WINOL Review

It seems that over the holidays WINOL has undergone a bit of a face lift. Whilst this, in many respects, is nice to see in an ever evolving world of media, I can’t help but feel that many of the elements are strange or unnecessary, particularly the “voice of God” at the beginning of the show; for a British audience, which this programme is aimed at, this is particularly unusual and, in my opinion, off-putting. In fact, it made me laugh. I’m not sure if this is because I found it so peculiar or because it sent me into a micro-rage at how everything nowadays is becoming “Americanised” (which is, in itself, an Americanisation – they’re becoming almost impossible to avoid).

However, on the whole it’s still very good, particularly as a student news programme. Of course, there are a few areas for improvement; some of the presenters talk much too fast still and, on occasion, look far too casual in the posture or positioning in front of the camera and there are also a couple of really slight issues with some of the lighting and sound, but perhaps I’m just over scrutinising it.

I also am still having problems with the length of time given to sport. It may be, in part at least, due to the fact that I don’t have any personal interest in it, but I can’t help but think that the amount of coverage given to one individual game of football is a little ridiculous. For example the coverage of the Eastleigh game this week lasted one minute and 28 seconds which doesn’t sound a lot but considering the whole sports section is four minutes 21 long and the entire bulletin is just over 15 minutes, you can start to see what I’m talking about. The same thing goes for coverage of the ice hockey. This is not to say that these aren’t well done, they just feel like they drag on a little. I think this may be largely due to the amount of detail and large gaps between sentences filled with clips that don’t feel overly relevant. The coverage of the Winchester City game I think is done much better; it’s short and to the point, giving enough detail to know what has happened without going into so much that it seems to go on forever…

Perhaps I’m biased with my major dislike for sport (particularly football).

Watch this week’s WINOL bulletin here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo0Xbie48wo