Work experience with award-winning journalists

For the last three weeks I've been work-exing at three different news organisations: INS News agency, the Reading Evening Post and Gainsborough Standard.

The Post's investigative reporter Anna Roberts has been shortlisted for Press Gazette's Regional Young Journalist of the Year. Over at the Standard, Chantal Spittles won the NCTJ's Best News Interview Paper Award for her NCEs. So depsite all the doom and gloom, some journos are still recognised for their good work!

A couple of my humble offerings (sans bylines) have appeared on the Evening Post's website: a call to landlords to quiz the council and notice of a photo exhibition. Not sure the subs properly read this story about a fundraising Midnight Walk for Sue Ryder Care though! It gives some idea of how far the Post trusts their work experience students with 'real' news...

Print vs web journalism: ink, blogs and COPY!

Just found The Landline's Print media gets a lifeline video on YouTube.

As a up-and-coming, multimedia-trained and web-savvy journo, I can't relate to it at all.





...COPY!

Moonlighting as a professional: graduate media blog

I've got a new blog running over at TopEmployers about different graduate media roles.

New post contemplates the changing role of journalism in the face of UGC and citizen journalism.

Just thought I should spread the word. Go on, take a look. What harm could it do? Disagree with me and lets get a dialogue going! ;P

Lush Cosmetics cameo on Apprentice episode 4

In such dark times as these, we turn to the media for entertainment, and for me that means switching the box to BBC1 at 9pm on Wednesdays.

I'm an unashamed, diehard follower of the Apprentice, even though I claim to despise 'reality TV'. I won't try to defend my passion by claiming the Apprentice promotes business, or introduces a younger audience to entreprenurism, or even has a sensible premise. It's as fake and constructed as Big Brother and the X factor, but there is something alluring about the format.

Every time Surallan walks through the studio 'Boardroom'/toilet door, I'm gripped by what (scripted?) acidic putdown he will utter. I adore Margaret's expressive eyebrows and Nick's incredulous glances. I lap up the Apprentices' (Apprentici?) bullsy self-sales pitch with glee (Noorul's "I look posh and I sound posh" is the best so far, although Kimberly's "rough, tough, cream puff" line is a close second.)

In short, I laugh and snort and make derisive comments about a group of overconfident attention-seekers who only prove that their bullsy self-sales pitches are complete nonsense. I cringe at their mistakes (series 4 kosher chicken corker springs to mind) and feel vindictive glee when they inevitably turn on each other in the Boardroom.

Most tellingly of all, I'm usually on annap's live Guardian blog, reading snarky comments as the action unfolds.

But last night was even better. My other great passion, since my student days in Reading, is Lush. You know, the shops you can smell a mile away because they make their products from fruit and ten tonnes of essential oil?

Imagine my delight when, tasked with creating a new soap, the Apprentici arrive at Poole, Dorset. There was a glimpse of the telling green logo, the familiar font on essential oil bottles, and then to top it all the lovely Simon Constantine turned up. I was squeeing like a H/H shipper.

The cedarwood/sandalwood debacle was so bad Nick had to warn them before the boardroom showdown: against the rules but only humane in the circumstances. Team leader Paula and crony Yasmina mistook 3% for 3 grams, and thought £700-worth of sandalwood oil would only cost a fiver. Mistake that cost them the task. But what struck me was not the money - an abstract figure - but the difference in volume. Okay, they thought they were paying for 3 grams, fair enough. But shouldn't something have clicked when they poured a huge tub of oil into the mix? How much did they think 3 grams WAS?

Lush obviously cashed in to the exposure, sending out a special Apprentice-themed email and splashing it all over their website.

What I particularly like is the promotion of -you guessed it- Sandalwood oil and Honey Waffle soap - yes Ignite, you can make successful soap with a honeycomb centre!

The spiralling dilemma of journalism students: class of 2009

It seemed too good to be true - a media organisation running two graduate schemes?
In the middle of a credit crunch? Seriously?

But it was not to last. The Press Association has officially cancelled its Multimedia Journalist Traineeship for 2009.

Now, according to the Guardian, applicants were sent a letter last week. As I'm on work experience at Reading I haven't seen mine, but I'm sure it's waiting for me on the doormat. I found out about the whole thing from Journalism.co.uk yesterday.

This leaves only the Times and PA's production journalist scheme left for those hoping to get onto the nationals.

As another door slams shut, the chances of finding meaningful employment in this sector I so dearly want to work in seem slim. Already this year, the Telegraph and Guardian have cancelled their schemes, and Trinity Mirror froze their trainee recruitment last year, although interestingly their website doesn't mention this. I guess Dianne Reilly had a lot of students to disappoint.

The Daily Mail, while apprently keeping its traineeship, was so swamped with applicants that most were rejected immediately to get the numbers down.

