How is my driving?

Thursday 28 October 2010

Media Diary- Entry 1

You will see me publishing some more very similar to this, but all with different styles of media the more I go through my course.
STUDENT NAME: Deeana Radley                                       JCM 1000 MEDIA DIARY


Name of Publication, Website or TV programme: http://soulsnax.blogspot.com/

Date published: Thursday 28th October

Please give a brief summary of story
It is a blog taking the best quotes from some of the most inspirational people within the creative world. In this case it was by Dr Izzledin Abuelaish. Called the ‘Shift Towards Peace’. It is about general peace, forgiveness and harmony amongst countries and people.

Who authored the piece? Are they connected to any particular organisation or party?
Dr Izzledin Abuelaish authored this piece. And not that I am aware of, or what the piece reveals.

Why do you think the blogger published the piece?
It was published to make people think deeply about an ongoing general issue in the world. And read an intelligent, philosophical person’s interpretation.

Can you detect any bias in the piece? i.e. is the author supporting a particular view point or imposing their own values on the piece?
There is no clear bias for one side or the other. This quote is left souly in the middle, as its purpose is to try to find  a compromise or solution to the problem. In a sense, you can classify it that the author is in fact their own values.

Is it balanced? i.e. are all the key point of views represented? If not, what is missing?
It is rather well balanced, becoming a more declarative piece after an onlooking one.

How might other people view the article? i.e. does the piece portray any stereotypes, would anyone be offended?
This piece is assuming the there is no peace anywhere in the world and by using the line, ‘What we need is respect, and the inner strength to refuse to hate.’ It insinuates that everyone hates or disrespects one another, which is not necessarily the truth.

What is the source of the story? i.e. where did the story originate from
The doctor had a moving story to tell regarding the tradegies he has enjured throughout his life.  He lost his wife through lukeimia and later his daughters through a bloody, but brief war. His words are deeply inspiring and have been taken directly from his book called I Shall Not Hate. Here is a link explaining furthermore of the book he wrote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/15/palestinian-doctor-izzeldin-abuelaish-gaza-war

My first week at University.

The following was written for my course. We had to write a paragraph or two about my first week at Middlesex, good or bad. Well, seeing as we are all budding journalists, I may have complained once or twice within it. Here it is:

My first week at University was defiantly a new challenge to tackle. Having only just gotten used to the freedom of college, I found myself having to readapt to the new heights of University. Unfortunately, I did not get into any Halls and found that out too late, (a couple of weeks before I was due to attend!) and had to take a couple of trips to and from my home to desperately find a private rented place. Which was an epic fail. Instead, with my loan, I bought a reliable car to take me up and down the M25 five days a week, Monday to Friday. It’s really no great fun, unless you turn the stereo up loud and sing to yourself like I’ve been doing.
I hadn’t actually found the time during my summer holiday to walk around the campus and get a feel for it, so I had not a clue how anything worked- or even where the main reception was. I did find it all easily; the signs were conveniently placed and simple to follow.
If I were to complain, which I am about to do, it would be about the lack of fun-filled activities during the ‘Induction Week’ (more commonly known as ‘Freshers’ at other universities). I was expecting to be thrown into complete excitement, except I was let down with the sombre way in which it was all organised. It was useful in terms of important information, but I felt more could have been done to make the Freshers Fayre like the handouts suggested.
There is also the issue of fighting for a parking space. When I informed the security man that I did not get Halls and wondered how I go about getting a Permit (which I was more than willing to pay for) he informed me that there is "No parking for 1st years." and abruptly ended the conversation. Having to park in the unstable car park everyday is becoming a living nightmare and wish there were more spaces for others in my situation to use.
There was also a problem with the scheduled timetables, which messed me about as a commuter. But by checking daily on Misis and OasisPlus I managed to keep up-to-date with everything which meant I could plan my journey in advance.
Overall, I felt the University provided plenty of information about what is to be expected of us as students and what we can expect from the university, but the social element may need to take some more time to show its face.

