Freelance Unbound

This is what I’m dealing with at the moment. It beats newsletters about hedge funds. This is Mevagissey harbour. It’s very picturesque…

Right now I’m in Cornwall, getting away from journalism, work and, given the lack of reliable internet access where I am, the modern world.  But just so you don’t feel all neglected, you can pop over to Fleet Street Blues to read a series of guest posts by me. With luck, they should be running […]

Just because it’s Friday and I’m taking it easy, here’s a link to my newly published feature on prediction markets for Director magazine. It’s nice that I can start pointing to some reasonably high-profile material on the web in my portfolio. For some reason much of the rest of my work of the past two […]

To celebrate a tiny milestone in the progress of Freelance Unbound – the 100th post – here’s an item by a journalist who has gone over to the dark side and set up a site whose purpose is – gasp! – to make money from web media. Julia Scott left a newspaper job to set […]

Press Gazette reports on the Government’s determination to “sustain local journalism”. It’s all part of the government’s glorious five-year plan to secure Britain’s place at the forefront of the global digital economy – otherwise known as the Digital Britain report. Apparently, earnest culture secretary Andy Burnham said: “Citizens need content produced to high journalistic standards. The internet in […]

Here’s a good essay from Dan Tynan on the pressure faced by “real” journalists (ie those who spend time doing original research, rather than regurgitating other people’s material verbatim and claiming credit for it). He contrasts the effort required to produced a thoroughly researched and well-written 2,500 word article with the instant traffic generated for […]

I suggested earlier that structural change is irrevocably changing the media model.  Reader Bill Bennett is sceptical. He comments: The acid test: Can an average 14-year-old create a TV network that anyone would consider worth watching? The answer is “probably not”. Substitute ‘average 14-year-old’ with “team of experienced professional TV network executives” and ask the same question. […]