In May 2020, RTS Isle of Man hosted its first online event, examining how news from the Isle of Man was being reported and how media conferences were conducted under social distancing requirements.
One year on, James Davis is joined by representatives of the Island’s media to discuss just what it’s like to report the news during a global pandemic and continue to do so in what appears to be our new digital-only world.
Director Rob Hurdman, who was talking to RTS Isle of Man’s Paul Moulton at an early March event, said 2020 had been a “a proper roller coaster year. We went from probably the depths of despair… [with] the first lockdown and thinking that everything we’d worked for in the past 25 years was going to fall through the floor.”
He continued: “Coming out of a very difficult year… we are starting to feel a bit more optimistic.”
ITV News and the Isle of Man look at how covering the pandemic from both sides of the Irish Sea with Head of News Lucy West and Granada’s Isle of Man reporter Josh Stokes, hosted by Hosted by Ex Granada and BBC North West correspondent Paul Moulton.
The panel looks at the bigger picture of reporting the very diverse region on a regular basis and finding out about those challenges where the Isle of Man makes up only about 1% of the audience.
Unlike the currently highly infectious North West of England, the Isle of Man has been free of Covid-19 since the start of June.
“It’s a global pandemic but the Isle of Man has had its own story. We’re the first place in the British Isles that removed social distancing…It’s been a unique experience,” said Stokes, who is in his first TV job.
“I’m so lucky to have a job here at the right time… on a story this big.”
Sam Bowers from RTS Futures and film-maker and lecturer Athena Mendis discussed the opportunities available to young people in the media industry.
Mendis teaches production and screenwriting at Queen Mary University of London’s Department of Film Studies Department. She has made short films and documentaries, which have been screened at film festivals around the world.
She is currently in pre-production on two short films, Losing Grace and Daughter and in post-production with a documentary on the Greek diaspora of North London.
Hosted by RTS Isle of Man, the tour of Greenlight’s facilities offered an insight into how the indie produces highlights of the Isle of Man TT for ITV4 from its production base in Tromode on the Isle of Man.
The Isle of Man TT, arguably, the world’s most famous motorcycle road race, is run on closed public roads over a 37.73-mile course.
Greenlight produces same-day, hour-long highlight programmes for ITV4 during the fortnight of racing on the Isle of Man in early summer.
The Society’s newest regional centre welcomed a capacity crowd of 160, which included the island’s Lieutenant Governor, Sir Richard Gozney, and the film’s director and writer, Marco Petrucco.
Brothers of Italy, which was shot on the Isle of Man last year and made by London-based Hoofprint Productions, was inspired by the story of Petrucco’s Italian grandfather, Sante, who was held in an internment camp on the island during the second world war.
