One giant leap to your students’ future career

Hello everyone,

When we’re asked as teenagers, ‘what would you like to be?’ the answers used to be firefighter, spaceman or rocket scientist. These days our heroes are different: when we see reporters at the frontline in war zones, telling us what’s really happening in the most dangerous parts of the world, the answer just might be, ‘journalist’.

But not every journalist wears a hard hat and flak jacket, and this week I’ve been talking to a reporter whose beat focuses on sports. Uche Amako works on the digital sports desk at The Daily Telegraph and I asked him how he got into his line of work and what was the pivotal moment when he decided to go for it.

It turns out, he was a teenager, just like the students who enter the Shine Awards each year, and he made his dreams come true. Here’s what Uche had to say;

If you told me on my first day of university that 17 years later I would be a journalist for one of the biggest newspapers in the country, I would have been very skeptical.

So if you asked me the one thing that made a difference in my life that made my career happen, I would say: taking a chance.

The moment I decided to study journalism, invest my time into it, and backed by my teachers, I never looked back. I was able to combine journalism with my love for sport and looking back it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Now I can say I’ve travelled the world to report my favourite sportsmen and women. Now I can say I’ve reported on the football team I have supported my whole life winning trophies.

If I didn’t take that chance, I might be working a mundane 9-5 office job. I think I prefer my life the way it has gone.

Uche working at Wimbledon 2023

Truly inspiring stuff – thank you Uche for that, I hope it resonates with your students. They can follow their dreams, and journalism is a great choice of career.

As ever, to register for the Shine School Media Awards 2024, just drop us a line at shine@stationers.org

Til next time,

Richard
Chair of Shine