Greetings!
Just yesterday I handed in my final assignment, thus completing my post-graduate diploma of journalism at RMIT University!
This month has been incredibly busy. As if getting my major uni assignments in on time wasn’t enough, I also started two new jobs (Quiz Meisters Trivia host, plus a job writing for VEA, but more about that later); we got a new real estate agent (throwing my share-housing situation into uncertainty); plus I’ve been making arrangements for my work placement with WIN TV in Ballarat next week.
But I wanted to make a special blog entry about my recent experience reading the radio news on Melbourne’s RRR. We had to do this as part of the radio journalism subject at uni and I’ve gotta say, I absolutely LOVED it! It was a lot of fun.
We were put into groups of four. Coincidentally, I was paired with Bec Puddy and Ben Hagemann, both former Adelaideans (like myself). We were also joined by the lovely Maddy Maung.
We arrived at RMIT University’s Swanston Street radio studios in Building 6 at 8am. We then wrote the news, recorded phone interviews for grab stories and recorded a voice-report or two, before reading the news live to air at midday, via some sort of link to the RRR Studios in Brunswick. Each team got to do it twice.
Here are the highlights from our team’s days:
It was great! There was an unofficial contest going between teams to see who could get the biggest person to give a quote. I myself managed to get Fiona Pattern, president of the Australian Sex Party. On the second day, Ben got the Chilean ambassador to Australia. One of the other groups got Tony Windsor. I think the winner goes to whichever team got the East Timor opposition leader. Well done… jerks…
Day one was probably more enjoyable for me, as I got to read the news and because it was a slow news day, there was more room for some funny stories, eg. “the sex lives of women 40+” and “toilet phones”. On the second day however, I was quite ill and really had to drag myself into the studio. Surprisingly, my throat held out long enough for me to record a voice-report. Luckily I made it in because Maddy was sick as well, and without me it would have just been Bec and Ben.
This was actually the first time I’d ever read REAL news on the radio. And thank God I enjoyed it, because I was kinda banking on this when I decided to come to Melbourne to study journalism. I could certainly see myself doing this everyday.
Of course the reality of a REAL radio news room would probably involve half as many people, and instead of spending four hours preparing for one five-minute bulletin, you’d probably be doing them every half hour, possibly for two different radio stations…
But hey, bring it on!
As for the next challenge, I’m off to Ballarat for a week of work experience with the WIN TV News team!
Kind regards,
David M. Green
That is one sweet-arse panel they’ve got in the RMIT studio.
