Photo: Ahmed Aitelqadi, Al Jazeera
I conduct a variety of courses - for different clients with different requirements. My approach to training is very simple: to light the fire, rather than merely fill the pot. The courses listed below are the ‘off the shelf’ ones, but any training can be tailored to a client’s needs. Working through an interpreter is no problem; I do it frequently. Just one thing to make clear: I train people who work in television, not people who as part of their jobs may be required to appear on television.
ONE WEEK ‘STORYTELLING’ WORKSHOP: [5 working days]: One of the greatest challenges for television journalists – whether reporters or producers – is the ‘video package’. It's the basic building-block of most news programmes and is typically between one-and-a-half and two minutes long. To do it well requires an ability to ‘tell a story’ – to take the dry facts (perhaps nothing more than a government hand-out), the available locations and interviewees and, by applying one’s creative talents, transform them into a report that is both watchable and memorable. Storytelling is as old as human existence – from Neolithic cave-painting to the Hollywood blockbuster. This workshop takes the participants through the stage-by-stage process – with particular emphasis on conceptualisation, pre-production and structuring. It requires the services of camera-operators and picture-editors - either for a 'real-time' exercise or for actual news packages which may subsequently be broadcast. In exceptional circumstances, I have conducted the course within three days.
TWO/THREE WEEK ‘SKILLS OF A REPORTER’ COURSE [10 or 15 working days]: A comprehensive course for complete beginners or for those who have been doing the job for a few years but require some ‘skills development’. This is an intensive and demanding course and very ‘hands on’. As part of the training, participants are required to research and produce a current news story which they themselves have chosen. The three-week version culminates in the production of a 20-minute showcase programme comprising at least six video-reports. For details, see ‘Q & A’ below. [NOTE: Client facilitators are required to provide two camera-operators and two picture-editors – unless these are numbered among the participants]
PRODUCTION AUDIT: [5-10 working days] This is the sort of exercise that gets consultants a bad name – when a plague of time-and-motion zealots wielding clipboards descend upon a radio or TV station and ask a succession of dumb questions before writing up a wordy but irrelevant report. I operate in a different way. First, I know the broadcasting business first-hand – as a practitioner. As has often been said, the observer sees more of the game than those on the pitch. I therefore spend a week or two in the newsroom, observing its operation and ‘production-paths’ from the morning conference to transmission, asking questions and, when feasible, going out with the reporters, camera-operators and/or video-journalists to see how they operate 'in the field'. At the end of the process, the management receives a comprehensive report with detailed observations and recommendations. One of the unexpected benefits of these audits is that they often act as a ‘communication catalyst’ by kick-starting a dialogue between management and staff. A number of issues that may have been festering for months or even years are for the first time discussed openly and honestly.
DOCUMENTARY WORKSHOP [3-5 working days]: This is for those who are either already working on documentaries or wish to broaden their skills from news reporting, producing or camera-work into longer-form production. For this reason, it is designed particularly for producers, camera-operators and picture-editors. It's based on two documentary courses which I conducted for the Al Jazeera Training Center in Doha and a subsequent shorter course for Irish National Television, Raidió Teilifís Éireann, in Galway. All three courses resulted in full-length documentaries being produced and broadcast. For obvious reasons, it is not intended to produce a documentary, part or whole, within five days. The key word is ‘development’:
MENTORING: Many television stations cannot spare their staff for formal training sessions. In such cases one-on-one mentoring is an effective alternative. The trainer/consultant works alongside individual reporters or producers as they perform their normal duties - observing, supporting and, when necessary, guiding. It's a particularly useful form of training for reporters and correspondents who, although they may be doing the job, have never had the chance to develop their skills beyond the basic level, or maybe have never had any formal training. And it's not only the selected individuals who benefit; the effect can be like that of a benign virus, as good practices are seen and copied by other members of the news team.
ONE WEEK ‘STORYTELLING’ WORKSHOP: [5 working days]: One of the greatest challenges for television journalists – whether reporters or producers – is the ‘video package’. It's the basic building-block of most news programmes and is typically between one-and-a-half and two minutes long. To do it well requires an ability to ‘tell a story’ – to take the dry facts (perhaps nothing more than a government hand-out), the available locations and interviewees and, by applying one’s creative talents, transform them into a report that is both watchable and memorable. Storytelling is as old as human existence – from Neolithic cave-painting to the Hollywood blockbuster. This workshop takes the participants through the stage-by-stage process – with particular emphasis on conceptualisation, pre-production and structuring. It requires the services of camera-operators and picture-editors - either for a 'real-time' exercise or for actual news packages which may subsequently be broadcast. In exceptional circumstances, I have conducted the course within three days.
