WHU blog: 2012/13 mid-season review.

Getting promoted to the Premier League was as much of a relief as a joyous occasion for West Ham fans. Another season in the Championship would have done a lot of damage to the club, not just financially but to the squad as many of the players probably would have left. The players did a great job to beat Blackpool in the play-off final at Wembley, with Ricardo Vaz Te scoring the winning goal in the 87^th minute.

Pre-season didn’t go as well as the Irons would have hoped. Four defeats and two draws may have left fans worrying about the season ahead, but as the first few games were played it became clear that the fans should have no cause for concern unless something were to go drastically wrong. Only one loss in the first five games left West Ham 8^th in the Premier League, two places above their rivals Tottenham.

After the first 5 games, it was obvious that West Ham’s most important player was going to be Mohamed Diame. He bossed the midfield in every game, stopping the opposition’s attackers from threatening the goal as well as getting forward when needed.

Wins against QPR and Southampton pushed West Ham up to 7^th place and a home defeat to Arsenal sandwiched between those two wins did nothing to stop the players performing in the way they had been in the previous games. After the 4-1 win over Southampton, the Irons played poorly against Wigan and lost 2-1. An early goal from Ivan Ramis, (a player who may well have been at West Ham over the summer) scored after 8 minutes and West Ham never seemed to recover.

The next game was against the Premier League champions Manchester City. The expectations of West Ham fans were understandably quite low, but a good home record gave them some hope. They defended resolutely and were unlucky to see Kevin Nolan’s volley ruled offside. Manchester City were unable to break down the West Ham defence was the game ended 0-0, a very good result for West Ham indeed.

The next two games gave West Ham 4 points, an away win against Newcastle which was an unexpected result in many ways. A home draw against Stoke wasn’t the result the fans would have hoped for though. The Potters dominated the first half and scored after 13 minutes but couldn’t extend their lead. The second half belonged to West Ham and a rare goal from Joey O’Brien levelled the game, but his team were unable to go on and win the game.

Two defeats in a row against Spurs and Manchester United left West Ham in 10^th place, but they got up to 8^th win a superb win over Chelsea. Many must have thought it was going to be West Ham’s third defeat in a row when Juan Mata scored after 13 minutes, but Chelsea couldn’t extend their lead. A goal from Carlton Cole mid-way through the second half put West Ham the front foot. Mohamed Diame put West Ham 2-1 up with only 4 minutes remaining and Modibo Maiga got the winner in the 93^rd minute. It was the best game of West Ham’s season up until then and will probably end up being the best win of their season.

Since then, things haven’t gone quite as well for the Irons. They probably should have got something out of the game against Liverpool, but it was pretty much lost when Diame went off with an injury. The next match saw West Ham drawing 0-0 with West Brom, a good result for the Irons and a deserved point in the end.

West Ham suffered two defeats in a row in their next two games, a 2-1 home loss to Everton was especially worse as Carlton Cole was sent off and the circumstances surrounding it arguably led to the game ending in defeat for the home side. Losing away to Reading didn’t come as a surprise as Reading were just starting to find their feet in the Premier League and needed to win that game. In the end I think they wanted it more than West Ham.

It hasn’t been a bad season at all for the Irons - 6 wins, 5 draws and 8 defeats after playing 19 games is pretty good for a team fresh from the Championship. Games against Sunderland and Norwich stand out as games they should have got more out of, but a win against Chelsea and draw against Manchester City go some way to making up for those draws. If things go as they have been so far this season, West Ham should finish mid table. They won’t be challenging for a place in Europe but won’t be sucked into the relegation battle.

WINOL critical review – Semester 1.

WINOL has been a success overall. The website has greatly improved since the first few weeks and has a professional looking layout, this is mainly due to the change from Joomla to Wordpress. News bulletins have been good in terms of the news agenda each week and the running order for each bulletin. In the first few weeks the order was a lot of packages one after the other, but the editors decided to have a ‘coming up’ piece after a couple of packages to keep viewers watching. Another feature introduced into the bulletins that worked well at keeping viewer’s attention was an OOV belt after a few of the packages.

The production team has been particularly impressive. As I have been operating the studio cameras for the bulletins over the course of this semester and also operated the autocue for the last bulletin, this has meant that I have had an idea of how stressful it can be to work on production. Everyone on the team has done their jobs well and stayed professional throughout each bulletin.

