Guest Speaker - Sandra Laville

Sandra Laville visited University College Falmouth this week to give University students advice following her recent appearance in the Leveson Inquiry.

Laville has been the Crime Correspondent for the guardian for seven years where she is the senior journalist and has covered many major cases such as the Harold Shipman murder investigation and the fatal stabbing of the 10 year old Damilola Taylor.

Laville advised students: “When people employ you they want to hear about your integrity and ethics, you are young and employers want to hear about how youre not tainted by any of these bad practices. It is an ethical profession it is a positive and good thing in society.”

She started off her journalistic career in local news starting on the Northampton Chronicle and Echo also the Cornish weekly newspaper the Western Morning News before moving to London. 

Laville told students to: “Take every opportunity that comes to you, don’t be afraid to start small, don’t be afraid to start on a niche magazine”.

Journalists have been highly criticised for their involvement within the phone hacking scandal particularly under the rein of Murdoch’s empire. However Laville argues that as a Journalist it is her job: “to be the people’s eyes and ears, To hold the authorities to account, To give people voices who don’t have voices normally. I need to shed light on injustice”

She understands that due to the huge scandals within the press and the weakened relationship between journalists and the public it is becoming increasingly harder  for young journalists to make an impression in their chosen field of profession. She adds: “Your jobs might be harder in the future but you just need to be tenacious and dig around for stories.”

Guest Speaker - Oliver Poole War Correspondent

Oliver Poole told Falmouth University College students what it’s like to be a war correspondent and the basic things which individuals need to do to survive in harmful situations out in Iraq and other war scenarios.

Poole is a successful war correspondent who currently works for the Independent/ The evening standard papers, a very successful newspaper company who distribute newspapers daily across the United Kingdom.

However despite the success of both papers within the company Poole told university College Falmouth students that: “I prefer to write for the Evening standard rather than the independent purely because the standard is read by everyone in London.”

Poole told students : “I was in Gaza two months ago which is a particularly difficult place to get into”

As a war correspondent, Poole can relate to news stories involving journalists out on the front line getting information and feeding it into our public domain. Quite recently news broke out that the journalist Marie Colvin and photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in a rocket attack in the district of Homs, Syria.

However Paul Conway, a photographer for the Sunday times injured in the same attack which killed two journalists and 24 Syrian civilians was released from capture and sent home to the UK.

Poole explains:  “13 activists helping Conway got killed in the process of getting him out of Syria, which is a lot of people killed to save one photographer”.

Carrying on from the topic he asks the question: “Why does that person matter compared to the 13 who got killed?” in relation to the controversial topic.

Guest Speaker - Suzie Smith

Media Consultant Suzie Smith told Falmouth University College students that versatility is hugely important within a media and journalism career.

Suzie Smith runs her own media consultancy business and is currently editor in chief of a new magazine which is being launched later this year called ‘Cornwall Living’.

Smith stressed to students that they need to be a versatile as possible within their media careers in order to succeed within this fast and demanding media world.

Smith said that: “Being as versatile as possible is hugely important mainly because its exceptionally hard to get any jobs within journalism or media these days and for that reason, I have reinvented myself within my job, where I live etc.”

Suzie runs her own media consulting business which offers a brand of everything she has ever done. As well as this she also has changing day to day activities, “so for example one day I will be teaching, and even as a freelance broadcast journalist because I work in radio, next day I might be working in PR.”

Smith argues that: “The idea is to keep changing and be as versatile as you can.”

However she started her career similar to many journalism students, after studying a Journalism degree at city college she took her first journalism job at a weekly free newspaper then moved on to an evening newspaper.

She then moved to Cornwall whereby she became the editor of Pirate FM a popular local radio station. After her short time at Pirate FM she then became the editor of the western morning news an extremely popular weekly newspaper within Devon and Cornwall.

After her years at the newspaper she was awarded the rather prestigious role as ‘head of content’ at the West Briton she was then offered an editorial job within the company but refused this and instead got a PGCE in teaching.

Due to working in so many forms of media Smith got to know a lot of journalists who she needed to speak to and formed many contacts and therefore moved into PR. whereby consequently she won an award this year for the best freelancer in the south west by the chartered institute of public relations.

Suzie Smith told students: “Im a big fan of social networking, It was my linked in website which was the main reason behind my position at ‘Cornwall Living’”.

Smith is currently Editor in chief of a new magazine launching in cornwall this year named “Cornwall Living”, she explains that their demographic is ABC1 which equates to High-end very affluent individuals and their primary target is women aged 35-45.

Guest Speaker - Rebecca Matthews and Brendan Sleeman

Editor of ‘Wed’ magazine Rebecca Matthews and her co-creator Brendan Sleeman told Falmouth University students that finding their own “Niche” area in journalism is key.

Matthews studied at University College Falmouth and met Sleeman while working on an independent cinema magazine before starting up “Wed Magazine” which has two issues each month one covering Cornwall and one primarily focused on Devon.

Matthews told students: “What’s really important when starting a magazine is getting your brand right, know your readership and create a brand which hits that readership well.”

Wed magazine is a “Home-grown product” both Matthews and Sleeman pointed out that the market needed a wedding magazine which was tailored to Cornwall and Devon consequently the magazine and everything in it is primarily produced in Cornwall or Devon, Such as Writers, Designers, Locations and Photographers to make it authentic to its brand and readership.

Matthews said: “What we discovered was most of our competitors weren’t distributing their magazines online, Most of the people who get married in Cornwall don’t live there.” Consequently they realised that if they only stocked magazines in the surrounding WHSmiths & Marks and Spencer stores then they will be missing out on a much wider target audience.

Sleeman said that: “Content is always king online” however they both made sure that it was used “affectively so it wouldn’t affect [Their] print edition” in doing so they made sure that the “content of the new magazine never goes up [on the website] until the magazine comes off the shelf.”

Finally Matthews advised Journalism students that if they wanted to work for magazines and generate features for them that they had to “gain ground on a chosen subject, you will become a much better candidate.”

Check out the magazine’s website on www.wedmagazine.com

Guest Speaker - Sam Lynas

Are you interested in creating your own blog? Or do you have your own blog and want to create more revenue from it? Well Sam Lynas has come back to Cornwall to help students with just these problems – Read on for more Information.

Sam Lynas told University College Falmouth Students how blogging and writing can really influence and gain respect from editors who are looking for new and creative Journalist’s.

Lynas made clear to the students that writing can really make an impact to where students end up working or interning after university. Lynas said: “You can’t really write enough or too much” so it is clear that the more students up date and write on their blogs the better off they will be in the long run once searching for jobs.

However although some students may see writing and updating their individual blogs as a chore Lynas stressed that: “Blogging is a lot of fun, It can be quite addictive” and that the main thing about blogging is content.

He argues that there is four things to remember when uploading your content onto the web, The content must be “Interesting, Original, affordable” and have good “consistency” such updating and refreshing your writing constantly.

The main aim of his lecture to the students at Falmouth was to help them maintain a “model whereby they create interesting content designed to entertain, engage, inform, and educate their current & potential customers.”

Sam Lynas studied at University College Falmouth completing it in 2009, He now works in London as a digital content producer who freelances at prestigious healthcare.