TWO/THREE WEEK ‘SKILLS OF A REPORTER’ COURSE [10 or 15 working days]: A comprehensive course for complete beginners or for those who have been doing the job for a few years but require some ‘skills development’. This is an intensive and demanding course and very ‘hands on’. As part of the training, participants are required to research and produce a current news story which they themselves have chosen. The three-week version culminates in the production of a 20-minute showcase programme comprising at least six video-reports. For details, see ‘Q & A’ below. [NOTE: Client facilitators are required to provide two camera-operators and two picture-editors – unless these are numbered among the participants]
PRODUCTION AUDIT: [5-10 working days] This is the sort of exercise that gets consultants a bad name – when a plague of time-and-motion zealots wielding clipboards descend upon a radio or TV station and ask a succession of dumb questions before writing up a wordy but irrelevant report. I operate in a different way. First, I know the broadcasting business first-hand – as a practitioner. As has often been said, the observer sees more of the game than those on the pitch. I therefore spend a week or two in the newsroom, observing its operation and ‘production-paths’ from the morning conference to transmission, asking questions and, when feasible, going out with the reporters, camera-operators and/or video-journalists to see how they operate 'in the field'. At the end of the process, the management receives a comprehensive report with detailed observations and recommendations. One of the unexpected benefits of these audits is that they often act as a ‘communication catalyst’ by kick-starting a dialogue between management and staff. A number of issues that may have been festering for months or even years are for the first time discussed openly and honestly.
DOCUMENTARY WORKSHOP [3-5 working days]: This is for those who are either already working on documentaries or wish to broaden their skills from news reporting, producing or camera-work into longer-form production. For this reason, it is designed particularly for producers, camera-operators and picture-editors. It's based on two documentary courses which I conducted for the Al Jazeera Training Center in Doha and a subsequent shorter course for Irish National Television, Raidió Teilifís Éireann, in Galway. All three courses resulted in full-length documentaries being produced and broadcast. For obvious reasons, it is not intended to produce a documentary, part or whole, within five days. The key word is ‘development’:
- The participants (ideally selected at least two weeks before the start) are each asked to bring to the workshop a subject or issue about which they wish to make a documentary and on which they have already done the basic research. I then work with the participants – both individually and as a group - to help them develop their ideas into formal proposals, or even detailed ‘treatments’.
- Over the five days of the workshop I also deliver a number of training ‘modules’ demonstrating certain techniques – so-called ‘tricks and tropes’ – relating to documentary production. These are illustrated by video examples of broadcast documentaries produced in Europe, the Middle East, the United States and Australia.
- If time and facilities permit, the participants may also shoot or direct exercises relating to the above techniques.
MENTORING: Many television stations cannot spare their staff for formal training sessions. In such cases one-on-one mentoring is an effective alternative. The trainer/consultant works alongside individual reporters or producers as they perform their normal duties - observing, supporting and, when necessary, guiding. It's a particularly useful form of training for reporters and correspondents who, although they may be doing the job, have never had the chance to develop their skills beyond the basic level, or maybe have never had any formal training. And it's not only the selected individuals who benefit; the effect can be like that of a benign virus, as good practices are seen and copied by other members of the news team.
Q & A
How best to explain what I offer as a trainer? Well, if you work in radio or television, the obvious answer is to get someone to interview you. But will he/she ask the right questions? Only one way to be sure – interview yourself. So, taking video-journalism to its ultimate conclusion, here’s MD-REPORTER interviewing MD-TRAINER…
Cameraman: Tarek Shannuf, Al Jazeera
MD-R: So, Michael, an obvious first question – the sort which I suspect most cash-strapped TV bosses would ask… Why should we pay people like you to train our people? Why not just throw them in the deep-end and see if they sink or swim?
