That GUG letter was pathetic. Get experience, get stories, get cuttings. That's what student journalism should be about.

I think the Guardian Student Meida awards have made a mistake by opening the awards to people already on journalism courses. Traditionally, the GSMA recognised those who pursued student media alongside their studies, rather than AS their degree. A GSMA was a great accolade to put on your application to a NCTJ course, and get your foot in the door to 'real' journalism.

Now people who are workign hard to get a degree and run the student papers are finding themselves competing against those who have whole terms to work on their papers, and for whom their investigations and articles actually form part of their coursework. In other words, people who already have their foot in that door.

Student journalists of all kinds deserve recognition, but by opening the awards up in this way, the GSMA are sidelining the people on non-journalism courses who have supported the awards for years.

This is like judging someone who plays in their weekend five-a-side league against someone who plays for a premiership team, with all the support and time to train that comes with it.

Many universities don't offer journalism courses, and people at such universities put a lot of effort in to create a thriving media scene and get their degrees. If you're editing a student paper at one of these places, it is basically as if you are doing two degrees at the same time. It isn't fair to be judged on the same level as someone who is already in training.

Why not have seperate categories for those already on those already on journalism courses? That way, everyone can compete for recognition, but on a fairer basis.

At the moment, The GSMA just aren't a level playing field any more, and this is a shame.

you said it, the industry just doesn't care about young journalists or giving them chances, unless we are annoyingly persistent.

This is a tough one; I think when things financially rosier (especially in consumer journalism) people wanted to look out for budding journos, offer internships, mentor people, reward brilliance etc, but now everyone's working so hard trying to keep their own job and publication/organisation afloat that it has slipped down the priority list. Even from doing early work experience three years ago to now I can see a difference. People now want skills and savvy that will make interns etc worth their time (if not money) - if you can revamp their website or get them going on social media, they'll consider nurturing you. If you're just an enthusiastic arts grad, forget it. Basically, no the industry largely doesn't care that much anymore, but in the big media picture you can see why.

I do think the kudos of having your work selected by Moran and Snow, plus the accolade itself on your CV would give you an edge, and it's all about the edge right now.

I don't think any industry has the right to nurture it's future while they're still at, say, the university level. Sure some businesses offer graduate schemes, and they'll sponsor some students through university right through into a job, but these people are usually in the top 2/3% of their class or are well networked-up already (ie. the privileged miniority).

With journalism in flux as it is - and being a relatively timeless industry due to the very nature of the job - I can easily see why the professional industry doesn't spend as much time as some would like with it's future. So the responsibility is thrust upon ourselves to ensure that, when we approach the industry for work, we have the skills, knowledge and enthusiasm to compete. It's tough enough to get into the industry as it is - aparently - than without another sheltered few winning placements and interships, in turn leaving more of us out of a job that we could have been paid for.

What we need more of from the industry (I say we as all student and aspiring young journalists) is a dialogue that discusses the skills needed for the job and the systems used at the industry level (of newsgathering and production, plus all the new fancy stuff like the Guardian's data journalism). Indeed the NSJSN (http://nsjsn.wordpress.com/) if it becomes more establish, or something similar, with a yearly conference and frequent regional workshops, would help support us from the 15-16 year old aspiring journalist through to the 24 year old postgrad journalism student. Yes, the NUS and the Guardian do young journalism conferences (I've not attended either) but really we as a body of students should be independant of both organisations.