The BBC Sports desk in Hull can be a busy and hectic place to be involved in. With major sporting events and games each week, there is a mass of organisation, preparation, and dedicated work ethic that needs to be employed to keep a Sports Desk’s heartbeat running.
At BBC Humberside, that job is down to Radio Presenter, and current Sports Editor, Matt Dean. But what does it take to be in charge of such an important role, and, more importantly what does that role involve?
“My job is to manage two other Sports Journalists, in Mike White and Gwilym Lloyd. I also look after all of the freelancers on match days.” He said.
“I also look at which games go on which frequencies, which is always a hot topic,” he added.
Being the Sports Editor, Matt also has editorial decisions to make, and a responsibility to ensure the efficiency of the Sport’s desk.
“We have bulletins at breakfast time at lunchtime and in the afternoon. So I have to keep my eye across which stories are out there, and decide editorially which stories lead our bulletins, and what sort of angles we take for all our stories.”
Matt has not always been the Sport’s Editor, and he has recently moved in to that role in taking over from another work colleague.
“It’s a lot more demanding; the team has been reduced in number. When David Burns was the Sports Editor the team was four in number but now it’s been reduced to three,” he said.
“Because we’re still having to service the same amount of output the same amount of hours, we’re still dong all the same things that we did before. So it’s still very demanding, and there sometimes doesn’t feel like there’s enough hours in the day to do it all.”
For some people, getting in to journalism is hard, and for some it has always been a lifelong ambition. However the circumstance, radio is still one of the most popular forms of journalism mediums, and is sought by many aspiring hopefuls. For Matt, radio has always been his focus in journalism.
“I always wanted to work in radio. I got a degree in Broadcast Journalism, at Nottingham Trent University. I came out and did freelance for Sky, on their Soccer Saturday programme; I did that for a year. That was a good experience.
Then I started freelancing for radio Humberside.
I started working on contract at Radio Humberside in ninety nine, and then I became staff the following year,” he said.
Some people become inspired or have someone that they look up to for an aspired job. For Matt, the lure of radio has always been the main focus and aspiration.
“I always listened to radio Humberside sport, and I always respected what we did here. As a listener I think you kind of want to get a bit more involved. You want to know how it all works, and you have a genuine passion and enthusiasm for it.
I always felt that that helped me.
I just think that the immediacy in radio is what’s so appealing for me really. I always had that vision, so that always was the thing that drove me really.”
That vision and drive is what has led to Matt being successful in the industry, but he also feels that he has more to give as a professional.
“I still have ambition, and I’d still like to work higher and do more. But I think that we’re very lucky to do what we do here, because we can commentate, we can present, we interview, we do a bit of everything really.
We’re all very fortunate that we get on air all the time, and we’re able to do games, and see a lot of action and its good really.
We’ve got quite a small team, it’s quite a tight close knit team, and they tend to leave you to it, trust your judgement on things.”
The job roles that Matt has held in his time with the BBC have adapted with the current climate of the media, and Matt has seen this change first hand in the work place.
“It’s changed a lot. I mean when I first started working for the BBC in nineteen ninety nine, online was in its infancy really. There wasn’t things like Twitter, or anything like that. That’s very much changed how we work.”
The impact of social media such as Twitter, has prompted journalists to know and be capable of working with these new mediums as well as the old ones.
“All of us have been trained to put stories up on the BBC Sport website. We always have to think across online as well as just on the radio,” he said.
“I think that in the course of the last sort of couple of years Twitter’s sort of taken off. And there’s quite a lot of stories that could come through Twitter now, and you always have to be reactive to that.
New technologies have definitely impacted on the way we work,” he added.
These new mediums of technology are changing the broadcast industry through new methods of breaking stories, this can be challenging for non-online mediums to compete with.
“When I started, the clubs weren’t that fussed about what they had on their websites. Now all the clubs tend to prioritize their own websites. Whenever we deal with a lot of the clubs, they give us limited access to certain players, because they want the player interviewed first.
So that’s what you’re up against really.
And it’s become harder I think to break stories as well, because clubs are more determined to break stories on their website. When I first started it wasn’t like that,” said Matt.
“Now it’s more difficult, they only take phone calls from you on a very special occasion, and in the week you can’t just pick up the phone and ring the manager any more. You have to ring the head of media at any respective clubs now.”
The whole interface and personality of the broadcast and media industry has gone through many changes, non-more so than becoming familiar with social and interactive media.
“Radio audience figures are as high I think as they’ve ever been. More people are listening to radio now than probably ever before. Because they can listen through online, you can listen on your laptop, you can listen through your mobile phone.
So there are more ways to listen to the radio.
I think we need to be on the ball when it comes to Twitter, and I think we need to be fully switched on to it. And we do try and do a bit of Tweeting. Nobody is solely brought in to look after Twitter or anything like that.”
Matt speculated on the future of Twitter and social media’s involvement with the broadcast and media industry, as it has already impacted to such an extent that it is an everyday necessity for a journalist.
“We’ll just have to be box clever with the way we work in the future and with the staff that we’ve got, and prioritize; see where things go with it in terms of the new media.
I don’t feel a major threat from Twitter and things like that. Although having said that, it’s just another means to monitor. I think that we just have to be aware of it.”
It seems as though the working day of old has evolved, and a journalist can no longer expect to be a master of one thing, but instead, a tool that can be used and adapted in all circumstances and situations.
The impact of new media has changed the job roles within journalism, particularly broadcasting, and it seems that this may only seek to increase, as time, and technology, develops.
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