Channel 5 News

Today I was asked to review the Channel 5 bulletin. It was a solid bulletin in terms of content obviously covering Britain th floods were featured and one thing I noticed as being odd was an interview with a man out of his window. I suppose floods aren't an everyday occurence so you try and cover it anyway you can but it did strike me as being quite unusual. The other thing I hadn't really seen before was the back of the reporters head in shot? Didn't really bother me as such I just didn't really understand the need. Apart from these two issues I thought it was good sound and cutaways were good. The Presenting style was alot less formal than that of ITV or BBC but I put that down to house style and if i'm honest I did like the more relaxed informality of it.

R.I.P Sophie

Yesterday my dog Sophie was put down after 13 years of being the perfect pet. My nan tells me that when she went to visit the Puppies it was love at first sight and that Sophie picked my nan, this doesn't shock me as the bond they had was visible for anyone to see right until she passed. I can vaguely remember first seeing our Lhasa apso shih szu cross for the first time, a tiny white and brown bundle of fluff that couldn't contain her excitement as she licked and played in her new home. For me the experience was new as up until Sophie arrived on the scene I had only ever been allowed Goldfish and at a push a Guinea Pig, so naturally I grew very attached to her. One of my first memories of her was when we took part in a sponsored Dog walk for charity at this time she was a very lively puppy and I really struggled to keep her away from the swamps and Cow packs she was unusually fond of but we managed to finish the walk and I still have the framed certificate at home.

Sophie came at a very fortunate time for my nan as not long after she got Sophie my Grandad died, leaving the family devastated none more so than my Nan. Sophie showed all the qualities anyone could ask for in a dog; Loyalty, affection, love and obedience during my Nans time of need. People always say that Dogs are a mans best friend and I can't think of a better example than my Nan and Sophie, I will always be thankful for Sophie's help during this period as I honestly think that without her companionship my Nan would have really struggled to cope at this time. Shortly after the death of my Grandad my Nan moved in with us and of course Sophie was a part of that package. Me and my brother were both over the moon at having a dog as we'd always been shortchanged for pets in the past. Sophie's love for my Nan was so strong though that we could never take her for a walk as she couldn't bare to leave my Nan for that long.

In recent years my Nans health deteriated and it was odd how in tune Sophie was to this. Sophie grew very protective of my Nan not in a vicious way as she wouldn't hurt a fly but she would always try to keep her out of harms way, protecting her from boisterous dogs and such. I remember making fun of my Nan for the way she used to talk to Sophie and treat her like a person but in reality Sophie was always more than a pet to her, she was her best friend.

My fondest memories of Sophie will always be her running around like a headless chicken but if i could pick one in particular it was the time me and my mum took her for a walk after school. I was dressed in my school uniform and playing with her at Hilsea Lido a park that is renowned for its large lake that looks and smells like sewage. I was walking Sophie along the edge of the lake on a slippery winters evening, it was a pretty routine walk until the young Sophie slipped and fell into the lake. I panicked and without remembering that Dogs are strong swimmers jumped in to rescue her like a baywatch lifeguard. Needless to say my mum wasn't best pleased at us getting back into the car smelling like we'd just gone for a dip in a portaloo.

Sophie would have been the ideal pet for anyone but no more so than for my Nan its hard to describe the connection they had but it was powerful. She was treated like a Queen whilst she was alive and I hope this remains the case in death. Rest in peace Sophie you will always be missed but remembered for the loving, caring Dog that you were.

Joanna Yeates

Joanna Yeates was a 25 year old Landscape Architect from Hampshire who's body was found on Christmas day in 2010. Yeates was described as ambitious and had a bright carer to look forward to. She had been missing since the 17^th of November since a night out with friends so Police enquiries had already been opened before the body had been found. The case was heavily publicised by the media and prior to her body being found rewards of up to £60,000 were being offered for information on her whereabouts. The case is regarded as one of the largest to have ever taken place in the Bristol area and the story was omnipresent in news reports over the Christmas period.

