It’s my dream job!
As most of you know, I'm on the scrapheap at the end of April. So it was marvellous to see this exciting job opportunity today advertised in that hotbed of mungbean-knitting liberalism, the Guardian:
Daily Mail
- Britain's most successful newspaper group is offering would-be reporters and writers an exciting and challenging yearlong training course, plus the chance to work at the Daily Mail and Mail Online
- We are looking for bright, sharp, intelligent writers who believe they can be fast-tracked to the very top
- You'll be on the best journalism course in the business - and be paid a competitive salary while you train
- Successful applicants will probably have completed post-graduate journalism training or had experience working in newspapers
Apply by February 21, with your CV, 200 words on why you think you could be a Mail journalist, a 200-word news story and a selection of up to six cuttings and send to Sue Ryan, Trainee Reporters' Scheme, Daily Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry St, London W8 5TT. Please send queries to sue.ryan@dailymail.co.uk
Sounds great. 200 words on why I should be a Mail journalist? I think I can crack that off.
Dear Sue,
I'll write anything. Honestly, anything. I'm happy to slag off a missing-presumed-dead woman, or slag off a woman whose daughter recently died, or a gay man who recently died. Hell, I can even publicly speculate about the private life of someone who has apparently recently attempted suicide. I can do that and I won't have nightmares about it. I can slag off a teenager for being too thin, while slagging off the BBC for a remark about a teenager apparently being overweight, while guffawing about a celebrity's appearance and saying they're too fat. I can write captions for snatched pictures of people who've just split up. None of this bothers me at all.
Not just that though. I'll happily write stories about "non-white British" mums, and 'non-white British' babies, while tut-tutting at the English Defence League. I don't have a problem with that at all. One day I'd love to be the kind of writer who talks about the 'indigenous population' or makes a joke about Peter Mandelson living down the 'Rue des Jeunes Garcons'. But that's a distant dream, something to aspire to - maybe one day. In the meantime, I'm happy to write whatever you want me to write. And go home and sleep like a baby, and not worry about it at all.
Love,
Steve.
Well, fingers crossed. I think this could be my big break!
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About Me
Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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February 7th, 2011 - 13:27
Haha, nicely done.
February 7th, 2011 - 13:35
Genius. Send it, please send it. In fact, everyone who reads this, should send it. Drown them in a sea of vicious mocking satire. With the hope that whoever reads it goes, with no hint of anything…
“Bloody hell Sir Dacre of Association, we’ve got some really strong candidates for the trainee reporter position. They’re willing to write anything. No morals at all. And guess what, they’ve all come from the Guardian ad.”
Dacre: (rubbing his hands together like the bad guy off DangerMouse, stroking cat perched on the arm of his chair) “See, those lefties are starting to come round to our way of thinking, we will succeed, we will return to the lofty days of 1937.”
February 7th, 2011 - 13:58
I have a draft ready to send, if it’s OK with Anton.
February 7th, 2011 - 14:19
Course you can…
February 7th, 2011 - 17:30
Wheeeee! It’s on its way
February 7th, 2011 - 14:54
Ace
Wasting Daily Mail time is one of the nations more under rated leisure pursuits.
February 7th, 2011 - 15:42
Hahahaha, brilliant.
February 7th, 2011 - 13:42
Job’s in the bag!!
February 7th, 2011 - 13:49
If there’s any justice in this world, you’d get the job.
February 7th, 2011 - 13:51
You MUST send it in to them!
February 7th, 2011 - 17:30
I did; you do to!
February 7th, 2011 - 13:54
As someone who has been slagged off by The Mail I applaud you, in fact I might follow suit and pester them with an application. Well done Sir.
February 7th, 2011 - 15:43
Can I ask why you were slagged off by the Mail? Forgive me, I’m a nosy bugger.
February 7th, 2011 - 14:10
Send. Send it NOW.
I reckon a higher percentage of people will respond like this than in actual seriousness.
February 7th, 2011 - 14:18
I saw this one a few weeks ago and couldn’t resist having a pop at it either. My view, quite simply, is that at least two-thirds of the training will be taken up by attempting to show the long-suffering students how not to find Richard Littlejohn an insufferably unfunny and tedious cunt.
You also forgot to mention in your letter your belief that everything can cause and prevent cancer on different days of the week. Mostly depending on what the Almighty Overlord That Is Paul Dacre thinks.
February 7th, 2011 - 15:44
It’ll be a crime if they don’t hire you.
February 7th, 2011 - 15:56
please send it in and see if you get a reply!
February 7th, 2011 - 15:56
An excellent 200 word letter. NOW all that you need are 6 cuttings and a world news report about how the non-indigenous people abroad get up to no good again.
