Election coverage turns into radio planning

We'd aimed to be at City Hall on election day (Thursday 2nd May) to interview some of the candidates we'd met at the Easton and Lawrence Hill Question time event last week and maybe catch some of the 'behind the scenes' people who make the elections work; however on the day access proved problematic so our visit to City Hall was re-scheduled until tomorrow. This is when the results will be announced so probably a more exciting event for the CJ team to cover anyway.

This last minute change of plan offered the chance to focus on a radio production planning session with Roger Griffith so this afternoon we were back at St Paul's Family Learning Centre for a 'chalk and talk' session. The aim, at the time of writing, is that our team of trainee citizen journalists are going to be producing four half-hour programmes, two one week and 2 the following week, dates to be confirmed, but very soon. Quite a tall order for broadcast novices so Roger's extensive experience, methodical approach and analytical quizzing of each team member's suggestions was an excellent lesson in creating order out of a heap of ideas.

Trying to fit all the content into a half hour programme proves momentarily overwhelming for one participant, but...

The features the team have been working on also had to fit in with news, radio idents (Roger sings the Ujima jingle with great flair), show idents, adverts so Roger guided the team through what they'd learned so far on the course, got them to recall the details of the topics we'd been discussing, list the interviews already recorded and identify what research and further interviews and vox pops were still needed.

...with Roger's guidance on programme structure, order emerges.

The first programme will feature the Citizen Journalism coverage of the Elections in Bristol and will include a section with Bristol University's Dr David Sweeting who we met on Monday when the CJ team agreed they'd like him to talk about the election on their radio programme, with a particular look at the reasons for non-voting.  This is still subject to David's availability once the programme date is confirmed but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

With the use of the clock planning sheet, the participants, with advice from Roger, decided how much time should be allocated to each live speaker, whether a guest would be there for just a straightforward interview, a Q & A session with an 'expert', or whether they might have a role as a commentator throughout the programme.

Our own David (Goldblatt, an experienced broadcaster himself on BBC World Service, as well as being the originator of Watershed's citizen journalism projects) will explain the concept of citizen journalism on the show by way of an introduction, and talk about how is has changed the way news is delivered and received across the globe.

The themes for the other shows are Crime and the Criminal Justice system, Transport in Bristol and Economic Regeneration. For this last topic exclusive interviews with key people from Bristol Temple Quarter's Enterprise Zone have been arranged. 

Our team have covered such a lot of ground since we began at the end of March, it's really impressive how they've taken so much information on board. They still have a lot of research, planning and interviews to do for this ambitious set of radio programmes but we're confident they'll succeed, and come through with increased confidence and some excellent new skills.

Topics the team have covered so far