So why am I doing Journalism?

This morning my class and I were invited to a screening of the film Starsuckers. The film is mainly trying to highlight the vice-like grip the media has over us all and how they maintain it. I really enjoyed it and I thoroughly recommend it to everyone taking a media course, although don't be prepared to feel excellent about yourself when the credits roll up.

As I've mentioned the film itself is very good, however it did solidify a long standing opinion I have, tabloids suck.

Sometimes I am even embarrassed to mention to people that I study journalism because everyone has this view of the tabloid journalist as a bit of a filth monger. Im not going to lie, this is true. One part of the film consisted of calls being made to the Bizarre desk at the sun, its celebrity obsessed section. They were calling in answer to the 'have you got stories?' adverts. they basically told the sun that Sarah Harding from Girls Aloud was moving house (which was true) they then went on to say they knew one of the removal men (not true). They then told the reporter that Sarah had many books on Astrology and Quantum Physics.

They totally bought it, splashed it all over the celebrity section in the next edition, and then it was free to roam around the media sphere for all to see. What a disgrace, not even checking the simplest of stories or even trying to get a small quote to validate the story.

The filmmakers duped the papers twice more and got paid for each story, so to all my uni friends, if your skint fabricate a slightly believable story and you could get your hands on £600!

This isn't even the worst aspect about tabloid papers. It is against the law to buy or use private medical documents in stories, even I know this. The filmmakers rang around all the major papers claiming to have medical documents concerning celebrities and what plastic surgery they have received. Most papers turned the offer down sticking to PCC (Press Complaints Comission) rules. However some tabloids took the bait and said they would be interested in using them.

As if Journalism doesn't have a bad enough reputation these fucking jokers are making it worse. This is the reason I'm sometimes ashamed to admit I am a trainee Journalist. Don't get me wrong they aren't all bad but when they do fuck up, they do it in style.

This is precisely why I want to be a magazine journalist, preferably music. I literally don't know anyone who wants to work for a tabloid on my course and with good reason!

I do apologise for the rant just a bit of an eye opener thats all. I suppose its people like me studying Journalism at University to try and erase the bad image of the press and clean up all the shit they've left for us.

Looks like we have a lot of work to do.

First taste of freelancing

So the other day my brother who works in the games industry informed me of a truly excellent freelancing opportunity. To rewrite and produce copy for Eurogamer, a well established computer games magazine. Score! I thought and quickly contacted who I needed to.

Unofortunately when I recieved my instructions a wave of panic swept over me. The instructions in the email were long and riddled with mistakes, I read the email a good 5 times and I still didn't really understand what i was meant to be doing. I felt truly stupid, horribly under prepared and overwhelmed.

I finally mustered enough courage to email my potential employer back pleading for clearer instructions. All I could see in my head was this image of her reading the email, laughing and never contacting me again. Fortunately to my surprise she was very understanding and gave me the instructions I needed.

However my problems did not end there. when you write for any sort of established publication, be it a glossy magazine or constructing copy for a leaflet, the same questions and doubt enter my mind, Is my writing good enough?

I found myself writing sentences 3 to 4 times until I was satisfied with them and what made the situation worse is that my target audience is 8 to 12 year olds. Kids have incredibly low attetnion spans and pretty much everything in the world seems more intersting to them than sitting down and reading. This only made things worse, after a year and a half of writing academic writing and learning to make sentences 3 times longer than they should be I had to strip away everything I have learned.

It's taken me 2 weeks to finish it but I will not send it away before its been under the professional scrutiny of my lecturers. It was this event that spurred me on to take this whole blogging business a bit more seriously, hopefully the more I write the better I will get.

So yeah freelancing, testing times.