Tutor: Nick Alatti.

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CHAPTER 1

STARTING OUT IN JOURNALISM
What is journalism? What makes a good journalist? Historical context. Careers in journalism. British news outlets. Magazines. The newsroom.

WHAT IS JOURNALISM?
At its simplest, journalism can be defined as the gathering, recording and dissemination of information. That is the role of every newspaper, magazine, website
and news broadcaster – from The Times to the Daily Mirror, from Newsweek to Railway Magazine, from BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to Sky News, from
Yahoo! News to the Huffington Post. But what sets it apart from other forms of writing? For a start, a large number of people are usually involved in the process of researching, interviewing, writing, editing and publishing the information. Unlike the author or poet, the journalist does not work in isolation, but as part of a team.

To varying degrees, the medium is also a transitory one. Today’s paper will be in the recycling bin by tomorrow morning, and a live news broadcast has an even shorter lifespan. Publications like a weekly paper or monthly magazine will have a “shelf life” dictated by their publishing cycle and will also soon be out of date and discarded. Meanwhile online stories may be updated and replaced in minutes. This means that everything journalists produce has to be in some way topical, and relevant to people’s lives.

The reporting of news, current affairs and popular culture demands that journalists have a very strong commercial awareness because their profession is “market led” and competition is stiff. Readers are customers and their loyalty needs to be won by catering precisely for their needs and preferences. Moreover journalists need a deep understanding of the digital world and an innate ability to engage with digital audiences, as increasingly the way in which people receive news is via search engines such as Google and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram, which they will access from their smartphones or tablets. Digital journalism has transformed not only the manner in which news is conveyed, but also the ability of ordinary people to become more directly involved in the gathering and disseminating process. Social media platforms, blogs and podcasts have created a digital bridge between “professional” working journalists and their audience, where communication has become a two-way street.

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The new communication channels have harnessed a greater scope for interactivity,enabling readers to leave comments below stories, sometimes in their thousands if the story is contentious. Aside from writing stories, journalists need to be adept at Tweeting, live blogging, writing Facebook status updates, shooting and editing videos and recording and editing podcasts.

While most mainstream newspapers still produce a daily print edition they may also have a separate editorial team producing content for the website where they can publish breaking stories throughout the day via their social media platforms. For this they have become considerably reliant on ‘user generated content’ and constantly encourage readers to send in their own newsworthy or quirky pictures and videos.

Visual information has always been important. Headlines, pictures and videos all help to capture and hold the readers’ (or viewers’) attention – as well as telling them more about the specific subject being discussed. But whereas in the past there was more scope to specialise in a particular niche, today multi-skilling is the norm. For the newcomer, perhaps the most confusing thing about journalism is the breadth of its scope. Sometimes content may seem of an incredibly esoteric nature: there are specialist publications catering for every subject from cranes and building materials to insurance and tropical fish. Other publications may appear excessively frivolous and flippant, as in the frothier magazines or national tabloid newspapers. But each contains information and the same basic principles of journalism have gone into publishing it.

The pace of change can be mesmerising though. News publications are still evaluating how best to operate in the digital world in the wake of the decline in print
sales and the old business model that went with that. Most have made their online content and mobile apps free-to-access but some, like the Times and Financial Times have established paywalls. The big imponderable is how to monetise content due to the number of readers who have migrated online for their news. The jury is still out as to whether online advertising can replace publishers’ traditional revenue streams but what could certainly be a lifeline for the ‘old guard’ is if their governments eventually force some of the tech giants to pay for using their news content.

Naturally the media world is constantly striving to provide readers, listeners and viewers with new information which they do not already know. That may take the form of a major ‘breaking’ story, where events are unfolding and circumstances changing by the minute, but may also include revelations of a less dramatic nature. The “news” might be a minor medical advance, perhaps, or the results of an opinion poll, the outcome of a planning dispute, a report of a speech in Parliament or advance warning of a forthcoming event. However minor or momentous the revelation, it is vital that it is communicated quickly, before the news becomes stale or dated.

“News” provides the bedrock of all journalism and a shorthand definition of what readers and editors expect from a reporter is NEW FACTS – NOW!

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Facts, not opinion

It is the job of journalists to observe, record and report information. They are the public’s representatives and their role is to discover the facts surrounding any new occurrence and seek out the truth about what has happened. Note that word facts. Journalism differs from other forms of writing because of its obsession
with passing on factual information. There may be room for comment, analysis and criticism later, but only once the facts have been established.

As a reporter, you should be a neutral conduit for information. If conflicting statements or views are expressed by those you interview, you have a duty to
present all sides of an argument in a fair and balanced way. If people pass on items of unsubstantiated gossip, it is your job to find out whether there is any truth in them, before rushing off to file your story.

News reporters generally leave the comment, tittle-tattle and lobbying to the columnists, feature writers, bloggers, vloggers and the editor or leader writer. A
reporter’s personal opinions are usually irrelevant. ‘Fake news’ is a rather unsavoury label that is often used to undermine the work of journalists and fuel public mistrust which makes it doubly important to ensure stories are balanced, impartial, objective and peppered with reliable sources.

