Case studies: Sports editor/broadcast journalist: Alex Kunawicz

Alex currently works in Abu Dhabi as a sports content editor for a national newspaper, as well as presenting a daily slot on local television...

I started my career as assistant football editor at a now defunct sports website. I then worked as a press officer and journalist for Preston North End FC before joining BBC TV Sport.

I was a sub-editor for three years, researching and writing news stories and scripts for live television. I then moved to television sports news where I was an assistant producer.

In 2007 I joined the BBC Sport website as a broadcast journalist, a job I got via an advert in The Guardian. Contacts I made there allowed me to go freelance before I took a job in Abu Dhabi working as sports content editor for The National and presenting a daily slot on local television.

My degree in political studies didn't offer much in the way of relevant skills and experience but I found it easy and interesting. From my Postgraduate Diploma in Newspaper Journalism I learnt the basic blocks of journalism on which the rest of my career has been founded.

The best way to see whether a career in journalism is for you is to get as much work experience as possible. Prospective employers will want to see that you have made a real effort to break into the industry. Most editors are also after postgraduate journalism qualifications from the likes of City, Central Lancashire or Cardiff. These aren't essential, but will give you a great grounding in the basics of journalism.

You need to have a good understanding of new technology and how best to reach audiences. Television stations and newspapers are constantly seeking ways to get their content out there, and they are looking for people who can come up with new ways of content distribution just as they are for journalists to create content.

The internet and the development of more sophisticated technology has seen a massive convergence of media, e.g. the BBC and The Times newspaper are now great rivals, whereas ten years ago they were two separate mediums.

It's also important to be yourself. There's an idea that all journalists have to be hard-nosed and confrontational, and this simply isn't the case. There are all types of people working in the media, so don't feel you have to change to get into the industry.

My own role now is more organisational. I think this is the same for all industries the higher you go. I commission work, plan our news-gathering operation, draw up rotas, am in charge of holidays, expenses, and all sorts of other boring stuff that I never expected I'd be doing.

Journalism involves long unsocial hours and egos; it's not nearly as glamorous as you may think. You must understand that while many of your friends will be out enjoying themselves at evenings and weekends, the chances are that you'll be working.

The proliferation of all kinds of media in the last ten years means that opportunities are growing, but wages are dropping. More and more media outlets are trying to save money by keeping their journalists office-based. This does save money but comes at the expense of not getting or breaking as many stories.

If you want to be a journalist you are unlikely to become very wealthy, and you will also face phenomenal competition. When I got my job at the BBC, they took on two of us and over 1,000 applied. I hope this doesn't scare you off, but it should act as a reminder to just how competitive the field is. That said, I think the world is ripe for a new generation of journalists who fully understand television, the written word, the internet and multimedia and how all these things can seamlessly function.

I'm extremely fortunate to work in a field which I feel very passionate about. What I enjoy most about my job is the ability to commission work and have a strong influence on the voice of the newspaper, and the satisfaction of seeing an idea turned into a piece of tangible work. The buzz of working on live television is also incredible; the excitement of never knowing what will happen next, and then having to react to it, is brilliant.

In terms of my own future career progression, as much as I like my current job, I enjoyed working for myself the most - and that's what I hope to be doing again as a freelancer in a year or two.