hi everyone thank you for joining us today we are empowered journalism an entirely volunteer-led publication giving female and non-binary journalists a platform to write and connect with other journals so today we're going to be talking about all things journalism looking at how these platforms can be used as a tool to establish yourself and build a brand as a german but also how social media is and is still becoming a new type of journalism in itself my name is lauren and i'm empowered at an editor and i'm also joined by ella our lovely social media manager so over to ella hi i'm ella i do social media for empowered along with my great team and i'm also a student and freelancing at the moment and yeah today we're joined by three amazing panelists we've got um first of all we have chandni who is a content producer at pink news and she also is the founder of so you want to be journalist do you want to tell us a little bit more about yourself yeah sure yeah so as you said i'm a senior producer at pink news and i run so you want to be german's instagram account which is just loads of free resources and tips for people who want to enter the media industry and yeah i graduated i did journalism degree graduating in 2018 and trying to be just making my way in the industry since then great um so next we have charlotte forester also known as forze and she's a social media journalist at the low media and also co-founder of girls in journalism which provides an amazing community for young merchant ones genders entering a lot of journalism if you'd like to tell us a bit more about yourself that'd be great yeah of course um so yeah hi everyone i'm fuzz and yeah um my german was sort of getting very involved in student media at um uni of exeter um with exposing res um and then getting involved with sort of um online places like cool girl setting up girls in journalism which has an instagram account a facebook page and a podcast and then working at tyler and lad bible group as a content assistant and now a social media journalist at the no whatever that sort of title means but yeah and i'm very happy to be here yeah that's so cool i have used those facebook pages they're very helpful um um and then last but not least we have uh monica who is a bbc presenter and she also does probably seen her on tech talk in the last few years so she wanted to talk to about us yourself hi guys um thanks for having me i'm also in a bbc booth at the moment so apologies if it goes completely blank and i go like this i'm just trying to activate the lights so it might happen um but yeah so i'm currently at the bbc um i look north bbc look north so i cover the news i present and report in the news across yorkshire and lincolnshire um and i am on attachment at the moment at bbc and bbc3 so just working on my own documentary so that's really exciting um and yeah i guess i just did tick-tocking lockdown um and now i'm just a bit obsessed really um and so i like to utilize that a bit i do lots of behind the scenes and bits and bobs in terms of my bbc presenting and i guess i'm a big ambassador now fancy titles um but yeah that's a bit about me no thank you all for being here again um just coming from that monaco i know you started out in print um and your transition from that to broadcast really interesting um i was just wondering do you think as social media journalism becomes more prominent we will see more people transitioning from other forms of journalism to focus on and get involved in social media like yourself and you did it over lockdown i think to be honest so when i i graduated in about 2014 now so quite a while ago and you're right so i first got that experience in and print journalism and that's all the advice that everyone was giving to me i think back in the day we had youtube so everyone was really keen about you know what would you develop on youtube do you have your own youtube channel being like a vlog or something along those lines and it was all quite new actually but i do think so i i used to just take my mobile phone out and took my iphone with me just on these stories i used to go on um and to be honest if anything is happening around my local area so i'm originally from eleven too far if there was anything you see going on um i would just take my phone and just make random video clips that i'd used to edit together onto my youtube channel and i think what's great about that because obviously i didn't print but it obviously meant that in a minute putting a story together so i almost became my own tv reporter when i wasn't a tv reporter and i think that really helped with giving me that advance almost to come across as that multi-digital platform journalist that can not only write basics of journalism but isn't afraid to go further and use technology to make her own videos and be creative and it was just great because it almost gave me that booster and these editors back in the day they had no idea what it was or what i was going on about but it excited them and i think never be scared to be creative never be scared to use social media and never be scared to really put your own stance on things as well even if it's a topic that interests you and something that you know more about go for it i hope that answers your question yeah i know that's great thank you very much and also just moving on to chandni and also um as well i know you guys both have kind of journalism advice platforms and really great community based uh pages and and just moving on from the rise of social media and and that coming into journalism in the media industry how how do you feel that um social media helps you kind of establish yourself and create this brand for yourself in a way that perhaps other forms of journalism don't um yeah i think you start with charlie i don't mind yeah sure um so i think yeah it's really interesting i think it's literally never been easier to start your own platform start your own brand and it's really great that you can build these kind of platforms