Before we actually had the Journalist Day we went to a pre-meeting. In the meeting we each met one another for the first time and talked about our pitches (each put forward a story idea, and told everyone why we thought it would be a good news story). We also got to have a quick tour around the station. It all seemed a bit scary! It was only an evening meeting so we did not have much time.
On Wednesday, the actual ‘Journalist Day’, we all met in the guard-house next to the TV station; then we went inside. Seeing it again was awesome and not so scary this time. When we were inside we discussed the Pitch one last time – we agreed we would do one about how popular Chinese tea vs international coffee. It was a good pitch to do locally; there were a lot of coffee shops nearby.
After this, we chose the two interviewers; Ryan and Theodore. They went outside to interview some people. Whilst they were doing that Paul, Charlie and I started to write our script for the anchor-woman (me) and anchor-man (Paul). The anchor-man and woman are the newsreaders who stay in the studio. When the interviewers got back we all watched their video and they edited it in the Editing Suite – they use some awesome technical stuff in there. After quite a lot of work we tried to figure out how to project the script on to the small screen – the autocue - that constantly moves for the anchor man and woman to read from. Then we were filmed saying our lines in the studio, behind the newsreaders’ desk.
We ordered a McDonalds at about 12:20 and it did not come so our instructor, Carol had to go to the McDonalds to get it. By that time it was about 3 and all our filming had been done, we just had to wait for it to be put together.
When we left the studios around 4.00pm, the team at the station were doing all the final editing and putting together all the parts to make one news story.
Our show was on TV on the 31 of December on International Channel Shanghai, also known as ICS. It was a totally brilliant experience, and I really hope I can do something like it again soon!!
Phoebe McLuskie
Watch Phoebe’s big news anchor debut here.