The myths

It’s hard to think of any other job that is the subject of as much myth, romance and misconception as that of the journalist. With each decade that passes, society grows more demanding in its quest for news, yet only a small proportion of the population has an accurate understanding of the procedures involved in processing that information. Most adults consume news in its variety of forms, yet there is a tendency to take the newsgathering process for granted, with little or no understanding of what goes on behind the scenes in compiling a newspaper or a news show.

Over the years films and TV series have added grist to the mill through their highly selective portrayal of journalists as eccentric, larger-than-life characters waging war against powerful enemies or inner demons. If we were to base our image of the journalist on Hollywood stereotypes, the industry would be peopled with a motley assortment of power-crazed editors, drunken hacks, death-defying war correspondents, single-minded investigative reporters and back-biting, egotistical TV presenters.

There may be elements of truth in each of these portrayals – indeed, many of the more memorable fictional characters may be modelled on real people, living or dead – yet it can be hard for an aspiring journalist to obtain a clear-sighted, realistic picture of the profession they hope one day to join: of what skills and abilities are required of them, of what their daily routine might involve, of how their career might develop.

 

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The reality

The truth is that there are no easy, glib answers to any of these questions, since journalism by its very nature encompasses the broadest possible range of duties,
disciplines, salaries and working practices. What is certainly true is that careers are less predictable than they ever were. Some may find themselves made redundant more than once as patterns of recruitment change and new media outlets replace established ones.

There are perhaps more opportunities than ever, but also more competition – and often more pressure on those fortunate enough to win the job of their dreams.
Despite the challenges, past LSJ students have gone on to take up posts in every facet of the business, all over the world. Some have made the grade on local,
national and international news publications, others as TV or radio reporters. Some work for agencies, others for niche publications in the most specialised fields. Some have capitalised on their ability to speak more than one language, others on their interviewing skills or ability to understand complex subjects and make them accessible to ordinary people.

While the precise career path taken by each individual will vary enormously, most journalists are able to identify facets of the job which remain constant across the industry and which contribute enormously to their motivation, morale and sense of personal satisfaction.

Lesson 2 looks in more detail at the precise qualities expected of a reporter, but there are some general characteristics shared by most journalists which should give you an early indication whether or not you are suited to the profession.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD JOURNALIST?
A good journalist is:
• interested in people
• inquisitive by nature
• a skilled communicator and interviewer
• able to work to deadlines
• social media savvy

You simply cannot function as a journalist if you are not interested in other people – in their achievements, emotions, problems and what they have to say. Since your job is to discover new information and pass it on to your readers, that means not only knowing which questions to ask, but understanding, reporting, clarifying and sometimes interpreting an interviewee’s responses. If you appear bored, listless or uncaring, people will simply not want to speak to you, never mind reveal information on sensitive or controversial issues.

Gathering the information accurately is not sufficient in itself, however. You have to be able to pass on the facts in a way that will engross and absorb your readers. The style in which you communicate – your choice of language, formality, tone etc – will of course be dictated to a great extent by the publication for which you work.

A ‘serious’ broadsheet may require plenty of detailed information authoritatively presented and with every angle explored. A regional paper might tackle the same story in a straightforward, matter-of-fact way, but emphasising the local angle. A bright and breezy tabloid will demand more colourful, vigorous prose and may even disregard the story altogether if it has not got a sufficiently offbeat, shocking or attention-grabbing ‘angle’.

Apart from the fundamental writing skills expected of the most junior trainee, including correct spelling, punctuation, grammar and sentence construction,
successful journalists have to be able to produce accurate, balanced and informed articles at speed, sometimes in the most uncongenial of conditions. The necessity of working to deadline is one of the most demanding – and rewarding – aspects of the job. The ability to remain calm under pressure and produce immensely readable copy in a matter of minutes is the skill most prized by journalists and their editors alike. Even in the digital age, there are deadlines to be met. As traffic spikes at different times of day, and for different platforms, online editors are responsible to make sure there is fresh digital content available whenever it is needed.

As previously mentioned, journalists need to fully appreciate how social media, especially Facebook, Twitter and Instagram works. Not only do they need to write eye-catching posts to promote stories, they need to be able to effectively scan these resource treasure troves for sources and stories. This layer of newsgathering gives journalists access to a wealth of material and contacts from around the globe. It’s useful to check what the people you are following are saying on a daily basis to assess whether there is any potential for a story. There are thousands of Facebook interest groups you may want to contact for a view if you are writing a story that interests or affects them.

The challenge

There is another fundamental element that may help identify your suitability to the job. Despite the romantic images, there are innumerable mundane, boring or
unpleasant tasks involved in the hectic process of producing a newspaper, magazine or television programme. Yet however humble a journalist’s normal role and however small the publication they work for, there is always an element of unpredictability that adds a frisson of excitement to their work. They are meeting or communicating to different people every day. In every interview they carry out, they do not know in advance what people are going to say or whether they have an interesting story to tell – and some of the hottest scoops have come from the least likely sources. Irrespective of the size and significance of the town they work in, no one knows whether today will be the day that there will be an attempt to assassinate a police chief or that a helicopter will crash in the car park, or that there will be a major fire in the high street. Although such events may be unlikely, there will be hundreds of less dramatic headline-grabbing news items during the course of a year which engender the same surge of adrenalin in the reporter assigned to cover the story.