for yourself like monica was saying um like becoming sort of your own tv reporter it's so easy to just take that upon yourself and start creating content and um with the way that i think tik tok especially works it's also never been easier to grow a platform because it's showing your content to people who are interested and um yeah as far as building a brand goes i think it can go a long way in kind of building people's awareness of you in the industry so there have been so many journalists that i've come across through tick tock or just social media in general and then ended up checking out their other work and just like becoming fans of what they do and i think it's the same for employers not just your fellow journalists um i've had job interviews where it just happens that um a few of the people interviewing me had seen my stuff before outside of me applying for the job so i think it's well worth doing and it can be just a great asset in helping get your name out there and showing people what you can do yeah definitely that um yeah i i was because i didn't do a master's and degree i'm in journalism and i graduated from my undergrad um in 2020 with um you know because kovid suddenly was at home and all that night there um and i was freaking out being like oh i should do masters because suddenly there aren't these graduate jobs um but i can't afford to do a master's or at least it feels really inaccessible to me at the moment and i sort of felt like girls in journalism with um izzy he's the other co-founder just out of this place of desperation of like surely we're not the only people freaking out about this um and yeah it it's amazing like what we've done with it and i've really enjoyed it but um as channy was saying i was like it was actually so many skills that i learned from it like my other friends have had to do master's degrees to get those skills like um the things of just the multimedia side and being able to say that you can do social media you can do the writing um you can manage a community um it really helps with employers and so if you are able to like build like create something like that for yourself or um help out between like empowered sort of thing um it is really just gonna be a huge edge on your cv and i think that can be um a greater sort of asset and addition to your skill set um sometimes more so than like just being like a big voice on twitter or like a bit of an influencer like there's a bit more of a targeting of how you're using social media that's relevant to the industry so yeah yeah that's obviously really helpful i think it's um it's such a like a useful skill set that you develop from being a social media a social media journalist so do you find sometimes that it's difficult to uh to like place yourself as a social media journalist like it's quite oversaturated on social media and sometimes people can find that um it's hard to make a name for yourself and there's so many other people that you're competing with um that do you find that you know do you have any advice to people trying to do this who are trying to sort of not be swallowed up by the like holes of tiktok and twitter yeah it's really interesting what you said about like the sort of competition of it i get so sad when i see like other young journalists or energy level journalists being so competitive or just like saddened because they see someone else's achievements and they're they're upset that they can't share in that joy and like celebrate with them because their first thought is like oh my gosh am i not in the right place in my career am i you know falling behind sort of thing and i think it's always it's been something that i've really struggled with in the past but you've got to realize that it's not a competition like you've really got to help each other out like if you see an opportunity that would be perfect for someone pass it along the only reason why i got the job that i'm doing now at the night is because a friend of mine um saw the job opportunity said i thought this would be perfect for you i think you should apply and then i got the job you know we've really got to like help each other out and i think it's also a good reminder of that like it can seem like because you're on twitter or instagram tiktok whatever and you're seeing the same faces pop up and it seems like they are the faces of like young journals or whatever um it can you're comparing yourself to that and you forget that there are hundreds if not thousands of other entry-level people who are thinking the exact same thing as you you're seeing like such a minority of people who just happen to have very um public um you know consumption of what they're doing sort of thing and whatever work you're doing is no lesser it just so happens that it's being consumed in a different way um so it's it's difficult when you're in like the throes of the you know the the envy the jealousy um or the insecurity of where you're at personally but it's just gotta you gotta make sure that you prioritize doing things that remind you of like the value of your own work sort of thing and that the only way that you're gonna help yourself like um improve and like shine and stuff is if you help other people as well so yeah definitely i think especially that's complete with things like empowered which have like blown up because of social media and that's all team effort you know we're all helping each other out and obviously platforms like so you want to be a journalist or girls in journalism that are all like dedicated to helping other journalists even like mentorship schemes that like old like you know more established journalists are creating for you like younger journalists or up-and-coming dentists like do you know what inspired you to start maybe channie was that was that the the fear of the industry the kind of overwhelmingness that what inspired you yeah definitely because i know my journey into the industry a lot of the decisions that i made were just because i didn't have any