Design Skills - News Story Interim Crit

Design Skills - News Story Interim Crit

Today we had an interim crit on our progress into the News story research brief. As mentioned in previous posts I chose to review the upcoming 'storm of the century'. I presented what I had in a brief overview format. Explaining how I looked at the differing characteristics and tone of voice used in 3 medias portraying the story. The Express (Tabloid) creating panic and worry through there layman's terms of words describing destruction and chaos and presenting worrying over exaggerated facts. The BBC following a similar over exaggerating style but with more factual references into wind speeds and rain fall levels, not just making up numbers like the tabloid. BBC also looked into historical events like the storm of 1987. Which made me research into past storms which I will come onto. The final was the Met office. A very accurate helpful and informative media providing localized forecasts and warnings for travel distribution and advising the public in a calm manor. 

I briefly looked into social media but forgot to mention this so no feedback was received on this but from this crit I know I won't be going down social media reaction route.

There were 3 separate avenues i presented to everyone that I could go down. Climate change and more sustainable energy sources. How the story was portrayed in different medias and social networks, and historical references into past storms over the UK and globally. 

Everyone was as shocked as I was at the comparison of deaths and financial losses with the storm of 1987 compared to hurricane Katrina. Agreeing with me that this would be a good route to look into to broaden my research. 

A suggestion was made stemming from the storm of 1987 case when i mentioned improvements were made in forecasting. Simon mentioned how major turn arounds can happen due to such disasters so it would be good to look into how 'good things come from bad events' so to speak. Basically in terms of helping preventing further disasters. This could apply for UK and global disasters I look into. 

It was said looking into more sustainable energy would just confuse things drawing attention away from the main issue and going into a completely different area of study. Same with the fact of climate change. I could touch on it a little in looking in the major storms and how if us polluting the world could create such disasters seen globally more locally over here. 

Upon looking into updates on the storm it has been said the storm has been named 'St Jude' like many hurricanes in America and across the world. Naming a storm marks it's place in history.

Finally it was advised that I look at how UK newspapers look at such disasters overseas compared to the area in which it happened. So I will use there local news archives to find out about there reporting of such events I look into. With investigation into damage reports, how they plan on preventing such disasters again, loss of life and similar subjects. So overall I feel happy with the outcome of this crit and everyone feels I have a strong body of work to work upon.