Journalism has a bit of a gloss on it. Not least because the people we get our information from are journalists. Journalists write books, make television serials, documentaries, and most importantly, report current affairs.
Nobody ever wants to believe they're doing something other people can do. So journalists, with the power to tell large numbers of people something, and for them to believe it, can essentially say what they want. In particular, they can say what they want about journalism, because only journalists know what that actually entails, and even if anyone else did find out, they're not in a position to tell anybody.
So as things are, nobody knows anything about journalism because journalists are basically allowed to believe their own hype.
Not any more. I'm blowing the lid on journalism. No longer will it be swathed in mystique, starring noble lay detectives who will do anything for the truth. No longer will it star larger-than-life antiheroes, with an ego the size of the moon and a conscience that can only be seen under an electron microscope.
Nepotism aside, before starting work as a journalist, you must qualify. Before you can qualify, you must undergo a period of work experience. This is not as a means of ensuring you have the necessary skills. It's to thin the ranks.
Having just spent the best part of a week working at the Oldham Evening Chronicle in my former home town, I can speak with authority on the subject.
The first massively disappointing thing about journalism is that, if you've ever worked in an office, as most of us have or will for an enormous chunk of our lives, you've experienced the bulk of it. It is office work, in a grey, windowless environment, where lunch hour is the cue to run and find something vaguely exciting to stop you going mental. Such as a car park, or an escalator.
At the Chron, I had a desk, with a phone and a computer. The phone was not ringing incessantly as story after story came in. The only time it ever made a noise was to tell me I'd accidentally knocked it off the hook. The computer was not top-of-the range, with twin monitors, one with my current article loaded up, the other with a rolling barrage of breaking news. It was an Apple Mac, running OS 9.
For anyone unfamiliar with OS 9, you may want to go and find an abacus, and try typing up a 300-word article on that.
To access the internet, I had to go to another computer, which was shared by all the writers.
Yes, not exactly what we'd all been led to believe. Not once was I asked for a skinny latte/scotch by the editor. Though, I don't think anything about me suggests I have the temperament to stand for that kind of treatment on work experience.
When it came to chasing leads, there certainly were an awful lot of chases going on, and ninety-nine percent of those were of the wild-goose variety. I made phone calls, nobody was there. When people were there, they didn't know anything. When they did know something, they weren't allowed to say anything until they'd spoken to PR. When they'd spoken to PR, they told me I had to go through someone else, who was either on holiday, didn't know anything, or had spoken to another journalist but a few seconds earlier.
I also got a chance to go to court, which I can't say anything about or else a magistrate will come and get me.
Joking aside, it was an interesting experience, and though it did take all day to get to the case we were there to see, I saw things I'd never seen in my life before.
Journalism is largely fruitless. It's not characterised by writer's block because usually the gratefulness of finally getting the pieces of a story together will force it out of you. It's not characterised by sucking up to the boss, nor throwing away the rule book or any of that. Those are plot devices. It's real life, and it's boring.
Or it should be. It's just not, though. Maybe I'm just mental, but I enjoyed it. It's the feeling of finding a needle in a haystack. It's seeing the words "by SACHA TORREGROSA-JONES" on a real-life news article. Knowing someone's going to read it, be moved by it in some way.
One of the people I met working in Oldham had previously worked at a fashion magazine, and assured me that things were infinitely worse there. Journalists were only expected to write a single article per week, and did very little else. No wonder Ugly Betty was cancelled.
I was never bored. Not for a second. I was thrown in at the deep end and expected to keep myself afloat, and I like to think that I did. Journalism isn't for everyone, I see that now. I see no reason why it can't be for me, though.
Incidentally, I have been offered a placement at BBC Focus in September. As ever, I'll keep you informed.