The police originally arrested Christopher Jefferies a former teacher and also Yeates' landlord at the time. Jefferies lived in the same building as Yeates and the editor of The Mirror Richard Wallace claims the police were 'confident' they had found their man. However what followed from the press meant that the whole coverage of ongoing cases by the press had to be re-evaluated. Christopher Jefferies was morphed into an evil villain by the newspapers as they wrote some seriously defamatory statements about him in an attempt to portray him as the murderer. The news coverage was not only severely defamatory and a libel nightmare but also in complete contempt of court.

It is believed that the Police in the surrounding Avon and Somerset area had been in close contact with Journalists and were feeding them confidential information that was damaging to the case. Contempt of court is defined as 'An act of deliberate disobedience or disregard for the laws, regulations, or decorum of a public authority, such as a court or legislative body.' The sun and The Mirror were both found guilty of publishing documents that could influence the outcome of the trial and charged with contempt of court. Chris Jefferies also received compensation from 8 newspapers for damages to him including The Sun and The Mirror. Mr Jefferies was also asked to give evidence for the Leverson enquiry which intended to investigate the controversial and often unethical methods used by British Journalists. Jefferies claimed that after his arrest he was harassed by several Newspapers hunting for stories to run that would bastardise his name even further.

The Police later found out the Murderer was in fact Vincent Tabak a Dutch Engineer and a neighbour of Yeates. Tabak was convicted of murder on the 28^th October 2011 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The case proved to be another big public relations nighmare for the press who had just had to take accountabilty for the Phone hacking scandal which had already critically damaged the reputation of Journalists and the profession in general. A bill was proposed that a Journalist who mentioned an uncharged suspect would receive a 6 month charge but has yet to be passed. However the whole media coverage of the event was a disgrace not only to Chris Jefferies who avoided returning home for three months due to embarrassment but also to Yeates' family who not only had the death of their daughter to deal with but also misleading and tactless news coverage.

Rousseau 'The Social Contract'

The social contract is an idea suggested by Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) vastly regarded as the founder of the Romantic movement. Rousseau was born into a transitional period of time 'the enlightenment' a time when the scientific method was prevalent. However Rousseau's opinions on the enlightenment became known when he responded to an essay writing competition on 'Whether the enlightenment had helped morality' and claimed that it had in fact caused the corrosion of morality amongst men. Rousseau's opinions didn't sit too well with other prominent philosophers of his day e.g Voltaire but nonetheless he won the competition and received wide spread fame off the back of his victory.

Rousseau believes that mankind is at its most noble when in its most natural state, he used the idea of the noble savage to personify his thoughts. A man who lived in uncivilised lands and lived off the land. One must remember that he was writing this at a time when European countries where competing with one another by conquering new lands to expand their empires, so it is likely Rousseau is criticising the government for this policy. Rousseau said that society corrupts humans and likened the effects of the state on humans to a statue eroding overtime to the point where it can no longer be recognized as human. These thoughts were published in Rousseau's Discourse on equality a book which his contemporary Voltaire labelled 'a book against the human race'.

Nonetheless the focus of this blog is on Rousseau's Social Contract an idea that has been credited as the basis of the French Revolution which through no coincidence started ten years after Rousseau's death. Throughout his life Rousseau openly spoke of his disdain for society and the effects the state had on mankind. He believed that people were imprisoned by the laws of the state and had the right to live their life freely, this view is epitomised by his line 'Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains'. Rousseau attacked other philosophers such as Locke. Locke believed every man should be able to protect their property whereas Rousseau believed that the first person who claimed land as there own triggered the decline of mankind. 'The first man who, having fenced a piece of land, said 'This is mine' and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. He said that wealth made people unhappy and claimed Europe was the most unhappy continent as it had the most wealth as the inhabitants had surrendered their freedom to live in such a way. Rousseau's ideas are believed to be based around the Ancient Greek poleis with particularly likeness to that of Sparta an agricultural State where the Spartiates lived off the land. This may have been appealing to Rousseau as the Spartans represented the 'natural man' character he was promoting. The people would govern themselves by a utilitarian vote making up the 'Sovereign' he mentions but other than this each person alienates themselves from the rest so therefore everyone only looks after their own interests unless something compromises the 'General will'. The general will can be best understood as a set of rules that everyone must follow to live in harmony if someone refuses to follow the will then they will be forced 'forced to be free'. Rousseau's doctrine of the general will is particularly tricky to understand as he opposes laws and the state but he believes every man has a set of interests familiar and common to all and these interests make up the general will.

