Journalist Works graduate shares interview experience

Edward Lowton spent a week with the Brighton Chamber in June, on a work experience placement from Brighton Journalist Works. Here he shares his experience:

I came to Brighton Chamber of Commerce for a work experience placement after I graduated from Brighton Journalist Works fast-track course in May.

The four month NCTJ course, the fastest of its type in the country, focused on reporting for a local newspaper, but also touched on feature writing in addition to modules coving media law – the legal and ethical considerations for journalists and public affairs covering how local and national government works in addition to education, health and social services.

During my week with the Chamber I undertook a series of interviews with living wage employers to be used as case studies on the Brighton & Hove Living Wage Campaign website.

While I had done a lot of interviews during the course this has been the first time where I’d needed this volume of material and the emphasis was also slightly different. Guided by Grace Evans, the Chamber’s Campaigns Manager, I planned set of questions to be asked to each business I interviewed in order to make sure the interviews shared a unified structure but at the same time when composing the questions we aimed to leave enough space to allow for an interesting and diverse selection of answers.

After having arranged interviews with a selection of Brighton businesses, the British weather being true to form, my first day of interviews was particularly stormy with rain all day, not the best time to be travelling around town on foot. But thankfully things improved over the course of the week.

The placement has been an interesting opportunity because it has offered the chance to see how the skills as a journalist I’d acquired on the course can be used outside a media context and applied to a promotional role.

I’d like to thank the team at the Chamber who were all very friendly and made me feel welcome.

Thanks to Edward Lowton for the interviews – which are available to read here.

To contact Edward, email [email protected] or call 07835452133.

To find out more about the living wage, visit www.livingwagebrighton.co.uk/about or get in touch at [email protected].