Week Ten: Assignment Update

Today I interviewed Dave Dollin, the news journalist from Central Coast radio station Star 104.5 (where I am lucky enough to work). I spoke to Dave about the importance of local news and how Star covered the 2010 election, giving a national story a local angle.

The interview went smoothly and he made some very interesting points. One that stood out was that people want to hear their suburb mentioned in the news; he stressed that finding a local angle in a national, or even international, story is important to ensure your audience is tuning in. As we heard in the seminars, local news gives local people a voice that can be heard. And most of the time, people want to hear that voice.

He also said that although there are similarities between many commercial stations, like music or announcers, he believes it is local news that will make people tune in!

This was a very refreshing thing to hear as a (hopeful) future journalist.