The following job vacancy was recently advertised in The Guardian. Yes, 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
This has been covered brilliantly and hilariously by both Enemies Of Reason and Angry Mob, both of which are well worth a read. No doubt many others have also been inspired to join in. Although I'm sure that most, or even all, of them are better writers than I could ever hope to be, I shall still submit an application. Not least because being a good writer appears to be a major obstacle to getting a job with the Daily Fail. Yes, I think I've got a good chance with this one.
So here's my application letter which I have sent to Sue Ryan.
Dear Sue
While trawling through the sordid socialist rag that shall not be named, a beacon of truth and virtue shone out at me from the Job Vacancy pages that I could not resist. I have long dreamed of being a writer - not one of those poncy lefty fools like Slavoj Žižek or Noam Chomsky, but a proper writer like Richard Littlejohn or Jan Moir. Now I see that the very thing I had been looking for is available to me via the good offices of the Mail group.
Although I have no training or experience in journalism, I do know how to copy and paste, and I feel that this alone qualifies me to move swiftly into the middle ranks of Daily Mail reporters. I am perfectly capable of writing vindictive polemics based on nothing more than an overheard conversation on the bus, or even a hacked voicemail, and I have no qualms whatsoever about stitching people up in order to advance my career.
Above all I feel I am qualified to write for the Daily Mail because I hate living in England, and have always dreamed of buggering off to sunnier climes, where I can observe the deterioration of a once-great nation from afar. This distance, as Littlejohn has proved, can be invaluable in giving me an objective viewpoint that is based entirely on prejudice and lack of research, rather than any pesky ideas like actually living here or talking to real people.
Please please please PLEASE give me the job.
Yours hurrahing for the Blackshirts,
Doug
I will let you know if I get a reply, but in the meantime please do make an application yourself. And if you do, I'd love you to share it with me on the comments below, either in full or by posting a link to your own blog. This is too good a chance to miss. Just think - the next paranoid scare story about Eastern European wheelie bin inspectors could be under YOUR byline.
Brilliant blog. Reading this one gave me some inspiration to write a letter of application myself!!
ReplyDelete"Dear Sue,
I am writing in response to the job advertisement that you published in the Guardian. I like how you've tried to expand into employing actual talent there, but I honestly don't think that the type of people that read the Guardian would really be too interested in writing for the Daily Mail; below them, perhaps?
I digress, I would be very interested in the opportunity to be able to write quality journalism for your much respected and sourced tabloid as I am incredibly interested, as a student and lover of the everything English, to be able to consequently throw away all my morals and dignity to be the author of literature, of a level which is nearly matched by a children's story book, that causes public outrage with speculation and lies.
I feel that this would be the perfect job for me and that I would be able to integrate myself neatly with your current staff as I would consider myself a very politically savvy left-winger who is willing to do whatever it takes to get a scoop; even if it means phone hacking. Unfortunately I do not possess any degree of journalism experience, but my English teacher once said to me that I would make a good journalist one day if I ever chose to take a route down that career path. Gracefully, this is a route that may have possibly come open to me with this vacancy! I look forward to hear back from you.
Yours sincerely,
A person with intelligence and a functioning moral compass."
The full blog is here at:
lukeblogs-pursuitofhappyness.blogspot.com
Love it! Look forward to seeing you when we start work.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant!
ReplyDeleteGonna have a crack at this job post like. I'll have to write an even more facetious letter than you lot :P
http://the-persistenceof-memory.blogspot.com/2011/02/help-wanted-must-be-dick.html
ReplyDelete^^ My attempt! Lol
Nice work Siobhan!
ReplyDeleteDear Sue,
ReplyDeleteI 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
Brilliant. Love the Stephen Gately reference.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you are back. Looks like I have a few to catch up on...
ReplyDeleteso...???? you got the job and.....??????
ReplyDeleteNah, they blanked me. Scumbags.
ReplyDelete