Every day is different: a taste of broadcast journalism

In this episode I speak to Maddy Jennings, a third-year journalism student at the University of Lincoln, and Andrew Turner, a reporter who's worked for the BBC for 22 years. They share their personal journeys and experiences in the world of journalism, and the exciting opportunities that have come their way

Participants

In order of first appearance:

• Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Prospects
• Maddy Jennings - journalism student
• Andrew Turner - local BBC reporter

Transcript

Emily Slade: Hello and welcome back to Future You, the podcast brought to you by graduate careers experts Prospects. I'm your host, Emily Slade, and in this episode I talk to a couple of people from within the world of broadcast journalism. Andrew Turner, who's a BBC local radio reporter, who's been with the BBC for 22 years, and Maddy Jennings, a journalism student at the University of Lincoln. They tell us a bit about the experiences and opportunities they've had, why they love the subject, and hopefully, you'll get a good idea as to whether you might to.

Maddy Jennings: Hi, I'm Maddy, I'm 22. And I'm a journalism student at the University of Lincoln. I specialise in broadcast journalism, which is what I want to get into when I graduate.

Emily Slade: What made you want to study that?

Maddy Jennings: So when I was younger, I was quite nosy as a child. So my mum always said, oh, you should be a journalist, you know, because then you can be nosy and get paid for it. And that was when I was really young, but it just kind of stuck. Like I never really even considered anything else. It's just kind of what I've always wanted to do. When I was younger, I wrote for publications online and stuff, volunteered for a YouTube publication called Ten-Eighty, before that got shut down - did that from like, 2017. So I was like, 15 When I started doing that. So yeah, I did that. And then I just knew that I always wanted to go to university to study it.

Emily Slade: Amazing, and is there any reason why you chose Lincoln specifically?

Maddy Jennings: Lincoln was actually my insurance choice. My top choice was Sheffield, but I am very happy that I actually went to Lincoln instead. Because it's such a nice city like it's a, it's a proper city university. But the city is so small that everything feels like a campus. So everything feels like it's all together. And yeah, it just feels really nice. I really enjoy being there. I enjoy how small the course is, especially compared to other universities, there's only I think, between 30 and 50 people on my course. So we all get, you know, a lot of personal time with the tutors. So we know what we're doing. We get a lot of personal feedback as well, from the shooters, they all know who we are and like, what we're about and what we're doing. So yeah, I I'm glad I went to Lincoln in the end. Yeah.

Emily Slade: How many years is it is a three year degree? And what year are you on now?

Maddy Jennings: Third year at the moment.

Emily Slade: Okay, so what does that look like? Do you have a lot of sort of pre professional opportunities coming up?

Maddy Jennings: Yes. So we have a whole module, which is half you making a project and having a say. I'm doing documentaries, a 10 minute documentary that we've got to make, and you've got to come up with your idea, pitch it and then source all your material, edit it, produce it, present it yourself. So that's quite good at helping you build contacts. But then the other side of that module is work experience. So we get introduced to different employers, people who could potentially give us work experience, learn about different types of journalism, so freelancing, we learn about what like stuff contracts look like and all this kind of stuff. So yeah, is really good.

Emily Slade: Are you doing work on the side at the moment alongside your course?

Maddy Jennings: Yes I am. So when I was in my about to begin my second year, I heard that someone on my course had got a job at BBC Radio Lincolnshire. And I was like...I want one of those... So I emailed them, went for a chat and had a look around and then started by doing some shifts on a Sunday, which was like the folk show. So that wasn't, it wasn't too much caller interaction, just to see how I got on. So I did that and really enjoyed it. Now I work there when I'm in uni. Then when I'm at home, I work at Radio Norfolk as well, where I just answer phones, cut audio, do whatever anyone wants me to do, basically, but I really enjoy it.

Emily Slade: Yeah, I imagine it's a good opportunity to sort of work in a real environment.