MD-TR: Well, you could do that – and I’ve come across a number of bosses who take the attitude that television journalism is something that anyone with an enquiring mind can just ‘pick up’ by working alongside others. It’s what they used to do in the Lancashire cotton mills at the time of the Industrial Revolution back in the nineteenth century. It was called ‘sitting next to Nellie’. This may be OK if Nellie is good at her job, wants to show others how to do it and, importantly, has the training skills to do that. But if Nellie isn't good at her job, she will simply be passing on bad or out-of-date practices. The point about television - radio too - is that, if you make a mistake through inexperience or a lack of formal training, you’ll make it before an audience of possibly millions and your career will be over before it’s begun. It’s very unfair – even immoral, I’d argue – to expose people in this way. The reality is that television journalism is a multi-stranded profession. It’s a combination of the intellectual... the creative... the technical... and the managerial.
MD-R: You’re going to have to expand on that...
MD-TR: Right.... First, the intellectual requirement… Like a lawyer you frequently have to think on your feet. Whether you’re reporting a story on location or conducting an interview in the studio, you have to be ‘on the ball’. But when putting together your report, you also have to be creative – to turn the bald facts into an engaging visual story. So, apart from being a journalist, you’re also a film-maker. And that leads us to the technical… As a film-maker, you have to know your craft – what your equipment can and cannot do...
MD-R: But surely most television reporters work with camera-operators…
MD-TR: That might have been true twenty years ago, but no longer. These days, TV journalists are increasingly required to shoot their own material – and if you’re a true video-journalist – edit it too. In some cases on smartphone. And even if you do still work with a camera-operator and picture-editor, you should know what their equipment is capable of. That knowledge, you’ll find, earns you respect and gives you authority.
MD-R: And the managerial aspects of the job?
MD-TR: When you’re out on location, you’re the leader of the team. Simple as that. Not only are you the director; you’re also the one who decides when and where to break for lunch or, if you're running late, how to adapt the schedule. So, like any leader, you have to manage and enthuse those around you. You're the morale-booster. When things go wrong in television, it’s usually because of a breakdown in communication between the reporter/producer and the crew.
MD-R: So how do you train people to do such a complex job?
MD-TR: You give them two things – knowledge and experience. And out of that comes a crucial third: confidence. Let’s take interviewing. Sounds simple, right? You just sit down and ask someone questions. Wrong. There are some very basic things you need to know – such as, framing questions which cannot be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’… when to interrupt or not interrupt… and, most difficult of all, how to listen to the answer while in your mind lining up the next question.
MD-R: Which explains why your courses are a mix of classroom theory and hands-on practice, right?
MD-TR: It’s the only way. Let’s take the so-called ‘piece-to-camera’ – the PTC - when the reporter stands in front of the camera on location and talks directly to the viewer. Ask any reporter and they’ll tell you it’s the most nerve-racking experience, no matter whether it’s live or recorded. So we go through the theory in the classroom – with video examples of seasoned professionals doing it… not always well, it has to be said. And we make it a bit challenging – like, 'Don’t just stand there, walk around… show us something'. And then we give them a ‘scenario’ and send them out to do a PTC with a camera-operator, who of course they also have to direct. Generally we do this within the training centre or outside in the grounds. The scenario may be – to take an example - that new regulations require all rooms to be fitted with fire sprinkler systems… or, if there’s a parking area outside, that an auto-manufacturer has recalled a particular model because of faulty brakes. They have a limited time to do the PTC – typically twenty minutes – and then we play back the results in the classroom and give feedback. The practical part is essential. It’s the way we all learn – by doing - and of course you learn more from your mistakes than your triumphs.
MD-R: And, if you’re going to make mistakes, better to make them in a controlled training situation rather than in front of a million viewers.
MD-TR: Exactly. That’s the whole point of training.
MD-R: Do you have any training ‘philosophy’?
MD-TR: I don’t know about a philosophy as such… but I certainly have some key principles. First and foremost, I believe the the journalism is paramount and that we must never forget it. Television reporting has become increasingly technical and it’s easy to get absorbed by all the sophisticated machinery. But the camera, the microphone, the editing software – they’re just the tools of our trade. Of course we have to know how to use and exploit them but, in the end, they are the equivalent of the print journalist's pen or pencil. You can take the most amazing shots, record the most extraordinary sound – but if you haven’t got a compelling, well-researched and clearly-constructed story with engaging interviewees, you have nothing.
MD-R: And the other principles?
MD-TR: Well, this may sound contradictory coming from someone who has just been stressing the importance of theory backed by practice… but I always start a training session by saying that there are no absolute rules in television, only conventions. Television is an evolving medium. You have only to look back thirty, forty years to see the seismic changes that have taken place. We are always finding ways of doing things differently – partly because new equipment opens up new possibilities, partly because it’s human nature to push the boundaries. And at the same time our audience is becoming more visually literate and more iconoclastic. This is what makes television training a challenge – to lay down the basics but without stifling the creativity; to provide a platform that can become a springboard.
