Entries from October 2009

Friday, October 30th, 2009

London Lite closes: free run for the Evening Standard?

I missed this on Tuesday (I’m not obsessed with the media you know), but it seems the London Lite is to close. I’m kind of glad – but only because I now don’t look so stupid for predicting it prematurely. Does this mean the London Evening Standard will get a free ride to success? In […]

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Are there too many journalism degrees?

Paul Bradshaw on the Online Journalism Blog responds to a journalist’s query about whether there’s a glut of journalism courses by saying, essentially, that it’s the wrong question. He argues that there are only too many journalism degrees or courses if you think a journalism degree is about training people to be journalists. Which, as […]

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

Journalism students: feedback is your friend

I have noted before that journalism students seem loath to actually write anything – as if creativity is a limited resource and they need to save it for when it’s really needed (ie when they have a hand-in). But they also seem strangely reluctant to offer their work up for feedback from tutors. It’s a puzzle. […]

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Journalism: "Please stop whining"

I really enjoyed this post from Business Insider editor Henry Blodget (really – someone is actually called that).  His argument: The debate is not about journalism but change.  The people moaning about the death of journalism are really moaning about the death of newspapers.   These are the people who stand to lose out in […]

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

Beyond journalism

I was happy to see the stalwart folk at FleetStreetBlues flag up my online how-is-your-media-recession poll a while ago. But a comment they made in their post begs for a little more attention. (Actually, it begged for it weeks ago, but I’ve been a bit preoccupied.) Freelance Unbound reckons he’s survived the recession just about OK, […]

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Top advice for journalism work experience

The excellent and sweary Playing The Game blog has some top, on-the-money advice for journalism students going on work experience. I particularly agreed with: Please don’t take it personally that you write for shit and someone dares to help you structure a story. Because, actually, journalism students, you can’t write. Not for the most part. […]

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Why I should take my own writing advice

As my dozens of regular visitors may have noticed, things have been a bit quiet around here for the past week or so. In my last post I took journalism students to task for strenuously avoiding core things on their course such as, well, actually writing copy. In the light of the lack of updates […]

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Advice for journalism students: write!

I’ve been spending some time with UCA journalism students for the past week, overseeing their online journalism projects. On the whole, things are going well. The third years are dipping their toes into PHP using a useful WordPress plugin called Widget Logic. This allows a user to specify on which pages of a WordPress site […]

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Political debate? There's an App for that

A while ago, I posted on the possibility that journalism might have to move towards software development. The Atlantic this month flags up an iPhone App that offers policy points for (US) conservatives to use when they’re arguing about Obama’s healthcare bill. The Conservative Talking Points app will set you back £1.12 from the iTunes store […]

Saturday, October 10th, 2009

The lighter side of media

For anyone who enjoys headline and typo of the day-type sites, Criggo has some top-flight material. I particularly liked the slightly surreal “Protesters protest protest-signs protest” here. A sub’s dream… [HT: Jessica]