Since the age of 16 all I've wanted to do is be a radio presenter. Specifically, I've wanted to end up presenting the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show but to be honest, I'll happily settle for drive time. Heck, I'd even have taken Greg James's slot in the afternoon.
No seriously, I'd have done anything to just be on some form of national radio. And don't get me wrong, I've always known that if I wanted to get there I'd have to work hard. I knew that you didn't just roll up and ask for a job; it takes years of 'networking' (*cringe*), slogging your way through crap shifts (hence the eponymous blog) and generally doing anything and everything you could.
But I'll level with you. I had belief. I still do. And what's more I knew that if I kept ploughing on like a b*stard, with the same goal in sight I should get there, or at least damn close enough.
The last week though, has been a bit rough on the system. The first five days of a broadcast journalism have, in factual essence not been too trying: Get there at 9.30, listen to some inspiring speakers (Sophie Raworth, Stewart Purviss, the creator of Who Do You Think You Are etc etc.), meet everyone and go to the pub. Lovely. Now, without exception, this has been great. Yet through almost each and every talk there was an undercurrent that said one thing: Guys, you're fucked.
Now, I get the point. Broadcasting is currently a very difficult profession to get into. In the current economic climate, constricting budgets mean personnel numbers are shrinking and salaries with them. What's more, the relentless growth of the internet has made more and more content available online for free, such that the services of a professional journalist or broadcaster appear to be slowly retreating into obsolescence.
But I know that. Even people who are not supposed to be following current affairs like some sort of media hound know that. My German grandmother of a very respectable eighty years old knows it.
Even so, were it simply the surplus information offending my inflated pride, I'd like to think I'd get over it. Genuinely. But here's what it does do: it cripples my sense of ambition.
I, and everyone else on this extremely competitive course, worked darn hard to be on it. What's more, the rest of the year we've now begun looks set to continue the trend. On top of that, I would genuinely like to think that having actually got in, I might have demonstrated something at least hinting of being broadcastworthy. Don't get me wrong, there's been more than enough reassurance that things might also be fine and 96% of graduates enter employment, etc. etc. but to throw these kinds of stats in amongst a general atmosphere of apocalyptic gloom just seems to crenate a mood of psychological schizophrenia.
I don't know, maybe I'm just sensitive. Yet I'd always considered a tenacious yearning for the potentially unrealistic as a particular feature of mine. And sure, it happened that these dreams got shot down but, by and large, after I'd striven for them.
So yes, perhaps they are simply using journalistic hyperbole and double-talk to bring me back down to a solid, earthly realism. Ultimately, it may even harden my resolve and doubtless this may even be their aim, separating people with real zeal from passing hopefuls with no more than a passing interest. But there's a danger there. I don't consider myself a passing hopeful and hopefully that's still the case. Equally, I was never too fussed about earning pot loads of cash but with every promise of penniless perpetuity, one does start to have misgivings. In essence, I appreciate the sentiment, but don't push it too hard. It's making me feel wobbly.
And so to other news! Doing rugby in my spare time looks set to be unachievable, my dictaphone has arrived and hopefully will see me interviewing everything with vocal chords, Peter Conrad was on Radio 4, and in music, Labrinth's new song Earthquake, is frickin' incredible. It dropped (YES DROPPED DAMMIT) 2 weeks ago but I've been busy. So go listen NOW.
ONWARDS!
Dodgson.
ps. wouldn't usually brag (too much) but I wrote this all on my new and first ever smart-phone. Take that gloomologists.
No seriously, I'd have done anything to just be on some form of national radio. And don't get me wrong, I've always known that if I wanted to get there I'd have to work hard. I knew that you didn't just roll up and ask for a job; it takes years of 'networking' (*cringe*), slogging your way through crap shifts (hence the eponymous blog) and generally doing anything and everything you could.
But I'll level with you. I had belief. I still do. And what's more I knew that if I kept ploughing on like a b*stard, with the same goal in sight I should get there, or at least damn close enough.
The last week though, has been a bit rough on the system. The first five days of a broadcast journalism have, in factual essence not been too trying: Get there at 9.30, listen to some inspiring speakers (Sophie Raworth, Stewart Purviss, the creator of Who Do You Think You Are etc etc.), meet everyone and go to the pub. Lovely. Now, without exception, this has been great. Yet through almost each and every talk there was an undercurrent that said one thing: Guys, you're fucked.
Now, I get the point. Broadcasting is currently a very difficult profession to get into. In the current economic climate, constricting budgets mean personnel numbers are shrinking and salaries with them. What's more, the relentless growth of the internet has made more and more content available online for free, such that the services of a professional journalist or broadcaster appear to be slowly retreating into obsolescence.
But I know that. Even people who are not supposed to be following current affairs like some sort of media hound know that. My German grandmother of a very respectable eighty years old knows it.
Even so, were it simply the surplus information offending my inflated pride, I'd like to think I'd get over it. Genuinely. But here's what it does do: it cripples my sense of ambition.
I, and everyone else on this extremely competitive course, worked darn hard to be on it. What's more, the rest of the year we've now begun looks set to continue the trend. On top of that, I would genuinely like to think that having actually got in, I might have demonstrated something at least hinting of being broadcastworthy. Don't get me wrong, there's been more than enough reassurance that things might also be fine and 96% of graduates enter employment, etc. etc. but to throw these kinds of stats in amongst a general atmosphere of apocalyptic gloom just seems to crenate a mood of psychological schizophrenia.
I don't know, maybe I'm just sensitive. Yet I'd always considered a tenacious yearning for the potentially unrealistic as a particular feature of mine. And sure, it happened that these dreams got shot down but, by and large, after I'd striven for them.
So yes, perhaps they are simply using journalistic hyperbole and double-talk to bring me back down to a solid, earthly realism. Ultimately, it may even harden my resolve and doubtless this may even be their aim, separating people with real zeal from passing hopefuls with no more than a passing interest. But there's a danger there. I don't consider myself a passing hopeful and hopefully that's still the case. Equally, I was never too fussed about earning pot loads of cash but with every promise of penniless perpetuity, one does start to have misgivings. In essence, I appreciate the sentiment, but don't push it too hard. It's making me feel wobbly.
And so to other news! Doing rugby in my spare time looks set to be unachievable, my dictaphone has arrived and hopefully will see me interviewing everything with vocal chords, Peter Conrad was on Radio 4, and in music, Labrinth's new song Earthquake, is frickin' incredible. It dropped (YES DROPPED DAMMIT) 2 weeks ago but I've been busy. So go listen NOW.
ONWARDS!
Dodgson.
ps. wouldn't usually brag (too much) but I wrote this all on my new and first ever smart-phone. Take that gloomologists.
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