From results day to multi-award-winning journalist

Sophie Perry, senior news reporter at PinkNews is a former Journalism Diversity Fund recipient and current NCTJ ambassador. Here, Sophie speaks about results days, deciding to become a journalist and a pathway into an impressive journalism career.

“I can still remember so clearly the feelings I had on both my GCSE and A-Level results day: anticipation, worry, excitement. It was the culmination of years of hard work, and it definitely felt like the biggest milestone in my young adult life at that point.

I imagine my feelings weren’t, and still aren’t, unique.

I am sure a lot of you who are getting your results this month will be having similar thoughts and the same concerns:

What if you get the grades you need?

What if you don’t?

What will life look like a year from now, two years, a decade?

If you are thinking about becoming a journalist, fear not, regardless of the outcome there are a whole range of options for how to make it in the sector; including university routes, apprenticeships and distance learning.

***

Like a lot of people, I had a bit of a winding road to journalism as a career.

In September 2014, when I was freshly 18, I packed up my bags and with bright eyes and a bushy tail I moved down to the Big Smoke to attend Brunel University London, where I studied Theatre and English.

The first person in my family to go to university and having only ever lived in my little Wolverhampton bubble, I absolutely threw myself into university life and all it had to offer. Between learning how to actually keep myself alive and doing all my weekly readings, I got involved in the university paper Le Nurb (literally, Brunel spelled backwards), ran Debate Society, took part in trampolining club – and probably spent one too many Wednesday’s down at the local sticky-floored Liquid and Envy for student night.

Although I absolutely loved writing and editing for Le Nurb, I – oddly – did not consider journalism a potential career for myself.

In hindsight, I wonder if it’s because I didn’t see someone like me as a journalist: working-class, state school educated and with a Black Country accent.

After my undergraduate degree, I started an MA at King’s College London in September 2017. Now the first person in my family to study for a postgraduate qualification, I once more seized the opportunity with both hands.

Again, I got involved in student media. I wrote for Roar News, contributed to arts and culture mag Strand Magazine, penned stories for the university literary magazine, and helped edit the Women and Politics Society blog The Clandestine.

And, again, I didn’t even consider journalism as a career.

A mere two months after I graduated from my MA in January 2020, the world went into lockdown. As we all remember it was a weird and scary time, but a period that actually gave me a chance to get off the hamster wheel of life and the luxury of time to think about what I wanted for my career, my life, my future.

Between binging Tiger King, cleaning and recleaning my flat, and attempting to bake, I realised: I wanted to be a journalist.

In September 2020 I started an accredited NCTJ course at Wolverhampton City College, fully funded by the Journalism Diversity Fund.

During the course, I learned practical, industry-recognised skills like shorthand, media law and video editing, and built up a huge portfolio of work experience with by-lines at various local London newspapers.

I had barely finished my NCTJ studies – where I was awarded Student of the Year – and I was given a job offer to work at the Oxford Mail as a Digital Reporter. A real, paid journalism role amongst Oxford’s dreaming spires, where I would learn things you can never teach in a classroom – a dream come true.

***

Fast forward a few years: I have just turned 30 and I am proud to call myself a multi-award-winning, NCTJ-accredited journalist.

I most recently worked at PinkNews as a senior news reporter covering the politics beat, I am also undertaking a PhD in Journalism at City St George’s, University of London and I am also an NCTJ Ambassador and given talks encouraging more state school, working class young people to consider journalism as a career.

Whether you are academic or hands on, want to move away to university or would prefer to earn while you learn through an apprenticeship; then an NCTJ-accredited qualification gives you the practical industry-recognised skills employers are looking for and which help prepare you for life in a modern, digital-first newsroom.”

Could journalism be where your story goes? Take the quiz to find your fit 👈