Eleanor Service | Erin Seils
As part of the BBC School Report, celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, pupils at St. Andrew’s and St. Bride’s were lucky enough to get the opportunity to take a trip to the BBC Scotland studios.
As part of the experience, on Thursday 10th March, we were given a tour of the studios, and three pupils actually got to go live on air on the Kaye Adams show to discuss the refugee crisis. As reporters for the Oystercatcher, we interviewed BBC sports journalist Marion MacNeil, along with BBC school report reporters Bolu and Adelio, to find out what a career in journalism actually entails.
We opened the interview by asking her what her most exciting moments have been whilst travelling. She told us that she had travelled to Melbourne in 2006 to cover the Commonwealth Games. The atmosphere there was one of the things she most enjoyed, as Scotland was competing. This event also began Glasgow’s bid for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
A great deal of our curiosity lay in what it took to become a journalist. Bolu asked what training she had to undergo in order to get to where she is today. Her career path started with two years in college, which she then followed with some time spent travelling, before she began to work for a newspaper. Marion then went on to university, where she earned her degree in media and communications. While doing this, she learned about a lot of different aspects of the media. One of the things she really focused on was impartiality. Although impartiality is very difficult to achieve, this is something the BBC must do.
To get an insight into what sports journalism really entails, Adelio asked, “what do you do on a daily basis?”.
We were told that it varies from day to day, but she often travels to locations to film her stories. Often her day starts the night before an interview takes place. An example of this is her having to travel to the south of England to interview Graeme Souness, a retired professional Scottish football player and manager. In her role as producer, she has to organise taking a camera man and reporter to location. She reads over the script to prepare for the interview before filming begins.
Information is the most important part of any news story. Bolu wanted to find out where she gets hers from. Due to her role as producer, she does not directly gather the information. However, she did tell us that sources can come from inside sports clubs, and that sometimes journalists can get tip offs from friends in specific sports.
Our next enquiry was about her travels again, and where she had gone. As part of her job she has travelled to England, France and Melbourne, Australia. A story on rugby, filmed with John Beattie, lead Marion to France. She told us that rugby is slightly different in France, and very interesting. Rugby in France can differ because of culture and the place it is played in, and we were told that these changes make rugby in France a very interesting topic. John Beattie was actually in the studios whilst we were there, and we got the chance to meet him as we watched some of our pupils go live on air, which was a very interesting experience.
As we were not going on air we were sitting in the producer’s room adjacent to the room were Kaye Adams was doing her show. The three people in the room were monitoring what was being said, and we got to watch as they gave the cues and sorted out the clips that were then played live on air. It was fascinating to see how radio shows were actually made, and what went on as the show was live. The amount of equipment in the room was amazing and we got an incredible insight into the world of radio.
During the interview our pupils were asked about the refugee crisis, and the work they have done in school about it. They told Kaye that they had been looking at the refugee crisis across a variety of subjects. Debates were hosted in Modern Studies classes across second year, debating whether or not Scotland should take in refugees. The strength of some of the pupils’ opinions was startling. A clip of one such debate was played live on air during the interview. The pupils of second year even wrote a song about the refugees, altering the lyrics to a popular song to convey their message, one of these songs was also aired on the show. After many strong opinions and a very informative and interesting interview, it was brought to a close with Kaye asking our pupils what their ‘Shower Song’ was, which was a rather surprising but funny question! John Beattie made an appearance, giving his shower song as ACDC’s ‘Highway to Hell’, which was a strange but fun insight!
Overall, this experience was fascinating, informative and incredibly fun, and it was a real privilege to be given such an in depth look into what goes into the news. This project has brought together many skills from all pupils, and has given us a few new ones as well. We are all grateful to have been included in such an excellent programme, and hope it continues for many years past this tenth anniversary of the BBC School Report.
