Why we keep the materials simple
When people picture a classroom for television journalism, they often imagine screens, software and a rack of equipment. Our Newsroom Classroom Workshops rely on something far plainer: paper, a whiteboard, a shared timeline and a few recordings. I coordinate these sessions, so I see every week which of these things people actually reach for, and which sit untouched on the table. The reasoning is practical. Story structure, editing choices and interview technique are habits of thinking before they are habits of handling kit. A learner who can explain on one sheet of paper why a story opens on a particular picture will make the same decision faster at a desk with a deadline. So we keep the tools light enough that nobody is learning software when they should be learning judgement.
Small groups make this possible. With a handful of people around a table, every sheet gets read and every script gets talked through by the tutor and the room. Nothing disappears into a pile. That attention is the real material of the workshop, and the paper and boards are simply how we hold it still long enough to examine.
The story board on the wall
Every workshop starts with a board. Before anyone writes a line, the group sketches the story as a sequence of beats: the opening image, the point being made, the voice that carries it, the closing moment. We use index cards and marker pens, and cards can be moved, swapped or thrown away without anyone feeling attached to them. This matters because the order of a story is where most early drafts go wrong. Learners tend to arrive with a pile of good material and no spine. Moving cards around the board shows quickly where a piece sags, where two beats say the same thing and where a missing step leaves the viewer behind. The board makes structure visible to everyone at once, which a script on a screen rarely does.
We photograph the board at the end of the session so each learner leaves with their own record of the choices made. Some bring that photograph back to later sessions and compare it with what they actually cut, which tells them a good deal about how far a plan survives contact with the footage.
- Index cards for beats, one idea per card
- A different colour for pictures and for words
- A photograph of the final order to take home
Annotated scripts and the red pen
The second tool is the printed script. We hand out short news scripts and ask learners to mark them by hand: where the pictures would change, which lines repeat what the viewer can already see, which sentences are too long to say in one breath. A pen on paper slows people down in a useful way, because they have to commit to a mark rather than tweak a line endlessly. The annotations are discussed aloud. One learner may hear a line as clean while another stumbles on it, and that disagreement teaches more than any rule we could recite. We steer the conversation towards writing for pictures: letting the shot carry the fact and the words carry the meaning. By the end, most groups can spot padding in a script within a few seconds of reading it.
We also keep a folder of scripts marked up by previous groups, with names removed, so new learners can see how different people solved the same problem. It is not a model answer. It is evidence that several sound versions of one story can exist side by side.
Rough cuts and the editing conversation
For editing choices we work from short rough cuts rather than finished packages. A rough cut shows its seams: the jump where an interview was trimmed, the cutaway that covers a bad join, the pause that was left in or taken out. Because the cut is unfinished, learners feel free to say what they would change, and the tutor can ask why a particular shot sits where it does. We play each cut twice, once with the sound up and once with it down. Watching without sound tells you whether the pictures tell the story on their own, and it is a surprisingly quick test of whether the edit is doing its work. Listening without watching shows whether the audio holds together. The discussion is about decisions, not taste. Why start on the wide shot rather than the face? What does the viewer lose if that second question is cut? These are choices every editor makes, and naming them makes them easier to repeat on purpose.
Where a group wants to try its own edit, we describe the changes on paper first and compare them with the original, so the thinking is settled before anyone sits at a machine.
- Play each cut with sound, then without
- Name each choice and give a reason for it
- Agree changes on paper before touching the edit
Recorded interviews for practice and review
Interview technique is the part of the workshop that most needs a recording. We pair learners up, give one the role of interviewer and one the role of guest with a short brief, and record the exchange on a simple camera on a tripod. Nothing elaborate is needed. What matters is that the interviewer can watch themselves afterwards.
Replaying the recording shows habits that are invisible in the moment: interrupting a good answer, asking two questions at once, nodding so hard that the sound track is spoiled, or reaching for the next question before the guest has finished. We stop the playback at those points and talk about what a calmer alternative would look like. We keep these recordings only for the session and for the learners concerned, and they are not shared further. The aim is private improvement in front of a small, supportive group, not performance for an audience.
What we leave out on purpose
There are things we deliberately do not put in front of a workshop group. We avoid long slide decks, because a room that watches slides tends to stop talking. We avoid heavy software demonstrations, which belong in separate practical training and crowd out discussion. And we avoid handing out formulas for the perfect story, because a formula gives learners something to copy instead of something to decide. What we keep is the small, reusable kit: cards, pens, printed scripts, rough cuts and a camera on a tripod. Each of these can be set up in minutes and each produces something the group can point at and argue about. If a tool does not lead to a conversation about a choice, it does not earn a place on the table.
Learners often ask what they should buy before starting. The honest answer is a notebook, a pen they like and a willingness to be wrong in front of others. The rest we provide. That simplicity is part of how we keep the sessions focused and the groups small.
- No long slide decks
- No formulas to copy
- No software lessons inside the workshop
The tools behind our classroom sessions are modest on purpose: cards, marked-up scripts, rough cuts and a recorded practice interview. Each one helps a small group look at a decision, say why it was made and try a better one. If you are weighing up whether a workshop suits you, ask us what a session would cover and we will describe it plainly through the contact page.