Jamie Hill is a Wiltshire journalist who is the editor of the Swindon Link magazine and founder of the entertainment magazine The Ocelot. I had a chance to interview him this week.

Jamie said that the coronavirus made everything challenging “We ended up shutting down the magazine and office”. We did not come back into the office until last month, so we have been back in the office for a few weeks. Jamie said that the whole team got used to working from home. One person left and a new person called Barrie joined the team. Jamie said he found it challenging to train someone from home.

Jamie had always fancied himself as a writer when he was a child. He then went to University of London to study Communications Studies in French but decided to leave realising that degree would not train him for anything. He did journalism training at a college in Hastings which gave him the qualifications he needed. From that point he went to a regional newspaper called the East Anglian Times, which is based in Colchester, Essex. Jamie comes from the Marlborough/Swindon area. It was a bit of a shock going to Colchester which was a very good newspaper to work for. He eventually left there and came to the Swindon Advertiser. During his time at the Swindon Advertiser he was a political reporter, then he ended up on news desk, but he became a chief reporter.

In 2006 Jamie decided to make another change when he came into some money, He quit his job at the Adver and he created his own magazine called The Ocelot which was about arts and culture with an irrelevant random twist. That has been the most challenging thing of his life He was suddenly running his own business, from advertising sales to accounts as well as writing. Five years ago the Ocelot got bought by a guy called James Phipps who took Jamie on to run the Swindon Link so for five years he has been running Swindon Link which has been running for over forty years as well as The Ocelot. A year and half ago Jamie bought out James Phipps and took over the company, so he owns Positive Media Group as well as being editor.

One of the victims of coronavirus has been the Ocelot itself, the arts and culture magazine was distributed in pubs and theatres and both industries have been devastated by coronavirus. “You can’t really deliver a magazine while people are socially distancing”. So, Jamie and the team decided to invest in the website for the Ocelot and relaunch as a digital presence, including his favourite bit of the website The News Elephant which is the news site where you have lots of fun.

What qualifications do you need to start a career in journalism? The NCTJ gives people the qualification to get into journalism, but Jamie did something called a journalism diploma after he left university. The main skills you will need are Interviewing skills, you will need to know shorthand which is tline which looks a bit like Arabic if you read it These days reporters have Dictaphones, but I still rely on the old shorthand.

Jamie started in journalism when he left university 23 years ago and has never looked back. When he was a university Jamie with the help of friends did a magazine called The Last Word. The team went through so many names, but we ended up with the Ocelot because it sounded funny. The whole point of it was to be random. The magazine has become a champion for arts and culture while giving local bands the exposure and get them heard.

I asked Jamie about what the best and worst parts about his job. The best part of being a journalist is waking up in the morning and not knowing what story you’re i.e. working on But sometimes we have to cover stories that are unpleasant and negative, but The Link is more positive and less negative than other newspapers/magazines it’s nice to do something positive.

What advice Jamie would give to someone who wants to start a career in journalism? If you want to start in journalism the best advice, is to practice your writing to be accurate. You really have got to have that curiosity to try and find out. What you are trying to do is to inform readers in a clear way. The best way to get into the industry is work experience and get few by-lines

Article by Tyler Ody aged 20, picture above Tyler with Jamie Hill, editor of the Swindon Link Magazine and founder of The Ocelot