Familiarisation Day Schedule
0915 Arrival
0920 Intros followed by tour of building (to include rest area/kitchen/fire exists)
0945 Read relevant parts of D&E/go through checklist/contacts
1000 Newsroom & Bulletins
1100 Bulletin Reader
1200 Ops Room
1300 Lunch Break
1400 Ops Room with Rosie/sit in with Laurence
1500 Late Producer
1600 Finish.
I'm nervous and I'm early, sat with a nervous bladder filling out paperwork. I get my visitors badge and am let into the newsroom. There is 4 double sided desks across the room, packed with computers, people, overflowing inbox trays, books, newspapers and mugs (the kind you drink out of, not the people!) I am greeted by an army of outstretched hands and warm hellos. I get told names I have already forgotten. I sit in on their morning news bulletins. As it goes from person to person discussing what they think should be the lead story of the day, my head is on overdrive following the voices as they discuss (maybe slightly argue) "we've got a new lead on this", "we've already covered that", "that's old news"
This is exactly as I imagined it. It's fast paced, it's heated, it's exciting.
I then sit in with Debbie as she plans her afternoon show and the stories she wants to feature. She emphasises the importance of social networking sites on the media these days. As we talk she is discussing the new Antiques Road Show episode airing that evening, filmed in Cornwall and presented by Fern Britton, it dawns on her that she is followed by Fern Britton and visa versa on twitter, so she quickly loads up Ferns page and tweets her asking for a quick chat on air about the show. An hour or so later Fern tweets back and agrees to a live interview!
I am impressed, one tweet and she has a live interview on air!
I then sit with Rachel the one air news presenter, she explains how important it is to get the correct facts. She also tells me that as the news is read so frequently they must take care not to repeat the same news stories continuously throughout the day. Once a story has been aired twice they wouldn't repeat it unless they has a new lead or further information on it. The speed and turn over of the news here is extraordinary. I always imagined it being spiked fairly quickly but not at this speed. She writes new news bulletins in less than a few minutes ready for her next on air spot. She is concise, fast and professional, all of this whilst juggling the newsrooms email inbox, filtering through the press releases, discarding what it irrelevant and forwarding on the important things.
The ops room is my next station, sitting in with the live radio stream. This is my chance to see how it all works, the producer is sat with her headphones on. I am sitting in on Laurence Reeds show, this show gives the audience a chance to phone in and air their issues and discuss problems they feel are relevant. One of the local council members is here also today to do an on air interview. Seeing Laurence in action reminds me of a Cornish version of Jeremy Paxman.
I get lost in the buttons, the screens, the red lights all in front of me and soon my hour is up.
I have a lunch break, but head back early keen to get started again.
Back in the ops room, the producers helper leaves, leaving no second person to answer the phone.
I get told to put the headset on and answer the phone. The training I receive is "Say hello, BBC Cornwall, I need who they are, number, where from and what they want to talk to Laurence about, ok? go."
And off I go, I receive calls about traffic incidents, as soon as I write the incidents down, the producer is writing them down on screen and they are getting read live on air! "Breaking traffic news, an accident has occurred on the road of Asda, Bodmin, traffic is at a standstill and is causing a terrible backlog."
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment