NUJ Students’ Conference, 2010, Getting Started in the Industry: advice for student journalists
“If you want a nine to five job go to a library” was the advice offered by the Associate Editor of The Mirror, Kevin Maguire, today at the NUJ Students’ Conference. He said, “Journalism is a great life” although it is now harder to get in to. “You need to be nosy, to get on with people, and you need to be able to write and be accurate.” He noted the value of getting experience whilst at university and said it was a mistake on his part for doing very little whilst there. He then failed to get a job when leaving university and was forced into taking a postgraduate journalism...
Read MoreThe journalism student’s life
My journalistic life recently has involved renting myself to pay the bills, talking to drug dealers in a pitch black park, and uncovering which shops are selling fireworks to under age youths in Chatham, Medway. Alongside this I’ve been working on an investigative piece for my final year project. I don’t want to tell much about it at the moment, except that I’ve found out that the BBC are working on a very similar documentary, so the competition is on. It’s myself vs a much larger, more experienced, and better-resourced BBC. I’m looking forward to it. As usual we’ve been kept busy...
Read MoreAllan Little’s top tips for student journalists
BBC correspondent Allan Little visited the Centre for Journalism today for the second time. Unfortunately this time, Little’s visit was declared ‘off the record’ by the gods of journalism at the CfJ. This therefore ruined my planned blog for the day. However, Little did advise never giving excuses for failing to get a story. So whilst I won’t report on the more topical issues discussed in a Q&A session, I will point out five of his top tips for student journalists as his talk was largely covered on the BBC College of Journalism website anyway: Have something to say. He...
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