The Students Journals by Siraj Dattoo

We speak to Siraj Datoo, who’s organising a conference for students who are looking to break into journalism (and is also editor-in-chief of The Student Journals).

Who is Siraj, and tell us more about your background?

Ha, well that’s a complicated question to answer. Although I was born in New York, and also lived in Dar es Salaam for two years when I was very young, I was brought up in London and have spent most of my life there (very much in contrast with my ancestors who lived in India). I turned 22 a couple of weeks ago and after spending seven months in Le Mans (a city in the north-west of France) teaching as a language assistant, I’m now back to finish my final year of French with International Studies at the University of Warwick. The thing I miss most about France? The bread!

I’m also the founder and editor-in-chief of The Student Journals, an award-winning online magazine for students around the world.

What inspired you to set up The Student Journals?

The thing I love about the Warwick is that students have got a huge number of opportunities available to them – there are so many societies to get involved in and events to help organise. My grounding, and the way I have been brought up has been very much about getting involved with, and giving back to, the community – and so with so much happening, I threw myself into a number of societies, such as TEDxWarwick, One World Week and Warwick Entrepreneurs.

I have also always been interested in writing and although I have also written about various countries I have visited, I collate all my articles on my blog, which is mostly inundated with opinion articles about issues such as discrimination, human rights and international politics (France appears to pop up quite often). At the end of my first year, however, I thought about how many students there must be like me, who write but whose blog is mostly read only by their friends. That same night, I did some market research to find out whether anything existed (it didn’t, by the way), and called some friends up to get opinions. As soon as I got off the phone with Ali Gokal, who agreed to take on the role of Deputy Editor, I started drawing up some designs. A couple of months of web development later (for which I still owe Sadiq Datoo a huge amount of gratitude), and TheStudentJournals.com was born – we moved to studentjournals.co.uk a few months later.

What exactly is The Student Journals?

TSJ is an online magazine that gives students around the world a platform to engage in political discussion and debate issues that matter to them, as well as interview personalities they would be interested in. We’ve had articles ranging from Sudanese independence to a number about the US elections (one of our big focus points at the moment) and arguably our biggest interviews have been with Kate Allen (Director, Amnesty International UK), football journalist Iain Macintosh, Economist’s editorial cartoonist Kal and world-famous foreign correspondent Robert Fisk. There are also sections for Education, Blogs, Culture, Features, andLifestyle, and our culture section is performing outstandingly recently, with fresh reviews of films, theatre performances, music, and books.

Tell us about some of the challenges you’ve faced when setting this up?

Time! When the idea of TSJ came to me, I seem to have forgotten that I had a degree to do as well! Over time though, things got a little easier and I figured out how to manage time a little more effectively around my studies and working on the online magazine.

I suppose that money does unfortunately play a role having too. From to pay monthly fees for hosting, domains, running such a site doesn’t come cheap. I’ve been determined, however, to keep TSJ stick to its core and I think that I’ve managed to minimise costs while running an organisation that runs effectively. Getting advertising on the site as well as sponsorship is certainly something we hope for though as we look to expand.

When talking about challenges, I suppose it’s pretty important to talk about support we’ve received as well. As well as the core team, who do an outstanding job, our writers keep writing great content and to them I will always remain grateful. I can only hope that they’ve benefited from writing for us and we’re looking to show some of our appreciation during the TSJ Writers Awards ceremony next Saturday, at our “breaking into journalism” conference.

What opportunities are there for people to get involved with The Student Journals?

There really are a huge number of opportunities available at TSJ. We have vacancies for a web editor, deputy editors, editorial assistants, live bloggers, photographers, broadcast journalists (whether it be TV or radio), and even positions in marketing and on the business team. We’re also always happy to have students around the world writing for us, and we’ve published articles from students based in the UK (of course), Canada, USA, Jordan, France and even South Africa. Any student can submit an article to the site, allowing their voice to be heard.

We’re also always looking to partner with organisations that are doing something different. In our first year, we partnered with TEDxWarwick and live blogged the event and interviewed some of the speakers. Since then, we’ve partnered with a number of organisations, and we hope to improve the way we portray digital media through this too, to create a more dynamic experience for writers.

How important are organisations such as Brit Writers?

How often do unpublished writers get the chance to be recognised for their work and have it showcased? The chances and opportunities are so rare that organisations such as the Brit Writers become treasured. Britain should be proud to have such an Awards Ceremony.

What’s this about a “breaking into journalism” conference?

For the past few months, I’ve been working on a conference to bring decorated journalists together to help “wannabe hacks” break into the industry. So next Saturday, the 27th October, when TSJ will celebrate its second year since launch, there will be some fantastic great speakers, including Carla Buzasi, editor-in-chief of Huffington Post UK, Jonathan Hewett, the director of Newspaper Journalism MA and Interactive Journalism MA at City Journalism School, as well as journalists from the Guardian, Telegraph, New Statesman, Channel 4 & many more speakers.

Attendees will be able to tailor the event according to their own interests through workshops, and a ‘networking lunch’, where students can talk to the journalists present is definitely one that we’re sure will prove very useful and beneficial for any aspiring journalists.

Thanks to some generous sponsorship from City Journalism School, Warwick Knowledge Centre and theUniversity of Warwick, we have been able to reduce ticket prices to only £6. Entry includes a free copy of the Economist, New Statesman, and Prospect magazine (if you’re early enough for the latter), as well as coffee/tea/snacks and cake. We have attendees coming from across the UK (from Norwich and London to York, Nottingham and Edinburgh) and it will be a fantastic opportunity to meet like-minded individuals too. It would be great to see of those interested in Brit Writers Awards, who are looking to go into journalism, turn up and I hope to see some next week! People can buy tickets fromhttp://studentjournals.ticketbud.com/tsjturnstwo

by Brit Writers