Amber Mehmood was a student on the BA Broadcast Journalism course at the University of Huddersfield. She graduated in 2019 and is now working for BBC Inside Out in Leeds, while studying for her Masters in economics.

What made you choose the course you did? 

I looked at different universities but what sold me on Huddersfield was its high tech facilities. They were just like a real newsroom and they had a really big green screen! This made me feel I would get the practical experience I needed. The course is BJTC accredited, and while I didn’t understand the significance of that before I started, our lecturers explained it meant you could go straight into a job in journalism without any other extra qualifications. I thought that was brilliant, and that is exactly what I did.

How prepared did you feel to enter the industry when it was time to start looking for work?

I think I was as prepared as I could be. The biggest thing that prepared me was having to do work experience, which is mandatory because of the BJTC. 

I went on three different placements and before I went to the first one I remember being worried I wouldn’t like it, or I’d mess it up, or I’d end up just making the tea. But my tutor encouraged me to just give it a go and see how I found it. My first placement was a couple of weeks at Radio Aire in Leeds and it was absolutely incredible. I got stuck in from the first day and was sharing story ideas. They trusted me to do my own interviews which I thought was brilliant. At the end they wanted to offer me a part-time job, but I wasn’t ready as I still had my degree to finish. It gave me lots of confidence and enthusiasm to carry on.

After that I went straight to ITV Calendar in Leeds which really opened my eyes to producing TV. There is only so much you can learn in a classroom, and in a real working environment it’s so different. All your skills get put into perspective and you can put into practice everything you’ve been learning.

Then I spent a couple of weeks at BBC Look North which was also absolutely incredible. I was going out and doing stories with the digital team, newsgathering, and doing Brexit research. 

The best part about all of these places was the opportunity to make contacts. I really threw myself into the deep end, making sure I knew everyone, chatting with them all, asking them if there were opportunities for freelance work or more work experience. They tell other people in the organisation about you, especially if you are able to offer them good stories.

So how did you end up in your current role?

I was lucky enough to be called back to Look North for other bits of work experience and then I was offered a temporary project for a week in Bradford, which my lecturers allowed me to do because it was such a good opportunity. After that I told them I’d be available for full-time work in a couple of months and asked them to keep me in mind.

I also applied for a job at ITV Calendar. I went to a full day assessment and secured an interview, but I didn’t get the job. There was also a six-week student job at BBC Inside Out on offer. I didn’t get that job either, but they asked me back to talk to them because they’d been interested in the story ideas I’d talked about in my interview. We just had a casual chat about how we could make a documentary out of those ideas. They offered me a casual rolling contract, full-time, to do that, and so I took them up on it. That’s what can happen when you have good stories to offer! Having story ideas is key. On every work experience I went on they asked for story ideas, because that’s what they need; stories for all the different platforms they work with.

They also need people from different backgrounds and different experiences to be able to give story ideas with all the different angles that are needed. I believe people from a diverse background are the most valuable people in a newsroom. I am a Muslim and come from an Asian background. This means I can bring so many stories and perspectives from my community that other people can’t. Having a diverse newsroom provides extra content, and that is what they want. If you come from a diverse background and are going for work experience or a job, make a big thing of it. Tell them that you can offer different stories and perspectives because of it. I was asked to advise one producer who was filming a story at a mosque. I explained to her that she needed to be really careful when editing, because if she made a cut at the wrong point in a prayer it changes the Arabic meaning of things and it would upset the Islamic community. They wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t been there.

I can also contribute the perspective of someone who has a disability. I have juvenile idiopathic arthritis which affects all the joints in my body, from head to toe. Although I’m often in severe pain, it is a hidden disability. People don’t know I’m disabled unless I tell them. I used to keep it quiet because I was embarrassed and ashamed, but now I make sure it’s out in the open. Otherwise, they will wonder why I struggle at times. I can’t carry heavy camera equipment, I can’t travel far in the car, and I have to take quite a few breaks.

So, while the disability has its bad side, it also means I can come up with story ideas that others might not think of. The story I’m producing now is a story related to disability.

Do you have any other good advice to offer people looking for their first role?

I’d re-emphasis getting as much work experience as you can – ask everyone for contacts to get you opportunities. Even your own lecturers will have contacts as they will have worked in the industry themselves. And once you are in there, get even more contacts. Talk to everyone, make sure they know who you are and that you want further opportunities. If I hadn’t done work experience I wouldn’t have the job I have now.

How useful was your course in preparing you for that work experience?

What I’ve come to realise is that everything you learn at university comes into use once you are in the real world. Media law comes up almost every day, and I have to do lots of Freedom of Information requests. The best module that helped me was Data Journalism. It taught me how to think of my own stories and how to submit FOI requests. I used the data I got for the stories I developed in that module for my interviews with ITV and the BBC. 

All the practical skills you learn, especially on newsdays, make it seem like you know what you are doing when you go into a newsroom. If you understand what’s going on around you, you can ask more questions and you seem more level-headed and that impresses them. I used the mobile journalism skills I was taught to film flood damage and interview someone for the BBC, and I was grateful for the voice training I received when I was asked to do a voiceover during my first couple of weeks at this job.

When you are being interviewed for jobs, the questions you get asked are about whether you know how to use a camera, how to edit, how to interview someone, how to run a newsroom. We learn all those things. It prepares you for the real world, and the real job. If I had said in my interview that I didn’t have camera skills or I didn’t know how to interview anyone, or that I’d never been in a newsroom – then I definitely wouldn’t have got this job. 

I’d also recommend people enter the BJTC awards. I wasn’t going to enter and only did it at the last minute when a friend encouraged me to do so. I was fortunate enough to end up winning the Steve Harris Award. Everyone should enter because you have no idea what will happen. I didn’t think I had a chance of winning anything, let alone the main prize. Even if you don’t win, the room is filled with industry experts and you might meet someone who likes the work you did. They might offer you an opportunity you wouldn’t have got otherwise.

See Amber receive her Steve Harris in this video…

What’s your next challenge?

I’m doing my masters in economics. I will hopefully continue to work at the BBC part time, because, as everyone in the industry tells me, once you’ve got your foot in the door, you don’t want to take it out again. Long term I may move into journalism with a more economic focus, but for the moment I’m sticking with documentary producing because it’s really interesting. Before I went to uni I was convinced I would have a career in news. I’m still a complete news geek, but once I started researching documentaries I realised how brilliant it was – so I want to stick to that for the moment.

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This article was written in October 2019. To keep up with what Amber is up to, follow her on social media.
Twitter: @amber_mem | Facebook: Amber Memhood

We regularly catch up with our BJTC alumni to find out how they are going with their careers and what advice they might have to offer students embarking on their own broadcast journalism journeys. If you’d like to be considered for the Alumni Spotlight, contact us and let us know. We’d love to hear from you.