Other parts of WINOL I have been impressed with are sport and features. Football highlights packages have been put together well and sports news stories/features have been interesting. Sportsweek has been slightly disappointing in that it is usually 4 packages played one after the other wiht links in between each one, maybe next semster a Football League Show style programme could replace this format. Features work has got better over the course of the semester, including the two confessional interviews with Hitler’s ex-neighbour and Paul Blackburn and the work done by the fashion magazine team.

The WINOL website’s Alexa rank was 10,424 in the UK on Monday 10^th December and was around 35,000 in the UK at the end of September, this is a huge improvement in just 3 months and the work from news, sport and features have made sure our ranking has steadily improved.

Although we identified a competitor for the website in ‘East London Lines’, it is a shame that we didn’t have competition from other student journalists for the news bulletin, but some packages produced were up to local news bulletin standard.

WINOL did 3 big projects this semester, BJTC awards, HPCC debate and American Election special, even though I wasn’t involved in the BJTC awards, I thought the finished VT was great.

I was involved in the WINOL’s coverage of the American election. There was a bit of confusion in terms of the organisation of the coverage at the start of the semester, but we decided to broadcast a 2 hour programme from 9am to 11am (UK time) on Wednesday 7^th November to build up to the result of the election. Due to the election results being announced earlier than we expected, scripts had to be re-worked and everyone appearing on screen had to change almost everything they were going to say. That included me as I was the ‘newsroom expert’ as part of this I provided half hourly updates on the information that was coming in. My task was made a lot more difficult because the election was pretty much over. I was quite nervous the first couple of times I was on screen, but it was the first time I had appeared on screen live and I only had cue cards to guide me to what I was going to say. I was praised by Ian Anderson (a previous editor of BBC News at 10) for the work I did as newsroom expert, something I feel proud for. My only criticism of the 2 hour programme would be that it was decided that another journalism student would take my place for my role as newsroom expert, even though I was supposed to be doing the whole 2 hours.

Even though I had no role during the HPCC debate, the whole thing felt like a professionally run event, rather than a student project.

There were a few things that probably could have been done better on WINOL. At the start of the semester I felt there was a lack of leadership from the editors, but I think that someone ‘stamping their authority’ would have been detrimental to the quality of the work done. I also think that they were ‘bedding in’ to their roles, which we all were in the first weeks.

Another criticism I have is that there were a couple of packages that should have been spiked - including mine from 28^th November. We had Geoff Hill coming in as a guest editor that week and so that the bulletin was a good as it could have been, my package probably shouldn’t have been in the bulletin.

In terms of the work I did as a news reporter, some of it was good, but there was room for improvement in most of my packages. I think the camerawork in many of my packages was good. A few examples of this come from the Totton car park package I produced on 31st October, both interviews were framed well as I had one councillor in the left third and the other in the right third. Another package where I composed interview shots well was my package from 28^th November. One package where I was disappointed with shot composition was my first package from 10^th October. One interview was framed well but the camera was on a tilt and the other interview was framed badly and the councillor filled almost all of the shot.

Although most of my filming was to a good standard, one exception being my package from 24^th October. For other packages, I sometimes didn’t get enough shots. A prime example of this was the package I produced on 14^th November, it was only 52 seconds in length when it probably should have been 1 minute 10 seconds or even 1 minute 20 seconds, this was due to me not getting enough shots in Southampton. I only filmed the cutaway of Councillor Smith typing from one height and angle as well as not filming enough cutaways around the city. I probably should have interviewed the councillors in different places than I did as the lighting wasn’t great. One thing I was disappointed about that week was that I had agreed with the news editor to do an in- studio discussion about the story, but whilst I was coming back to the newsroom, I was told that the discussion was cancelled and I would have to produce a VT.

Another thing I did well whilst on WINOL was getting balance in my packages, this is especially important as a political reporter. One package where opposing views were most present was from the Totton car park package, one councillor had the view that charging people to park in the car park was justified and the other disagreed with his viewpoint. I made sure I picked the best quotes from each interview to show this.

One VT where I had balance but only had one interview was from 17^th October. The balance came from a statement sent to me by the leader of Southampton City Council. I think that if I had got another interview, my package would have got into the bulletin. My final news package for WINOL probably had too much Tory bias, but my second interview had to be done quickly as the councillor was in a rush.

In the first few weeks of WINOL, I had couple of technical problems. The biggest of which was from my package from 24^th October, this issue was the main cause for the package not getting into the bulletin. The camera I was using shows whatever you are shooting in the entire screen if you set it to 4:3 view, which made me think that the shot would be OK for TV. The camera should have been in 16:9 view as this is the aspect ratio that was chosen to be used in the bulletin in the second week onwards. Apart from that, I got two interviews that gave the story balance and got some relevant shots.

