Hecklerspray's Matthew Laidlow recently applied for a job at a magazine, not knowing that it was to be edited by Peaches Geldof as part of an MTV reality TV show. The following is a true story…
Firstly, let's be clear – nobody told me that I was going going for a job on a reality TV show or that Peaches Geldof was going to be the editor. Both these factors would have put me off straight away.
So here is my story of how I almost worked with the stupidly-named celebrity wannabe Peaches Geldof.
After being rejected time and time again off various publications and other high profile media outlets, it was getting to be a bit of an annoyance. However, a very kind friend pointed me in the direction of an advert to write for a new magazine.
It would be aimed at youngsters aged between 18-24. Being a hip and young person, I thought I could do this perfectly well. After all, I fit in that age demographic and hecklerspray seems to have gotten on some radars. So I scribbled out the application form and answered some basic questions about myself and whatnot. Nothing too challenging.
After waiting a while, someone told me I ticked the right boxes and passed that stage of the 'application'. Another form was e-mailed over and I filled that in too. A few days later I was told I was to be summoned for an interview down in the big city.
As I got on the train down to London, something occurred to me. I was applying to be a writer for a magazine, but I didn't even know what I'd be writing for. For example, my knowledge of chemical engineering isn’t so hot, so I was hoping it wasn’t a magazine about that.
Another thing that bothered me was the fact I was told not to bring any examples of work down with me. Don’t get me wrong, this would probably take up a lot of time as everyone showed off their pieces, but the only thing that the publishers knew about me is that I can cleverly answer some questions on an application form. Still, I took down a couple of nicely printed-off hecklerspray articles and that magazine that painted me orange.
Finally it was time to go and face the strange interview process. Upon arrival, yet more forms were filled in and strange questions were asked. Worryingly, nothing to do with writing was asked. I kind of half-expected some vague question of whether I had any qualifications, who I currently writing for and what journalistic experience I’ve had. After all, this was going to be a 'proper' magazine wasn’t it? It just had MTV attached to it.
Then the significance of MTV seemingly dawned on me. What kind of input would they have on this project? Would they literally film snapshots of it and broadcast one-minute updates during advert breaks during repeats of My Super Sweet 16? Or would they do something else?
One other gritty detail suddenly hit me whilst I waited for my interview. The whole process was to be filmed – the making of the magazine and the interview itself. This made me worry that MTV had intentions of getting a cheap show out of me potentially trying to cobble a few stories together. Now, I’ve had interviews for jobs before and they can be uncomfortable. But to be filmed as well, that’s just really annoying.
As I waited for my turn, the room was full of other people waiting to be interviewed, or who had been interviewed. From small talk, it didn’t seem like it was a very formal affair. Somewhat of a relief, but still I wasn’t happy knowing that other people applying for the same job as me didn’t know anything about the style, tone or content of this magazine.
Eventually it was my turn and I walked the short distance for my interview. As I entered the battered-looking room, I was faced with two women, a bloke and a camera. I sat down, got told to adjust the mic and not to worry about being filmed. Of course, this made me worry more.
So off we went, from the vague memories I have, I was never really asked much about why I wanted this job, what writing experience I had or what qualifications I’d gained. In a nutshell, the conversation ranged from how I’d cope with office gossip about myself to if I could handle criticism if my work was shit.
Then the conversation switched to something to do with professions. I said I respected doctors quite highly because they make a difference to people’s lives and that celebrities did bugger all, got more media attention then they deserve and get away with everything. Then this happened:
Interviewer: "This magazine may have a celebrity editor. How would you cope with working with a celebrity?"
Me: "Umm.. I’d try my best to get on with then. After all, I’d be working with a team, so I wouldn’t want to cause a dodgy atmosphere and ruin the magazine's progress."
I don’t think my response worked. After all, Peaches Geldof was going to be editing the thing. Some have said that she's a celebrity. They're wrong, but they said it anyway.
After the solo failure that was my interview, I then had to do a group interview. How this would show me as a better person then anyone else, I don’t know. But after a quick sit-down, I was summoned back to the same room with two other people. Here we were given a scenario to act out. Each person had a number on their head, ranging from 1-10.
The higher then number, the bigger twat they are. You had to act out the situation whilst addressing the person according to whether they were God, or a pikey who wants to bum 20p of you.
And that was it. That was my interview to work on a magazine project with MTV. As you can probably guess, I got a lovely rejection e-mail a few weeks later. Was I disappointed? A little bit, yes, but then it was a bit annoying too. Part of the blurb in the message was that I was not picked due to the high calibre of journalistic talent.
Hmm, not sure how they worked that out, since no-one was told to bring any of their work down with them.
However, what pissed me off the most was that I actually wasted money coming to London to apply for a job that was never fully explained to me. Not even what I was writing about or the fact it was going to be flogged as a TV show. If I had made it, I probably would have rejected the job opportunity once the details emerged. Especially thanks to Peaches Geldof’s involvement.
I’m not one to make a twat of myself on a tacky TV show. I’ll leave that to her. Though if I had been working with Peaches I would have been able to ask some questions directly to her, such as. “Why do you have such a stupid name?” “What do you actually do?”
I was told on the day of my interview that none of the filming of me would be aired. However, something tells me I’ll probably end up seeing myself broadcast to the world looking like a gimp. And this article doesn’t help me much ether.
There we have it. A hecklerspray expose. I’m going back to make the tea.
cariad says
i was also interviewed for this, and they didn’t ask about my writing at all, but they did ask what kind of biscuit i think i’m most similar to. they wanted people to cause friction and drama for reality tv, not writers or editors etc.