By JESSE GRAHAM
HEALESVILLE Primary School student Olivia Marshall got to live a day as a reporter earlier this month, after she topped hundreds of others in an ABC competition.
Olivia, 10, entered 774 ABC Melbourne’s Kid Correspondent competition, where kids were asked to explain their favourite Dreamworks character – she chose Mort the Lemur from Madagascar as her favourite.
After being selected as the winner of around 500 entries, Olivia worked with the radio station as a ‘Kid Correspondent’ to cover the opening of an exhibition at ACME in Melbourne on 10 April, focusing on the company and its animations.
She even got to cut the red ribbon with giant scissors to officially mark the opening.
Through covering the event, Olivia not only met Rafael Epstein and Red Symons, but famous actor and musician Tim Minchin and even got to interview Dreamworks’ CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg for a radio segment later that day.
Olivia told the Mail that the competition gave her some valuable experience and insight into the life of a reporter, and said it could be the path she takes later in life.
“After that, I thought I would not mind doing something like that (reporting), because I hadn’t really known what I want to be yet,” she said.
Her mum, Naomi Wilson, said that Olivia was “blown away” by the experience, and said the Grade 5 student was already a keen and prolific writer.
“At the beginning, she didn’t have any idea about what being a journalist meant – by the end of the day, she was blown away by it all,” she said.
“She does really enjoy writing – she always has.
“It’s opened her eyes to the possibility of journalism.”
Olivia’s radio segment can be heard online at www.abc.net.au.