MD-R: Let’s get to the nuts and bolts. The courses that you’re offering – how long, what sort of schedule?
MD-TR: OK. They range from three days to six weeks. My standard course – the sort I’ve been doing for Al Jazeera over the last decade – lasts three weeks. It’s called ‘The Skills of the Television Reporter’ and it’s pretty comprehensive. Those taking part can be absolute beginners or have two or three years’ experience, often having done the job without ever having had any formal training. And of course many will have picked up bad habits – so for them the course is more like a ‘re-booting’, going back to square one. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had participants say to me, ‘If only I’d had this training when I started out – not three years down the track!’
MD-R: And the training comprises what exactly?
MD-TR: We try to cover the entire waterfront - from conception to delivery. During the first two weeks there’ll be about a dozen training modules – each concentrating on one particular aspect of the job and illustrated by video-clips, PowerPoint presentations, role-playing and relevant support material. But, as I say, it's always a mix of theory and practice. So these modules are interspersed with filming exercises, such as reporting a story ‘against the clock’, just as would happen in real life - only the story is one that I’ve devised and that centres on the building we’re working in. So, for example, it may be a story about a cholera outbreak in a hospital, or – sometimes a bit too close to home - of a TV station going bankrupt because it’s lost its sponsor.
MD-R: And the last week?
MD-TR: This is when it all comes together – when everything learned during the first two weeks will be applied and for real. At the very start of the training I explain that the goal is to produce by the end of the course a twenty-minute current affairs programme of transmission quality, complete with six video packages, presenter links, opening title sequence… the lot. And the video packages – the stories, that is – will be real stories which they, the trainees, have to find, research and set up during the first two weeks. These don't have to be hard news stories – although sometimes they are – but they must stand the test of good journalism; they must be relevant and reflect a current issue in the city or country in which we're training. So it’s not enough to say, ‘I want to look at the daily life of a stall-holder in the market’ – unless it is within the context of him having to fight the new supermarkets for customers or going out of business because he can no longer afford the charges demanded by the local authorities, in which case of course we need to hear the other side of the story too.
MD-R: So the first two weeks are for the basic training and the story-research… then, during the third week, you have six stories to shoot and edit for the final, showcase programme. How does that work?
MD-TR: If there are twelve participants, they will work in pairs – one as the reporter, the other the producer. I require from the course organisers two professional camera-operators and two professional picture-editors for three consecutive days. Each pair of participants then has one day – six hours – to shoot their story, followed the next day by another six hours to edit it. That may sound like a very long edit but there will always be one or two re-cuts after I’ve seen the first cut. From the participants we also select two teams – an editorial team to decide the running order of the stories and write the presenter links… and a production team to knit together the final programme in the cutting room and make it ready for 'transmission'. I personally act as the Editor-in-Chief and I appoint from among the trainees a Programme Producer to oversee the entire production process. A big part of the training is about getting people to take responsibility.
MD-R: In effect, you’re trying to re-create the look, feel and operation of a real newsroom… correct?
MD-TR: Exactly – although, given the smaller scale, it’s more like the production office of a weekly current affairs programme. In fact, at the start of the third week, we transform the classroom into a production office by reorganising all the desks and chairs into six 'work-stations', one for each team. The final showcase programme is a team effort, with every participant having to take responsibility for his or her part in the joint effort. The objective is that, by the end of the three weeks, he or she will be able to walk into a newsroom and feel immediately at home – understand how the place operates and, whatever the job, know what it requires.
How best to explain what I offer as a trainer? Well, if you work in radio or television, the obvious answer is to get someone to interview you. But will he/she ask the right questions? Only one way to be sure – interview yourself. So, taking video-journalism to its ultimate conclusion, here’s MD-REPORTER interviewing MD-TRAINER…
Cameraman: Tarek Shannuf, Al Jazeera
MD-R: So, Michael, an obvious first question – the sort which I suspect most cash-strapped TV bosses would ask… Why should we pay people like you to train our people? Why not just throw them in the deep-end and see if they sink or swim?
