Speaker 1: Welcome to my channel, I'm Sasha. I'm a television journalist originally from the UK and now I'm working on the news in Australia. On today's video I'm going to give you tips on broadcast journalism. These nuggets of information are things I've learnt along the way and hopefully you'll find them as helpful as I have. Number one, ask the obvious. It can be super easy, especially when you are starting out as a journalist, to nod and smile and pretend that you know what's happening. Yep, cool. Then you get back to the office and your producer asks you a question that you don't know the answer to because guess what, you didn't ask the question yourself. So yeah, ask the questions. The reality is that depending on what type of journalist you are of course that you could be covering up to three different stories a day, sometimes even more, and most of those will be on different topics so it's really important to get your head around all of them. The main thing to remember that the job of a journalist is to get information, break it down, make it digestible for everybody else to be able to understand. So if you don't understand something yourself, then it's really difficult to be able to explain it and make it easy for other people to understand. Make sure you know the who, what, when, where and why of the situation. Don't be afraid to ask more questions. Push for clarification so that you know exactly what's happening. Number two, tell people where to look. okay so this is one that sometimes tricks interviewees and i think it's just really essential when you're doing an interview in general to put people at ease and obviously there are going to be some people that you've interviewed a multitude of times who know exactly what to do but there are lots of people who you'll be interviewing for the first time and for them speaking on camera maybe it doesn't come naturally and they don't exactly know what to expect so typically when you watch the news people look at journalists who's here and then they talk this way so you need to tell people like make tell them where to look essentially because it's really really awkward if you have a story or an entire news bulletin where people are looking like this at a journalist and then you've got one person who's like eyes keep wandering so just tell them where to look it avoids confusion it avoids them looking odd and it makes the show generally look better it will make your life easier in the long run if you just get into the habit of asking people to say and spell their name this of course does not apply to people who you interview on a regular basis perhaps politicians doctors the local fire crew or whatever but otherwise especially for somebody who's not easy to google because you can't then double check the spelling of their name later it's definitely better to get people to say and spell their name no matter how simple their name sounds because nowadays people add in weird vowels and different things like that like susie could be spelled s-u-z-i-e-s-u-z-y so it's really important to just clarify and the reason that it's important is because for a lot of people being on the news is a massive deal they're going to tell their friends and their family about it they're going to be you know watching the news together and then their name and title comes up on the screen and all of a sudden their name is spelling correctly so it could be quite disappointing but the job of a journalist is to try and check facts and be factually correct so you might as well start off as you mean to go on in an interview naturally during a conversation most people acknowledge what the other person is saying by going hmm ah yeah but when you're a broadcast journalist that is really really really annoying and it's the kind of thing that you only pick up on once you've been doing it you'll probably pick up on it kind of early on but just basically only visually acknowledge people by nodding or you know blinking like that strong eye contact like yes I know what you're saying because otherwise when you get a segment from an interview and someone's saying something really really important and then you can hear the reporter's voice over the top going yeah it's just really distracting so it's really important to remember not to do that but you know obviously it's just a natural thing that you do in conversation and eventually that kind of changes and you stop doing it I think it's probably less important for print journalists who are just using audio stuff to type things up even though I used to find it annoying when I was a print journalist then typing things up and just hearing myself go I'd be like stop saying things Sasha so yeah just try not to you can visually acknowledge someone and then once they finish an answer be like oh that's really interesting you know but while they're speaking just let that person speak because you need a clean audio feed it still happens to me now right it definitely does but try and always make a habit of bringing your makeup and your hairbrush with you and some people also say to bring hairspray as well um but yeah it's just really useful because you literally could think okay i'm just heading out the office to do a quick interview down the road which is going to take 10 minutes and i'm going to be back in about 10 minutes time so it'll be fine and then all of a sudden there's like a car crash or something major has happened and you have to head out and go to that and then you realize that you've got the best opportunity to do a piece to camera there or to do an interview or you might have to stay there because you get caught out you have to do a live cross or anything like