13. Most journalists, esp on locals, aren’t well paid. Don’t take a job then whine about pay. Be good at it and find another

Some things happen by chance. One being that just as I am about to start writing about journalists' pay I read the brilliant Simon Kuper in the FT's Weekend Magazine (I'd suggest it's worth a read but at £3 an edition the FT is probably out of your price bracket...I get to claim it back).

But just in case the link goes down or it gets squirrelled behind a pay-wall this is what your average reporter - and he's talking about nationals not regionals or locals - has to contend with:

In 1947, Winston Churchill wrote a story about an imaginary conversation with his father’s ghost. Churchill tells the ghost that he writes books and journalism. “Ah, a reporter,” the ghost replies. “There is nothing discreditable in that. I myself wrote articles for the Daily Graphic when I went to South Africa. And well I was paid for them. A hundred pounds an article.” Churchill’s father visited South Africa in 1891. If he wrote those articles for certain newspapers today, he would still get £100, or maybe nothing.

If you've read the full article he is wrong about one thing - in locals lots of what you write can make a difference...even that week.

In the UK the average salary is £26,200. If you are earning this or possibly even more - congratulations you must be the editor (perhaps you could be kind enough to suggest this blog to trainees or mention it if you give a talk journalism students).

The fact is you are not going to be earning anything like this. Now I could talk about how unfair it all is...or why you should go on strike, but I'll leave that up to the NUJ (these are practical tips not Never Never Land).

Quite frankly if there were a lot less of you so keen to get into this job my pay would go up because there would be a shortage of reporters - so bugger off.

Since you are hell bent on becoming a reporter - stop complaining. The one sure fire way of getting anything like a decent pay increase is to leave the paper - and if that's to stay in journalism it is to move to a bigger one. Either that or get promoted.

So don't - whatever you do - move to your first paper and think that's it. Keep flexible at least for the first few years (unless you are fabulously wealthy and just slumming it or your partner happens to be).

And don't whine about the pay. If you're not a reporter don't bother becoming one if money will be an issue - you've been told. Even if you become a senior in two/three years time the chances are you'll only be on £20,000 - and probably only £18,500 if you are at the same paper you were a junior at).

Loyalty - quite honestly - doesn't pay. But you are still there to do a job. So do it because the best way to get another job is to have great cuts and know what you are doing. And then you can keep moving up.

Tomorrow: Where and tear....

1. Read a national newspaper at LEAST twice a week – and not just the Guardian or Independent. Try the Mail and Sun as well.

Quite why this has to be stated is beyond me…the fact that it does says a lot about some of the competition (or lack of it) that trainee journalists face. In other words not a lot.

Indeed some have criticised journalismtips for being patronising - oh but I wish it was.

I decided it needed stating after talking to a second year - yes, a second year - journalism student. Having read the first draft of her copy - about a woman celebrating her 100th birthday - I asked her to re-write it into something that resembled newspaper copy.

Five drafts later and I wanted to know what newspaper she read. Her reply was actually more shocking than her copy, "The Guardian" she said with no small amount of pompousness in her voice before adding "...occasionally."

I suggested she might want to broaden her (limited) reading material to include the Daily Mail and The Sun…I may as well have asked her out on a date given the sheer revulsion that spread over her face.

Oddly enough she was unable to fulfill the rest of her week long stint of work experience, which was a relief for all concerned.

What she was doing in a newspaper office was beyond me…more worryingly, what they had been teaching her for the past 18 months was mystifying.

But she was - is - not alone.

So if you want to work in the media (any type of media not just in print) you should be reading national newspapers and not just The Guardian.

To do so is media equivalent of a dietitian only studying the nutritional make-up of muesli and no other foodstuffs on the grounds it is good for you. Yes, it might well be but a mixed diet is healthy and can be fun too.

I say a couple of times a week - I actually mean seven days a week. That's right every day - even at weekends. But, for the sake of form, twice is at least a start.

And please feel free to read the Guardian but make sure you include the Mail and the Sun and the Mirror and the Express and the Times and the Telegraph and the Independent. At £3 a pop you can skip the Financial Times (although it has a very good magazine at the weekend) unless you want to go into financial journalism.

You should be getting a feel for what makes news and the way to do that is by reading an actual newspaper. 

Don't rely on the internet that will only draw you to a few articles you are interested in. So yes, buy the newspaper.