One particularly beneficial learning point was understanding the editorial differences between the target audiences of different stations, and how that impacts the structure, tone, and presentation of bulletins.

I really enjoyed all aspects of building news bulletins, and particularly enjoyed the challenge of writing and then delivering these to precise timings.

It was also invaluable to experience daily life in a busy newsroom, each station gets a new bulletin every hour with a mix of live and pre-recorded deliveries. I enjoyed being able to play my part in a fast-paced news environment.

I faced one key challenge when given the chance to produce and voice my own package. The story centred around alcohol poisoning and featured a sensitive interview with a mother who’d lost her daughter. I found it tricky to balance the sensitivity of the situation without compromising the authority needed to deliver a news report.

Again this was made more difficult by the need to match my delivery to different target audiences. It reinforced to me that I’m stronger delivering slower, calmer, more “Radio 4” bulletins and struggle with the upbeat pace needed for the likes of Capital FM.

I was really proud of the impact I had on Tuesday. My placement was in late February 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic was beginning to spread internationally. In the morning, we’d woken to the news that Italy had been put on the red list, and in the conference call, staff were unsure how much relevance it would have to the North East. I voiced the idea that as many schools had just returned from half term holidays, they would have recently returned students from ski trips, many of whom headed to the Italian alps or at some point cross over the border. I suggested we should monitor any disruption to local schools this would cause.

Initially, there didn’t seem to be much, however, when I returned from a morning of voxxing the public, I was pleased to see lots of activity contacting schools that experienced disruption from the announcement.