In Your Backyard: A Collection

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It’s been, give or take, four-ish months since I graduated from the Broadcast Journalism program at Fanshawe, and since then, I’ve been combing through some of my old projects and assignments looking for things to post here.

At some point the other day it dawned on me that I hadn’t uploaded all of my “In Your Backyard” pieces to SoundCloud, even though it had been months and months since I had made them and had them broadcast on-air.

had been uploading them regularly onto my account late last year, but somewhere along the way I ran out of free available minutes and was forced to stop. A shame. A travesty!

Well, ok, maybe not a travesty.

So anyway, about a month or two ago I sprung for a pro account on the website, bumping my available time up to 6 hours.

I could finally upload the rest! (Seriously, just 6 hours? C’mon guys. I’m paying $6 a month here..)

Below, in chronological order (by week of airing) are almost all the short docs I did for “In Your Backyard” (a current affairs show on the X) excluding a few which I didn’t like at the time, and still don’t today.

November 18, 2013

December 2, 2013

December 9, 2013

March 31, 2014

April 7, 2014

April 21, 2014

First Cast / Last Cast

After two years of being in the journalism program at Fanshawe College, I can finally look back at my time in it, and reflect. Reflect about what? Well, listening to my older newscasts, reflect on how far I’ve come when speaking into a microphone.

Being the digital packrat I am, I tracked down both my first cast done for the program (which was really a pre-recorded newscast for an assignment and never actually went on air) and my last newscasts done for the X this past March.

First off, the pre-recorded newscast from September 26, 2012.

 

And now a news update from 6:30am on March 14, 2014 (I would post the very last, done at noon with Emina, but I can’t find it on my computer! Of all the things!..)

 

It’s not the greatest clip, as I was still waking up. That being said, there still is a good difference (somewhat) between September 2012 me and March 2014 me.

I’m still in the midst of sorting through audio (LOTS OF AUDIO), files, and documents from my time in the program. There’s no doubt that more stuff will make its way up here.

Open post

College Confidential: 2012 Fleming Drive Riots

Update (March 2017): I have re-uploaded the two parts with redone voice overs and some script tweaks. I was never happy with how it sounded. That being said, you should know that I haven’t updated the documentary, so it’s still dated for March 2014.

Part 1 (11:50) [Download]

Part 2 (14:41) [Download]

In the second year of Fanshawe’s journalism program, students are placed on a series of four to five week stints — “rotations” — where they do one particular thing for that time period. For example, a student may spend five weeks as a reporter covering a particular beat, while the subsequent five weeks will be spent newscasting

At some point, a student will serve as a ‘current affairs/documentary’ producer for one rotation. Said rotation is made up of several week-long sub-rotations, where you a) make three four-minute radio documentaries, b) host the show that airs said documentaries, c) make a video documentary, and d) produce a 26-minute feature.

Last week, I was tasked to do d), and since last week was also the week St. Patrick’s Day took place, I decided to revisit the infamous 2012 St. Patrick’s Day riots that occurred around Fleming Drive.

Around 1,000 people were involved in the mayhem that stretched into the early morning hours. By the end, there were multiple arrests, injuries, and $100,000 in reported damage. The city and Fanshawe College suffered major black eyes from the incident as the story began to appear in regional, national, and then international media.

One of the more notorious moments of the riots was the overturning and subsequent torching of a news truck belonging to CTV London.

The piece, which was assembled in about 3 and a half days, is in two segments, which you can listen to above.

Thanks to London Police Chief Brad Duncan, former XFM’er Marty Thompson, CTV London’s Chuck Dickson, and FSU President Adam Gourlay for speaking with me.

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