When the day arrived, I was really excited. I had to be at the radio station at 06:15 to sit alongside the producer of the early morning shows. He showed me all of the equipment and spoke me through the morning itinerary. I got to see how they got everything to work, and run as smoothly as they do on morning radio. Most of the sections were actually pre-recorded and phone calls were always directed to the producer before they made it live on air. For me this was a learning process, it took awhile to get my head around how it all actually work. Radio being a sector that a would love to get into in the future, it was incredible to be a part of the production of it, even if it was just for a morning.
When the early morning news show, with Dotty, was finished I was sent upstairs to speak to Dave. Before I got to meet him officially, I was given a tour of the studio. The studio is so much bigger than you'd think. There was a lot of recording rooms, technical rooms, and meeting rooms. For such a broad building there was only a handful of staff, which was the biggest surprise of the day for me. I met around 20 people, all very friendly and welcoming, all incredibly informative too.
The main part of my day, the sole purpose of me going was my introduction to Dave Harvey. Dave gave me little activities to do, to discover potential news stories for the following day. When all of these were complete I was able to sit in on the daily meeting, where they discuss all of the stories they are covering over the next couple days. This was really interesting for me to watch, as it was more of a huge brainstorming activity. They bounced ideas around until they had a full plan. After this Dave sat with me a went through what I should do to get into broadcasting journalism/media. He gave me some proper sound advice which completely changed all plans I originally had for after leaving Long Road. Because of the advice he gave me, I am now applying to university which before meeting him, I had not even considered.
This opportunity was only given to me because I contacted them myself. It was super easy to speak to someone who could help me. If you know which area of media you would like to go into then I can recommend contacting local places who could help you. Because of this experience It really helped me personally as I now know what needs to be done to improve my chances of getting into that area in the future, and what opportunities are out there to get experience and qualifications.
Thanks Jamie for this excellent write-up. Remember, if any of you get involved in anything media related, in, out or after leaving Long Road, I would love to hear about it!