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Every week we ask a leading figure in digital news about their work, their career and what it takes to be a journalist in the 21st century. Our guest this week is Sam Thomson , broadcast journalist at Global Radio. Although he is based in Bristol, his work at Heart Radio covers the
West & South West region of England.
What is your job title and what does that mean?

I'm a broadcast journalist for Global, and what's great about that is that I get to do a little bit of everything. Primarily though, I present news bulletins and the 'Nightly News' programme at drive time on Heart in the South West. I work with our reporters who are out in the field, based at newsrooms across the region and often in other parts of the country to get the audio they collect on the air.

It also means writing and researching my own scripts, and getting out of the office and covering stories myself. What's great about Global's newsroom is that there's a lot of flexibility in the roles that we have – one day we'll be reading the news in the studio, the next we could be right in the thick of a story ourselves.

Although a big chunk of what we do is for the radio, we actually spend probably just as much time producing content for the web and social media.

How did you get started in journalism?

I've always had an interest, and I wanted to go and study at Bournemouth University because they had (and still have) a really cool media school. The only problem was my distinctly average grades from sixth form! I found out about a BTEC journalism course at City of Bristol College, and within about a week of starting, I knew I never wanted to do anything else but be a journalist.

That course got me the grade I needed to get into Bournemouth University to study Multimedia Journalism. I worked as news editor on the student paper while I was there and did a few work experience placements. After leaving, I kept doing all I could to try and get signed up as a freelancer.

Eventually, I got some shifts at a couple of different newsrooms within the company and then a staff job came up – and here I am.

What do you most look forward to at the start of your day?

I think it's probably the fact that I go into work each day knowing it'll be fun. It's a very friendly place to work and the news team are very close knit. I count myself very lucky that I get to do something that's exciting and easy to be passionate about.

What does a normal day look like for you? In emoji. What three tools or apps do you use the most for work?
  • Tweetdeck – I wouldn't be without it. It's just amazing for keeping tabs on loads of different things at once, and obviously managing all the different accounts we use.
  • My iPhone – especially if I'm out reporting. They do pretty much everything you need, and even support apps which let you broadcast from the scene of a story over 3G or WiFi which is pretty cool.
  • Burli – it’s the software which drives the news operation across Global. It integrates all our scripts, audio and news wires and even emails. It’s absolutely brilliant.
What would you focus on if you were training as a journalist now?

I think having as broad a skill set as possible is important, especially when it comes to the web – as anyone training to be a journalist will have heard a million times before! Also, learn to produce material with real substance to it. It's very easy to sit in your bedroom and write listicles for your blog, but coming up with something people haven't seen or heard before is better practice.

What skills do you think are important to your role?

The more you can bring to the role the better – as I've mentioned, it helps to be as broadly-skilled as possible, but particularly having great video and social media skills is a must.

That said, I think sounding great on-air is what we all aspire to do in radio – and that takes a combination of a lot of different skills. There's the obvious technical things you need to master and the need for great script writing, but getting your own head round a story and then finding a way of telling it that resonates with listeners is pretty key to it.

There's more to it than sounding like a news reader when reading words off a script.

What has your current job taught you about the industry?

You have to love what you do, because otherwise there's no way you'll put up with 3.30am starts on a Sunday morning to go and read the news.

What would you say to someone applying to work at your organisation?

Be ready to demonstrate a real love and a real knack for all things news.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given?

Understand the story.

Join us next week for a new look into the media industry – in the meantime, check out our other weekly interviews with digital media experts.

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Written by
Caroline Scott

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