Tuesday 19 March 2013

Work Placement Week Two


Week two of my work placement went quite well. It’s not what I expected work in a radio station to be but then I had no idea of what working in a radio station would be like.I’m working in the newsroom, a busy newsroom and yet everything works on a schedule and to schedule.

The important show each day is the Kerry Today program, which goes out from 9am to 11am. It’s the show I’m most involved in and I work with the presenter and the producer. Watching a show develop from a few words in the mid morning to a complete program schedule by about 4pm and on to being broadcast live the next day is fascinating. In fact, preparation for the next day’s show begins immediately after that day’s show finishes. That morning’s show is quickly forgotten and research on stories for the next day begins immediately. It’s like the old saying about the morning’s newspaper wrapping that evening’s fish and chips.

Research for me involves calling possible interviewees and checking if their story has wings or to see if they are willing to talk on the air. One story I developed myself was regarding the problem of internet trolls. It so happened that somebody I knew has had a problem with online abuse and had been featured in The Irish Times. As he lives in Dingle, it gave the story a Kerry angle, obviously something very important to the station. My man was only too willing to share his experiences and give his opinion on how to solve the problem. He went out live on Wednesday morning and I was quite pleased that I had brought the story together.

On Thursday, I went out with the Kerry Mobile Unit to get an idea of what the service was all about and what it did. Again, this was a story I’d developed myself, after a conversation with the county library service. So with my flash mic in hand I joined the Library van in Firies and spent the morning interviewing the staff onboard, the regular borrowers and the school children from the various schools we visited. It was a great morning and wonderful experience for me. In all I got about three hours of material from my time with the mobile library and I was tired after all the talking. It helped a lot that the two Library workers onboard, Timmy and Bartie, were great characters and well able to talk.

Friday was spent trying to edit the recordings from Thursday into a usable piece for the radio. Eventually I got the three hours down to about sixty minutes, still too long for what is needed.

It looks like my third week at work will be spent cutting poor Timmy and Bartie down to just twenty minutes or so. The problem is that I like what I have too much; it won’t be easy editing out much of what I have.

All part of the learning process I suppose.

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