Jobs and Opps at The Royal Television Society, The British Library, The Grand Opera House, and Many, Many More🎭
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Hey, it’s Hannah here again for this week’s newsletter. While our founder Jem is off on her cycling adventure and enjoying some well-earned rest (if you can call cycling 1,000 miles rest), I’ve been thinking about our relationship with our phones and what it means to truly switch off.
When our head of content Cat told me they’d spontaneously ordered a flip phone from eBay, I was also compelled to browse the internet’s retro mobile offerings. I don’t know about you, but my iPhone and I have a love-hate relationship. My heart sinks every time I receive the screen time notification. With smartphones, we’ve quite literally got everything at our fingertips. Want to send work emails just as you’re boarding a plane to go on holiday? Go ahead. Feel the urge to snap a shot of your croissant for everybody to see? Easy. Seen a job you want to apply for but won’t get home before it closes? Just apply on your phone. Want opinions on whether a sofa would look right in your living room? Here to help.
Several journalists have recently written about the ‘dumbphone trend’ — The Telegraph’s Ed Cumming survived one working week using a flip phone, and for Metro, Katherine Fidler tried out Nokia’s new 2660 Flip. The trend follows the idea that Gen Z — most of whom have grown up surrounded by tech — want to be able to switch off more effectively. So, they’ve turned to retro tech. #retrotech currently has 253.5M views on TikTok, and #fliphone has 751M.
The time I’ve probably come closest to completely switching off was Reading Festival in 2016. I took an old Nokia brick we had hanging about in the house and a disposable camera. I actually broke the brick phone (that’s how clumsy I am), so I had to rely on my friends’ devices to assure my parents I was still alive and well — but the switching off was good while it lasted. My mum often talks about when she was my age and went inter-railing across Europe, and how much better the tech-less experience probably was — relying on local advice, using payphones to send weekly updates to family back home, and using film or disposable cameras to capture memories.
I feel like we cling to this nostalgia and romanticise times without tech. But is switching off like this actually possible in our modern world — particularly in the journalism and media industry? Cumming had encountered logistical issues regarding work, and Fidler noted how hard it was to embrace the digital detox when she’d become accustomed to constant-access Slack and email.
Freelance journalism can often feel unstable, and it’s easy to think you’re missing out on opportunities and networking offline. If anybody has any tips on taking some time to completely switch off without constantly refreshing emails and doom-scrolling Twitter (though Elon may have solved that already), please let us know — we’d love to hear your thoughts.
[EVENT] Here’s How To Become Digital Nomad Journalist
It can often feel like the digital nomad life is a pipe dream. How do you sort out accommodation? Where do you find remote work? How can you make sure you don’t kill your back while you’re working? Rebecca Broad is here to answer all your questions and more, in her new workshop. Book your spot below and join us next Monday.
🚨 Last call to become a Journo Resources Fellow! We’re offering six months of 1-2-1 mentoring, a paid commission, and bespoke training. Previous fellows now work at outlets including the BBC, PA Media, Readers’ Digest, and more.
Theatre kids, listen up! Join the Grand Opera House as a marketing and comms officer, working on marketing campaigns to increase the media profile of their shows via social and editorial channels. Their upcoming shows include Shrek the Musical and Pretty Woman, so we might just see you there. Pays £20–25,000.
The Method needs a junior creative to help them develop immersive experiences so people working in healthcare can gain insights into living live with a medical condition. You’ll be interviewing a range of people to create their new A Life in a Day programme. Pays up to £28,000.
🚨 [AD] It’s also the last chance to apply for the digital internship at The Royal Television Society. It offers the chance to interview celebs, write features, and go to plenty of events. It pays the London Living Wage.
There’s an editor/marketing assistant position going at an independent children’s publisher. No mention of the company’s name, but they’re based in Truro. If you’d like to get into non-fiction publishing, this could be a good starting point. It pays £20–24,000.
Outlook Publishing — not to be confused with the email provider — needs a B2B editor to produce editorial content across their regional business and travel magazines. Their ideal candidate would be a graduate with student writing experience, or an editor looking to pivot into business writing. Pays £22,000.
The Institute of Art and Ideas is looking for a research intern to join one of their production desks in either Arts, Science, Philosophy, or Politics. IAI organises the world’s largest philosophy festival, so you’ll get great event production experience. Pays £20–25,000.
