A lesson in mobile journalism from RTÉ reporter Cian McCormack

For eagle-eyed fans of The Wire, there's a great quote hanging in the lobby of the Baltimore Sun. It's by the fabled American jouranlist Henry Mencken and it says "as I look back over a misspent life, I find myself more and more convinced that I had more fun doing news reporting than in any other enterprise. It is really the life of kings." 

Whatever about the misspent life part, Cian McCormack certainly exemplifies Mencken's approach in his reporting for RTE. From battling the snow alongside the Dublin and Wicklow Mountain Rescue team during the recent Storm Emma to covering Haiti and three US Presidential elections, there isn't much that McCormack hasn't experienced during his 15-year spell at the national broadcaster. That depth of knowledge was exactly why the Griffith College Journalism faculty was proud to host the mulit-award winning journalist this morning at our Dublin campus. McCormack – who features on Morning Ireland as well as a host of other RTÉ shows – came in to speak to some of Griffith College’s journalism students about the importance of mobile journalism (or mojo as it’s sometimes called).

McCormack showed the students how he goes about his day as a reporter as well as the tools he uses on a day-to-day basis. Like most mobile journalists, McCormack is a fan of the ioS (Apple) platform and he told students that if they have an iPhone - for an extra outlay of less than €60 – they can purchase a few apps that could mean they are in a position to produce broadcast-quality recordings – something that would have cost hundreds, if not thousands, of euro only a few years ago.

Creating pictures in people’s heads

McCormack gave the students a great insight into the nitty-gritty of what being a radio journalist actually entails. It’s not simply a matter of recording an interview and then sending it into the studio. Instead it’s an all-encompassing role involving shooting and editing social media video posts, scriptwriting and a whole host of other tasks.

He told the students that “when you are making piece for radio, you need to think visually to create pictures in people’s heads.” To do this, McCormack recommended that you approach a piece “knowing the story you need to tell.”

To do this, McCormack gave an example of a story that he was reporting on that had many strands (a seaweed picker in Mayo who was at risk of losing his livelihood because big corporations were trying to muscle in on his turf). “I was thinking about how I’d do the story on the drive back from Mayo. I sat down with a colleague of mine and got a great piece of advice. He told me ‘how would you describe the story if you were explaining it to a friend over a coffee?’. That helped me narrow down the story into what really mattered.”

That’s an approach McCormack carries with him in his work and one of his signature pieces is the annual “Ireland by Bike” series which airs on RTÉ’s morning Ireland is one that showcases the full suite of mobile journalism skills. McCormack cycles around Ireland doing interviews with people he meets along the way and the benefits of mobile journalism means that he’s not weighed down with a load of bulky kit along the way. Instead, he carries his phone, an iPad, a tripod and a couple of microphones and recorders and that’s it.

“When I started off, you’d have been looking at carrying 40kg of equipment,” explained McCormack. “Now though, you are looking at fitting everything into one bag weighing less than half of that. I record video pieces with the phone and edit them using LumaFusion on the iPad. It’s just so handy and it allows me complete flexibility when I’m reporting.”

McCormack's top tips for student journalists

1 – Research is key.

“Find out as much as you possibly can about the subject you are reporting on. You never want to be in a position where you get something wrong on air. Preparation really is key. Even when you are in a live broadcast situation you want to have a script prepared. If you are stuck – rely on notes but you want to have the best idea of what you are actually going to say when you are going on air,” says McCormack.

2 – Think about where the interview takes place

“If you are going to interview someone for broadcast, especially on radio, you need to think about the location. You never want to record in a “hollow room”. You often come across this if you are interviewing a minister or someone from government. They’d say ‘come down to my office and we’ll do the interview there’. You’d want to avoid that because with air-conditioning and fans and everything – it’s going to sound horrible. So you are better off recording outside with a good microphone and then layering in some background noise (or ‘wild track’) and layering it in an app like Ferrite,” explains McCormack

3 – Remember the job of the reporter

McCormack, who has covered three US Presidential elections as well as covering stories in Haiti and further afield says that “the primary role of a reporter is to bear witness. This means that you are there to tell somebody else’s story. To do that, you want to use short, conversational and understandable sentences. The longest sentence you would ever use on a radio broadcast would be 15 seconds but usually it’s around 8-10 seconds."

Bernadette O’Sullivan, one of our journalism lecturers (with a distinguished radio career in RTÉ herself) organised McCormack’s visit to the Griffith College campus and she said “the reason we invited Cian in is because he’s a very creative reporter. We were very lucky to have Cian here as he is working at the cutting edge of modern journalism and has great insight to give our students.”

You can follow Cian on Twitter at @cian_mccormack - he's well worth a follow for anyone interested in top-notch journalism.