Richard Tisdale

BBC Radio Shropshire Breakfast Producer June 2013 – Present My role as live producer of BBC Shropshire’s three hour flagship speech breakfast show is a fast moving high pressured creative job. I have to creatively shape the programme using a variety of creative treatments, react to breaking news, commission stories and manage reporters and presenters. I write and check scripts and audio ensuring they are legally sound and engaging to the audience. I also produce stories, photographs and videos for the social media output. I have been in charge and managed the shows through two general elections, the EU referendum and major terrorist attacks. I introduced a number of regular features on the station output including Science Club, Eye On The Sky (monthly astronomy feature) and a history series which traces the living descendants of people from local newspaper stories from the past.

Researcher, script writer, audio editor on the science based podcast The Climate Question: How do you engage with climate deniers? I worked closely with colleagues and contributors across the world from Kenya to Canada. Digging into academic research, writing briefs, and writing and producing the social media promotion graphics and posts.

An original story I pitched to the producers was commissioned in which I played crucial part of the film. I discovered a Victorian photo album in an old junk shop. Inside was a was wonderful collection of old family portraits. Also tucked inside was collection of school reports from just before WW2. It was precious piece of family history, potentially lost forever. The album and school report had a names and addresses. I pitched a story whereby we would reunite the family with the album. Anita Rani was the reporter on the film and with the help of One Show people finding expert Cat Whiteaway, we were able to trace the family and reunite them with this amazing piece of history in a surprise on film reveal. It was broadcast on the 17th December 2019

BBC Radio 5 Live - October 2018 Production Journalist Working on the Drive Time show with Tony Livsey and Sarah Brett. Pitching story ideas and treatments and writing scripts. Sourcing guests, and reacting to breaking national and international news.

Short attachment working with the specialist factual team on The One Show based in Cardiff. I was researching story ideas, finding contributors and writing story pitches, location finding and setting. I also boosted my people finding skills by researching historical stories and tracking down a number of descendants of people involved in historical stories such as a 1907 baby trafficking case. I worked closely with a professional people finding expert Cat Whiteaway.

Finding and researching stories based in Australia. A story I pitched was featured in the first of the three episodes. During the broadcast I was monitoring and responding to the online and social media interactions and passing messages and questions through to the production team on location at Siding Springs Observatory.

As a researcher on BBC Crimewatch Roadshow, a mid-morning factual BBC One programme, it was my job to find and originate ideas for quick turnaround crime stories, police appeals and produce TV packages. I would find contributors and corroborate their stories, write scripts, fact-check, keep up-to-date research notes and deal with sometimes complex criminal cases. I would regularly liaise with various third parties such as high ranking police officers, councils and other organisations. As part of the role I dealt with extremely sensitive stories and victims of crime. I was involved with complex reconstruction shoots, location finding, the sourcing of props and actors. I carried out and filmed interviews of contributors. I completed the Safe Management of Production Course and Media Law course.

As a producer and reporter I was involved in all aspects of production; script writing, producing radio packages, reports and live reports. I worked at various BBC stations across the region in-cluding BBC Shropshire, WM, Hereford and Worcester, Coventry and Warwickshire. I carried out investigative reports, worked on some of the biggest local stories and came up with many exclusives. I produced the breakfast and drive time shows and have written articles for the website.

I wrote a regular history feature in the My Shrewsbury magazine called News From The Past in which I found long lost stories from the past and traced what happened to the people involved and traced their descendants. Stories included Britain’s Prolific Baby Traffickers, The Boy in the Nest, and the Ellesmere Diphtheria Tragedy - I traced the descendants, one of which was Paddy Ashdown.

Freelance. This involved covering local news stories but also a variety of local sports events including football, rugby and ice hockey. I filmed, wrote, produced and edited the video packages which were then featured on the web. I used a Sony Z1 camera and Final Cut Pro to edit the packages. I also own a professional video camera, tripod and MacBook Pro with Final Cut which I still use to film football matches.

Worked on the news desk researching stories, setting up interviews. I also worked on the feature show Revealed, logging tapes and idea generation.