Live Reporting under Spaghetti Junction

On my last get together with the ITV News trainees, I had one of my first opportunities to give live reporting a go on TV. We gathered in Birmingham to make a not for broadcast programme covering the Midlands. For the trainee programmes in Leeds in June 2009 I was a presenter and then a programme editor, this time I was a reporter and was given the top story to work on - an independent report on the murder of a policeman by a paranoid schizophrenic.

In the morning I went to the canal tow path under the spaghetti junction in Birmingham, where the Detective Constable was killed, to film some shots for my package. ITV Central correspondent and king of self-shooting stories Keith Wilkinson came with me to film my piece to camera and give me some tips on camera work.



















For our programme, I decided to go back to the spaghetti junction to top and tale my package with 'a live'. With seconds to spare Keith and cameraman Mark managed to get the satellite truck working and I was ready to go live. It was a nerve-wracking but thoroughly exhilarating experience and I can't wait to do it for real.

Unfortunately, the video above cuts out before the end of my live report, just before I handed back to the studio.

Walking on Broken Glass!

This has to be the most unusual story I've covered: a motivational expert attempting to break a record for the amount of time spent walking on broken glass! I had two hours to put the package together which was made more challenging as I had thirty minutes of footage to choose from and a just few paragraphs of information on the story. If I'd had more time, I would have used Annie Lennox's song Walking On Broken Glass in the package!

Searching For Unexploded Bombs

I put together this package on RAF bomb disposal experts searching for unexploded devises in a North Yorkshire village.

It was on the day Hannah Whelan came in for work experience and was useful for her to see me under pressure to tun the package round in two hours. A reporter had been out filming the story and had given me some tips over the phone on which parts of the footage to use. The programme was a little under that day so I was asked for the package to be two minutes when I think one minute thirty would have told the story better. To cut it down, I would have dropped the policeman as I don't think he adds much.