Future Ready at ITV

A few weeks ago on a wet and windy Manchester Friday, our Future Ready girls group made their way from Blackpool for an exciting day in Manchester! As suspected, Munji’s 3 spare umbrellas came in use, as they weren’t prepared for the notorious weather here.

We started the day by power walking to the tram to Media City, with a goal of getting hot drinks to warm ourselves up. We stopped off at Pret A Manger and had hot chocolates all round to get us ready for ITV Studios!

When we reached ITV, we made our way upstairs to meet Gamal Fahnbulleh who is a journalist and presenter for ITV News. He told us all about the different career opportunities that were available in the newsroom and some background to the Media City site.

We then headed to behind the scenes to meet with Emma Jesson who presents the weather. She talked the girls through the process of researching and recording the weather, which Emma does completely unscripted without an auto-cue! We were all so impressed and then some had the opportunity to have a go themselves. We think they look super professional and were complete naturals.

 After a quick snack break of kit kats and juice, we had some time to listen to a panel of women who worked within journalism. The girls had some great questions and you could sense the interest in journalism was increasing as the day went on! Following this, we go to see Gamal rehearse and present the afternoon news live, which was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity! The numbers of buttons and screens was overwhelming in the control room and we loved listening in to all the cues and routines they did. Some of the girls then had a play around with the autocue machine – again, there was definitely some talent there (although we may be biased!).

If this wasn’t enough of a jam packed day, the girls got to take pictures with a real BAFTA, see Jonathan Ross (on a cushion) and have a lovely meal together at Pizza Express.

Thank you to Gamal and Stacey at ITV Studios for making this happen. The girls were absolutely buzzing when they left the studios, the visit definitely left them with some careers to think about! We hope to see you again soon with the other Future Ready group!