The document summarizes the author's experience producing multimedia news content as part of a simulated professional news production project over 6 weeks. Some key findings include: 1) The team worked collaboratively, sharing story ideas and content across different media outlets. This converged content approach allowed more efficient use of resources. 2) Social media was heavily utilized to promote stories, share content live, and develop relationships with audiences. However, some "soft news" stories were prioritized for their social sharing potential over news integrity. 3) Arts and culture stories required extra research but the author found reporting in this area valuable experience. However, these stories were sometimes regarded as "soft news" despite being legitimate stories. 4

1. Live News Production: Individual Project Report.
Within this report I will aim to analyse the editorial, organisational and creative
challenges of producing multimedia news in a (simulated) professional
environment. I will consider the difficulties of working on my own and within a
team during the six weeks, and how this compares to a real life situation drawing
on comparisons from similar news outlets.
Collaborative News Gathering; ‘Converged Content’
What I found on the first day was that everyone was very prepared to help each
other. The editors for the week had started a Google Doc; where the whole team
could add ideas. The first hour of the Thursday was spent researching and
adding story ideas to the Google Doc, there were sections for TV, Radio and
Online. This meant that even if a story found was not ideal for your given outlet
that week, the story could still be used by another outlet.. It was a process that
we used every week, as it proved so successful. The Google Doc was even made
live before the actual News Days in order to allow any developing ideas to be
shared ahead of time.
Technological developments like this, along with how storytelling has
fundamentally changed in the digital age, have led to newsrooms developing
multimedia staffs and universities adapting their teachings to include
convergence training (Bulla, 2002; Hammond, Petersen, & Thomsen, 2000). The
aim is to produce ‘converged content’, allowing journalists to create news
content across multiple platforms at an increased rate than before. Dailey, Demo
and Spillman (2005, p.158) explain how a ‘one-does-all’ attitude is becoming

2. synonymous to multimedia journalism. They even go as far to say that students
who are trained to provide information for print, audio, video, and online media,
and have skills that span across several media are more valued that students
who specialise. Below I will expand on how we used this convergence in practice.
On the Thursday we were made aware of a panel taking place that night about
the Future of the BBC, I was tasked with reporting on it along with Amy
Gallimore and Chad Newton (who were with TV). I contacted the NUJ, who then
put me in touch with Adam Christie, NUJ President who was organizing the
panel. I arranged to attend the panel and film it. Although a small
accomplishment, being able to communicate with people in a professional yet
amicable way is vital. Especially when as a student journalist people can often be
quick to disregard you.
The panel took place at The Playhouse at 7pm. This meant that as the News Day
officially ended at 5pm, Amy, Chad and myself would be working overtime as
they say. Although this is something that takes place in real-life situations;
reporters and journalists don’t not report news because it happens after they’ve
clocked out. Interestingly we were the only news outlet there, which I was
surprised by, as the panel was directly about the BBC and regional broadcasting.
We filmed most of the panel and then interviewed one of the speakers and Adam
Christie. This was used for a TV package and for clips for radio.
Using one set of footage for more than one outlet became common practice, as it
utilised manpower and time.

3. News Sharing in Social Media
Amy and I also live-tweeted whilst at the panel and sent information over to the
online team for use the next day. By keeping the whole team involved it made
everything run smoothly, this again became common practice. If responsible for
a story, you were also then responsible for sharing relevant content on the News
Days twitter, or providing the online team with the necessary information to do
so. Pavlik (2001) has noted how it is becoming commonplace for journalists to
take portable computer-based workstations in to the field to allow instantaneous
content to be shared. We used our phones to take photos, short videos and live-
tweet relevant quotes or links. The app Periscope was also utilised, the app
allows users to live stream video straight on to social media websites. Much like
a live news broadcast, but the footage is also then saved on to the social media
account. We used this for sharing stories, but also for allowing a ‘sneak peak’ in
to the behind the scenes of our News Days.
Hermida, Fletcher, Korell and Logan (2012, p.815) comment how individual
journalists have long incorporated social media into their daily routines as a way
of sharing content and developing relationships. It was with the first blogs that
the social online community was built. They suggest that current mainstream
media involvement is a direct response to this, aligning themselves with digital
consumer habits and encouraging their journalists to do so with aims to both
promote content and foster brand loyalty. Each of us on the news days had
access to the twitter account and could use it to promote content and reach out
to audiences and contributors. It allowed us to have a collective voice, helping to
legitimise us as a genuine news outlet.

