What makes a successful journalist?

Eight times award-winning Guardian journalist Paul Lewis, most famous for breaking the Ian Tomlinson story, spoke about what it takes to be a journalist and said he felt sorry for the family of Ian Tomlinson, who was  killed during the 2009 G-20 Protest.

He explained that the story was more important than winning awards, "Award ceremonies are tedious events, it’s all a bit of a lottery and people turn up with silly black ties, they’re not that enjoyable as evenings go, it’s the stories that matter the most."

Paul won Best Use of Citizen Journalism award in 2010 and his latest award was for Best Twitter Feed during the riots last year. His outstanding work has been recognised almost every year and he won Journalist of the Year Award in 2011.

His view on journalism as a career is:

"It can be fun, bad, entertaining and it can also be boring, so all of those. It depends what your job in journalism is and who you are working for. Journalism has got worse, less entertaining, boring and less fun. People have less time to work on news stories. Thankfully, I don’t fall into this category.

"The Guardian doesn’t do too much of this but often lots of journalists find themselves very quickly turning around stories because we have less money in the industry and therefore we spend less time working on stories. Therefore people find themselves stuck behind a desk rewriting stories and press releases."

Paul’s great journalistic career started when he applied for a traineeship for young journalists seven years ago at The Guardian. He is now the special projects editor for The Guardian.

Paul lectures across Europe about the use of social media in journalism and teaches a master class in investigative reporting; in 2009 he received Bevin’s Prize for Outstanding Investigative Journalism.

Paul realised he wanted to become a journalist in his early twenties, he studied social and political science, and sociology at Cambridge university. After finishing university he decided to pursue a career in journalism. He was born and raised in Byfleet, Surrey.

Paul’s advice to a young journalist or someone who wants to pursue a career in journalism is "to get out there and freelance, we live in an era where people can easily get hold of a computer so self publishing is a good way to start as well".

The full audio interview with Paul Lewis will be featured at the FREEDOM exhibition, from 9 to 30 August 2012 at the Art Against Knives gallery in BOXPARK, Shoreditch.

What makes a Role Model?

‘’I don’t understand why schools aren’t forming an orderly queue to get involved because it’s just so  fabulous’’ – Jane Sheehan, head teacher at St Anne’s Catholic Primary School.

City Year has been on the tip of the tongue for many schools in London. An education charity based in London; it offers a full-time one-year volunteering programme which helps with peer mentoring children within London schools. 

City Year believes that young people can change the world, so recruiting talented and passionate young people that are driven to make a difference is their aim, because once passion is harnessed then the young people start to transform the lives of other young people.  

As part of part of a role model campaign called iam, I’ve interviewed a positive role model from City Year.

The role model campaign defines what a role model is to young people, because a role model doesn't always have good intentions, for example a lot of young people in today’s society look up to celebrities who are associated with gang culture. For this reason I interviewed Orrel Lawrence. I asked him a few questions about what a role model for young people means to him.

Tell me a bit about yourself? I’m into journalism and young people, helping to make a difference in their life. Passion is a big trait as you can do many things with it, an excellent way to express yourself.

Do you study? Or do you do mentor full time? How many hours’ do you give? I do this fulltime, every day. It runs from Monday to Thursday and on Fridays we do our personal development plan. I mentor 40 hours per week.

What do you think makes a Role Model? Understanding. Looking at someone’s life, stepping in their shoes and channel the outlook. I would say empathy is the biggest key to being a role model and also making someone realise their potential.

Do you think you’ve made a difference in someone’s life, since starting the mentoring programme? Yes. The results are great; pupils who have bad grades, with the help of the mentoring scheme achieve great results. One example I can give you is, one of the students who I’m currently helping, when I first met him, he didn’t have hope in himself he used to get level 4 for his studies every time. I sat him down and helped him; I showed him the rules and guidelines he would need to follow, if he wants to get to level 6, which he always wanted. Within the next few weeks he achieved fantastic results, results he never thought he would achieve.

My last question for Orrel was a wild card question: If you could have dinner with anyone from history, who would it be, and why?’ Martin Luther King. He’s an amazing person. I love the vision he had and the fact that he believed in equality for everyone. He’s inspirational and the quotes he made up are amazing. I’d think he’d be an amazing guy to have dinner with because I don’t think there’s anyone else I’d like to meet. Till this day people are living through his values and that’s why many people want to make a difference in the world, I think Martin gave people with dreams that push to keep on going’.

Orrel seemed like a positive role model, because he finds gratitude in bringing the best out of others and not only himself. In my opinion a true role model is someone who has empathy towards people and wants to make a difference in a person’s life, regardless of the person’s skin colour, background, culture or religion. Without a doubt Orrel has the ingredients of ‘What makes a role model’.

Overall the interview went better than expected, the reason for my surprise is because I’ve never interviewed anyone before, it has always been me on the other side of an interview, and it was good to be the interviewer rather the interviewee for once.

There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.

 W. Clement Stone

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.

Martin Luther King 

The Guardian Newspaper: Behind The Scenes

We arrived at The Guardian at 2:56pm.

Once everyone was introduced to each other, Margaret, a journalist at The Guardian, took us into the workshop room.

The workshop started with Margaret giving a few minutes introduction about herself. She took us through the timeline of the Guardian Newspaper; from the early stage of its birth till how it became London's most popular newspaper today. The selling statistics for The Guardian newspaper is 270,000 to 300,000 a day and 3.4 millions readers online per day.

I found the history behind the making of The Guardian interesting, there was a lot to say and the fact that Margaret had done ninety-one years of history in less than half an hour was astonishing in my opinion.

Margaret spoke about the work that goes behind making The Guardian a success, the work that the journalists and reporters conduct on a daily basis, she spoke about how each types of news had its own division for example there was one set of journalists and reporters who are working on sports, business, money, culture and travel etc.

She began to ask us questions about the newspaper, to see if we got them right and then correct us, trying to refresh our minds. We also heard from Shiv Malik who is a print journalist at The Guardian and a broadcast journalist who has worked extensively for the BBC and Channel 4. Malik co-wrote a book with Ed Howker 'Jilted Generation' in 2010, the book highlights the affect of youths in today's economy. 

He told us about his journey to journalism, how to be a good journalist, the rules and the fun of being a journalist. After Shiv finished, we had a question and answer session with him and then the day was over. Overall I enjoyed the trip, it was once in a lifetime opportunity and it drove my passion even harder to make my dreams of being a Journalist come true.

The Guardian Newspaper is a British national daily newspaper and the world's leading liberal voice.

The Guardian Newspaper Work For Us
If you want to break into journalism, then The Guardian Newspaper offers work experince and paid internships for students and young adults.