beyondbrics by Maria Sovago

Thursday 24 February 2011

There is a feeling of privilege about heading towards the FT headquarters in the City’s morning crowd with the FT staff pass in your pocket, and about using your own @ft.com email address to approach the otherwise “very busy” sources.

The internship with the Financial Times has been a crucial milestone on my journey from accounting and banking to financial journalism.

beyondbrics is the FT’s emerging market desk. The blog’s lighter style and format serves as an ideal platform for a journalist “to try her wings”.

Sub-editing stories filed from reporters from the emerging market countries gives a good feel for journalistic writing. Experiencing the development of a piece to the final published article makes you understand the priorities and preferences of an editor.

The readers often say: “It is in the Financial Times. It must be true.” The FT cannot afford to lose this reputation for accuracy and reliability. Fact checking might seem a mundane task, but challenging and investigating sources, to support the colourful stories from the Brics, require rationale and certain scepticism.

Using the data on Bloomberg and Reuters, scanning the newsfeed of these wire services for explanations for the moves, and writing the daily market wrap strengthens your news judgment.

To get the priceless bylines, you need to come with ideas.