Meeting 12

This week their was variation in my meeting structure. The time and location was the same but this week my meeting took place with reporter Alex Colman.

This week I pitched two ideas:

 1. A and E over use- The NHS recently announced that unnecessary visits to the A and E department was taking away funding which for more important medical matters like transplant operation. Alex mentioned he had covered it (http://thelincolnite.co.uk/2012/02/one-in-10-ae-patients-could-go-elsewhere/) and so worked out a different angle. The angle we decided on was contact the NHS press office and devise a set of questions to find out where patients would be better off going. We decided to keep this story in the 'pipe line' and not set an immediate deadline for it because of the less vital nature of the story.

2. Lincoln Ladies- A majority of the community has become dis-interested in the male football team Lincoln City due their lukewarm performances. I pitched the idea that we do a profile story in which look at the success of the team and the difference of lifestyles between male and female players. This could be unique selling point of the Lincolnite since most of the local news outlets sport output focuses heavily Lincoln city. I plan to talk to the teams press officer and arrange interviews with players and obtain photos of a training session.

 This week I'm going to look at diary stories. Though they can be considered predictable and maybe not a strong USP they're are still important to the readership. For example the story of the A46 being re-surfaced would have been common knowledge for a while but still is important because it affects the readership as it's in their geographical area (http://thelincolnite.co.uk/2012/02/a46-from-lincoln-to-newark-to-be-resurfaced/).

Some material like embargoed stories can be a useful to 'stock pile' as they can be seen as useful in a slow news day when few stories are about. For example the Olympics story (http://thelincolnite.co.uk/2011/05/olympic-flame-to-visit-lincoln/) which had been embargoed so it meant it could only released on a certain so in terms of output it's guaranteed story and it's also of interest to the readership because it's happening to them.

Chris Frost description of this kind of news gathering is 'Diary stories (or on-diary as they are sometimes known) are notified to the news desk from a number of external sources and are entered in the diary.' Their is also no fear of this form getting stale Chris Frosts says 'there are plenty of other routine events that entered in the diary year after year' but it would be advisable to use a variety of stories or output could become to similar to competitors. For example the Lincolnshire Echo covered the Olympic torch story (http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/Olympic-Torch-route-Lincolnshire-revealed/story-13775393-detail/story.html ) as well as The Lincolnite. Though they do not have any off diary stories happening in the streets like creative busker (http://thelincolnite.co.uk/2012/01/lincoln-busker-makes-his-own-quirky-instruments/ ).