Widening my skillset as a Trainee Sports Reporter

BBC Junior Researcher Henry Teall, volunteered as a ‘Kick Off Trainee Sports Reporter’, on the 2015 scheme.

The BBC‘Kick Off Trainee Sports Reporter Scheme’, gives talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds the opportunity to learn and develop sports reporting skills at the BBC. These work experience placements are two days a week for eight weeks during July and August. Placements are available at BBC local radio and online sites across the UK.

‘My newsgathering and journalistic skills improved and I’ve gained a deeper appreciation of the process of gathering a story’.

I volunteered on the scheme to learn from experienced BBC staff, and to widen my skillset in production and journalism. Sport is one of my true passions, so to sample a job where I researched sport, and created sports content was a dream come true!

My two-month placement took place over two days per week during the summer, with BBC WM. My brief was to produce a piece of original journalism for broadcast. I researched and provided background research to sports stories, and I also got the opportunity to do some social media monitoring. It was so exciting to assist the sports team in keeping on top of the unfolding Fabian Delph transfer story. I was across his Twitter activity, and also kept audiences up-to-date on the story.

My main role on the scheme was to research and set up potential stories for broadcast. On one occasion I considered doing a story on disability sports in the West Midlands and my ideas included wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby, powerchair football and disability darts. However I settled on visually impaired cricket, and a local team in Warwickshire. My next task was to find an angle and speak to the relevant people. After much phone-bashing, I set up interviews with players on the same day the team’s cup match was being played!

I went to Leamington Spa where the team played their matches, and there I gathered some audio. I gained several lively but informative interviews and during the interval I recorded a wild track on the stump base. Back in the studio I edited down the content and wrote a script for the piece which fitted the timings. I recorded links to help the story fit together - this was the hardest part and the most exciting – thank you Richard Wilford!

After some mixing and trimming, it was ready for air and this was hugely gratifying. I refined my editing skills on RadioMan and became quicker at it too! My newsgathering and journalistic skills also improved and I’ve gained a deeper appreciation of the process of gathering a story, from conceptualisation to the finished piece. I provided an insight into visually impaired cricket which gave disability sport much needed exposure. A special thanks goes to the BBC WM team – especially Richard Wilford, Adam Bridge, Mark Regan and John Platt.

I am now on a six-month BBC Extend placement as a Junior Researcher, and work in television on SPOTY, and on radio with 5live.

BBC Extend is a BBC-wide placement scheme which offers appropriately experienced and/or qualified disabled people an opportunity to gain six months’ paid work within the BBC. It has placements across the UK, in both programming and support areas.