CGP Books want science and maths graduates to apply as STEM graduate editors, producing educational content for students. Pays £24,000pa.
Finelight Media needs a content editor/deputy editor to conduct interviews and write them up into articles. Depending on experience, there is also scope to become a deputy editor on one of the brand’s magazines. Pays £23–25,000 DOE.
Cameo Production needs an audio engineer/producer who knows what makes a good podcast. You’ll produce audio press kits for clients and it pays £33,000pa.
Join community-owned media co-operative The Bristol Cable as their social media producer, mainly repackaging their long-form journalism into short-form, impactful social content. We love their focus on community building through local journalism. The role is four days a week and pays £26,084 pro rata.
🚨 IMPRESS, the press regulator, is looking for an education, ethics, training, and development manager. It sounds like a mouthful, but you’ll basically be exploring how to create ethical journalism. It pays up to £38,000pa.
🚨If you have a native command of modern standard Arabic, OR Media wants you as their Arabic/English bilingual journalist. You’ll be producing documentary programmes three days a week normally, rising to five days during post-production. It pays £28,000–60,000 DOE.
Time for jobs at the Beebs. BBC Local is hiring core news journalists for the West Midlands region, producing content for web and socials. They also want online journalists for the Worcester and Stoke-on-Trent patches. These roles are all Band C, which means a salary of £25,670–50,313.
🌎 Going a bit further afield, BBC Hausa is looking for a video journalist to gather and produce original video for digital. You’ll need to be an experienced journalist and filmmaker, and be based in Abuja, Nigeria. Band C role, so £25,670–50,313.
🏡 🕑 Come join our Journo Resouces team! We’re looking for a deputy editor to join our team three days a week, working across editorial and social. It’s a three-day-a-week role that pays £30,000pa FTE.
Factory International needs a social media manager to tell stories across their platforms. If you can put together a social strategy and have worked with filmmakers and freelancers, you might be a shoo-in. Pays £32–35,000pa.
Another opportunity needing Arabic skills. The British Library is looking for a translation specialist as part of their Qatar Foundation Partnership Programme. You’ll be working on making the programme’s online portal fully bilingual and will need solid translation experience. Pays £30–40,000.
A company specialising in global supply chain solutions needs an editor to manage third-party content creators for a new project launch. They provide free breakfast in-house, and pay £30–50,000pa.
🏡 Fashion industry publication Drapers is looking for a news editor to take care of their news strategy and manage reporters. This is a hybrid working arrangement and pays £35–40,000 DOE.
🚨 Last chance to apply for the digital weekend editor role at NBCUniversal. You’ll be managing the site for the overnight US audience, identifying important stories and angles. It pays £63–73,000pa.
Sing Up needs a senior editor to coordinate and manage their music content. If you have extensive editorial experience in text and sheet music, they want to hear from you. Pays £34–37,000.
The British Film Institute is looking for a senior production executive to oversee all productions from their Filmmaking Fund. You’ll be involved from team reads to project delivery, and will need significant experience in feature film production and knowledge of the UK’s indie film industry. Pays around £50,000.
🏡 Join general insurance and financial services company NFU Mutual as their senior media relations press officer. You’ll need to have experience in either public relations or journalism, so this could be a good way to pivot away from our industry. The role offers 80 percent WFH, and pays up to £45,000.
A mystery “leading consultancy business to the global energy sector” is seeking an editor to lead their daily news publication. Solid experience in news writing and knowledge of the energy sector is essential. Pays up to £65,000 DOE.
China Dialogue Trust is looking for a global editor to lead editorial across their websites. You’ll need good knowledge of environmental affairs. Pays a very specific £59,409.63pa.
The BBC World Service needs a senior journalist to spearhead their daily social media team. Since this role is within the Africa digital desk, you’ll need experience working with Africa and world news. The pay is at Band D, so £36,195–64,688pa.
Break out your mic, because the BBC News Pod team is also looking for senior journalists to join the Long Form Audio department. You’ll have the chance to work on Americast, Ukrainecast, and Newscast. Also Band D, which pays £36,195–64,688pa.
Outlook Publishing, from above, is also hiring a head of editorial to manage a team of five, and all content across magazines, web, newsletters, and brochures. Pays £30–35,000pa.
The Law Society needs a content lead to find new ways of increasing audience engagement with compelling content, across web, magazines, and other channels. Pays £50,189–59,046pa.
