East Coast FM - Day 4

Declan with a guest

 I arrived in at 9:30am, just as Declan was getting ready to go on air. Guests were waiting, scripts were prepared and prizes were organised. After the news at ten he went on air. The two hours following were a blur; numerous interviews, phone calls and running in and out to the printer. Declan talked to a man from Focus Ireland about homelessness in Ireland, a local guard about a spate of burglaries in Wicklow and to a science expert about how 3D printing was going to change the world, among other things. After twelve, Claire and Declan discussed the show; what went well, what didn't go so well. It was time for lunch.

The News Room

 After lunch I joined Karen in the newsroom. She presents news daily from 12pm-7pm for East Coast FM and Sunshine 106.8, and for SPIN1038 at the weekend. The national and global stories come from a group of journalists based in Newstalk in Dublin. Around 40 stations across the country pay to take this service. But local/regional stations are required by broadcasting law to allocate a percentage of their bulletins to local stories. Karen was busy selecting which stories she wanted to read and printing each one out. Karen also had to load sound-bytes (audio clips) relating to each story onto the software system. When she had done that, she went into the editing studio to pre-record a bulletin for Sunshine 106.8. Sunshine, Dublin's country license, is owned partly by East Coast FM. As a result, they share some facilities ie. news and sales teams.

The software used to compile the news bulletins

 It was coming up to 2pm, when Karen was going to read her next bulletin. I sat in the studio next to her as she read the news, sport and weather.

 Then it was all thank yous and goodbyes. An excellent week of work experience, where I got to meet new people, learn new skills and . I hope to return to East Coast over the next year to help out!

Thank you to all involved from Diane to Anne, Claire to Declan, Mark to Rob, and everyone else in between!