Welcome to my brand new blog!

I'll be using this for any kind of journalism work I want to discuss, to keep on record, and any kind of music, fashion or other culture that I feel like talking about :)

Starting off, I have just finished three weeks' work experience, one as PR for the  Journalism website (where I normally serve as Features Editor), one at the Liverpool Echo's features desk, and one at the Wirral News.

In the first, I got some cross-media experience when I created a video promoting JMU Journalism for the WoW Star page; since my specialty is print, it's not often I get to use video equipment, but in the end I managed to film and edit a three-minute video chock full of interviews, talking about what a wonderful course it is & what a wonderful city it's located in. Stephen Spielberg, eat your heart out.

In the second, I worked behind the desk at the city's top local newspaper, and was always kept busy with research, interviews and writing. I love doing features as I work much more efficiently when there's a looser deadline and there's less pressure, and when the writing is less formulaic than in hard news stories. In the end, to add to my portfolio I have: two brief items on Ed Byrne and Blink-182; two "six of the best" features on designer cups and saucers, and photo frames; one men's fashion spread; one StreetStyle feature with interviews; one nostalgia item on Liverpool's Chinese New Year celebrations, complete with a selection of photographs dating back to the 1970s; and a fashion feature focused on the dress for the Royal Wedding, having interviewed various local designers about how they would create the gown, and collected design sketches from them. I also did research for a feature writer's articles on celebrity anti-ageing methods, and arranged for samples of baby soothing lotions from various companies for another.

I really enjoyed working at the Echo, and I never found myself without something to do, which I liked. I felt like they trusted me (a couple of them called me their "little star"), and working in features journalism gave me an opportunity to enhance my own unique writing skills.

At the Wirral News desk, it was a different story. As a much smaller weekly newspaper, there wasn't much left for me to do besides run through the occasional press release with a phone interview here and there. (Although the placement there was very useful in one respect, as it sharpened up my over-the-phone interviewing skills - before, I hated doing it; now, it's no trouble.)

I'm back for my last semester at university and spending a lot of my free time hunting down jobs in London. I'd love to have found one by the time I graduate and am thrust out into the big scary world, but knowing what the climate is like right now I'm not going to get my hopes up too high.

I'm going to go update my CV and then start passing it out! :)

~ Lee
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