Freelancing is hell on wheels

IT WAS ENOUGH to send two budding journalists peddling through the streets of Galway at a furious rate: they were on the trail of a story. The students took off by bicycle after an internationally-known rugby player and got an interview that went around the world.

Justin Comiskey realised then, as he pursued David Campese through the narrow streets of Galway, with his UCG classmate Tracy Aiken on the cross-bar, that "chasing a story" is not always just a cliche".

"We door-stepped him outside the hotel in the rain," he says. "The two of us were wringing wet. He answered all our questions and I sold the tape on to RTE. It also got on to the review of the sporting year and was used in BBC's Grandstand and on the BBC World Service. The interview was also picked up by the print media.

"You need a brass neck," he says with a wry smile as he recalls the vicissitudes endured by a young journalist who is starting out. "There were times when I felt like pulling my hair out because I felt I was getting nowhere. You try very hard, and sometimes you just don't seem to be making an impact.

"Then slowly, slowly, slowly things build up and you make contacts."

Today he is busy working six days a week, writing and sub-editing within a number of departments in The Irish Times. He is involved in producing supplements and special reports. He also writes features and reviews.

As a secondary student, Comiskey says, he had no burning ambition to go into journalism. He studied for an arts degree in UCD, doing economics and politics, after completing his Leaving Cert at the Presentation College in Glasthule, Co Dublin.

Each summer he travelled abroad. When he graduated from UCD, he continued to travel. He visited America and he spend about a year in Germany living with a German family.

"I was drifting," he says. "I certainly didn't know what I wanted to do. At the same time I wasn't blase. I knew I'd have to do something at some stage and I wasn't going to bum around Europe indefinitely either."

He came back to Ireland early in 1992 and "it was suggested to me by a few people that I should try journalism, as it is in the family". The idea took root.

"One of the first stories I ever did was for Life Times (a free-sheet produced by The Irish Times). It was a story about sewage improvements decimating the local trade in Dalkey. It got on to the front page, which I thought was a major achievement at the time. Doing that was good fun - I decided then that I'd probably need some qualification in the area."

He continued to do local stones with the aim of putting a portfolio together. "Tim O'Brien, the editor of Life Times, gave me a few stories to write and I gave him a few stories I came across." He applied to UCG's postgraduate diploma in applied communications and was accepted.

An element of the course which he says was of particular value were the classes in typing and shorthand. "They are essential, you couldn't work without them," he says. He also studied layout, design, sub-editing, feature-writing and news reporting. He did his first work placement in the Midland Tribune in Birr, Co Offaly.

"The biggest story I got there was an interview with Charlie Swan, the jockey, who had moved back into the area. It was a bit of a scoop and it was lifted by all the other local newspapers. He was the most difficult subject live ever done in my life - he's a very nice man, but he was not the greatest conversationalist."

He did his second placement in The Irish Times and "in July 1993 I found myself freelancing". This was "not the most pleasant of experiences", he says. "You're out in the big, bad world. It can be very difficult to land on your feet. I just had to go to people with whom I'd been working and try to get stuff published.

"I went to magazines and newspapers, all kinds of publications.

That's what freelancing essentially Is.

"You need to have a very competitive spirit, to never let failure get you down - and self-belief is important as well."