Student Becomes a Young Reporter Semi-Finalist!
Congratulations to Joshua R, (Divs), who was one of only thirty-eight students in his year group across the country to reach the Newsquest Young Reporter semi-finals.
This is a great achievement considering approximately one thousand two hundred students take part. Joshua has written about his experience below.
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Eight months ago, I had the amazing opportunity to join the Young Reporter Scheme through the school.
The scheme requires you to write eight articles over the period of eight months and, generally, the subject can be on any topic or event, unless there is a police presence tied to it (and hence it would not be appropriate). For example, I wrote about a local business, a charity and a nearby nature walk, as well as several interviews that I carried out.
Ideally, many of the articles can be centred around your local area and we were also provided with a list of ideas to help us get started. If you meet the deadlines for each article, you are able to enter the competition although, even without the deadlines, you can apply for the Letter of Recognition, which you can add onto a CV as work experience. Furthermore, we were given mentor sessions a couple of times during the scheme, which greatly guided us and helped us to improve our articles.
I was very fortunate to become a semi-finalist as the the articles were judged by professionals in the industry.
In my opinion, the scheme is ideal for anybody who is looking into a career that revolves around journalism but also generally to improve writing skills, as in many occupations this is a crucial skill. It specifically targets writing for certain audiences and educates you about the types of copyright 鈥� libel and slander 鈥� and provides support in knowing what you can and can鈥檛 do within those boundaries and without breaching any policies. Additionally, this scheme greatly aids you with time planning and meeting deadlines as you have the incentive that, if you don鈥檛 meet the deadline, you will lose the opportunity to enter the competition at the end, let alone have a chance at winning the experience of a day at Kingston University learning more about what journalist professionalism is really like.
Overall, I would definitely recommend the experience as there are lasting benefits that you can carry with you through your working life! I am extremely grateful for the experience and for all the support we received in school by Ms Thobhani!