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need to do their homework first. “People who go straight into work from their A-levels run the risk of getting lost in admin or doing constant interning,” he says. And those going to study a degree also need to do their
homework. Holmes adds: “ There are also a lot of courses at an undergraduate level
that have journalism in their title that aren’t necessarily to do with becoming a journalist. “Anyone applying for a journalism degree has to look very carefully at what it offers. But those that are accredited by professional journalism bodies, and mix critical and skills based learning, can make for very powerful courses.” This said, according to the 2015 NCTJ survey, postgraduate courses yield better results. The survey found that 87% of respondents who had undertaken NCTJ training as part of a master’s course were in journalism related work; giving them a lead of 12 percentage points on those who had completed the diploma as undergraduates. Rigorous and specialised postgraduate courses such as
Cardiff’s MSc in computational and data journalism – a partnership between the university’s schools of journalism and computer science – can give participants a real edge in the job market, said Holmes. He says: “One of last year’s students is now a Google fellow
working at the Guardian – it does reach out into real life.” Freelance journalist and former Channel 4 News economics editor Paul Mason believes that postgraduate courses can provide better access to job opportunities, although he doesn’t think that’s always a positive thing. He said: “The point about the postgrads – the good ones
anyway – is that they have established and formal links with good work places and, when these work, they work really well. When I was at the BBC on Newsnight I saw people go from Wednesday placements through to getting a staff job within a year. It can happen. “But the formal procedures in place at the BBC should be
industry standard, because otherwise what happens is that the only people who can access those sorts of experiences are the daughters of judges or Russian oligarchs. Employers need the best people and logic tells us they come from all works of life – not just the stockbroker belt of Surrey.”
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