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A masterclass with Look North’s Jeff Brown

BBC Look North sports presenter Jeff Brown visited the university on Wednesday to speak to media students about his career, his hero Mike Neville and his appearance on Anne Robinson’s Outtake TV.

Formerly a newspaper journalist, Jeff has covered sport for the past 24 years and joined Look North from Tyne Tees Television in 2003. He is currently “keeping the seat warm” as Look North’s lead presenter whilst colleague Carol Malia is on maternity leave.

“I was extremely lucky in that I knew exactly what I wanted to be,” he says. “I always wanted to be a newspaper reporter. I would wait for my dad to come home on an afternoon with the Daily Mail and Sunderland Echo and just loved reading them.

“Sunderland has this great reputation for ship building but I remember visiting the yards and thinking, ‘there’s no way I’m doing this’,” he says. “I wanted to be a reporter, so everything I did at school was geared towards this.”

Persistence

Jeff studied at Monkwearmouth School in Sunderland and York University before joining the Birmingham Mail and Post as a trainee reporter in 1985.

 ”I wrote to 50 newspapers and got two interviews,” he says. ”From those I got one job offer, but it was enough. The hardest thing is getting in to the industry but then you start to get other opportunities.

“I did a bit of everything - six months covering the courts, six months covering something else - but I really wanted to be a sports reporter.

“I would hassle the sports desk and tell them I was willing to do anything as I was young, free and single in Birmingham and had a lot of time on my hands.

“I covered the smaller sports such as speedway but my persistence eventually paid off. An opening came up on the sports desk and the editor said they didn’t need to advertise because they knew I could do the job. That was my foot in the door.

“I believe if you want something enough, you’ll put yourself out and do anything it takes.”

After two-and-a-half years in the midlands, Jeff returned home to work on the Journal’s sports desk in Newcastle.

“I’d heard about the job but wasn’t really interested,” he says. “I had moved away from the North East and wanted to branch out. But my friends said the job - covering sport in the North East - would be tailor made for me so I went for it. As it turns out, coming back to the North East was the best thing I ever did.”

Changes

In 1996 the opportunity came to make the move into television with Tyne Tees where he covered some of the biggest sports stories to break in the country – from the Kevin Keegan revolution at Newcastle United to the emergence of Test cricket at Durham.

“I was at St James’s Park when Alan Shearer signed and their head of sport Roger Thames told me they were looking for a presenter,” he says. “He invited me to go for a chat but I actually ended up doing a screen test.

“I was told to talk about any subject for two minutes while the producer counted down to me through an ear piece. I spoke about Durham Cricket Club because I knew everything about them and, by the grace of God, managed to finish right on the mark.

“Roger later told me because I had done that they knew I was the man for the job. So, If you get an opportunity, do it. Don’t think twice. Just dive right in.”

After seeing Tyne Tees going through some “incredible changes” and “shrinking to nothing” Jeff joined the BBC’s Look North team in 2003.

“The six years at Tyne Tees were the most fantastic of my working life so it was heart-breaking to leave,” he says. “Roger Thames gave me the best advice I’ve ever received when he said ‘don’t hang around, take on new challenges if you ever get the chance’. He was right.”

Advice

So what advice would Jeff give to media students looking to carve out careers in the industry?

“Make a nuisance of yourself - keep writing to people and pestering them,” he says. “Be persistent and be prepared not to take no for an answer.

“The hardest thing is getting your foot in the door. Be prepared to do anything because if you want something badly enough it will happen for you.

“If you want to work in broadcast journalism then keep your sentences short and make your style more conversational. Be yourself and people will warm to you. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes.

“I was fortunate to work with the great Mike Neville on Look North, who is one of my heroes. Although he was so experienced, he would still make mistakes but laugh them off and everyone would laugh along with him.

“One day I was sitting in a lounge chair we used to present Look North in, thinking that my trousers were stuck underneath me. So I stood up to try and straighten them out but I didn’t realise we were on-air live.

“When Carol said ‘and here’s the sport with Jeff who’s a bit excited’ I thought she was still rehearsing, so I replied ‘yeah I’m excited’ without realising my groin was in the camera’s mid-shot while I’m stroking my leg.

“When Carol followed up with ’here’s a man who doesn’t know he is on air’ it suddenly hit me and my life flashed before my eyes.

“All I kept thinking was ’what would Mike Neville do?’ so I turned to Carol, laughed, sat down and did my piece. After the show the producer came running up and said ‘What were you doing? You came this close to saying stiffy on air!’ but because I laughed about it, I got away with it.

“Anne Robinson’s team contacted me to see if they could use it on their outtake show. I even got a £100 out of it!

“So if you make a mistake, don’t worry and laugh about it because people will laugh along with you.”

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