Radio students interview candidates

Voters in the Toowoomba Regional Council (TRC) elections will have an opportunity to listen to interviews with candidates thanks to University of Southern Queensland Radio Journalism students.

In the lead up to the local council poll, second year Radio Journalism students conducted interviews with 37 of the 39 candidates.

The interviews have been uploaded to a website where voters will be able to listen, when and as often as they like, to the candidates.

Lecturer in Broadcast Journalism, Dianne Jones, said the blog site shows the candidates on a single "page", and provides voters with a unique and comprehensive resource.

'As far as I'm aware, this is the only forum of its kind for the TRC election. It's also been an excellent opportunity for our journalism students to learn new skills and engage in the political process.

'They had to record interviews, edit and load audio, text and images onto the web. They have had very steep learning curve - skills the students would normally have covered in real life situations across a semester they accomplished in four days and were able to see a timely result for their efforts.

'The exercise was invaluable to the students, but the interviews also provide voters with a comprehensive tool.

'We had no political agenda. All of the candidates were asked the same questions and given a time limit. Only two candidates declined to be interviewed.'

In the space of 24 hours the site received almost 1000 hits.

Ms Jones has conducted and published research into the information sources used by voters during elections. She said over the last four years there had been a steep rise in political candidates' usage of the internet, in part to bypass the gatekeeping or editorial processes of the traditional media.

'Candidates and voters are utilising sources other than traditional media, so it makes sense that journalists should venture there, and make the news and information they gather accessible to an online audience.'

Ms Jones said news editors now wanted their journalists to have a broad range of skills across all media. Being competent in reporting and writing for broadcast, online and print media strengthened our graduates' claims to being industry-ready.

Candidate interview website: http://radiojournalismonline.wordpress.com/

Media Contact: Connie-Louise Rego, USQ Media, +61 7 4631 2977