By Samson Dada
Thursday 11 August 2011
CTJT mentor student Samson Dada recently completed two one week work experience placements at The Leicester Mercury and the Guardian newspaper in London.
Samson worked on the news desk and had articles published, including one about a living wage in Leicester.
News Editor, Linda Steelyard described Samson as “having a better writing style than many students studying journalism who have done work experience at the Leicester Mercury.”
Samson spent his time at the Guardian on the Comment is Free desk, where he provided research for News Reporter Alexandra Topping to write a feature article about Amy Winehouse’s death.
Samson also attended the daily editorial meetings and the morning conference meetings – where the editors of the newspaper revealed the stories they would be writing during the day.
Samson was fortunate to attend question and answer sessions with Lord Richard Allan, Facebook’s director of policy for Europe and Rupert Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff.
Allan said that for Facebook to stay competitive, Facebook would have to look at what Google + is doing and do it better.
Wolff predicted that all newspapers will eventually be disbanded.
Editor of the Guardian comment pages, Becky Gardiner told Samson: “The work you did on the spread sheet was more helpful than you can possibly imagine!”
He has been invited to do another placement at both newspapers next summer.
He said: “I thoroughly enjoyed working at both newspapers because I was given interesting stories to work on at The Leicester Mercury and The Guardian is such a brilliant place to work at with its modern office and friendly people.”
Samson Dada's Article Archive. 