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!

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.