February 7th, 2011 - 15:58
I look forward to tagging you on Buff the Banana with Paul Dacre.
February 7th, 2011 - 16:07
This would never happen, but it would be wonderful for a proper writer to work for the mail and actually contribute some decent, original and challenging articles that are nothing like the current agenda that we see from them everyday.
Some proper reporting that wouldn’t have to rely on predjudice or recylcing/twisting of a peers work to get a point across.
Like I said, it’ll never happen.
February 7th, 2011 - 17:05
Hope you don’t mind but I think I’ll have a pop at getting this job as well!
Now where did I leave the Crayola.
February 7th, 2011 - 17:14
Speaking in theme of the job advert , I feel this might be a good moment to share what my university has to offer.
I present: The Daily Mail Scholarship.
http://www.centreforjournalism.co.uk/blogs/centre-journalisms-daily-mail-scholarship
It pays £10,000 and you get a whole month, yes a whole month, working for “the jewel in the crown” of the UK news industry, the Daily Mail.
Just perfect for anyone looking for a postgraduate degree and was born without a soul or willing to sell it.
February 7th, 2011 - 17:44
Fucking brilliant. You, sir, are an inspiration.
February 7th, 2011 - 18:05
SEND THIS!!
February 7th, 2011 - 18:59
Dear Mail,
My guiding motto throughout life is the simple but honest ‘Hurrah for the Fascists’. When do I start?
yours,
O. Mosely
February 7th, 2011 - 21:13
There might be a editorial role at the Express going as well.
February 7th, 2011 - 23:12
Once upon a time, a Norman called Roger conquered the city of Palermo in Sicily, and to impress the people of this city, he sent them all a message announcing his victory (by carrier pidgeons) written in the dead soldiers’ blood. Not a nice thing to do, I’m sure we’d all agree, but this was the 12th century. But there’s a guilty pleasure to be had in imagining sending your application written in Richard Littlejohn’s blood.
February 8th, 2011 - 09:24
I’ve also applied:
Dear Sue,
I would love to apply for your training post at the Daily Mail. I do not have any experience as a journalist and so an unable to provide you with the cuttings requested, However I feel that this would be no barrier to a successful year at the DM for the reasons below:
While I do not currently own or know how to operate a telephone, I do not see this as a problem as I have no intention of contacting the people I write about for comment.
I have logged over ten (10) hours of copying and pasting in my life. When any press release is put out I will be able to submit it as copy in seconds. If there are no PR pieces to unquestioningly flog, I am prepared to lift articles from other online newspapers verbatim.
In addition to this, I do not see my self as having a big ego. I am happy to see my “work” with the byline “Daily Mail Reporter” particularly in articles about Kim Kardashian – of which I can produce up to 6 (six) pieces a day. I understand that this is well below the average number of Kim Kardashian articles published online everyday, but with effort I am sure I could be knocking out snappy headlines such as “Kim Kardashian wears clothes”, “Kim Kardashian tweets something”, “Kim Kardashian finds enchanted oboe” and “Kim Kardashian cracks RSA encryption standards” with ease.
I include a piece to demonstrate my ability to write in ‘house style’:
Oooh, look at hasn’t she got fat/skinny (delete as appropriate).
Yesterday was seen out and about and didn’t they look fat/skinny (delete as appropriate)?
<Insert 14 paparazzi pictures of looking fat/skinny (delete as appropriate). You know, the type you said you would stop buying after Diana died.>
Also, I have had my soul removed.
Yours,
David Heffron
February 8th, 2011 - 12:46
Dear The Daily Mail,
Here are the Top Ten reasons why I am ideally suited to the position of Filthy Lying Journalist Scum with your newspaper:
1. I’m at least as good as Richard Littlejohnson when it comes to making stuff up, and wouldn’t expect his inflated salary for doing so either. Well, not at first.
2. I have mastered the “cut” and “paste” functions on my computer and can therefore produce a “story” very quickly, using Wikipedia, Twitter and the website of the Daily Express. This will also cut down on expenses as I won’t need to interview people or do anything else involving contact with grubby little proles.
3. I am very good at Doublethink and can thus readily believe that Stephen Gately died of gayness, or that Melanie Phillips is human, or that Peter Hitchens is not a total cock, while still retaining a grasp on reality.
4. I am observant enough to notice when a particular celebrity has gained or lost weight.
5. I don’t like the BBC. Actually this isn’t true but then again, you’re looking for a Daily Mail reporter, not Woodward & fucking Bernstein.
