Today I spent an hour in a vast lecture theatre giving a talk about freelance journalism to first-year students at Kingston University. It was great fun, actually, and I got to use their super high-tech AV equipment (which luckily didn’t break down on me). That’s me on the right looking suitably dorky in front of […]
Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Sometime between September and Christmas last year, my business plan fell apart and I was faced with the grim prospect of actually having not enough money coming in this year. It happened to a lot of freelancers I know, all at the same time. I […]
According to anecdotal evidence – it’s pretty bad. It’s not a good time for journalism students graduating this year, certainly. Tracking the job ads on Journalism.co.uk gives a rough indication of how the job market is going. Just before Christmas 2008, there were just over 100 jobs on the site – mainly journalism, but with […]
I posted here about how knowledge on the web, and on digital media generally, disappears – risking the impoverishment of future historical research. Just before I could post this follow-up, Jessica anticipated me and commented that I should try Archive.org. Well, guess what – this is all about that. A recent interview with British Library chief Lynne […]
I posted recently on how the internet destroys history – and gratifyingly it seems I am not alone in my fears. Thanks to Unbound reader Lucian Hudson for alerting me to this story from Australia, in which the National Library of Australia warns of a “cultural black hole” for future historians if web material is […]
I totally missed the news about the demise of Press Gazette. It’s kind of sad, given that it’s been around so long. And also because I worked a few shifts there back in the late ’90s. But does it matter? Many, many, journalists will, at this very moment, be jumping up and down, foaming gently […]
During last autumn’s climate of fear about a collapse in the publishing industry, I registered with People Per Hour – a freelance marketplace that allows you to bid on projects posted by a whole range of potential clients. I was curious to see how it worked, and also thought I might even get some paying work […]
There’s more to sub-editing than shuffling commas around and checking spelling (vital, obviously, though these things are). And it’s something that it seems the subs at the otherwise admirable Financial Times seem to have forgotten yesterday. Bear with me – digression first. I find these days there’s a tendency for people to use proverbs, idioms […]
Just popped along to the otherwise excellent Shoe Lane Library in the City of London to see if I could find the latest Scarlett Thomas, or maybe something by Lauren Groff, whose story L. Debard and Aliette in The Atlantic‘s fiction issue a few years ago was just fantastic, I thought. Sadly, what I wanted wasn’t on the […]
Apparently desk editors at the Independent are to take on subbing duties at the paper, according to a Guardian story from April 1. That’s the sort of thing that should be an April Fool’s Day joke – but I found out it wasn’t when I was unlucky enough to buy a copy of the Indie on Easter Saturday […]