Back to the future: How apprenticeships are changing local journalism for the better

By Nigel Burton, editor of the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, and The Press, York

WHEN I was a lad there was only one sure-fire way to becoming a journalist. You sat your A-Levels, applied to one of the five colleges approved by the National Council for Journalists and hoped that you were chosen to join a pre-entry course.

It didn’t matter that you had no job because, assuming your parents weren’t minted, you’d get a grant from your local education authority to help pay your way through college. There would be plenty of time to find a job after you qualified.

But that was 30 years ago. Things have changed a lot since I went out into the world to seek my fortune as a young journalist.

Nowadays, a newly minted journalist is likely to come armed with a degree. Plenty of universities offer journalism degree courses. So many, in fact, that the 18-year-old direct entrant has become a rare beast indeed.

Apprenticeships offer a new method of entry for a wider cohort of would-be journalists. Anyone armed with a handful of A-Levels, a nose for a good story and a surfeit of enthusiasm can apply.

The Telegraph & Argus and The Press in York were among the first titles to recruit apprentices. Being first meant none of us was sure what we would get. The news desks need not have worried.

The applications ranged from youngsters fresh out of Sixth Form to mature applicants looking for a change of career. As well as the expected glut of students, we had an actress fresh out of a popular television drama, a frustrated novelist, a civil servant, an former teacher, several young people for whom journalism was a life-long vocation, a podcaster and a video games expert.

Choosing four out of dozens of applications wasn’t easy. Nearly everyone who applied had something to commend them but eventually we settled on our new apprentices.

Three were under 25 and the fourth was a mature entrant who had some experience as a listings researcher on a national newspaper. All of them shared one thing in common: they were hungry to become journalists.

Just how hungry quickly became clear. One of them was prepared to move 100 miles to live ‘on patch’ — not easy on an apprenticeship’s modest wage — and share a student flat in order to make his dream come true. He spent his evenings learning InDesign so he knew the basics of newspaper production, taught himself how to edit video and even got a job presenting a sports show on a community radio station to improve his podcasting skills. Now that’s the kind of dedication editor’s love to see.

Nearly 18 months later all four have proved themselves many times over. They are completely integrated into our news rooms. They haven’t been handled with kid gloves and they haven’t been spared the tough assignments just because they are on an apprenticeship. They do the same things as all our reporters.

With the right support from our news editors and great encouragement from other journalists in the news room they have grown into fully rounded reporters capable of turning their hand to virtually anything.

For me it has been a pleasure watching their skills blossom. It’s a wonderful feeling to know you are playing a small part in helping develop the next generation of great content creators and (who knows maybe one day) editors.

To my colleagues who are thinking about taking on an apprentice I say: do it. You won’t regret the choice.

To anyone thinking of applying for an apprenticeship my advice is to give it a go. It doesn’t matter if you have a First-Class degree or just scraped a pass in A-Level English and Maths, the qualities editors look for in a good journalist are always the same: creativity, tenacity, great interpersonal skills, patience, attention to detail and, above all else, a passion for telling the news.