3:41pm Friday 22nd May 2009
MOST young people think journalism is an incredibly glamorous, easy and well paid job.
After all, how hard can it be to write a few paragraphs about a celebrity or a House of Commons expense scandal?
And, as long as you can write and spell reasonably well, there really can’t be that much to it.
You don’t even need shorthand these days because you can use a tape recorder, they say.
And anyway, they will probably tell you, most of the stuff comes in the form of press releases written by PR companies – and you can just cut and paste these into a story on your PC.
Wrong, wrong and wrong again.
I’ve been in journalism for 27 years and I still find it incredibly difficult. Maybe that’s me and I’m a bit remedial, or maybe it’s because it is genuinely a very difficult job which comes with huge responsibility attached.
Okay, I’m sure being a paramedic, a heart surgeon or a policeman at the sharp end is more stressful.
But if you are a journalist, every piece of work you do is scrutinised by thousands of critics. Every mistake you make is held up to a microscope – while every time you get it right, you can actually make a huge positive difference to someone’s life.
We ban ‘cut and paste’ here at The Star. It is the refuge of the lazy hack who can’t be bothered to find his or her own material and is content processing and recycling other people’s propaganda.
I am not knocking PR companies, because they perform a valuable role for clients. But their job is to put a positive spin on the news, while our job is to present the news as it is.
I can’t count the number of times organisations have hidden the real story – i.e. closures and cutbacks – in the penultimate paragraph of a massive press statement which normally begins with some really good news.
Remember a good story is normally one that someone somewhere doesn’t want you to tell.
Meanwhile, we also insist on 100 words per minute shorthand for all our reporters. Tape recorders are not admissible in court and they also put interviewees off from talking when you shove one up their nose.
Detailed knowledge of media law, public administration and interview techniques are also essential. This is why our reporters, mainly graduates, sign up to specialist courses, supervised by the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ).
They also have to endure long hours, weekend working, challenging pay (now there’s a euphemism if ever there was one), and some difficult moments trying to talk to people who don’t want to talk to them.
But the myths persist that working on a local rag is easy, and as long as you have an English GCSE you can turn up and use it as a stepping stone for ‘bigger things’.
I reflected on all of this on Tuesday when I was asked to present on the subject to a group of teachers in Bourne End who are preparing a Creative & Media Diploma.
I was honoured to be asked along to give my input, and to be asked to ‘dispel the myths’.
So in the best traditions of negative journalism, I prepared a list for them entitled: “What not to do if you want a career in journalism.”
It appeared well received, so I thought it worth passing on to readers my top ten tips of what not to do.
1. Get your mum to ring up and ask the editor if you can have some work experience... especially if you are 30-years-old.
2. In the application letter, say you’re getting into journalism because that essay what you wrote was very well writ.
3. Tell your friends you’re doing it for the money.
4. Tell the editor you don’t have any formal journalism qualifications, but you’ve just done a media degree, so you’ll be fine.
5. Tell the editor he should recruit you because you see joining his paper as a stepping stone for much bigger things. Say: “I’ll start at the bottom with you because you have to start somewhere before you make it onto a proper newspaper.”
6. Tell the editor you haven’t got shorthand, but that doesn’t matter because you have a good memory – and anyway you write pretty fast as it is.
7. Tell the editor council meetings sound boring, so you wouldn’t want to go to them, you can’t work weekends because you go out with your friends, and you can’t do most nights because your mum has dinner on the table at 6.30pm – but you’re pretty flexible otherwise and you only live round the corner.
8. Tell your friends it doesn’t matter if you don’t get the facts quite right, or that you spell a few words wrong – as long as it’s interesting, that’s all that matters.
9. Say you prefer to stay in the office rather than go out and talk to people. You might miss a story coming in on the phone if you leave the office – and besides, you’ll only waste a lot of time driving about and chatting to people when you could be typing press releases.
10. Tell the editor you’ve written for newspapers before – and the council just loved the stuff you wrote.
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