You are unlikely to get far if such unexpected occurrences throw you into a blind panic, or if you feel happiest with an unvarying daily routine in which nothing
happens to disturb your equilibrium. That means you will need to relish unexpected developments and seize opportunities whenever they arise. Being in the right place at the right time counts for a lot, but that happy knack is rarely as much of an accident or coincidence as it may appear. Good journalists are always eager to get the chance to prove themselves in unfamiliar territory and if that means volunteering for an assignment no one else
wants, then so be it.

The rewards

Journalism may not always be well paid, but it is rarely boring. Few writers would deny that, however many years they have been in the job, there is still a buzz of satisfaction, pride or even elation at seeing their name published. Even those working behind the scenes share that sense of excitement at having successfully
raced against time to present their readers or viewers with an intriguing story.

Hopefully, you are beginning to get an idea of the unique combination of pressures, challenges and associated rewards which are so savoured by journalists – and which in turn help them to combat the long hours, gruelling responsibilities and poor pay and conditions which can also so often be part and parcel of their work. You are about to embark on a training course which will provide you with many of the practical skills required to survive in a demanding and often exhausting environment.

Journalism is not a job for the faint-hearted or the uncommitted. To succeed, you will need tenacity and determination coupled with boundless energy and enthusiasm, irrespective of your innate writing ability. You may have to cope with antagonistic senior staff, disdainful colleagues, recalcitrant interviewees and social media trolls who seem on occasions determined to do everything they can to prevent you doing your job properly. You will inevitably
make mistakes and have to be big enough to own up to them.

However, you are not on your own. Exactly the same demands will be made of everyone else embarking on a career in journalism – and those bitten by the bug will find such setbacks a small price to pay for the excitement and satisfaction the industry offers. When you’re reading your story online and noticing the ever-increasing number of comments underneath it, you will be savouring one of the most satisfying moments that any journalist can enjoy – and suddenly all the trials and tribulations that dogged you earlier in the day are likely to recede into the background.

 

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

From the earliest hieroglyphics on cave walls, humans have exhibited a desire to communicate in writing. A daily record of events was issued in Ancient Rome and rudimentary block printing, using single pieces of wood, was practised by the ancients and can be traced back to the 12th century in Europe.
But it was the introduction of movable type in the 15th century that shaped the emergence of the journalism industry that we recognise today.

Caxton established his press at Westminster Abbey in 1476, and since that time the industry’s growth and development has been dictated by a complex combination of factors which can be divided into four broad categories:
• social
• economic
• political
• technological

Today’s arguments about censorship and press freedom, for example, are nothing new. With the growth in popularity of newsletters and pamphlets, there was
widespread state and church censorship in the 16th century and a hundred years on, in 1664, Milton was pleading eloquently for press freedom. No manuscript could be set in type without the permission of the Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of London and the Licensing Act was not abolished until 1695.

Newspapers began to flourish early in the 18th century – the Daily Courant was launched in 1702 and Daniel Defoe’s Review in 1704, followed by many of the
regional titles which are still published in Britain today. But with literacy levels low, and the desire for communication led by leaders of commerce and industry, newspapers for the masses did not emerge until expensive duties were scrapped – advertisement duty in 1853, stamp duty in 1855, paper duty in 1861 – and compulsory education introduced (1870). From that time, the demand of the reading public expanded enormously.

Technological changes transformed the industry towards the end of the 19th century and have continued at an ever-increasing pace ever since. The invention of
photography, for example, and its increasing sophistication, allowed the publication of pictures for the first time in newspapers. Once machine presses replaced hand presses, there was scope to dramatically increase not only the number of copies printed, but the overall pagination.

In 1814, steam machinery could produce The Times at the rate of 1,000 impressions an hour – by 1848, it was 10,000 impressions and by 1885 the equipment existed to produce 16-page papers. Rotary presses increased production to 24,000 24-page papers per hour.

 

Journalism in the 20th century

Even in the mid-1920s, Britain’s longest-established national newspapers still appeared to be addressing their readership in rather old-fashioned language more
suited to the 1890s. The BBC introduced the nation to the world of radio in 1926, but took an equally serious-minded approach to keeping the public informed. It was only as the dawn of the age of television in 1936 was beginning to send shock waves through the newspaper industry that two national titles set out to bring journalism kicking and screaming into the 20th century – the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express.

Under Hugh Cudlipp, the Mirror adopted a more vigorous, brash and contemporary writing style designed to reflect the language of real people, while at the Express Arthur Christiansen was pioneering a brighter, breezier approach to broadsheet journalism. Between them, the papers were paving the way for a fundamental revolution in the way newspapers were produced and received – the introduction of the masscirculation tabloids. The smaller format was easier to handle and a perfect medium for hard-hitting prose and screaming headlines that would eventually be adopted by all the ‘popular’ British national newspapers and many regional titles at home and abroad.

In the years that followed, successive milestones were seized on by the merchants of doom as signalling the demise of Britain’s newspaper industry – from wartime paper rationing to the launch of the ITV network in 1955, from the introduction of ‘freesheets’ – newspapers with no cover price – to the launch of cable and satellite TV channels.

