Interview with a Journalist

Sitting in a café across from an uneasy and awkward informant, keeping your cool as you try and garner information from them, always aware of race against time to get the job done.

Not the plot for the latest spy flick, but the electrifying and action packed life of 34-year-old professional news reporter Booth, Guardian, who still speaks with an earnest vehemence about his profession and makes any other career path seem positively prosaic in his rhapsodic wake.
Although having to report the zeitgeist, as a journalist he is also expected to make news by hunting down any stories of worth.
‘The job is so varied, I get to follow my own interests, it’s stimulating.’
Good reporting is about news sense, knowing what’s important.’
Booth has sound erudition and a variety of tips for anyone hoping to get into the profession.
‘Good reporters need to be approachable people an open book,’ ‘they must be confident in nailing stories,’ ‘persistent and aggressive in pursuit of a story, they must have an element of ruthlessness,’ ‘think about the readers and write for them.’
Of course being too brutal can be a bad thing so it’s also essential to rein it in now and again.
‘It’s hard sometimes I remember I had to interview a recently widowed woman about her late husband and it was really difficult to get what I needed without pressuring her, although it sounds cold I enjoy the challenge of things like that, constantly walking a tightrope of taste I suppose.’

The journalism career path is also seductive for other reasons, certainly the money is right, ‘when I first started I was on about £13,000 a year and I’ve known people to be on up to £100,000.’
The dramatic film-noir imagery, ‘at lunch I’ll normally meet a contact and maybe the same at dinner, or some sort of event.’
And the overall flexibility the job offers, ‘I get into the office about 10, pick up my assignments from the news desk and crack on.’
‘Varying hours, I work a nine day fortnight.’

Although it seems Booth has landed his dream job he didn’t always want to be a journalist, he just wanted to write, ‘I wanted to use the one skill I had, writing.
‘I got involved in print and thought it was interesting.’
15 years after his first publication Booth’s is currently writing at the Guardian, one of the world’s leading newspapers and couldn’t be happier.
‘I love my job, it gives me the opportunity to do what most people never can, what I love every day.’
‘You never stop learning, I would recommend a career in journalism to anyone who loves to write.’