A young journalist has got her big break – winning a job as a reporter at the York Evening Press.

Twenty-one-year-old Alex Lloyd won the Evening Press Write Stuff competition – and her prize is a job with the paper.

She won her place after submitting a news story, taking part in a day of news-gathering tasks and, with nearly a dozen other finalists, being interviewed by editorial bosses.

Alex, who has just graduated from the University of York, said was delighted – but very surprised – to have won.

She said: “I was coming up to graduation and was looking for a job in York. The first day I bought the paper for the jobs section, the competition was in there.

“I’d done a lot of work experience in journalism and it was something I was really interested in so I gave it a go. I really didn’t expect to get picked.”

Her prize will involve a five-month full-time training course at Darlington College, which starts in September. This will be followed by further work-based training on the Evening Press, as Alex works towards attaining the Newsquest Diploma in Journalism.

She graduated with a 2:1 in history and politics, said her most recent journalistic experience had been at the university newspaper, York Vision, where she had written political articles, reviews and some news.

Before that she did placements on newspapers in her native South Wales, but it was motor racing that first got her into journalism when she was still living at home.

She said: “I got into Formula One and I was a real Damon Hill fan. I started writing little pieces about motor racing and used to send them off to motor racing magazines. They never published them, but I kept going.”

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