Jobs and Opps at FE Week, the BBC, Yorkshire Sound Women, Posterzine, Marie Claire, and Many, Many More ✨
Plus, our picks of ten tried-and-tested planners for 2024
Hello friends — Kayleigh here greeting you all for the first time in 2024! I hope each of your years have been off to a positive start. Ours certainly has at Team JR; just last week we sent off the third edition of our annual magazine, The Yearbook, to the printers (a few final copies available here, if I can be so bold as to mention it again). With a firm goal (aka. a print deadline) to work towards, we knew we’d need to combine hard work, planning, and collaboration across the team. The list seemed unending, but mini-deadlines and milestones helped us to stay on track.
Now, I confess, I’m a bit of a dreamer — on my best days, I am all-at-once inspired, in tune with my aspirations, and invincible! But sometimes, setting goals can feel daunting; it is easy to dream big and then baulk at the scale of what you hope to achieve. It is also surprising how ambition can turn to whimsy when the path to a goal seems less ‘A to B’, and more ‘H to D’ with an ‘A’ and an ‘R’ in the middle.
Breaking down creating The Yearbook into tasks made the process attainable but, more importantly, less anxiety-inducing. The same can be said for your goals — giving them a tangible structure with monthly and weekly tasks to tick off your to-do list will help you inch closer to them instead of floundering in purgatory. I’ve also tried not to beat myself up too much about any goals missed from 2023.
So, whilst January 1st may already seem lost in the distance, the spirit of a new calendar year is still upon us — and we’ve taken it upon ourselves to road-test ten of the best planners out there. For any of you who love that ‘new-notebook feeling’ this is one for you. There is never an inopportune moment to reflect on our hopes and aspirations for the next 12 months. As they say, Everest wasn’t climbed in a day — and neither are your goals! As for mine, I’m not going to share what they are, but I’ll tell you when I complete them.
PS. We also have two A* events next week (that could also help you achieve your goals). Join us to find out how to become an author and how to break into investigative journalism.
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🏡 The Centre for Climate Reporting has an opening for a junior investigations reporter who wants to push their reporting to the next level and work with hard-to-reach sources and undercover teams. It pays £26–30,000pa. This also seems a good point to add we have an event next week on breaking into investigations.
Lymphoma Action has a vacancy for an editorial assistant to work in the publications team. It pays £23,000pa and you’ll help produce high-quality and accessible information about blood cancer.
Posterzine is a publication that covers the display and sale of diverse posters and visual art and it sounds fascinating. It’s in need of a part-time social media manager and content creator to expand its reach across all platforms. It pays the National Minimum Wage.
ITV’s This Morning is looking for a production assistant to help with the delivery of each show, including writing briefs for the on-air team. It pays £28,000pa.
Henley Standard is hiring a new reporter and is open to either a trainee or a senior journalist. It pays up to £25,700pa plus any overtime.
🏡 🕑 ARTUNER is looking for an intern to help with social media copy, catalogue descriptions, and copy for their website and newsletter. The role pays £500 per month and is a six-month contract.
TMW Unlimited is hiring a junior copywriter and the advert actively seeks out those “aspiring” to start their careers. It pays £25–30,000pa and you’ll be producing copy for a range of print and digital media.
Sykes Cottages is looking for an SEO executive to create content that will drive even more people towards their brand. It pays from £23,000pa and they say people with journalism qualifications would be a good fit.
This is an interesting role for a visual researcher with It’s Nice That. You’ll work with both their editorial and creative teams to spot trends and will be paid £25,000pa.
Radio Times is on the hunt for a junior sub-editor to make sure all the copy they put out is word-perfect. It pays up £27,000pa — and you’ll never forget what’s on the telly. H/T MediaBeans.
Yorkshire Sound Women Network is hiring for a trainee studio assistant at BeSound Studios. It’s aimed at women and minority-gendered people aged 18-25 and offers tonnes of training and a £5,000 payment.
And, finally, UNILITE (nothing about uni, it’s LED lighting) is hiring a video editor and it looks like an achievable entry-level job. It pays £25,000pa and you’ll get to shoot and edit cool videos about lights.
Antiques Trade Gazette is looking for a senior reporter to keep its subscribers up-to-date with news, information, and analysis. I also imagine you’d get to see a lot of quite cool furniture. It pays £30–35,000pa.
