Wannabe Hacks

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Agony Uncle column (25 May)

Natasha Clark - I want to undertake more placements and internships but I can barely afford it. Is anywhere able to offer financial help? 

Dear Natasha,

You're not alone - last year there were apparently 250,000 unpaid interns busily opening post and buying bulk orders from Pret, eagerly anticipating a steady income. I worked as an unpaid intern for three months before I got the faintest whiff of a payslip at a magazine, and even then it wasn't much.

Going off tangent briefly, creative jobs like journalism and similar areas in the arts suffer due to the watertight employment laws making it difficult to fire someone if they're not very good at their job. Many full time staff at a lot of nationals will be on day-rates or rolling contracts, which mean it's easy to fire/dismiss them if, say, the industry goes tits up and redundancies need to be made. In fact, one big magazine recently went under a huge editorial redesign - culling everyone on a day rate so the editorial staff was less than bare bones. Anything to save some cash. 

I know someone who tried such a trick; he was on an internship but asked if he could have fridays off so he could 'check in' at the job centre. The employer allowed it, reluctantly, but on a weekly there's a lot of work to be done every day of the week, and you'd be surprised what one day off actually does to your knowledge of the mag's production. He missed a lot of the flat plan meetings for the next weeks, so wasn't sure what was going on when he wandered in on a monday (wander is right; he had one of those casual walks that really annoy me. No purpose). Oh, and one other thing. I think it's way too dishonest and maybe illegal. SO DONT DO THAT.

Instead, try and find internships that DO pay. They are more prominent now, and i know for a fact Bauer Media offer paid internships when previously they did not, and Conde Nast's titles do offer paid, longer internships (side note; the soon-to-be-launched @Launch24 looks like it might be offering some pretty cool work ops). I think we're making some progress in terms of interns being mercilessly done over with regards to their basic human rights. Also, some mags (not naming names) do a clever thing of advertising short-term junior writer jobs. 3 months, minimum wage, little experience needed. These are internships cleverly covered up to avoid being told off. So don't be put off. 

Any jobs you can do on the side will always help; pub or restaurant work, or even a few weeks temping between work experience. I used to work for a place called RetailEyes which was a secret shopping company, and during my internships or periods of low income I'd go and do odd tasks for a bit of money. Sometimes I'd get £20 for going to Boots, buying a Mars bar and commenting on the customer service. It's not glamorous, but then hey, nobody promised Glamour in this industry. Not even at Glamour, the magazine about glamour. It's surprisingly unglamorous. 

Some further reading, since I probably didn't help out much at all: a good piece on struggling with unpaid work. Check this place, too, for an innovative scheme pairing unpaid interns with people who have a spare room.

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The US-based Twitter accounts you should be following

The United States is all the rage these days. Everyone is doing it. The Daily Mail and the Guardian included. We’ve got an election coming up, Laurie Penny nearly got hit by a car (and saved by Ryan Gosling OMG SWOON), there’s a row going on in Florida about Trayvon and we’re still in a war abroad. Twitter’s got a funny way of making you feel connected to somewhere even if you’re an ocean away, so if you’re a budding hack and amerophile - these accounts are for you to follow! You can also follow for other reasons such as:

wanting to see tweets which don’t add unnecessary letters

a general interest journalism in the states

looking to even out your follower/following ratio

you’re bored

Here are my suggestions (and their Twitter page descriptions). They range from useful to generally stupid. @muckrack is especially useful. @romenesko is great as well, especially for media gossip and industry news.

@IRE_NICAR

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc., is a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting.

@wjchat

#wjchat is a chat for web journalists on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. PDT. We talk about all things content, technology, ethics, & business of journalism on the web.

@TweetsofOld

We attempt to reveal the lives of our predecessors through the tweets of yesteryear: Real one-line brevities from old newspapers, as they appeared--or close.

@muckrack

Following journalists on Twitter since 2009. For journalists:http://muckrack.com/journalists For PR:http://muckrack.com/pros

@romenesko (great for media gossip and industry news)

Visit JimRomenesko.com http://jimromenesko.com

@NiemanLab

The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University: Trying to figure out the future of news.

@jayrosen_nyu

I teach journalism at NYU, direct the Studio 20 program there, critique the press and try to grok new media. I don't do lifecasting but mindcasting on Twitter.

@foiaproject (DO YOU LIKE PUBLIC DOCUMENTS?! I DO!!)

Freeing information through public accountability http://foiaproject.org

@beakeringnews

@BreakingNews meep meeeeeeep meep meeeeeeeep meeeeeep meeeep. Meeeeep meep @pgengler

@ethanklapper

Social Media Editor, @HuffPostPol at @HuffingtonPost. Formerly at@nationaljournal and @10000Words. @AmericanU alumnus.