Probably the worst day I had on WINOL was 21^st November. I had planned to up to London to cover the student protests and to send back footage to be used in the bulletin. Once we had filmed everything we had to film, we set about importing, editing and uploading the footage. Importing and editing was easy as we knew what we had filmed was good and what we wanted to upload to Youtube. We were unable to upload the footage that we wanted to upload as the internet connection at the station wasn’t good.

We made a few mistakes that led to us being unable to send back any footage. We should have got at least 10 seconds of footage to the newsroom, but we weren’t told to get back that amount of footage by anyone in charge and I felt that were encouraged to send back as much as possible. We probably should have recorded my PTC at Embankment, not Westminister as this would have saved us at least half an hour, which would have been precious time for editing and uploading some footage. The final mistake we made was that we didn’t do a proper test of the time it would take for us to upload videos to Youtube on a slow internet connection, but we wouldn’t have been able to fully replicate the connection speed we had at Waterloo station. I learned from criticisms we were given and if I get the opportunity to an OB again, I will know what to do if I can’t upload the amount of footage I want.

The final week with a proper bulletin didn’t take its usual course for me. First off, I filmed the Winchester City football match on Saturday 1^st December for a fellow student as he was unable to do it.

I had planned a news story for the bulletin, but on the Monday morning it became clear that due to not being able to get interviews, I probably couldn’t have done the package. I wasn’t left without anything to do in this week as the sport editor decided that I would be making two packages of the match I had filmed - a ‘fat minute’ for the news bulletin and an extended highlights package for the Sportsweek programme. A couple of things I learned about making football highlights packages just from this week was to watch the ‘raw footage’ before editing and to write down the clip numbers when a goal is scored or an incident occurs. I also learned a few things after talking to Angus Scott. I think my voiceover on the package was good as I didn’t describe the action or talk over the footage too much. I also made sure I put into practice the advice other sports reporters had been given in previous weeks by Angus Scott.

My performance as a news reporter could have been better and I was disappointed at how inconsistent I was in terms of the packages I made e.g my first package was good for a first effort but I was unable to keep the momentum from that going into the next package. Although I did have two good weeks in a row when I produced the Totton car park package on 31^st October and then featured on our coverage of the American Election special on 7^th November. My one week as a sports reporter went well, the footage was edited well, my voiceover was good and I got the package in on time.

 

 

'Euros for Europe' or Euros for the European 'club'?

UEFA's announcement that the European Championships will be held across the whole of the continent doesn't come as a surprise but it is certainly controversial.

There were rumours that UEFA were planning to have the Euros spread across Europe before the last championships but I for one didn't believe a word and just dismissed the rumour as that - a rumour. Although a few weeks ago, Michel Platini said that he liked the idea of having the European Championships in a number of different countries in Europe. This is when it dawned on me that UEFA were deadly serious about this and now they've made an official announcement on it, there's a huge chance that Euro 2020 will be held in several countries.

I can see the benefits of such a system though. The FA can hold part of a major football competition in this country without having to splash out on a bidding campaign when the money could be spent on grass roots football so that the national side has a good future. With money tight across Europe, the cost of the competition can be spread across the continent and countries who might not be able to afford to host the competition on its own can now have a slice of the pie.

Here is where I see problems occurring, there have been rumours circulating for years that UEFA (as well as FIFA) favour certain countries and 'don't like' others. Whether this is the case or not, UEFA will have a mammoth task on their hands when explaining to football associations that have bid to host Euro 2012 why they chose another country over them. One of these countries could well be England. I have a sneaking suspicion that if England is chosen as one of the hosts of Euro 2020, it could the last major tournament in this country for a long time.

FIFA and UEFA seem to have a policy of not choosing countries to host a tournament for a certain number of years after they've hosted or even bidded for one, this might not be an official policy but it comes across that way. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if in a few years time, football pundits in this country are discussing why England wasn't chosen to be a host of Euro 2020, although we have some of the best stadiums in the world as well as the obvious advantage of being able to host a major tournament whenever needed.

Winchester City vs Merthyr Town 1/1/12 highlights package

Highlights of Winchester City's game against Merthyr town.

It was my first sports package for WINOL. This is the updated version, go to www.winol.co.uk to watch the other version on Sportsweek. I updated it after some feedback from sports journalist Angus Scott.

HCJ3: Freud (again).

These are the notes that I made for the seminar on Thursday.

