Crash course in journalism: students make a podcast with TV presenter Twan Huys
Leiden students are producing ‘College Tour, the podcast!’ with TV presenter Twan Huys. In next to no time, they have to find top journalists and prepare hard-hitting interviews. Their guest in the second episode is Journalist Sinan Can. We take a look behind the scenes.
‘Be bold. You can ask anything!’ Huys offers a few last words of encouragement to the students before their guest Sinan Can walks out to thunderous applause in a lecture hall in the Lipsius building. Huys is beginning by demonstrating how it’s done in this version of his TV programme College Tour. He interviews the high-profile documentary filmmaker in an empathetic yet confrontational style. ‘Why are you so obsessed with your job that your private life takes a back seat?’
‘Hell is when no one sees we are hurting’
Death threats
Can’s journalism career started with a bang, if the TV footage the students have discovered is anything to go by. His item for the Zembla TV show about MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s fabricated refugee story contributed to the collapse of the then government and earned his editors a death threat. ‘Was that item with the hunt for Ayaan’s family ethical?’ a student asks. Can thinks it was: she was a prominent MP and the Dutch press at the time were not asking critical questions about her story.
His later documentaries such as In het spoor van IS (On the Trail of IS) and recently De Wapenroute (The Weapon’s Route) earned him more threats. ‘What makes you carry on’, another student asks. ‘Telling stories’, says Can. ‘An Afghan once said to me: “Hell is when no one sees we are hurting.”’
Thus endeth the sneak preview. The show will be posted on YouTube and Spotify on 11 November. Anyone wishing to attend the recordings can sign up (see below).
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Twan Huys with Sinan Can. The very first episode of College Tour in 2007 also started in the Lipsius building. -
Can’s journalism career began with the collapse of the government. -
Students ask questions. -
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After the show. -
Production schedule in the editorial office.
Behind the scenes
Rewind to just hours before the interview. The Huizinga building, 15:30 hours: a group of Journalism and New Media students prepare the show in a classroom. On the wall are large charts listing the different tasks. Time is running out as Huys and a few students rapidly go through the script. Later, as Huys is memorising the questions, some of the students tell us about this crash course in journalism.
Looking back on the hectic first weeks, student Cato, who is doing the journalism minor, says, ‘Right from the start Twan said: we’re going to shoot for the moon. We had a week to produce an episode with NOS presenter Iris de Graaf. It was really motivating but we had to think on our feet about who could do what.’
As colleagues
April gives an example: ‘We also make videos of friends and colleagues saying something about the guest. Many of us have limited experience of filming. After a brief explanation you suddenly find yourself camera in hand recording an interview with Russia correspondent Geert Groot Koerkamp.’
Hannah: ‘Each guest is prepared by an editorial team. The tasks rotate so that everyone learns the various elements, such as the technical side, filming or writing a script.’
How is it to have an experienced presenter memorise your script? ‘You soon get used to it’, the students say in unison. Cato: ‘Obviously it’s special to start off with but we now see him as a lecturer or perhaps even a kind of colleague.’
April: ‘This is a unique opportunity. It is the making of us as a group. Everyone gets stuck in.’
Critical questions
What else have they learned from their more experienced colleague? ‘How to ensure the highest possible journalistic quality and independence’, says Annabel. ‘That we have to ask critical questions, regardless of whether someone has earned their spurs.’
Hannah adds: ‘On the one hand, you have to create a safe space for the guest but on the other, you shouldn’t fawn. Sparks can fly in an interview, is how Twan puts it.’
Twan Huys
Somewhat later Huys is back in the office. How does he look back on the first weeks of his course? ‘It was a bit tense’, he admits. ‘We had decided to ask eight or nine guests. I wanted to call a few guests because preparing the shows and learning the technical side asks enough of the students. But lecturer Jaap de Jong said that finding guests is part of the game and he was right. I asked Iris de Graaf but the students had found all the other guests really quickly.’
Seeing with fresh eyes
The students come up with all kinds of initiatives, says Huys. ‘The original idea was for an audio-only podcast version of College Tour. In the first week already they said but then it’s not a real College Tour, that they needed video too. They didn’t have proper equipment for that but they managed to push the idea through in a nice way.’
The students then came up with a twist. ‘Video editing is really time-consuming. The students said: our generation has a much shorter attention span. Why don’t we take the whole recording and make five-minute clips on different subjects? The person who suggested it sent an example with great graphics. Jaap de Jong and I watched it with amazement. This is a new way of watching content. There is now a great synergy with me teaching them and them building on this.’
He teaches the students to check their sources as thoroughly as possible and that for a hard-hitting interview it is better to get straight to the point. ‘And I am learning from them too: when they ask why I chose a certain question or angle they get me seeing things through fresh eyes. Or how they know all there is to know about social media and are blimmin fast at finding source material.’
Text: Linda van Putten
Photos: Cato Visser
Attend recordings
Nine podcast episodes with famous journalists are planned. Sign up for the upcoming recordings:
- Sport broadcaster Noa Vahle on 21 October
- Middle-East reporter Nasrah Habiballah on 22 October
- The first episode, with former Russia correspondent Iris de Graaf, can be watched and listened to on YouTube and Spotify from 28 October.