Edinburgh International Film Festival is commissioning nine Scottish and Scotland-based writers to work on film culture pieces. You must have three to five years’ experience and you’ll be paid £500 for the piece.
Crown Media is looking to add multimedia journalists to their roster, for assignments both in the UK and abroad. It’s for training simulations but sounds fascinating.
Optum Perks, from Healthline Media, needs freelance writers to produce medical articles, with rates starting at £115 per piece. There’s a possibility of becoming a regular contributor.
An unnamed organisation based in Malmesbury is looking to contract a copywriter for six months. Experience of writing technology copy will give you a boost. Pays £300–350 per day.
Rachel Courtland has kindly tweeted the MIT Technology Review’s pitch guide. Freelancers can also sign up to be emailed with their calls for pitches.
For Insider, Brea A. Cubit is looking for tech reporters to write about digital trends and innovations that are transforming industries. Pays US$700 per article.
Also for Insider, Conz Preti wants back-to-school pitches in the form of essays or reported pieces. She has even included idea examples in her tweet.
Indie publication Certified Forgotten covers horror films, and they want your pitches. Refer to their pitch guide; they pay US$75 per feature.
Queerbeat has extended the submission deadline for their collaboration with Revival Disability India. Send pitches on disability, queerness, and their intersections by July 20.
Joseph Beguiristain wants commercial writers to support the teams at Action Network, VegasInsider, and Sports Handle. Register your interest using their form.
This Magazine is accepting pitches for their annual Culture issue — the theme is centred on all things DIY. The deadline for pitches close on July 21. Pay differs according to the type of article.
🚨 🎪 Coming up next Monday is our event on how to be a digital nomal journalist. If you don’t relish being tied down to a desk, this lifestyle might suit you, and Rebecca Broad will tell you how to make it work.
🎪 Travel journalist Karen Edwards will be speaking on July 26 about how to break into travel journalism in the first place, how to get onto press trips, and how to travel sustainably as part of the job. We love getting paid for taming our travel bug!
🚨 The Wales Media Awards close in a couple of days — if you’re a journalist based in Wales, get your entries in now, there’s an absolute shedload of categories.
🚨 Last chance to grab tickets for our digital nomad workshop, which is next week! Join us to learn how to sort taxes, find places to stay, and find work that fits around a remote lifestyle.
👩🏽💻 Fancy a power hour to get through your to-do list? Join our co-working sessions for some friendly motivation. These are now listed every Wednesday until the end of the year and we’ll add more dates soon.
🚨 Last call for the Inclusive Media Development Lab from Inclusive Journalism Cymru. It’s a three-day programme of talks from media innovators and entrepreneurs, to help you build a more inclusive industry.
🚨 Also on our list of things closing this week — The International News Media Association is accepting applications and nominations for their 30 Under 30 Awards. You’ll also get 12 months of free memberships.
The Fourdrinier online art journal is looking to support three underrepresented writers based in the north of England as part of their professional art writing development scheme. This is an opportunity for early-stage journalists to get into art writing — they’ll give you a £300 participation fee, £200 per published article, mentoring, and more.
🚨 The Dig Awards 2023 close this week too — the pitch category allows you to send an idea for a video or audio documentary that is in development or research phase, and you could snag up to €15,000 to make it happen.
🚨 The Rory Peck Awards also close this week, with four categories for freelancers working in the international media industry. There are fee waivers for freelancers for whom cost is a barrier to entry.
🚨 The George Weidenfeld Bursary from the International Journalists’ Programme closes this week, which gives British and German journalists the chance to gain experience in the other country.
🚨 There’s just one week left to apply to the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where eight full-time fellows will work on individual and collaborative reporting projects about ocean degradation. They’ll cover your salary for the year.
The New Media Writing Prize is back open! It celebrates the very best writing that has been made specifically for digital. More details here.
Transitions Magazine is offering grants for solutions journalism stories about central and eastern Europe. You’ll also get mentoring to help complete the story too.
And, finally, the next round of Flashlight grants is open, offering US$500–1,000 to freelance investigative journalists. More info here.
Our brilliant staff writer Hannah speaks to fashion editors and finds out how to become a fashion journalist. It’s really not all The Devil Wears Prada out there!
Simran Johal takes us through studying for an NCTJ part-time to joining the ITV Granada graduate scheme, and how hectic it can get being a broadcast journalist.
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