By Caitlin McConchie
News Hound (pictured back row, third from left)
On Wednesday 31 March, a group of eager media-loving students crammed into M1 to hear Breakfast newsreader, and well-known journalist Indira Stewart talk about her career.
Many, like myself, were curious to hear about what goes on behind the scenes in the media world. As it is often so fast-paced with stories and interviews and news outbreaks. Often it can be easy to imagine it as a career entirely onscreen, conducting interviews, speaking into microphones, and dressing up nicely for the camera. However, Indira told us of the reality of the job. It was long hours, early wake-ups, a lot of writing for stories, and being able to wing it as news arrives on the go. Definitely not as glamourous as I had first thought. But this was not meant to be discouraging to us students, because there are certainly perks to the job. These include meeting amazing individuals, curating news articles and sources, researching things you are passionate about, and getting to be a friendly face in thousands of homes every morning.
Indira’s journey to where she is now showed us how passionate she was about telling the stories of those who don’t have the platform she does and seeing everybody represented in the newsroom and on screen. And inspiring me, if not many others, that going into journalism and media may seem hard and unlikely, but if we have the passion for the job and work hard – we can achieve it. Even small steps like using our social media platforms and writing for blogs can be a good foot in the door for the field.
Editor’s Note: Indira visited our school as part of our Careers Bites initiative, where people from industry come in on a Wednesday lunchtime to speak to students about their particular career. We’ve also had a personal trainer, nutritionist, podiatrist, nurse, occupational therapist, two doctors, and staff from the South Seas Film School. Each month we will focus on a different industry.