Al Jazeera: fulfilling one of the key roles in the TV newsroom

The bulletin editor is arguably the most important role in the production process; that was the message from Thomson Foundation trainer Deborah Kelly to a group of 13 television news producers at the start of a course on news bulletin production.

Participants on the course, held at the Al Jazeera Training Centre in Doha at the beginning of December, came from television stations in Iraq, Libya and Al Jazeera in Qatar.

The aim of the course was to enable journalists to construct a legally accurate and ethically correct news bulletin for television broadcast working to a tight deadline.

During the five days, the journalists learnt to work as a team researching, preparing and presenting news material to set broadcast times and designed for specific audiences.

The funnel' They soon became aware of the key role of the bulletin editor, the funnel through which all material has to go through before being disseminated to the director and the presenter and ultimately the audience.

Cool, calm, confident, decisive, accurate - all qualities needed by bulletin producers, and not forgetting a sense of humour .

It soon became clear that the course participants possessed many of these qualities along with challenging and inquiring minds which led to lively discussion and debate on subjects such as news values, ethics and restrictions on broadcasting disturbing images.

The course culminated in a news day where students wrote, constructed and produced a series of news bulletins and learnt to cope with the problems which face every bulletin editor such as technical problems, guests not turning up and no VTs.

This time most of the issues were trainer made in an attempt to recreate the worst problems that they may face working in live television.

Although when asked by one course participant: It will never be quite as bad as this will it? Deborah, who has many years' experience working in live television, could only give a qualified probably not .

LINK:	http://www.thomsonfoundation.org/news-and-features/2013/12/09/al-jazee...
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