Part
6.- You are going to read an article in which a television news producer talks
about his work. Six sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from
the sentences A-G the one which fits each gap (37-42). There is one extra
sentence which you do not need to use.
Working as a TV news producer
Rob Cole has produced TV news for decades now, working
on anything from international celebrities to global conflicts. He shares the
benefits of this considerable experience in the industry.
Rob’s time behind the cameras has coincided with huge
changes in the way news is reported – from a time when everyone bought local
newspapers through the birth of 24-hour rolling news, and now the Internet. But
what is the work like on a day-to-day basis?
Rob’s always worked in
foreign news, so his focus is obviously on news from around the world. As you
can imagine, there’s a lot of that. Rob comes in early, having checked his
phone, social media, and listened to as many news programmes as he could. 37.-_____
Running the foreign section is like a never-ending contest – constantly trying
to get his journalists’ news presented ahead of the TV station’s other sections.
Once you have a story it’s
then a matter of making sure that wherever the journalist is, the report comes
into the building – through satellite, Internet, or other routes – and it is
ready to run on air on time. 38.-____ There’s nothing like getting a note from
the producer at another network congratulating on a job well done. The low
points, on the other hand, are much less pleasant: ‘I’ve had colleagues badly
injured.’
So how can you become a news
producer? Says Rob: ‘We get loads of applications. 39.-_____ Don’t be put off;
people in this business admire people who don’t give up easily, for obvious
reasons.’
You need to be keen to learn
and, of course, take a real interest in current affairs. ‘You have to be
obsessed with news, constantly following it. Even if you’re a creative
producer, doing graphics, you still have to care about what’s going on in the
world. Also, some people think about going into the media just because it sounds
exciting. That would be a mistake; you have to really want to do the job.
Luck’s involved too, of course. 40.-______’.
In some ways, Rob’s job
should remain fairly constant for the next few years. ‘They will always need
someone to make decisions and take responsibility for newsgathering. However,
what will change is the way in which news is delivered. When I started in TV,
the crew used to consist of a reporter, a producer, a camera operator, a sound
person, and sometimes even a separate lighting person. 41.-____ Now there’s
just the reporter and a multitasking camera operator who also edits and
supplies the written material – if you’re lucky!’
‘Before long there will be a crew
of just one, shooting all their own
material on a smartphone, then editing and voicing that material, before sending
it to head office, where it ends up going straight on air. 42.-_____ Actually,
this has already started to happen. The technology will just get quicker and
quicker and smaller and smaller.’
A) You might write
to just the right person at the right time.
B) Turning the
device around and pressing the live app button also enables live broadcasting
into the same programme.
C) They would be
loaded down with equipment and some of them would be linked by cable.
D) With this
information, before any stories actually come in, he then decides on the news
priorities of the day.
E) In those days it was possible to start a career
in news without even going to university: you went straight into training on a
local paper.
F) Making sure it does so matters, especially given
the friendly competition with other TV networks: ‘beating the other networks
G) I always endeavour to reply, but from my down
experience too many people don’t get back to you, so it’s best to keep trying.
