Audio News Editor
Bromley & District Talking Newspaper Association
Join a friendly team of people compiling and editing news, ready for our readers to record. Our listeners form a highly appreciative audience of blind and visually impaired people. No experience is needed as training is given. If you’re comfortable with administration and written English, you’ll be fine. You would extract news items from various local papers and edit them to make them suitable for reading out. Minimum of one morning every four weeks.
Bromley District Talking News is a free audio recording circulated in the London Borough of Bromley, bringing local news to an audience of blind and visually impaired people. A senior editor oversees each edition, and every Thursday morning three editors join him or her to select and edit news from four local newspapers. As an editor, you would cut up copies of your paper into individual news items, then edit each one with a red pen, ensuring it makes sense bearing in mind it has to be read as in a radio news bulletin. As the reader can’t skim the item, you would delete repetition & extraneous material. Quite often you would discuss changes with the others, to get a second opinion. You would throw out items that aren’t really news. Finally, you would ensure everything reads properly. Working as a team with the others, you’d decide what order the news items should be in, and look for duplicates from the different papers, or from the previous week’s news. If you found an interesting item which isn’t news but might make a good feature, you would offer it to the editor who handles that part of the edition.
IT, Technology & Websites,General & Helping
Admin, IT skills - basic, Reading & Writing
We don’t ask for any specific qualifications or experience, but editors need a good understanding of written English, and the ability to organise paperwork.
There’s a tangible end result to each session, a recording of the news sent out to listeners. We hear frequently from blind listeners about the importance of the talking news to them, keeping them in touch with local news and social events. Training and guidance will be given for as long as the individual requires. This will include attending a recording session in the studio. The role involves working in a team of four editors, often discussing points with each other. The organisation contains many other roles including presenters, readers, office workers, post sorters, and recording engineers. Volunteers can, and often do, choose to take on several roles. Every six months the sixteen editors meet to exchange views and ideas, and to get to know anyone you haven’t worked with yet. Each February there’s a lunch for volunteers and guests, attended by about 80 people. In October there’s a brief annual general meeting followed by tea, coffee, sandwiches and cakes, which is an opportunity to meet volunteers from other teams, and some of our listeners.
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BR1 3LH
Bromley District Talking News, “Northlands”, Freelands Grove, Bromley
On-street parking outside the studio. 162 bus to Freelands Road stop (five minutes walk). Train or bus to Bromley North station (10 mins walk). Buses to central Bromley (15 mins walk).
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