Northern Rivers journalist Mia Armitage has been selected for a prestigious international internship with Germany’s public broadcaster, Deutsche Welle.
Armitage, who has spent almost a decade working in community broadcasting and has worked as a journalist at The Echo, travelled to Bonn earlier this month to take part in the six-month Mike Thompson/Clare Atkinson Internship.
Run through a long-standing partnership between Deutsche Welle and the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia, the internship gives Australian community broadcasters the opportunity to work alongside international journalists while developing their reporting, digital, and broadcast journalism skills.
Deutsche Welle is Germany’s international public broadcaster, producing news and current affairs in 30 languages for audiences around the world. Since the partnership began, more than 30 Australian community radio journalists have completed the internship.
Armitage who also runs Bay FM’s Community Newsroom said she felt very excited, very nervous, and grateful for the support she had received throughout her journalism career.
‘This wouldn’t be happening were it not for the trust and support that I have received consistently ever since joining the community broadcasting sector, I think it’s nine years now’
Mia says she is ‘looking forward to discovering a whole new world of stories and voices while working in Europe’, before returning to continue reporting on ongoing issues affecting the Northern Rivers.
‘It’s amazing how many stories and voices I’ve been able to hear and share in such a relatively small place’ she said.
Reflecting on her time reporting locally, she says covering the region’s housing crisis, recovery from the 2022 floods, and the lives of people experiencing homelessness had shaped her as a journalist.
The internship includes four months in Deutsche Welle’s English language newsroom before moving into television production for the final two months.
Armitage said she also hoped her selection would encourage other aspiring journalists to consider community broadcasting as a pathway into the profession.
She said she had not studied German at school or university but had taught herself through podcasts and practise while preparing her application.
‘If I can do it, anybody can’ she said.
Emma Setterfield-Smith is an intern for BayFM.
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