Publishing
The most popular area of publishing for many graduates is editorial, although it is often worth considering other areas such as marketing, sales, rights or production. Many graduate schemes offer experience in a variety of areas, and firms also tend to recruit from within the company, so if you work hard and do well many doors are likely to open for you.

An Editor works alongside designers, advertising departments and production teams and is responsible for overseeing the whole process, from the commissioning and planning stages through to the actual publication of book or magazine. There are also section editors and sub-editors who look after a particular part of a publication.

One of the most common paths to becoming an Editor is via the Editorial Assistant route. This role involves providing secretarial and editorial support to the editorial team whilst learning how a publishing company works and acquiring editorial skills. Typical duties include everything from photocopying and administration through to liasing with authors, designers and the production team, which requires strong interpersonal skills and the ability to be diplomatic. You will be helping to organise projects and keep them running to schedule, so time management skills and an eye for detail are also essential.

You could also work your way up to the role of Commissioning Editor, with responsibility for managing a list of publications, reading new manuscripts and signing up new books. As well as reading and evaluating potential new scripts, commissioning editors liaise with other editorial staff and other departments such as rights, sales and marketing. They also need to keep up to date with developments in the trade press and attend book fairs.

The Picture Researcher’s role involves finding the most appropriate pictures to go with a given text. Typical duties include liaising with picture libraries and agencies, checking captions and working to deadline on projects. A researcher will usually have a limited budget from which to obtain pictures, so there is a degree of financial responsibility involved. Networking skills are useful as you will be expected to build up a portfolio of contacts and so gain priority access to any pictures you may need.

The Literary Agent links the two worlds of literary creativity and business sense. He is responsible for representing a writer to a publishing house and the media – excellent communication and interpersonal skills are necessary in order to meet the very different needs of these two sectors. Becoming a Literary Agent is difficult and typically the preserve of people with several years experience and contacts in the industry.

The relationship between a writer and a publisher is essentially a commercial one: the contract which sets out what rights the publisher has to a book’s sales, and what proportion of those sales the writer receives, is administered by the Publishing Rights Department. Sometimes a publisher will sell the rights to a publication and allow it to be used and marketed in a different form by another party, which means that working in Rights can involve degree of sales through the promotion of a product.

Journalism
Journalism exists in several forms but is perhaps easiest divided into written and non-written. The predominant employers in the written sphere are newspapers and magazines, many of which now have an online presence in addition to their traditional medium. Similarly with the broadcasting companies who account for the other main area of journalism, they too have substantial websites to complement their existing services.

The growth of the Internet has also enabled much less established information providers to gain access to an unlimited market, although those that only provide an online service make up a very small proportion of the sector. Freelance work is also popular across the industry with experienced journalists either volunteering articles or being commissioned to write specialist features. Aside from gathering and reporting information, there are also roles concerned with the presentation of journalists’ work, involving the design and layout and overall editing of any articles or features. Editors and sub-editors are responsible for what the public actually get to see, and have to manage the egos of journalists, often asking them to cut a particular section or pursue a different line of investigation. Another area that can be fast-paced is that of photography, which covers a multitude of genres from sports reporting to the paparazzi-style associated with the tabloids.

Newspaper journalists are responsible for researching and collecting information for a topic or story and then presenting it in writing in an accessible and interesting manner. The subject matter can vary greatly from headline news regarding politics or acts of terrorism, through to celebrity gossip or light-hearted stories of general interest and amusement. As with all forms of journalism, it is important that you have a healthy interest in what you are reporting on, so that you can make your articles interesting and informative. That said, it is very unlikely that you will be working immediately in your preferred area and instead will need to move around between departments and even publications before you finally settle.The industry is highly competitive by nature, due to the intense rivalry to gain exclusive “scoops” and also because of the huge time pressures on journalists to complete articles in time to go to press so that they can make the next day’s publication.

Networking is the vital to be a successful newspaper journalists as it will usually be through one of your contacts that you get tipped off about an exclusive breaking news story or be first on the scene of a major incident.

Consequently, personality is a key factor, as journalists need to cultivate good relationships with influential individuals in their subject area and be confident about conducting interviews, often at short notice with little preparation. Another important quality is the ability to communicate your findings clearly and succinctly, taking care not to breach regulations concerning copyright or libel. Resilience is also a key attribute as stories can break at any time anywhere and have no respect for birthdays or weddings etc.

Magazine journalism offers the chance to work in an environment that is less time pressured but which arguably requires greater background research due to the more extensive nature of articles. Whatever the topic you are interested in, there will probably be a range of magazines already covering it, although it will, most likely, take some years before you are writing for a household name publication.Magazine journalists, like their newspaper counterparts, rely on a strong network of contacts to target the right people for interview, or even just so to agree to be interviewed at all. Individuals are responsible for thinking up new ideas to write about and then discussing their plan of action with the relevant editor or sub-editor. As well as research skills and a dogged determination to get the story, magazine journalists must understand the reader profile so that they can write in the appropriate house style.

Although broadcast journalism may attract some individuals by the promise of celebrity and the chance to become the next Jeremy Paxman, only a handful of those working in television or radio are successful enough to achieve such a status. It is far more likely that budding newsreaders will, at least initially, work behind the scenes as researchers or out “in the field” as roving reporters for regional programmes.