connections i didn't have anyone to talk this stuff through with i was sort of just guessing and very luckily it's worked out for me but not everyone will even have the same privileges that i did of being able to do a degree living a commutable distance from london so i'm not having to pay extortionate train prices or accommodation work experience and during covid i think it's so funny that the three of us kind of started our journeys with this stuff during covid um i just felt really bad that because of the pandemic and with lockdown and everything people were finding it so hard to get work experience opportunities or even just jobs so that kind of is what um inspired me to create the account because it just was so much harder than it was um like when i was trying to find entry-level jobs and everything yeah no so that there's obviously like a massive focus on networking within the social media kind of community and journalism within that and monica i was just wondering obviously you kind of um started off very much with the the print and the broadcast and obviously you only really started tick-tock i gather from your time in lockdown or something maybe your spare time bit of fun in it and it's just done really well so i'm just wondering from your perspective with the networking aspect of the social media um did you find that you were able to reach a lot more people with that aspect attached now to your career and because it's become so successful and it kind of opened new doors for you in that aspect yeah i i think you're right i think initially when i started social media and then when i was at university and my journalism course everyone said oh you need to build up your twitter you need to make a presence on social media and i always neglected it until actually i thought to myself i need to start applying for jobs and i think what's amazing is that social media from the onset actually really benefited me in my career because if it wasn't for social media i wouldn't have seen this competition called itv breaking into news and that's something that's run by media trust and that was plastered all over their social media accounts and and what i did do was really kind of understand the key players in the industry so who are the organizations that can help with schemes and that can mentor me as a journalist that can provide opportunities to go to these networking events and socialize with various editors and producers so social media really helped me to understand what industry i'm going into um and to also introduce me to all these amazing and wonderful people so that's what i used to do that's initially what i use social media for and i just think you know moving down the line i think it's great when you do a piece of work and obviously predominantly i work in tv and let's be honest north on a monday tuesday evening especially on the younger generation so what i tend to do is put things on my social media so after a certain story you know whether that's on twitter or even to be honest and i think with me starting tick tock in lockdown and obviously the laugh i didn't really know what i was doing i also felt a bit old i thought it really is and i think for me looking back tik tok has opened so many doors for me it's been a brilliant opportunity because if it wasn't for me doing tick tock videos i say wouldn't have got the opportunity to be a tick-tock ambassador for bbc news and through that i've been able to do mentoring i've mentored so many people and possible obviously the bbc young reporter scheme i had no idea in terms of the reach that my tick tock videos would have you know we're talking over a million views and it's crazy because messages i get especially from young people to be like you and especially from those from a young um i guess south asian background like myself and when i was growing up one of the i just didn't really know anyone who was similar to me this industry it was never easy it was accessible at one point i always questioned it thinking god is so hard many people like me in the industry and especially well through tick tock i can actually and i just think a big part of it for me has just been helping young talent along the way amazing mentoring schemes where i'm able to give advice i'm able to speak i'm obviously able to be in this and talk right now and then that's obviously one element of it another element of it is just finding new stories through tick tock and there are so many that i've pitched through my videos engaging with other users and audiences and i think it's such a great platform it's such a great platform for journalists to interact share stories engage especially the younger audience with you know politics something they might not necessarily always engage with and it actually works it really does um so those are a few other things that i can definitely take away from my tic toc experience yeah i definitely i had to like pick up on the fact that you like said you love to tell people i think that's a clearly a common theme between the three of you is that you're like past obviously that's why you're here today helping all of us um but i thought it was really interesting something that i've noticed on tick tock is that it's being used to sort of give an insight to being a journalist maybe for those who don't know what you know what it's like to be a generic you know you always saw you know the you know victoria derbyshire on bbc but you might not necessarily know all the other layers of editing the different kind of roles that you can take up what being a journalist and tale is like i mean chandni i saw a tick-tock of yours the other day of like a day in the life and i thought that was really interesting because people just don't know what it's like it's just like like just it's so useful so i was wondering you know do you think that it's useful to sort of show what goes on behind the scene what inspires you that because i think this sometimes it can be a bit scary to sort of break down that