Maddy Jennings: Yeah, it definitely feels like real journalism. So obviously, we do a lot of it in practice at uni. But I know it's not going out to many people. Whereas here, yesterday for example, at Radio Norfolk, I went out and did some vox pops, so I went and asked people about measles in the street. All of the responses that I cut together, I knew that people were going to hear this morning, and it just felt so rewarding. Like knowing that what you're doing actually makes a difference.

Emily Slade: Yeah, absolutely. So I've been following you on X...Twitter, and you've been all over the place these past few weeks!

Maddy Jennings: I have been I have definitely been all over the place. Yeah. So I went to the Jeremy Vine show. I've started freelancing there a little bit. I did some work experience in November and then they reached out and asked if I wanted to come back and do some shifts. So I enjoyed that. And then I had two weeks work experience at Good Morning Britain as well. In the last couple of weeks, so yeah, that was really good, really interesting. I went on... I went in their input team, their output team, I went into the gallery, I went on the studio floor for This Morning, which is really cool! Yeah, so I really enjoyed that.

Emily Slade: So do you have a goal that you're aiming for? Once you graduate? Or are you just gonna sort of see what opportunities fall into your lap?

Maddy Jennings: I think I'm seeing what falls into my lap. I'm applying for like, everything that comes up really. Because you never know. I think I want to go into radio. I'm pretty sure. That's what I want to do. But I'm also open to TV. I know broadcast is what I want to do, overall, but I'm not sure whether it's TV or radio yet. I'm steering towards radio, but I don't have much experience in TV. So yeah, who knows?

Emily Slade: That's exciting. Yeah. What are you taking away from these different bits of work experience? Like, what are you finding that you're learning the most?

Maddy Jennings: Definitely the dynamics of how these newsrooms work. So like here, even here - Radio Norfolk and Radio Lincolnshire are so different. The way that the teams are put together, with editors, and producers, and broadcast assistants and whatever. It's so interesting, like how everyone works together and, and get things to work. So, at Good Morning Britain, it was so interesting to see how the planning team comes up with an idea like two weeks before. They write a basic brief of the idea, book a guest, then on the day before the input team takes it. And then they write a whole two page brief about it, and contact the guests, and then the output, people cut all the videos for it. And then they are there overnight. And then in the morning, they greet the guests, it's just so weird how it all comes together from all these separate teams. I think that's what I'm really taking away from it, and also, like, I don't know, it's just so many different jobs. I never even realised, like how many different jobs go into all these things? I know people say like, when you're listening to the radio or something, they say, oh, yeah, there's big team behind this. But you don't really think that there is there's like real people doing so many things to put something together. It's really interesting. Yeah.

Emily Slade: Do you know if anyone else on your course are having similar experiences to you? Is this something that you've sought out yourself and then got access to or is everyone sort of feeling their way around the industry?

Maddy Jennings: It's been a mix. So people are obviously getting work at the BBC local radio station, Radio, Lincolnshire where we go to uni. Quite a few people work there. But a lot of the opportunities that I get is, I get a bursary alongside my uni, from the Royal Television Society. So I applied for that when I was in my first year, just saw it online decided I might as well apply for it as I needed some money. So they basically give me some money towards uni, and then invite me to their networking events, and I get to go for free. They pay for my travel and accommodation. So it's really good. That's how I met the editor of Good Morning Britain, and I got work experience there. And then a couple of years ago, I did work experience at ABC News, and then the London newsrooms as well. So that's how I got that. Getting into Radio...was just being annoying to be honest with you, just emailing people like, "hey", and not leaving them alone. Don't take no for an answer. Some people are getting similar things...we have sports journalists on our course as well. So a lot of them are getting quite good work experience in their industries. Our uni does have quite a few good connections as well, especially to like print publication. So I know a lot of people are doing some stuff with with other print publications to so yeah, it's good.

Emily Slade: What advice would you have for someone thinking about going into journalism? Is there a way that they can sort of get a tester as to whether they like the feel of it or not?