🕑 New hyperlocal outlet
, which covers Wimbledon is hiring a reporter and newsletter writer. They’re offering £400 a week for 20 hours of work on their weekly newsletter and longer-form stories — a number they hope will increase as the newsletter grows.🏡 Following on from last week’s batch of cycling-themed jobs, Cycling UK is adding another one to the pile. This week it’s a multimedia content producer gig, where you’ll be paid £31,673–35,192pa to produce a range of content.
🏡 The deadline isn’t too far away for the jobs with Hyphen, a journalism start-up that tells stories for Muslim communities across the UK. They’re looking for multimedia producers, assistant editors, and reporters. All pay £30–40,000pa.
TechRadar is hiring a staff writer to focus on reviews on key products, especially around key dates like Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day. It pays £24–30,000pa.
Future is also looking for a reviews editor for Tom’s Guide, which describes itself as “one of the world’s fast-growing websites”. It sounds pretty fun and you’ll be paid £29–35,000pa. The same role is also available at TechRadar.
Two gigs from emap this week: Mortgage Strategy needs a news editor who will be paid up to £38,000pa and Drapers wants a features editor who’ll get £35,700pa.
🕑 🏡 Creative Lives is hiring a community producer to support grassroots creative activity in Reading and create audio for BBC Radio Berkshire. It’s a two-day-a-week role and pays £30.405pa FTE.
The Royal Academy of Engineering is looking for a web and content manager to create accessible, search-optimised pages. It pays £34,675pa.
The Royal British Legion needs a digital content producer to tell stories in creative ways across their online platforms. It pays up to £35,452pa.
Marie Claire has an opening up for a social media editor to create content across all these channels and take the lead on strategy. It pays £29–35,000pa.
Who What Wear at Future is also looking for a social media editor to lead and manage the social media team, channel strategies, and content calendars. It pays up to £45,000pa.
The Food and Drink Federation has an opening for a senior press officer and it pays up to £40,000pa. I’m not going to lie, I’ve mainly included this as I’m quite hungry at the moment.
The Francis Crick Institute is hiring a digital content editor to manage their website content and produce long-form articles. The salary pays up to £42,900 if you click through to the details.
Who doesn’t love a good motorway service station? There was a round about them in the pub quiz I went to on Sunday. Welcome Break, the team behind many of those weird transitional spaces, is looking for an internal comms and inclusion manager and it pays a pretty decent £50,000pa.
Chorus put together content for a range of brands across various industries and they’re looking for an independent (read: freelance) content creator to work with them on content creation. It pays an expected day rate of £350.
FE Week is hiring a freelance reporter to join them for three to five days a week (depending on your availability) until Easter. It pays £150 a day and you can work some days remotely.
Touretteshero CIC is offering 16 disabled, d/Deaf, neurodivergent, and/or chronically ill creatives ages 14–26 the chance to co-create a new zine with them, called the Department for Wonder and Play. A fee of £500 is on offer.
Bloomberg needs a freelance output producer who’ll focus on their live morning news shows. It’s a contract position until the end of 2024, so promises some stable work. You’ll write scripts, produce content, and work in the control room.
🏡 Freddie’s Deli, a new deli in London, is looking for a social media manager for two days a week. It’s WFH, but you will need to head in to create content on a regular basis. It pays £150 a day.
The Telegraph’s Production team is keen to hear from freelancers with digital and/or print production experience.
Bustle Digital Group is seeking a freelance writer to write nightlife content for NYLON — think trends that are shaping the art, music, and culture of nightlife, previews, and party reports. Worth flagging it’s a NYC-based site.
Steffanee, who’s also at NYLON magazine, is always accepting music pitches — send your hot takes on new scenes, trends, and offbeat observations this way.
IGN’s Matt Kim is always happy to receive pitches for features about big new releases and important anniversaries relating to video games and video game culture. It pays US$300 for about 1,400 words.
Dread Central, which covers all things horror, is commissioning for its Black History Month Programming. They pay US$100 an article.
In light of the recent layoffs, GRAMMY.com is always accepting pitches.
Independent classical music magazine VAN Magazine is also sending solidarity to writers and editors involved with Pitchfork, and says it’s open to pitches on all things classical, experimental and improvised.
Rachel Epstein, deputy editor at Men’s Health, is open to pitches — compelling features, investigations, profiles, and essays exploring issues men care about.
Know your Grey Goose from your Smirnoff? Chris Hatler at Men’s Journal is looking for op-ed and essay pitches on all things spirits. Pay rates start from US$250 for 600–800 words.
Policy, honestly, a newsletter highlighting the impact of specific policies or legislation, is accepting pitches. Details this way. Pays £500.
