Of distractions, freelancing and recycling

Hello my dear neglected blog. How my head is hanging in shame at your sparse updates of late!

I guess it was to be expected really as I entered my third year of University, with the workload seeming to be so much more than that of second year. Or maybe it’s just the shock of attending classes again after I’ve had nearly four months of doing nothing?

I really do wish I had more time for this; I have so much to say. But even as I am writing this I’m using it as a distraction from my dissertation research.

So in the summer holidays I completed my last bit of work experience at the PR company Big Future Marketing, and loved every minute of it. While I felt like I was in over my head in a type of company that I’ve never really had experience in before and wasn’t sure how it was run, looking back I can say that I learnt a lot and that there is more to PR than I originally thought.

At the moment I’d really love to get some more experience in the field and it’s a very real career choice for me - in fact I think it was after my first PR lesson two years ago! But Big Future Marketting solidified that for me. A big thank you to the kindness of the staff there, Claire is definitely worth a follow on Twitter!

A few weeks after my work experience my boss (of my part-time job as a Shop Assistant, a.k.a. Smiler) was trying to get her recent Top 100 Independent Retailer status in the local newspapers so I offered to do it for her – for the most part I failed miserably but we did some great coverage in the Bromsgrove Standard – picture and all! You’re looking at a freelance PR girl here!

The other project in the last few weeks that I am proud of is joining together with my friends Emma, Katie and Becky to use Birmingham Recycled as our third year production project, creating a magazine alongside it. Yay! No more worrying about rounding up contributors for the website as I’ll be using the second year Online Journalism class. Is it weird to be this excited about school work?

So that’s all from me for now. Here’s to a better blog in the future! x

What I did at the Coventry Telegraph

This summer I am racking up lots of weeks of work experience, so as I move on from a week at newspaper The Coventry Telegraph to a public relations company, I wanted to reflect on my experiences:

• On Monday the Secretary of Education Ed Balls was visiting a youth centre in Coventry and I shadowed the reporter that went along to interview him. At first I thought he was really nice getting involved with the kids, but the longer I spent there the more that I noticed him play to the cameras by posing and putting his arms around them etc. This man is very well versed in PR and is my first experience of seeing this live in a politician.
• I had the honour of interviewing a hundred year-old lady; I was really nervous at being given the responsibility of getting quotes at first but the lovely Molly was very chatty.
• I did a Vox Pop, one of the quickest the newsroom has ever seen apparently, with only one rejection! My trick? God knows!
• Lots of phone interviews definitely helped me to improve my phone manners.
• I spent one morning with a reporter in court and saw a lot of horrible cases. Being a crime reporter must surely affect your outlook on life if just one morning disturbed me.
• What surprised me most was the overall frustration and low morale of all the people working there. They’d suffered cutbacks not too long ago and more redundancies were about to be announced when they feel that they struggle already to keep up with the same workload. While I was there, there was even a meeting planning a strike.

I shall hopefully be returning to the Telegraph in the future, I really enjoyed it there and I am proud of the additions to my portfolio.

‘Shoot for the moon, and if you miss, you’ll still be among the stars’ – Cecelia Ahern

There is no other author that can touch me like Cecelia Ahern does. I’ve nearly finished my favourite book yet again; If You Could See Me Now. It is so well read that sometimes I can quote paragraphs by heart. In fact, I think that the book is more worn than those I studied at English Literature were!

Sometimes it feels like Cecelia writes especially for me –what she writes, it just feels spot on. With an author like Marian Keys (within my genre of chick-lit) I can see why she is a well-respected author, but her writing just doesn’t feel right for me. Whereas Cecelia’s books are exactly what I look for in a read, something to relate to but in a whole new world that I can escape in and get happiness from.

There was one quote particularly poignant in the book this time, because it describes what I have been feeling lately:

I felt that my views and philosophies had been changed overnight. The philosophies that I had gladly carved in stone, recited and danced upon. I felt as though the magician of life had cruelly revealed his hidden cards and it wasn’t magic at all, just a mere trick of the mind. Or a lie.

