All in the Past

I finished my work experience at BBC History Magazine yesterday and an enjoyable time it was too. I was given copy to write, facts to check, pictures to research, people to phone, books to log, and others things besides.

It was very interesting seeing just how much of our course is directly relevant to the real world of magazine journalism and the concerns and discussions that I heard while working there were very much those that have been brought up by lecturers and ourselves when working on our own magazines.

I sat in on a meeting with Nick Brett where they went through the April issue (pictured) and that threw up some relevant points too. The tone of the meeting was positive but it was interesting to see just how many concerns and opinions there were on each page of the magazine.

The best thing about all this though, aside from being treated like a competent person who they could rely one, was that it underlined that I have made the right career choice. Magazines, with their professional but informal approach (I only wore a suit on the first day there...), the importance on design as much as content, and the notion of writing what a reader wants to read, not what they need to (i.e. newspapers), all remain things I can see myself doing for a living.