6. I don’t like Lord Mandelson. This IS true, but if he ever comes back into favour I can always pretend.
7. I can cure cancer. Or cause it. I forget which. It might even be both.
8. I can combine the compassion of the NKVD and General Pinochet when it comes to writing handwringing arse about anguished slebs like, say, Amanda Holden, and furthermore will be happy to have the resulting story littered with pictures of her being obviously pregnant
9. I don’t like Furrins, Muslims, gypsies, immigrants, students, asylum seekers, the unemployed, the unemployable (apart from George Osborne, obviously), hippies, the paedos who lurk behind every hedge in the entire country, eastern Europeans coming here taking our women and our jobs, gayers, darkies, Arabs, wogs in general, people who don’t like Israel because that’s, like, anti-semitic innit, socialists, communists, hunt saboteurs, single mothers, “smut”, feral youth, the EU, trades unionists, local councils with their wheelie-bin fascism, giving free ten-bed mansions to illegal immigrant bogus asylum seekers and banning Christmas, football hooligans unless they’ve been prevented from wearing England shirts in the pub, Jeremy twatting Paxman, the Scots, “filth”, northerners (especially Scousers), the Welsh, the Irish (oh, wait, they come under “Furrins” and/or “wogs in general”, don’t they?) and people who think that getting involved in a land war in Asia was a pretty poor idea. I’m not keen on the Pope either but at least he’s better than Richard fucking Dawkins.
10. I voted for Oswald Mosley in the 1935 General Election even though his party didn’t field any candidates.
Yours sincerely
Pettifogger Jarnoyce B.Sc.
February 10th, 2011 - 13:25
7. I can cure cancer. Or cause it. I forget which. It might even be both.
That is *beautiful*. I commend you, Mr. Larrington.
February 8th, 2011 - 13:05
To be fair at least the mail is not going down the route of unpaid interns, credit where credit is due I think.
Oh and just to be doubly controversial, Jan Moir was spot on in her piece today (she is still an idiot though)
February 8th, 2011 - 16:36
Well good on them for employing people during a recession, yes. That is a good thing. The only good thing, mind.
February 8th, 2011 - 16:08
I think I’ll apply. I can write moral outrage about a TV programme that hasen’t been shown yet and ring up someone from Mediawatch-uk to give an outrage quote about the programme even though she hasen’t seen it.
February 8th, 2011 - 16:58
I hope the Guardian repeat the ad in amongst all the “non jobs” in the Wednesday public sector section. Have them spitting at the Daily Mail.
February 8th, 2011 - 17:37
Dear Sue,
I saw your advert in the Guardian for a journalist, and decided to apply. As a regular user and fan of the Daily Mail’s website, I have noted the journalistic style of the articles penned by the ubiquitous “Daily Mail Reporter” and decided to give this a go myself. I have no prior journalistic experience, although I did recently write a best man’s speech which went down rather well in a room of 300 people of varied ethnicities and stages of drunkenness, although on reflection, the forty-five minute bit about the time my friend got stranded on a pedaloe with a Brazilian hooker and had to be rescued by the RNLI may have been ill-judged. I digress. Well, it appears to me that a common trait of my hero, the “Daily Mail Reporter” is to be able to take any photo of anything or anyone and surround said photo with some words. I have included the phrase ‘stepped out’ as well as a couple of factual inaccuracies to fit in with the style of your content.
I have decided to base my article around an old paparazzi photo of Barry Manilow (attached):
“Barry Manilow rolls back the years with mystery girl”
“A suspiciously young looking Barry Manilow set tongues wagging recently when he stepped out with a mystery brunette.
Barry, famous for hits such as Club Tropicana and West End Girls, was seen leaving Shaggers nightclub in Romford with the mystery woman. A source said, “Barry just whacked a load of tequila slammers, and the next thing we knew he’d hit the dance floor and whipped this poor girl into a frenzy with his ‘gun-fingers’ dance”
Barry was later seen leaving the club with the exotic looking brunette, but did not have time to pose for waiting photographers. The pair got straight into Barry’s waiting chauffeur driven Austin Allegro Vanden Plas and sped off.
Another reveller told us, “They shot off pretty quick to escape the waiting paparazzi, er, I mean ‘photographers’, but my mate Dave says he saw them in Kebab Hut at 3am ordering a large doner and a some chips.”.
Barry wore chinos and a vomit-patterned shirt, topped off with yellow-tinted aviators, while his companion dared to bare in a VERY revealing black cocktail dress. A friend close to Manilow told us, “Barry is besotted with his new lover, in fact he can’t smile without her”.
The Best of Barry Manilow is available now on SonyBMG.”
Yours,
John Smith,
Birmingham
Photo: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JAXyOVtZ0eE/R6IfCR6xjYI/AAAAAAAAFKk/fKvIyGnmPmg/s320/Barry+Manilow.jpg
February 9th, 2011 - 13:06
To rephrase Mr Burns’ dictum: honesty, empathy, principle – these are the three demons you must slay if you want to succeed in the media.
