SHS in the News

Ex SHS Head Girl wins Top TV Prize!

Emma Blackburn in blue with the Look North team!

Local journalist Emma Blackburn from Sheffield took away the RTS Television Journalism Award as Most Promising Newcomer for her work at BBC Look North.

Emma, ex head girl at Sheffield High School, after a degree in English Literature at Durham and a Broadcast Journalism Course at Leeds Trinity and All Saints has fought her way into journalism by doing voluntary work experience at a variety of places including:
• Daily Telegraph
• Opera Magazine
• hospital and university radio
• Sheffield Live community radio
• ITV Productions and BBC Inside Out
• BBC Radio Sheffield

This relentless voluntary work resulted in Emma getting freelance work at BBC Radio Sheffield and then being accepted on a multimedia journalism course in Preston which included four weeks of paid work at Times Online. This then paved the way for her getting a job with BBC Look North.

Along the way she has picked up a few awards such as the BBC Connect and Create Journalism award and the British Journalism Training Council TV award (which picks the best TV work from all the postgraduate courses in the country) for on her news piece on the demolition of the Tinsley Towers. She was even asked to meet the BBC’s Director General Mark Thompson after he heard of her achievements.

‘For the RTS award, I had to submit my CV and my editor wrote about me and included some of my reports. The criteria was that you’d been in the industry less than two years and showed the most potential. The RTS awards are quite prestigious so it’s so great to be recognised this early on in my career.’ said Emma.

We congratulate Emma from Sheffield High School and wish her all the best as she has also recently been nominated for the O2 media awards (Yorkshire and Humber) in two categories: Young Journalist of the year (against print and radio candidates) and TV Broadcaster of the year!