In the Director's Gallery
Mentee, Rymel, 15 reports his experience of shadowing television journalists at the BBC for the day.
When I was told I was going to shadow a reporter at the BBC I was very excited and accepted it straight away.
When I finish school, my plan is to play professional football or perhaps to coach a team. But recently, I’ve been thinking about what other careers I could get into if things don’t go the way I want. When Leila at Urban Synergy told me that I’d get to visit the BBC for a day to shadow a TV news team, I didn’t believe her! I was told that an assistant news editor at BBC South East, Michael would be looking out for me on the day. He’s in a high position so I felt a bit nervous about meeting him but excited too.
Checking out the Camera
I had a long train journey in the morning to the BBC regional studios in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Once I arrived, I was met by Michael, who showed me around the BBC London South East news room so I could see where it (the news) happens. The news room is massive, busy and very confusing – I could not see how everyone managed to understand all the different computers. Michael was a cool guy whose dress style was real swagger… He told me he was very similar to me when he was a youngster.
I sat in on the news team’s morning meeting as they talked about what new news they had found out about to run on the news programmed for the day. I’ve never met anyone who works on the radio or TV so to be in a place full of journalists, newsreaders and technical staff was unreal!
Michael introduced me to Linda, a journalist. Linda was very informative and explained to me everything I didn’t understand. Linda was the person I spent most of the day with and I went with her to report two stories for the following day’s breakfast and evening news programmed. Once we got to our first destination, I assisted Linda by helping to film a man she interviewed about a new initiative to get CCTV fitted into taxis.
Our second destination took us to Gravesend, Kent for an environmental story. We went to meet a man in woodlands so Linda could interview him. The story covered the cost of cutting down trees and the threat to animals that live in the woods including snakes called Adder!
Interviewing for Woodland Story
These two events took up the whole day, and we arrived back at the BBC around 6:00pm.
I did not want the day to end as it was very interesting and I really enjoyed the experience. Before leaving I even got to meet the evening news reader and one of the technicians who control the news broadcasting from behind the scenes.
This experience has made me want to really go for my dreams in whatever I do. If the people I met can get to the top of their game, then I think I can too.