"I wasn’t even told how to hack phones. In journalism, you are expected just to pick things up "
I was 16 years old, and had just moved from the Netherlands to London. It was a long summer holiday, I didn’t know anyone in London and I had nothing to do. So I ended up writing an article about the only thing I knew anything about: Dutch cricket. My dad rewrote it. Then I sent it to The Cricketer magazine. Soon afterwards I got a typewritten letter from the editor, offering me £30 for the piece. Suddenly, I was rich. It was July 1986, and it was my debut as a professional journalist.
On my 25th anniversary in our proud profession, I hope I’ve got better. My dad doesn’t rewrite my articles anymore (my wife does). And yet as a journalist, however old you get, you always feel you are labouring in the dark. That’s mostly because this is a profession with barely any professional education. If you want to become a lawyer or doctor, you spend years in graduate school learning how. In journalism, all I got was a degrading four-month course in a dead English seaside resort where I woke up each morning feeling more stupid than the day before. Otherwise hardly anyone ever taught me anything. I wasn’t even told how to hack phones. In journalism, you are expected just to pick things up. Here is what I have picked up these 25 years: