Why trainee journalists should work in B2B (business to business)

“It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up magazine” said Biggie Smalls in his record, Juicy. The thing is, Word Up was a music magazine neither you or I stand a high chance of writing for, because there are too many people wanting that same job (and if not Word Up, then Vibe).

Scour the 160 character biographies of music enthusiasts on Twitter and it’s the same story. “Music is my LIFE! Check out my blog!” “I can never be without my iPod – look at my music Tumblr!” and many more claims to fame as to why they’re a leader in their bloggy field.

It’s a similar story with fashion too. You’ll find them for ten-a-penny, making you have to ask yourself: “How can I stand out?”

It’s increasingly difficult to get a break in these sectors in journalism, because they’re both ridiculously competitive, saturated with someone else that has the same ambitions as you, and full of eager interns who are happy to replace you at short notice. How are you meant to rise above that?

Watch the video below before I continue…

So You Want to Be a Journalist?

I would encourage any wannabe journalist hoping to change the world (or work for the New York Times!) to consider starting off their career via the B2B route. Although some industries may not seem ‘glamorous’ at first you’ll soon realise the news they cover relate to aspects of everyday life, especially when you see a story written from the same press release you received appear in the Evening Standard.

What is B2B?

In every industry from printing machines (Printweek) to ambient lighting (Lighting) there’s a market for news and magazines that B2B, or ‘business to business’ in its longer form, cover. And that industry is huge and diverse.

Unlike lifestyle magazines, which rely on readers shelling out a few quid to look at magazines with features about what to spend additional income on (which was hit with a drop in sales around 2007 because, amongst other factors, people spent less on small treats such as magazines), business to business will always be around because it’s of value to companies and investors needing to know the latest news in that sector.

From personal experience at Catch 22 Academy I can tell you an infatuation with London Underground (Autumn 2009 issue!) led to a work placement at New Civil Engineer writing about Crossrail news (it’s like the Underground, but on a bigger scale); a penchant for buying Wired magazine, reading Mashable and paying attention to advertising helped immensely when accepted for work experience at BrandRepublic and MediaWeek (all are media partners for Catch 22).

Does B2B apply to me?

Just because I cite examples from experience doesn’t mean it can’t apply to you too. A reference from a glossy magazine or daily newspaper is fantastic, but won’t come easily. I personally stand by the belief that specialtist knowledge is better than the mainstream.

• An obsession with observing how people dress can lead to a job at WGSN who put together fashion reports nearly two years before they hit the catwalk (and send reporters to Japan too, or so I hear).
• Helping out on an events magazine could have you helping out at a summer festival, meeting a few rock stars, but also gives you an insight into how something on such a huge scale like Glastonbury or V Festival is put together.
• Even people obsessed with TV besides soaps may fit in well with a B2B title like Broadcast keeping TV executives up to date with the latest news relating to what’s popular on the box – and what isn’t.

Back to the point about B2B “relating to everyday life.”

As a journalist your motivation is your curiosity. Replace a need for gossip with a need to know what’s happening in the boardrooms of big businesses that shape the way we live our life, from transport to fashion to infrastructure. Now imagine being the journalist that scoops the about a multi million pound story as an exclusive – all the quality newspapers will pick up on it and use your story as a reference.

Whether or not you aspire to work for the New York Times, if you want to change the world, consider B2B as an option when starting out in journalism.

Dave

Catch 22: My big fat flu

Hi all,

Well it finally got me!! I tried to avoid it as much as I could, I tried to be careful: I hid behind scarves, under thick coats and hats but it still found me. Yes, I mean the dreaded flu.

The pesky so-n-so was with me for over two weeks and I was not happy! I hate being sick, as I’m sure everyone does, because there is absolutely nothing to do. You’re stuck in bed with a bunged up nose, sore throat, coughing so much it feels like you’ve done a months worth of sit-ups, hot then cold, then immediately back to hot again-no wait, cold.

I read in the paper that 75% of people claiming incapacity benefit are just skiving. Why? I mean, I know why because no one wants to have to work, but surely you’d die of boredom. There’s only so much TV you can watch, shopping you can do, only so many times you can have the same conversation with your friends and there’s only so long you can laze around the house.

I had only been off a couple of weeks and I was bored out of my mind. I was bored of the telly, bored of online shopping, I had no one to talk to because everyone was either at work (the world definitely did not stop for me) and I could no longer find a comfortable position in my once cosy bed.

I think I might ask the trainees to do a vox pop in the next issue, the question: “What’s Your Best Flu Killing Remedy?” For me it was mum’s honey and lemon, sleep and my King of the Hill box set.

I always like to have a good book or magazine to read in bed when so, of course, I was reading Catch 22 Magazine. I loved the lap dancing feature in the winter/autumn issue. It was interesting reading why girls turn to lap dancing. It’s a shame that some feel its the only way to pay for tuition fees or support their families. I’ve always said if you’ve got it flaunt it but I could never flaunt that much.

