The days when journalists could file their copy from the pub after a few pints of Dogbolter and a scotch egg are long gone.
These days they are desk wallahs more likely to be glued to the phone than pounding the streets for their next front page splash. Churning is a vital skill.
There ... Read review
Advantages: can be cheeky to the police Disadvantages: low pay, long hours
...the minimum to get into journalism (I'm in a cynical mood!).
You can guess what this has done to reporting standards - is your local daily as good as it was even five years ago? Trainees will blossom but time is the teacher.
But one man's stale bread is another man's slap-up meal - there has never been a better time for newcomers to land a job because there are so many more vacancies.
The easiest way is ... ...courses in newspaper and magazine journalism at colleges up and down the country (Portsmouth and Harlw are two noted centres). There are also 20 week fast-track and postgraduate courses.
You need five A-C GCSE passes, including English for pre-entry. Some colleges ask for two A-levels or a degree.
If you've previously taken a degree you'll have to stump up the cost of the NCTJ course. There is no figure on the NCTJ ... more
The days when journalists could file their copy from the pub after a few pints of Dogbolter and a scotch egg are long gone.
These days they are desk wallahs more likely to be glued to the phone than pounding the streets for their next front page splash. Churning is a vital skill.
There is still some fun to be had - press trips, freebies, unmasking scams and crooks, digging into big exclusives, covering demos and court, pricking the pompous - but it is becoming a bit like Jeffrey Archer's pals: scarce.
Add to this a daily reporter's relatively low pay (c£21,000 pa for a veteran), and the UK's long hours culture and you have an industry which is not going to win staff motivation awards from the TUC.
Not surprisingly senior reporters are switching in droves to the well-paid luxuries of radio and TV, newspaper production, and press offices or PR. Or leaving the industry altogether.
Newspaper editors have plugged the gaps with rookies straight from college. Fussy editors once demanded graduates; nowadays a pulse and a pen is the minimum to get into journalism (I'm in a cynical mood!).
You can guess what this has done to reporting standards - is your local daily as good as it was even five years ago? Trainees will blossom but time is the teacher.
But one man's stale bread is another man's slap-up meal - there has never been a better time for newcomers to land a job because there are so many more vacancies.
The easiest way is to take a course run by the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ), accepted by most as the industry's ruling body.
It runs one year (calender and academic) pre-entry courses in newspaper and magazine journalism at colleges up and down the country (Portsmouth and Harlw are two noted centres). There are also 20 week fast-track and postgraduate courses.
You need five A-C GCSE passes, including English for pre-entry. Some colleges ask for two A-levels or a degree.
If you've previously taken a degree you'll have to stump up the cost of the NCTJ course. There is no figure on the NCTJ website but a guesstimate would be £2,000.
Subjects include media law, local and central government, shorthand (100wpm), interviews and reporting speeches. There are also court and council visits and a few weeks (usually unpaid) self-arranged work experience.
There are exams in each subject at the end of the course. Pass these and you can chose where to work in regional newspapers (at the moment, at any rate).
The key requirement when attending interviews is to have a good cuttings file - during work experience push for a by-line on your stories.
Two years down the line and you can sit the NCTJ's national certificate examination (law, speech and interview) and become a senior reporter with a about a 20 per cent salary hike (although the NCE pass rate is about 40 per cent).
For more on journalism visit www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk. To see yourself in 10 years time, click on the link called 'funnies' followed by 'bad day at the office'.
For info on the NCTJ contact (with a SAE) Marie Baker, Pre-entry administrator, NCTJ, Latton Bush Centre, Southern Way, Harlow, Essex, CM18 7BL. www.nctj.com.
Have fun!
PS: Admittedly poor working conditions is not the whole story in journalism - full employment (or as full as it's going to get) has cut the flow of recruits to every industry.
And editors face stiff competition for staff from the rapidly expanding new media sector - trainees who traditionally cut their teeth on weeklies or dailies can now join dot.coms.
Advantages: All the things I've mentioned Disadvantages: Poorly paid... but then you know that to begin with!
...the best way into sports journalism would be to take English, History, and Biology at A-level and then apply for a Sports Science degree at Bath University. The problem was that I have less interest in Science then I do in seeing Vanessa Feltz naked and covered in mud; the only difference being that Science doesn’t make me feel ill; just a little nauseous. Anyway, I meandered my way through my first year of A-levels doing History instead of ... ...on paper would be a Journalism or Media Studies degree. These are often looked upon with scorn by potential employers, so applying to these courses seemed like the academic equivalent of Oasis’s recent music career (i.e. going downhill fast). Still, fancying the challenge (or, more truthfully, being a lazy b*stard who couldn’t be bothered to do English at uni), I took up an offer to study Media Studies at Loughborough. The course didn’t ...
