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Thursday, February 5, 2015

Manchester Evening News

Following a week of three brutal exams, I was rewarded with a week -- well three days -- of work experience at the Manchester Evening News (MEN) on the sports desk. I would end up with a few bylines in various weekly newspapers, my name being spelled correctly.

The scenarios I got myself in will sound typical Allen. Context: the MEN is located all the way out in Hollinwood, which is just inside the M60 ring road around Manchester. I'm sure that means little, but it was an hour journey via a tram change. The second tram will become important to the narrative on day two.

On day one, I arrived into Hollinwood tram station 30 minutes before I was supposed to. Fair enough right? Well I somehow turned that 30 minutes into being 15 minutes late because I happened upon the wrong turnstile to gain entrance into the premises. There are apparently three. Even after calling into the switchboard, I couldn't figure out why security wasn't letting me in, but a few workers finally pointed me in the right direction.

When I finally did get into the building, I was put right to work producing a match report for League 2 team Accrington Stanley, who had lost to AFC Wimbledon, as well as a quotes piece for the back page.

To be fair, I was put to work by 11a.m. as no one could remember the password for the computer.

Day two was far more exciting. Or frustrating (depends on how you look at it).

To get to Hollinwood, I catch the tram from Eccles into city centre. From there, I walk to the Market Street tram stop where trams leave for Bury and Rochdale. I get on a tram to Rochdale which spits me out right outside the MEN offices.

I had no issues on Monday but Tuesday... On Tuesday, a car got in an accident with an Altrincham-Bury tram. Thankfully, I wasn't on that tram but I would once again be late -- a great way to impress potential employers.

So on one of the coldest mornings I had to wait 30 minutes for a tram to arrive.

Once I did arrive, I had plenty to do. There was a rugby report and a few football reports to take care of and it goes without saying, I know nowt about rugby. I made use of some online rugby glossary but even that wasn't enough. Oh, how lost I was.

All week, I was under the supervision of Richard (surname withheld), who was very informative about the industry and answered any questions I had. I learnt the politics of a newsroom and how big editorial changes can be.

Richard decided for Wednesday my time would be best served NOT trying to chance the trams and to work from home.
Smart. On Wednesday, I was assigned a 1p.m. deadline to complete a match report for Accy's 1-0 loss to Bury the night before. The process to write a match report is simple: in my own words, combine what Accy and their opponent wrote about the match. But for Stanley, also known as "the club that wouldn't die", their website sure did since someone didn't pay the bill.

It made it difficult but I was able to piece together a somewhat coherent report.

Overall, the quotes pieces were my favourite thing to do: watch a video of either the manager or player speaking and then write a 400 word article with an angle of my choice. It felt like journalism.

And because these pieces were to go to into the Accrington Observer, I was told not to slate the team even if they weren't playing well, which they weren't.

I remember reading articles other course mates had done whilst on placement. Unlike mine, some had theirs posted online and the comments were brilliant. Not word for word, but comments ranged from positive discussion to, "can't believe the rubbish journalists bring out these days". I would've hoped for the latter!

I couldn't get my hands on the Accrington Observer until the following Wednesday but when I did my name was on three of the four stories on the inside page of the sports section. How cool.
Posted by agunn12 at 8:07 PM
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