Thursday 21 October 2010

Conclusion: A Meet With Metcalfe

I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience and opportunity that good friends granted me. Without networks, I am constantly told, there is no journalism and having friends who own a buzzing business such as Basildon Leaflets, (go to http://www.basildonleaflets.co.uk/index2.html for more information about what they do) enables me to slowly build up an online portfolio. I hope to continue working with them furthermore into the future through my course and after.
Researching for my feature article was fairly simple- my story based upon a gentleman who is within parliament and therefore already on the Internet. Once finding the sites to use, filtering through and highlighting useful facts leading up to the interview was tedious, but if I had not done so, I would not have been prepared.
When deciding on what questions to ask, i searched current, local news sites to gather up information and this formed my prepared questions. I also researched interviewing techniques so that I was completely comfortable and found websites such as http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/2007/03/26/13-simple-journalist-techniques-for-effective-interviews/ which helped an amateur such as myself seem more professional. Of course, these questions that I formulated were not enough to add up to half an hour alone, so I was aware that some of these questions will need to be expanded upon in order for me to get a more useful interview.
I also purchased a voice recorder. I did so because I am not yet familiar with shorthand and found it easier and quicker to use. I just had to be careful not to delete the interview by mistake.
During the interview, I was naturally nervous. The interview took place within the heart of the House of Commons and one felt rather out of her depth. After a small tour and a couple of coffees, the interview began and fortunately I felt as though the interviewee was helpful, kind and thorough with his explanations.
Ther information I came out with was sufficient enough to create a feature that I later became very proud of. This is the building block for my future career and a hitting-the-ground-running situation for me to be at now that I begin my future at Middlesex University.

My Research: A Meet With Metcalfe

About Stephen Metcalfe...


Stephen has been married to Angela for 22 years and they have two teenage children, Tom (19) and Katie (17).
Stephen and Angela both work in the family printing business which employs around 30 people.
Stephen works just down the road in Romford, whilst Angela is based in Loughton.
As a married father of two children and working in his own business, Stephen's priorities are the same as many of the people of South Basildon & East Thurrock - concerns about health, education and law & order.
As a former local councillor, he had responsibility for customer services and ICT and then Waste Management until he gave this up in May 2007 to concentrate his time on South Basildon and East Thurrock.
He is a trustee of Age Concern Basildon and President of Northlands Park Community Association, where he has managed to attract around ��60,000 of funding and sponsorship.
In his limited spare time he has enjoyed amateur dramatics, watching football and rugby, going to the gym and is actively involved with his local church.
Stephen's other political experience has seen him campaigning across much of Essex and East London. He has in particular campaigned for many years to protect our green spaces from over development and has worked with communities to find ways of engaging the young.
Stephen has determination, energy, stamina, a strong sense of purpose, and will always listen carefully to what people from all walks of life and backgrounds have to say - qualities he believes will help him represent the people of South Basildon and East Thurrock.
Stephen believes that a Parliamentary Candidate should be honest and demonstrate integrity in everything they do: he respects the people he wishes to serve and puts duty and responsibility before self-interest.

Member of Parliament for South Basildon and East Thurrock
South Basildon & East Thurrock Conservatives, 4 The Broadway, Pitsea, Basildon, Essex SS13 3AR
Email: stephen@vote4metcalfe.com / Web: www.vote4metcalfe.com

Stephen has political experience as both an elected representative and as a local party volunteer. He has campaigned at every level of government from Parish Council to European Parliament for over 20 years and stood as the Conservative Party Parliamentary Candidate in Ilford North in 2005.
He is a former Epping Forest District Councillor and was portfolio holder for Customer Services, ICT & E-government. As a Councillor he campaigned on a vast array of issues from green belt protection to the introduction of traffic calming schemes and worked with communities to find ways of engaging the young.
Outside his role as a councillor he has been a Governor of a large secondary school, where he led changes in both budgeting and management to see the school move from “poor” to “good” under the leadership of a new energetic head teacher. He has also worked with a homeless shelter in East London.

