I can't remember the precise time of day. It was a free period, I was meant to be doing some work (though, in reality, was checking a political news story) when an email came through. It was from a teacher offering the opportunity to media and (some) English students to attend a workshop at the Guardian's London offices. Immediately, I felt full of excitement. Granted, while I didn’t buy the paper, I looked at the website (news, politics, opinion, culture, long reads) multiple times a day. And anyway, given I aspire to work in journalism, turning up the chance to visit a national newspaper was no option. My place was booked.
On the day of the trip, we all took the train to London King's Cross. The meeting was smooth, though it felt strange to see other members of my college making their way there just as I was heading in the opposite direction. Thankfully, I was able to get a nice window seat on the train and had the chance to read my current book 'The Kite Runner' (which could be a whole blog in itself). As I usually only use the trains during the holidays, I have often been unable to relate to the packed, sardine like conditions that so apparently dominate term time. Despite my fortune in sitting down, I witnessed many standing and not looking happy about it. We arrived in King's Cross, walked 200m down a side road (past a shop called 'Noah's Yard' if I correctly recall) and the building was there. It was an impressive exterior sight. Glass walls, a modern building with a clear presence on the street, the new 'Guardian' and 'Observer' logos apparent from the start. Despite the paper being nearly 200 years old, a fine achievement in this digital age, it still felt fresh and renewed for the 21st century. We were escorted up some escalators, where comfy chairs, tables containing the day's editions and newsrooms were dotted around. It was tricky trying to glance at everything with the amount to see, glass offices for more informal discussions, much investment in the work space. We were taken to the 'Guardian Education Centre', a section on the first floor. I believe it's excellent that such an important international organization (indeed, offices in New York and Sydney have been set up so the website can be constantly updated, whatever the time) has an education centre to teach the next generation about journalism. Sitting at fine Macs, the day's newspaper by our sides, we attempted a scavenger hunt to fully engage with the paper and learn about some of the key news stories. Though the front cover was, unusually, fully devoted to one story (England's football defeat), and therefore not my interest, racing through the paper at speed make me (internally at least) feel like an editor, a decision maker in the news events. There were a number of excellent statistics and information revealed in a very short space of time. Web editors arrive in the building at 7.30pm, the layout for the next day's paper is decided as early as midday, the final edition is printed at 1am and the number of dots at the top of each page reflect whether the story has been changed. All tiny, trivial things but they revealed just a fraction of the amount of work that goes into a daily newspaper. To be editing stories, deciding what to include, dealing with a lifechanging breaking story five minutes before the paper goes to print all because of a desire to truthfully reveal to the public what is going on is nothing but an admirable quality. The main reason we had come to the paper was for a feature writing workshop. Although I am not planning to construct an article for my coursework, being aware of the conventions is useful for another part of the assessment. Plus, feature articles are more down to earth, can be more humorous and take a different approach when discussing the stories making the headlines. We were sent a list of stories to work on. While many went for Love Island, the World Cup and Donald Trump, one that struck my interest was Facebook, specifically, the fact they had been fined over their transparency and data protection. Like every blog idea, there was a physical rush of energy as I know this was the topic I was going to write about. Many links had been provided to further investigate the issue as we ensure all the information used in our own articles was correct. The story over Facebook prompted a wider issue that I have much interest in, which is how our data is used. For sites we willingly sign up to, giving information away, do we have any idea what companies are doing with it? While I certainly don’t think the Cambridge Analytica scandal was the determining factor in Britain voting to leave the EU, to deny it had any significance at all seems ludicrous. I wrote down lots, far more than I would include, to simply have the knowledge to argue my case and feel more confident. A break was taken between the planning and writing to go for lunch at their cafe. People had brought their own packed lunches, but the vibrant atmosphere, view of a stream out the window and watching a place at work transformed me into the newsroom world. And I loved it. Discussing other people's articles was insightful, to see how other people had interpreted the brief and done their own research. In the afternoon, we were shown professional layouts that resembled the sort of display in 'G2', the Guardian's magazine where most feature articles appear. As we had a finite amount of time, less probably than most feature writers, due to having a train to catch, we got down to writing. For me, I type whatever comes to mind onto the page and edit later on. One can't edit blank space and all that. This time, with more facts in hand, I rattled away, clearly trying to include humour, statistics and opinion, which, with a limited work count is tricky. And that isn't a bad thing. The concise nature of the feature article forced me to be careful about what I wished to include, decide what was relevant, where I had repeated myself and whether something could be better structured. In short, I argued data could inevitably shape elections, our electoral laws are wholly out of date and big money needs to come out of politics altogether. As these articles were being printed out, some to return to college, one a copy for me, I wanted to make sure all the spellings were correct and the piece really flowed. At points, I could have varied my tone more, used humour and statistics throughout the piece instead of different discrete sections. But that is all part of the writing process. Eventually, when all the images had been added (a choice from more than 30,000 that are sent to the paper every day), the strapline typed, the title sharpened up, we printed them, a photo of us all proudly holding our first ever feature article. A fully rewarding day that was only made better by spotting Andrew Marr on the train back home.
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