House Fire in Hulland Ward

This is one of the few stories I've worked on which has continued to play on my mind long after my working day is over. Over the last couple of days I've been covering the disturbing story of the death of four children in a house fire in Hulland Ward near Ashbourne. This was the first time I've been on a story for BBC Radio Derby where TV crews from Sky News, BBC News, ITV News etc were there. Yesterday I did seven lives for the breakfast show from the scene, including this one...

I then went to Ashbourne, where the childrens' mother works to report for the mid morning show...

ITV Calendar Online

One of the last things I did at ITV Calendar was to start a Facebook and Twitter Feed for the programme - something I had wanted to do since starting there. It felt quite a triumph to finally have it mentioned on air with the graphic I'd commissioned.

Bird Songs

My friend Millie is doing research on how great tits change their songs according to where they live. She's found out that urban birds sing at a higher pitch than rural birds as they have to reach above the noise of traffic. Millie's doing her PHD at Aberystwyth University but did part of her research in North Derbyshire. After discussing it in the pub (surely the best place to find out new stories!) we agreed it would make an excellent report. Eventually we filmed Millie carrying out her research in Dronfield (between Sheffield and Chesterfield) with ITV Calendar's weatherman Jon Mitchell. I produced the item - directing Jon and the cameraman, scripting the voice over and editing the package.

Flotilla Interview

Before I left ITV Calendar I interviewed Mohammed Bhaiyat and his dad Ziauddin. Mohammed was on one of the boats heading to Gaza when it was stormed by Israeli troops in May. He was taken captive after the forces dropped from helicopters onto the deck of the vessel. When Mohammed returned home to Bradford he came in to the ITV Calendar studios in Leeds to be interviewed.

Missing Royal Marine

One of the last reports I did for ITV Calendar was on the missing Royal Marine Alan Addis. We got hold of the footage from British Forces News (BFBS) and I re-edited and re-voiced the footage.

Barnsley Millionaire

We weren't allowed to go and film with the Lottery winner because of his poor health so relied on the Lottery's press department to supply us with footage. All they gave us was two photos of Ashley and a few interview clips which made it a very 'shot-challenged' story, as it's known in the industry. This meant I had to tell it in a way that didn't keep referring to him winning the lottery. One of our cameraman managed to find Gary's friends at his local pub so he went and filmed with them as well as at the newsagents where Ashley had bought the ticket. Then I used archive footage of: Barnsley FC's stadium, Oakwell, and New York.

World Cup Podcasts

There's quite a few daily World Cup podcasts on offer and I've had a good listen. Expect to hear discussion on the Jabulani match ball and the noisy vuvuzelas mentioned in every podcast at least once. Here are a few in order of my preference:

1. Top spot has to go to BBC Radio 5 Live's World Cup Daily. Mark Chapman or Mark Pougatch present the day's highlights from South Africa. The podcast includes clips of the commentary of the goals and the summarisers' post match analysis and interviews with players and managers. It's my favourite of these podcasts because they have the best World Cup commentators, summarisers and interviewees on the radio and it's only 15 minutes long, instead of thirty plus like the rest of them.

2. The ITV Football Podcast, like 5 Live's, is short and sweet. Former 5 Live presenter Matt Smith and the very able Ned Boulting go through the day's match action and news from the tournament with the ITV Sport commentators and summarisers including Peter Drury, Chris Coleman and Andy Townsend. I like the podcast because they have a good knowledge of football and throw in facts and figures you didn't know.

3. Alan Davies' Armchair World Cup unlike all the other podcasts reviewed here, this one's also broadcast on the radio and is weekly, not daily. It's an amusing, quirky take on the events in South Africa in front of a studio audience. Davies' presents it along with guests Ian Stone and DJ Tayo and it's actually very funny, not that I'm normally a fan of Alan Davies. It's broadcast first on BBC Radio 5 Live on Sundays at 11am.

4. Former Channel 4 Football Italia presenter James Richardson presents the Guardian's offering, World Cup Daily with a few friends. Lively, jokey and decent summaries of the day's matches. Richardson interviews newspaper journalists based abroad about the different countries' performances. But at 35 minutes or more, it's only going to be regularly listened to by the most keen World Cup followers.

5. ESPN's Fifa World Cup Today is hilarious but for all the wrong reasons. It's an American podcast mainly focused on the fate of the USA team presented by a man named Chuck Wilson! Think Fox News meets the World Cup. It's awful. The ESPN match highlights are so bad you do wonder if it's the first "soccer match" the commentators have ever been to, for example, one commentator pronounced Gerrard (as in Steven) with a hard G! Worth listening to just once for the experience.

