Local News - And Onto Goliath

After my first week of work experience with a 'David' of local news, I moved for the last two weeks onto a Goliath.

North London Newspapers is part of Archant, one of the largest regional publishing groups. They publish six newspapers in the area, the Islington Gazette, the Islington EC1 Gazette, the Camden Gazette, the Hornsey Journal, the Tottenham Journal and the Muswell Hill Journal.

I was introduced with a very warm welcome to the team, the editor spent some time talking to me when I arrived and seemed genuinely interested to hear about my experience. I worked during the first week on the Journal series of papers and for the second week on the Camden and Islington Gazettes.

Straight away I was given strong news stories to work on. I spent my first day ringing resident’s associations about a mega-rave at Alexandra Palace. I managed to write a longer news story mainly with the quotes I had taken and by the middle of that week it had made it into print.

I was also given lots of opportunities to follow up on story leads and see where I could take them. One by-line story came out of an email from a resident about delays to building work at a local school. For another piece, I went out and knocked on resident’s doors to find out their views on a narrow road in Highgate where five cars had crashed in a week. Despite being outdoors for two hours on a freezing day, I hardly noticed the chill. I found it really satisfying gathering the information and quotes to build a developed story from a small piece of starting information. I also completed two sets of vox-pops, interviewing residents (often less than keen!) about a set topic for the week.

After mentioning that I had some feature writing experience to the news editor, she arranged for me to write a longer feature on Asian Weddings pegged on an upcoming exhibition. I was also lucky enough to get free tickets for two dance events at Sadler's Wells (the five-year-old ballet dancer and the cash strapped student in me were both celebrating), for which I wrote reviews.

By far the most glamorous experience of my three weeks in local news came when I was dispatched out to cover the opening of a hospital ward by Prince Andrew. I’m sure this probably would have been all in a normal day’s work for the more experienced reporter, but I was excited. I moved with the jostling press pack and photographers making sure not to miss a thing and felt like a fully fledged reporter by the time I headed back to the office.

During the last couple of days, I suggested some Islington story ideas to the Gazette news editor (thanks Cherie for a really useful lead) and he encouraged me to work on them. Many phone calls later I had filed a story for the following week’s paper.

The opportunity to test my reporting and writing skills to this extent was unexpected and appreciated, plus I have rarely been in a friendlier office. The team were a great bunch of people, who were genuinely willing to help me out and pass on work that would be challenging and useful for the future.

As my last day on the job came and went I was sorry that my time as a roving news reporter had come to an end....

At least until the next time I'm set lose on an unsuspecting employer anyway!