A budding teenage journalist will gain on-the-job training from a regional publisher after being picked for a new apprentice scheme.
Hayley Anderson, 19, has joined Archant London’s editorial team based in Ilford as an apprentice journalist, rather than going to university after leaving school.
She will receive on-the-job training from the publisher while attending specialised courses in journalism, media law and ethics at Lambeth College for one day a week.
The apprenticeship is run in partnership with the National Council for the Training of Journalists, with government backing, and other newspaper groups are also running similar schemes.
Hayley Anderson interviews a subject for a story.
Malcolm Starbrook, editor-in-chief at Archant London, said: “The NCTJ is to be congratulated. It has created this scheme which will allow those with the fire in the belly for journalism, the chance to fulfil their dreams without having to go to university first.
“I believe our scheme will provide a fantastic opportunity for an individual to kick-start a career in regional newspapers, but it will also allow editors to recruit local people and ensure they reflect the social and ethnic mix of the communities we serve.”
Hayley will train for two years on the Essex and east London titles, working across the print and digital operations, and will also gain experience on the company’s London24 website.
She said: “I initially applied for this apprenticeship because I always knew that I wanted to be a journalist and this felt like such an amazing opportunity and a real first step into my dream job.
“At the same time I was accepted into university but when I heard that I got offered a place here, there wasn’t really any way that I could turn it down.
“I think that the apprenticeship can offer me more than university, because it lets me learn everything I need to know without all the extra hassle of writing pointless essays and getting myself into loads of debt.”
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So we’re returning to the traditional way of training journalists – hopefully it will also attract some decent recruits to a once great profession.
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Eeek ! Aren’t we in danger of re-inventing the wheel here. I can remember when most budding journalists learned their trade ‘on the job’ but that of course was when there were some senior reporters left in the office with the time to train them. When I did my training, all those years ago, taking trainees to court, council meetings etc was considered the norm and it was definitely the best way to learn. Expecting youngsters to go to university running up thousands of pounds of debt, then paying them less a supermarket checkout operative when they start work is frankly ridiculous. The 36 week long NCTJ course which teaches the basics, shorthand, law, public admin etc is perfectly adequate grounding for budding hacks , the rest you learn by working on a paper not listening to lecturers.
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A great opportunity for bright local youngsters. The scheme should be applauded.
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Learning journalism by working on a newspaper. Barmy idea.
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So, newspaper gives young person work experience… big news!
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@Sunnysouth An Apprenticeship is a real job – not work experience.
This link tells you about Apprenticeships in general
http://www.apprenticeships.org.uk/about-us/national-apprenticeship-service.aspx
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Glad to see on the job schemes finally making a return. I hope this is the way forward for a lot of trainees. I’ve long thought there are many young people out there capable of doing the job but are defeated by the need for university or college qualifications first. As one who has only five O levels to his name, that would have ended my ambitions right away. Concentrating on raising reporter salaries should be next move!
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A great idea which used to be the norm 30 years ago. I joined the Bury Free Press just before my 19th birthday and was then sent to Woodston in Peterborough to be trained by Phil Hoare and Jeff Humphreys. I couldn’t have had better training.
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I didn’t realise this had ever gone away! Glad to see it back and I hope Hayley enjoys her on-the-job training. Back in the 70s I did 2 x 8-week block release courses in law etc at Highbury College, Portsmouth, arranged by my employer, so I had the best of both worlds – paid work and a taste of college life.
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