untouchable like image that journalists have i think um yeah you're exactly spot on it's just kind of breaking down those barriers a bit and letting people know um how much work actually goes into being a journalist because i think some people maybe have a slight misconception that it is a super super easy job to have when in reality there's a lot that goes into putting out articles putting out videos um if you're working in broadcast there are so many people involved um yeah like especially in broadcast people in the gallery there are producers there are people writing scripts writing little links and stuff for the presenters to read and there's so much that goes on and i think it's important to share this stuff and also so people can not only see sort of how your days are running but also the equipment that you're using and how stories actually come from ideas to the finished product because i know before i got into the industry i kind of had my ideas of how it worked in terms that i was really wrong and it's a lot more complicated than i thought but hopefully by sharing this stuff people who want to get into the industry can kind of start to learn a little bit more and it might put them in a better place when they're looking to get jobs everything because they already kind of know a little bit about how it all works yeah definitely it's so important especially like to just to make the industry more accessible it's just like it's so important um and monica i remember you saying that you had you had mentorship schemes and they were like really useful to you i just wonder if you want to talk a bit more about that yeah oh why there are so many i don't it's so funny because obviously johnny you were saying um almost gives that insight into actually what it's really like and i remember when i did um one of my schemes was through the national union of journalists and i got a scholarship to study at university so that our brilliant scheme i obviously paid for my tuition fees but through them i was able to get work experience at the bbc and one of my first gigs there i was um at the national tv award so imagine i'm at the bbc i'm at the national tv awards and i'm with colin patterson he's the entertainment reporter correspondent now um and i wore heels in fact i wore a dress i'm at the tv awards and it was amazing and literally the worst choice ever and because i was actually running with sim cards cameras and sd cards i've never ran so much in my life it was the busiest night of my life and i was thinking could not be further from the truth honestly it is not glamorous um it's very it's very busy there's lots going on behind the scenes and i think that's i think yeah and there's a lot of people that do well but in terms of going back to the question and schemes um yeah to be honest i am really grateful i mentioned media trust and brilliant organization that introduced me to itv and i was able to win itv young journalist of the year um through a breaking news scheme that they had and then national union of journalists because they're the one that wanted me my scholarship to study tv journalism um another one was bafta bafta provide brilliant scholarships and a lot of my friends went through bafta and um they also hold excellent talks now and again at the moment i am part of the john scofield i highly recommend that um you get in the loop with them so they're a network of jobs less than they provide um mentoring really they they the young brothers especially senior journalists in the scheme at the moment and i'm finding it so useful network of journalists where you can help each other out providing advice networking events um and that's just a few to name there's so many it's actually quite unreal and i thought i was very much known literally i'm not and i think that's one of the greatest things about social media so i guess my biggest advice is to utilize it make the most of it do some research talk to other journalists talk to other colleagues about what they're up to you know any schemes because there's always something going on and one person no that's great thank you and the networking aspect of social media is definitely one of the massive positives and being able to reach everyone is just so loving giving each other advice and helping each other and being a community but we were talking earlier about obviously platforms like tick tock and snapchat giving us insights into being a journalist and and the realities of that and obviously there are obviously some challenges and difficulties that come with being on social media that perhaps you wouldn't experience in other forms of journalism um and i just wanted to direct our buzz as well and just say you know and all of you afterwards but um do you find there's any difficulty being taken seriously on social media i know perhaps a lot of people might not appreciate it as much or you know just being taken seriously um there's so many different things like in comparison to traditional print experience yeah i do and it's a good question because i i've you know when i have like a title like social media journalists and someone's like oh what does that mean and i sort of i always like down play it and i'm like oh well i take the news but i put it on instagram and like as if it's this like thing that should be shunned and dismissed and like it's not serious what i do and i i really should stop myself from doing that because it's a tool instagram twitter tiktok snapchat they're tools that reach millions of people like they are the major like these they're the major like news outlets now um and we're we you know in the past you'd have the radio bulletin that if you bite size news and that was taken so seriously but now if it's in a twitter thread it's not taken seriously it's it's a double standard and it doesn't really track it doesn't really make sense um but i think that hopefully things are going to be appreciated more um by readers by other journalists who have conceptions of like prayers