W: I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about your job as a radio announcer. What do you actually do and how do you prepare for your job?
M: Well, in the news room I'm sitting with the reporters and the news subs, as though I'm sitting in a newspaper news room.
W: Sorry, what do you mean by news subs?
M: They are sub-editors. They are the people who write the news stories as they come in. The stories are then passed to the senior duty editor and the assistant editor. As stories go through the chain of people, they are refined, corrected and sorted out until they come finally to me and I have a chance to read through most stories before I go on the air. Of course, sometimes things happen at the last moment and I don't have a chance. So I've just got to do my best, and take a couple of seconds to look through the first few lines before I launch into something. Because it's such a pity if you start off in a bright tone on a story and suddenly realize you are talking about some people having been killed in a road crash. It's very important to just have a quick flip through.
W: There's nothing to mark what sort of event it is on your piece of paper?
M: No, I have my own little mark. If it's something sad, I put a small cross at the top. That's my little clue. So while I'm working on the news, I'm just absorbing the news and checking pronunciations.