A former Macleay Sydney student, and now video journalist at the Australian Associated Press (AAP), Andrew Leeson joined Macleay Melbourne to talk all things job related and how Macleay can help you get a job in the industry.
Leeson’s major interest is in video journalism and at the AAP he is able to capture footage for a range of areas from sports to politics.
“Yesterday started my day with a tram that had derailed and finished my day with the Nathan Buckley presser,” Leeson said of the nature of his life as a video journalist.
When asked about how he balanced working through his last year of university he said, it’s not easy and you have to make sure you don’t let one of them slip.
He commented on how one of his lecturers gave him the opportunity to work for the Telegraph. “The access we have to working journalists at Macleay makes all the difference in furthering our careers.”
“It was just saying yes to a one-week internship and luckily enough I made an impression to get something out of that,”
“The importance of being in the newsroom, I can’t stress that enough,”
In this climate, it’s hard to get a job as a paid journalist and unpaid internships are taken up a lot.
“You can look at it in a bitter way, because it sucks, but any chance to be in a newsroom is invaluable,”
Leeson went on to recommend that students don’t stay for too long in unpaid positions, and to move on if you’re doing too much work for free.