Pete Clifton For A Day
 

I've been the editor of one half of our LCC newsroom (around 13 or 14 people) for the past six or seven weeks for our 'online' project.

That means creating a news/features website, perhaps a bit like the BBC's "Where I Live" pages, using a series of Monday afternoon sessions, culminating in the deadline today.

In reality the Monday sessions didn't really work out too well - people had other assessments, and entirely understandably, they went off and did those instead (including me, I am by no means blameless there).

So all the hard graft essentially took place today, especially from my point of view. For the past month or two I've had virtually nothing to do except make a few 'executive decisions' about articles and generally appear jovial and enthusiastic, which I'd like to think I try to do anyway.

But today was one long, torrential downpour of work from the moment I got in. And I really enjoyed it, let me immediately confess, lest you get the impression I'm complaining. I love the whole website design thing, I love editing (a true megalomaniac at heart), I love being the one in charge of putting lots of individual contributions together into a finished work of art, essentially.

And so without further ado, go to LCC Broadcast and select 'Castles' to admire my team's work.

There are fully researched articles (proper journalism, none of my Dayorama nonsense) covering topics ranging from referees at kids' football matches through to the theft of sculptures in London. We've got an interview with Robert Edwards, director of political satire 'Land of the Blind'; we've got a trip down to the Thames to see what weird objects lie under the water (everything from religious icons to sets of false teeth); speaking of religion there's a couple of great spiritual articles covering religious dating and the Alpha course, which promotes Christianity.

Elsewhere you can read all about the dangers marathon runners will face taking on the usual London route next month, including an interview with a man who suffered a hernia during one such race - ouch. You can go round a selection of top London music venues and sample the music on offer, or if you're feeling a little frisky you can find out more about male pole dancing!

There's more on energy use in the UK and the drive to stay carbon neutral, if you enjoyed the stuff I did on the Energy Review a month or two ago. And if you listened to Jason Leonard on here a couple of weeks back, you can read a comprehensive dissection of England's dismal Six Nations failure, with individual profiles of five key players.

Finally, we've a great pair of articles following a wheelchair-bound woman around London as she tried to get to the England v Ireland game at Twickenham last weekend. Our reporter went all the way with her, so to speak, and took a great series of photos. Here's one example:

You'd better not be wanting to go to Aberystwyth, with the button up there in the top left hand corner...

It had never previously occurred to me that people using wheelchairs have no hope of pressing the buttons or inserting coins into one of these machines. Trapped! It's a disgraceful oversight, and those machines have been around for years.

Anyway, do check out the site, and be quick - I don't know how long it'll stay there before it's wiped ready for next year's teams. In fact, if you're reading this after the summer of 2006, it's safe to say you're not reading any of my team's work at all! I imagine I'll shed a tear when that comes to pass...

Oh and before I forget, there's even my very own 'From The Editor's Desktop' tucked away in there, if you can find it. Pete Clifton eat your heart out (he used to write them all the time for the BBC News website, if you don't know).

In other news, and very briefly, there is a great plan coming together for the TV module we do as part of the course next year. The idea is we get in groups of three or four and those teams go round recording the relevant TV material needed for each of us to build a four minute TV report - one person presents, two operate the equipment, then you swap round, etc etc, since it's impossible to do it all yourself.

I can't reveal any more about our team's plan yet under pain of death (although either of my two co-conspirators may well have blown the gaffe by now), but we've had official approval and it's going to be hilarious. More as soon as it's confirmed!

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Comments so far: 1


On March 21, 2006 at 09:34, Andy said:

Don't worry I didn't let any of the details slip! And to boot I've created a healthy sense of intrigue


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