Work Placement Reflection

My professional experience project went quite well, I felt. My original plan was to find a placement within a local newspaper. Most of my experience so have has been writing for print media and I always liked the idea of working in local news, because the stories are much more familiar and relatable. It also seems like a good starting point, not being quite as competitive as national publications but giving you a chance to make the contacts and get the experience you would need to back you up, should you ever decide to aim higher.

I went into this with low expectations, not really expecting to get a place anywhere (because of how competitive the area is and because everyone else was looking for placements at the same time). My back up plan was to write a series of 500 word articles each day, for freelance experience. Even if I did find a placement, I only expected to be watching other journalists and making tea.

I was very surprised. I managed to get a placement at The Coventry Evening Telegraph, spending the first week as a political reporter and spending the remainder of my time as a more general news reporter.

I was shocked to find myself immediately thrown in at the deep end. I was immediately set onto the trail of a series of stories across Warwickshire and treated as if I had been working there for years.

A big obstacle I found was the fact that I don’t yet have a driving license. Many of the stories I pursued during my time there involved travelling a distance, meaning I would often have to team up with a photographer, or another reporter just to get around for interviews.

The concept of having to travel for stories was somewhat new to me, having worked largely on University-based articles, resulting in a maximum travelling distance of “just down the road”. It was novel to be travelling places such as Warwick, Rugby, or even people’s own homes, to interview people, or sit in on official Government meetings, or court trials. With this in mind, my driving test is only a couple of weeks away, so I imagine travelling won’t be a persistent problem.

I learned a great deal about the profession from this, that I imagine lecturers wouldn’t think to tell you. I noticed that reporters would often pool their experiences, whether that be helping out with a story, or sharing contacts. I expected reporters in general to be slightly more competitive and self-serving, but was glad to find out that is generally just a negative stereotype.

I gained experience in a variety of new career-relevant technologies. I was told to use Adobe InCopy software to write my articles. Having never come across it before, I learnt that it is used to shape articles into preset templates to be fitted into a finished publication. It was simple enough to use, but I found it quite awkward to fit articles into the templates, having had to greatly improve my editing skills.

Similarly, I had to use Content Watch, another piece of software that was used for reporters to place their finished articles onto a public domain, where other reporters and editors had access to them. From this list, available on all computers in the local network, editors would choose which content would be used on any given publication date. Those that were not used were left on the list to possibly be used on a later date, should they still be relevant then.

Another new software device introduced to me was the MIDAS archive. They used this to search existing publications for stories, to check if something had already been covered. As undoubtedly useful as it is, I wasn’t impressed with this archive, as on my first day I wrote a story about local council officials cutting back on school bus staff, which I was told would be given the front page. Unfortunately, the editor didn’t expect me to finish it the same day, so left room for it in the next issue, but another publication covered it in that time so it ended up on page 2. But then again, I was just happy to be published.

Many other little things I had not heard about before were implemented in the news room, such as the morning meetings, where reporters would gather every morning to discuss what stories they would follow that day, to avoid clashing and to get the editor’s approval (in terms of its’ newsworthiness).

My skills in many relevant areas have had to step up to cope with this environment, notably my research skills. I used various news wires to find new stories and would often be forwarded emails from news agencies. I made a lot of new contacts in a plethora of areas because of this, from local reverends, to head-teachers, to furniture salesmen. Never before had I had to research stories so deeply, having to call long lists of people, for interviews, or just for general information. My shorthand benefited greatly too.

My writing and editing skills have noticeably improved too. Having to write to much stricter templates, squeezing as much information as possible into as few words as I can, I found my writing became much, much more breviloquent. I would often write up to 10 small “filler” articles a day, of only 50-200 words each, with the larger pieces not given that much more room.

Originally, I never realistically expected a career in journalism, because of the saturated job market, but this has shown me that I can actually do it and it’s not completely out of reach. It’s definitely a career path I’ll now consider, though I did notice that a lot of the reporters had crap cars, so I doubt the pay is up to much. Before this, I was aiming to get a job in PR, or something similar, utilizing the skills I’ve gained from my course, but in a much more achievable job market.

Overall, I couldn’t have expected the project to go as well as it did. I found myself being printed every day after I started and then for days after I left. Though most of the stories were so small they didn’t have a name on, I had the satisfaction of knowing they were mine. Editor-in-chief, Steve Chilton seemed impressed with my work, consistently publishing it. He even offered to have me back whenever I wanted (though he mentioned he couldn’t offer me a job at the moment because of over-staffing and to be honest, I’d rather finish my course anyway).

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