So what is left? Ben Spencer tries to keep upbeat and positive but basically for new starters, fresh out of university with few contacts and no money, the future looks grim.

I almost feel sorry for the Times HR department.

A jigsaw of information: news agencies, national and local press

I'm nearly at the end of my week with INS News Agency, and it's been something of an eye-opener.

INS is quite large and supplies copy for the national tabloids (amongst others), focusing on court reporting and quirky stories in the South East of England.

As with all media organisations there is a lot of office work, but I'm encouraged by the amount of time journalists spend away from their desks, whether in court or door knocking as the case may be.

What this week hammered home to me is the fierce inter-connectivity of media. The nationals take stories from the locals, the locals trace national stories back to their area, and the agencies float between the two, harvesting information from one and passing it to the other, and vice versa. While the pressure is still on to find original stories and sell them to the nationals, a large part of agency work seems to be getting information across as quickly as possible, regardless of where that information orignally came from.

Editorially the week's been a real lesson in audience understanding. The demands of writing for national dailies are completely at odds with local audiences, and my carefully written NCTJ-style copy has been shredded into INS style, which amuses me no end.

Holiday? What holiday?

Easter holiday has descended, and Sheffield University students are free of responsiblity for the next three weeks in recognition of this holy festival. Sheffield Journalism Postgrads, however, shall not be relaxing, as we are all on Work Experience.

I've just arrived in Reading to start one week with with INS News agency and a second at the Evening Post, which should be interesting given GMG's plans to cut jobs at the paper.

I have high hopes for the next fortnight, as I feel I know far more than last year when I workexed at the Reading Chronicle for a fortnight. This time I'll be a useful addition to the newsroom, rather than a nervous presence hovering in the background.

The nature of blogs

I have been thinking about the evolution of blogs for some time now.

When I started my first blog on Livejournal way back in 2003, they were considered the preserve of the young, the bored and the geeky. The majority of blogs were highly personal, more like an online diary chronicling feelings, hopes and events in everyday life. Because of the aforementioned user groups, there was a lot of angst, memes and unintelligible waffle about computer developments.

My old blog dwindled away. There were many reasons (my third year dissertation was a definite factor) but the main one was that blogs had lost their appeal for me. The new kid on the block, Facebook, was more exciting, more accessible, more exclusive. Facebook used elements of blogging in its Notes application, but the interactivity was shortened by speeding the process up. Facebook was about groups, and photos, and automatic updates. Myspace became the new place for emo kids, Facebook distracted the bored (and sometimes got them fired) and geeks had already moved on from both anyway.

Now, Twitter is website de jour. No space for long, reflective posts there, oh no. It's short, sharp, shite, every minute, every day. Sometimes it seems if you aren't on Twitter you aren't worth listening to.

So what has happened to the humble weblog? Has it been discarded as outdated technology, like chatrooms and automatic messengers. It has grown up. Like all technology that once was new and now is old, it suddenly seems much easier to understand. The boundaries between news and opinion blur on blogs - bloggers are rarely objective, but are a valuable source of information. Bloggers tend to be serious professionals seeking genuine debate, and a blog's interactivity - its hyperlinks and comments - makes it an ideal place for discussion of any subject.

Now, politicians and businesses are blogging, with agendas naturally but also with genuine desire to get in touch with their constituents and consumers.

The media adopted blogs to save their credibility: trust us, say bloggers, we are here and we are answerable to your views. You can disagree with us and we can reply directly to you - isn't that better than a letter to the editor? Journalists no longer control the news - they are fighting to stay one step ahead of the man on the street. Blogs give them to the chance to get the next story first.

Of course, the real question is: where do blogs go from here?

Return to the Blogosphere

I am guilty of a terrible, heinous crime. In today's digital, global world - where information is currency and speed is power - I have not updated my blog for weeks. Not just a couple of days - weeks.

My defence? Well, real life has been pretty hectic. There are many demands on my time, my brain and my body, and it is difficult to find the time to sit and pontificate to the world. Not only am I working at weekends, studying during the week, applying for jobs and work experience and schemes, I am an ad hoc babysitter and waste three hours a day just driving to and from Sheffield.

No excuse! I hear you cry. We live in an age of communication, and the way to communicate is through web. How dare you neglect your duties to inform and provoke thought for your selfish personal obligations? You are a journalist - your time is not your own! Get with the programme!

And with my defence shredded by logic and practice, I can only hang my head in shame and accept due punishment: the instruction to update every other day with a lucid, thoughtful and well-researched topic for discussion. Guilty as charged.

Instructions for a better you - student detoxing

An article I wrote for Sheffield's ForgePress Lifestyle has appeared online.

Take a look. Who knows, it could change your life!