4. What I also noticed especially when on the online team was that some stories
were short and relatively ‘un-newsworthy’ but were likely to be shared, stories
about animals with jobs, or animals that had eaten strange things, or bizarre
stories from around the world. Although they had little worth they were still
given space or airtime. Olmstead et al. suggest that ‘‘understanding not only what
content users will want to consume but also what content they are likely to pass
along may be a key to how stories are put together and even what stories get
covered in the first place’’ (2011, p. 1).
I found this to be true to an extent. It added an extra level of discussion to a story,
not only did we have to think about the audio and visuals but also how it would
present online and on social media. By the end of the six weeks it was trained
into us to be constantly updating the twitter. I remember distinctly a story I put
forward about the ‘resident mouser’ cat at Huddersfield train station being
chosen purely because we knew our target audience would like and/or share it.
The story had little news integrity, but was still given as much attention as a
harder story would have. This reflects what I experienced at Pulse radio station
when I did a placement. Much of the copy I wrote was soft news, written in the
aim to get people to like and share it. Harder news articles were also written
with headlines what eluded to something shocking, or made a reader want to
click on it.
This made me question whether online multimedia journalism and social media
interaction is having an effect on the ethicality and substance of content
published. It has been argued that this is the case, but then I looked at the other
content we created and found that the majority was hard and substantial news

5. pieces. Tandoc explains that journalists are starting to understand that drawing
traffic to news sites is becoming more and more crucial, in a news environment
where readership and brand loyalty is declining (2014, p.2). I looked at other
news outlets such as BBC Look North and ITV Calendar and found they use
similar tactics. One notable occasion was a package on Look North about a baby
pygmy goat; more than 28m people in 42 countries viewed the online video after
it was shared on social media. This also shared Look North’s other online content
with people who were likely to have never seen it before. Obviously our News
Days output was not on this scale, but if we were a legitimate news outlet viral
stories like that are a huge success for the promotion of sites and brands.
Finding Legitimate Sources
It was surprisingly easy to find stories that were legitimately sound and from
reliable sources. This came from a combination of press releases, Burli updates
and research on social media and websites. The press releases and Burli updates
were usually the stories that made good copy or short links for online and radio.
It was through social media and online research that most of the feature pieces
were developed. Despite the unreliable nature of social media, it was relatively
easy to check for other information elsewhere online, or reach out to the
publisher for further comment. A large number of contributors were also
contacted through social media, allowing for an interactive news gathering
experience.
Local and independent websites also proved very useful, websites such as Leeds
List or Visit Leeds were surprisingly fruitful. It was often by just looking at

6. events happening in the next few days that stories were found, especially in the
arts and culture sector.
Reporting on ‘the Arts’
A large proportion of what I reported on over the six weeks were arts and
culture based stories. This is because it’s an area of journalism I would like to go
in to in the future, and thought news days would be the best opportunity to put
my skills in to practice. Arts journalism has a “distinctive professional and
cultural role”, and whilst it shares a lot of practical aspects with other news
workers their work is “intrinsically linked to the project of improving ‘public
appreciation of the arts’” (Harries and Wahl-Jorgensen, 2007, p.620). Harries and
Wahl-Jorgensen also note that there is a disconnect with how arts journalists
identify themselves, often describing themselves as writers or critics; that whilst
they must possess the qualities of a conventional journalist, they must have
further knowledge and show a passion for the subject.
I found that reporting on some of the stories was time consuming, as in order to
competently report on them there was a lot of background reading. For example
for one of my online news weeks I interviewed Alan Benstock who is a
spokesperson for Milim, a jewish literary group based in Leeds. Milim were
organising a Jewish literary festival and had just had their opening night. I knew
very little about jewish literature, and nothing about the organisation or the
events they had planned. So I had to quickly read up on it, had I not the interview
would have been very stunted. What I found with arts and culture stories is that