MD-TR: Well, you could do that – and I’ve come across a number of bosses who take the attitude that television journalism is something that anyone with an enquiring mind can just ‘pick up’ by working alongside others. It’s what they used to do in the Lancashire cotton mills at the time of the Industrial Revolution back in the nineteenth century. It was called ‘sitting next to Nellie’. This may be OK if Nellie is good at her job, wants to show others how to do it and, importantly, has the training skills to do that. But if Nellie isn't good at her job, she will simply be passing on bad or out-of-date practices. The point about television - radio too - is that, if you make a mistake through inexperience or a lack of formal training, you’ll make it before an audience of possibly millions and your career will be over before it’s begun. It’s very unfair – even immoral, I’d argue – to expose people in this way. The reality is that television journalism is a multi-stranded profession. It’s a combination of the intellectual... the creative... the technical... and the managerial.
MD-R: You’re going to have to expand on that...
MD-TR: Right.... First, the intellectual requirement… Like a lawyer you frequently have to think on your feet. Whether you’re reporting a story on location or conducting an interview in the studio, you have to be ‘on the ball’. But when putting together your report, you also have to be creative – to turn the bald facts into an engaging visual story. So, apart from being a journalist, you’re also a film-maker. And that leads us to the technical… As a film-maker, you have to know your craft – what your equipment can and cannot do...
MD-R: But surely most television reporters work with camera-operators…
MD-TR: That might have been true twenty years ago, but no longer. These days, TV journalists are increasingly required to shoot their own material – and if you’re a true video-journalist – edit it too. In some cases on smartphone. And even if you do still work with a camera-operator and picture-editor, you should know what their equipment is capable of. That knowledge, you’ll find, earns you respect and gives you authority.
MD-R: And the managerial aspects of the job?
MD-TR: When you’re out on location, you’re the leader of the team. Simple as that. Not only are you the director; you’re also the one who decides when and where to break for lunch or, if you're running late, how to adapt the schedule. So, like any leader, you have to manage and enthuse those around you. You're the morale-booster. When things go wrong in television, it’s usually because of a breakdown in communication between the reporter/producer and the crew.
MD-R: So how do you train people to do such a complex job?
MD-TR: You give them two things – knowledge and experience. And out of that comes a crucial third: confidence. Let’s take interviewing. Sounds simple, right? You just sit down and ask someone questions. Wrong. There are some very basic things you need to know – such as, framing questions which cannot be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’… when to interrupt or not interrupt… and, most difficult of all, how to listen to the answer while in your mind lining up the next question.
MD-R: Which explains why your courses are a mix of classroom theory and hands-on practice, right?
MD-TR: It’s the only way. Let’s take the so-called ‘piece-to-camera’ – the PTC - when the reporter stands in front of the camera on location and talks directly to the viewer. Ask any reporter and they’ll tell you it’s the most nerve-racking experience, no matter whether it’s live or recorded. So we go through the theory in the classroom – with video examples of seasoned professionals doing it… not always well, it has to be said. And we make it a bit challenging – like, 'Don’t just stand there, walk around… show us something'. And then we give them a ‘scenario’ and send them out to do a PTC with a camera-operator, who of course they also have to direct. Generally we do this within the training centre or outside in the grounds. The scenario may be – to take an example - that new regulations require all rooms to be fitted with fire sprinkler systems… or, if there’s a parking area outside, that an auto-manufacturer has recalled a particular model because of faulty brakes. They have a limited time to do the PTC – typically twenty minutes – and then we play back the results in the classroom and give feedback. The practical part is essential. It’s the way we all learn – by doing - and of course you learn more from your mistakes than your triumphs.
MD-R: And, if you’re going to make mistakes, better to make them in a controlled training situation rather than in front of a million viewers.
MD-TR: Exactly. That’s the whole point of training.
MD-R: Do you have any training ‘philosophy’?
MD-TR: I don’t know about a philosophy as such… but I certainly have some key principles. First and foremost, I believe the the journalism is paramount and that we must never forget it. Television reporting has become increasingly technical and it’s easy to get absorbed by all the sophisticated machinery. But the camera, the microphone, the editing software – they’re just the tools of our trade. Of course we have to know how to use and exploit them but, in the end, they are the equivalent of the print journalist's pen or pencil. You can take the most amazing shots, record the most extraordinary sound – but if you haven’t got a compelling, well-researched and clearly-constructed story with engaging interviewees, you have nothing.
MD-R: And the other principles?
