Applications for Brian White Scholarship open for aspiring broadcasters

Image: The Brian White Scholarship panel of news directors who will determine the scholarship winner

Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) is now accepting applications for the 2021 Brian White Scholarship.

The program awards a university student in their final year with an eight-week paid internship across Australian Radio Network (ARN), Nine Radio, NOVA Entertainment and Southern Cross Austereo (SCA).

Students can be from the broadcast, media, communications and journalism disciplines.

Entries will be judged by a panel of commercial radio news directors, who will narrow applications down to 10 finalists across two rounds of judging.

The finalists will then attend a one-day workshop with the news directors in Sydney, where they will undertake a range of news tasks and develop their on-air presenting skills. From there, the scholarship recipient will be selected, with the winner announced in June.

Last year’s winner, Zac de Silva from Macquarie University, will start his internship this month, while the inaugural winner, Rachel Storer, from Newcastle University, now works as a journalist in Melbourne for ARN and was recently named in Radio Today’s 30 Under 30 Awards in the news category.

The scholarship is named after legendary radio broadcaster Brian White, who was Australia’s first commercial radio cadet journalist in 1953. He became a dominant figure in radio for more than three decades and was a pioneer of the newstalk format.

Joan Warner, CEO of CRA, said the scholarship is designed to help talented aspiring broadcast journalists gain a foothold in the industry.

“The Brian White Scholarship is a wonderful opportunity for students or recent graduates to experience the fast-paced world of live radio and help produce the news and updates broadcast to millions of Australians every day,” she said.

Final-year students and recent graduates can apply here until May 7.