The Newcastle Tab has given me great confidence as a journalist. Having joined the team just before the Covid-19 pandemic, I was able to cover important news stories for students as I followed the universities’ response to the pandemic.

Since becoming CoEd I’ve loved managing the team we have. I’ve had experience of giving feedback and training, resolving conflict, and dealing with sensitive subjects with potentially vulnerable contacts.

Most of all though, I loved the chance to represent the student voice in Newcastle, holding the universities to account, and taking action on key issues like mental health and women’s safety.

One of the hardest aspects of the job is maintaining a constant list of news and features commissions. It’s important that our writers can write as much (or as little) as they want, whenever they want, so we need to have a list of commissions that can reflect all eventualities.

To keep a healthy list, I’ve made use of Google alerts, Tweetdeck, and kept an eye on local news outlets as well as sister Tab groups across the country to find ideas that work. It was also essential to recognise that some of the most appealing stories we publish are human interest stories, and they come from the “campus goss” of students. So it was important we cultivated a culture and environment that encouraged our team to talk to eachother and share stories, especially in our weekly meetings.

My fondest memory has to be the night I spent with a team of new writers covering a late-night protest and march in Newcastle City Centre. We were providing live coverage both as part of a live blog and also on our Instagram stories.

This was perhaps the climax of The Newcastle Tab’s coverage of the city’s response to the outcry on violence against women, particularly in relation to injection-spiking.

I was proud to be leading a group who were able to cover a story that mattered to them and many people in the city, and would look great on all our CVs. It was a great night together, and we earned a mention as the team of the week from Tab HQ.