Going on work experience during a pandemic

Times are tough but second year journalism student Emma Draper decided it was the perfect opportunity to work on her local paper.

August. What a month. Whilst many people were eating out to help out and crying about Boris’ confusing rules, I was at home on the coronavirus-free Isle of Man doing work experience at my local newspaper writing, podcasting, interviewing and vox popping.

I’m not going to lie, work experience is already hard; it’s essentially a temporary job that you’re not getting paid to do. Then, mix in a little pandemic, an understaffed newsroom and a backlog of press releases and stories and you have what I was experiencing for three weeks.

When I arrived at the newsroom on my first day I figured things would be stressful but when I say I jumped right in, I jumped right in. They already had four press releases they needed me to write when I arrived and they just kept coming the entire time I was there.

I didn’t just write copy from press releases — oh no, no, no. I did two vox pops, one of them in 20 minutes which is a record time (ohhh yeeaah) and I also scored a front page, albeit shared, but my name’s on there so it totally counts. Right?

It’s not anything spectacular, it’s only about GCSE results. But the pride that I felt when I saw my name on the front page was overwhelming. That was my first one and hopefully not my last.

If you have carried out work experience or short placements and would like to share it with your fellow students, please email paul.foster@port.ac.uk