Either way, the whole two weeks made me realise how much I love being outside and love being at work and how much I loved being back a Catch. I will (try to) never be at the mercy of flu again.

On another note, I know one thing that had tongues wagging here in the office and kept my Tuesday nights interesting – four words – Big Fat Gypsy Weddings. Whoever had the brainstorm of documenting such a culture was pure genius!! I can’t wait till it’s back next year!!

Anyway, I found this cute little film on how the flu virus invades the body – Damn you pink molecule!! Damn you purple membrane!!

Enjoy

Karine
x

1,460 days later…

Yay it’s our birthday today!!! It’s four years to the very day that a leap of faith was taken and this venture was born.

On 1st March 2007 I was filled with anxious energy and every inch of carpet in our office was covered with branded C22 gift bags. At this point C22 had a staff team of just me, myself and I. With the help a couple of mates we got the bags filled in a matter of hours. This was while the phone was ringing off the hook from people wanting to get on the guest list that had closed days before.

Fast forward to the evening and I was running late for my own launch!?! When I finally reached the ICA on Pall Mall it then really dawned on me that it was actually happening, C22 had arrived. The night went well and was a great way to kick off the journey. Looking back now, having a launch party down the road from the Queen’s pad for a start-up social enterprise that had a grand total of about £1.80 in it’s bank account was crazy… champagne taste on beer money in full effect!

You see the name Catch 22 fitted on so many levels, not only did it relate to the young talent we aimed to nurture it also epitomised the status of the organisation itself. I tend to pay attention to detail so I didn’t just start C22 on a whim, in fact the birth came only after being pregnant with the idea for about 24 months. During this period I went to a number of potential investors and funders and the response was near enough the same every time. “Great idea, however for us to support we need to see it up and running first etc etc”. Perplexed by their responses I replied: “I get I’m a start-up, but it is exactly this reason in the first place that I need your support?!?”. I was stuck in a vicious circle with two options 1) C22 remains a cute idea on the shelf 2) proceed with it anyway with ‘sweat equity’ as my only form of investment.

I obviously chose the latter, so you can understand why on the 2nd March I was mad nervous as well nursing a killer hangover (note to self: mixing champagne the endless bottles of free Cobra beer is never smart or sexy!). I was nervous because I had just given birth to this beast of an entity that would need constant feeding and I had jack all in my fridge to satisfy its hunger. Thankfully the very next week I was due to start a course at the School For Social Entrepreneurs, the 12-month experience was like a finishing school experience that helped me turn C22 in a robust model that has changed the lives of over 100 young adults to date.

To say the last four years has been tough is the understatement of the year and we’ve just hit March. There were MANY points when I just wanted to tap out. Thankfully I didn’t, because now I’m proud to say at this very moment we have a number of our trainees working their way into the fabric of some of the biggest media outfits in the UK.

What started out as just a magazine showcasing new talent, has now transformed into something amazing. I’m excited about the future, coz it’s bright, in fact it’s red, blue, green…and orange!

To shorthand or not to shorthand?

Hello everyone!

Shameful to say being the assistant editor and all, this is my very first blog for Catch 22. To tell you a little bit about my role I commission, research sub and write features and reviews (that is I write reviews not all the other things, our lovely reviews editor Giulia does that). I also manage our brilliant editorial team, as well as going through e-mails and ignoring lots of highly irrelevant press releases.

As Catch 22 and it’s academy is all about training young people in acquire essential skills to gain that much coveted media job I thought I’d focus on the ongoing argument about the merits of shorthand. Today I heard an experienced journalist say that shorthand was “essential” for a news reporter and yet he himself had never mastered shorthand and was a deputy editor of a highly prestigious weekly. While other established journalists I know have forgotten any shorthand they’ve learnt or have also never learnt shorthand in the first place. This is especially in the case of magazines I’ve done work experience at, hours of transcribing other people’s interview will attest to that (and it’s really surprising the dodgy recordings some established journalists will make too). While learning shorthand is time consuming and you may still have trouble deciphering the notes afterwards.

On the other hand I realise that news writing is an essential skill for a journalist to have, and that my handwriting can be pretty hard to read at the best of times, let alone when I’m frantically jotting down a member of the public’s opinions. While Kim Fletcher, chairman of the NCTJ, has said shorthand “demonstrates a real dedication to the craft.” It made me wonder if  I should have actually done shorthand at uni and done it when I could for free, despite our magazine journalism course director telling us that it wasn’t necessary (a fact which shocked a journalist at one of my placements). So far I haven’t really felt I’ve needed it too badly whilst at Catch but then again I really do not like transcribing, especially when you have to keep rewinding to get that one incomprehensible sentence which may or may not be essential. Hmmm only time will tell…

As everyone else so far has included a nice video I’ll follow suit, here’s a lesson on shorthand, it may inspire or detract…

Priscilla

Eager smiles and News of The Hack

When the News of the World saga started in 2007, little did I imagine that four years on, the whole corporation would be recovering from the collective amnesia that had gripped them all this while.

