Tips for Aspiring Journalists

This evening I've been speaking at an event at the University of Sheffield for students who are interested in a career in journalism.

Here are the tips I suggested to the aspiring journalists:

- Contact local radio stations to ask for job shadowing/work experience.

- Keep a contacts book; half of it should be made up of people you meet while reporting and gathering stories and the other half with journalists you meet at work.

- Find your own voice and reporting style. Avoid cliches. It's worth watching this amusing report by Charlie Brooker for what not to do!

- Tweet and blog about a subject you're interested in to show you can write for an online audience and are familiar with digital media.

- Keep a copy of all your journalism work.

- Make a radio/TV demo, upload them online and email them to the radio and TV stations you want to work for.

- Critically watch and listen to news programmes; which stories are they covering, how are they covering them and what would you do differently?

- Keep across media news e.g. subscribe to the BBC Radio 4 Media Show, the Guardian Media Talk and the Media Section of the Guardian website.

These are just some of my ideas, I'd be interested to hear other people's tips for up and coming journalists @MarkAnsell

Look North

After nearly two years at BBC Radio Sheffield, I'm starting a secondment at Look North, the regional BBC TV news for Yorkshire.

I'm going to be staying in the BBC newsroom in Sheffield with the Look North team who provide stories from South Yorkshire and the North Midlands.  I'll be assisting Tom Ingall and Kate Bradbrook and hopefully doing a bit of reporting myself. I want to hear from you about the stories you think we should be covering on Look North.

Get in touch via email: mark.ansell@bbc.co.uk

Army Wives' Pensions

As well as producing on the BBC Radio Sheffield breakfast show, I’ve been working on a story of mine for BBC Radio 4. It was broadcast on You & Yours today.

The story is about the Ministry of Defence admitting making a series of blunders which led to the former wives of servicemen having their pension payments cut by thousands of pounds a year. The 127 women affected had made divorce settlements with their ex-husbands based on figures they'd received from the MoD. However these figures turned out to be incorrect because the MoD failed to factor in new Department for Work and Pensions legislation.

You can listen to the interview by clicking on the following link, 7 minutes in: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039dbjt