Maddy Jennings: Definitely, I think you should do it. First up. But also, if you contact people who are already in the field, like I don't know, I've never come across anyone who hasn't been willing to share how they do things, what they do let you shadow them for a bit. I think that's definitely a really good way to see if you'd like it, like when you actually get into it. But also like volunteer publications, there's so many online, of people just looking for other people to come and write for their publication, or to do some video editing for them or wherever. So if you just get involved in anything, it's all going to be voluntary at that stage, because you're just feeling it out anyway. Yeah, I think that they are all really good pathways to get in. I just really enjoy it. I think journalism is a really good course even if you change your mind. A lot of people on my course have decided they don't actually want to get into journalism. Some of them want to go down like the PR route and things like that. But it just brings so many transferable skills, if it's in the form of writing, video editing, producing, even just talking to people, the amount we learn just about going outside and just talking to random people in the street. It builds your confidence so much So I would always recommend that anyone study journalism, even if even if you're not entirely sure you want to do it, it'll definitely get you somewhere.

Andrew Turner: So I think the story really began when I was in my early 20s, I'd been working on the Sizewell B nuclear power Station project for a company called GE, the General Electric Company. And it was a job, which was fascinating, but I actually got quite bored in engineering. So I kind of dropped out of my training. And before that, I'd been through a myriad of jobs. I'd gone through nine jobs in my first two years after leaving school at 16. But all of those things began to conspire to give me a fascination about people. what makes people tick, because those are all the things that journalists need to understand and can champion. I knew three people who were journalists in different parts of the UK, and I had failed at school. I had no qualifications. When I left school, I hated school, and hated teachers and hated the teaching environment. But I dated a teacher, oddly enough, you'd never expect it after the time I had at school. But that kind of inspired me I was in my... I think I was 22. I was learning at Ipswich college, City & Guilds Technical Qualification in hydraulics, and pneumatics, two things we weren't taught by GE. I was then encouraged to go back to maths and English evening classes, which I then took up at Lowestoft college, and from there, I was heading towards redundancy, you know, a fixed term construction project, like a power station, you have to come to the end of the building someday. So I took early redundancy, took my redundancy money, and went to college for a year on an access course, now access for someone who doesn't know is the equivalent of two A levels in one year, I think it's enough to get you into university, and it was designed for material students. So I did that. And then went to uni in Preston, and studied journalism, thinking that 24 years old I was then I haven't got time to mess around, I need a vocational degree. I haven't got time to study something like History or English, and then learn journalism, I need to learn journalism from the outset of my studies. Now I need to be serious and catch up on what I've lost since I was 16. And did it pay off? Well, it depends who you ask doesn't mean, it did. I saw I did a combined honours degree, thinking that a journalist is more than journalism.

Emily Slade: What do you mean by that?

Andrew Turner: Well, you can be a journalist by technical ability, but you need to have a knowledge and understanding of society that you're in. But I studied politics and economics, as well as journalism as equal thirds. So two modules of each through through the first year, dropped one subject for my second. So major journalism, minor economics. And then in my elective in my third year, I had the opportunity of architecture in society, which I love architecture, and society is something I'll always be reporting on. So you can I learned about politics, I learned about economics, I dropped politics, because I decided that economics actually is what governs policy. I still believe that that's the case, your built environment, where we live, is our housing fit for purpose? Have we got the community facilities? Have we got the heritage? Are we protecting the heritage? Where people take their reference points from, you know, you grow up somewhere, and you've always had these landmarks or these industries, which have shaped where you're from, it will shape who you are. So all of these things became interesting. And I think my degree gave me a good grounding for everything that I then needed to come out with, and go into industry, that with the context of working with managers who were useless, working with customers who are difficult, working with people who you've got no interest in spending any time with, but you have to because you clock on together, and you have to perform a function. I've worked in places where the environment has been really quite toxic, where people are unpleasant to each other. In some of that some of the conditions that you see, you can then start to look at how people are behaving, how they're treated, how they're respected, where society starts to go wrong, and you get some amazing insights with this job. When you start looking at what other people do.

Emily Slade: So let's talk about your job. What is it that you do?