Rousseau stated that his aim for writing The social contract was to see if there was a place for legitimate authority. He writes that in order for mankind to revert to a more natural state they must each agree to a contract which essentially would create a democratic state and denounced the birth right of kings and other legitimate authority figures. Rousseau's social contract meant that he had to flee and spent many years living with Hume in London. His thoughts have been credited for starting the French Revolution as well as having a profound influence on Hitler and other pseudo-democratic dictatorships but regardless he was a very interesting man.

Seminar paper notes on Hume

David Hume was born in 1711 in Scotland and is regarded as one of the most important philosophers as well as being considered one of the key figures in the founding of the enlightenment period. Hume's greatest work was the 'Treatise of Human Nature' which due to its sceptical nature wasn't received as he had expected and he himself admitted 'it fell dead born from the press'. After this knock he took time out of the profession to write essays and after an unsuccessful attempt at a professorship he re-released his book this time slightly dulled down and called it the 'inquiry into human understanding' this version was more successful. In his lifetime his other works of note include the 'essay on miracles' which concludes that there can be no evidence to support such an event ever having taken place and finally the 'History of England' which devotes itself to showing how The Scottish are superior to the English. Thomas Jefferson was not a fan of this book and labelled it as 'poison' as it also promoted toryness and even banned it from the libraries of the University of Virginia.

Hume's Treatise is separated into three books;

• The Understanding
• The passions
• The Morals

The Understanding section has a large focus on the differentiation between impressions and idea's. Hume goes on to say that all of our simple ideas are derived from simple impressions which resemble the resulting idea. Yet complexed ideas aren't formed by complexed impressions but in fact can be formed by our imaginations. Hume uses the image of a winged horse, although we have never seen such a spectacle we can still picture one using our imaginations

Hume's general approach to philosophy is regarded as radical empiricism and he is regarded of one of the founders of the empiricist views that swept through Britain in the 17^th century. Hume is often likened to Hobbes, Locke and Berkely as they are fellow empiricists. Hume's rational approach to thinking however annoying to read is difficult to dispute as he argues his points very well.

Hume's ideas on causation are particularly difficult to get your head around as he is defying common beliefs of what we feel should happen. 'You cannot derive an ought from an is' is the leading line of this theory meaning that just because something should happen doesn't mean that it will. An example of this could be when playing Pool just because you hit the white ball into the black the fact that the black then moves is not necessarily down to the fact that it was struck by the white as Hume believed things could be probable but nothing is definite.

Another of Hume's important theories is labelled the 'Fork' this term is used to distinguish between relations of ideas and matters of fact. Hume believes that are actions are either predetermined or our caused by random events therefore we can't be held accountable form them. The only thing Hume said was totally factual were the rules of geometry.

Journalism Research Project

How does it Mirror The Sun?