that and um you know you're probably like all blotchy and greasy from the day and um your hair's all out over the place because it's windy and blowing a gale but you know what if you carry your hairbrush and your makeup with you you are sorted so yes I'd highly recommend always carrying that stuff with you and yes I do sometimes still forget to do that or sometimes I make the mistake of thinking I'm just popping popping out of the office for 10 minutes but that will really help you and I have to say that when I look back at the live crosses or the pieces to camera or anything that I've done camera facing where I haven't looked very good I don't often like it no matter how well I've done and it's not the kind thing that I would end up using in a showreel or anything else like that so yeah just bring those bits and pieces with you and look as good as you can now a little caveat with the whole makeup and hairbrush thing is that um do I look like this when I go to sleep no I do not I am actually filming this after having done a live cross at work which is why I have my makeup done and my hair done and yes there are parts of me and I'm sure there are parts of the world and people who will watch this and think well why do news journalists have to wear makeup and have to do things a certain way that's you know following the patriarchy and their idea of how women should look which to some extent I agree with but I also know that if I go to work and I do look a mess then that's going to be a problem and sometimes unfortunately some people will deem that I am less professional as a result of that so it's a suggestion if you don't want to wear makeup you do you girl or boy or whatever gender you are okay this next one is a golden nugget of information that i only learned recently actually and i thought this is going to be useful for other people i'm telling you okay and this is when you go to a shoot when you go anywhere do you know what you should bring with you other than your makeup and your hairbrush and your phone and a spare charger a usb stick yes a usb stick recently right there you go usb how cute is that actually anyway um I was going to a shop which was broken into and there had been a spate of robberies the night before we managed to get there we were so fortunate we got there literally just as the police rolled up they were still cleaning up which was good timing for us because it meant that we managed to get the shots that we needed rather than hours later when everything had already been cleaned up and obviously being broken into I've been broken into myself it's not a nice experience but you know sometimes I think that going to shoots like that can receive a public outcry and then people probably are more vigilant so I like to think that there are positives of covering on stories like that but anyway I've turned up to shoots right and they have CCTV footage of the people breaking in and sometimes people don't have Dropbox their internet is rubbish they can't we transfer because the files are too big anything like that there can be an array of reasons as to why people cannot send you things digitally so genuinely this has actually saved my butt recently having a USB stick on me and just being able to say to them do you mind just dropping onto this I've actually got this with me and it's just so simple when you're at a shoot you have a USB with you and sometimes you just need someone to send you footage there and then then you know once you leave you're not going to have to chase them up that you actually have the footage so yeah having usb stick even if it's not as cute as this one right it could really save your butt this right here is where the power lies do not give the microphone no to anyone else okay just kidding no but really at uni right we are taught that the microphone gives you the power so you have the mic you give it to someone else and you basically can control a conversation based on the microphone which is kind of semi-true sometimes people will just talk regardless anyway but if you're in the middle of an interview and they see you go and what about blah blah blah and you ask something as eloquent as that then you know you kind of have to get your word in edgeways but the audio source genuinely does give kind of a bit of power a bit of responsibility so hold this precious thing look after it it's very very important and don't give it to anyone else seriously like the interviewee should not hold the microphone covid things are a bit different so you don't have like a boom but there you go I know I've touched on it before but this one just that little tidbit of info that you might find helpful bring snacks and water always have water with you right now I'm working on the news in Australia so obviously it can get really hot and things like that so I just hate being caught out and also hate single-use plastic so I always my water bottle with me and just bring snacks with you because you genuinely just don't know how long you're going to be on the road for and it can be quite a rigorous job so if you've got something in the car just to boost your energy levels every now and again even if it's fruit or whatever then that will work wonders sun cream is also a good one and now hand sanitizer of course everyone should have hand sanitizer in the car but yes snacks and water don't forget though Thanks so much for watching. I hope that you found all of this information useful. I'm sure that I would have found it extremely useful when I was starting out as a journalist. So yeah, if you liked the video then give it a like, maybe subscribe because I'm definitely looking at putting more things like this out there.