So in the spirit of moving writing, I have conjured up my top three quotes from Cecelia’s If You Could See Me Now. If this doesn’t make you want to read the book then I don’t know what will!

First, we have the thought provoking:

‘You know, it’s interesting,’ he learned forward again, ‘children learn much more, far more quickly than adults. Do you know why that is?’

Elizabeth assumed there was some scientific explanation for it, but she shook her head.

‘Because they’re open-minded. Because they want to know and they want to learn. Adults,’ he shook his head sadly, ‘think they know it all. They grow up and forget so easily and instead of opening their minds and developing they choose what to believe and what not to believe. You can’t make a choice on things like that: you either believe or you don’t. That’s why their learning is slower. They are more cynical, they lose faith and they only demand to know things that will help them get by day by day. They’ve no interest in the extras. But Elizabeth,’ he said, his voice a loud whisper, and Elizabeth shivered as goose pimples rose on her arms. She felt as if he was sharing the world’s greatest secret with her. She moved her head closer. ‘It’s the extras that make life.’

Next we have the words that tug on your heart:

When you drop a glass or a plate to the ground it makes a loud crashing sound. When a window shatters, a table leg breaks, or when a picture falls off the wall it makes a noise. But as for your heart, when that breaks, it’s completely silent. You would think as it’s so important it would make the loudest noise in the whole world, or even have some sort of ceremonious sound like the gong of a cymbal or the ringing of a bell. But it’s silent and you almost wish there was a noise to distract you from the pain.

If there is a noise, it’s internal. It screams and no one can hear it but you. It screams so loud your ears ring and your head aches. It trashes around in your chest like a great white shark caught in in the sea; it roars like a mother bear whose cub has been taken. That’s what it looks like and that’s what it sounds like, a trashing, panicking, trapped great big beast, roaring like a prisoner to its own emotions. But that’s the thing about love – no one is untouchable.

And lastly it’s the one that makes me go ‘aww’, a truly heart-warming passage:

I always look on the positive side of things. I always say that with every cloud there’s a silver lining but, the truth be told – and I’m a firm believer of the truth – for a while I was struggling with my experience of Elizabeth. I couldn’t figure out what I had won, all I could see that my losing her was one big black stormy cloud. But then I realised that, as every day went by and I thought about her every second and smiled, I knew that meeting her, knowing her and above all loving her was the biggest silver lining of all.

Thanks for the books, Cecelia! I am going to leave you with a picture taken December last year, when I had the privilege to meet the author.

Learning how to work with Public Relations Consultants

Last week I faced a little dilemma that I’m sure that many journalists have faced before, but it was one that I did not know how to tackle.

I was looking through the press releases sent to Birmingham Recycled and decided to report on the Bullring’s Green Week that happened a few weeks ago. I only had a press release announcing the dates of the event, so I rang the public relations company asking for more information on how successful the event was. They suggested that I wait for the next press release, which would be released in a few days. A few days later and no press release, I emailed the public relations consult that I had been corresponding with and she apologised and kept me updated with when they would be able to send it to me.

When I finally did get the press release, I already felt guilty because I knew that I wasn’t going to praise the Bullring in all the ways that the lovely PR girls had hoped.

I intended to write a post asking questions about the hypocrisy of green activities, not just those that the Bullring hosted, but questioning all green events.

I put this dilemma on twitter as you can see here, expressing my guilt and wondering if I am doing the right thing by criticising the event after working with the PR company.

I got a few replies off a few journalists, all saying the same thing (see here and here): do it, it’s your job!

So I wrote the blog entry and was just about to post it when I received an email off the PR girl checking to see that I had received the release and if I had found it useful. Argh! More doubt filled me, but I posted the article anyway.

I guess that I just had to feel good about the fact that, while my overall tone was questioning, I tried to portray the Bullring in a fair light by also stating their achievements, as the PR girls would have wanted me to!