MD-TR: Well, this may sound contradictory coming from someone who has just been stressing the importance of theory backed by practice… but I always start a training session by saying that there are no absolute rules in television, only conventions. Television is an evolving medium. You have only to look back thirty, forty years to see the seismic changes that have taken place. We are always finding ways of doing things differently – partly because new equipment opens up new possibilities, partly because it’s human nature to push the boundaries. And at the same time our audience is becoming more visually literate and more iconoclastic. This is what makes television training a challenge – to lay down the basics but without stifling the creativity; to provide a platform that can become a springboard.
MD-R: Let’s get to the nuts and bolts. The courses that you’re offering – how long, what sort of schedule?
MD-TR: OK. They range from three days to six weeks. My standard course – the sort I’ve been doing for Al Jazeera over the last decade – lasts three weeks. It’s called ‘The Skills of the Television Reporter’ and it’s pretty comprehensive. Those taking part can be absolute beginners or have two or three years’ experience, often having done the job without ever having had any formal training. And of course many will have picked up bad habits – so for them the course is more like a ‘re-booting’, going back to square one. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had participants say to me, ‘If only I’d had this training when I started out – not three years down the track!’
MD-R: And the training comprises what exactly?
MD-TR: We try to cover the entire waterfront - from conception to delivery. During the first two weeks there’ll be about a dozen training modules – each concentrating on one particular aspect of the job and illustrated by video-clips, PowerPoint presentations, role-playing and relevant support material. But, as I say, it's always a mix of theory and practice. So these modules are interspersed with filming exercises, such as reporting a story ‘against the clock’, just as would happen in real life - only the story is one that I’ve devised and that centres on the building we’re working in. So, for example, it may be a story about a cholera outbreak in a hospital, or – sometimes a bit too close to home - of a TV station going bankrupt because it’s lost its sponsor.
MD-R: And the last week?
MD-TR: This is when it all comes together – when everything learned during the first two weeks will be applied and for real. At the very start of the training I explain that the goal is to produce by the end of the course a twenty-minute current affairs programme of transmission quality, complete with six video packages, presenter links, opening title sequence… the lot. And the video packages – the stories, that is – will be real stories which they, the trainees, have to find, research and set up during the first two weeks. These don't have to be hard news stories – although sometimes they are – but they must stand the test of good journalism; they must be relevant and reflect a current issue in the city or country in which we're training. So it’s not enough to say, ‘I want to look at the daily life of a stall-holder in the market’ – unless it is within the context of him having to fight the new supermarkets for customers or going out of business because he can no longer afford the charges demanded by the local authorities, in which case of course we need to hear the other side of the story too.
MD-R: So the first two weeks are for the basic training and the story-research… then, during the third week, you have six stories to shoot and edit for the final, showcase programme. How does that work?
MD-TR: If there are twelve participants, they will work in pairs – one as the reporter, the other the producer. I require from the course organisers two professional camera-operators and two professional picture-editors for three consecutive days. Each pair of participants then has one day – six hours – to shoot their story, followed the next day by another six hours to edit it. That may sound like a very long edit but there will always be one or two re-cuts after I’ve seen the first cut. From the participants we also select two teams – an editorial team to decide the running order of the stories and write the presenter links… and a production team to knit together the final programme in the cutting room and make it ready for 'transmission'. I personally act as the Editor-in-Chief and I appoint from among the trainees a Programme Producer to oversee the entire production process. A big part of the training is about getting people to take responsibility.
MD-R: In effect, you’re trying to re-create the look, feel and operation of a real newsroom… correct?
MD-TR: Exactly – although, given the smaller scale, it’s more like the production office of a weekly current affairs programme. In fact, at the start of the third week, we transform the classroom into a production office by reorganising all the desks and chairs into six 'work-stations', one for each team. The final showcase programme is a team effort, with every participant having to take responsibility for his or her part in the joint effort. The objective is that, by the end of the three weeks, he or she will be able to walk into a newsroom and feel immediately at home – understand how the place operates and, whatever the job, know what it requires.
Photo: Al Jazeera
'Showcase' programme for Al Jazeera Training Center, Doha; June, 2013
Presenters:
Nadine Cheaib & Neil Collier
See Nadine Cheaib's video package, made during the course, at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN_Ky6psOLA
Presenters:
Nadine Cheaib & Neil Collier
See Nadine Cheaib's video package, made during the course, at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN_Ky6psOLA