How We Build and Use Reading Lists for Broadcast Journalism Students

Why a reading list needs a method

When students join one of our programmes, they often ask for a long list of everything worth reading. We have learned to resist that request. A list of fifty titles looks generous, but most people open the first three, feel behind, and stop. So the study library at xuplin is built around a method, not a pile of recommendations.

The method is simple to describe. Each title on a list must answer a question a student will meet in the next few weeks of practical work: how to hold a frame steady, how to write a line that matches the picture, how to check a claim before it goes to air. If a book does not help with something a student is about to do, it waits.

I teach broadcast writing, so my own shelves lean towards scripts, structure and accuracy. The other tutors add their own picks, and Tom Ashworth keeps the whole collection in order so students can find what they need without asking three people.

How a title earns a place

Before a book or guide goes into the library, one of the tutors reads it with a pen in hand. We are not judging whether it is famous or well written in the general sense. We are asking whether a student at a particular stage could pick it up, read a chapter in an evening, and do something better the next morning.

Age matters too. Broadcast journalism changes in its tools but far less in its habits, so we keep older titles on sound writing and ethics while checking technical guides carefully for anything that has dated. A chapter on lens choice may still be useful; advice on a workflow nobody uses any more is not.

We also look at tone. Some books talk down to beginners, and some assume ten years of newsroom experience. We keep the ones that speak to a capable adult learning a trade, which is who our students are.

• Can a student act on it within a week of reading?
• Is the advice still sound for current newsroom practice?
• Is it written for learners, not insiders?
• Does it match a skill we teach in class?

Reading in step with the classroom

Each list is matched to a programme. A student on our field camera sessions gets short guides on exposure, framing and sound alongside the practical days outdoors. Someone working on on-camera delivery gets material on scripting to picture and keeping composure when things go wrong.

The order is deliberate. We suggest reading a short section before a session, so the exercise makes sense when you meet it, and returning to the same section afterwards, when the questions you could not have asked beforehand have appeared. Most people find the second reading more useful than the first.

Students move at their own pace, which is the point of the library. Some read steadily through a list in a month; others dip in around work shifts and family. Both are fine. What we ask is that the reading connects to something you are practising, because reading alone rarely changes how a shoot or a script turns out.

Notes, margins and a working habit

We encourage students to treat library books as working tools. That means a notebook open beside the page, with one line written for each idea you intend to try. Not a summary of the chapter, but a sentence that begins with a verb: check the audio before the interview, cut the first sentence of every script.

This habit comes from newsroom life, where nobody has time to reread a whole book before a deadline. A page of your own short notes, built over several weeks, becomes a personal checklist you can glance at in a car park before a live cross.

I ask my writing students to bring those notes to our sessions. Often a single line, read aloud, opens a better conversation than any prepared question, because it shows exactly where the reading met the student's real difficulty.

• Write one action per idea, not a summary
• Date your notes so you can see progress
• Bring them to class and read a line aloud

What the library does not try to do

The library is not a substitute for practice, and it does not try to cover all of journalism. There is no section on subjects we do not teach, and we would sooner leave a gap than fill a shelf with titles nobody on the team has read properly.

It also does not replace feedback. A book can explain how to structure a package, but it cannot tell you that your second sentence repeats what the picture already shows. That comes from a tutor watching your work and speaking plainly about it.

What the library does well is give you a steady base between sessions. When you are stuck on a Tuesday evening and the next class is on Thursday, a well chosen chapter can move you forward, and you arrive with a sharper question than you would otherwise have had.

Choosing where to start

If you are new to us, the best first step is to tell Tom what you do now and what you want to be doing in a year. He will point you to the list that fits, and a tutor can adjust it if your background is unusual. A former print reporter needs a different starting shelf from a camera operator moving into reporting.

Start with one list, not three. Read the first title slowly, make your notes, and try one idea in real work before moving on. That rhythm matters more than speed.

Lists are revised as tutors read new material and as students tell us what helped and what did not. If a title leaves you cold, say so. Honest feedback from people working through the programmes is one of the main reasons the collection keeps improving.