The Mirror conforms to the staple requirements of a tabloid newspaper by making sure it contains a large showbiz section that focuses on celebrity gossip. As well as this it also has a large section on television and its programmes, most notably at the moment, The X Factor. The Mirror is aware that a large majority of its key demographic are the C12DE’s whom this kind of information is more likely to appeal to. The main age of the stereotypical ‘Mirror reader’ is believed to be between the ages of 25-34 and if personified offers a love interest to The Sun’s ‘White Van Man’ character.
The Mirror’s main tabloid rival is The Sun, both undoubtedly hold an elite position as Britains most popular tabloids and despite their differing political allegiances they are relatively similar in both content and layout.Where the papers tend to differ is through gender, The Sun is typically aimed at males with the prime example being the topless page three girl who is used to adorn the male readers. The Mirror however attracts a large female readership and therefore aims a lot of the advertisements at its female dominated audience. The founder of The Mirror Lord Northcliffe launched the paper as a ‘Paper for women, run by women’ despite this early claim, the paper has only had one female editor, Mary Howarth, who was also the first editor but only lasted a year in her position.
Nonetheless the differences are subtle as are their political views, despite them being at different ends of the spectrum; The sun is renowned for having a right wing viewpoint whereas the mirror often leans towards the left. Both papers published articles regarding the comments of Fifa President Sepp Blatter who controversially said that racism in football should be resolved with a handshake. The Sun attacked Sepp Blatter saying that his apology was ‘half-hearted’ whereas The Mirror took a more conservative neutral approach to the story. One would assume that the reason The Sun attacked Blatter is because of the ongoing dispute between The F.A and Fifa. The Sun likes to provoke a strong sense of national pride and therefore would get behind the countries governing body of football, whereas The Mirror adopts a laissez-faire approach as it is not as keen to impose overpowering beliefs in its articles. An alternative opinion to that is that in fact The Mirror prefers to keep stories on Sport as brief as possible as the paper is of course for women, who might not want to read detailed stories on sporting events.
As the Mirror is a paper for women, it could be argued that it also has underlying elements of feminism to it. It seems to be that the unwritten rule of tabloid newspapers is that they all have an attractive bare-chested female on page 3. The Mirror is the only exception to this; The Sun, The Daily Star and the The Daily Sport all follow this ‘law’. Understandably The Mirror’s readership may find this demeaning as the women’s sole purpose is to be visually pleasing to the male reader. On closer inspection of the newspaper i also noticed how in particular the problem page articles will be alot more appealing to females as the majority were advice for women in unfortunate relationships.

Radio News Bulletin

http://soundcloud.com/saltman29/radio-news-bulletin


Plans to build a new school in Winchester are currently being discussed. The school will take children from the age of 4 right through their school years up to the age of 16. The county council believes transforming the Westgate School into a combined primary and secondary school would help tackle the shortage of places available to pupils.

The Police are looking into the sexual assaults of 3 women all of which took place last night in Southampton. Police are not ruling out the possibility that they may  have all been carried out by the same man. The assaults all took place around the city centre and any witnesses have been asked to come forward to help Police enquiries.

The FA will look to four senior members as they begin the process of appointing the new England manager. Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp is believed to be the prime contender for the position, but has stated he has not even thought about taking the role and is instead focusing on Tottenham's battle for a Champions league spot. Other people in the frame include Newcastle's Alan Pardew and former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. However FA chairman David Bernstein has said he would prefer an Englishmen.

With the British Film Industry on the up we wanted to find out how this growing popularity is affecting Theatre, as many films are looking to Theatre for inspiration. Daniel Radcliffes new film 'The Woman In Black' has been a box office success and was also very popular in the West End. We spoke to Katie Raynes from Winchester Theatre Royal to find out more.

Here are my thoughts on valentines day in audiobook style feel free to put it on your ipod and let my soothing southern accent drift you off to sleep

http://soundcloud.com/saltman29/my-thoughts-on-valentines-day

CCRC's refusal just or unjust?

Upon first glance the Warner case seemed to follow a fairly routine formula. Warner, the defendant, broke into Mr and Mrs Pool's house and murdered them and unsurprisingly this was the position the Police took. However after further reading on the accused's case file it appeared that all was not as it seemed. The Police overlooked two other possible suspects one of them a neighbour and former police officer who had been accused on numerous occasions as being a peeping Tom. The other a man known as the 'Vampire' who had committed a series of sexual assaults around the area at the time. Warner claimed to have never gone upstairs and there was never any evidence found to prove otherwise his major downfall was that he foolishly 'got the drunken urge to steal something'.