of i hope that they take social media more seriously because you are reaching so many people it is the thing that yeah we have fake news and misinformation but it's also the thing that's going to debunk those things it's not going to be anything that can um balance it out i can battle those um cases of misinformation apart from social media itself and it's a skill to anyone you know most journalists can write worry about um a a crisis about uk politics at the moment about like the spring statement um but to package that in a way that anyone who reads your inner studio yourself or anyone who watches your tic talk come away feeling informed and you know like they have more knowledge behind them to be more confident when they talk about the news and that's such an incredible skill i think and i think that's something that most journalists coming into the industry now are going to need to do and be able to adapt in that way um so it is a thing of that i think it's a lot of just talking to yourself and being like actually what i do is important um and really you know forgetting the negative comments because i think it's there's such a fear about like trolling when you're putting out journalism on social media platforms but you know really waiting for those comments when it's someone being like hey i didn't know how to talk about um russia and ukraine with my kid and this carousel helped me or hey i thought that i didn't get politics but it turns out everyone just explained it to me in the right way through a you know snapchat um and so yeah it's a lot of just really clinging on to the positive feedback and also being your own hype man being your own cheerleader and being like actually you know um when people dismiss social media it's their own insecurities it's their own elitist um presumptions coming out it's a it's a reflection of them not a reflection of value of the work that you're doing oh yeah definitely i feel like it's with social media is so useful in that respect but obviously if you're venturing out away from talking to just other journalists which is like nice and safe and everyone respects you a bit more when you go to break the barrier and speak to people and help them you obviously face the challenges and not everyone wants to be helped and sometimes sometimes you have to deal with a lot of criticisms and often i find that criticism can be a lot more personally targeted on social media do any of you have any like advice people doing with that like it can often be a lot more personal and you don't necessarily see the criticisms that you get from print or website publications that as you do on social media maybe your channel do you have anything to say about that i've been very lucky that honestly you want to be a journalist page everyone's quite nice and respectful but um at my last job at channel 5 i was doing some like presenter-led content on social media and a lot of the comments were nice and talking about the news i was talking about or i get comments about my hair just because it looks the way it does but then there were like every now and then there'd be a really nasty comment and i used to let that affect me so much more than all of the nice comments i was getting just because i think as people you kind of always want to please everyone and it's never nice to hear people talking negatively about you or your work but after a while i kind of just had to take a step back and sort of stopping myself from looking at those comments in the first place because like at the end of the day when i've submitted those videos to go live i'm proud of the work that i've done and i know that i've done a good job because if i hadn't i would have got feedback from my editor telling me to change it so i know that the work i'm doing is good and sometimes especially on social media i think people with anonymous profiles kind of can feel like they can say what they want um and there are always going to be people who aren't fans of what they're doing not even always for the right reasons i think it's just about taking comfort in the fact that your work is good it's valid it's out there for a reason um your kind of editors managers they wouldn't let you put your work out there if it wasn't of a proper standard so um i think just being proud of what you're doing and if you do choose to look at the comments focusing on the positive ones rather than just trolls on the internet i was just wondering uh do you have um also be talking about the challenges of social media the new form of journalism and obviously in within that becomes like uh you know things about mental health and difficulties to switching off from social media because obviously when you're doing something like maybe broadcast or print it's quite easy to just leave the office and and maybe that's it but with social media it's your phone it's your laptop it almost follows you everywhere and um just leading on from a challenge of this kind of form of journalism do you guys find it hard to switch off and do you have any advice in switching off basically um i didn't if monica wanted to go through that yeah um to be honest i'm still learning at the moment and i'm gonna be honest because there are times where it does feel relentless especially if there is a breaking news oh my goodness why haven't i covered this or why am i not speaking about it and then you always come to that point where you think how long is it going to continue on for where does it stop you're always going to have a breaking news story and i think it's just coming to terms with it and now i'm just accepting that you know i can't be a class on everything you know you've got twitter facebook you've got tick-tock and i think before especially you know lockdown it really used to get to me and i wanted to try and do something on everything but you're only human at the end of the day you're only one person and now i just think to myself oh it's okay it's fine you don't have to do this just just take it easy and i think