I was quite excited to do the digital news days because I wasn’t sure what to expect from them. I enjoyed the introduction we had to the concept and looking into the FTSE 100 and the most powerful and well-connected businesspeople in the UK.
We spent the rest of the day compiling the spreadsheet we would use to input data and create stories, which was more laborious and problematic than expected.
The main problem came from the fact everyone was using the same Google Documents spreadsheet to input data, meaning that pieces of data could easily end up in the wrong cell when new rows were added or columns were resized. Another problem was that, although we were all told how to format our information and how to find it, some people still formatted things incorrectly and left out basic pieces of information, which we discovered when beginning the first check of the data.
Overall I wouldn’t say I learned a great deal from the day besides developing a huge respect for journalists who spend their days doing this type of work as it felt incredibly tedious.
Kane Daly 