Murdoch University School of Media Communications and Culture students are putting their own weekly news bulletin onto YouTube and the Northbridge Piazza Screen.The initiative features current news from Perth and Hong Kong and is the brainchild of 22-year-old Journalism student Ivan Leung, who presents, produces, edits and co-writes each edition.
“I began DHK News with my business partner William Man in 2007 in Hong Kong. We started an online radio broadcast with a team of six and then moved to YouTube TV,” Mr Leung said.
“When I came to study at Murdoch in 2008, I began the English edition. Now we have 12 people in the news department here and ten back in Hong Kong, where the news is done every day.”
Mr Leung said the group records in Murdoch’s TV Studio B but uses only his equipment, from the camera to the teleprompter to the industry quality wireless microphones.
He spends several days a week on each edition, including two hours to pre-record introductions with his co-anchor Ana Godden and six to eight hours editing.
While this puts pressure on his studies, he views the venture as an investment in his future career.
“University students can’t just think ‘I’ll do 50 percent and become a newsreader’. You have to prove yourself and differential yourself to show the industry that you have the skills and the drive,” Mr Leung said.
“If you expect everything to feed toward you, too bad, that’s not going to happen. You really need to be passionate. Everyone in here is building their career.”
Currently in his final year, Mr Leung calls his plans for next year ‘the two-million-dollar question’. While he’s met with a number of TV news directors in Australia about his future, he’s interested in seeing how far DHK News can go.
“This project might turn into a big thing, and I’d rather be my own boss … We’ve got some people who have said they want to sponsor us, so we might look into that area,” Mr Leung said.
He said that a 20-page research report he did for his Media Audiences and the Public unit suggested the program could be a good cultural link with Asia, with more than half of the news broadcast’s viewers tuning in from Hong Kong.
To watch DHK News, go here. To watch an ABC 7.30 Report feature on the program, go here.