Birmingham Recycled Rota

After speculating what will happen to Birmingham Recycled, a few people have signed up to be regular contributors, which is great! I decided to make a rota of updates, which is beneficial for both us journalists by giving us clear deadlines and the website by creating certainty that it will be updated every week.

According to people’s preferences, the rota goes:

Week one: Emma, Natalie

Week two: Stacey, Anthony, Natalie

Week three: Emma, Becky, Natalie

Week four: Oliver, Anthony, Natalie

So here is the rota for the next few months. I have purposely missed December out because it is a month of deadlines and of course our holidays, so I didn’t want to tie people down.

 

22^nd June: Emma, Natalie

29^th June: Stacey, Anthony, Natalie

 

6^th July: Emma, Becky, Natalie,

13^th July: Oliver, Anthony, Natalie

20^th July: Emma, Natalie, Andrew

27^th July: Stacey, Anthony, Natalie

 

3^rd August: Emma, Becky, Natalie

10^th August: Oliver, Anthony, Natalie

17^th August: Emma, Natalie, Andrew

24^th August: Stacey, Anthony, Natalie

31^st August: Emma, Becky, Natalie,

 

7^th September: Oliver, Anthony, Natalie

14^th September: Emma, Natalie, Andrew

21^st September: Stacey, Anthony, Natalie

28^th September: Emma, Becky, Natalie

 

5^th October: Oliver, Anthony, Natalie

12^th October: Emma, Natalie, Andrew

18^th October: Stacey, Anthony, Natalie

26^th October: Emma, Becky, Natalie

 

2^nd November: Oliver, Anthony, Natalie

9^th November: Emma, Natalie, Andrew

16^th November: Stacey, Anthony, Natalie

23^rd November: Emma, Becky, Natalie

30^th November: Oliver, Anthony, Natalie

 

I’ve so far had word from Joseph Chapman, Katie Gracyzik and Mitchell Jones that they will be irregular posters. I am also still hoping that some of the rest of the Online Journalism crew are willing to chip in.

Birmingham Recycled

I’m taking the role of Editor of Birmingham Recycled very seriously and as this is obviously a learning process for me, I thought that I would share with you all my considerations. Please feel free to give feedback.

Frequency

When being used for the Online Journalism module, the website had over twenty contributors. We all aimed to update once a week, so theoretically the website was updated two or three times a day with original environmental news about Birmingham.

With less contributors the website can’t be used as a news website, so I think that it would be great to be able to update four times a week with stories that have a more feature style. Some blogs to take inspiration from are the Birmingham Mail’s Lighter Footprints, Northfield Ecocentre Blog and Birmingham Friends of the Earth’s Blog.

But right now all my fellow online journalists are enjoying a much deserved summer break and I have a feeling that voluntary freelance work for Birmingham Recycled is at the back of their minds!

However I am going to struggle to update the website four times a week by myself. Before University starts again in September, I have three weeks of holiday booked, five weeks and work experience and not to mention my part-time job as a Sales Assistant in a local shop.

It would be great if the OJ class are still interested in writing for the website every now and again but I am going to have to figure out a way to tie some people down as regular contributors – I am having some luck so far (thank you Stacey and Emma) and will keep you updated with my progress.

Contributors

Apart from the student journalists, I am looking for other people to get involved. I could approach my fellow green bloggers, but I am also hoping to be able to find someone who specialises in helping the environment but is not already involved in social media. Off the top of my head, perhaps a Lickey Hills park ranger or someone working for the Wildlife Trust. Any ideas?

Content

As mentioned above, the website will now be powered by features rather than news stories. With features there is always the trap of just rewriting press releases but I still hope that the website contain will remain investigative and thought provoking stories, with original quotes when necessary.

I also aim to keep experimenting with multimedia elements, be they Google Maps, slideshows, podcasts or videos.

Twitter

Ahh! Yesterday I posted the link to my latest Birmingham Recycled on the Twitter account. Going back to check it later in the day, I found that the same tweet happened five hours after mine. How the devil did it do that?? Well, lets just say that I learnt how Twitterfeed works – an automated system that posts your updates onto your twitter account. Ohhh. I told you that this was a learning process.

