This Wednesday saw The Royal Television Society bring together four generations of journalism; from current students, young journalists beginning their careers, established professionals and affectionately titled “elder statesmen”, to celebrate and showcase some of the amazing work by the three nominees for Young Journalist of the Year in this year’s RTS Scotland Awards on 17th May.

The nominees were Kevin Anderson, who showed an explorative piece into Cadbury’s “proudly British” image, with a twist that he had recently discovered that the chocolate was made in Poland. Rachel Coburn’s emotional video about Mary from a care home in Wimbledon, who exchanged letters every day after eloping during the second world war, leaving her family and friends behind. Nick Eardly brought another investigative piece to the evening, with a look into the break-in at Faslane, in which protestors managed to access the control room of a nuclear submarine. Straying away from the conventional method of using archive footage, shots or other news reports to tell the story, Eardly tracked down one of the protestors named Phil Jones, and bagged an exclusive interview about the event.

During an after-show Q&A, Anderson said: “There’s a scope for everyone in Scotland to take journalism and use it in our own area, it’s what people are looking to see these days. The tools we have in social media and the way news is developing online, makes it much easier to find stories.”

Coburn said: “I think there’s still a need for good quality journalism on social media, you have to fight for people’s attention. I had to use a more traditional method to get in touch with Mary, but I liked that. She’s a great character.”

Creators panel Andrew Browne (Editor at Reporting Scotland), Jamie McIvor (BBC Scotland Education and Local Government Correspondent) and John Hardie gave clear advice to those breaking into the television journalism industry throughout the night, touching on their own experiences in the industry and sharing exactly how to attract the right attention in the scene.

John Hardie (Chief Executive at ITN) gave a historical look into the company, whilst also discussing how it is continuing to evolve over the years, he said: “The industry needs to be better at bringing in talent from unconventional areas. He also highlighted, “In TV you do an establishing shot and then go to the correspondent, in digital we are looking for people to bring human emotion into the story as soon as you can”.

The results of RTS Scotland Young Journalist of the Year will be announced at the ceremony at Oran Mor Glasgow on May 17. RTS Scotland social media will reveal the winners of all categories during the event.  https://twitter.com/RTSScotland