The thrust of the argument, essentially, is that beggars can't be choosers, and when it comes to finding work as a journalist, wannabe hacks can't be picky.
It’s all too easy as a young and/or wannabe hack to imagine ourselves taking the Guardian offices by storm, rather than realising that writing for a living is as much about paying rent as it is ‘changing the world’. When I was job-hunting a fellow intern scoffed, ‘Gas and Power Magazine? Seriously?’ It’s easy done, until you see what journo job listing sites really look like and your specifications broaden considerably...
...I used to maintain, fairly ridiculously, that ‘I would rather not be a journalist than write for the Daily Mail’. Last week I interviewed for a company that provides copy for them and I’m really, really hoping I get the job. This isn’t a case of putting money before principle, but an awakening that making journalism a living comes down to who’s going to pay.Which is all correct for course, and very good advice... but FleetStreetBlues can't help but be a little amazed at the level of assumed anti-Mail prejudice among journalism students (an audience the Wannabe Hacks very much represent, so we assume they know of what they speak).
This is probably Britain's most successful daily newspaper we're talking about, linked to what is now the country's most read newspaper website. It sets the UK's political agenda, consistently determines the news of the day and is admired widely throughout the industry, even by those at the other end of the political spectrum, for having its finger firmly on the pulse of its Middle England audience.
There are valid reasons why you might not want to work there, of course. It's not for everyone - and it's fiercely competitive. But for any job-hunting journalism student to even consider dismissing it out of hand as the 'Daily Fail' is a bit surprising...
11 comments:
Good point re the job market. As to dismissing the DM out of hand - hardly!
If you want to become a journalist, then you surely have some political/ethical principles behind you. The endless bullying referred to by Private Eye's Street of Shame, the scaremongering, hypocrisy and anti-female stories peddled by the Daily Mail (to say nothing of Richard Littlejohn's bile-fuelled insanity) are reason enough to think twice about working there.
The website, showbiz and Femail stories are excellent. But if your politics/ambition lie with the Guardian, then could you ever be comfortable about working at a paper where every day brings a new subject "which could cause cancer"?
I turned down a job at Associated years ago precisely because I couldn't bring myself to work at a company that publishes such material (and, at the time, serious hatemongering) on a daily basis. I was in my early 20s and should probably have taken the experience. But it's worked out for me, because I now work at a paper whose values and moral code I share. That might sound ridiculous or unrealistic, but it lets me sleep well at night.
Going to work is infinitely more dispiriting if you have to have to peddle crap you don't agree with.
I don't think it's that surprising.
Students are idealists - they want to work somewhere which represents their ideology and views on various things.
None of the students I went to uni with would wipe their arse with the Mail, let alone consider working for it.
After a few years out in the real world they may change their minds though.
This young lady it turns out is "hoping" to get a job with a company that "supplies copy to the Daily Mail".
She's about as far away from a job on the Daily Mail as I am from Everest.
(I used to be a staff reporter with Associated, on the Mail on Sunday, for some years).
She should be so lucky, it's a pinnacle job, being a (proper) reporter on the Daily Mail !!
Did I read she's an intern on "Nylon" Magazine.
I think I'm going mad !!
Youth, eh?
Cynicism, eh?
Mikey B.
Personally I, and many other actual journos on the locals, would kill for a post at the Mail.
Anyone who says otherwise is, frankly, either a liar or has very wealthy parents.
I'm a student. I'm not idealistic. I'm not a socialist. I'm not on strike. I'd love to work for the Mail - my fourth most-desired employer.
Beggars? Not really. As a freelancer, I wrote for the Mail a few times and they paid some of the highest rates I've ever recieved. That's hardly begging...
Typical student rubbish. Get an actual job then start having moral dilemmas about who you should work for.
The Daily Mail's journalism is some of the best in the world and you don't have to agree with its politics to recognise the quality of its news gathering.
If you are lucky enough to get a sniff at working there and you are serious about being a reporter you would be insane to turn down the opportunity. They taught me all I know about hard work, commitment and reporting.
It's a tough job admittedly but I wouldn't have changed my time there for the world.
It's very easy to sneer at the Mail with its cancer stories, insanely anti-European stance, hypocrycy (printing stories about miracle weight loss and photos of sexy birds in bikinis next to pieces decrying the rise of eating disorders, for example), and the fact that it employs Liz Jones.
However, my mum, sister, granny, aunties and female cousins all read it assiduously. So do most of their menfolk, though they skip Femail. Work in any office or factory and you find plenty of women reading it at lunchtime.
Like it or not, the Mail provides something no other newspaper does and working there would put you at the forefront of British journalism.
I did just over two years on the Daily Mail before joining The Times in 1987. Paul Dacre, the current editor, was my news editor and mentor. I learned everything there and more that I failed to learn in the state primary and comprehensive education system in a remote part of the English countryside, the most important of which was how to write, how to 'be'. The fact that any journalism wannabe can diss the Mail must go to show that parts of our education system in Britain are still not working. There can be no better place to learn and practise the art of journalism - apart from The Times of course!!
I am ridiculously idealistic I do know that. If this discussion was about working for The Sun I would have to simply say I wouldn't do it. I don't agree with the Daily Mail's stance on most things but I can recognize it's journalistic quality. I would feel like a lying scumbag if I accepted a job at The Sun though.
Why is Alice Vincent pictured sniffing her own finger ? Is she too far up herself to realise how crass she sounds ?
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