But yes, I will use Twitter to keep updated with conservation news and blogs and hope to inject a personal voice into the account’s tweets.

Flickr and Delicious

Another reason for the need for contributors is that I want to keep up the contribution to Flickr and Delicious communities that the website creator Kasper had began. When using my own Flickr account, I already came across involvement in discussions about recycling etc. and feel that continuing this is a good way to advertise the website.

Turning point

So Online Journalism has finished, and I am personally really sad to see it end. It’s the module so far where I’ve got to display my creativity and get my teeth into a project, Birmingham Recycled, of which I am now Editor! It is a role that I am really honoured to be taking on and excited about, because in the past few months I have become more passionate about the environment than I at first realised.

This blog is now mine to do with what I wish, as my environmental interests will be pursued with Birmingham Recycled and my guest posts on the Northfield Ecocentre Blog.

I hope to write about things that interest me in my everyday life – be they Twitter, Disney films (yes, you should know before you get any further that I am a Disney nut), television programmes like Lost, my Wii games or how I am getting on as being an Editor for the first time. My new blog header reflects this (kudos to my friend, Jennie).

So my blog won’t particularly have an ongoing theme, except being the exploits of a student journalist. I hope that you enjoy! 

My tips for student online journalists

Here is my first attempt at a videocast… I’m not sure how happy I am with how it turned out but I get the message across clearly which is why i am including it in my blog.

Feedback on how to improve next time is much appreciated! And please don’t laugh at the clowns and Homer Simpson in the background – it was either that or the cheesy posters in my room…

Back from Safari!

Phwoar – I’m just cooling off at the moment from a fantastic day at the West Midlands Safari Park. We couldn’t have asked for nicer weather! Thankfully I remembered sun cream.

It’s been years since I have been to a Safari Park and I had forgotten how fun it was and just how close you get to the animals. I didn’t realise that the elephants, lions etc. weren’t behind cages or a barbed wire! I can see why my parents weren’t approving of me riding around in their car – fortunately the mini buses provided get much closer to the animals!

I would like to point out my new best friend, who couldn’t get enough of me, or my food… We named him Jeremy:

Another highlight was the little scamp below in the Sealion show. Halfway through the show when he was rewarded with a fish, instead of sitting and waiting for his next trick, he decided to play with and tackle the fish in the water. Do you think he realised it was already dead?

Here are the rest of my pictures from the day; notice the White Lions, an endangered animal as it is thought that there are only seventy of them left in the world today. All in all, the trip was a really good experience and I would recommend it!

The issue with Safari Parks

On the West Midlands Safari Park website they proudly state their events and achievements that shows how they benefit the environment – World Environment Weekend, World Oceans Weekend, awards for good work by staff.

But as an environmental journalist I’ve learnt to spot greenwash from a mile off.

It’s not that I don’t believe that they do good work concerning animal conservation and research. Many animals featured at the West Midlands Safari Park are endangered, such as Przewalski’s Horse is the only true species of wild horse alive today and does not exist in the wild any more. They also benefit the community by educating visitors, especially young children, about wildlife. 

I am questioning the four-mile drive through safari and wondering if it is the right choice for the park to make – some people have suggested that it should have been made a walk through observation of the animals. Of course this would just make it a larger and more tiring zoo with, in all likelihood, less profits.

Thinking about how many cars must travel that unnecessary four miles a day, a month or a year is worrying – do the Safari Park not think about their carbon footprint? The park does offer guided bus tours, but only a limited amount. I was told that on the day that I am visiting the park, there will be three guided tours and that it is even less in non peak times.

Say that the average car holds three or four passengers. If a mini bus can hold twelve passengers, then making it the mandatory option will cut the cost of their carbon emissions by three quarters. The bus could be specifically designed as well so that everyone can have a good view, be able to feed the animals and the windows can be rolled up and down when instructed.

I’m wondering however if this is taking some of the fun out of the Safari – do people go there for the experience of nearly mowing down giraffes in their own car?

Let me know what you think of my idea!