February 9th, 2011 - 14:27
I just sent my package off to Sue, with a .pdf of MigrationWatch press releases beneath my byline.
Dear Sue:
Thanks for the great opportunity! To be honest, I’m not surprised that your star journalist, Daily Mail Reporter, needs some relief after covering stories on celebrity weight gains, cancer scares, the Islamisation of Britain and cancer cures all in a single day’s news cycle. Luckily for the Mail, I think I can help.
My first successful story fabrication – and the wellspring of my desire to become a tabloid reporter – occurred when I got into a fight with an ethnic on the school playground. The truth is, I’d started it, harassing him for talking funny and suggesting that he may have sexual inclinations of the Mandelsonian kind (*wink*). After the scuffle, I was able to play his inferior grasp of the English language and general state of confusion and despair to my advantage. I appealed to the headmaster’s prejudices, subtly reinforcing my status as a member of the ‘decent, ordinary folk’ and reminding him that moral clarity must triumph over dithering liberal guilt. Yes, some things are black and white, and in this case I was lucky to be white. I thought, Why not use my privilege in a professional capacity? Few publications are willing to bully and demonise the disadvantaged as openly as the Daily Mail, so I have no doubt that we’ll get along like an asylum-seeker’s house on fire.
I have no training as a journalist but since the bulk of the paper’s content consists of recycled press releases and invented ‘stories’ to frame expensive paparazzi snaps, I have included some sample articles that I believe reflect the Mail’s standards and values, and no doubt represent what you’re looking for from the ideal candidate.
Please see the articles and my CV attached.
Thanks!
February 9th, 2011 - 18:47
Wanted. Daily Mail Film Critic.
Requirments are:
.An ability to be morally outraged and self righteous.
.A sense of interlectual superiority to ordinary cinema goers.
.A belief that it’s ok for film critics to see violence and sex on screen but if the brainless masses see it they will be raping and murdering in their droves.
.An agenda against the wet lefty liberals who run the BBFC.
February 10th, 2011 - 10:28
Oh I wish I had the words to reply too! All of you should take a round of applause… absolutely brilliant! well done to you all!
February 10th, 2011 - 10:50
Best of luck Steve – I’d give you the job!
February 10th, 2011 - 14:10
I composed another one that I’ll send today from a different e-mail address:
Dear Sue,
I noticed the advertisement for a Trainee Reporter at The Daily Mail and felt compelled to respond immediately. I’m a graduate of Columbia University’s Master of Journalism programme, and have worked as a staff reporter for several national newspapers in both the United States and Britain. Within the last five years I’ve gained experience as a features writer for The Observer and now hold the position of Science Correspondent with The Independent. Despite what I would certainly consider a series of successes at these papers, I am now at a critical juncture in my life and feel that I would be considerably more comfortable at a paper like the Mail.
I know it’s considered inappropriate to speak negatively of one’s current employer in job applications, but I want to be frank about why I am applying. Here at The Independent the poovery has become simply intolerable. It’s everywhere. Poovery in the walls. Poovery on my desk. Digital poovery. Eco-poovery. EU poovery. Wheelie bin poovery. Traditional British hedgerow poovery. Tax poovery. Pothole poovery. Foreign food poovery. Human rights poovery. War on Christmas poovery. Poovery in Stephen Gately’s cemetery. Tea bag poovery. Teenage poovery. Underwater poovery. I’ve expressed my discomfort to senior management on several occasions but – as you’d expect – this concern just incurs the wrath of the sandal-wearing ‘respect’ brigade. I’ve even coined a phrase to describe the condition: political correctness gone mad. What do you think, Sue? Could that became a chucklesome Mail catchphrase like elf’n’safety?
I feel very strongly that the creeping tentacles of poovery need to be severed at the source, and only Mail columnists like Richard Littlejohn, Melanie Philips, Jan Moir and Peter Hitchens are brave enough to tackle this threat head-on. My background in science journalism has enabled me to uncover some startling facts and I’m hoping the Mail can provide a forum for my crusade to inform the world. Key among them is the revelation that being a gay is not a cause of cancer. Quite the contrary – gayness IS the cancer. The only thing that troubles me is… How do they do it? I mean anatomically speaking. Because they don’t have vaginas.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Yours sincerely,
Trumpington Skinwhistle Smythe, Journalist
February 10th, 2011 - 15:21
Haha – you did it! Fantastic; just got forwarded to me by a colleague so I’ve directed a few of them to your blog with the highest of praise.
You won’t be looking for a job for long, Steve!
March 22nd, 2011 - 12:59
I got my rejection notice from Sue Ryan a couple days ago!
Anyone else get one?
The standard of applicants was very high, apparently. And Sue wishes me the best of luck in my career.