
After a summer job in Klassekampen, Ingrid Elida Karo Johansen is ready for Aftenposten.
Ingrid Elida Karo Johansen sees herself as very lucky.
She recently completed the Klassekampen Academy, and secured a summer job in the foreign affairs department of the newspaper.
Shortly afterwards, she was offered a job as an editorial assistant at Aftenposten.
– Then I said that “I’d like to do that, but just so as you know I’ll work in Klassekampen this summer,” says Johansen.
– I don’t work at the same time at the different desks, the jobs are separated in time. I’m very grateful that I’ve been let into the fold, but I really have very little experience. I feel that I’m navigating uncharted waters, but I’m very happy that I get to try my hand, says the 21-year-old.
She thinks it is very exciting to have the opportunity to work for two news desks.
– It’s very cool to see how you work differently. The advantages are that you get to try something a little different, get to know a different news desk.
– Taught me to have a deadline
The Klassekampen Academy is a group-based training course for those who’d like to participate more in the public debate or want to become a journalist.
Johansen has participated in the academy at the same time as being a first-year journalism student at Oslo Met.
– It was really nice to get to know so many committed and wise people. We also had many good lecturers, journalists and writers who talked to us and lectured, she says.
They also had the opportunity to publish various things in the newspaper.
– It was very nice to get good guidance on how to write different texts, so I’m very grateful that I was allowed to experience it. It’s been a bit amputated due to the pandemic, so half of the lectures have been digital. It’s been a bit of a shame not to be in the editorial offices so much, but all in all I’m very happy.
Johansen has experienced being thrown out in the various tasks, something she’s really appreciated.
– I’ve learned to have a deadline at 2 PM, and to finish writing before that. In the our education, we also have some practical elements, and we’ve been able to practice there, but not to the same degree as here. It’s when you’re thrown into it that you learn the most, I’ve felt.
The journalist’s dream
But in the long run, the dream for a journalist is to have a permanent position, Johansen believes.
– So ideally, I’d like to work somewhere for a long time. But when you’re a student without as much experience, you just have to take a little here and there.
As a journalism student, she’s interested in permanent employment.
– At the university, the message that we must prepare for temporary positions is always reinforced. It’s interesting that there’re always big headlines every time a journalist gets a permanent job.
Freedom of the press
As a foreign journalist in Klassekampen, she’s very concerned about journalists around the world who don’t have the freedom of the press we have.
– We’re quite lucky to be able to write without being censored.
Johansen is also concerned with diversity.
– At the same time, I haven’t met so many with different nationalities, so I think it’s very good when Schibsted, for example, arranges trainee programs for people with minority backgrounds.
Will report from the Middle East
Of all the subject areas she could potentially cover, she likes foreign affairs the most.
– I’ve been very lucky to be allowed to work with this at Klassekampen. I’m probably most interested in the Middle East, Israel and Palestine, and I’ve also written a lot about it here. I could see myself in Israel and Palestine, reporting from there, says Johansen.
Of all the articles she’s written so far, it is her first story for the foreign editorial office in Klassekampen that has made the biggest impression.
– I wrote about a family reunification law that’s up for debate in the Israeli National Assembly Knesset. It’s a temporary law that was passed in 2003, and since then it’s been renewed and renewed.
Now it is up for debate again.
– It’s interesting in itself, but in connection with that story I also came in contact with a family who live under this law and live in fear that their Palestinian mother will have to go to the West Bank and leave the children and the man who has Israeli citizenship. There was something touching and nice about meeting the family on Skype, she thought.
– At first I was really only going to talk to the father and mother about their situation, but then the children also showed up and told about their situation. I really like the stories where you get close to the people in question.
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