Tim Dowling you’re in luck â€“ Hackney Gazette is looking for a chief reporter

Earlier this week the Guardian ran a Dream Jobs article in which feature writer Tim Dowling confessed a desire to become a lowly-paid local journalist.

‘I have always harboured dreams of having the benefit of training and a long apprenticeship,’Dowling wrote.

‘A day’s work experience as a reporter on the Hackney Gazette wasn’t going to provide either, but it might give me some sense of what I’d missed.”

Well guess what? Hackney Gazette is now looking for a new chief reporter.

Is an application about to wing its way east from Kings Place?

There might be a few drawbacks. In his piece – which led to a number of unsavoury comments – Dowling confessed to not having the necessary skills to truly fulfil his dream to work on the Hackney Gazette.

He found it ‘immediately dispiriting’to discover that had he been a prospective employee he wouldn’t have been taken on.

‘Successful recruits have usually already completed an accredited course and have a minimum shorthand rate of 100 words a minute, as opposed to my zero.”

But if he is really keen I’m sure editor Malcolm Starbrook would consider giving a man of his experience time off to work on his shorthand and get those pesky NCTJ exams out of the way.

Tim, the job could be yoursâ€¦