Kirk: mentoring role at Sky News
Sky News has appointed senior news editor Rob Kirk as its editorial development manager, with responsibility for mentoring young journalists and monitoring the broadcaster’s editorial quality.
Kirk will co-ordinate Sky News’s search for talent, through its first graduate news trainee scheme, recruitment for which is underway.
But he will continue to work as senior news editor on special projects, such as the coverage of the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings he oversaw last month.
The graduate scheme, which marks Sky News’s 15th year on air, will run from November 2004 to autumn 2005, after which trainees will be eligible to apply for jobs within Sky News, from reporting to producing.
It will include a seven-week induction followed by two-month attachments to various departments, working with Sky News journalists, technicians and crews in the UK and international bureaux. There will be stints with programme teams, input, planning and the news desk, as well as at the Westminster studio. Trainees will also get to work on Sky News’s inaugural Five News service from January next year, according to channel head Nick Pollard.
The deadline for applications to the scheme is 6 August.
Pollard said the trainee scheme was “a sign of our commitment to investing in the next generation of television news’s rising stars.”
By Wale Azeez
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