“So you want to be a journalist,” declares the college leaflet or job advice site.
Yes, of course you do but what if you think you might be too old, have no proper training, did not go to Cambridge or Oxford, have no relatives in the industry and all the other clichés people like to trot out? What if you have all of the above but still don’t seem to be able to get a job?
I have just started a fast-track NCTJ course at Lambeth College in London at the grand old age of 28 and before that I was freelancing without any proper training.
When I finally decided to become a journalist I had loads of questions. Everything from whether to do a course, what ‘off the record’ really means and whether my hoovering to working ratio was slightly unbalanced as a freelancer.
Everyday the Journalism.co.uk forum is peppered with similar questions – well, maybe not the hoovering one – from would-be journalists.
This blog series isn’t designed to tell you what to do to become a journalist. Instead it will chart my progress through the 18-weeks of what is turning out to be utter boot camp - 2 hours per night shorthand practice anyone?
Any work experience I do will also be covered as will networking events with views and opinions from seasoned hacks and the gruelling task of actually getting a job at the end of it.
Hopefully it will dispel some of the myths surrounding the NCTJ and whether you truly need it to succeed - the industry from a rookie’s point of view - and be an agony aunt of sorts to questions like ‘help, I want to be a journalist, but don’t know where to start’.
Amy Oliver has been meaning to become a journalist from about the age of 5, but got slightly sidetracked by the possibility of earning money. She has been freelancing since 2007 and in that time has written for The Times, The Guardian, You magazine, Vogue, Vague Paper as well as local newspaper Bridport News in her hometown of Bridport, Dorset.
She has just started a fast-track NCTJ course at Lambeth College and blogs about her experiences as a slightly mature trainee and not going down the conventional route into journalism. She lives and works in London.
Tags: Amy Oliver, Lambeth CollegeAndrew Walmsley, founder of digital marketing agency i-level, livened up the panel discussion on the future of the media industry at yesterday’s Association of Online Publishers (AOP) Digital Publishing Summit.
Media regulators in the UK are holding publishers back, said Walmsley, and digital innovations that would thrive in the US, such as Project Kangaroo - the video on-demand service being jointly developed by the BBC, ITV and Channel, are being stifled here.
Journalism.co.uk caught up with Walsmley off stage at the conference and asked him what the regulators should be doing (apologies for the ‘jazzy’ music in the background, not my choice…):
Tags: Andrew Walmsley, Association of Online Publishers, Media regulatorsOver on Wired Journalists, Rafael Sangiovanni, web producer for the Miami Herald, was quick enough to grab and post a shot of CNN’s questionable headline as Hurricane Ike hit the US.
Hit or miss?
(It’s certainly not going to be a hit for search engines and it looks pretty awkward in my opinion)
Digital journalist and blogger Adrian Sudbury, who died last month from leukaemia, is to be remembered and celebrated at an open memorial service on October 16.
A private funeral for Adrian, who created Baldy’s Blog to chronicle his fight against cancer and his campaign for better education on bone marrow donation, has already been held, his mum, Kay Sudbury, said on his blog last week.
“Adrian wants this to be a much more upbeat affair and would like as many people as possible to attend wearing bright clothing suitable for the cathedral setting,” wrote Kay.
The service will take place at Sheffield Cathedral from 2pm. All enquiries should be made to 01484 437707 or rsvpadrian@trinitymirror.com.
A host of fundraising activities have also been organised by Adrian’s friends and family, and donations in honour of his memory have already risen to £1,400, which has been given to the Anthony Nolan Trust.
Tags: Adrian Sudbury, Anthony Nolan Trust, Kay Sudbury, Sheffield Cathedral“His Dad and I would merely say that the best way to remember Adrian is to get onto the donor register. We know many of you have already done so and we salute your determination to make a difference,” his mum added in the post.
Media safety organisation, INSI, went live with its website yesterday – www.newsafety.org - with an all new look. It has actually had a complete change of identity too: INSI is now an org, not a co.
INSI first emerged five years ago, as the result of the concern at the growing global rate of casualties of journalists and their support staff.
With specialised news and features focusing on risk awareness, safety, health and training, they aim to provide advice and support for those reporting from areas of conflict, crime and corruption, natural disasters and disease.
The new website look is designed to make their resources easier to access by journalists around the world, with better video and audio.
INSI’s very keen to welcome feedback and suggestions for improvement: find their various contacts here.
The need for editors is greater now in the online age than ever, according to BBC broadcaster and all-round media mogul Andrew Neil.
Speaking at the SIIA Global Information Industry Summit, Neil said the internet had created a world in which the reader is ‘information rich, but quality poor’.
“What we need are trusted gatekeepers to decide what is accurate and what isn’t,” he said, adding that news requires ‘a good old-fashioned editorial process’ and a ‘trusted brand name’.
But this process cannot be replaced by blogs: “I will still enjoy them [blogs] as a form of entertainment or print journalism pornography.”
Neil went on to praise The Spectator’s online offering Coffee House, forgetting to mention that it’s billed as a blog:
Discussing Coffee House, Neil claimed the site attracts 200,000 unique users and 2 million page impressions a month. The site will soon account for 20 per cent of the Spectator’s ‘bottom line’, he added.
Blogs also came under scrutiny from Hugo Dixon, editor-in-chief of BreakingViews.com, who said that in terms of financial news trusted media brands are demanded by readers.
“There are some good things on blogs, but they don’t have the brand consistency of media brands. Brand matters, because financial professionals do not have the time to hunt: they need to no where someone’s coming from, the ethical basis, and does it have good access [to news and information]. I think very few blogs have good access.”
Dixon made a convincing case for the need for quality journalism online and how this can drive subscription-based revenue models and help editorial staff gain access to subjects and clients.
One of the blogs sporting ‘good things’ must be FT’s Alphaville - a site Dixon praised (though he never called it a blog) throughout the opening of his keynote speech, and which won a Webby award this year for the best business blog…
Tags: Alphaville, Andrew Neil, BreakingViews.com, Hugo Dixon, The Spectator
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