Journalist Ethics

Type journalism into Google and the fifth search suggestion is journalism ethics. Ethics and law are a key part of a journalists training. I discovered this on my taster day of the NLVQ run by Brighton's Journalist Works at the Argus offices in Hollingbury.



The taster day itself is an excellent idea for those who want get a taste of the hard graft of journalistic work, there is nothing like a trip to Hollingbury Estate to give you a good dose of realism. No idealistic notions of 'All the Presidents Men' heroics here. No, the Argus is an office inhabited by those blokes you went to school with in the sixth form who couldn't quite grow beards yet who had been told to dress smart and had clearly bought the first purple and grey twinset they could find at Burtons before running of to the pub to drown their sorrows. Men who get nostalgic about Wonderwall.

I digress, a cardinal sin in the offices of news journalism, where type is snappy and no frills. The taster day starts at 'hit the ground running speed' and the two course leaders we'll call them Barky and Snapster illustrated clearly for us the types of characteristics required to make it as a journalist. It gave me an indication of how eerie it must seem to be interviewed by someone who appears to be hyperactively interested in you but actually as no interest in you at all. Their message was clear; to make it in journalism, much the same as other industries, you need to be a pitbull, oh and you also definitely needed to do their course, obviously. The day did its job perfectly; it showed me that a profession that clearly delighted in the death of young girl from drugs as it provided one of their ambitious students a 'scoop of the year award', was not for me.

If that did interest you, and it was clear from some of the keen questions from the school leavers who also attended the course, that it did. They did a really good job of convincing us that there are still opportunities, for those who are prepared, to make a career in journalism, despite the fact not one of us had actually bought a paper that day. Spending the day with some of the future candidates made me realise just how difficult and how tough you have to be to enter the world of work now and I wish them luck in all they endeavour to do. I was also impressed with how the editor of the Argus coped with the fairly transparent attempts of one of the course attenders (imagine a misogynistic toad, wearing a fleece) to snoop around for his own story. I am going to stick with blog, not sure that I am not disinterested enough in people to be a journalist yet.