Such fears were often understandable. In 1970, free newspapers only received 1.4 per cent of registered advertising revenues, yet 20 years later, that figure had risen to 35 per cent. And back in 1975 when the threat was still not fully recognised, half of Britain’s daily papers and nearly all its Sunday papers were losing money. Colour printing was introduced at the same time, but it was to take many years and some bitter industrial disputes before colour became accepted as the norm among the Fleet Street titles. Indeed the 1980s were a fraught time in the industry, with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher signalling a crackdown on union power and proprietors like Eddie Shah and Rupert Murdoch attempting to pioneer new production techniques which matched that introduction of new technology with a reduction in the size of workforces.

As titles faced a financial crisis with the soaring price of paper and unions and management exchanged insults over the picket lines at Wapping, elsewhere textbased television services like Ceefax and Oracle had arrived.

 

Electronic newspapers were being mooted for the first time and magazine publishers were producing niche titles catering for a broader range of specialist interests than ever before. By the end of the decade, not only was Fleet Street no longer the physical centre of newspaper production in Britain, but there had been a massive explosion in television news coverage – first with breakfast news channels, then with Sky News in 1989. (Incidentally, you will still see the term “Fleet Street” used regularly throughout this course when making reference to the national press, even though the papers once based in this street have long ago relocated and are now spread out all over London.)
The 1990 Broadcasting Act paved the way for the launch of dozens of community radio stations and in 1994 Radio 5 followed the satellite TV channels’ example by introducing a rolling round-the-clock news and sports service. 24-hour news had arrived – and with it a range of new opportunities for journalists as TV and radio programmes multiplied.
In newspaper offices, computerisation was sufficiently sophisticated to allow subeditors to design pages on screen and send them automatically to print without the need for typesetters, compositors and proof-readers. For the first time, a newspaper could genuinely be produced by a handful of journalists, allowing production costs to be dramatically reduced.
A flurry of huge-scale company sales in the 1990s saw some long-time newspaper owners switching horses to invest in books, cable, satellite, TV, radio and electronic publishing. But the gap was filled by companies who still believed newspapers, produced by modern methods and catering for the changing needs of readers and advertisers, could provide their shareholders with sufficiently high returns to justify massive investments in staff and equipment – including the most modern computer technology and printing presses.

The industry today
Journalism in the 21st century has changed almost beyond recognition from the 1950s, when production techniques had remained unchanged for decades and the main competition came in the form of the BBC’s nightly TV bulletins. Today, news is provided round the clock on TV and online at the click of a mouse or
the tap of a screen, forcing newspaper editors to re-examine how they package and monetise their product for readers in the face of intense competition.
As more and more people prefer to consume their news online, newspapers are under constant pressure to keep up with this trend and come up with ingenious ways to attract online traffic. Random news stories, features and videos, often described as ‘click bait’ are posted on social media sites by newspapers every few minutes in an effort to re-direct people to their website where it is hoped they will view and click on the accompanying ads.

 

 

Terrestrial television companies have had to react too – not just to 24-hour news and other digital channels, but to YouTube channels featuring a new breed of journalist or ‘vlogger’ appealing to mainly younger audiences and offering a wide range of video content from politics, travel, football and fashion to beauty, comedy and gaming. Some are earning huge amounts of money due to having access to thousands, sometimes millions of subscribers.
For newcomers to the business, it is an exciting time, with new opportunities emerging each month which would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. In
addition to thousands of YouTube channels and podcasts, there are dozens of ondemand, subscription streaming and catchup services now firmly established in
people’s homes at the flick of switch.

Yet for all those contemplating their first steps on the career ladder – even those who are switching from other professions as mature candidates – the journey still usually starts in the same place it has always done – as a trainee, learning the practical skills that will stand you in good stead for the rest of your working life. Note the word practical. Journalism is not an academic subject and nor is it sufficient simply to study how it works in theory. The best training comes in the form of intensive, hands-on practice under the watchful eye of experienced professionals whose advice and criticism is grounded in years of involvement in the business and a no-nonsense understanding of what readers and editors expect from journalists.

CAREERS IN JOURNALISM

The sheer diversity of job opportunities in journalism means that newcomers arrive in the industry through a variety of different routes. They may join as school-leavers, graduates or mature students switching from other careers. Academic qualifications are not always of prime importance to an editor who is hiring new trainees, since the skills he or she is looking for in a reporter are practical rather than theoretical.
Naturally a basic command of written language is extremely important, but certain key personality traits may matter just as much. Will a trainee be able to communicate readily with people from all walks of life? Are they enthusiastic, committed, eager to learn? Are they not easily fobbed off? Have they the ability to master practical skills like shorthand and interviewing and acquire a sound working knowledge of the law?

Can they write a concise and compelling tweet?
For regional newspaper editors, there is the additional question of whether a new recruit is genuinely interested in the jobs they are applying for, or simply see it as a means to an end – a stepping-stone to a job on the nationals, perhaps. Faced with a number of suitable candidates and recognising that on-the-job training represents a major drain on their time and other scarce resources, a regional editor may decide that an enthusiastic local school-leaver with a strong commitment to their home town and an understanding of how local people think is a better investment than an intellectual with a first-class degree who will move onwards and upwards as soon as he or she can.

