Journey to RTE began with film reviews for Northside People

MY FIRST article for the Northside People, a drama review, was published while I was studying Communications at DCU.

It wasn’t an easy task. I hand wrote the copy, typed it out on a communal college computer, printed it on a dot matrix printer and (younger readers may need to Google some terms here) walked across to the Students’ Union where a fax service was available.

I can’t remember how the return message was received – carrier pigeon perhaps? – but a couple of days later I got the delightful news that the article was to be published and that the editor would be interested in taking more

‘copy’, if I was willing to provide it.

Copy? I nearly fainted. Copy was a word

‘Real Journalists’ used. It turned out that the paper had a vacancy for a film reviewer and was willing to give me a chance to fill it. Carlsberg don’t make jobs for students, but if they did…

A couple of mornings a week I’d head into town, sit in a cinema with

‘Real Journalists’ and watch unreleased movies before writing my column. They initially didn’t pay me. To be honest, if they’d asked me to pay THEM I’d probably have considered it.

As a student of Communications who dreamed of being a journalist one day, putting together a portfolio was the ultimate aim. And here I was, making a good start on a well filled scrapbook before I’d even started my final exams. Heaven.

When I left DCU I began working with the radio station Raidio na Life and kept writing for Northside People at the same time. And one day a cheque from the paper arrived. I wanted to frame it, but my need for a monthly bus ticket was too great.

However, I can still remember the amount and the pride I felt. Someone was willing to pay me actual money for something I’d written. I was on my way.

I ended up writing for the paper for more than three years and thankfully the cheques kept arriving too. Alongside film reviews I graduated to writing general news and advertising features and the practical, on the job training I received was invaluable.

If you can write 500 words on a chipper in Artane to a tight deadline, few journalistic tasks are insurmountable.

I moved on from the paper in 1996 when I got a job with Clare FM and decided to give the broadcasting world a shot. But I still have that thickly padded portfolio and Northside People still sits proudly on my CV.

?¢ Sinead Crowley is Arts and Media Correspondent with RTE