i'm still learning that at the moment i'll be brutally honest and i think you know with comments that you get say and then and if there was negativity so subjective people will have opinions on absolutely everything and everything and you put your content out there for people to do so so sometimes you think when there was an attack on my story oh my god i take that personally but now i'm really good so now i think so that's a story and if anything i quite like a comment like that because at the end of the day i want my content to be engaging you want your content to create discussion you want it to create a narrative and that's what you're doing um journalism is subjective it's okay that people have opinions that's fine but as long as as chinese my news stories going on i think there is that pressure there is that pressure especially when people are messaging you especially today that's close to your background i'll give an example on say the farmer's protest because i'm meant to be from the background so much you also have a life to live in order to stay relevant and i think what what it's all about is just finding that balance it's all about it's all about finding that balance and as long as you kind of have that work life balance where you're not overdoing it yeah definitely i think that's a huge pressure to stay relevant on social media and constantly be like reporting everything especially with the the things that you've spoken about before there's definitely an expectation that you'll be consistent with things and whilst you're probably consistent with your beliefs you might not have the time when stories break uh keep revealing that maybe channing do you have anything to say about like keeping relevant and constantly having to keep posting things and keep up you know you can't get you can't get too too many like days about posting or whatever yeah it can be really difficult um with like knowing how often to post and i definitely feel the pressure to be able to to have to keep creating content like but then last year i had um something come up with my family and i was just like you know what i don't have the mental capacity to be posting at the moment so i'm just going to take some time off and it was fine nothing bad happened but i definitely did feel guilty initially for wanting to take a step back but i think it's important to remember that if you need a break definitely take it because forcing yourself to carry on working carry on posting as monica said it's it's just stuff you're doing on the side it's not like it's a job that you are committed to and you're being paid for on all of this so yeah i definitely think it's important to look out for yourself and if anyone is thinking about starting their own channels um i don't think it is necessary to post every single day it's better to kind of maybe just commit to one or two posts a week because that way it's a little bit more manageable and if you're for some reason not able to stick to that um like people aren't aren't gonna care honestly everyone on the well most people on the internet are just gonna be happy that you're taking time out for yourself and making sure that you're okay and they're definitely yeah i don't think there's huge huge pressure to be posting every day if if it's just not something you're able to do yeah definitely there's i feel like there's a lot of insecurity on social media definitely like you know am i doing the right thing am i doing it enough am i like am i talking about the right things it's just like it's constant there's just so much comparison and you don't feel like you're being the the tic top journalist or the social the instagram journalist or whatever uh fuzz do you have anything to have you experience that sort of insecurity of like am i am i enough with this yeah oh my gosh yeah um it is a thing that i think yeah i think it's a with social media because as you're saying before it's in your pocket and you also have it's it's your professional life and your personal life it seeps into your identity so much and like journalists in general like journalism is a big part of their identity um and so social media sort of sometimes can like worsen um those really like sticky parts of it um but it is just really like setting up those boundaries for yourself um as both like charlie and monica have already said those boundaries are so precious and it means that you don't stop resenting um those like parts of your identity not resent for the fact that like oh um i'm this tick tock journalist but i'm very unhappy whenever i have to post a video at the moment or whatever um and you've got to make sure that what you're putting out is still purposeful and that's making sure that you know you're um you're not just trying to get out for the sake of it you're putting it out because you want to connect with an audience because you want to make sure that a certain topic is getting the coverage that it deserves and if that means like taking a break from things and then returning to a platform when you can do a better job of it then fantastic obviously that's much more difficult when it's your day-to-day job like i can wake up and think i really don't want to do an instagram story series today but i have to like i'm being pet i don't get a choice in this um and so then you have to really make sure that you're sprinkling in um that purposefulness um something that i really enjoy about working at the no is that i can you know i'm spending hours reading about ukraine and it's it's difficult but then i know that um i'm helping someone else better understand it i'm finishing it off with like a take action like please donate to this or and join with this game and so social media is like such a toxic place with like you know toxic place of bad news and stuff and constant um feed of it and you've got to make sure that you're still feeling like you're having a high quality screen time with it and that you don't become resentful of the news that you still feel