 

 

Editors are equally sceptical of the explosion in media studies courses at British schools and colleges, many of which are of a theoretical nature and involve no
practical hands-on journalistic experience. They are much more likely to favour a graduate in a discipline not directly related to the industry – languages, economics, politics etc – who has demonstrated ability and enthusiasm by editing a college newspaper or has already managed to submit
articles to a local paper.
Since the career opportunities in journalism are so diverse, it’s worth taking a look at all the different branches of the industry, even if you are unsure at this stage in the course which area is of most interest to you.

The broad categories are:
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Radio
• Television
• Online (which can also apply to the first four categories)
• Press and public relations, digital marketing

Each of these categories can be broken down in a number of different ways – by frequency of publication, for example, or the audience they are aimed at. The next section of this lesson studies newspapers and magazines in more detail, but for the moment we will focus on career opportunities.
Newspapers – national/regional, broadsheet/tabloid, weekly/daily/Sunday, paidfor/free. Most trainees will work on a regional before moving to the nationals, although a few will take the fast track to Fleet Street, particularly if they are specialists. The nationals have a number of unique jobs (foreign news correspondent, showbiz reporter etc) which will not normally exist on regional papers. Some trainees start work on a weekly paper before moving to a daily, although many of the regional dailies hire trainees direct. There are generally more job opportunities on paid-for titles, although some reputable free papers like Metro have sizable editorial teams too.
There are also a number of papers catering for different ethnic communities, like Eastern Eye or The Voice, for example, or workers in particular industries (like Rail News).

Magazines – hobby, professional, trade, leisure, sport, company, in-flight, TV, arts etc.
These are all discussed in more detail later in the lesson. Radio – national/local, independent, community, podcasts

 

 

Most job opportunities for journalists exist with broadcasters specialising in speechbased radio, notably the BBC, which produces a wide range of news, current affairs and magazine programmes on Radio 4, the World Service and on local radio stations. Small numbers of journalists will work on news and entertainment
programmes produced by digital and commercial stations like Heart FM.

TV – in addition to the five national UK channels, there are a plethora of digital channels, including 24-hour news channels. Job opportunities may also exist with independent production companies serving a wide array of outlets.

Online – the growth of the internet has spawned numerous online journalism opportunities, replicating all the sectors already served by conventional print and
broadcast media.

Press and PR – many journalists find their communication skills highly prized in the world of public relations and marketing, where salaries are generally higher than in regional print journalism. Understanding what information journalists need and how they work is vital to those working in corporate communications and publicity.

Digital marketing: If you would rather promote a product or service rather than a story and are adept a writing a catchy Tweet or Facebook post or sourcing an eyecatching video or picture, this might be a job where these transferrable skills pay big dividends! You might need knowledge of SEO best practice though.
Staff or freelance?

A further career consideration is whether you are best suited to working as a staff writer or a freelance. It’s obviously easier for an experienced staff writer to “go it alone” because they have the necessary skills and contacts to make a success of freelancing. But if working part-time is a necessity because of your other
commitments, it’s not impossible to start building up a freelance portfolio from scratch. Having said that with squeezed budgets, freelance opportunities on
newspapers are getting harder to find.

News or features?
Most journalists have a natural aptitude for either news or features writing, but rarely both – although many features writers on newspapers will have trained as a reporter before joining the features team. The different writing styles involved are discussed in detail in later lessons, and for those who really feel uncomfortable with the idea of newspaper reporting, numerous features writing opportunities exist in the magazine
and online markets.

Production journalism
Don’t overlook the possibility of working “behind the scenes” as a sub-editor or page designer, particularly if you have first-class editing skills or a natural aptitude for page layout and design. However more emphasis these days is placed on reporters ‘self-subbing’ or proofreading colleagues work. Many of these posts include a ‘work from home’ element, which we will briefly discuss later.

THE BRITISH PRESS
NEWSPAPERS
Like many countries, regional papers in the UK are still coming to terms with the digital revolution and how to develop a new business model which is not solely
based on the print cover price and classified/display advertising. As a result print circulation has suffered and some newspapers have been driven out of business.
However there are still more than 100 regional newspapers operating in the UK helping to keep local people informed, educated and entertained. What is more,
there are substantially more people accessing newspaper websites, apps and their social media accounts. Weeklies are published once a week and there are also a few bi-weeklies still in existence, usually appearing on Tuesdays and Fridays. Weeklies give prominence to local news and views and rarely carry stories of national significance unless these have a strongly identifiable local angle. Papers vary considerably in size, from tiny, old-fashioned one-man operations producing only a few thousand copies a week to chunky, modern-looking 120-page publications which utilise all the latest technology and may have a relatively large editorial staff. This sort of weekly tends to flourish in heavily built-up areas round the fringes of big cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester.

If there is such a thing as an ‘average’ weekly, it might take the form of a 40-80 page publication packed with property, motors and local recruitment advertising and based around one or more reasonably-sized market towns. Its editorial staff might include an editor, deputy editor and a handful of reporters and sub-editors, some of the former possibly working on their own from district offices scattered around the circulation area.

