Being Assistant BA was also an eye opener. It is definitely hard to get to learn how to use the desk without really getting to use it live. However, when it comes down to the show there is not really space for amateur practicing, and I was lucky in many ways to have Kelvin as BA who knew what he was doing. I think this was a bit of a recurring theme with the desk, the people with experience or who knew how to use it asserted their influence over people on the desk who were likely to have been controlling it for the first time, and were just as likely to never use it again as the shows went by. There was also the week where I did two stories, read and wrote bulletins and also did the online work. I certainly learned from this that there is such a thing as giving yourself too much to do. By the end of the day my online submissions were little more than notes, but I just did not have the time to finish them properly. As such I found myself coming back in over the weekend to try and better them, only to find I could not get the audio to embed, something I clearly had not picked up somewhere along the lines. I was happy with my contribution to the show, and it was not the only time I took on numerous tasks, but my own desire to do too much was to the detriment of the end product. I also found myself covering the sport a lot, whether I chose to or otherwise. A few times I turned up on the morning and found I would be doing sport either due to an absence or someone feeling they had a great idea for a story we would cover. Again, I think to put on a good programme you need to do what is best for the show rather than your own desires.

Editor

I probably enjoyed my day as editor the most. I believe I approached it a little differently to everyone else, but I approach most things differently to the rest of the group. I just wanted everyone to stay calm and enjoy it, especially as by this point in the year we had all proved ourselves capable of producing good radio. I had other bits and pieces to do myself, but I felt it important to keep talking to people, finding out what they were doing and how long their pieces would be, constantly updating the breakdown of the show so everyone could see how things were going. This way any disasters could be managed, I could offer help to anyone who needed it and I could keep a schedule open in my mind for what I needed by when. In this respect maybe I was a little lucky nothing did go wrong, as it would have tested my nice, breezy approach, but I would like to think this did not happen because I managed things well. I think the fact Chrissy told me after that I had done a good job, in a role I am sure people expected little from me, was a real highlight. The show went really well in the end, there was nothing in particular that went wrong and the content was really good across the board. I actually think I made quite a good editor, and made good decisions on what we did and how we did it.

Some thoughts

In terms of specifics it is hard to say what I have learned this year in radio. That may sound daft coming up to the end of third year, but the whole City Vibe show was an experience of so much variety and something so different to the two years of radio before it. My goal coming into every show was always the same: do what the team and the show need me to do. I have never really adapted to some of the selfish attitudes needed in journalism, and in a show like this with everyone working really hard all day, and days beforehand, I just wanted to make sure I was contributing to balance with everyone else’s endeavours. There were things I did not want to do that I had to and things I would like to have done that I could not. However, with an hour show to produce it was never about what I wanted as far as I was concerned, and those things were always forgotten after we put out a good show. Specifically, I was disappointed not to be able to present. I am not sure how well I would have fared, but its certainly a challenge I would like to have faced. With the illness I have I will miss certain things, and sadly I missed my day to present. Other people in the group were keen to present either for the first time or a second chance as the week’s progressed, and I was happy to see them go on and achieve within that role. In this respect I have gained two insights from the year, neither technical nor what I imagine was the aim of this year of teaching, but important to me. Firstly, I need to be more confident in my own ability to cover a story because other people will be, and they will be the ones in the spotlight. Equally, I found happiness in watching others do a good job, and whether or not they remember the support I gave or other options I chose to do to let others try certain things does not really matter come six o’clock in the evening. Unlikely it was a learning objective, but I really enjoyed it.