Live Rolling Review

It has been just over a week since Group B’s first live rolling news day and, after receiving feedback, I have been able to reflect on the build up to and the day as a whole. Our editor Morag Hobbs was assisted by Andy Mackie and myself, who took on the role as sub-editor, with Chris Melvin accepting the job as picture editor. With the roles decided, we set about preparing for our news day.

The team had met the day before the conference with ideas and plans. Here we were able to decide what would be classed as newsworthy and what would not. Having achieved this in the morning, the team were able to investigate and develop stories over the next 24 hours. We were also available to send Ollie and Graeme to visit Parliament the next day. We had a rough idea of the agenda laid out and ready to finalise in the morning.

On the day everyone arrived early and were rearing to go. Stories which had developed overnight had replaced older content on the agenda and, with Luke and Sean watching the wires and Twitter, we had a story published as it was developing; The Scottish Terror Alert. This was rewarding for the team and we received information at the same time as other news organisations. I feel that the range of stories we provided targeted our age group of around 25 – 35 by covering stories such as the recessions’ affect on local tourism, terrorism, new Scottish laws, the church, a survey and sports.

I feel that we all pulled well together as a team as we met prior to the day to arrange stories and pitch ideas in order to be ahead of the game. As sub-editor I felt I achieved my role by helping colleagues arrange their articles and helping them to articulate their points better. However, I felt the pressure towards the end as most were submitting their work at once, which is an issue we should work on when it comes to meeting the 2pm deadline next time. I also feel the team, including myself, did not come with enough pictures to match their stories and this should be addressed. However, the original story ideas, ability to develop them further and obtain interviews really made the day a success and I look forward to the next one to see how we have improved and evolved as a unit.