On Tuesday this week I visited the ITV News room at the ITN Headquarters in London. I was kindly invited up by Alaistar Stewart, who is friends with my boyfriend. Small world hey. It was a fantastic opportunity for me to experience. Unfortunately I do not have any photos of the studios/ news room (it's all a secret) to show you.
I got to meet various reporters, producers and editors in the news room during my visit. Being shown around by Alaistar was a massive help, he is massively respected by everyone there. Therefore because I was his guest everyone respected me. Firstly we watched the ITV lunchtime news broadcast from the production studio. It was great to see how everyones role is important as another. The producer was changing the script constantly. Just because the show starts at 2.40 doesn't mean the script has to stop then. The producer was chopping and changing things as the bulletin went live. The reporters were in various locations waiting to go live. Chris Ship was outside parliament and his piece to camera streamed live into the studio. The lunchtime news bulletin was read by Nina Hoissain. Straight after the national lunchtime bulletin ended she went on to present the ITV London news broadcast.
When the lunchtime news bulletin had finished the team meet together for a debrief from the editor. Geoff Hill. Just like how we do it at WINOL. The editor gave his thoughts on the bulletin and highlighted any improvements that could be made. A lot of the packages shown in the lunch time bulletin will be used in the evening bulletin therefore packages can be re-worked and edited.
Following the lunchtime de-brief a special announcement was made that day, which I was very lucky to see. ITV News appointed a new deputy editor, Richard Zackheim currently editor at 5 News. The news team welcomed him whilst I was there.
After the de-brief and special announcement I attended the running orders meeting with Alastair. The meeting was very similar to our news meetings we hold on a monday at WINOL. The producer of the evening bulletin explained the each of the stories that will feature in the bulletin. And the editor and other news gathers and news reader Mary Nightingale and Alaistar Stewart all suggest ways to improve the stories and good ideas were put forward, overall changing the running order. The final say was down to the editor. I really enjoyed attending this meeting and I felt at ease doing so as it was so similar to our news meetings at university.
At ITV News there are many 'news gatherers' if our team at university grew in size I think WINOL would really advantage with having news gatherers At the moment our reporters find the stories independently and I think a small team of news gathers would help the bulletin massively. Finding news stories is the hardest part. Especially in Winchester. The news gathering team would literally be watching the line and waiting for anything interesting to happening and most importantly they would be planning the next day.
Whilst reporters and editors worked on scripting the evening bulletin I was able to sit down with individuals from the team and see how they worked. I was especially interested in the editing of packages side of things. I sat down with someone who edits the packages and in all honesty its very similar to how we edit at winol. Obviously not Final Cut Pro, but another software very similar.
I also met the graphics team who showed me how their virtual TV studio was made and I was also shown a few secrets from the team. The graphics on ITV are slick and they are also very important, especially for economics packages. Therefore I was interested to see how they were made.
And finally I got to see the evening news being presented by Mary Nightingale and Alaistar Stewart, who delivered very well. Everyone at the headquarters were really helpful and gave me some great advise. I really liked how everyones role was as important as another, from the cameraman to the editor.
A very interesting day indeed.
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