  

Questions



  1. Talk to me about the plans for Gloucester Park. Are they running smoothly, successfully and properly?






  1. The Sadlers Farm scheme do you believe it will transfer the large traffic flow problems, as it plans?







  1. Our readers will be interested in about a local company named the Gardner Group bringing jobs to Basildon for skilled workers. Can you promise that after the heavy hand of the budget and recent recession that such important job opportunities will be coming around?







  1. The town centre. During the height of the recession, many shops closed down due to their own individual issues, but the trend seemed to be due to the economic climate. Is Basildon Town Centre still a thriving business place?







  1. Explain the rise in VAT and the reasons for it. What does it mean for the public and the companies?






  1. The coalition government has been construed weak before it has been given a chance to prove itself. What does working alongside the Liberal Democrats mean to you and to the people?







  1. What can you promise as our Member of Parliament?







  1. What do you know of about the plans at Basildon Golf Course? Many people fear for their views they paid for when they bought their house, being lost through the new company buying the property. There have been campaigns, but just how successful and how heard have they been?







Do you have another role of any sort? Within government and outside?

 

Research on latest stories, locally.

 

Aerospace firm brings more jobs to Basildon

 ALMOST 70 new hi-tech jobs could be on their way to Basildon as an aerospace company wants to transfer its staff to the town.
Gardner Group, which makes and repairs plane parts, is consulting staff at its Maesteg plant in south Wales about moving production and 69 jobs to its Basildon branch at Wollaston House, Wollaston Way.
Patrick Grady, Gardner’s chief executive officer, said: “The proposed transfer is likely to take approximately 12 months.”
He announced the 30-day consultation on Thursday, which spells good news for Basildon which already has a number of hi-tech firms operating in the town such as Selex (formerly BAE) and Arrk Research and Development.

£63m Sadlers Farm scheme gets under way

 WORK has begun today on the £63 million Sadlers Farm Junction scheme to improve vital transport links for residents across South Essex.
The scheme, which will deliver millions of pounds of benefits to the local economy each year, was officially started today with Essex County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways and Transportation digging the first sod getting the project on its way.
The project will support the development of up to 55,000 new jobs and 43,000 new homes planned for the area, and is the largest local authority scheme currently underway in the East of England. It is Essex’s largest highways scheme in over a decade.
The improvement will provide a new dedicated link to the A130, providing faster and more direct access to Chelmsford and Southend. The improvements will also allow for safer and more efficient use of the junction, providing improved local access to Benfleet, Thundersley and Canvey areas via a new roundabout.
This scheme together with the programmed improvements at the Tarpots junction will improve bus journeys and reduce congestion for motorists.
The new junction is expected to deal with an increase in traffic up to 40% over the next twenty-five years. The improvements will help the junction cope with this demand and remove around a third of the through traffic from the existing junction, and also to facilitate future economic growth and regeneration in South Essex.
Works are due to be completed by March 2012 to help provide faster links to Essex’s 2012 Games mountain biking event at Hadleigh.

Harwich: Port jobs saved by Government budget

JOBS have been saved at shipping companies working from Harwich Port after backdated debts were wiped clean.
Businesses are celebrating the news, which came as part of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition’s budget announced on June 22.
The goverment has cancelled £175 million of charges levied on port businesses across the UK by the Labour government, who backdated business rates to 2005 following an evaluation of the port industry.
Harwich alone was shouldering an estimated debt of £350,000, which threatened smaller port firms with closure and job losses.
Lars Olsson, commercial manager for Stena Line, said: “Stena Line is delighted with the coalition government’s commitment to abolish the unfair backdated liability on port businesses to pay business rates.
“This will ensure the survival of many businesses, promote investment and create additional employment in ports around the country."
Critics have been fighting the plans ever since their introduction claiming the charges unfairly targeted coastal towns and communities reliant on shipping industries.
Bob Neill, local government minister, said: “The dark tax cloud that has been hanging over some port businesses, the backbone of Britain's export industry, for too long has finally been lifted.
"The Chancellor’s decision to waive and repay the unexpected rates bills for those affected port businesses is a victory for common sense."
Many companies across the country will be able to move forward confidently, unburdened by these unexpected debts.

