Week 2.

Assignment Week.

As i am writing this, it is 10:11 on Wednesday 28th November. Waiting nervously for the results of my essay into why 'Journaism Matters', reflecting if you may. Overall i now wish i were able to fully spend all my time on it, that 'i will do better next time' that occurs just before the realisation of the grades before the exams or coursework.

Yesterday we were officially set our end of semester assignment. By that i mean we were given a piece of paper on which were laid out the criteria needed to pass the course this term. Overall with four articles as well as four NIBS (News In Briefs), the portfolio is not as demanding as the '10' previously thought to be the target. That combines with an NCTJ test made up of four questions of varying length in order to create an overall portfolio which totals eight articles and an exam.

 In the coming weeks i feel that i will need to step up the overall quality of my writing, turning them from narratives or opinionated writings into more journalistically styled pieces (not at all like this). So far in my time at Uni i have spent less time than i would have liked writing, even if its just for a blog like this, and hopefully by the time the deadline comes i will try and rectify this, to produce some high quality work for my portfolio.

Informing?

I may not have mentioned it but over the last week we have produced the informer newspaper for the University in which a number of articles which i wrote were produced in. This success has perhaps opened my eyes to the fact that my writing can be used in a number of different publications, and the feeling which i found when i was told about being published was one which i want to repeat in the future, hopefullly many many times.

The attendance of both classes left alot to be desired, though the first years, my year, in particular were absent for many of the days of that vital production week. As Andrew Marr says in Harcups Practices and Principles book, 'Journalism is a chaotic form of earning, ragged at the edges, full of snakes, con artists and even the odd occasional misunderstood martyr'. If i want to become a journalist in this 'ragged' society i need to maintain my attendance, and keep pushing the quiality of my work higher.

Thanks for reading, and see you on the next one.

Jon

http://joncarterjournalism.blogspot.co.uk/