By Lauren W, Careers Rep

On 2nd February, Year 12 and 13 had journalist and alumna (Class of 2002) Charlotte Griffiths come to speak to them, and help them to explore the world of journalism. Charlotte began her talk by handing out her old columns and articles from when she started her career; these were all about celebrity gossip as she started her career in the “party pages” which she described as a good inlet into journalism. She recalled her days of champagne, red carpets, and meeting celebrities vividly and remarked at what a fantastic place London is to do this. 

Charlotte described her desperate attempts to get work experience following her degree in politics from Leeds university. She explained how she had to put her “foot in the door” when trying to get work experience until the Daily Mail training scheme scouted her. During this work experience, she learnt skills such as shorthand, helping her to improve her journalistic abilities. Currently, she is the editor at large for the Daily Mail which means that she can write about anything that she wants from opinion to trend pieces. 

Next Charlotte shared with us some interesting insights and tips on how to get involved with journalism; for example, journalists prefer those with English or politics degrees over journalism degrees. In addition to this, she said that the formula to success: be brave, be forward going, and get involved in a student newspaper at uni! 

She emphasised the importance of picking up the phone and calling to make things happen, journalists have too many emails and they can get easily missed compared to phone calls which are almost always picked up. She talked about the importance of not being embarrassed to ‘beg’, whether it be over the phone or knocking on politicians doors, you need to put yourself out there and be unavoidable for the biggest chance of success