Say good morning to the best job in Welsh broadcasting
Rhodri Hornung
News Editor, Radio Wales
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Working on Good Morning Wales has got to be one of the best jobs in Welsh broadcasting. Where else would your job description read: find a host of interesting, relevant, important and intriguing stories, then tell them in the most engaging and creative way you can.
Oh and you’ve got a blank, three-hour canvas every single day with which to play around. What an opportunity.
Of course, with the opportunity come demands and responsibilities. Good Morning is a demanding programme to work on. It’s a 24 hour operation. As one programme is coming off-air, work on the next one is beginning. And of course, work on some stories will have started long before that.
Presenters Louise Elliott & Oliver Hides give us an insight into what it takes to get Good Morning Wales on air
A programme which starts at 6am means that while most of the nation is sleeping soundly, producers, researchers and presenters will be fine-tuning items, refining scripts, chasing new guests and stories or looking for fresh audio.
A couple of days later those same producers and researchers could well be burning the midnight oil until 3am on the so-called late shift. If you work on Good Morning Wales, sleeping at strange times of the day and getting up at ludicrous times of the night, becomes something of an art form!
We set ourselves high standards on Good Morning. It should set the agenda for the news in Wales. It should hold public figures to account. It should delve into the guts of stories with intelligence and rigour. But it should also be quick-witted, entertaining and mischievous. That’s a tricky balancing act to get right every morning.
It’s an incredibly exciting time to be working on the programme. We’ve got a talented new presenter line up in Louise Elliott and Oliver Hides, lots of ideas for covering key Welsh moments and new plans for some agenda-setting journalism.
And of course, we’re already thinking about next year’s Assembly elections. The challenge will be to cover it in a way that people find relevant, engaging and informative. It will be a challenge but I also hope it will be fun.
