4Talent Blog
Emily Askew | 4Talent & The Guardian Journalism Days | November 2012
This 4Talent Day in London was designed specifically for 30 aspiring journalists and saw 4Talent join forces with The Guardian to produce two memorable days.
As the 30 aspiring Journalists slowly began to arrive eagerly anticipating the day’s events they were greeted by 4Talent Co-ordinator Priscilla Baffour who outlined the agenda and what to expect over the two days. 4Talent Manager, Glynn Ryland, was next to the stage and highlighted how important it was to stand out from the crowd, not to wait for permission and to look for the platforms to launch yourself from. All great tips were noted down by the Journalists ready to put into action. The journalists were also encouraged to tweet throughout the day sharing their thoughts and experiences using the #4Tdays hash tag.
The second guest of the day was Ewan McIntosh, founder of global consultancy ‘No Tosh’. He spent three hours focussing on creating your online digital footprint with the motto ‘If you can’t be a good online Journalist, you can’t be a Journalist at all.’ The Journalists took part in a number of activities to help develop their skills such as describing yourself in five nouns, the elevator pitch which involved introducing yourself in fifty three seconds (harder than you think!), perfecting your handshake, asking ‘Have you Googled yourself recently?’ and my favourite - Twitter analysis.
When Ewan explained he would be selecting some of the journalists to analyse their twitter pages there were some worried faces in the crowd and people slowly sunk deeper into their chairs hoping not to be picked but in fact, all Journalists were very grateful for the advice and constructive criticism Ewan gave them. One great tip I noted down was to have more confidence when writing your bio - instead of putting ‘aspiring journalist’ simply put ‘journalist’ as this looks more professional and creates a bold statement about yourself. Ewan also explained it was important to have a professional image, to be careful what you tweet about and to make your account public as more people will be inclined to follow you.
As Ewan’s insightful three hours came to an end it was time for lunch and everyone headed down to the restaurant to continue to network with each other and take advantage of their free five pound voucher!
After lunch the afternoon began with a talk from Channel 4’s New Media Commissioning Editor, Vicky Taylor, who described her job role and the journey she took to get to where she is today. She was very enthusiastic which conveyed through to the journalists and set thumbs quickly tweeting about the information they had learnt.
Another question and answer session followed with ITN Programme Editor, Rachel Jupp who gave the Journalists a detailed day to day description of what her day involves from getting into work at ITN, having a meeting with her team to discuss the day’s news, deciding what to feature on the six o’clock news, creating the stories, more meetings and getting ready to go live to the nation! Rachel, like most of the staff the Journalists met over the course of the two days, has slowly worked her way up to her dream job by networking with industry professionals, completing work experience and working in a number of different departments and at different companies to finally get to where she is today.
The last part of the day consisted of welcoming back 4Talent Co-ordinator Priscilla Baffour who spoke about the great work 4talent do for young talent and up and coming opportunities. People Development Advisor, Eva Ferri, also spoke about the Investigate Journalism Scheme, work experience, apprenticeships and a number of others available in the coming year.
As the fun-packed and eye-opening first day drew to a close the thirty journalists left with a spring in their step feeling inspired for the final day at The Guardian.
The second day took place at The Guardian in their Education Centre, headed up by Margaret Holborn, and with support from the Sustainability team. During the day it gave the aspiring journalists a real chance to experience what it would be like to be a journalist at The Guardian. After a brief history of The Guardian and a run through of a typical day, the day’s assignment was set which would involve working in groups of two or three to produce a front cover of the day’s news.
The groups received tips along the way and welcomed visits throughout the day from members of staff including Maya Wolfe Robinson, Commissioning editor for Guardian law, News reporter Helen Pidd, Culture Community Co-ordinator Hannah Freeman, feature writer Patrick Kingsley and Political reporter Helene Mulholland. All were extremely helpful and were able to share their experience about how they made it into the media industry. One of the tips I picked up on was to keep in contact with the contacts you make so they remember your name and will know you are still interested.
Finally it was time to print and welcome Sub editor, Oren Gruenbaum, to get his feedback on the final front pages. It was a tense moment for the groups but they seemed to exceed Oren’s expectations. He pointed out a few minor suggestions to improve the front covers such as changing headlines, using different images and checking spelling - all of which the journalists found helpful.
Before the day came to an end there was time for a quick tour around the multimedia centre to see behind the scenes and a question and answer session with The Guardian’s Assistant Comment editor, Joseph Harker, who shared his experiences.
For anyone who has not attended a 4Talent Day I would highly recommend applying. Not only do you get the chance to learn from the best, and make great contacts, it is a fun and a jam packed experience. Every single person left feeling inspired and motivated to keep pursuing their career into the media industry and is still tweeting about it now!
Click here to see the photographs I took on day 2 at The Guardian.
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