Ian Edmonson’s suspension and subsequent sacking after an “internal inquiry” and Andy Coulson’s resignation have all come as a shock. Perhaps it’s the sequence of events, or my questioning mind’s insistence to connect the two events. Why did it take so long for this internal inquiry to take place? Is this the end or are we going to see more resignations and job losses connected to the print media industry?

Our October batch of trainees came in for their last day yesterday. It has been twelve weeks of intense sessions to push their eager backs up the ladder of journalism. Although two are currently on placements with our media partners, some of them didn’t make it to the end. Their eager smiles vanished after a couple of weeks. The glamorous ladder was not what they expected it to be.

The ones who stayed still have the smiles. They also have a certain ambitious gleam in their eye, like they will stop at nothing to get to the top of the ladder.
I wonder if they will stick to the hard grind of sourcing stories, the long nights of writing and rewriting copy. Will they master the art of interviewing and pitching stories? Will they aim to satisfy the endless appetite for salacious stories about celebrities?

If the going gets tough and they can’t find the sensational stories that the Joe Public likes to read, would they resort to scavenging rubbish bins for stories, will they hack some poor soul’s phone or employ a private detective? Will they take any opportunity that is presented ethical or otherwise to get a story?

I assume Ian Edmonson didn’t start his career with the aim of getting involved in shady practices like those reported. He probably had the eager smile and the ambitious gleam in his eye like our trainees. However he worked in an industry where the line between private lines and public information is so blurred its hardly recognizable. It is an industry that is under constant pressure to feed the endless voyeurism to the public.

Nevertheless there are scores of journalists who have stayed on the straight and narrow and still write amazing articles. I know this because our Academy tutors put in nothing but hard work to produce their stories and pass this value onto the trainees every week. As bleak as news about journalists seems at the moment I am holding onto my experience of journalism at Catch 22 and the future looks very bright indeed.

Antoinette

The beauty of printing magazines

Being a journalist these days is way different to how it used to be. I don’t speak from experience, of course, because I’m too young to know what it was like before InDesign and Photoshop became the industry standard. All I have as references to such times past are scenes from Spiderman where Peter Parker has to file a story to his cigar chomping editor, J Jonas Jameson.

In past placements with Catch 22′s media partners work has consisted mainly of reporting tasks – in essence, writing copy, sourcing images and submitting it. That’s fine with me: writers do their job, designers take that work and lay it out. It’s sent off to the printers and a few days later a glossy new magazine comes back. Ooh, don’t new magazines smell nice?

Not often do journalists have the opportunity to see what happens once a magazine goes into production because they’re too busy focusing on their next assignment. I mean, what goes on at the printers? Is it a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory affair with elves running around throwing lashings of ink at sheets of paper like a Jackson Pollock painting? How does something designed on a computer screen transform into something so crisp and bright on page?

Part of my reason for pursuing journalism is because I like to know how stuff is made, so out of curiosity I searched online and came across this short documentary on YouTube about how ink is made.

Magazines are beautiful. Which leads perfectly into my next point.

Like the ‘how is ink made’ video, rarely is an infomercial so gripping, so emotional, so… informative.

If you haven’t watched the Catch 22 Academy online trailer yet, here’s your chance to learn more about the Catch 22 Academy in a short documentary video.

Make sure to download the latest issue of Catch 22 Magazine here.

Dave

Why hello there…

So we finally have a blog do we, about time we got with the programme!! Who agrees?
Well since others have introduced themselves let me follow suit and do the same.

My names Karine and I work in the PR department at this wonderful place we call Catch 22. My job mainly involves me searching for ways to get Catch some well deserved publicity, drafting up press releases and annoying journalists with my constant phone calls.

I’m very new to this role so bless Toks for giving me a chance!!

Having spent most of my working days in retail, I’ve never really worked in an office before but I must say I can’t fault it. We’re a close knit bunch of 20 somethings in this ground floor room, working hard, eating our favourite Caribbean ready meals whilst re-living our teenage years listening to old school tunes (Oxide and Neutrino anyone?).

We’ve had a busy time of it these past couple of months. We’ve held our annual event and organised our christmas shin-dig, had a visit from a Government Minister, released the next issue of the mag and launched this delightful blog. WOW!! I told you we have been busy.

