordings Act 1984 was brought in to protect children and allow parents to make well informed decisions when they need to self regulate. The controversial film, Reservoir Dogs was submitted to the BBFC for classification in 1992 but was delayed for VHS release until 1994.

BBFC also regulates video games and the effectiveness of the regulation of this media platform is largely debatable. This is mainly down to parents who don’t self regulate and buy young children games such as Saints Row and Grand Theft Auto. Although, there is no solid evidence that violent imagery has an effect on the behaviour of children (despite the Bobo Doll experiment which is debated to be unreliable due to the initial purpose of the doll) The Byron Review hasn’t ruled them out as a factor. The review launched the Child Internet Safety Strategy which is enforced by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety as their research found that 99% of 8-17 year olds are online. They made decision to increase public awareness and simplify classifications. Although there is a lack of evidence to support that children are passive to the effects of video games McDougall and O’Brien published a study of video games in 2008 where they used Second Life and Grand Theft Auto to discuss the social and psychological effects of gaming. The media plays a large part in labelling video games as the blame though, a primary example could be The Columbine Massacre as Marilyn Manson was blamed alongside video games do the events. This implies that the boys were desensitised to violence and that they chose to use the game’s messages of glorified violence to kill (Uses and Gratifications theory). It was only upon research into the boys that it was discovered that there was underlying psychological factors.

There has been a lot of scandals recently as the Press have been breaking laws of privacy. IPSO which was formerly known as the PCC can only give guidelines rather than enforce any laws, the press industry self regulate to coordinate with the guidelines but sometimes journalist across boundaries by door stepping or through cheque book journalism. The phone hacking scandal has been the most recent scandal based on privacy but representations are a more common issue. Apologies had been issued by the national newspapers after tabloid representations of the McCann case received 4340 complaints to the PCC in 2007 and 458 of those complaints were based on an article printed in the Mirror about the investigation. Les Hinton (former chair of the PCC) described the industry by saying, “At their lowest British newspapers can be brutally unfair, inexcusably intrusive and make terrible mistakes. At their best they are incomparable. No form of regulation will make them perfect.”

In comparison to the film industry regulation by the BBFC, IPSO’s regulation is weak as there are no age restrictions on newspapers with inappropriate content. The Leveson Inquiry not only dealt with the phone hacking scandal. They also worked on the issue about children being able to buy newspaper containing a Page 3 girl when nudity is banned on TV before the watershed. It is argued that newspapers should abide by TV watershed standards but it would require rock solid legislation to do so.

The power of companies in the press and film industries can have an impact on the strength of regulation. Rupee Murdoch owns 20th Century Fox which means that similar powers can’t have a chance to get their point across as they simply don’t have the money to take on a large conglomerate without risk.

Overall, films, video games and press regulation has been weakened over the years. Film and video games are more heavily regulated as they have law enforcement to back them in comparison to the weak PCC as they are only able to give guidelines rather than endorse any laws.