Consulting And Training

Since the summer of 2002, Jim Laurie has been engaged in a variety of consultancies and television journalism training programmes.  

Laurie has specialized in assisting local channels across Asia to achieve world class on-air news presentation.   see: www.focusasiatv.org/consultants.php

See also: http://www.tvznews.tv/news%20archive/october/jimlaurie.htm

In 2007, Laurie is engaged in consultancies in India, Pakistan, China and Hong Kong.   In January, he conducted a three week seminar on the Future of Radio for Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK).  In 2006, Laurie hosted a public forum at the Hong Kong Convention Centre on the future of Public Service Broadcasting. The forum attracted experts from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan.

During 2005, Laurie served as consultant to the Times of India Newspaper and its effort to launch in Mumbai Times Now a new English language news channel.  The channel launched in early 2006 as a joint venture with the Reuters.  In 2007, television ratings in India put Times Now

In Malaysia, Jim Laurie  has advised the television news division of RTM, Malaysian state television, to re-vamp its 26 news bulletins in three languages across two channels..

In Afghanistan in 2005, Laurie assembled a team to assist in the development of Ariana Radio and Television, one of the new entrants to the fledgling private broadcasting market in that war torn country.

As the creator of STAR News Asia on the STAR WORLD Channel (developed in 1999-2000), Jim Laurie gained valuable experience in building a strong evening newscast with limited resources.

His emphasis is on developing a bold looking broadcast, brisk pacing and strong editorial values.   Training of attractive, knowledgeable and authoritative presenters (anchors) is essential.  (His coaching of local anchors has resulted in some moving from local television in Asia to 24 x 7 News in the United Kingdom)

Laurie is a strong believer in sharp, simple, direct writing to draw viewers into television news broadcasts.

He has also worked closely with local news directors on improving the look of studio sets, camera work and editing.

Jim Laurie was principal consultant on the development of the STAR Group Ltd. 24 x 7 Hindi language news channel which launched in April 2003. 

He conducted broadcast journalism training for more than 200 Indian journalists in Mumbai and Delhi. 

The challenge in India was to bring together as a working unit three types of professionals.  First, STAR's Indian managers had hired about a third of their staff from existing Indian news channels. Some were resistant to change.  Another third were recruited from leading Indian newspapers. They had to be taught broadcast journalism from scratch.  A final group transferred into news from the Mumbai entertainment production industry.  This latter group struggled to cope with news concepts and the very different value systems of entertainment and news.

In the summer of 2003, Laurie launched a mid-career journalism course for  Phoenix Television which sought to ramp up its Chinese language news channel.  Phoenix TV, broadcasting from Hong Kong, offers one of the few sources of news in mainland China which does not originate in State television.

In his consultancies, Jim Laurie draws on a wide range of experienced associates.  Among them former FOX News producer and creator of the FOX Report, Jim Gaffey; veteran journalist from Grenada Television and versatile Video Journalist Rob McBride, and producers Sara Hawley and Christopher Dobson.

In September 2005, Jim Laurie launched a broadcast journalism programme for the UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG.  In addition to establishing a production centre, he initiated two courses in broadcast news: one a survey for undergraduates and the second a graduate level television production course.  The graduate program at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre include a good international mix including students from mainland China, the United States, the United Kingdom, India, the Philippines, Australia, as well as Hong Kong.

 Unlike other Universities in Hong Kong, the courses of the Journalism Media Studies Centre emphasize a practical approach taught by working professionals instead of academics.   See http://jmsc.hku.hk.