NBR launches business journalist trainee scheme

NBR has hired a part-time trainer and organised a series of business professional workshops as part of a journalist recruitment drive to bolster its multi-media newsroom numbers.

NBR publisher Todd Scott says “Providing this unique opportunity to get experience across the newsroom including on camera is a way for us to do something meaningful to attract talent as well as benefit young and enthusiastic recruits to strengthen tomorrow’s newsrooms.”

A former award-winning business journalist, journalism tutor, and in-house PR practitioner, Jenni McManus joins the team on a part-time basis from early next year to act as a trainer giving one-on-one support for junior staff wanting to get into the industry or experienced reporters willing to brave a switch from general reporting to business.

“This training is designed to turn out ethical and financially literate business reporters who write like Hemingway and have a killer instinct for news,” she says.

She’ll help demystify the jargon typically used by the business sector that can make it hard for ordinary folks to understand and in any spare time she will also write some news stories.

That training support will include broadcast journalism through on-camera training in NBR’s studios from NBR View creative director Rawdon Christie, TVNZ presenter Simon Dallow and NBR presenter Grant Walker.

Mr Christie says over the past year, NBR has taken bold steps towards a multimedia future.

"We can now utilise the decades of broadcasting experience we have between us to fully equip our less experienced journalists with all the skills they will need to excel in their chosen careers. 'On-the-job' training in mainstream media companies is today rare, if not non-existent, so we are confident this initiative will attract the best of the best.”

NBR’s in-house editorial training will be supplemented by a series of workshops early next year conducted by business professionals who will demystify their area of expertise.

The workshops will include sessions from experts on accounting, business law and insolvency.

NBR’s focus on training recognises the national shortage of business journalists and the lack of professional development undertaken by large media companies.

Co-editor Tim Hunter says: “Business and finance shape this country just as much as politics and are much more interesting. If you want to understand what’s really going on, business journalism can open the door.”

Co-editor Fiona Rotherham recalls initially rejecting a job offer at NBR (the first time around) back in 1989, only to change her mind when she realised she had initially done so out of fear of not understanding the sector well enough and thought that was a good enough reason to "give it a go."

NBR is looking for applications from interested journalists for positions across all grades to start from late January 2019 onward. Send a resume and a cover letter to editor@nbr.co.nz.  Just give it a go.