Many regional dailies used to be known as Evenings that had many printed editions during the day and published six days a week. Some former evening papers, now single-edition dailies, dispensed with having ‘evening’ in their title altogether such as the Bristol Post and the Birmingham Mail. In the days when newspapers were the principal source of information about a breaking news story – a major court case, perhaps, or an underground rescue –
there was more impetus to publish updated editions right through the day. Today, regional newspapers prefer to do this online. It’s a far cry from ensuring that their main edition was on sale in a town or city centre in time to catch lunchtime trade, and providing a Late Extra or City Final later in the day to catch late-afternoon shoppers and commuters.

Regional dailies are far more likely than weeklies to have their own features departments, providing a package of pages which entertain as well as inform, from
television listings, cartoons and crosswords to leisure pull-outs and ‘what’s on’ guides. They may also follow-up a range of national stories on the features pages,
using their own features writers to explore the local implications of a particular issue, decision or debate.

 

 

Most will have a sports section and in some bigger centres sports journalists will also produce a range of podcasts for Facebook and YouTube to inform and engage with local football fans.

Regional dailies range in size from those with circulations under 20,000, serving small cities or large towns, to London’s Evening Standard, the only surviving evening paper in the capital but distributed for free. Virtually every British city has its own dedicated paper. Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh boast daily papers, as do cities like Newcastle, Darlington, Leeds, Norwich, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff. In each case, the papers tend to support reasonably large editorial teams and a few of them, particularly in Scotland, produce a few different editions during the day. Most will have their own business desks and a range of specialist correspondents dealing with subjects like education, health, crime or the arts, along with features and sports desks.

In Scotland, papers like the Daily Record, The Herald in Glasgow and The Scotsman in Edinburgh all claim to have a readership across the whole of Scotland and, with the presence of the Scottish Parliament, increasingly regard themselves as national papers in their own right.

National dailies: Eleven national daily papers are sold throughout the United Kingdom and abroad – particularly in those parts of Europe which attract large
numbers of British holidaymakers. The main editions of these papers emanate from London, although some will publish editions from centres like Manchester, Glasgow and Belfast to avoid excessive distribution costs and delays.
Some of the five traditional broadsheet titles – the Times, Financial Times, Telegraph, Independent and Guardian – have moved towards printing in a smaller
tabloid or Berliner format in recent years. There are two middle-market tabloids – the Mail and Express – and three ‘red-masthead’ tabloids – the Mirror, Sun and Star.

The remaining national newspaper which does not easily fit into the above categories but has been one of the great publishing successes of recent years is the
Metro newspaper – distributed free on British public transport. It now boasts to being the second-biggest daily in the land (behind the Sun). A strong online presence is an absolutely key part of all these publications, not least to counteract the decline in print sales. They are all available in app form too.
National papers are intended to be read with equal interest throughout the country and therefore contain no real local news. As well as all the departments contained on a busy morning paper, there will be additional ‘desks’ dealing with subjects ranging from financial news to television and pop music. Specialist writers may include book and theatre reviewers, art critics, wine experts and science, eco or technology correspondents. Pull-out sections from food to culture will have their own teams of writers and subeditors, and some nationals also publish glossy sports and lifestyle magazines, especially in their Saturday editions.

 

Sunday papers: Most national Sunday papers have close connections with the national mornings – the Sunday Express (Daily Express), Sunday Mirror and The
People (Daily Mirror), Sun on Sunday (Sun), Sunday Times (Times), Sunday Telegraph (Daily Telegraph), Mail On Sunday (Daily Mail) and Observer (Guardian).
There are also a range of regional Sundays, again usually linked with a daily stablemate, like the Sunday Mail (Daily Record) and Wales On Sunday (Western Mail). Sunday papers tend to have smaller staff than dailies, and are more orientated towards features, gossip, criticism and analysis. The flavour is again national and international, but in order to compete with the dailies, Sundays cannot simply repeat news that has emerged during the week. As a result, they are likely to publish more timeless, offbeat, quirky and sometimes investigative stories. Their reporters and feature writers are constantly probing behind the news to find titbits that have been overlooked or omitted. Again, the Sundays can be split into three distinct markets. Of the broadsheet (quality) titles, The Sunday Times has the biggest circulation. There are two midmarket titles, the Mail on Sunday and Sunday Express, of which the Mail is the biggest seller. In the tabloid market, the Sun on Sunday is the most popular followed by the Sunday Mirror.

This does not disguise the fact that editors continue to be concerned about the downward trend of print sales, as well as acknowledging that younger readers are
less likely to buy a paper than their parents or grandparents, preferring to access breaking news via social media. The challenge for most editors in the 21st century is to increase sales – or at least halt the sales slide – against such formidable competition from digital media. At the
same time many established publishers have invested heavily in their online presence – notably the Telegraph, Guardian and Mail Online – in their efforts to
attract a new generation of digital readers.

MAGAZINES

Magazines deal with an enormous range of general and specialist interest subjects, and may be published weekly, fortnightly, monthly or even quarterly. They generally have higher cover prices than newspapers (although some are distributed free to members of an association or, for example, owners of a particular make of car). They tend to be printed on higher quality paper and generally contain full-colour photographs, artwork and advertisements – hence why they are often referred to as ‘glossies’.
More than 100 consumer magazines have circulations of more than 100,000 copies in Britain, dealing with subjects as diverse as men’s health, new tech, gardening, wildlife, history and cars. Of course, as with newspapers, there is a substantial online readership as well as people downloading digital editions and accessing apps, which has the potential to offset declining print sales.

