Copp Out

Late last night, after his Reading team lost the play-off semi final against Burnley, Steve Coppell resigned as manager.

The day before, I went to Reading's training session to interview Coppell for ITV Meridian about the match. As you'll see, there was no sign he was on the verge of leaving.

Producing Bulletins

Over the last few months at ITV Meridian, I've been producing the lunchtime news bulletin. I thought I'd write a little bit about what it involves:

As well as the flagship Meridian Tonight, we have bulletins during GMTV, at lunchtime, after the News at Ten and at weekends. Each bulletin has a producer in charge and I've been learning how to produce the lunchtime bulletin. The day starts with the news meeting at about 9:15am where Adam, the news editor, goes through the stories we are considering covering in Meridian Tonight at 6pm that day. The reporters, producers and other journalists all chip in with story ideas.

As I’m on the lunchtime bulletin shift, my main concern is that bulletin. Unlike Meridian Tonight, the lunchtime bulletin is pan regional so it’s a large patch to cover - I'm keen to get stories from as many of the eleven County Council areas as possible (which if you’re wondering is Berkshire, Dorset, Essex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey, East Sussex, West Sussex and Wiltshire).

The lunchtime bulletin lasts only six and a half minutes and includes a minute of weather, so I have to decide which of the many stories discussed in the morning meeting I can cover. Once I’ve chosen the stories, I then have to decide how they should be ‘treated’ (how we are going to tell the stories). Stories need to be treated in different ways; some for example deserve 'a live' at the scene but I have to find out if we have a reporter and satellite truck that can get to the story. Other stories will suit a report or ‘package’ and less significant stories will deserve just a few sentences, read by the presenter over relevant pictures. I put the script of the stories in the running order and cut their pictures. It’s important to have some spare stories in case we are running under time during the bulletin. The running order is constantly changing as I write up and cut pictures of any breaking stories worthy of going in the bulletin. We get told of breaking news stories from a variety of sources, including through our viewers, the emergency services and our staff.

At 1:30pm the bulletin should be ready for the scripts to be printed. We go into the gallery to practise the bulletin and then go live; the production assistant announces “5, 4, 3, 2, 1” and we’re on air. Just before the end of the bulletin the production assistant informs the presenter via the gallery, “shut up in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1”. Then a sigh of relief, a quick debrief and it’s time for a well deserved lunch.

Slave Ship Assembly

Last week a report of mine was broadcast on ITV Meridian. I went back to my school in Thame to cover The Gambia Week, celebrating its link with a partner school in the West African country. This included a slave ship assembly.

On the morning of filming the story, my news editor called to say I couldn't have a cameraman as there was a breaking story that needed covering. This meant I couldn't do the story and I was gutted as it was a good opportunity for me to report and I'd spent a long time setting up the story with the school. This had involved getting permission to film the students, organising which parts of The Gambia Week I'd want to film and thinking through how my story would look on the Meridian programme.

But I was determined for the story to be on Meridian and did what you have to in these situations - thought of a way round it. I asked the school if they had a camera I could use so that I could film the story myself - and to my delight Mark, the technical man at the school, presented me with a really good camera which the school had been donated. The story was back on and I reacquainted myself with filming - the last time I'd picked up a camera was on my Cardiff postgrad course a year ago. With the help of Mark (he filmed my piece to camera) I successfully filmed the story and it was broadcast on Easter Monday. Let me know what you think.

Last year I covered the same story for BBC Radio Oxford when I was on placement from my Cardiff course. You can listen to it by clicking HERE and then clicking PLAY.