X-Factor star Rachel Adedeji performs at college in Grays

Cuts will be deeply damaging

FOR weeks now the Government has been trying to create an atmosphere of crisis in order to justify the deep and damaging cuts George Osborne delivered in his Budget that will throw people out of work, hold back economic growth and damage the public services we all rely on.
The most surprising aspect of the “new politics” is the way the LibDems have so enthusiastically ditched their principles in a head long rush for power; and for what? A referendum on the voting system!
The LibDems and the Tories have broken their promise to be fair, with tax increases and benefit cuts that will hit hardest at the people who can least afford it.
These cuts will affect you, your family and the people around you. This Budget will affect everyone: * Growth next year would have been higher and unemployment lower with Labour’s responsible, credible plan to halve the deficit over four years.
* Increasing VAT from 17.5% to 20%, so that higher prices will be paid in the shops by everyone, from pensioners to the unemployed.
* Cuts to tax credits, and cutting back free school meals.
* Cuts to the disability living allowance, cuts to help for the jobless.
* Freezing Child Benefit for the next three years.
It is important to set the record straight, the Tories can't encourage economic growth, and reduce the deficit, by throwing people out of their jobs and abandoning support for business.
People will be worrying about what these cuts will mean to their livelihoods, and for the future of their family.
These cuts will affect you, your family and the people around you.

New A12 junction is ahead of schedule

WORK to build Colchester’s new A12 junction is three months ahead of schedule, but it will still be two years before it is fully integrated with the town’s road network.
Councillors Norman Hume, Lyn Barton and Anne Turrell at the site
The £12million junction at Cuckoo Farm is set to open early next year, but it will be summer 2012 before an extension to the Northern Approach Road, to link the junction to the town centre, is completed.
Essex County Council highways boss Norman Hume praised “excellent progress” on the junction and said he was “confident and determined” to see the link road built.
Until it is built, drivers will have to leave the road off at the junction and head into town via the already congested Axial Way, Severalls Lane and Ipswich Road.
Mr Hume said: “We should focus on the positives here and this junction is ahead of time, on budget and will make it much easier for people to get to the stadium, business park and local housing.
“I’m delighted this is happening for north Colchester, which needs this infrastructure to go with the major development it has had in recent years.”
The scheme was originally to be funded by developers building on the former Severalls Hospital site, which has been earmarked for 1,500 homes. When the recession put paid to that, the county council won Government money to build just the junction.
County Hall is working with North Essex Partnership NHS Trust, which owns the land, and the Homes and Communities Agency to fund the £9million link road.
Public money would be used, but repaid by developers as the Severalls site is developed.
Mr Hume said: “We are tying down the details on the forward funding agreement and if it wasn’t done this way, I cannot say how long we would be waiting for the link road to be done.”

South Essex’s new sporting centres really taking shape

 TWO multimillion-pound sporting projects in south Essex have reached another milestone.
The ambitious £38million sporting village in Basildon is taking shape, with steel framework now in place.
While the external work on the 25-metre swimming pool at Garon Park in Southend has been completed.
About 1,100 tonnes of steel have been erected at Gloucester Park in Basildon, finishing the large frame for the sports complex that builders started putting up in February.
The Basildon Council project is due to open in April 2011, in time to be used as a potential training camp for international teams going to the 2012 Olympics in Stratford, East London.
Roofing the structure will be the next task for workers at the site.
Kevin Blake, councillor for leisure and arts, said the complex was progressing on time and budget.
He said: “Every time I go down there I’m just delighted. When you visit you realise how amazing and enormous it will be.
“It’s a huge scheme and it’s not just a project, it is something that will be beneficial to everyone in the district.”
When finished, it will feature a 50-metre swimming pool that can split into two pools, a teaching pool, gymnastics centre, eight-court sports hall, fitness suite, exercise studios, meeting rooms, creche and cafe, climbing wall, five-a-side football pitches and a new athletics grandstand for 750 people.
The external work at the £13.5million swimming pool built at Southend Leisure and Tennis Centre has been completed and work continues inside. The pool will feature a 25-metre eight-lane swimming pool, a leisure pool with water slides, water sprays and a small fountain.
Swimmers will also be able to take advantage of a dry diving training area complete with a harness and trampolines, as well as a world-class diving tower.
Southend councillor responsible for culture, Derek Jarvis, said: “The construction of the pool is well on its way and everything is running to schedule to be completed by mid to late October.
“At the moment we are in the middle of doing the floor tiling and other things to finish it off.
“But if you drive past the site you will see that good progress is being made.”


