Reflection on my work and content

Reflection on my work and content

As the work for the project was outlined, I designated roles to people, as well as giving them ideas to explore, as it became evident that there were no other decisions being made as a group. Going with the initial thought of working in the sections that interest us individually the most, I decided that I would like to work on the mainstream news, as well as a contribution to the sports section.

This meant that alongside another member of the group, we would come up with a main news story and other possible stories that would be worthy of the first few pages of a publication. As we discussed as a group, one of the main decisions we made as a group was that the publication would be something quirky, and have a more positive outlook on news and its features.

I decided on an initial idea of writing about the current economic status of Hull, and its effects on local people. The other member of the mainstream news came up with an idea that we could do a negative versus positive aspect, featuring the economic difficulties and possibilities facing the city.

As it became increasingly likely that this publication would be a ‘one off’, the content had to be something that had a long shelf life so that it could still be current when it would be published.

This was something that I tried to pursue in each piece that I did, and I also had helped make decisions on what to produce in the other sections too, so that it had the same look and feel to each section. The main idea I had behind this was to have written something that is current now, with a look to the New Year aspect to it, and also, a reflection on the previous month or something recent within the same sector as the story. For example, in the sports section, I advised that it would be good to have a timeline of the Hull City games, with a short review of each game, and where that left the team at the end of that month’s set of games, and also a written piece about the season so far or something along those lines.

As this was part of what the sports section could have, I wrote a piece reflecting on the season so far, and turn in events that have happened in the last few years, and a comparison of a previous season. I also looked to the New Year, as to give the piece a sense of longevity to the reader, as although some details may now be out of date, the context of the piece is still relevant to the way things are set at present.

As part of putting the publication together, I also made some editorial decisions, alongside other members of the group who chose to discuss this, on which sections should run in which order, what those sections were, and what content would go in them.

The names of the sections changed various times, to suit what content was being produced. As a result of this I wrote a piece that would be relevant to a few sections, on the diversity in Hull, and how the influx of foreign nationals is affecting the region. This was intended at first to be as part of a student section, but it also had a wider scope of perspective as so it could be placed in other sections too. The piece was an informative and journalistic piece that had statistics and figures, of which I would have liked to have visualised in some way. As the publication was print, there was no way of making this interesting in paper, with only the statistics that I had, without slightly changing the context of the piece. However if the publication was digital, this would have been something I would have looked at more.

As part of the sections, as it was a festive based publication due to the time of year, I suggested that it may be a good idea to have an entertainment and review section based upon what is good to do, or places to go in the Christmas period. As part of this, I wrote a review for a restaurant with a view to this being a ‘pick of the festive season’ as though it would have been the best out of various restaurants. I wrote this piece to give the review section some versatility, as it was strongly orientated with gaming and film reviews. I wanted to keep the piece to a maximum of 400 words, and review the restaurant in aspects of service, quality, ambience, and for meals and functions.

As the student section was looking quite thin, I also wrote another piece that was aimed at being placed in that section to give it a student feel. I wrote the piece based upon first-hand experience, but I tried to make the piece stand as something that could appeal to anyone who would read it. As we decided that the publication would be aimed at the 18-35 age brackets, all of the pieces were written to have a student feel, with an appeal to older and younger readers too. The students travel piece I did was enjoyable to write as it gave me an opportunity to write something based upon experience that I had, and turn it into a journalistic piece rather than an opinion piece. It did have elements of an advertisement within in it, as this was purposely done as it gave the piece more character, rather than just a reviewing, or informative piece.

The mainstream news section was difficult one to manage, as it was not clear how many pieces other people had done, and also, what type of pieces they had done. It was difficult to ascertain what type of piece would fit the publication, how long we could have the piece, how relevant it would be to what else was written. Throughout the content creation process, I had tried to give each section a strong journalistic piece that would be versatile and give the sections depth. It was very difficult to liaise on what pieces would be relevant and current for the main news section for these reasons. I had suggested about a few pieces, one being the Hull Studio School, as a termly report as it is a new feature to the city. This would have run as a second story. I also suggested doing a piece on student culture, or something that would be appealing to our age range. As the publication adapted into a less student orientated, and more of a festive publication aimed at the age range, for local people, I decided that it may be a good idea to do something on the economic status of Hull. We decided to do negative page, and a positive page, highlighting the issues and possibilities facing Hull. An idea we had was to do half of the page in black and white, and half in colour, to emphasise the negative and positive, with a single image as the background. Another idea that I had was to do a timeline of key significant economic dates that have occurred in Hull post World War Two, to highlight the highs and lows that have happened. This would also have made the piece more graphically and aesthetically pleasing.

The overall content creation was a difficult but enjoyable experience. I found some of the pieces were natural and flowed well with what I intended to create. Others were more difficult and had areas which I needed to work upon. All of the pieces took various amounts of research to gain the facts and figures, and gain a perspective and context to write each of the pieces. All of the pieces I wrote had elements of different journalism within them, as I wanted to test what I liked, and also improve what I would like to work on in the future such as sports writing, and travel pieces.

Writing the economic piece also allowed me to experiment with writing pieces of a more hard-line news edge. I liked this aspect, as it felt newsy, and is something that I would like to improve on a work on in the future.