first person


StartingOut


Lots of emails and enthusiasm helped to propel Frankie McCoy into a coveted job on the Standard


I


have a confession to make: I never wanted to be a journalist. Reading other people’s journalism


– reading anything at all – was more my bag. That’s why I studied English Literature at university. Despite going to Oxford, known for student newspapers like the Cherwell and Oxford Student, I never troubled myself to get into student journalism. I could pretend this was because friends embroiled in that world suggested it was bitchy, nepotistic and, in the case of the Oxford Student, prone to censorship by the university itself. Those would be noble reasons for not getting involved. The truth, however, is that I was just lazy. Skip forward to the end of finals and, after the traditional bacchanalia, the harsh fact of unemployment. No work experience behind me. No contacts in any relevant field (father a retired accountant in Barbados; mother self-employed). It wasn’t promising. Then a friend re-tweeted a message from a Sunday Times journalist. He was inviting people who wanted work experience on the News Review to get in touch. In just under four minutes, I’d crafted a mildly amusing and shamelessly flattering email that, on reflection, smacked of desperation (many such sycophantic emails would ping from my outbox over the next few months). A few seconds later, my friend apologetically called to point out that the tweet was months old, the work experience window therefore closed. Oops. Yet precisely because of my inability to read dates, there were no other applicants – and a month


20 | theJournalist


later I embarked on two weeks at News UK’s shiny new London Bridge office. And I was hooked. “This,” I loftily announced in a fug of exhaustion after my first day, “is all I want to do.” Serendipitously, I came up with the idea for a story (about fad drink Bulletproof coffee), about which I was allowed to research and write a 600- word piece, published that Sunday. With no prior journalistic experience and just five days in the office, I had an article printed in a national newspaper. My ego inflated uncontrollably. I wanted more.


T


his meant staying in the News UK building. A quick email down to The Times, offering my soul


for further work experience, granted me another week. This I used to interrogate anyone and everyone about getting into newspapers. It was the books editor who told me about a section of the Evening Standard where “everyone does time”: the Londoner’s Diary. Why not email the editor? High on the success of previous begging emails, I fired off a message to Joy Lo Dico, regretting that as Times columnist Caitlin Moran didn’t look set to pop her clogs anytime soon, perhaps there might be a place at the Londoner’s Diary for me instead? Never underestimate the power of humour, so long as it’s mixed with a hefty dose of self-deprecation and desperation. So, to the Standard, albeit for just


two days. But once again, a fortuitous chance to shine landed in my lap. Asked to investigate a tip about ‘the


“ ”


real Bullingdon Club’, I scooted off to the British Library, spent an afternoon researching, and ended up writing the Diary lead in the next day’s paper.


B


ut two days up, I was out on my ear. All very well having had a couple of stories printed, but what


Never underestimate the power of humour, so long as it’s mixed with a hefty dose of self- deprecation and desperation


now? Luckily, Joy – to whom I am forever indebted – offered me work on a personal project, combined with freelancing for the Londoner’s Diary an evening or two a week. Suddenly I was spending all my time with media types. Two months of continual networking later, I was an editorial assistant at The Oldie magazine. However, whilst providing volumes of anecdote for my memoirs – The Oldie is a real bastion of old-school journalism with fascinating characters – it wasn’t the writing job I wanted. But my fairy godmother was waiting in the wings. I was still freelancing for Londoner’s Diary in the evenings when a permanent job came up, Joy put me forward. Four days of panicked anticipation and emails later, I handed in my notice at the Oldie. And now I am a diarist. At parties


every night, in the office every day, battling the hangover and scrambling to find stories before the paper goes to press at 11am. Exhausting – I’m expecting to burn out by the time I’m 25, tops – but as far as I’m concerned, it is the most brilliant, pinch-myself job.


@franklymccoy

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