This city is built on ideas, says Linda Harrison, with thriving technology and arts sectors and, of course, its university The Cambridge News is the city’s main newspaper and one


of a number of titles owned by Trinity Mirror in the area. The company also produces two magazines: Cambridge Magazine and Cambridge Business. Higginbotham says: “I can’t really speak for the news team,


but stories here tend to be on the gentler side – rows between motorists and cyclists and the horrors of the A14 dominating proceedings – although we do get the odd murder. But being a feature writer is definitely the way to go here – so many very interesting people, so little time …” Jenny Chapman is the business editor of the Cambridge News and also edits Cambridge Business magazine. She says: “Although our print circulation has declined in recent years, as is the case generally, we now have far more readers than at any time in our history, not least because Cambridge is an internationally recognised name in the tech world.” Chapman feels that Cambridge is the best place imaginable to be a business editor.


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“Actually, I don’t think many other provincial places have them these days,” she adds. “Cambridge has enjoyed phenomenal


success in recent years as a tech cluster – high, bio, clean, agri, med, you name it – which means that every day we are writing about extraordinary inventions, breakthroughs,


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ambridge is famous as one of the top universities in the world. And all this collective academic brainpower is a valuable resource for journalists in the city. “As a feature writer, the best thing about


working in Cambridge is that you have some of the world’s finest minds at your fingertips thanks to our – frankly brilliant – university,” says Emma Higginbotham, deputy features editor at the Cambridge News. “So if I fancy writing about anything from climate change


to criminals or heart surgery to autism, there’s a plethora of experts willing and very able to help. What’s more, you get to interview them in the most glorious surroundings – if there are any colleges more beautiful than Cambridge’s, I’ve yet to see them.”


ideas and flights of fancy, although not so much of the latter these days,” she says. “Cambridge techies have realised that they won’t get funding unless they are paired up with equally brilliant marketing and business folk.” Higginbotham, now in her 11th year at the Cambridge


News, loves working at the paper. “I’m totally biased, of course, but I think the paper itself is


excellent – well written with great photography, and the staff are all fabulous,” she says. “The only downside is that we’re stuck on an industrial site in Milton, about four miles north of the city centre, which is a shame.” Paul Kirkley, a freelance journalist who worked at the Cambridge News for 10 years, runs Interesting Media (http:// interestingmedia.co.uk), which offers writing and copy-editing services. He describes Cambridge as a city built on ideas. “From world-shaking theories on gravity, evolution and DNA to cutting-edge research on everything from graphene to cancer treatments, there’s a story to be told everywhere you look,” he says.


© 2D ALAN KING / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO


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