Wannabe Hacks changes model and plans expansion

Wannabe Hacks, an online resource by and for aspiring journalists, is looking for a new team of editors and contributors to assist with the expansion of the site for the coming year.

The site launched 2010 with aspiring journalists sharing experiences and tips with others hoping to break into the industry. Up until now a group of four or five aspiring journalists run the site each academic year, handing on the baton to the next year's trainees after graduating or securing jobs.

That is set to change, with some existing members retaining involvement as the site develops, today's announcement from Wannabe Hacks explains.

The new editors will be the fourth intake to Wannabe Hacks and will be charged with assisting the existing team in expanding the range of content and services the website provides.

"I have ideas and a vision about what I want it to be in a year's time," Tom Clarke, editor and co-founder of Wannabe Hacks, told Journalism.co.uk, "but some of those things will depend on who applies."

Clarke hopes to include more audio and video content on the site over the coming year but also said that the team could look into more research and data stories, interviews, and giving readers a breakdown of the UK's journalism courses.

"We want do more but we'll need more people than just a changing of the guard," he said, insisting that none of the potentially new areas were "set in stone".

"We're going to pick people based on their enthusiasm and their ideas and the commitment that they might show," said Clarke. "If it so happens that they can't do as much audio or video than I'd hoped in my ideal vision then that's fine, if instead we're doing something else that's new."

Clarke also said that he would like to see Wannabe Hacks doing more events and meet-ups if they can find the right people to make it work.

Wannabe Hacks was founded by five graduate students who wrote as "caricatures" of aspiring journalists, each following a different path into journalism. They shared daily updates and anecdotes on their experiences. The blog got an early mention in the Guardian, pushing its readership, and all five co-founders now hold jobs at the Guardian, Telegraph, Times and Daily Mail.

"We felt a little like we got to the point where, after three years and three teams of people doing that, we've got to the stage where we've said everything we can say," said Clarke.

"We wanted to change that approach and maybe work with other people and talk to our readers more about what they want us to produce. Investigating different courses, putting data out there about fees, those kind of things."

To apply to join the Wannabe Hacks team follow the instructions in this announcement post.

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