JAMES BLAKE

Broadcast Head of Media and Humanities at Edinburgh Napier University

By Samantha Fink

If you were starting again, as a journalist today, is there anything you would do differently?

I’d probably be more ambitious, and less afraid of coming up with daft story ideas. Don’t be scared of speaking out in editorial meetings. Your twenties and early thirties –that’s the time to come up with stupid ideas. Some of them might be ridiculous, but some might be really interesting, and they can take you places. I would have done more travelling. I would have taken more chances rather than being nervous about what people think of me. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes.

What is the most useful thing City taught you about journalism?

The value of a good story. There are lots of issues out there, but fnding a really cracking story, a human and emotional story, is important and vital in the industry.

What is something you wish someone would have told you about the industry when you frst started out?

What skills did you learn at City that you still use now? Coming up with killer questions. Avoid the mundane through a combination of research and thinking about what people will not have been asked. And the shape of a piece – I remember being told that the frst sentence should always link to the last.

What’s your best memory at City?

I loved our pop-up radio station. I remember my disbelief that the cricketer Mark Butcher, who would make his England debut in about a month, was willing to come to Northampton Square to appear on a live radio show which would be heard by just few people. It was a good lesson that it’s always worth asking someone. Sometimes, they say yes.

What’s been the highlight of your career?

Jay-Z sampling one of my interviews and playing it before his Glastonbury headlining set. A couple of months before I’d asked Noel Gallagher why Glastonbury had not sold out that year, and he replied: ‘there’s no place for hip hop at Glastonbury.’ Before Jay-Z came on stage, he played the interview to pump the crowd up and then walked on in a parka singing Wonderwall. I remember standing in front of the Pyramid stage with my arms aloft, thinking ‘my work here is done.’

Who is the most famous person you’ve met?

Madonna. She did an impression of me – it was rubbish.

What’s been the funniest thing that’s happened to you on the job?

Well, other people seem to think it’s when I shouted Bono seven times in 18 seconds live from the Vanity Fair Party on Radio 4’s Today programme. It features in a piece I’ve just written on 20 years of reporting the Oscars.

If you’ve got a positive attitude, even though you might be asked to do a bit of grunt work, then I think you’re an interesting, easy, positive person to work with. And that’s important, particularly for students on work experience. You’ve got to be someone who can ft into a newsroom environment, someone who people can get on with. Often, people go in with an attitude of ‘what is this going to give me?’. But if you go in with a positive, ‘I’ll do whatever is asked of me, and I’ll contribute, and I’ll come up with ideas,’ that’s valuable.

By Megan Geall