Thursday, February 07, 2013

BBC announces plans for more Expert Women events

Acting BBC Director-General Tim Davie has today announced plans to launch more free training days for women who have specialist or expert knowledge and who want to share it in TV and radio interviews and reports. 

Following the success of the first ‘Expert Women Day’ that was held in London last month, four further events are now planned for Salford, Glasgow (which will host women from Northern Ireland as well), Cardiff and London, bringing the total number of women trained to 130.

The BBC Academy, working with Broadcast Magazine, recently selected 30 women with specialist knowledge in Science, History, Politics, Business, Engineering, Architecture and Technology, from over 2,000 applicants, for a day of intensive training and networking at its London HQ. One of the attendees later said, “The training was truly world class – really well structured, practical and challenging, but also supportive – and the gathering of top media industry professionals was extremely impressive.”

Expert Women training day, which was sponsored by Creative Skillset, provided an introduction to the media and how it works in four 90-minute sessions. There was also practical training in being interviewed live in a TV studio, coaching in how to deliver a piece to camera walking and talking, and live radio discussions, plus a chance to meet a range of top industry experts who took part in panel discussions and a networking lunch.

The database of the first 30 specialist women and a further 200, who made it to the second round of recruitment, has been circulated widely across the industry. Their film clips will also be uploaded to YouTube.
Several of these women have already appeared as contributors on or been commissioned by radio and TV programmes: Sally Marlow, Alcohol and Addiction Expert, has gone from ‘trainee’ to Today Programme reporter in just six weeks. She has been commissioned by the programme to produce a report on alcohol addiction, which will be broadcast before the end of February. Tina Miller, sociologist, has appeared on Woman’s Hour; Charlotte Connelly, a Curator of the Science Museum, contributed to the forthcoming The Last Word; Alison Baily, political analyst, appeared on BBC Radio Oxford; and Katherine Woolf, Lecturer in Medical Education, appeared on GMT with Zeinab Badawi on BBC World News.


(Source : BBC Media Centre)

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