The Brian White Scholarship for student journalists

The opportunity for a young journalist to spend time in a busy metro newsroom doesn’t come around very often, and it’s even rarer for a student journalist to get that opportunity to work alongside experienced journalists.

Commercial Radio Australia is looking to rectify that and has announced a new journalism scholarship, giving the next generation of broadcasters the chance to work in four of Australia’s leading radio newsrooms.

The Brian White Scholarship offers aspiring journalists an eight-week paid work attachment, in two-week blocks, at Macquarie Media, Southern Cross Austereo, Australian Radio Network and Nova Entertainment.

“The program aims to give final-year students or recent graduates an opportunity to work alongside senior radio journalists and gain first-hand experience of how news is sourced and broadcast.” says Joan Warner, CEO of Commercial Radio Australia.

“The initiative aims to help students with a passion for radio news to develop their skills and transition out of study and into the commercial radio industry.”

It’s a good move by CRA to help ‘grow’ new radio talent, particularly within news. Radio journalism requires a certain skill set that is best learned in a newsroom rather than a classroom.

This scholarship is named for news/talk radio pioneer, Brian White; a man of enormous influence in both Sydney and Melbourne through the 60s, 70s and 80s.  He was posthumously inducted into the Commercial Radio Hall of Fame in 2002.

Applications are now open and close Friday, April 13.  Submissions can be made at www.bhwscholarship.com with the work placement to begin in June.