So plenty of World cup podcasts to get your teeth into. Have you found any other decent ones?

BLOG UPDATE 22.06.10

I've since come across ‘The Game’ World Cup podcast from The Times through reading the paper (if you search 'World Cup' in iTunes it doesn't come up - sort your search engine optimisation out The Times!). Gabriele Marcotti presents the podcast on a dodgy line from South Africa. He speaks to The Times sports journalists, including Oliver Kay, Matt Dickinson and Patrick Barclay, over the phone in the UK. Marcotti's strengths are his football knowledge and strong opinions, an Italian/American Alan Green if you will but this podcast suffers from two drawbacks. Firstly, the sound quality is awful which hardly makes it an enjoyable listen and then there’s the fact that it’s made up of phone conversations with journalists in the UK – it simply doesn't give you the atmosphere of the tournament. You can subscribe to it here.

Lions Arrive

I recently reported on the arrival of lions in Yorkshire. My package was broadcast on the late news which goes out after the ITV News At Ten. Our reporter on the ground filmed the opening shot of the report after her package on the story went out on the 6pm Calendar programme. So I changed the package for the late news bulletin. I was producing the late news that night so it was hard work finishing it in time - you may notice that the shots of the lions roaring right near the end of the package doesn't quite fit with what the interviewee says in his last soundbite.

Car Crash Reconstruction

As a TV journalist you are told to use the most dramatic pictures at the start of any report and I almost always do. But for this package on the car crash reconstruction I decided to use shots of the emergency services arriving to build up the tension before the viewer sees the wreckage of the car crash. It also allowed me to make the most of the dramatic natural sound that everyone associates with the emergency services on blue lights.

Internet Election

ELECTION BLOG 1

How did you follow the general election? The political parties invested a huge amount of effort into trying to reach their supporters and undecided voters through social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Before polling day, I investigated whether this is the first internet election...

The report includes an interview with Richard Allan from Facebook and Dr Peter Woodcock from Huddersfield University.

This video is also on the ITV Yorkshire website.

Wildcat Strike

As broadcast journalists we have to stick to the OFCOM Broadcasting Code to show 'due impartiality'. In this report on the strike at the Staythorpe power station in Nottinghamshire, it was important for me to tell the story without being biased in favour or against the workers who were striking - just to tell the facts of the story.

Chris Morris on ITV Calendar

I recently set up an interview with Chris Morris, a comedian who's renowned for never doing interviews. He was on ITV Calendar to promote the premiere of his new film Four Lions at the Bradford Film Festival.

Here's the whole interview plus the post interview chat between our correspondent Jon Hill and Chris Morris...



And this is how we told the story on the Calendar programme...



Click here to read an article on Chris Morris at the Bradford Film Festival in The Times. It gives you more depth on his appearance there.

Biggest Dairy in Europe

To tell this story I used a graphic showing where the dairy is being planned for. The graphic also helped me because I didn't have many shots to choose from to tell the story.

A Little Star

I had the luxury of around 4 hours to put this report together. It allowed me to tell the story just as I wanted, using the natural sound of Lauren reading out the celebrities who had signed her certificate for example.

Footballers Visit

Before Christmas I put together this package on footballers in the Calendar region visiting children's wards. I used a 'dip to white' between each of the teams' visits to distinguish between them.

Missing Man Returns

Here's a story I did recently on the return of a missing man.

Ed Balls

I interviewed the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families at a school in Malton for my colleague who was working on a story about libraries being compulsory in prisons but not in schools. I tried quite a few times to push him on this but, typical politician, he knows how to answer difficult questions.

His press officer was very keen dictate where we shot the interview (living up to the government press officer stereotype of being controlling!). There was a 'The Thick Of It' moment, when the press officer and my cameraman had a blazing row about where it would be filmed - eventually we agreed to do it in a meeting room with a rack of books behind him.

Golf Millions

I went to a golf course to meet a very rich lady and a young golfer who's benefited from the money she's given to charity. I put a 'piece to camera' (where I talk to the camera) in the story because when I worked at ITV Meridian they were expected in packages. I regret putting it in as it didn't add anything - I think pieces to camera should be used to show viewers something extra.

York Troops

Troops parading always provide good pictures for TV news stories. I enjoyed the challenge of being out in York with the soldiers and then heading back to the newsroom in Leeds to edit the package all within a few hours.

ITV Trainees' Highlights

This video was put together at the end of the 2008/09 ITV News traineeship. It captures what it was like to be a trainee and always puts a smile on my face when I watch it. We saw it for the first time on the trainees' last get together in Birmingham in September and rounded off a very enjoyable traineeship year.