Andrew Turner: My first news editor told me that my job is to get the story. And he didn't do in the way of kind of like, go out there and sell your body, ell your soul. Don't misrepresent. Don't break the trust. But allow yourself to be trusted, and value that trust.

Emily Slade: What is the most exciting thing about your job?

Andrew Turner: Not knowing what you're going to deal with. Never knowing whether you're going to have a laugh, never knowing whether it's going to be something serious, not knowing the impact of what that story being told will have. It's not about me and what I do with a story. My job is to be the conduit to allow someone and especially, this is what I like about radio - and I must say, having trained in newspapers, I never imagined news without pictures, and so getting into radio wasn't what I wanted to do, I wanted to get into. Well, I actually I didn't like the daily newspaper in the group that I was working on. And that was the career path that was set before us to go from the weekly to the daily. And I hated that daily in the newspaper with a passion. So I was looking at jobs in ITV. I didn't think that I was BBC material, and perhaps i'm still not. I survived 22 years, somehow! I applied at Meridian in the south, I applied HTV in Cardiff, I applied to Anglia, and didn't get any jobs. And my sister saw this job advertised. And I went for it. And it surprised me to go for radio and the BBC because of no pictures. But I learned that you can be a lot more descriptive in radio, you can use sounds, you can use emotion in voice, to tell a story to allow someone the freedom to tell their story in their words, in their time, quite often. And you haven't got pictures as a distraction. So you can shut your eyes or focus on only what is said or heard. You don't need the pictures. So yeah, getting getting through to all those different ways of explaining the story, the best that you can in the time that you've got. So you might get three minutes in radio, but it might be a minute and a half in TV. It might be 700 words, it might be 150 words online, who knows there's different ways that audience digest things. And so it's just a matter of knowing how best to get the information that you think someone would benefit from listening. And it could be something that's inspirational, it could be something that which is a leveler or it could be something which brings you to tears. I think one of the greatest compliments or had is a story that I did with a woman I never imagined I'd get the story. It took me two years to get the story out of this woman. She was a dominatrix. And she had a house where she would have people call, and she would do various things to them for set charge. And it was all very funny, in a way because she was so candid about it. And it took me when she she absolutely got me last words on several occasions. I say how do you mean, I had a sleepless night even before I interviewed her? What's your first question? And I couldn't sleep because it was worrying me the first question can make or break the whole thing. And my job, as Peter O'Reilly said, is to get the story. Don't distort yourself out of all recognition don't become something that you're not. But you've got to morph yourself. So she tells her story. And that could be a homeless person one day, it could be a Lord of the Manor the next you've got to morph and get yourself into the plane where they will speak to you. So the first question I had for her. Can you guess? Did you ever expect to live the life you've lived? The second question followed. Any regrets? No. She said, I had a whale of a time. And that got the whole thing going. So the first question can cost you the whole thing. So you need to be careful of that. Because if someone just switches off and I've, I've had colleagues in the past on the radio, where they asked a tough question. It was a celebrity on the phone. They just hung up. I just went dead live on the radio. It's like you asked it absolutely idiotic question. And someone called you out and hung up live on the radio. And there's like, you know what? As much as I love that colleague, it was like that was a bad move. You know? So yeah, there are consequences of getting it right. Work Experience. 1995 Norwich Crown Court. 79 year old man accused of holding his 39 year old estranged wife at knifepoint. I was in court on day three when the verdict was passed, was returned by the jury. Everything that had been written in the newspaper where I had been shadowing on work experience made it look like he was guilty. He was acquitted. And the journalist who had written these things based on what's heard in court, but she kind of believed that he was guilty. So it was written in a salacious way. If you had to approach them afterwards to see if he would talk to her give her the exclusive..."after what you've written about me? No". I go to court. In fact, even today, I was I was filming at a school where there's a teacher who is in court for sentencing next week. And I, I went to reception. And I said to the receptionist, I said, Look, this is who I am, this is where I work. This is what I'm doing. I'm speaking to parents outside the school, I'm on a public highway. So technically, they can't stop me because I'm not on their premises. But I just wanted to be accountable