Foot In The Door

 

You're doing well if you get this far

 This is a Training Zone post. For the main radio blog click here»

So – you want to be a radio journalist? Really?

During 2010 dozens of radio journalists in the commercial sector lost their jobs as the sector continued to consolidate. That means those journalists were on the jobs market, chasing the same vacancies as you. That means that when you’re applying for jobs or placements you need to stand out more than ever before.

So, how to do it? Well, there are no right and wrong answers to this – and you should be prepared to be rejected, or even ignored, many times! But don’t be downhearted. Radio’s an incredibly competitive industry and there are several ways of getting noticed.

Have a good demo. A CV will tell the news editor many things about what you can do on paper, but how you sound on air is probably more important.

Keep it simple. Unless specifically asked, include a short news bulletin on your MP3/CD and once piece of work you’re really proud of. 5 minutes max. 

Know your market. Listen to the radio station before you ask them for a job. Awareness of the style and output will pay benefits later on. 

Know your boss. Research the news editor or programme controller in advance. Their name may be online – and you may pick up some interesting facts. 

Respect deadlines. Prioritise which stations/groups you are going to target first and sign up to as many job alerts as you can 

Save time. For commercial radio, check out the name of the group editor or controller rather than making multiple applications. 

Have ideas. If you land a work placement, come ready armed with stories relevant to the station and the target audience. 

Ask questions. There’s no substitute for enthusiasm in the newsroom. Get to know how things work – experiment with the editing system if you can. 

Don’t be used. If your placement leads to further offers of work, make sure you get paid for it. Even in today’s tough times, you should aim for at least £60 per eight hour shift.

Have fun! Radio is still the most exciting and direct medium you can work in. Say it with a smile and you’ll be fine.

 © NewsMutt 2011

 

Hunt : A Beacon of Avoiding The Issue

Hunt by name… you can make the rest up

A few weeks ago is was all smiles and jokes when the Today programme’s Jim Naughtie mispronounced the Culture Secretary’s surname. Countless commentators speculated whether the BBC presenter had deliberately called him a c**t in the run up to the eight o clock news.

There were no such errors on this morning’s Andrew Marr Show on BBC One. Though there might have been plenty Local Radio supporters shouting something similar at the screen when he refused to explicitly back the sector during the interview. Listen in here.

It didn’t really get much better. Asked specifically about Local Radio and whether it would worry him if it disappeared, the Secretary of State responded :

“There’s a lot of speculation, people have been talking about Formula One and Wimbledon, and all those kinds of things, and these are not firm proposals, so I wouldn’t want to comment on anything in particular”.

It was therefore no surprise to hear him refusing to comment on anything in particular when, pressed about arts funding (in response to an open letter from dozens of stars), saying that it was a matter for the Arts Council, which apparently was “quite happy” with its funding settlement.

Moments earlier, Hunt had been allowed to openly plug the fact that tickets for the London Olympics were going on sale, including reading out specific details of the website where you could get them and who would be paying discounted prices. Right – that’ll be the same Olympics which will doubtless be covered in depth and at great expense by the BBC, bringing untold economic benefits to the country, will it?

Even the analysts Deloitte estimate that the BBC brings £2 of investment to the economy for every £1 of the licence fee - a return on investment that many commercial broadcasters would envy.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth…

It was reassuring to receive the following email from the Nottingham East MP Chris Leslie today :

I had email correspondence on this issue with the head of the BBC corporate and public affairs Andrew Scadding and made my views very clear to him that local radio is so crucial to community life – especially here in Nottingham where the Evening Post are the only real alternative to local accountability, and their circulation is dwindling. I’ll definitely try to find ways to raise this with the key decision makers and want to bang the drum quite loudly.

And plenty of ongoing coverage in the local papers :

Manchester Evening News

Cambridge News

Oxford Mail

Collectively, we can show Mr Hunt that fence sitting only leads to a pain in the ….

© NewsMutt 2011. All links are © of the respective publishers or broadcasters