that it has an empowering purpose um otherwise you're going to be resentful and that part of your identity of like you as a social media journalist um so yeah that was a bit around the houses but yeah it's all about the boundaries in your relationship with social media and um yeah just if you start to get a bad feeling with social media really questioning it and sort of checking yourself before you wreck yourself yeah no definitely um just quickly both because we haven't got loads of time left just wanted to bring it back to just giving some advice from you all um i'm starting out from nothing so i'm a journalist i want to be on social media how do i have the confidence because i know it can be daunting putting yourself out there and creating an image for yourself um but yeah just kind of basic what is your advice um starting with monika yeah i mean it depends if you want to do it really and i knew i just wanted to do it um but i just didn't know how to do it um and obviously when you look around you there's so much competition and you compare yourself to others which you should never do you're in a league of your own self believe how am i going to do this but you know what just be that yes person when everyone else is telling you no you prove them wrong people told me not to get tick-tock you know what i still did it anyway and i'm really happy with the outcomes that it has had and i've been able to help so many um and i just think when it comes to if you want to enhance if you want to build up your social media platform go for it you know don't be scared oh no like you just get put off by other people or you feel intimidated or you can pay yourself our minds trick us into believing that we're not but we are good enough you are good enough have that self belief have that confidence if you have a vision you can make it happen if you have ideas or you just feel like oh how are you gonna how are you gonna do it talk to someone you can just reach out who do you like on social media who do you think oh do you know what i might have a chat with them or yeah maybe they could give me advice go for it you have nothing to lose i think that's the best thing about journalism is that you can pick and choose who your mentors are i have gone to you know like you always mentioned to my mentor because i used to love watching her on breakfast i'd love to do something similar and they'll be able to really help you with the vision that you have and i think you know personally i made content that was unique to me um and that's what gave me that's just what made me different a little bit because obviously i was an expert in some of the topics so my first news report was skin whitening um and i my auntie had an experience with skin whitening so i was able to utilize my personal experience my cultural experience with the topic that quite honest for me a news award and so you know whatever you're passionate about go for it seek advice if there's people you like ask them for advice and have a look at you know who's doing what and just don't be scared tried and error you're never going to get anything right the first time have a look does it work no take another route but just don't lose confidence you have got this 100 i believe in you all right um any advice i would say for the confidence thing um because that's something that i was also really worried about i was like oh my god people only think i'm cringe so what i did was make a separate instagram account completely i didn't follow any friends or family on there i just made it and then followed a bunch of like separate journalism accounts so it wasn't like because i was so concerned with people seeing it and being like oh what's she doing so i just made a completely different account so i really recommend that if you're nervous about what people might think but then also i realized afterwards like do i really care if people think it's cringe it's something that i really want to do i'm really passionate about and if someone doesn't like it like that's their problem i think it's easier said than done but try not to let the opinions of like what other people think stop you from doing what you really want to do because also if they are really like your friends and if they do care about you they're going to support you through whatever you might do and they might think it's a bit weird or they might not understand it but they're not gonna or hopefully shouldn't just shame you out of doing it i think um yeah just be your own biggest fan and go for it no that's great thank you and um i not to sound too repetitive from what these guys have already said in a far more articulate way but the mentorship thing is like monica's like list of mentorship schemes that is so valuable and i'd also like to shout out um global girl media where i had um kim rao from bbc as a mentor because i think it can be nice on social media to connect with other journalists your age um but also i think you've got to have like layers to your network you've got to have the people who are far more experienced you can act as the mentors and um you can go to for just also just like a comforting word from someone who you know has been doing it for a lot longer than you have also people who are fresher to the industry than you um and yeah and then also your peers were like your your hype squads who are like we're on in this together um i would also say of don't freak out about like if you want to go into digital journalism and social media journalism you don't need to be an influencer yourself like i think that the best people at social media journalism i i always then look at their twitter account and they have like 254 followers and i'm like you have hit the sweet spot that is amazing because you you know how to do it as part of your job but you don't have this pressure to then be constantly churning out stuff on your twitter that you don't want to um be putting out there and you know out loud bible like i worked with some of the top social