A Week In My Life As A National Journalist
A national journalist’s diary: what it's really like being a reporter
Have you ever wondered what a week in the life of a national journalist is like? Well, look no further. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the last seven days of my life (complete with time stamps and the occasional picture). There’s even a snap of my in Lycra...because I clearly have a total disregard for my appearance on the internet.
I’m going to preface the diary that follows by saying no week is ever the same. This means that I will never have the same Monday or Thursday as I did last week (certainly not the same weekend). But that’s one of my favourite parts of the job. You never know what each day will bring you, or where the story will take you.
MONDAY
7.45am My week started the way no journalist likes for it to begin...with a request for a correction. I “ummed and ahhed” about whether to include this (and whether to make it as prominent as I have at the top of this newsletter) but it would be remiss of me to tell you that I started my week by doing anything else. Thankfully, this was a very minor request to correct part of a line quite low down in a small story so it was sorted within two minutes of the person emailing me. Accuracy is the bedrock of journalism. I’ll be the first to raise my hand and take ownership when I make mistakes. So, I was very happy to update the piece.
8am-9am Someone contacted me the week before with a story which I thought about often over the weekend. It didn’t fall within either politics or the environment so I decided I probably wasn’t the best reporter to write it up. I had a quick chat with a colleague to see if she’d like to take it on instead. Soon after this, I was on the phone to our AMAZING, life-saving office queen who has helped get me in and out of some interesting places. She’s got me into foreign hotels late at night when I’m on the other side of the world and my booking has gone missing, as well as out of countries abroad when plane tickets suddenly get cancelled. So, ahead of an assignemnt later in the week, I was back on the phone to her to get some logistics sorted.
9am-10.30am This is going to sound like an odd thing to say but I’m a fierce protector of my mental and physical health. I adore my job but I operate at full throttle (I wouldn’t have it any other way). To keep doing what I do, I have to take care of my body and brain. I love spending time in nature and I love exercising. Whenever I can, I try to do both at the same time. This morning, I opted for a cycle around London’s Richmond Park. I’m INCREDIBLY grateful to live as close as I do to this slice of countryside in the capital. After a minor mishap, which resulted in me getting some grease on my hands, I was back in the saddle… headwinds and all! I got home just in time to see Tory Shadow Minister Danny Kruger defect to Reform.
Now, you may be wondering (and rightly so) “Steph, why the heck aren’t you at work?” and that’s because I was on a late shift which started at 2pm and ended at 10pm. I don’t work a late shift every Monday, it changes each week.
11.30am By this time, I was heading into the office in the Houses of Parliament as I had a long-standing lunch commitment in the diary with someone who I’m hoping will become a good contact. If this hadn’t been in the calendar, I would have probably worked from home. But I am a woman of my word who shows up when I say I will (and tries my best not to cancel at short notice but this isn’t always easy given the unpredictability of the job).
1pm I opted for a nearby watering hole for lunch. I went for a coronation chicken sandwich with some fries (the latter of which me and this virtual stranger ended up sharing which I thought was quite wholesome)!
2.15pm-7pm I wandered back into the office a little after 2pm where I buckled down to get some writing done. This included setting up our politics live blog for the following day.
7pm Remember I mentioned a trip abroad earlier in the day? I had a late-night security call to make sure all the right boxes were ticked before takeoff. There was talk of armour vests being needed so we had to make sure that everything was in order before the plane was wheels up.
7.30pm-10pm It was a pretty uneventful evening but I did some more writing and worked on a few longer-term pieces I’m always bashing away at in the background.
TUESDAY
8am Before the clock struck 8am, I was in front of my laptop pitching stories ahead of our morning news conference at 9am. This is the time of the day when I’ll start speaking to contacts and going through my emails to sift through things that could work as stories for the next day’s paper (and throughout the day online).
10am-11.45am I was in Parliament’s Press Gallery by 10am. A story I put on our news list was set to be the next day’s front page story. You never know whether that’ll still be the case by the time the sun sets but it does give an early indication of how many people I need to approach for the article and how many words it’ll be. The editors also requested an op-ed to go with it so I sorted that.
I had a 15 minute call with a PR at some point in the morning too. I love going for coffees and lunches but I’ve recently been trying to ramp up use of good ol’ fashioned phone calls.
Midday-1pm At noon I met with a 23 year old looking to break into journalism as both an environment and political reporter. Over a cup of tea, we spoke about the things she could do to get into the industry on those beats. I then bolted back to the office to continue researching an MP I was meeting for lunch.
1pm-2.30pm Sometimes I’ll meet Parliamentarians alone and other times I’ll double up with my “lunch buddy”. It was 2-on-1 action this time so we headed to Strangers’ Dining Room, on the Parliamentary estate, to meet the Labour MP. I’ll spare you any menu specifics but I’m happy to confirm it was delicious. We all opted for a post-meal coffee (latte for me, American for my fellow reporter and a double espresso for the MP). I took this as a sign that we were all thoroughly enjoying each other’s company.
2.30pm-6pm I eventually rolled back to the office where I actually got some writing done. I pulled the front page article together and then called it a day at around 6pm.
WEDNESDAY:
Occasionally, I’ll wake up and already know what the biggest story in town is... quite literally. On Wednesday, it was the unprecedented second state visit of US President Donald Trump.
7am I’d made a cup of tea and plonked myself in front of my laptop before 7am. I was on an early shift today which meant I had the pleasure of virtually shadowing whichever minister has the pleasure of batting for the government on the broadcast round. On this particular day, I toured the broadcast studios with Tech Secretary Liz Kendall (all from the comfort of my own home).