for who I was, and showing my face. And there's some journalists who won't do that. I gave them my phone number and my email and said, If you want to get in touch and tell me your side, please do. I go to court. Sometimes I speak to the families of the defendants or the families of the victims, or, and I say to them, This is who I am, this is what I'm doing. This is how you can get hold of me. If you don't like what you see of what I've written from this court case, I will stand up to criticism. But I will also tell you that when I come to court, and if anyone who's studying journalism, who doesn't know the process. Of course, this is a brilliant way to explain things to people. Sometimes people will say, Oh, you reported that wrong. You know, that's not what really happened. The victim of a crime or the perpetrator of a crime, they know the true story. Okay, even if they're lying to themselves or lying in court. They know the truth because they lived it. Someone then writes a book, the book gets made into a stage play. And court is the stage court is theater. And effectively as a court reporter. I am a theater critic. So I can't reply, I can't report what happened in real life, or even what happened in the book. Because the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the defense might not use everything that's in the book. And they might not have been told everything that happened in real life, because someone's trying to protect someone else. So I am the theater critic and caught his theater, and not to report anything outside of what happens on that stage in the theater is a contempt of court. So I just explain it to people like that. You might not think this is what really happened. But I'm limited to the evidence that the jury hears. And I can only report what the jury hears once the court has reached its verdict, then I can tell you what really happened in real life. If you're prepared to talk to me, then and often people aren't. But if someone is found guilty, you can tell them. Why not? Why not. So your job is to trust is to build trust, so that when the person comes out of court, guilty or innocent victim, who is? Well, it's more difficult when someone is found not guilty. Because you can't say that someone did commit a crime when a court has found them innocent. That's scandalising the court, and that's a contempt which could land you in prison. But what you can do after a court case, you could have a victim of crime says the sentence wasn't tough enough, that's fair. You can also go to the victim and say, when you tell me your story, if you've built up a report, if you've told him who you are, what you're going to do, how you're going to do it, where they can find your reports and how they can complain if they think you've got it wrong. They're much more likely to come to you with their story and trust you because you've been open and honest and accountable. And I think that's, that's one thing that I routinely do. And it served me well. And I I'd recommend it to anyone starting out. And then you flip it, you know, again, earlier this afternoon I was out with with one of our young reporters, and just helping her with a bit of content does so it's really about confidence about approaching people in the street, but also just how to go about getting people to tell their stories and whatever. And we were absolutely sat on our backsides. The interview was about people's adventures telling us about their adventures. And we've spoken to one couple, and they've blown their budget, and they'd had all this amazing time during the year traveling around Asia and Africa. And then we spoke to another guy, and it's like, he didn't look like he was much of an adventurer. He was much older, and we possibly had an opinion. But I said to this colleague, I said, always be prepared to be surprised. And this guy was like I said, Well, I'm gonna go to India next. And he said, I've been to Africa. I've been all over Europe, but I'm going to India. Why are you going to India is he that I'm gonna go to the Varanasi because that's where people go before they die. So I said, you're not thinking about dying? You can ask those questions if you ask it in the right way. And I said, Don't be frightened, to this colleague of mine. Don't be frightened to push boundaries to be cheeky. Don't be disrespectful. But you can be cheeky, if it's appropriate. And you can see what the results are. And back to that mess room at Sizewell. You're going to either fire into life, and I'm going to wonder what the hell it hit me. Or you're going to tell me the most amazing story. And when they do that, when they trust you with their story, sometimes you hit a bit of gold.

Emily Slade: Hopefully, that's been a helpful insight into the world of journalism and giving you an idea of whether it might be for you or not. If you do want to find out more head to prospects.ac.uk and search journalism, where you'll find job profiles and course options. Make sure to give us a follow wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at podcast@prospects.ac.uk or find us on Instagram and Tiktok. All the links are in the description. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.

Find out more

• Discover what you can do with a journalism degree.
• Read all about being a broadcast journalist.