publishers in the world and i just had like 500 instagram followers like it's no reflection of how many followers you personally have of how good you're going to be at your job so don't start freaking out that you suddenly need to go viral on twitter that's you don't need to do that um but yeah you just have like gotta have the confidence in yourself it's like china said like um it can it can be a very anxiety-inducing job um and you've as much as like your peers can help you out and your mentors can help you out you've got to be your own hype man you've got to give yourselves yourself the pep talk um then also at the same time sorry not to completely dismiss what i literally just said but also i think journals can sometimes think they're the most important people in the world and we're doing very important work yeah of course but also we're not always that interesting please put people in your circle like i make sure that not all my best friends are journals i made sure that i have people who are completely separate from the industry i have no idea what i'm talking about when i say like things like oh well you know mailchimp slag you know all this thing they i need you need to get out of the journal bubble otherwise it's gonna burst on you and yeah you've gotta make sure that you have a sustainable um lifestyle with it yeah yeah definitely i think the journalism world can be a little bit all-consuming at times um just wanted to say if anyone wants to send in any questions just pop them on the chat and we will endeavor to ask them uh but we had a question on our instagram this morning asking about sort of building up a portfolio and like what experience you'd like recommend because obviously anyone can start a takedown page but it's like can't do everything so you've got to prioritize things like you would you recommend like still doing print journalism as well or um you know focusing on what you want to do in the future like what what are your thoughts obviously you've all had different paths into the world of journalism and social media um one thing i will say is that i think so it can be easier to get sort of um well-formed work experience schemes through print still because they've just been doing it for decades like my first work experience opportunities were through my local newspaper because they've got the whole system behind them they know how it works they constantly have like a conveyor belt of um you know young labor doing their bits and work experience um and i think it does give you the sort of foundations with print journalism of just like writing a good story and then you can use other forms of work experience by doing social media management for a business or whatever and you know i think one good thing that came out the pandemic was our embracing of like the remote lifestyle and using that to your favor but i think there's always transferable skills and if you can make sure with your portfolio that you can write a good story and then i'll social with your portfolio fight and then i can package it in a tick tock video i can package it in a twitter thread whatever and show that you have that diversity and forms with your portfolio but also show where like the strength of your voice is in so if you're really passionate about like um politics uh activism or wellness lifestyle whatever um or just that you have a tone of voice that is so warm and friendly also like objective and like cutthroat yeah have a diver i would say get that diversity in forms but make sure that there's sort of a clear voice running through it of like you can be trusted to tell a story sort of thing yeah i think sorry no you're completely right i think um the way journalism is going now and say working at the bbc it's so multi-platform where i thought when i first started my job at bbc look north it was all you know tv senior reporter presenter so wrong so wrong you know it's about i do radio bulletins i have to do radio live hits i have to do online copy i'm trained in social media i can do it's about being multi-skilled and now obviously working in long form so documentaries and i think from i was quite fortunate so from a longer young age i knew i wanted to work in journalism i just didn't know what sector i wanted to work in so that's when i personally just explored different avenues i went magazine newspaper tv radio pr everything and anything and then obviously social media i did my own youtube and i just think you know don't limit yourself out with work experience try it all try all because honestly it's great to have it on your cv it just makes you more of an all-rounded journal i reckon so when you come into the interview it's like for print but actually when you do social media there are digital requirements when you do tv especially at the bbc there's requirements for it to be multi-platform so to be honest whatever print is always great you know i started in print it's um the best way in terms of journalism and nailing down the story in terms of the sectors be take you know learn just take on the extra bit of experience because there's no harm it'll just look really good on your cv no that's great thank you very much i think we've we're finished now i've only got a couple minutes but thank you again all three of you it's been a pleasure and you've given us some really insightful um perspectives into social media and journalism uh so thank you very much yeah i say thank you it's been some really encyclo advice you know myself as well i will be definitely taking all of that on board and i just wanted to say that obviously with empowered uh if anyone is looking to get involved in print journalism we mostly do print but if anyone wants to get into social media like we join our facebook page and you know we can get you started right away on some tick tock content or whatever you want to do um so yeah thank you for taking the time to talk to us today thanks guys yeah thank you very much thanks guys thanks for having us take care happy best