In my pursuit of learning and exploring my future career options I had the privilege of undertaking work placement with a great team of journalists at the Bega District News.
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I was lucky enough to discover how a professional newsroom operates, it is a world of constantly working towards deadlines and pressure to get the paper out on time.
Thankfully I did learn how to prioritise tasks and what it takes to work in – what can at times be – a high pressure environment.
One of the constant and most important things that I learned at the BDN was to never assume.
I observed that technology has made the newspapers of today easier to put together. Not too long ago even the editors had it tough, often using a pencil and piece of paper to draw up what that morning’s edition was to look like, front to back.
My preferred style of journalism is hands on, a reflection of the old days of journalism (like the Victorian era in England) where journalists were often willing to fight each other over the same story.
Headlines had to be big and bold in order to attract attention and printing rumour and scandal was the order of the day, in short anything went (particularly if it sold more papers).
The journalists of old often had to go down to pubs and clubs to chase the story themselves, where many had to be willing to put themselves at risk in order to chase that ever elusive story.
If I had to sit down with a person who aspires to be a journalist I would tell them straight up: “Don’t expect to go into this job with a starry eyed view of the journalistic profession. The Victorian era is now well and truly over, journalism and journalists have had to and will continue to adapt to a world changing and evolving in its ideas and values.”