ITV Trainee

I've just started as a trainee journalist for ITV Meridian.

Today I blogged about what I've been up to so far on the Meridian blog:

ITV trainee Mark Ansell blogs from the Meridian studios

My name’s Mark Ansell, I’ve just joined ITV Meridian News as a trainee journalist. I’m 23 and from Thame in Oxfordshire and have spent most of my short career working for local BBC radio stations.

This is the first time I’ve worked for ITV and because of this and the significant changes being made to regional news in ITV, I was quite nervous about starting. However, I’ve been wonderfully welcomed - the upbeat and friendly nature of the presenters in the Meridian and Thames Valley programmes is not only genuine, but reflected in all the people that work at Whiteley, where we are based.

Last week I descended on ITV’s headquarters in London, alongside the seven other trainees who will be based at the other ITV newsrooms across the country, for a crash-course in all things ITV. We learnt how top quality graphics and production are central to the success of ITV regional news, how http://www.itvlocal.com/ is being improved to build a closer relationship with our audiences and how ITV is developing the way advertising money is brought in through http://www.itv.com/.

On Thursday we visited Meridian where we had a go at presenting the news (off air!), under the watchful eye of Lisa, the gallery director (she calls the shots - literally - behind the scenes when the programmes go out) and legendary presenter Fred Dinenage. Earlier that day we went to see GMTV on the South Bank in London. While on the set I stood toe-to-toe with Thursday’s top guest, a weary looking Gordon Brown before he was interviewed by Andrew Castle.

Over the next few months I’ll be learning how to put together and deliver the ITV Meridian and Thames Valley news programmes, including planning stories for the programmes, going out to film, editing the video, and writing scripts for the presenters. My aim is to be contributing to the joint effort of putting on your regional news programme as soon as possible.