Witnessing momentous moments with journalism

As a boy I could never understand how my dad could read the Liverpool Echo front to back each night.
After catching up with the latest tragedy to befall Everton, what else was there to look at?

Keiran Southern.

One day, while he was deep in the classifieds, my dad spotted an advert for a journalism training course in Newcastle.

By this point I’d already done work experience at the Southport Visiter and Skelmersdale Advertiser, though my dream of a career in journalism appeared doomed due to the expense of gaining a qualification. Courses alone cost thousands of pounds, and that was before the money needed to move to a new city and support yourself for months.

Thankfully, this is where the Journalism Diversity Fund came in. An editor in Southport told me about the fund and said they were keen to help working-class students break into the industry.

Following an interview at the TalkSport offices in London, I was selected for a bursary. It was a life-changing moment.

I studied at the Press Association course in Newcastle, led by the brilliant Paul Jones. I started in August 2014 as a wet-behind-the-ears wannabe reporter and graduated 17 weeks later. Not much had changed — though I did have a certificate saying I could write 100wpm shorthand.

I was fortunate to have a job waiting for me: a trainee reporter role at the Newcastle Chronicle, Journal and Sunday Sun. There, I benefitted from excellent mentoring from more experienced journalists who went out of their way to take me under their wing.

Newcastle is a great news patch, and the Chronicle newsroom was at the forefront of Reach’s digital transformation. I couldn’t have picked a better place to start.

After three years in the North East I moved to London with MailOnline. Then in early 2018 Hollywood came calling: PA Media – then called the Press Association – dispatched me to California as Los Angeles correspondent.

One of my earliest memories in the job was driving down Sunset Boulevard one sunny afternoon, the top down on my convertible Mustang, on the way to a film premiere. It wasn’t quite as glamorous as it sounds: the Mustang was 20 years old with rusted panels. But given I’d been knocking doors in Byker 18 months earlier, I wasn’t complaining.

The PA job was incredible at times. I interviewed Clint Eastwood, who couldn’t understand a word of my thick scouse accent and had to rely on the star of his film to translate. Most weekends I was in a suite at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, making the most of the short rib buffet between sit-downs with A-list celebrities at press junkets.

The only downside was when the valet brought my rusted Mustang to the lobby and I’d climb inside while the Rolls-Royce and Ferrari drivers looked on in disgust.

Winning Print Journalist of the year at the Southern California Journalism Awards.

Journalism allows you to witness momentous moments. At PA I spent the night of the 2020 presidential election outside the White House in Washington DC and was in the courtroom in downtown Los Angeles when Britney Spears’ conservatorship was terminated.

I’ve been to the Met Gala and the Oscars (twice) as well as most other awards shows.

Since November 2021 I’ve been at The Times. As West Coast correspondent and later editor, I’ve reported from across North America on issues such as immigration, the fentanyl crisis and of course Hollywood, where I still live.

In June I was named Print Journalist of the Year at the Southern California Journalism Awards, a proud moment made possible by my world-class colleagues.

None of this would have been possible without the JDF. Its financial help allowed me to break into journalism. While I was training in Newcastle, staff were often in touch asking how I was and if there was anything they could do to help.

I am proud to have paid that help back in a small way by serving as a mentor for new JDF recipients.

If I have any advice for aspiring journalists, it is to ignore the doomsayers who claim the industry is dying. We have challenges, of course. But there can have been few periods in recent history more exciting to cover than the one we’re in now. And thanks to the JDF, more reporters from diverse backgrounds than ever will get the chance to be part of it.

That means a wider lens on society and a stronger journalism industry.

Happy 20th anniversary to the JDF. Here’s to many more.

Click here to find out more about the Journalism Diversity Fund.