[wannabehacks-blog]

The life of a sub

Last week I had possibly the craziest week of my life. I was working with some other students on my course to create a 16 page tabloid newspaper to promote Pits n Pots, a local politics website in Stoke-on-Trent.

It all started when Charlie Burgess of The Journalism Foundation came in to do one our lectures. At the end, he said he had an opportunity for us to create this newspaper and anyone who was interested should come along to a meeting after the lecture.

Knowing how insanely busy my life is at the moment with Wannabe Hacks, dissertation work, other uni work and trying to have something of a social life, I decided to go along to the meeting and offer to design a page or two and that would be that. It would look good on my CV without me having to do too much or it taking up too much of my time. Things never go quite as you expect though, and by the end of the meeting I'd become the chief sub editor. I don't think I'll ever know quite how that happened.

Life as a sub was absolutely mental. It was very stressful and I feel like I spent most of the week wanting to strangle reporters. This wasn't helped by the fact that our strong team of about 15 fell to a team of four for most of the week. 

I spent hours making decisions on font styles and sizes, a colour theme and generally what we wanted to make the paper look like. And then I spent hours going through pages that other people had created making sure they had followed the style.

When we eventually got copy in I had to trawl through it, correct any grammar or spelling mistakes and make sure nothing we said would get us into legal trouble. And then I had to cut it down to make it fit into the hole we had on the page. 

And then came the real challenge. I had to make sure we didn't have any widows or orphans within the text. This is where you have a paragraph that ends on the first line of a column or starts on the last line of a column. Anyone who has ever done any form of subbing will tell you what a nightmare this can be. Especially when to get rid of one widow or orphan causes you to create two more. There is genuinely no joy that comes close to matching the joy of getting all the copy to fit into the page properly.

One of my least favourite things about being a sub was writing headlines. Trying to find something that is witty and intelligent but also tells the story in a few words and fits into the gap you have at the top of the story is no mean feat.

So, after a week as a chief sub, I have a new found respect for all subs everywhere. I think they do an amazing job that's definitely not easy to do. In fact, it's bloody hard. So, to subs everywhere, I doff my cap.

Oh, and in case you're interested, here's the front page from the newspaper. Let me know what you think on twitter @wannabehacks

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Top tips for your journalism Masters interview

It’s interview season with lots of wannabe hacks setting off to City, Cardiff, Goldsmiths and beyond nervously clutching their portfolios. If you’re not sure how to prepare for your journalism MA interview, never fear because we have some tips.

On Monday we asked current journalism postgrads to tweet us the questions they were asked at interview. For the full collection of #interviewQs check our Storify:

5 top tips for preparation:

Read the papers and watch the news THAT MORNING. You will get quizzed on current events, from global politics to pop culture.

They are going to ask you what newspapers and magazines you read, and who your favourite journalists are. Make sure you have answers.

Similarly, they will ask you why you want to do a journalism masters. Make sure you can answer that convincingly and realistically.

Get a friend or relative to help you pick apart your CV and portfolio with a critical eye. Think of how you will explain any holes or contradictions.

It sounds cheesy, but be yourself. Be the best version of yourself, yes, but don’t say anything you don’t believe. You will be interviewed by journalists – they can sniff out inauthenticity.

And for a final word of advice from Hannah, check out the video. Best of luck!

[wannabehacks-blog]

Website update

So that big fancy launch didn’t go exactly as we had hoped. Due to various problems our new site has been having trouble loading and often crashing as we’re sure many of you will have noticed. For that we apologise but assure you that no one is more frustrated about it than we are. We want our new site to have all the great features we promised you and to facilitate debate more than ever but until it’s working properly we have decided it is best to take the new site down. That DOES NOT mean we are disappearing. We will still be operating as normal, publishing content, producing a newsletter and chatting on Twitter and Facebook. The only difference will be the site. So we hope you will continue to be patient with us, your support is always appreciated. We hope it won’t be long until we can give you the site we wanted. In the meantime keeping reading and commenting on the content, chatting with us on Twitter, sending in all those brilliant guest posts and treating Wannabe Hacks in the same way as you have always done. The site might be down, but we’re not going anywhere. Thanks, The Hacks

[treedance]

The US ranks 47 on Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index

Coming in at the top two spots are Finland and Norway.

Coming just before the US: Tawain, Comoros and South Korea.

Just after: Argentina, Romania and Latvia.

Via Reporters Without Borders:

The United States (47th) also owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalist covering Occupy Wall Street protests.

