From Precious
July, 2008
Saba Salman
Freelance Writer | Media
Precious: Tell us about your route to the job.
Apart from wanting to be an air hostess like most schoolgirls, I decided I wanted to be a journalist when I was 13. I though it was unbelievable that someone would actually pay you to write stories and to be nosey - I had to do it. I did English at London University and at 21 took the first job I could find - as an editorial assistant on a trade mag. My first job serves as a caution to any bright but naive young spark who assumes that a bunch of yellowing student newspaper cuttings, a bit of work experience, an enthusiastic grin and dogged determination are all you need to break into journalism... My biggest mistake was choosing a magazine where the writing opportunities were non-existent and the subject - the international telecommunications industry - didn't interest me at all. I realised that if I wanted to seriously get into journalism, I needed a post-grad qualification. I did a three-month newspaper training course which gave me much-needed shorthand and media law, and got a job as a trainee reporter on a local London paper. I stayed for three years, became news editor and then did some freelance reporting on the Evening Standard before getting a full-time job there. I was on the Standard for three years (one as a general news reporter and two as Local Government/Social Affairs Correspondent) before I decided to go freelance in Feb 2001 to concentrate on features and rather than news.
Precious: Describe a typical working day.
If I had a job with a typical day, where I had the same routine day in day out, I couldn't cope. What I like about being freelance is that I can work pretty much when I want, depending on deadlines. I've got an office at home, so I have to be quite disciplined about working (avoiding the temptations of daytime TV - er, except when I'm doing my 'research' of course...). I tend to get my writing done a lot quicker than when I worked from a newsroom - mainly because I don't have the distraction of office gossip. I tend to be working on at least two commissions at once so I usually start work at 9.30am - research, a phone interview, a meeting, writing up notes or a face to face interview. I go out on interviews wherever possible, much better than the phone, and that can be in London and elsewhere. My all time record is Sheffield and back in a day writing up half the feature on the train and the rest at home at 11pm - not an experience I care to repeat too soon.
Precious: What are your career ambitions?
Just to carry on writing features that I'm interested in.
Precious: What do you do to relax?
Would love to say something wildly exciting, but sadly not, I go out with friends, read, swim and do yoga (and I started well before its association with Geri Halliwell).
Precious: Any advice to those who wish to follow in your footsteps?
Freelancing won't work if you're not self-motivated or bad at getting out of bed in the morning. Apart from that, get loads of work experience, start keeping a contacts book (you never know when people you thought were random acquaintances might be useful for a story) get trained and don't let anyone put you off. (above all, don't expect to land a job on Vanity Fair by starting off filing the news cuttings on a communications trade mag...).
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