A regional daily crime reporter who scooped three out of four NCTJ excellence awards in 2014 is quitting journalism for a police PR role.
Paul Berentzen, left, of The Gazette, Blackpool, began his new job working for Lancashire’s police and crime commissioner today.
In July 2014, Paul scooped three out of the four awards available for performance for those taking the National Qualification in Journalism – the Ted Bottomley Award for media law and practice, the Esso Award for news report, and the Society of Editors’ Award for news interview.
In the same year, the National Council for the Training of Journalists, which runs the NQJ, awarded him its Trainee Reporter of the Year title, as well as the Pamela Meyrick Award for the best NQJ candidate of the year working on a newspaper in the North of England or North Wales.
In his new role, Paul will serve as press and digital media officer for Lancashire PCC Clive Grunshaw.
Paul had worked for The Gazette since August 2013, having begun his career with the North West Evening Mail in June of the previous year.
He said: “I’ve been lucky to have the chance to work with some very talented journalists at The Gazette over the last two and a half years. I wish them all the best in the future.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed working at the paper and will look back fondly on my time on the Fylde coast. But I felt the time was right for a change in direction and am looking forward to a fresh challenge in my new role.”
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Another award-winning youngster turning to PR or comms before their career has even started – but who can blame him? Regional reporters these days are treated like s***e. I’m sure he’ll miss journalism but at least he’ll be paid a fair wage for his services and won’t be half as stressed. As for management, they’re not doing their jobs by letting these kind of people go but we all know the suits at publishers like NQ and JP don’t care for quality.
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Sign of the times but not surprising when an award winning journalist decides his career lies outside of the regional press. Says all we need to know about whether young people see a future in the regional press.
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Oh dear! If young, talented, whizzkids are dumping journalism before they reach their prime, what are us old trouts going to do?
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Flossie – you could always start by learning the difference between “us” and “we.”
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All the experienced people gone,the best real journalists left and thriving in competitor media and now the bright young things seeing their future lies elsewhere, and what are you left with ?
Who said its a great career with a future? None of the above that’s for sure
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Mmmm… I wonder if, given his obvious ability, he should have moved to a new paper first or even tried shifting for the nationals?
You’d have to respect his decision no matter what but it is a shame such a talent has left the job so early without making more of a mark.
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If anyone thought there was a career in the regional press for young people and good journalists in 2016 please read this story.
With young people like Paul leaving,coupled with the implosion of the uk regional press over the past 4-5 years the future’s bleak for anyone with talent and ambition looking to make a career in journalism.
Local newspapers have become little more than ad grabbers and commercial enterprises published to get money from their local communities yet even that’s failing with revenues at all time lows and profits on the floor.
Adfeats thrown together, often by the reps themselves,coupled with dreadful photographs taken by the rep or the customer on a camera phone seem to make up the majority of the papers I see with no apparent quality control or anyone upholding standards.
It’s no wonder award winning journalists decide there’s no kudos in working on a regional these days,with no one to look up to and everyone looking over their shoulders why would you stay?
Good luck to Paul and his like,there’ll always be work for a journalist of quality just not in the regional press.
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ease up old pedant. Its an informal comments web not a paper of record. But I do agree grammar etc in papers is at an all-time low.
My theory is that the people doing the editing (if any editing is done) are too young to know how to write properly. And most of the old devils who did know have sensibly cleared off.
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The main issue here isn’t simply the dire money or lack of opportunity (the lack of money has always been an issue really) the problem is that talent isn’t valued.
If you give the editor in chief sat 20 miles away a choice between Woodward and Bernstien for 25k a year and some fresh out of college kid on 14k, they’ll take the kid every single time.
As far as they’re concerned the public don’t deserve the respect of having good journalism delivered by good journalists, afterall, anyone can rehash a press release – I used to do about ten an hour while listening to the Boon themetune on YouTube and playing on my Game Boy.
As for this job he’s taken, sounds like a cushy little gig – hats off!
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Young journalists should avoid the corporately owned local press if they wish to pursue lucrative and fulfilling careers. I understand the vocational nature of the calling but when it comes to paying off mortgages and having children further down the line, it makes less sense now than it ever did. And it’s debatable if any of these companies will even survive the next five years. One City of London fund manager I know offers a graduate entry-level salary of £67.5k pa, rising quickly with bonuses, regular pay reviews and ample opportunity for promotion if you do well. Does your TM/NQ/JP-owned Trumpton Weekly News give you any of that? I suspect not.
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Jeff Jones is right – talent isn’t valued at any stage. The same applies to the skills and contacts we continue to grow over the years. A ‘content gatherer’ is judged by how cheap their services can be obtained per click, not the value of what they produce.
Anyway, Paul seems a very bright young chap with a sensible head on his shoulders. Good luck to him, I suspect he will go far, but not on our side of the media fence where his undoubted abilities would be wasted.
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Sorry folks but three-and-a-bit years as a hack is hardly in it for the long haul eh? Perhaps young Paul was a whizz at exams but there’s not a lot of scope to judge beyond that.
Three out of the four best journalists I’ve known over the past 20 years either barely scraped through their NCE or never bothered (two out of the four had never darkened the door of a university but that’s a debate for another day).
Good luck to the lad as the latest in a lengthening line of Lancashire ex-crime reporters to plump for fluffing Clive Grunshaw’s pillows.
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Well said Jeff Jones. Journalistic talent has never been valued. Paying journalists as little as possible has always been ‘the norm’.
When I was an editor I always hiked up the salary of any new arrival as that was the only way I could hope to get pay levels up. Every time I did it I had a fight with ‘the management’. The same management that never saw a problem paying an ad manager double the salary of a news editor.
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If I was young again and thinking about going into journalism, I think I would take more notice of my late father’s advice: “Join the RAF, son. It’s a great career!”
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