The event was a massive success and it was a great way for us to celebrate the success of our Catch 22 alumni so a big well done to them. Having an accredited reporter such as Charlene White (I’m her biggest fan) hosting the whole thing was just the icing on the cake- well that and the sushi (I’m a huge lover of sushi).

So the new trainees have arrived and after hearing some of their feature ideas, I know we’ve got another talented bunch. As always, the magazine should make for some good reading.

Anyway, I’m going to get back to work as I have phone calls to make, press releases to write and a secret Santa present to buy.

Until next time people.

x.K .x

Merry Christmas!!!

Creative Catch 22 Communications

Greetings all!

Welcome to the much awaited Catch 22 Blog! My name is Gemma and I am the newly crowned projects co-ordinator of the Catch 22 Communications Agency.

I want to take the time to quickly introduce myself and what I do – but don’t worry, I wont bore you with a long monotonous post!

The communications agency is based within the creative hub of Seven Sisters – it’s a place where our talented designers are let loose to let their creative juices flow, much to the joy of our clients.
My job in a nutshell is to manage the creative eruptions between Catch 22 and our clients.

I’m forever on the look out for ideas on how we can make the Communications Agency better so that we can fulfill our master plan of worldwide domination (evil laugh) – so if you have any suggestions or ideas on how we can improve any elements of our service please don’t hesitate to get involved and let us know.

Last but not least, this is a place for sharing so feel free to get involved and comment your views on any of the posts or videos.

In the meantime make sure you check out the comms agency and I shall speak to you all soon.

Enjoy

A Word from the Catch 22 Academy

I’ve been the Catch 22 Academy Coordinator for almost six months now and I can say without hesitation that it is a unique job.

An average day might include meeting a media partner, subbing the mag, running a features meeting, hosting a talk from an Editor, or getting mugged on the Seven Sisters Rd (more on this later).

Here are few things that help to make the Catch 22 Academy tick:

People
Cheesy it maybe – but in any organisation it’s the people who set the agenda and Catch is brimming with personality. Helping 45 young people each year to progress into media professionals is one heck of a journey and the transformation can be astonishing.

‘Creative’ Environment
Everyone knows Tottenham can be shady at the best of times, but sometimes it’s beyond belief. During my first week, the Academy white board was stolen from our office and just the other day one of our trainees, Aaron-Spencer, was subjected to the world’s most ineffective mugging – in which he came out with a profit…

On the plus side, creativity seems to stem from adversity… for example – check out these oversized leathers from the hard-hitting streets of the Bronx:

Sporting Analogies/Clichés
As you can see from the first post, Toks is a big fan of the more than occasional sporting analogy (sumo and Lewis). He’s not the only one.

If Catch 22 were a Premiership side who would we be?

Blackpool. We’re a small fish in a big pond, playing with a certain panache and undoubtedly punching above our weight.

Mike, Catch 22 Academy Coordinator

Cop yourself a regular dose of Catch 22

Good day to you all! Dave here, the online editor.

We are gathered here today to talk about our beloved magazine. Glossy, nice smelling (hands up who smells magazines?) and also interactive Catch 22 Magazine (click on the image, right, to view the magazine in its digital edition).

Since being appointed in this role I’ve been in charge of making sure that people who can’t get a physical copy of the magazine can still get their Catch 22 fix in regular doses – and so the Catch 22 blog was opened last week.

As the magazine is only published several times a year how does one do that you ask? Fresh content!

Since I started my voyage with Catch 22 way back last year, the magazine and indeed the course has transformed from print to print/online. In that short time frame Facebook overtook from MySpace as the king of social media, meanwhile the world is updated by the second using Twitter – times are moving so fast, and nobody, especially us, wants to get left behind!

I’m in charge of the online side of things around here. To define that better, when it comes to waiting for your next hit of Catch 22, I’m your pusher, man.

We have a Twitter, a Facebook (see right), FourSquare (we’re planning ahead, guys!) and somewhere in the mix I’m sure there’s a LinkedIn too!

But life isn’t all status updates and friend adds, so let’s slow things down. Things can get frantic in the Catch office what with each of us working our individual roles, let alone updating people constantly with what goes on between each issue of the magazine, so allow me to round up the sections of the main site that get the most fresh content:

• The reviews section of the website is updated with four reviews every month;
• Trainees’ and graduate’s work continues to get published every month – in the local and national press;
• The company itself always has news going on, or other figures frequently talking about us;
• Finally, the revolving door of media jobs sees successful employees go on to further success, so we’re occasionally looking for people to work with us.

That’s fresh! So while the blog is a little ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at Catch 22, our main site is where the serious content is!

You can reach me at online[at]catch22mag.com with any suggestions about improving the site. Alternatively if you prefer ‘keeping it 140′ then ping @catch22magazine with your message, and finally, don’t forget to suggest us to your friends on Facebook.

Peace.
Dave (aka, The Flave)