Placement Evaluation

Working at WHCR proved to be a huge confidence boosting exercise. It appears that WHCR hope to build volunteers and people on placement into someone who is confident enough to go out onto the street and interview the public on issues affecting the local community. As such they through you in at the deep end to help build your confidence. When I first went to WHCR I wouldn’t necessarily say I was shy but I was definitely more of the quiet type, this was further evidenced by results I gained from the Myers Briggs tests, which proved me to be an Introvert with some Extrovert tendencies. After doing so many voxpops and interviews I feel as though I am much more confident in my abilities and feel as though I could approach a complete stranger much easier than previous to the placement. Because WHCR encouraged me to jump straight in and provided me with a very hands on approach after week 1 the tasks set for me were something I could confidently do and achieve good results from. For example in week 1, I created 2 voxpops – visiting the Hull City ground for their promotional party I spoke to people there and compiled a voxpops based of off their responses. I was then trusted with editing the piece together and it was aired with their confidence in me that what I had created was safe to air.

I felt that WHCR would only do this if they thought you would be ok with doing so. As if you didn’t feel that you were ready they wouldn’t force you to do so, they only seemed to give you a slight push out of your comfort zone that would be for your own benefit, which worked I believe.

In week 1-6 I was constantly sent out to talk to the public, week 1-2 in particular I was sent out to ask various questions such as ‘Should we stay in the EU’ or as mentioned the Hull City promotion. I was also asked to travel to various surrounding cities/towns such as Beverley and Cottingham to ask people for their views on certain matters, for example I did a promotional piece for Beverley which required me to go to Beverley market on the Saturday and ask people what they thought about the market, this included customers and shop keepers. In week 2 before I even got into the station I was asked to go around the city centre asking people about Organ donation, I then got into the station by around 10am and the clip after I had edited was aired by around 11am which shows just how fast paced working at the station was.

Doing so many voxpops made me feel much more relaxed about doing them because I had done them so many times, it just felt more natural to me than before I had started the placement.

I believe that WHCR take this approach because if they believe that you can go out and talk to the public with no fear, you will be safe in front of a microphone, thinking on your feet is something that’s needed in particular in this part of the industry as a response to perhaps someone you are interviewing may not be what you expect and you must be able to work around that. An example of this is in week 6 of the placement, myself and Dave Fewster did an interview live on air and I was asked by Dave to jump in whenever I wanted to ask questions, this was nothing like I expected it to be because you could have a question lined up in your head then the person being interviewed could cover the point or move onto a different topic which is why you need to be quick and confident when you are interviewing someone. This isn’t only limited to being on air as going out and doing voxpops can mean that you have to be quick and work around what their response to your question was.

When doing the voxpops or interviews, I was trusted with writing up my own questions to ask them, for example Dave would give me a topic to discuss in the voxpop then I would go out write up questions and quiz people on them. For the interviews I was independent on writing up questions and even finding the interviews was an independent task, I was simply asked to find one and make sure it was a certain length. This approach again only boosted confidence and made me feel like I was responsible for the outcome, it also meant that when it was aired that all that work to get it on the air was mine, to hear a interview/voxpop created purely independently was a great feeling.

WHCR also trained me with all the equipment, such as the microphone, how to edit and placing finished audio clips into the ‘Cartwall’ which is essentially the presenters programme, were the user loads in items to the programme so that when the presenter is on air they can just set the items running one after another to certain times. As well as showing me this whilst on air Dave would show me how the console worked, what the dials did etc. and how we were connected to the airwaves. I think showing the more technical side of the job showed me just how much work went into working at the station and that if I wanted to be a presenter as well as being confident on and off air I would need to know how to operate the console and work the programmes.

I feel that the most I have gained from the placement was the confidence boost, I feel that I could easily approach someone to do another voxpop, as well as ringing people up to arrange an interview, the independence given to me when going off to do these meant that I was free to construct the interview myself and then be given feedback by Dave Fewster or any of the other presenters on what they thought about it. I would encourage anyone wanting to get into journalism or radio presenting to try WHCR as they offer a positive atmosphere and are willing to help you if you were struggling and encourage you to really just getting out there, providing you with a very hands on approach.