Award-winning Irish Times correspondent Conor O’Clery writes about his memories of being involved in The Gown, and gives advice to aspiring journalists.

Looking back after more than three decades as a journalist, mostly as foreign correspondent in Europe, the United States and Asia, I can say categorically that I could not have made the first step if it hadn’t been for The Gown, or simply Gown as the independent QUB student newspaper was known in its earlier days.

At first I had no thoughts of journalism when I came to Queen’s in 1968 as a mature student of 28. I had been accepted for a full-time computer science course in the arts faculty. However at the last minute the computer science course was scrapped because of a lack of lecturers.

“Pick something else,” the admissions officer suggested. So I opted for English, and thereby got to know other undergraduates doing the same degree course, like Bernard Loughlin and Tony Dumphy. They recruited me to help run Gown, the student newspaper, of which both were to become editors. The moment I walked into the Gown office, then on the ground floor of the Students’ Union, I knew that the media world was where I belonged.

I began writing regularly for Gown and in my third year, a graduating student, Mike Cahill, passed on to me a monthly university news column in The Irish Times called ‘QUB Notes’. In those days, Gown was one of the leading student newspapers in these islands (as it will be again this year) and won UK newspaper awards. The column was a stroke of luck (thanks Mike) as it meant that when I applied to the editor of The Irish Times, Douglas Gageby, for a job, I wasn’t total unknown to him. I got taken on. But I was told afterwards by the Irish Times news editor, Donal Foley, that I would not have had a chance if I had not been involved in student journalism, with a body of work to show for it.

This is what editors looked for then and still do today, despite the modern emphasis in newspaper and broadcast media for evidence of media or journalism studies as well. What you have to show when you go for an interview is what really impresses editors. Things are tough today in the media world, but those who run newspapers, magazines, radio, television and internet sites are always in need of new talent. Student journalism may be the key to a journalism career, as it was for me and many of my colleagues in Belfast, Dublin and London. And here’s a secret. It is the easiest way to get into print in the world.

As the editor of The Gown will tell you, student newspapers are always looking for good material. If you walk into The Gown office, now on the top floor of the Students’ Union, you might find yourself in print with your first by-line in no time, and then it’s onwards and upwards.