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Molly Lynch

Molly Lynch BBC Radio 4 – Case Study

1. What did you study at Barrow Sixth Form/Furness College?
English Language, English Literature, Religious Studies and Sociology

2. What year did you graduate?
2007

3. Where did you progress to after Barrow Sixth Form/Furness College?
Newcastle University, but I quit after three months because I was offered a job as a junior reporter at the North West Evening Mail

4. What is your current job role and what does it entail?
I’m a producer at BBC Radio 4’s news programmes World at One, PM, Broadcasting House and the World this Weekend. We’re based at New Broadcasting House in London, the big BBC building which they show on the news/The One Show. This involves thinking of ideas for items we can cover on the shows, finding guests, preparing briefs, cutting audio and all sorts of random tasks which help bring a live radio programme together in the space of a few hours!

5. What are your career ambitions?
To edit radio news programmes at the BBC, something which I have just started to do recently and is terrifying but exhilarating.

6. How did studying at Barrow Sixth Form/Furness College help you towards your ambitions?
Sixth Form arranged for me to do work experience at the local newspaper in Barrow in my first year. I spent a week there and loved it, and knew pretty much straight away that I wanted to be a journalist. I worked really hard and they paid me to stay beyond work experience, then gave me my first job in journalism, so it paid off. My English teachers were fantastic too, I learned so much from them and it’s remarkable how much the knowledge I gained through two years of study still comes in handy in my professional life today.

7. What mark do you hope to make on the world through your role?
I want to make the BBC more accessible. Growing up, the BBC seemed, to me, very high brow and middle class. I’d switch on the news or programmes and feel as though it was a club of intellectuals I didn’t belong to. Everyone pays the licence fee, and the BBC has a duty to serve everyone in the UK. I want to show you don’t need a certain education or background to understand news programmes. Or work here!

8. What are the most valuable skills to develop to succeed in your sector?
Curiosity (nosiness), communication, eagerness, resourcefulness and good old fashioned graft. I got lots of my breaks doing the night shifts no one wanted, keeping in touch with my contacts, etc.

9. What advice would you give to current students who are wanting to get into a similar career?
Read lots. Or watch lots of news. You need to be interested in what’s going on in the world, and try to go outside of your comfort zone. Lots of young journalists want to do stories about things that they’re interested in, which isn’t a bad thing, but journalism is about other people, finding out things about every walk of life and political persuasion.


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