Independent music platform no bells is creating a print magazine on underground music. Send pitches before 7th February. Rates start at US$100.
Does anyone have any cool, unique, and luxurious thoughts on weddings? Amy Wakeham is looking for pitches for Country and Town House.
Openly is expanding its global coverage, and is looking to work with local freelancers on video stories on LGBTQ+ topics in Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Indonesia. Send your pitches to Enrique Anarte.
🚨🎪 Next week Florianne Humphrey is talking about how to pivot your skills as a journalist into becoming a successful author. We’re so excited for this one, writing a book is a long-held dream for our whole team.
🚨🎪 Also next week, Rosa Furneaux returns for another instalment of her killer session on breaking into investigative reporting. Join us to learn practical skills, find the right story angle, and snag a job.
🎪 Other events we have coming up include writing about your experiences without selling your soul, nailing interviews, finding your voice in arts journalism, and breaking into lifestyle journalism.
For anyone who runs a podcast for a publisher (so you can’t enter your own personal project) the Publisher Podcast Awards are now open. It’s free to enter and there are tonnes of categories, so you’ll find one where you fit.
The National Diversity Awards are also open for applications again. There are loads of categories and they aim to celebrate grass-roots communities making tangible changes to society.
For those of you based in Europe, the International Press Institute is running a media hackathon for any individual or organisation to bring an innovative and sustainable project idea. They’ll cover your costs to attend the conference to build and strategise and follow up with a potential €5,000 grant and mentoring.
This is a really great opportunity from BBC Creative; a 12-week masterclass course for people from Black, Asian, and Ethnic minority backgrounds who’d like to take their first steps into advertising. You’ll work on everything from copywriting to strategy to art direction and the application looks so fun.
The 2024 Fitzcarraldo Editions/Mahler & LeWitt Studios Essay Prize is open to any unpublished writers. There’s a £3,000 prize for the winning essay, a residency in Italy, and then your book will be published.
Media Career Advice is running a production assistant training programme for those looking to work in TV. It includes seven days of classroom training, six hours of mentoring, and a paid three-month placement. Bursaries available.
BFI Flare x BAFTA in partnership with BFI NETWORK is the longest name for a programme we’ve ever heard, but it does sound great. It’s a professional development programme to support LGBTQ+ filmmakers, including so much stuff I can’t even list it all down here.
The Edwin Morgan Poetry Award is for anyone born in 1994 or later who was born, raised, or currently lives in Scotland. There’s a prize pot of up to £20,000 split between up to four winners.
You can’t nominate yourself for this — but we put it to you to put someone else forward. The International Women’s Media Foundation is taking applications for the Courage in Journalism Awards for those working in difficult circumstances.
The Hugo Burge Foundation has a call-out for early-career and emerging writers who want time and space to work on their craft in a tranquil setting in the Scottish Borders. You’ll get a private Hobbit Pod, use of a studio, and a weekly stipend of £350.
🚨 Including this one this week as you wouldn’t have time to do it all in one day: the Joan Shorenstein Fellowship offers a place in residence at Harvard for a semester with a monthly stipend, to explore public policy and journalism.
🎪🆓 Hack Drinks, a super friendly meet-up for journalists in London, has just announced their next date — February 5. DM them on Twitter to get the location and join the mailing list. We’ll see you there!
🚨 The Amnesty Media Awards close on Monday, 29 January. Some categories are free to enter, while for others you can apply for a bursary to cover the costs. All categories celebrate excellence in human rights journalism.
🚨 Next Tuesday is the deadline for the 2024 Hillman Prize. There are several categories for the best investigative reporting, with a prize of US$5,000. It’s open internationally, but work must be targeted to a US audience.
🚨 The JournalismAI Fellowship also closes for applications this week. You’ll spend eight hours a week learning about projects that use GenAI.
🚨 The next deadline for the Fund for Investigative Journalism is next Monday. Up to US$10,000 is available to produce high-quality, non-partisan, unbiased investigations that have an impact.
🚨 Finally, the Milena Jesenská Fellowship also closes this week. It allows time off to pursue a research topic of your choice and you’ll spend three months in Vienna and receive a stipend of €3,000 a month.
There Are Still A Few Copies Left Of Our 2024 Yearbook!
Because of maths, we had to round up our magazine order — so for a few days only you’re still able to snag one at the pre-order price. You can expect 100 pages of inquisitive, original features from our 2024 fellows, touching on everything from how we can report better to what your office looks like. There are also brand-new exercises to help you plan your year and tonnes of inspiration for your work and beyond.