Despite this, it is a risky market and magazines are launched (and closed) at a surprising rate. Often, they will be produced by only a handful of staff and, if one title is unsuccessful, employees may be redeployed on a new title in the event of closure.
Magazine publishers are likely to have a wide-ranging portfolio of titles catering for interests as diverse as guitar-playing, mountain-biking and cross-stitching. Sports
titles may be produced alongside women’s and lifestyle magazines in the same
building, but by separate staff.
A selection of the current bestsellers gives an indication of the diversity of interests
catered for:
• women’s interests (Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health, Red, Grazia, Top Sante,
Woman, The Lady)
• men’s interests (FHM, Maxim, Esquire, the Chap)
• home and gardens (Good Housekeeping, BBC Gardeners’ World, Ideal
Home, House Beautiful)
• celebrity (OK!, Hello)
• current affairs (Time, The Economist)
• food (BBC Good Food, Olive, Delicious)
• cars (Auto Trader, Top Gear, What Car?, Auto Express)
• science, nature, environment (National Geographic, New Scientist)
• health, beauty and fitness (Slimming World, Healthy, Men’s Health)
• music (Uncut, Mojo)
• gaming (110% Gaming, PC Gamer, Retro Gamer,)
• computers (PC Pro, Computeractive)
• sport (Match of the Day, the Athletic, Four-Four-Two, When Saturday Comes)
• film (Empire, Total Film, Sight and Sound)
Hobbies & leisure: Although individual titles may not boast the huge circulations of
the mass-produced glossies, this is still a lucrative sector of the magazine market,
accounting for hundreds of special interest titles, from Amateur Photographer to
Railway Magazine and Antique Collecting. Every conceivable interest is catered for
and includes not only magazines which rub shoulders with the Radio Times on
newsagents’ shelves, but titles which can be accessed online or bought on
subscription (Bee Craft, Waterways World, Total Carp).
Only when you start studying the magazine market closely do you appreciate that
there are many professionally produced glossy magazines that most people have
never even heard of – many of which have surprisingly high circulations and are still
available on newsagents’ shelves.
THE NEWSROOM
Whatever the size of the newspaper you work for and whichever city or town in the
world you are based in, it is in the newsroom that you are going to pick up the  practical skills and experience that are going to shape the whole of your future
career.
In the late 1990s, many regional newspapers re-located to large, purpose-built
buildings on industrial estates, with ranks of flickering screens, banks of ringing
phones and an apparently vast number of men and women wandering around
looking busy, preoccupied or harassed. However many of these have now returned
to smaller city and town centre locations due to downsizing and restructuring.
Since the Covid19 pandemic many journalists have had the option of ‘hybrid working’
with their week split between home and office. However, according to the Reuters
Institute many publishers worry that the full implications of the hybrid newsroom have
not been fully worked through, with concerns about losses to ‘creativity,
communication, and culture’.
It added that managers also worry about issues like ‘proximity bias’, where the
voices of those working remotely get ignored while those physically in the office and
so close to decision makers benefit by being there in person.
Whatever happens to future working practices, the basic staffing structure is likely to
have a similar pattern. In overall charge of the company or publishing centre there is
likely to be a managing director who is concerned with the commercial success of
the operation – the firm’s profitability, strategic planning and development, capital
expenditure and dividends for shareholders and investors; and whether it expands or
diversifies into new areas or must make cutbacks.
He or she will appoint and work closely with the editor and advertising manager,
each of whom are in complete control of their respective departments. How many
other departments there are will depend on factors like the size of both the
publication and the individual centre and whether it is an independent family concern
or part of a larger group.
A publishing centre may have its own accountant, personnel manager, marketing
manager, transport manager, production manager and a variety of other key
senior roles, depending on whether it has, for example, its own presses and a
dedicated fleet of vehicles. Increasingly such roles are likely to be shared by a
number of different publishing centres and overall staffing levels have been reduced
dramatically in the past 20 years.
The editor – or in some larger centres the managing editor – is in overall control of
the entire editorial department. He or she will be responsible for hiring and firing
journalists (even if interviews are delegated to other members of the team),
formulating editorial policy and maintaining or improving circulation and online
engagement. The editor is ultimately responsible for every word and picture that
appears in the paper and online.

 

