How I spent my summer bursary working at The Olive Press in Spain

We offer each of our trainees a summer bursary of up to £1,000 every summer of their degree to spend on journalism work experience or a journalism project, giving them the unique opportunity to travel and explore the areas of journalism they are passionate about.

Here, second year School of Journalism trainee Emily Grimsey shares how she spent her summer at The Olive Press in Spain. 

In August I was able to complete a three week work placement at The Olive Press in Spain thanks to The School of Journalism bursary.

The bursary covered my flights and accommodation, allowing me to focus on finding news and exploring the area.

From the very first day I was writing online stories and learning all about what makes a newspaper successful. I spent most days either sourcing and writing my own stories or compiling the DON’T MISS section where locals can find out about upcoming events.

One of the highlights was the editorial meeting where everyone discussed potential follow up articles and pitched new ideas. We discussed what everybody liked and disliked about the latest paper, which had been printed the night before.

Whilst at times my lack of Spanish was a barrier, everyone in the office was happy to help me.

Many after work trips to the local bar (plus one morning trip because we were locked out of the office) gave me the chance to ask everyone about their own experiences getting into journalism.

This experience has not only given me the chance to learn on the job but also a unique experience working at an expat paper that I thoroughly enjoyed.

This experience would not have been possible without the bursary scheme from The School of Journalism. I am so grateful I got to travel abroad and build my portfolio at the same time.

The Olive Press newspaper

Checkout some of Emily’s diary entries here:

Day 1 

  • The office doesn’t have Wi-Fi which seems kind of important but they’ve gone old school. 
  • They use WordPress!
  • My first crime story – sourced from Malaga Hoy.

Day 2 

  • Slow news day, I wrote a story about four paintings that were stolen from an art gallery in Palma found in Brussels.
  • Finding stories from other news sites is harder than it looks!

Day 3 

  • Worked on a story about a cyclist who died, I mainly embedded lots of tweets.

Day 4 

  • Worked on the travel section. 
  • Worked on one of the main features, starlight tourism.

Day 6

  • Wrote a property piece selected by editor Dillip Kunar about an architecture firm chosen to remodel the cemetery.
  • Met John the owner- he’s a big fan of News Associates!

Day 7 

  • Story given to me by John – based on an article in Financial Times about bathrooms.

Day 8 

  • Did a couple short pieces just in case we need page fillers.
  • Editorial meeting- captions needed on every photo, discovered newspapers don’t make money in august.

Day 9 

  • Redid bathroom piece- editor Dilip Kunar gave me some feedback.
  • Contacted estate agents and cleaning companies for bathroom piece.
  • Journalists don’t have much of a work life balance.

Day 11

  • Working on finding pictures of the Gracia street festival.

Day 12

  • Print day.

Day 13

  • Wrote a few short pieces.
  • Did some research for Walt on the history of Jews in Spain.

You can read more summer bursary blogs here.

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