Concordia

Concordia Winter 2019 13 Concordia Winter 2019 12 BBC News Rising Star 2019 Ammar Ebrahim (2006-2011) writes of the challenge of breaking into journalism and then winning a prestigious BBC award. F rom a very young age, I always wanted to be a journalist and I feel very lucky to have been living out that dream at the BBC for the last three years. Winning the BBC News Rising Star of the Year award in 2019 has been the highlight of a very eventful few years. When I was at Northwood Prep (now Merchant Taylors’ Prep) we took part in a national competition to put together a newspaper that would be judged by The Times Education Supplement. I was in Year 8 and everyone knew I was a politics nerd so my class mates were very happy for me to be “the politics editor”. At 13 I did not really know what that meant, but being able to write about current affairs for a whole week was something I loved and that was the first time I thought journalism could be something I would be good at. at the BBC was one of the best days of my life. I spent six months working on BBC Watchdog. This was great fun: you feel like a detective and it really trains you up to be a great investigative journalist. I then moved onto current affairs where I really felt in my element. I worked on a one-off series called Secrets of Silicon Valley and secured a huge scoop with Donald Trump’s Head of Digital Content. She revealed to us the relationship between Trump’s election campaign, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. While I loved working in TV, I was frustrated that the most recognition one received was at the end of the programme in the credits. What people do not realise about TV journalism is that most of the journalism is done by the researcher and producers, rather than the reporter. An opportunity working with digital current affairs gave me the chance to take more ownership of my journalism and to travel abroad. BBC Digital Current Affairs makes video for the BBC News website and social media and they also make some radio for the BBC World Service. It is made up of a number of programmes and I’ve been lucky enough to work on BBC Stories and People Fixing the World. I started on BBC Stories, where the brief is powerful human stories around the UK that appeal to a younger audience. I got to produce my own films and pitch my own stories and I could not believe I was getting that opportunity so early in my career. Finding stories, producing them and interviewing came naturally to me but I knew I needed to learn how to operate a camera to be able to truly thrive. Working a camera was something I was definitely not a natural at but I was sent to Spain to cover a story for People Fixing the World, which looks at innovative solutions to problems around the world. A group in Catalonia were using goats to help prevent forest fires and I was tasked with making a short film and radio report by myself. It did not get off to a good start as I got stuck in a fence and a goat nearly knocked over my tripod. But after expending actual blood, sweat and tears, I came back to London with a film and radio package which my editor loved. I soon became a broadcast journalist and I have been able to make films and radio on a variety of topics. For BBC Stories, I usually make films on topics such as mental health, race, identity and how politics impacts ordinary people. For People Fixing the World, I have also been lucky enough to travel abroad, covering inspiring solutions to problems in Turkey, Italy and Spain. In May, I received an email telling me that I had been shortlisted for the BBC Rising Star of the Year award. I was over the moon to be shortlisted but seeing the other talented names on there, I did not think I would win. I went to the awards ceremony with minimal expectation. Hsowever, when Adrian Chiles started talking about the person who won the award, it sounded like it could be me. Then he said “could Ammar Ebrahim come to the stage please”. It is a moment that will stay with me for the rest of my life. When I look back on my time at Merchant Taylors’ School it is my Sixth Form days that were my favourite and, while I did not know it at the time, the A Levels I did really helped me develop key skills to become a journalist. I studied History, Philosophy and Ethics, Politics and English Literature. They all teach you invaluable research skills which meant that finding stories came very naturally to me. They also teach you about some of the most important ideas and forces which shape society today and that knowledge has also proved invaluable in my job. Structuring a film or radio programme is not that different from structuring an essay: they both involve taking big, complex ideas and condensing them into a simpler form that makes a convincing argument or tells a story. So I am very grateful to my teachers who really helped me develop skills that have been invaluable in my career. A careers test at Merchant Taylors’ School suggested that journalism was one of the paths I should pursue. In 2011 I went to Sheffield University and, while I studied History, I threw myself into student media there and began by reporting on university and professional sport across the city. Football is a sport I love, so interviewing professional football players never felt intimidating, but ice hockey, which I was regularly asked to cover, was a whole different ball game! I would be simultaneously making notes on the match, while also googling the rules when something happened that I did not understand. I also had my own breakfast show on student radio which I loved every second of, and this also acted as great training. I knew how competitive a career in the media was and, deep down, I thought student media might be the closest I get. During my final 18 months of university I kept emailing a Senior News Producer at ITV News asking to meet for coffee so I could pick her brain on how to make it in the industry. I often would not hear back for months but I kept chasing and, in August 2015, she offered me some work experience for a few days. I had just moved back to London from Sheffield, and had a Masters dissertation to finish and I also had to contend with a family member being in hospital. Trips to hospital in the morning followed by working in a newsroom in the day followed by writing my dissertation at night was brutal but it was a means to an end. I impressed enough to be given a few freelance shifts with the Tonight programme. My job was simple if a little dull: I was tasked with typing out all the interviews that they recorded so that they could then go through and pick out the best bits for the edit. I got regular shifts for a year and, while the work was mundane, being in that newsroom gave me such a buzz. The next step for me was to do some actual journalism and then a dream opportunity came up at the BBC. Creative Access, a charity who aim to diversify the media by linking up media organisations with BAME candidates, advertised a researcher position at the BBC. I applied for it and a few interviews later I was selected for the job. Getting that phone call that I was going to work