My stint at NME Magazine

When I got the email of acceptance of a week at NME magazine, a lot of feelings and thoughts went through my head. Excitement, worry and nervousness being the most predominant. However, as soon as I walked in, I felt as if I was home. 

It all began being introduced to the Editors PA, Karen Walter who then assigned us to our first task - sorting out the mail. It was a pretty simple ask but it gave me a chance to meet some of the staff individually and introduce myself to the team. This led to further discussion with Rhian Daly, the assistant reviews editor who gave me my first writing task of transcribing an interview she had done with the frontman of the band, Yvette. The interview recording was around 15 minutes long and the transcript came to around 1500 words. This helped me gain more skills in scribing down interviews and it's harder than you think! The second day kicked off with researching the latest and upcoming albums to be released in 2014 from May. The task was to only research artists relevant to the NME audience which meant I had to scour through the artist databases of NME and then, find out about upcoming releases from these artists. It was interesting to see so many of my favourite artists releasing things this year and it prompted me to write some reviews which I'll publish on here too!

I spoke with Greg Cochrane, the editor of NME.com to devise a piece about the BRIT School and what it was it was like to be a student. Greg asked me to divulge on the reality of going to the school juxtaposed with what the newspapers and media perceive the school to be like. This was an invaluable task to improve my writing skills and get advice from an established editor.  The following day began in searching for breaking news stories relevant to NME, which would engage the demographic of the magazine. I corresponded with NME’s news editor to cover a story on The Dream, who is currently facing legal charges. The editor reminded me to remain partial with the story as it is a legal issue. And... It got published! Check it out here: http://www.nme.com/news/the-dream/77174

In my final day of experience, I was assigned the task of writing reviews about three singles that have been released recently. I wrote a short 100 word piece on each song. This helped me restrict myself and make my pieces more sharp. This also was a chance to help me improve my creative writing. In the latter half of the day, the editor spoke to me about my piece to give me feedback and improvements. He suggested that I use more metaphors and similes to make less interesting points more captivating to a NME audience. He gave me advice how to hone in my writing and make it more appealing for a magazine or creative forum. The entire week gave me invaluable experience in a working magazine environment. I gained great contacts and learnt how to write for a specifc audience! How good is that?!