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@jonoffredo talks about the classifieds and looking for an apartment

@jonoffredo talks about the classifieds and looking for an apartment (mp3)

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There will be a few journalism related prizes on offer for the winners in our Guest Post awards too but this prize makes it worth nominating your guest post surely? A brilliant hoody courtesy of http://www.tekkers.co.uk - should come in handy what with all those windy winter weeks ahead of us... 

Send your nominations to [email protected] and we'll be making a shortlist for both categories next week. 

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I couldn't agree with this more

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Wannabe Hacks 'How to' guides - we need your help

Wannabe Hacks are planning on putting together a whole host of 'how to guides' - from how to pitch a national newspaper, to tips and tricks for phone interviews and everything else in between. These are going to be available on the site and to download as PDFs. 

We have a good list to get us started, but in the spirit of Hacks and our community of young journalists we want to know what guides you would like to see and which guides you think other young wannabes will need in the future.

In this Google doc spreadsheet we have listed a few of our ideas to get you all started - but really we just want you to dive in and add any ideas you have (and your Twitter handle so we can credit you as well)

Please get stuck in and @ us @wannabehacks if you're having any problems or have any further comments. 

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The New Hacks at #newsrw - guess who's who Newsrw-0081 (by John C Thompson)

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Introducing Hacks 2.0

The moment you've been waiting for has arrived: say hello to the five new Wannabe Hacks.

It's been a pretty interesting process for us to hire our successors. It's fair to say that Hacks has been a labour of love, and so we wanted to be sure that we were passing our baby into 10 capable and talented hands. Thankfully, we were blown away by 60 fantastic applications and whittling it down to just five really was tough.

Naturally, we've got big plans for the site and our Hacks 2.0 are integral to making these happen. We've hired the new Hacks with a view to giving you an even better insight into how to make it in journalism, following five distinct routes into the industry and all the trials and tribulations that come with them. To reflect this, the new Hacks have aliases which reflect their routes.

Meanwhile, the original Hacks aren't going to be kicking back. Doubling our workforce means more people and time to make new changes to the Hacks brand, so hopefully you'll be seeing more of us - just maybe not on the site.

Hacks 2.0 will be introducing themselves everyday this week. But here they are in brief. Without further ado:

The Undergrad Natalie Clarkson @NatalieJosh

The Postgrad Hannah Bass @mhd_bass

The Intern Emily Handford @emily_handford

The Entrepreneur Jonathan Frost @Frost_J

The Jobseeker Jon Offredo @jonoffredo

We hope you'll join us in welcoming to Wannabe Hacks!

We're really looking forward to their posts on the site, but as ever, we want to hear from you too! Keep your guestpost pitches ([email protected]), ideas and comments coming.

[wannabehacks-blog]

Wannabe Hacks - down but not out

You may have noticed that www.wannabehacks.co.uk is down at the moment (of course you may be enjoying your weekend and not have the foggiest).

Either way - we're down for the weekend while we make a few tweaks to the current site (not a new one yet I'm afraid) and we will be back for your reading pleasure with five new Hacks come Monday morning. 

See ya Monday. 

[wannabehacks-blog]

Top 50 journalism work placements: how we decided

The votes have been counted and verified and we now have an official top 50 journalism work placements list!

Firstly, thanks to everyone who took the time to nominate via email or Twitter, we had a great response and really appreciate your input. We'll be unveiling the top 50 in a tantalising rundown, ten placements a day, with the winners announced on Friday.

Secondly, we thought we’d shine some light on the process and how we arrived at our final 50 placements. When the deadline closed on the Friday 27th June, we had 76 nominations (thanks again!). Now, this might not sound like a huge amount but we think it’s more than enough to give a snapshot of the best journalism work placements around.

We thought for a long time about how we would list the placements and eventually decided on a very unscientific ranking system. In short, the publications which got more than one vote went towards the top of the list (obviously) and the remaining nominations were ranked based on a combination of a) how much we thought was learnt on the placement from the 40 words we were given (there’s subsequently a slight weighting towards emailed nominations because they could offer the appropriate detail but this isn't overwhelming) and b) ensuring a variety of mediums, publications, sections and geographical locations. The result is what you see before you, a fascinating and diverse range of the best journalism work placements.

We do, however, understand that the list is subjective and by no means conclusive. If your nomination didn't make the list, we're sorry, and if you're placement didn't make it as high up the list as you would have liked, please justify so in the comments, we'd like to continue the debate and establish what makes a great placement.

If you have any questions or queries about the process, be sure to comment below or email [email protected] and we’ll be sure to get back to you.

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(via The 25 Best Places to Photograph on Planet Earth | Popular Photography)