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The UK’s official graduate careers website
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Most journalists start on local or regional newspapers. After a few years as a general reporter, many people move on to become senior or chief reporters, or specialist writers of some kind - e.g. regional or topic-specific correspondents, or feature writers.
Other career options include moving into news management by joining the news desk, moving into production or working on page layout and headlines as a sub-editor. It may also be possible to move overseas as a foreign correspondent, where knowledge of the language and culture is essential.
Career development depends on performance and initiative. The skills learned on a local or regional newspaper (or through a training scheme) are relevant to reporting in all media and there is more movement out to other types of journalism from newspapers than vice versa. Learning extra skills that enable multitasking, such as video skills or web design, can be a good way to progress in your career.
A 2009 report produced by Skillset in partnership with the National Council for the NCTJ, Broadcast Journalism Training Council (BJTC) , Periodicals Training Council (PTC) and Society of Editors looked at the skills required for convergence journalism, where print meets online and broadcast. The report stated that almost three-quarters of employers think there is a skills gap among graduates entering journalism. The most frequently mentioned gaps were in video skills, writing for search optimisation and multi-platforms, assembling news bulletins and audio/visual packages and using the Freedom of Information Act. Acquiring extra skills, above and beyond those of a newspaper, will help you to advance into other areas and make you more attractive to employers.
Many senior journalists and correspondents work freelance across print, broadcast and online journalism. Both radio and television offer newspaper journalists off-screen opportunities as researchers, writers and production assistants on the reporting or editing side of news programmes. Web publishing, uploading news 'as it happens' to the internet, instead of waiting for daily or weekly paper deadlines, is becoming increasingly important to UK newspapers.
Employees in news agencies can sometimes enter directly as trainees, but it is more common to start in newspapers and then move to agency work. Working for an agency can provide experience in a range of different media, as agency reporters may provide tapes for local radio, features for magazines and news items for national daily newspapers and digital media providers. Because of the range of work available, this can be a good stepping stone to freelance work. Agency work also tends to suit more experienced reporters, who have already built up an extensive list of contacts and are able to fight their corner to find the exclusive angle that will make a publication want to buy their story.
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