After several failed attempts at appeal Mr Warner applied to the commission for a case review, his arguments were; No blood was found on any of his clothes or did it seem like any attempt was made to conceal the act of murder at his shared caravan, there is still no evidence to prove Warner went upstairs were the bodies were found, new forensic techniques should be used to analyse DNA samples and finally that the police should look into other leads e.g 'The Vampire'. The review was successful to some extent for Mr Warner as It was agreed by the CCRC that under section 17 forensic scientists would be introduced to the case and under section 19 a senior Police Officer would be brought in to investigate the case further.

The findings however proved less successful for Mr Warner as the leading officer on the case believed they had strong support to believe that Warner did in fact go upstairs and that the evidence against the other two potential suspects was not strong enough. Therefore the CCRC refused Mr Warner a second trial.

When asked if I think the CCRC did the right thing, I think its a difficult situation as the case took place over 10 years before the review. The fact that scientific evidence from the original trial had been lost obviously did not work in Warner's favour and maybe this shows a lack of foresight by the Police. However on the evidence obtained under the section 17 and 19 none of the evidence could really be deemed as 'fresh' so it is understandable that the case was refused as it was unlikely that the case was going to be overturned. I think the frustrations of the police having to work with lots of unidentified fingerprints and those that could be identified were not found in key places I.e the neighbour Smith had fingerprints in the front porch which he claimed were there due to him handing out refreshments to Police Officers but nothing incriminating. Whether or not Warner did commit the crime only really he'll know but he still remains the obvious culprit, if in fact he did happen to break into the house on an unfortunate night then he is one unlucky man.

Today was an interesting lecture, we learnt more about the innocence project which i know our lectures are particualrly involved in and it was thought provoking stuff. The idea of the innocence project is to rally behind people that have been framed for crimes with the aspiration to get them freed. I decided to read up on a few cases of miscarriages of justice and the the overall theme behind them was prejudice. In the 80's the IRA were rife and bombs were exploding up and down England, most notably in Guildford and Birmingham. It seems that anyone with Irish heritage was a suspect and maybe due to the lack evidence innocent Irishmen were the victims of police corruption, by officers keen to please the public.

The Guildford bombings took place on October the 5th 1974 and shortly after 3 men and a woman were convicted for the act of terrorism. However none of them committed the crime but were forced to sign confessions by police officers using torture techniques. After 15 years they were acquitted of the crime. 15 years is a long time to spend behind bars for something you had no involvement in which is why the innocence project is hellbent on seeing justice take place. I know of several cases they are currently working on and hopefully they manage to unearth new 'fresh' evidence that could mean an appeal can be launched.  I expect that the one thing that keeps these wrongly convicted criminals optimistic is the knowledge that they have a team of people behind them working tirelessly to see that they are released.

Afterwards we were asked to assume the position of a CCRC (Criminal cases review commission) official. This body was put together to stop further miscarriages of justice taking place however they have limited power and will only distribute appeals if the case was 'unsafe' i.e the defendant was given an unfair trial in some way. If they feel a case was not conducted properly or they require further evidence they can also call for a section 17 or a section 19 both of which will mean re-evaluating the evidence as well as looking for fresh evidence.

The case we were given to work with was a double murder of an elderly couple. In summary a man named Warner was accused of murdering the elderly couple after stabbing them repeatedly and raping the woman. The man admitted to breaking into the house hoping to steal from them but claims to have not gone upstairs which was were they were killed, there is no evidence to prove he did go upstairs. Warner's house mate claims that he returned around 3 in the morning with the time of death being 2. Another suspect was believed to be the next door neighbour and also there was apparently a man who got a taxi covered in blood but this was around 12.45, so in reality this guy doesn't seem to have a leg to stand on. Unfortunately for us we were left on a bit of a cliffhanger and will have to wait a while to find out the final verdict but i'll leave it up to you to form your own opinions.

