Let’s all just breathe a massive sigh of relief. Why? Well, because we know that there’s absolutely no threat to any of us wannabe hacks from any one of the contestants on ITV2′s new journalism talent show.
The six ‘rookies’ were introduced in the first episode last night and to say I was shocked by the quality of them only shows that I had set my expectations way too high.
Hayley Newnes is an ex-glamour model who has a degree in English and works in Pizza Hut. It’s fairly clear she was chosen because she is an ex-glamour model. And can someone please tell her that six-inch stilettos are not the best footwear choice for working as a journalist. Having said that, she was awarded ‘rookie of the week’ and rightfully so – she was the only one who really had half a clue what she was doing.
Posh boy Felix Clarke is studying journalism at a London university. But he doesn’t know how to operate a dictaphone and evidence from last night would suggest he’s never learnt shorthand because he didn’t think of taking notes when interviewing Chloe Green (off Made In Chelsea) in case his dictaphone didn’t work (which, of course, it didn’t).
Stuart Roberts is the oldest of the rookies and the 28-year-old seems to have given every other job a shot (postman, shelf stacker, security guard, chef) and has now decided to give journalism a try. His lack of knowledge about anything related to More! where they were working in last night’s episode was shocking. Do some research Stuart, it’s really not that hard!
Chris Goddard is from Blackpool (yes, that really is just about all I can say about him). He was possibly put on the show for comedic effect, such as going out to interview ‘celebs’ outside Brits’ after show parties without a coat (absolute genius idea) and then coming back from said interviews and announcing that he was ‘broken’ after a night spent doing ‘proper tough journalism’. Go speak to a journalist working in Syria and then come back and say that.
Ellie Henman is a broadcast journalism graduate from the University of Leeds. She says she’s politically minded but celeb-obsessed. It looks like she’s probably got the most experience of any of the rookies – editing e-magazine Bloggers Central, writing for New Political Centre and working as an intern for an MP. She says the reason she’s on The Exclusives is she’s fed up of doing unpaid internships – aren’t we all?!
Sunny (I don’t think she has a last name – a bit like Madonna – oh, and a quick check on the ITV website tells me her name is actually Yasmin – confused? Me too!) is a call centre worker who dropped out of university after two weeks. She has kept diaries, which apparently shows she’s committed to a career in journalism. But she’s never actually had any work experience or done any blogging. Interesting choice.
So they’re our six hopefuls. Over the next six weeks they’ll fight it out for the prize of a twelve month contract at Bauer Media. But like I say, I don’t think we have too much to worry about.
A quick look at your reaction to our tweet ‘So, what did you think of The Exclusives?’ showed most of you were inclined to agree with me.
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[...] and TV critic Grace Dent wept, Wannabe Hacks think all the contestants are crap, twitter said it was ‘awful, degrading and an embarrassment to [...]