My Feature: A Meet With Metcalfe

A Meet With Metcalfe

Reported by Deeana Radley


AFTER the election where the coalition government was formed and Basildon swung from Labour to Conservative after thirteen years, what does it now mean for our businesses and the general public? The Houses of Parliament, a breathtakingly beautiful building and the ideal setting to have an interview with Basildon and Thurrock’s local MP, Stephen Metcalfe. The issues of the local community unload onto him and his political strengths to uphold the forever expanding and developing area.
Probably one of the largest developments affecting the area is that of Gloucester Park turning into an Olympic village. When finished, the design will hold a 50-metre swimming pool, a teaching pool, gymnastics centre, eight-court sports hall, fitness suite, exercise studios, meeting rooms, crèche and café, climbing wall, five-a-side football pitches and a new athletics grandstand that can withstand 750 people.
As passers-by will visually be aware, a strong outer shell of the building has suddenly appeared and beginning to take form, demonstrating how large it will be. When asked on how far the building has gone and how successful it has been currently, Metcalfe was very positive, “I am happy to say that it is on time and on budget” and he strongly believes that it will be a great facility for the town even after the London Olympics has passed. The infrastructure will be a huge asset to the community bringing the possibility of more tourism and enticing the people living locally to keep fit and active.
The Olympics coming to Basildon also means more jobs for the unemployed. When questioned about careers for people within the local area, Metcalfe believed in people with ideal skills and qualifications getting through the system and had a strong opinion believing that the courses the colleges offer need to have value, being rounded enough, for the people who finish their course and are looking to start their career. “Unemployment figures are beginning to fall”, Metcalfe said, and was rather excited to claim that 20 per cent of Essex’s wealth comes from Basildon alone. Not all is as encouraging; the economic state is still yet to come out of the black. Metcalfe commented, “We need to be tough on the money we spend. Five years before we pull ourselves out and we will start to see a difference in 2012.”
Metcalfe particularly focuses on bringing together the different sectors within Basildon and fixing them so they all work functionally. He claims that he views debt, the jobless, anti-social behaviour and development as key issues surrounding Basildon and Thurrock. He said there were many organisations that we need to look into when trying to remove anti-social behaviour from our streets. He also sees there simply is not enough things to do for the younger generation, “Younger people avoid organisations if they become too organised” he told us, suggesting that by creating something for the youth to do is too mechanical and becomes a zone to avoid, which unavoidably creates anti-social behaviour. Metcalfe will be looking into alternatives.
As our new representative, Stephen Metcalfe will be dealing with the broader issues. Whether or not a conservative outlook will make a good outcome is yet to be opinionated. A swing from left to right can put a few people in a daze; old social norms and values thrown aside for the Conservative, traditional way of thinking.  Yet, maybe this is what our community desires after thirteen years under Labour’s decisions. Metcalfe appears to have strong ideas on how to tackle local issues, how effective they will be can only be a future topic.

Contact Stephen Metcalfe:
Pitsea office: 01268 200430
Westminster: 020 7219 7009
Address: House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA or
               4 The Broadway, Pitsea, Essex, SS13 3AR