Skills Test: Video

This is the penultimate skills test for my JN2053 (The Digital Newsroom) assignment that I have completed. For this test I was asked to shoot a short 30 second MCU video with an interview and subject of my choice. I chose to ask about the UKs coverage of international news...the video can be seen below...

This post was created by Emma Rigby. You can contact Emma on erigby@uclan.ac.uk

Skills Test: Data

View chart in full here.

In 2008/2009, local councils within the North West of England reported an increase in crime across the region. The greatest increase reported was domestic burglary at 72%, closely followed by vehicle crime at 56%. Gang and gun crime showed the lowest increase, both at just 6%.

But what exactly caused this increase in crime? The obvious place to start would be the recession. During 2008 and 2009 our economy was at its lowest and the North West was one of the worst hit areas of the country.

During this time local authorities were forced to cut back on many things. With less funding for street patrols and CCTV is it any wonder that the crime rate increased? And with less money being spent on places for youngsters to spend their evenings, the likelihood of anti-social behaviour occurring was greater.

However, crime is currently at its lowest in the country since 1997, having fallen 9% last year (see crime figures for 2009/2010). But with local councils facing a further 7.1% cut in their annual budget, how long will our crime rates stay this low? Surely the cuts will affect the safety of our streets and cause crime rates to increase once again.

See also:

Full set of Crime Rates across the entire country
Latest Crime Statistics
Full set of data concering where ASBOs are issued
Crime figures for 2009/2010

This post was created by Emma Rigby. You can contact Emma on erigby@uclan.ac.uk

Workshop Exercise: Data

In today's JN2053 workshop we were taught how to use raw data from online databases to create a chart in either Google Docs or Excel and embed it into our blog.

The chart to the left was created using data from data.gov.uk concerning the Fixed Penalty Notices for litter between April 2008 and March 2009. It shows the amount collected in litter fixed penalty notices by councils within Lancashire.

The complete set of data can be found here:
http://data.gov.uk/dataset/fixed-penalty-notice-litter

This post was created by Emma Rigby. You can contact Emma on erigby@uclan.ac.uk

Skills Test: Images

This is the second of the five skills test for my JN2053 (The Digital Newsroom) assignment that I have completed.

For this test I was asked to take a picture of either Lancashire County Council; Preston City Council; The Flag Market; Preston North End football club or The University of Central Lancashire.

As you can see from the below pictures, I opted for the University of Central Lancashire.

The images within this blog show the Media Factory building situated in the Preston campus. The first is the original image that I took with my camera and the rest are cropped to specified sizes (100x100; 400x300 and 200x500).

Original Image of UCLan Media Factory
400px x 300px version of UCLan Media Factory

200px x 500px version of UCLan Media Factory

100px x 100px version of UCLan Media Factory

This post was created by Emma Rigby. You can contact Emma on erigby@uclan.ac.uk

Skills Test: Maps

As part of an assignment for JN2053 (The Digital Newsroom) we've been asked to complete five skills tests: Image, Maps, Audio, Video and Data. I will be uploading these to my blog over the next few weeks.

This is the first one that I have completed, the maps skills test. For this test we had to take four news stories from any issue of the Lancashire Evening Post and place them on a custom Google map.

View Skills Test: Maps in a larger map

This post was created by Emma Rigby. You can contact Emma on erigby@uclan.ac.uk

Custom Google Map - UCLan Media Factory

View UCLan Media Factory in a larger map

In today's workshop for JN2053 (The Digital Newsroom) we've been given a brief introduction into Google Maps and how to create our own custom ones. At first I thought it was going to be pretty hard but actually, it's quite simple. The above map is one I created as part of an exercise within the class (we were asked to upload it to our blogs) and shows the University of Central Lancashire's Media Factory and an image I have previously taken for a previous exercise.

This post was created by Emma Rigby. You can contact Emma on erigby@uclan.ac.uk.

Labour, Conservative or Lib Dem? No matter who you're voting for in next week's General Election the above photo really has got to be one of the greatest of all time. I'm sure you're all aware of Gordan Brown's bigot comment from yesterday and if not, bbc news it.

Personally, the only issue I have with the situation is that he was silly enough to say it without realising his mic was still on. Fair play to him though for being man enough to realise his mistake and apologise to Gillian Duffy in person.

Let's just hope it doesn't ruin his chances too much - I actually like the Scot!

This post was created by Emma Rigby. You can contact Emma on erigby@uclan.ac.uk