Hi Caroline,

I really enjoyed reading your article, predominantly because I’m residing on one side of the fence and considering jumping to the other! I’m wondering whether a postgrad course is required for me to stand any chance at all of joining the seemingly elite journalism club. I’m a part qualified accountant by trade and am considering whether I could realistically make the move into business journalism. It’s taken me a while to realise that while I love business, accountancy probably isn’t for me. When analysing my skill set, and really thinking about what I want from life and my career, journalism was something which came to mind, and it’s something which I’m currently researching.

The more I read however, the more I am becoming intimidated by the competition and the seemingly endless array of unemployed journalists/struggling freelancers! Not only do they all seem to have wanted to become journalists since 16yrs, but they all have an eye-watering amount of unpaid work experience, published/unpublished articles with prestigious organisations, and to top it all off, many have journalistic degrees to boot! So I couldn’t help but ask myself – Is moving into business journalism even possible or realistic for me? How can I possibly compete? Do I need a postgrad qualification?

However, we all have to start somewhere. Some start earlier, and some start later (like me). Therefore, your account of the Guardian political writer with no training gave me hope! Providing I take the first golden tip in the journalism handbook and start writing immediately, there is a chance that my work experience will actually count for something. Whether that will make me a better journalist is anyone’s guess. As richardwilson84 says, it certainly gives you more experience of what you’re writing about, but sometimes less experience adds more value. E.g. an outsider can often provide a more objective view, like anon87 mentioned.

From a business perspective, the distinction comes down to the type of knowledge each possesses. The career journalist may be well researched, but the knowledge is often high-level, corporate textbook, and much more strategic. While those with work experience may be equally well researched, they will also have the operational knowledge. The kind of knowledge you cannot pick up without working in several places for a length of time and watching the people/interactions/nuances/emotion etc. It is this kind of knowledge which is hard to replicate for a career journalist. However, as KateDobinson mentioned, there is certainly “no right or wrong way of doing it”, and it will depend on several variables e.g. length/depth of article, target audience, publication etc.

Ultimately, as you mentioned, not all journalists can experience what they write about. As Polly Toynbee mentioned in her interview with Lizzie Porter, “if you go and write about a war going on, you don’t have to be the person who is themselves involved…you report it.”. (http://tinyurl.com/63rc7px)

I think you raise a good question, but I think the initial comparison between career journalists and career politicians that was presented to you was completely irrational. The reason people hate career politicians is that they instruct people on how to go about their lives without any experience themselves, and when it coms to political journalists often they're very much in the same clique (something leveson was geared at), and hence actually getting experience of politics. Hence experience of journalism is more damaging to your ability to raise questions.

Ultimately that's the main difference though, politicians instruct, journalists raise questions. The latter is all about learning about something new from an outsiders perspective and raising the obvious issues that may be opaque to those involved in what your writing about. Ultimately, most journalist will find themselves writing about a sector of industry or media where unfortunately very few who have chosen to enter that industry will have the ability to write about it, and even fewer could be bothered. It really depends what type of journalist you're talking about...

It is always better when journalists know what they are writing about. Understanding your industry is crucial if you want to make contacts, spot potential investigations, get exclusives and write informative copy that makes a difference to your reader.

Yet all of this means nothing without good journalism skills to back them up; don't underestimate the importance of your experience as a journalist. First and foremost, potential employers want to know you can write, edit, create infographics etc. They are hiring a journalist, not a financial exec, doctor, politician or whatever patch you're covering. Think of prior experience of your industry as a head start, nothing more; a core skill for journalists is the ability to quickly get to grips with and master their patch.

If you take on a specific beat, you need to bathe in it: learn its nuances and unwritten rules, the way the industry works, the key issues. Understand your audience. Spend time with them. Find out their hopes and concerns. See what their daily life is like. Never assume. You will soon get a solid grounding. Expertise takes more time, but, like learning any skill, it will come.

@wannabehacks A journalism degree does not just teach "how to write"- it teaches History, Politics, English, Philosophy... The list goes on.

Caroline, this article really resonates with me. At the start of a journalism career it is difficult to write with authority and at speed when you have limited or no experience of the sector. It can be faintly mortifying to interview industry veterans when you don't know the subject as well as you would like, no matter how much extensive research you have done. If I could, I would definitely spend some time working in Parliament.

A good example is the former Whitehall editor of the Observer, whom I interviewed this week about her appointment as strategic comms director at the Royal College of Surgeons. She spent time at the Home Office and the DoH as an advisor to the health sec and really emphasised to me that more journalists need to understand the inner workings of Whitehall by actively participating in it.

That's not to say you can't learn from the outside in though. There's no right or wrong way of doing it and it doesn't make a journalist any less authentic or credible if he or she hasn't worked in the sector. Reading as much as you can, interviewing as many people as possible, talking to your peers and heading to relevant events will help build knowledge very quickly. I tend to think journalism is just knowledge, knowing your subject intimately in any way you can.

Kate

@katedobinson

@Puffles2010 @CJMortimer Thank you, you are always very nice about my articles.

@Puffles2010 Can we arrange similar rules for MP's?

@Puffles2010 @cjmortimer the notion that journalism degrees just teach you how to write is incorrect.

Referring to your closing line, I think it goes without saying that journalists are better when they've got more experience on what they are writing about.  It is usually pretty evident that when someone is reeling out stats linked with a quote in a piece as opposed to someone who knows the topic inside out.

But we all have to start somewhere and the more topics covered the more interest we will all no doubt develop in areas we perhaps wouldn't even dream of being interested in.