7. usually the contributors are very passionate about their chosen subject, and if
you don’t share at least part of that passion or interest they can easily tell.
What I also found was that the language I used for arts and culture stories was
very different to that of conventional news stories. The arts lends itself to more
descriptive and emotive language, especially when it came to radio pieces or
times when visuals were limited; it’s hard to describe a piece of art. It was also
difficult to stay objective and none bias, as though they were feature pieces they
did not warrant my opinion.
There is also debate over the position of arts journalism in the news hierarchy. I
sometimes found that when proposing some stories they were shown little
interest until I pushed harder, with the more traditional news stories being given
more attention. It felt as if they were classed as ‘soft news’, even though they
were legitimate news stories. One occasion of this was in the final week of TV
when Becca Cawthorne and myself went to film the opening of an Art Hostel in
Leeds city centre. The hostel was being opened by a well-known Leeds art
collective and was the first social enterprise hostel of it’s kind in the UK. But it
felt like it was only acknowledge as it was a slow news day and the piece would
make for good visuals. Harries and Wahl-Jorgensen interviewed arts journalists
in the UK and found that when questioned about the importance of their practice
they were quick to defend, suggesting they regularly face such criticism (2007,
p.627). But the arts sector represents over 5% of the British economy valued at
over 76 billion pounds with a sizeable turnover, it was frustrating to see it’s
legitimacy undermined.

8. Conclusion
Before the Live News Production module started I was excited to experience
what it is like working in a professional environment; and I was right to be. The
whole experience was a positive one. Not only did it provide me with the skills to
produce useable news content, but also how to do so within strict time
constraints. Throughout the six weeks, the team and myself improved
dramatically on how we were able to handle a ‘live’ situation. There was often
very little that separated what we were doing to what they will have been at
Made In Leeds or Look North.
Our ability to work together and communicate also improved, not only within
out own team but across the other outlets. There was a ‘hive’ mind set, but in a
good way, by the end it was almost second nature to forward your content to the
relevant team. There was a strong reinforcement of the aforementioned
‘converged content’, strong collaborative work but also emphasis on the
importance of being able to do it all yourself if you had to.
The news days have allowed me to explore areas of journalism that I previously
hadn’t been able to, it also put my practical skills to the test in a way that I’m sure
will in invaluable in the future. I know this isn’t an advert for the module (or an
attempt to gain favour), but I would hand on heart recommend it to any student.

9. Bibiliography
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-30422177
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for education. Paper pre- sented at the annual convention of the Association for
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Hammond, S. C., Petersen, D., & Thomsen, S. (2000). Print, broadcast and online
convergence in the newsroom. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator,
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Harries, G. and Wahl-Jorgensen, K., 2007. The culture of arts journalists Elitists,
saviors or manic depressives?. Journalism, 8(6), pp.619-639.
Hermida, A., Fletcher, F., Korell, D. and Logan, D., 2012. Share, like, recommend:
Decoding the social media news consumer. Journalism Studies, 13(5-6), pp.815-
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Lee, C.S. and Ma, L., 2012. News sharing in social media: The effect of
gratifications and prior experience. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(2), pp.331-
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OLMSTEAD, KENNY, MITCHELL, AMY and ROSENSTIEL, TOM (2011) ‘‘Navigating
News Online: here people go, how they get there and what lures them away’’,
Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, 9 May,
http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/ navigating_news_online, accessed
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Pavlik, J. (2001). Journalism and new media. New York: Columbia University
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Tandoc, E.C., 2014. Journalism is twerking? How web analytics is changing the
process of gatekeeping. New Media & Society, p.1461444814530541.