Wednesday - What could possibly be worse than arriving an hour and a half late to placement? Thank you to signal failures on Northern line. I arrive and have a ‘welcome’ fag with my mentor who tells me "Our standard is up here... your writing is down here. I'll set you some research to do, might give you a bit of writing to do, probably tell you it’s shit mind, but you will learn something, I promise." With that I'm put at a desk and set to work on Titanic research. Later in the day the editor makes a comment about being late due to tube delays is not good enough. However, he also seems to vaguely compliment my scarf so I decide the two cancel each other out. Over tea and biscuits he commends my research then tells me to do more. It should also be mentioned that my ex is working in the same office this week...
Thursday - More Titanic research, interspersed with my own dissertation research and chats with some of the ten other work exp people. Some have loads of experience, some have little. Some have loads to do, some have little. I have lots of the former, little of the latter. My ex is the polar opposite, annoyingly. And he looks incredibly handsome. He also tells me my face "has got rounder". Most other work exp say they're not interested in working in local papers. Ambitious or stupid?! I would actually love to work on a local - meeting all kinds of odds and sods, thats real story telling. At 5:10 I think I have found a great story - UK's biggest Jewish school allegedly 'teaching' pupils to 'cure gays'. Editor seems to love it. Showtime?! A bit of digging around throws up that this seems to be a few disgruntled students disillusioned by teaching styles rather than actual institutionalised homophobia. Oi vey!
Friday - I carry on with a few leads for the Jewish story and find that the school in question may go to the PCC about reports so am v.glad I didn't take it as gospel from the publication I found the initial report in! Ex brings me some shortbread from an Arsenal press conference he has just been to. This will not help my ‘chubby’ face. I want to stab him. Start on some research into the Costa Concordia disaster. It’s interesting finding original statements then seeing how news outlets from the Daily Mail to the New York Times to BBC have manipulated and used them to fit their own agenda. Listen in on a phone conversation a tough senior reporter is having with someone about the Milly Dowler voicemails. Lots of swearing. Really interesting!
Saturday - I fear that I've enjoyed the best bit of my day before it has properly begun. On my 90min commute I get chatting to a girl about my book, The Slap, by Christos Tsiolkas (it is brilliant! Recently adapted for TV and shown on BBC – iPlayer it). We both agree it is brilliant and fill a Central line carriage with our chatter about the characters and their various merits and faults. By 10 I'm in the office and by 11 I'm reading a legal report about the prosecution of the captain of the Costa Concordia. I send my research over to my editor who, ten minutes later, barks my name across the office. I scuttle over and, I think, he says “Great work!” but I cannot be sure as I’m still retrieving my stomach from my mouth after having my name shouted across a national newspaper office!
Wednesday – Office seems very empty now that almost all other work exp people, including my darling ex, have left. I end up sitting next to my mentor which means far less time spent on Twitter or Daily Mail all day. I pitch him my story idea – about two ex offenders and recovering drug addicts who have turned their lives around to set up a social enterprise, ‘A 2nd Chance’, to become the first ever ex cons to be employed by the prison service! – and he seems to love it. Set to work, researching the story and later spend an hour and a half interviewing the two men. They are quite possibly two of the nicest, most inspiring people I’ve ever spoken to. I’m completely taken in by their story. Later, share a cup of tea with my mentor and tell him how excited I am about this story and he says I must never, ever lose this enthusiasm for the job.
Thursday – Begin the day on the phone to a Lord, who has been an advocate of the work done by ‘A 2nd Chance’. He was an absolute delight to chat to and commends me for giving them a voice and publishing their story. Yes! Wish that my shorthand notes could adequately reflect his fantastic RP voice! For once my mentor comes to find me rather than me seeking him out, as he does I’m doing an interview and furiously scribbling down shorthand. Hope he is impressed!? Interview a few others related to the story but struggle to get anyone from the Ministry of Justice to talk. Write up first draft.
Friday – Other than an interview with an ex offender who ‘A 2nd Chance’ have helped, I do little until lunchtime. Mentor buys me lunch and then picks apart my first draft – begins by saying I’m a ‘great’ writer and obviously have a ‘talent’ but that I’ve been restricted by writing ‘tickbox’ journalism, too busy concentrating on getting in the right amount of Who What Where When Why and quotes in, to just tell the story. We go for a fag, well, he has a fag and I drink my tea, over which he tells me that the most important thing to remember is ‘to tell the story...everything else can be added later...primarily tell the story’. I know that this is probably the simplest and best advice I’ll ever be given. (Other than that of my mother who says “God, don’t talk too much!”) He sends me away to rewrite and, in telling the story, I produce a 1500 word feature rather than a 650 news piece as he has asked for. There is so much to this story. Two men, two lifetimes of criminality and drug addiction, death of a parent, a suicide attempt, six hard years of recovery, relationships being rebuilt, schools/hostels/rehab centres and youth centres being visited, 100 other ex offenders being helped, trips to the House of Lords, meetings with various government agencies, MPs and Lords, a degree being done, a business being set up, a social enterprise being successfully built up and invested in... all this needs more than 650 words. But that is my brief, so that is what I must do.
Saturday – The office is bloody freezing on a Saturday! Mentor has a look through my second draft and says it must still be redone. I am not yet a national newspaper journalist. This is not only evident in my writing but also in the fact that I go for a little cry in the toilets between drafts! I write and rewrite again, then submit it and watch the Man Utd v Liverpool game on mute while waiting for the next lot of feedback. At 8pm, just after deadline for tomorrow’s edition of the newspaper, my mentor comes over and says some of the kindest, most inspiring and sensible advice I have ever and will ever be given. (He assures me that I am one of the best work exp he has ever seen!) I am told to never stop reading, apply emotional-intelligence as well as intelligence-intelligence, being able to sift out the bullshit from interviews and to never lose my enthusiasm for story telling... and also to rewrite my intro. And just like that, it is all over. Placement done, lessons learnt and a story to be published in the Independent on Sunday in the next few weeks. Bangin’!
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