Tuesday 24 May 2011

How to break into journalism

Some good tips on how to begin your career from new journalists Josh Halliday, trainee media and technology reporter at the Guardian, and FHM's Chris Mandle on The Guardian's own How I broke into Journalism careers podcast.

Josh gives some great advice on using tools such as Twitter and your own blog to get involved in the conversation with other journalists - and get noticed. He was involved in the student mag but wanted to go even further than that, so set up his own hyper-local blog in Sunderland.

Chris, meanwhile, followed a more traditional route, starting out as music editor on the students mag, then being asked to do gig reviews for the NME, then work experience, all of which helped him get started on his route to FHM.

Advice from employing editors bears this out. They've been telling me for a while that if you want to show you're serious about journalism you should be doing all of the things Josh and Chris have done:
  • using twitter and other social media
  • work experience
  • blogging
  • getting published in print and web titles, if possible
  • taking part in online discussions
  • attending journalism events and courses
  • keeping up with all the online and print journalism trade media
The podcast's worth a listen.

Friday 20 May 2011

Sing along: "I'm a journalist"

How many songs can you think of that mention the noble craft of journalism?

Band The Lovely Eggs have a song on MySpace called 'I'm a journalist', which guarantees that a certain proportion of the population will give it a listen.



This remined of Paste Magazine's list of 10 songs about print journalism, which includes the Jam's 'News of the World', and the Billy Bragg song 'It says here'.

Any more journalism songs for the list?

The Lovely Eggs song also includes the line: "I'm a journalist, up yours". That gives me an excuse to mention X-Ray Spex and 'Oh, bondage, up yours'. All together now...

Tuesday 17 May 2011

Overheard in the newsroom

Photo by Alan Cleaver
Thanks to Kevin May at Tnooz for retweeting this from Overheard in the newsroom:

“You can start a story with a quote twice in your career. Once when you’re an intern, again if the Pope ever says fuck”

Which then led me to take a look at their site to enjoy to enjoy gems such as:
Web editor to news editor: “Just because you’re necessary doesn’t mean you’re important.”
or this:
Reporter stymied by having to keep off-record comments off the record: “Having ethics sucks sometimes.” 
I'm now following OHnewsroom on Twitter. 

I was trying to remember sayings from colleagues during my career but I couldn't come up with anything pithy and memorable. All I remember was the time I introduced myself to a particularly grizzled, chain-smoking sub on my first day at one publication :
Me: Hello
Sub: So, which paper have you come from, cunt?
Oh, and there was that time when the editor on that publication offered me the opportunity to go on a permanent contract plus for a £3k reduction in salary at the same time that the paper was about to move from central London to Slough.

Happy days...

Got any pearls of wisdom from journalists you've worked with?

Let the quotes tell the story

Interesting opening paras to the story City look to future after cup triumph on the sports pages of www.wirralnews.co.uk
“Quotey quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote,” MANAGER/PLAYER reflects on blah blah blah blah blahb blah blayh blah blah.
“Quotey quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote quote,” MANAGER/PLAYER hits back at blah blah blah blah.
Probably one of the most memorable openings to a story that I've ever seen.

Media law resources for journalists

I've had a few chats with media law lecturers on journalism degrees and postgraduate qualifications recently. I'm pleased to hear that a number of them recommend the book Law for Journalists by Frances Quinn.

It's a useful and acessible law reference book for new and existing journalists. I use it when I'm running media law sessions for magazine and web publishers - I think it gives good old McNae's a run for its money.

Here are a few of the media law resources I use:
British and Irish Legal Information Institute
Inforrm blog
Jack of Kent
Judiciary of England and Wales
Law Commission
Media Guardian
Meeja Law
Out-law.com
Press Complaints Commission
Press complaints (the unofficial site)
Press Gazette

Any others you'd like to add?

Wednesday 11 May 2011

Are you an employer who needs new journalists?



Paid a visit to the Multi-media Journalism department at Bournemouth University today. I was impressed with the quality of the students and their facilities. Bwire is one of the online and print products they produce as part of the BA course.

The students were positive, confident and highly employable and some of them are nearing the end of their courses.  I know it's a tough job market out there, but I think employers should be knocking at Bournemouth's door.

Using simple video



I did some work with communitycare.co.uk recently, aided by RBI web guru Adam Tinworth, looking at how to get the best out of simple video .

Here's a few conclusions we came up with about video:
  • Is it visual? There's no point in shooting video if there's nothing to look at.
  • It's not TV. Don't try to be the BBC News, it won't work
  • Keep it brief. Community Care users are interested in seeing and hearing the interviewee speaking in the video at the top of this post, but not the whole video.
  • What's in the background?  'Talking head' videos aren't ideal but if you do use them, interview your subject in front of an interesting background - as long as it's not distracting.
  • Don't get hung-up on technology. You can get decent HD from fairly simple kit these days. But don't try to shoot Panorama on a flip camera
  • Chunk it up.  It's better to play a short chunk of video - or a series of chunks
  • Show it off. Don’t bury videos at the bottom of the article page.
  • What if the video goes wrong? Maybe you can just the audio track instead.
  • Get feedback. Look at your metrics to see what’s working.