In lectures that Freud gave between 1915 and 1917 he summed up psychoanalytic theory in two fundamental theses. The first is that the greater part of our mental life (includes feeling, thought and volition) is unconscious. The second is that sexual impulses are the motor of artistic and cultural creation.

If the sexual element of works of art and culture remain unconscious, this is because socialisation demands the sacrifice of basic instincts. These can be diverted towards socially acceptable activities, but unsatisfied instincts may 'take revenge' through mental illness.

The existence if the unconscious is apparent through everyday mistakes, reports of dreams and symptoms of neurosis. The exercise of free association in analysis reveals the underlying pattern of the unconscious mind. The pattern focuses on sexual development (identified Freud) First off is the oral stage - where pleasure is focused on the mouth, secondly the anal stage, thirdly the phallic stage - where the child focuses on his penis. At this time, the boy is sexually attracted to his mother and resents his dad's possession of her, but the boy abandons his desires for his mother due to fear of retaliation from his dad, finally the child will identify himself with his dad, this is all known as the Oedipus complex which is a vital in any boy's life.

Although many philosophers and thinkers resent Freud's ideas and theories, it is undeniable the impact that the ideas they've had on society in relation to our sexual mores, understanding of mental illness and appreciation of art and books e.g. historians writing books on historical figures and analysing their actions based on the person's childhood experiences.

Freud believed that a slip of the tongue (failure to recall names) are not accidental as first thought and our 'errors' have hidden meanings. Freud uses an example from a lecture given by a Viennese professor who said "I have every intention of..." instead of "I have no intention of..." which was written on his script. A similar incident that I remember well was when the then Newcastle United manager Joe Kinnear said when talking about a player Charles N'Zogbia: "insomnia" instead of N'Zogbia. According to Freud, these slips uncover opinions we don't wish to express but say unconsciously.

Freud related sex to dreams e.g. seeing an umbrella in dream represents a penis and handbags relate to female genitalia. He said that dreams are actually repressed wishes and nightmares are the opposite. He also said that someone dreams certain things differently to someone else.

WHU blog: Best match of the season?

Yesterday's victory for West Ham against Chelsea summed up everything that West Ham are about this season - power, pace and physical and mental strength.

Chelsea dominated the first half and probably should have scored 2 or 3 more than the 1 goal Juan Mata scored on 13 minutes and West Ham's only concrete chance came when Kevin Nolan put the ball into the net with an overhead kick, but it was disallowed when James Collins was penalised - harshly in my opinion. Something dramatically changed in the 2nd half for both teams, Sam Allardyce brought on Matt Taylor for Gary O'Neil and Mohamed Diame came on for James Tomkins. Two great decisions from Big Sam as both players changed the game, Diame gave the team more of an attacking threat but was able to come back and defend when needed. Although they're both 'box to box' midfielders, Matt Taylor seems to be more purposeful than Gary O'Neil. Playing O'Neil can sometimes create the danger of having no one on the right hand side as O'Neil tends to drift infield to become a central midfielder.

Diame added an extra dimension to the Hammers' play. He acted as a wingman for Kevin Nolan and both of them caused the Chelsea defence havoc, although Nolan didn't play as well as he has done before this season - possibly a cause of Andy Carroll's absence. The addition of Diame also allowed Mark Noble to stay back as a lone defensive midfielder, but knew that he had Diame to back him up when Chelsea went forward. Diame is also a goal threat, with his powerful left foot proving a menace for Petr Cech yesterday.

An unexpected hero from the match was Carlton Cole. Players tend to do well against their former clubs and Cole certainly did that against Chelsea, he scored one and provided the assist for Diame to score the team's second. He was named man of the match by Sky Sports and I can't disagree with that, it was probably one of his best games for West Ham ever. He'll have to reproduce the kind of performance he showed yesterday for the next 6 to 8 weeks as Andy Carroll is out with a knee injury, but Modibo Maiga will be itching to play as well. Competition for places is always a good thing at football team, but loaning out youngster Rob Hall to Birmingham could backfire if Cole or Maiga get injured in the next few weeks as Vaz Te is out of action as well.

It was probably West Ham's best game of the season, beating the Champions of Europe after coming back from 1-0 down was fantastic, especially as the performance was good as well. The only bad thing about the game for West Ham was that they didn't play that well in the first half. After Chelsea scored, they were allowed to dominate for most of the first half by West Ham. This sort of thing has happened before this season for West Ham. A prime example was against Stoke a few weeks ago, Stoke dominated the first half and scored, but West Ham played well in the second half and got a draw. It was a game the Hammers probably should have won given the amount of chances they had.

TB 2012.