On the smallest papers the editor may also be the paper’s reporter, sub-editor and
features writer combined. But on most weekly papers he or she will usually have a
small team of reporters (some located in district offices) a sub- editor (responsible
for laying out and designing the paper and editing copy), along with one or more
photographers.
Increasingly the sub-editing team and photographers are likely to be located in a
group’s head office and will work for a range of titles.
A modern weekly paper with a circulation of around 15,000 might therefore be
produced by an editorial staff of up to 10, although the exact make-up of the team –
and their official titles – will vary from town to town. On a busy weekly paper regional
daily, there will usually be a news editor in charge of a team of reporters. He or she
may also be referred to as the head of content and is arguably the most important
individual in the newsroom – and certainly the person whom the reporters will be
anxious to please.
The news editor will liaise closely with the chief sub-editor, who is responsible for
organising the team of sub-editors who design and lay out the pages, and the
picture editor, who runs the picture desk and the photographic team.
There is likely to be a sports editor, possibly with their own team of writers and subeditors, and a features editor, again heading up a small writing and subbing unit.
On national newspapers there might be a team of digital production journalists
responsible for subbing, editing and publishing digital content for the website, app
and social channels. These roles sit in the key editorial areas – news, business,
sport, features and lifestyle.
Daily papers tend to gather news during the course of the day and edit and design
pages in the evening. As it is impossible for the editor to be on duty around the clock,
he is likely to have a night editor in charge of the production of the paper,
overseeing the shift that ends at 1am in the morning (or later) when the final pages
have gone to press.
With the increasing drive towards more flexible working practices within the industry,
there are many individuals on newspapers who fulfil a variety of different jobs,
particularly by combining reporting and editing skills. Such individuals are often
known as writer/subs and are likely to balance a portfolio of different writing and
sub-editing tasks. You will also come across the term page editors – this refers to
sub-editors who will take complete responsibility for designing individual pages in the
paper, editing all the copy for that page, sizing up pictures and signing off the
finished page.
Some editors have opted to organise their newsrooms slightly differently in order to
further maximise flexibility. Instead of the conventional news-sport-features set-up,
they have created a number of ‘pods’ or dedicated teams of journalists responsible
for specific areas of the paper’s content and answerable to an overall head of
content. Each pod, which might contain anything from two to six or more staff,
would incorporate multi-skilled staff who can switch readily between writing stories,
editing copy and laying out pages.

 

 

 

Whichever format an editor uses to organise his or her staff, there is likely to be at
least one daily conference at which desk heads will be asked what content they are
proposing to include in their section of the paper. There may also be separate
meetings with the features editor and leader writer(s), and weekly forward planning
meetings when the emphasis is on identifying events that are coming up, along with
special publications, staffing arrangements, etc.
Depending on the outcome of the daily conference, the news editor will allocate their
staff a range of different duties. The decision as to who does which job may be dictated
by the number of staff on duty, the skills, experience, speed and expertise of specific
reporters and the number of jobs in the diary.
Some will have to make phone calls and send emails remotely or from the office,
others may have to go out on a story – either alone, or with a photographer. They
may even have to take photos themselves. On a busy regional paper, a reporter may
be expected to complete a long list of assignments in the course of a shift. On a
national or Sunday paper, a specialist or features writer might spend a day or more
working on a single assignment.
A trainee journalist’s first task of the day might be to visit a couple celebrating their
golden wedding anniversary or speak to a mother who has only just learned that her
son has been killed in a car accident.
You might have to spend the morning at magistrates’ court or the evening in a
council meeting. You might have to attend a police press conference, report on the
success of a local festival, or interview a young mum who claims she has been the
victim of online bullying. Whichever assignment the news editor puts your name
against, you will also know exactly how much time you have to get the story – and
that may be the biggest challenge of all.
After writing up the piece on your laptop you may be asked to package your story
with pictures, inline links and video before uploading it to the newspaper’s content
management system, in order to create a compelling story for the online audience.
The final piece of the jigsaw is having to promote your story on social media.
Having discovered a little more about what journalism actually involves, it’s time for
you to tackle your first writing assignment – a fairly straightforward task, but the first
of many during the course that will help you to establish a discipline of writing
regularly for publication.
Don’t be disconcerted if this takes a little longer to complete than you anticipated –
one of the bonuses of writing regularly is that your speed will pick up as your
confidence grows.
One of the aims of this exercise is also to assess how well you present material
without being given any formal guidance. Along with detailed feedback from your
tutor, you will also receive guidelines on how to present your work for publication as
the course develops.

 

ASSIGNMENT ONE
The exercises that follow have been devised to help you and your tutor assess your
writing skills and command of English. You will also get experience writing to a
precise word-count. Work at your own pace; do not rush. Your tutor will give you
indications of your performance to help you assess your competence to complete
practical tasks. It would be appreciated if you could put all the exercises into one
Word document or use Google docs. Failing that paste them all onto an email.
1. Submit a personal statement giving details about yourself, include your age,
education, background, current occupation (if any), interests and hobbies.
State whether you have had any articles published to date and whether or not
your object in taking the course is to seek full-time employment in journalism.
Complete the exercise in not more than 200 words.
2. Give details of your journalistic ‘equipment’ and level of achievement in typing
and shorthand, where appropriate. State the academic standard of your
English and give details of the books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and
websites you have read recently. How often do you access social media and
for what purpose? (150 words maximum).
3. Write a factual report (not a review or a personal commentary) in 300 words
after attending one of the following events. (This exercise is to test your ability
to observe and report facts).
• a public meeting
• a public auction sale
• a special event
• a business talk or workshop
• any local exhibition
Please note we forbid the use of generative AI for assignments such as
ChatGPT. All assignments are now scanned by an advanced AI checker to
ensure the rules are adhered to and academic integrity is maintained. It is
important for us to see the raw, unfiltered version of your writing to give you the
most accurate feedback. Any assignment that contravenes this policy will be
given a zero grade which could put you at risk of failing the course. Thanks for
your co-operation.