Radio Transcript

 Unfortunately it's that time of year again that all males dread. A time for our girlfriends to make irrational demands and expectations well exceeding their poor boyfriends bank balance, of course I am talking about Valentines day. The thing that people might find annoying is that the day was originally to commemorate the lives of a trio of Christian matyrs who were all named Valentine and none of these were connected to romance in the slightest. The person we have to blame for this is Geoffrey Chaucer, I for one was already not a big Chaucer fan for what he put most of us through in secondary school English, but when I saw that it was him we have to blame for this joke of a day i wondered if his plan all along was to leave a legacy of annoying poems and the most pointless day in the calendar for years to come. And I'm adament that Chaucer will be chuckling away in heaven or hell knowing the pain and anguish he is causing to us all.

This Valentines day will be the fifth that i've spent with my girlfriend and like any other girlfriend she always ends up disappointed on the 14th of February. It's not that i don't try and make an effort but its just the recurring problem that is becoming too regular in my life that i am hopeless. For example i wasn't aware that tables needed to be booked in advance so one year we spent an hour in the cold outside eagerly waiting for our buzzer to go off so we could tuck into their delightful Italian Cuisine. Another time I totally forgot, it's not exactly as well publicised as christmas is it? You don't hear Band Aid for months before as a warning, its an honest mistake. My girlfriend however was not very sympathetic infact i was shunned for several days after.

My main grumbles with Valentines day are firstly, that it has been built up too much by cheesy Hollywood films, girls need to realise that the majority of them will not be cruising through Venice on a gondola or eating garlic bread beneath the eiffel tower. It's not that i wouldn't like to do that sort of thing for my lady friend it's just not feasible on a student loan. Secondly I'm going to complain about the showoffs who do do this type of thing on Valentines. In the words of the Kaiser Chiefs 'Loves not a competition but I'm winning' its this mentality I disagree with it's not a competiton. Whoopty doo you took your girlfriend for a hot air balloon ride over to Spain where you ate Tapa's and proposed on a beach overlooking the sunset, me and my girlfriend had a takeaway and watched Geordie Shore, we still had a great evening regardless I just refuse to be drawn into this competition.

I know this seems like an incredibly long winded way to justify to my girlfriend why she'll only be getting chocolates and a hand made card but if it works it'll  be totally worth it.

The infamous Andrew Napier

This is my new blog that i'm hoping will shortly be holding its own on the alexa rankings. I wasn't really getting along with tumblr so I thought seeing as this will be my first blog of the new year a change of blogs was in order badda bing badda bong here I am.

So today we were treated to a visit from Andrew Napier a local journalist famous for being able to concoct several news worthy stories from what i gather was a very mundane council meeting. He came in and gave us an idea of what he is expected to do as a local reporter covering the Winchester area. He had a lot of interesting stuff to share with us and it was evident he was a good journalist so naturally i wondered why he had decided to stick to local reporting as oppose to working for the more glamorous national papers. He responded by telling us an anecdote which essentially expressed his belief that national reporters act immorally in order to get stories which he wasn't prepared to do. I thought that was a fair enough answer but he did seem to be harbouring some very negative feelings towards national papers which interested me so as a journalist i thought i'd investigate ;) to see where this bitterness stemmed from, however i had no luck, but i did find Andrew's blog in which he talks alot about walking his pet Jack Russel 'Esme'.

So Pretty poor journalism on my behalf there unless you're interested in that sort of thing maybe the Marley and Me fans might enjoy it who knows? Nonetheless a good experience as prior to this I haven't had the opportunity to speak to an active Journalist and I think everyone came out of the talk feeling a little more enlightened. I think maybe a talk from someone who works for a national paper would definitely offer an interesting contrast to Andrew, hint hint.