Whereas Exit's Constance Amory seems to content with life on the Hallam Evening Crucible, with taking over as industrial correspondent as the height of her ambition, many see weeklies and regionals as a stepping stone to national glory - perhaps well beyond the world of newspapers.
The career of Dawn (once Doris) Stone bookends John Lanchester's Fragrant Harbour (2002). After Durham University and a journalism course at Cardiff, she joins the Argus, a local paper in Blackpool (chosen because political party conferences are held there).
Nowadays ... the plan would be to bypass all that grubby cloth-capped crap about reporting and head as quickly as possible for the clean, well-lit uplands of commentary, opinion and a column with your second most flattering photo at the top... This however was the old days. So I sent eighteen months ... doing all the usual stuff from local fairs to sports to news (Granny drives Reliant Robin over cliff, survives) to gradually more interetesting court cases, to features and eventually - yes - a column.
.... I daresay if I'd gone to Oxbridge I would have had at least half a dozen chums who fell out of bed into useful, networkable positions on the kind of paper I wanted to work for.
Recent Comments