Experience in work experience

So valued readers welcome to my last blog post of the second year.

                    

This week I want to discuss the idea of work experience. As a journalist student it has been stressed to me that value of experience could easily dictate if you get a job or not.

Again I feel this another area of journalism I'm having to in a sense learn to bite my tongue and do as I'm told. As our lecturer Deborah Wilson has explained all the platforms of journalism are criss crossing, for example many print publication are training journalists TV broadcast skills to produce videos for their websites.

Now when I'm looking for work experience it feels like I should not only choose work experience on platforms I'm keen on entering but the ones I'm possibly not so keen on. For example print lecturer Tim Greenfield encourages his students to look for work experience in P/R alongside journalism since the worlds are slowly merging (though maybe this isn't totally a good thing) and to 'see if we like it our not.'

Keeping all of this in mind I've decided that their are six distinctive areas of the industry in which I should look for work experience in:

Print- newspaper

Print- magazine

Online

Radio

TV

P/R

So now I've stated that list I'm going to think sensibly about where I could find these opportunities and how other journalism students could use it:

Print- newspaper- Local newspapers and to an extent nationals if you can provide material they'd be interested in.

Print- magazine- Again local magazines are good source but specialists are good. For example freelancing for magazine of a subject you're interested in. Even children magazines are good for this as were close to the age of the target audience.

Online- In my experience many online websites are keen on recruiting freelancers to write articles.

Radio- Community radio is gold mine of work experience you gain so many skills in terms of your career and socially as learn to interact with people of all walks of life.

TV- Now this one is tough. However ITV do offer various internships in which you can help out on various TV shows on their network.

P/R- So this is a toughie, but I've found that a lot of P/R companies advertise via universities job sites and also it could be a good idea to email a P/R lecturer for their advice.

So far I've had experience in radio via Siren FM and my BBC Lincolnshire placement and online via the Lincolnite. Though this is not at an end as their are still lots of opportunities in those fields and theirs still loads to learn. However realistically I do aim to have at least some competent experience in each sector over the next few years.

Twethics

It's clear that Twitter has become a staple of the social media (well until it's reign ends) and thus many journalists use it as a communication skills or more importantly as a extension of their CV.

Through this surprisingly simple social network format is not just simply used in professional capacity. An example could be how Piers Morgan has used his Twitter to conduct arguments with celebrities in the case of Gary Lineker. Who swiftly answered his tweet:

Clearly etqiue is required for the use of social media for journalists, even in our un-professional capacity we should be careful about what we say our words our more powerful then we think. Johann Hari was even found to use the anonymity of the internet to attack and criticise people who gave his work a negative review.

Even though many of journalists and professionals add to their Twitter descriptions 'All views are my own' I feel some people use this in a way to excuse slightly unethical things.

 haven't added this to my Twitter descriptions because mainly it's a pet peeve and a sign that some people tend to take themselves to seriously. Also I feel some common sense is needed with this, people must realise that these are private accounts, groups and companies have their own Twitter accounts.

At the end of the day journalists ethics should apply to our private lives, like listening to all side of the stories, not posting cruel comments about a subject like I almost did yesterday about Piers Morgan but decided to keep my integrity and keep my views to myself.

When it comes to social media and journalists in their spare time. An old saying could be advised 'If you can't say anything nice don't say it at all'.