Ian Anderson Comes to Town...

Yesterday at University we had the pleasure of a guest lecture from Ian Anderson, recently the editor of the BBC 10 o'clock news. It was a very interesting couple of hours in which Ian analysed some news packages we had prepared earlier in the week. This seemed a terrifying prospect when we were told this and we put a lot of work into trying to make sure our package was perfect!!

All in all it went pretty well for our whole class, we got some good comments but I think the most useful thing for me was the improvement tips he gave us as a group.

There were a lot of tips on how to improve so I have just explained the one I found particularly useful. I found Ian's tips on the importance of a Piece to Camera (PTC) and how it can be used to turn a standard story towards the angle you are aiming for, most useful. For example, we did our package about University of Winchester students graduating and the possible problems they may have finding a job due to the current economic climate. Our PTC was pretty short and we didn't use it well enough to emphasise the angle of our story, and Ian recommended that we aim for longer PTC's, around 20-30 seconds long, to improve this.

I also found it very interesting to look into his career as a journalist and his rise from The Reading Evening Post, where he started, to eventually being the editor of the BBC 10 o'clock news.

I didn't take any photo's on the day so if you would like to see some of Ian looking around the TV studio at the University of Winchester and talking to students please see my friend's blog who did take some photos: http://mattcliff.blogspot.com/2009/10/university-of-winchester-welcomes-ian.html