assignment

The recession is looming throughout the world. Federal Reserves, liquidation, bailouts, rates, economic stimulus plans, etc. - all rarely used terms, until less than a year ago. With all this increased tension between the banks, taxpayers and the government, bad gets highlighted and good gets forgotten.

Centre for Journalism investigates, how is it for a small business and how is a business - the Bike Warehouse - on Gillingham High Street holding up to the economic downturn.

Gillingham high street is filled with independent businesses which base their turnover on selling fresh produce. However, the strength of supermarkets is crsuhing the trade of businesses such as bakeries, butchers and greengrocers. These small traders are unable to compete with the heavyweights and cannot match their ever decreasing prices.

The briefing for the online assignment is now published here. The deadline is 1pm, Thursday 9 April.

Please do come and talk to me about the story you plan to do, and I'll be happy to give you some guidance. We'll run through the Vuvox technicalities on  Thursday next week.

For those of you who missed today's lecture, the assignment briefing for your next piece of assessed coursework is now on the site. Check the convergent journalism section of module notes. If there's anything you're not sure about, then do ask. The deadline is 12noon on Thursday 18 December.

If anyone needs a beach-box to interview people/vox-pop or whatever then give me a ring (07533636424) as I don't think there are any left on campus and I doubt we'll have access to Richard's office over the weekend, anyway.

I had such a moment of panic walking home with my camera today, when I thought 'did I press record at the start of that conversation'? When Jaak and I were Vox Popping in the first couple of weeks we lost a whole interview cuz we hadn't pressed record, luckily I had today.

I just thought I'd say to everyone: take your time when you're setting up for your interviews, because one little mistake like that could lose you so much work.

Good luck everybody! (sorry I didn't come for fireworks tonight, I had to do that summary for Ken. Last minute as ever...)

For all of you working on your video news package assignment, I thought it might be worth giving you some guidance on where you need to be in the process. By the start of the teaching session on Monday you ideally should have nailed your interviews and know what your story is. Finding the focus of your story is the key now. There won't be a lot of point in spending time getting GVs until you've done this - they can always be added later. If you haven't got that focus yet, come and see me or Richard and we'll be happy to give some guidance on where to look and who to call.