‘My professional life can be divided into two halves – before Media Trust and after Media Trust’

I can honestly say my professional life can be divided into two halves- before Media Trust and after Media Trust. My pre-London 360 days can be summarised as being passed around from internship to internship and struggling with unemployment/underemployment.

Making it into the media industry was a dream but not something someone like me did. Nobody I grew up with worked in media and while growing up in a diverse town, we often felt like we were provincials living on the door step of a great city. Unsurprisingly lack of experience, know-how and contacts made landing journalistic work an uphill challenge.

Applying for a training programme with Media Trust was the last roll of the dice and I did not expect to hear back from them. Imagine then my surprise when I was called in for interview and my utter amazement at being selected.

Learning curve

The placement lasted six-months but its lessons would last with me to this day. I had never picked up a camera before but within four weeks, I was making television. Hitting the ground running is a mild way to put the intensity of the early days, we not only had to learn to film, edit and produce a show, we had to learn how to tell a story.

Two of the most critical aspects of media are access and story, everything else can be picked up along the way, but access and story are indispensable and I think this ended up being the greatest lesson from my Media Trust days.

Everything from pitching, carrying out interviews to creating a watch that is an experience in its own right- this is what my time with Media Trust gave me. I remember learning how to cold-approach people and tell them I was interested in learning their story, I still have to do this and it has served me very well no matter where I have worked since then.

Growing in confidence

Since leaving Media Trust I have worked on a lot of exciting stuff, I have made programmes with the BBC including a Panorama episode on life in Aleppo and more recently I helped in a BBC Arabic investigation into smuggled artefacts out of Gaza.

Every project I have worked on has been different but there has been a few set of skills each job has relied upon. Most of the skills were originally developed with Media Trust, it gave me the confidence to sit across seasoned and experienced editors and say, “Yes, I can do this.”

Access, stories and confidence is what you need to succeed in this industry and Media Trust gave me all three by teaching me how to find all these things. It won’t get you the job but it will teach you how to take the opportunity that gets you the job. This is the most valuable thing any training can give you.