10.30am I’d made my way to Westminster by 10.45am. Most of the late morning and early afternoon was spent working on longer term stories I’m interested in and locking in a few coffees/calls. Our royal colleagues had the day’s biggest stories under control so the political team had a day of respite before our time to shine tomorrow. We also get all the day’s papers delivered to “Burma Road”, where most political reporters reside on the Parliamentary Estate. The feeling of seeing my name on the front of a newspaper never gets old.
2pm-3pm There was some dashing to the Jubilee Line as I needed to be at the Express’s head quarters in Canary Wharf to do something I’ve never done before... get fitted for an armoured vest. Those navy blue ones with PRESS written in large white letters at the back. I tried on a combat helmet too. This all formed part of the mystery trip later this week that I’ve yet to share any details about. You’re going to be SHOCKED when you find out where I’m headed. I’ll keep you on the edge of your seats for a bit longer though. These kits weighed about 15kg each, and I was leaving the sky scraper that is our HQ with two – one for me and one for my photographer colleague. Although I was happy to get in an unplanned gym session, an editor very kindly carried a bag out the door with me. Although I momentarily contemplated dragging these 30kg lumps through London, I thought better of it and ordered an Uber. The early shift I worked usually ends at 3pm. The news day doesn’t quite work to that timeline so I’m usually around for a bit longer than that but I finished work pretty close to 3pm today.
4.30pm-5.30pm After a lot of bumper-to-bumper traffic, I made it home in time for a really exciting call about a media masterclass I’m hosting with a PR agency in a few weeks’ time.
THURSDAY:
9.45am- 11.15am By 10am, I’d already made the pilgrimage to the legendary Fleet Street – a stretch of road once so thunderous with printing presses that entire buildings would rumble. It’s always special going there and standing where generations of reporters once raced to meet deadlines and break the biggest scoops.
Just around the corner, I spoke at a packed-out talk on surveys (more specifically, why they sometimes fail). It was standing room only by the end, with at least 50 PR pros eager to learn how to craft data-led stories that land in national newsrooms. I relished being on the receiving end of sharp questions.
12.30pm-4pm I devoured a towering burger the second I got home and then turned my mind to Donald Trump. I was on a late shift again today which meant I technically was set to start at 2pm but it’s a big news day so I couldn’t stay away. Our political editor was captaining the ship from the Prime Minister’s countryside residence Chequers so I tuned in the Trump-Starmer show virtually. This included watching the Prime Minister and US President’s press conference while contributing to our live blog and sorting immediate reaction for the Express’s website.
4pm-4.10pm Just as Trump wrapped up, I jumped on a quick call to discuss logistics for a podcast I’ve been invited to be a guest on. It’s always fun switching gears instantaneously... from POTUS coverage to podcast planning in the space of a minute.
4.15pm-10pm The rest of the day was spent writing various stories about Mr Trump. There wasn’t any major breaking news this evening. The story machine that is the US President was in full swing making headlines aboard Air Force One. He made some comments on his beast of an airplane which I wrote a story about later in the night. I then tuned into the BBC’s Question Time to see if there were potential articles to do courtesy of guests James Cleverly or Piers Morgan. There wasn’t anything of huge news value for us so I shut the laptop at 10pm
FRIDAY:
6.30am Finally You may have noticed I’ve teased a trip once or twice and I’ve yet to actually pack for it. I rolled out of bed at dawn to haphazardly shove some clothes into my luminescent orange bag for a trip to... Cyprus! Why on earth would I need an armoured vest for this assignment? Well, this gig comes with the highly unlikely (but not impossible) risk of shots being fired at us. The next logical question you may have is “what story is this?!” The answer to which I cannot reveal...yet.
9am My trusty Uber driver navigated London’s many roundabout like a pro and got me (and my lumps of potentially life-saving luggage) to the departures terminal at Heathrow by 9am. For a bunch of logistical reasons I won’t bore you with, my photographer colleague I’m heading off with ended up on an earlier flight than me. We managed to catch up over some tea under the lights of a glowing flight information board. He and I talked shop for a bit before eventually heading for our separate gates.
11am-8pm My favourite seat on an airplane is definitely not the middle one but that’s where I ended up for the duration of the four hour flight. I had Joe Mayes’ new book ‘Can you Run the Economy’ to keep me company. One of my trusty lumps was circling the carousel by the time I got to the luggage hall. Its companion joined us shortly afterwards. My photographer colleague greeted me as I exited arrivals, and kindly offered to take both sets of armoured gear off my luggage-bitten arms (serves me right for failing to carry a €2 coin for a trolley).
We got to our hotel and journeyed to Larnaca’s centre with the team we’ll be spending the next few days with on the ground.
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY:
And now for the big reveal...I spent the weekend with naturalist Chris Packham and zoologist Megan McCubbin investigating the illegal slaughter of songbirds in Europe. Fear not, I’ll spare you the time stamps from both days. I’ve shared behind-the-scenes snippets on Instagram already (so do follow me over there if you haven’t already). The armoured vests were worn on Sunday but (thankfully) they weren’t put to the test. I set my alarm for 2.20am yesterday and soon ventured into an area without light pollution which meant the mesmerising Milky Way was on full display. We marched 30 minutes in total darkness before hiding behind some bushes for a bit longer alongside activists and campaigners. I’ll be able to reveal more about the work we’ve been doing in the Daily Express soon.
I hope this edition has given you some insight into what a week in my life is like. No week will ever be the same. The role affords me the absolute privilege of meeting weird and wonderful people, in weird and wonderful places. It’s the best job in the world.
Remember folks, keep this just between us! We’re off the record.
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I’m also now offering media masterclasses for brands looking to sharpen their storytelling, improve their relationships with journalists and boost their media coverage. If you’re interested, please contact me at stephspyro1@gmail.com