Radio Newsday 11 February, Convergence week

It was convergence week’s radio day and I was given my first role as an editor of the two news bulletins. The bulletins were to be made for a made up Talbot FM in South East Dorset, targeted at the younger audiences of the age 16-30.

I asked the editor of a radio bulletin from the day before what advice they could give me, and the main one was to get as many stories done before the first news bulletin, as we would have only one hour in between the two.

I had a look at the stories for that day and as it was a slow week and most of the stories have already been taken by the morning’s group, we struggled to find new stories that were newsworthy. I spent a considerable amount of time on research and hunt for stories. In professional circumstances we would not have this much time for research, however, I believe my group made up for it in our efficiency and speed of getting the stories once they were assigned to them.

We did not have much luck with the breaking news for the first bulletin, so even though it is a local I believe that our fictitious young audiences should have an insight into the information which would cover information from general knowledge. I would include world news as a compulsory one story for that day’s bulletin.

I covered this story and was given a lead by my radio tutor which was to contact a lecturer from the University who was working on a topic that concerned South African film. The lecturer has introduced me to a SA student whom I interviewed and was given information about existence of a South African society in Bournemouth. I phoned their secretary and recorder her reflection on this day in SA. A friend from course who was covering the same story for TV bulletin has given me information about a South African lecturer on campus, whom I also contacted and interviewed. I edited the clips and used the one from the SA society’s Secretary for the first bulletin’s news, and kept the other comments for possible “reminder” update in the second bulletin, in case we were short of stories.

The group of us five worked really well and synchronized. Everyone was very efficient and professional, so I had time to cover the Mandela story even though other editors advised me to dedicate most of the time to overlooking the process.

By the first bulleting, more than half of our stories had audio clips, which I was very pleased about, but I left some of the stories which were not breaking news for our second bulletin, knowing that in the hour in between we would need time to get more stories, or at least updates of the previous ones.

However, during the first bulletin, while we were being given feedback, our tutor pointed out the breaking news on TV about the death of fashion designer Alexander McQueen. This was breaking news, and as I knew a fashion design student at the Arts University, I immediately called her and got a comment for the story. The student was of relevance, as A. McQueen was idol to many of them, himself being a student who was discovered on one of the student fashion shows.

In the meantime, the rest of the group was busy gathering few more stories in the 45 minutes that we had, and with impressive speed they managed to complete all new stories for the second news bulletin. As great and exciting this was, and gave us the wonderful adrenaline input that this line of work can offer, it was a little dangerous, as our news presenter had been given the final script only minutes be3fore the beginning of the bulletin. What we should have done was to have the speaker with the existing stories waiting in the studio with time to prepare for what was given to him/her by then, so that he/she will be focused and prepared for any unexpected errors. But we were lucky there too as our presenter though stressed, was very professional and concentrated, and made no mistakes even though faced with the unknown script.

It may sound like only praising that day’s work, but I had the rare experience of proper team work, when even though everyone was working in their own paste, we trusted each other and communicated well, with the result of two well produced news bulletins.

(Unfortunatelly, the news bulletin has been taken off the system as it has been more than a month since the broadcast)