Angel, Year 11, wrote:
In today’s seminar, we had an eye-opening conversation about journalism with a well-established journalist, Beth Neil.
She shared her story with us regarding her journey into her career and how, by dedicating her time into discovering her passion for writing, she managed to nurture her career into becoming well-known within her profession.
Neil also discussed with us the amazing and unique opportunities that her job provides, such as travelling to meet and interview popular celebrities and public figures, which few other jobs can boast.
Throughout the discussion, we learned that she first laid the foundation for her career by writing during her free time and scouting for any local journalistic jobs that she could spend her free time writing for while she was in high school.
Gradually, this evolved into Neil’s inclusion in popular celebrity magazines, such as Fabulous, as she further pursued journalism as her chosen path. Slowly, her career took off enough to the point that she could work freelance and start ghost writing for several celebrities and media personalities, including the likes of Joe Sugg, all while remaining a trusted name within the industry.
She advised us during the seminar that some of the key qualities in order to be a good journalist would include being confident, empathetic and being able to notice and identify where a potential line of focus could be within a story or interview.
The conversation that we shared with Beth Neil proved to be very insightful into her career and inspiring to many of us and I personally think that even if someone chose to not pursue this specific career, there are a lot of valuable pieces of advice that were given through the duration of our seminar.