BennyRialto 10.08.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Journalism
Advantages: The chance to see places and meet people that most don't, see your name in print Disadvantages: Low pay, having to speak to people who don't want to talk
...have wanted to go into journalism since I was 17. I knew what a competitive industry it is and had quite a detailed action plan to help me get started. While at university I carried out numerous unpaid work experience placement, on magazines, national and local newspapers, websites and even overseas. These proved invaluable in building up contacts and getting my name into print. I saved everything I wrote to keep in my portfolio. I'm quite sure I ... ...Most people who enter journalism nowadays are graduates, and have done an NCTJ course. There are a few newspaper groups that run their own training course but due to the cost of these, many are being cut back. For instance, Trinity Mirror run a course in Newcastle, but this has not been taking trainees on for some time.
I applied for an in house training scheme with Midland News Association (which publishes the Express and Star, Shropshire Star ...
MissDirect 14.05.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Journalism
Advantages: Becoming more and more what employers want Disadvantages: Only about 50% is of practical value
...and most respected routes into journalism is to take a degree in any subject - I did politics - and then take the NCTJ course post-grad.
This way you show that you have a wider education than just taking a journalism degree and, as my editor says, all you need to know to be a journalist you can learn in a year, not three.
The course usually takes a year although there is a fast track version that takes 18-20 weeks.
In the course you take local ... ...what's being said.
Newspaper journalism and handout are probably the most useless courses of the whole scheme.
They teach you to write in a very stale, boring, 'NCTJ' style - just the facts, ma'am. No-one would read this if you tried to publish it and your editor would kick you round the room if you tried.
But get into the formulaic rhythm and you'll pass.
The handout is a press release that you have to turn into a news story - the first sentence ...
Rettle1 07.07.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Journalism
Advantages: See opinion Disadvantages: See opinion
...intention of seriously taking up journalism as my main source of income, but to enable me to pursue my writing in a more serious way on a freelance basis, and because writing was always something I loved to do with a passion.
I’ve had a bit of success here in Ireland in getting my scribbles into print, and was very lucky last November, when a taxi strike here in Dublin, which lasted for about three or four weeks in all, put me in the unique ... ...a couple of the quality daily newspapers actually bidding for me to write articles for them.
I’ve capitalised on that happy situation since, and now do fairly regular work for a number of publications, writing car reviews in the main and the odd feature article.
~ ~ About the same time, early December to be precise, I discovered online opinion sites, first of all Epinions in the States, and then Ciao and dooyoo here in Europe.
These were ...
the_mad_cabbie 09.06.2001 (14.06.2001)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Journalism
...read stories about how popular journalism is as a career option. Maybe it shouldn't, because I always wanted to be a journalist and I do love my work. But I think many people who are interested in journalism have a lot of misconceptions about what it involves.
For a start, there's this odd perception that it's glamorous. Most journalism isn't. Most journalists work, or at least start out on, local papers and the trade media, covering local weddings ... ...write their first article. Good journalism works using short sentences, short words and focusses entirely on keeping the reader's attention. And if you think you're a good writer, that's a bad start. For one, if you're the kind of person who can't stand their work being edited, you won't last five minutes. You'll have articles hacked, re-written and edited out of all recognition, and you'll have to live with it. So why do I love it so much? Well, ...
ImogenW 24.01.2001 (29.01.2001)
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Advantages: Best reputation for a journalism course in the UK Disadvantages: Not for the faint hearted - it's hard work!
I am a current, first-year student at Bournemouth University, on the BA (Hons) Multi-Media Journalism course. I felt that it was about time I told you about the university and the course, as I always have "Journalism student" in my about me section, and often mention the fact that I am studying it here.
So without further ado, I shall explain the course.
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Advantages: Good contacts Disadvantages: Expensive, badly organised and unimpressive
... don't bother with this course. Seriously. I spent a year at city and learned next to nothing. Two years later I'm working as a producer for the BBC. The postgrad course, which I did, was expensive (£3,000 +) and badly organised. I was very disappointed with what I found. Big holes left in the course, a minimal number of lessons and classes, a large number cancelled, and a very variable level of teaching. It was far less challenging than my graduate degree and didn't add much to my ability as a journalist. What counts in the media is initiative and experience, not training. My best friend from university, who has never had a day's journalism training in his life, is now deputy editor of a national magazine and doing a lot better than many of the people I studied with at City. He's earning more than me and isn't, like many, still ...
ImogenW 28.12.2000 (31.12.2000)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Journalism
Advantages: Juicy stories, a big challenge, get to the truth and see your name in lights Disadvantages: Pay isn't great...
areas like anti-social behaviour orders and the rehabilitation of offenders act, and you also study how the courts and legal system works, and what you can and can't report in the newspaper.
Public affairs is another part of the training programme, with the roles and functions of local and national government etc being the key area of study.
The last area is newspaper practice, which includes how to find and write stories, how to follow them up and how the newsroom system works.
And after that?
Once you've got your NCE qualification, the world is your oyster. It's recognised across the English-speaking world as being one of the best journalism qualifications there is. So you can go anywhere, including TV, radio, magazines and internet news or into freelance work...
The grim stuff
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svannerley 23.08.2005 (26.08.2005)
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