I've written a blog for the ITV Meridian website about life on the news desk...The News Desk: every newsroom has one and almost all stories that we cover arrive there. It is made up of a News Editor, the Programme Producer and a number of others including the News Desk Assistant, which is the job I’ve been doing.
It’s a hub of activity with stories come in via email, phone and internet. Every day we receive hundreds of emails with press releases from political parties, NHS trusts, companies and local government; but most importantly it’s you who get in touch with us.
As News Desk Assistant for the past fortnight, I’ve been helping set up stories for Meridian Tonight and the next day’s programme. The News Editor and I process the stories and decide which of them we want to cover on the programme. We have a prospects meet every morning to run through all of the stories that we are covering that day.
A few weeks ago, while our 6pm programme was going out, I got a call from a viewer whose daughter had been without heating and hot water for weeks. The daughter was pregnant, had two young children and lived in a council house in Leigh Park, near Havant.
I got all the details about her story and organised our reporter Richard Jones and a camera operator to cover it the next day. This is one example of a viewer’s story making it into the programme but we always want to hear from you. Get in touch by email yourstory@itvlocal.com or call us on 0844 881 2000.
Nice blog Mark! Being from Brighton, I'm always interested in what's happening at Meridian - dismayed about Debbie Thrower. Hope things at ITV improve. Here in Cornwall, ITV's merger with Bristol, has just about been pulled off, without too much venom from viewers.
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