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Kenny Campbell, I'm the editor of Metro.
Essentially the editor destroys everybody else's good work, the editors job really is
to make sure the team is pushing, the newspaper, the magazine, whatever the publication, in
the right direction.
Internships, work experience, I get asked a lot, 'how important are they?', they're
massively important, they give you a chance to put yourself ahead of the competition,
a lot of publications, a lot of places, will look to see if you've got a formal, journalistic
qualification, and if you haven't... ***! Your CV goes into the bin, there's nothing
you can do about that. If you can short cycle the process, and get an internship, get work
experience, you get inside the building, you get inside the industry, you make contacts,
journalism has always been about contacts, and that applies as much to the career path,
as it does to getting stories. If you get a chance to get an internship, or work experience,
you grab it with both hands, or someone else will.
The importance of youth, to work forces in general, can't be over stated, no youth; you
have no future. To our business, it's incredibly important because as a newspaper, we have
by far the youngest readership in the country. We need to have people working for us, who
reflect that audience, so if we don't have any younger people in the office, we're a
bunch of old fuddy-duddies, putting together a newspaper, that we think, will appeal to
younger people. That's a fail. But it is very difficult to get in... not kidding anyone,
we get applications, galore from people, and there's an element of luck. If you get the
chance to get in, to visit the office, then again... you take it, you take it, you take
it, you have no idea who it is you might meet, who might be able to send you an email, one
day, and say, 'word is that somebody is looking for an assistant, and admin assistant, somebody
doing anything, sweeping up the boardroom floor', anything at all that gets you in the
door again, but it's very difficult, there's an awful lot of competition out there.
I have a University degree, but I'm not qualified in journalism, I don't have a formal degree,
and lots of people out there would say, 'yeah man, that's obvious we can see that', but
I've got people out there who don't have journalism degrees as well, there's a mix and match...
more people will have formal degrees, because that's one of the recognized route into the
profession, but if you don't want to go down that route, because its expensive these days,
then make sure that the time you would've spent studying, you make the good use, and
knock down doors, you phone people up, you email them, you do whatever it takes to get
ahead of the competition again. Never undervalue education, this is something I'm a fan of.
Top 5 tips on how to get into newspapers in no particular order
CONTACTS, CONTACTS, CONTACTS. Newspapers have always been about contacts, that's how you
get stories it's also how you get jobs, it's how I got promotions, it's how I got jobs
in different newspapers, it's how you get in the door if you're lucky, don't be afraid
to use them, and if you don't use them, well fool you.
Know the publication, or the programme, or the broadcaster you want to get into, there's
no point someone coming to me and saying, 'oh, I really want to work in newspapers,
I want to write opinion columns, for metro', because we don't have an opinion column. Uh-uh,
FAIL, know your publication. Grab all the opportunities, no matter how
stupid, or insubstantial they seem, because if you don't grab the opportunity somebody
else will grab the opportunity, and you'll spend the rest of your life wondering, what
if. STAY AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION. This is a good
rule for business anyway, but if you're doing an NCTJ course, don't wait until the class
is told to go and get work experience, before you get work experience , I'm going to get
an inbox with 6 emails, from the same course from people saying, 'please, I want to do
some work experience', THINK, THINK, THINK, THINK, THINK, THINK, you've got to stay ahead
of the competition. Remember that all stories are words and pictures,
some of the pictures move, some of the words are spoken, but they're all words and stories,
and words and stories aren't going anywhere, no matter what happens to newspapers, to magazines,
to websites, to radio stations, they're here to stay. If you can't get work experience
or a job, on your chosen media platform, get in somewhere else, because the experience
you get, will be relevant one way, or the other.
Actually the best examples of people who have come in here, made a success, are people who
were thinking inside the box. Lisa, who looks after our health and sex pages, she came in
again, just to help out around the office room, and she asked if she could speak to
me for 10 minutes, 'so what do I do to get a full time job, in newspapers?' 'There are
several things you can do, the first thing is, get a qualification, if you're not working
on the newspaper, and you've got the chance, do some education', she said, 'no I'm doing
that, I'm doing that at night classes, 2 year course, finishes later this year', I said,
'Oh okay, good'... 'what else shall I do?'... 'Get experience with your local newspaper,
get experience with a magazine, get experience somewhere, get in the door', and she said
to me... 'I'm doing that'. A few week later an opportunity came up in the office, to work
in the features section, we'd seen what she could do writing wise, because she was in
the office, and ***! She was in. Great example of somebody spotting an opportunity, grabbing
it, using that opportunity to speak to me, and getting herself noticed. So, thinking
inside the box isn't a bad thing.