My first day at the Ealing Gazette

I began my first day of work experience at the Ealing Gazette today. I received a warm welcome when I arrived at the office, (to my immense relief!) and found all of the staff friendly and approachable, despite missing three members of the team who were on exam leave.

My first task was to read through the day's national papers, to see if there were any potential stories relating to our area of West London. Afterwards it was straight to the phone to call up leads for quotes, or details. It seems that there is not always a reporter with the Gazette's photographers, and so details for some images needed to be gathered, and written up.

During the rest of the morning I began researching and writing up stories relating mainly to local schools in the area - 'good news' stories! (I am already fed-up of people telling me that journalism is only about 'bad news', today has definitely proved it doesn't have to be.)

During the afternoon chief reporter Steve Still, and Jane Harrison gave me a few tips on how I could adopt the newspaper's house-style, And Sachin Nakrani (news editor) made sure that I had plenty of stories help out with and to sink my teeth into, something which I was more than happy to do.

Interestingly local crime news in the borough has become a talking point of late, with a bizarre succession of shootings, and an increase in hate-related crimes. Needless to say there was no shortage of press releases to read through and research today, which was very enjoyable.

I also experienced my first press office 'fob-off' at the newspaper this afternoon, however I managed to work around it, which was a challenge.

All things considered I think today was a great start to the placement - I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the day, and I hope that I have managed to make myself useful around the newsroom!