51Âþ»­

Returning to campus almost a decade after graduating from 51Âþ»­ Leicester (51Âþ»­), news editor at Sky News shared valuable industry insights with Journalism students.

While addressing current students, the English Language and Journalism graduate also shared her biggest piece of advice about what she considers to be the key to success.

“It’s very competitive out there, but work experience can make you shine and stand out. I did so much of it to put myself ahead of others when I graduated. It not only shows employers how committed you are, but you also learn a lot,” said the 30-year old from Norwich.

“Make sure you get a wide range of experience too. I worked in so many newsrooms, including the Norwich Evening News, East Midlands Today, BBC Radio Leicester, Heart Radio and BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat. I got a really good demo out of the latter and they all helped me to tie different media elements together.”

Annie has been working at Sky for nearly six years, starting out as a radio journalist and moving on to become a news editor more recently.

Structured in seven-week rotas, her broad role involves everything from deciding which stories to pursue and monitoring breaking news on social media, to plenty of planning and going on the road to conduct interviews.

She said: “I have a big overview of everything – the stories we’re going to do and who’s going to do them. It’s like piecing together a giant jigsaw and having to come up with creative ways to do it.

“It feels like a natural progression from my previous role as a radio journalist, which taught me to keep a calm head no matter what was happening, because I had to deliver an hourly news bulletin. I also managed the team and had to use a lot of editorial judgement.”

Before that, Annie was at Global – Europe’s largest radio company and home to leading UK brands such as Heart, Capital and LBC – where she worked her way up from news intern to senior broadcast journalist in just three years.

“What continues to drive me is going after the best stories and getting them first. The most important thing is doing them right of course, but you also want to be first,” she said.

As well as her wealth of work experience, it was also her involvement with Demon Media - 51Âþ»­’s award-winning student media group – that helped Annie secure her first paid job after graduating.

She said: “It was back when Demon FM had a community license, so you’d hear the show when you were out and about in Leicester, which added to the excitement.

“I started as a news presenter co-hosting a Monday morning show, then became the entertainment editor, where I got to do fun things like see shows around the city for free and interview the cast.

“While my degree gave me a sound grounding on print media, my time at Demon FM gave me crucial radio experience and helped me to develop important skills like sniffing out a story, speaking on air, reading news bulletins effectively and interview techniques.”

Visiting campus on an Open Day is what made Annie realise that ‘51Âþ»­ was the one’ for her.

“I got a really good feeling about it on the day and it turned out to be a great decision. Our tutors were enthusiastic and they put us through our paces from the very start, teaching us to use our eyes and ears early on and that talking to people is how you get stories. I really loved 51Âþ»­,” she said.