Spotted twice yesterday in papers that should know better – two stories baring the writer’s ignorance of simple English. The London Standard story This isn’t just a decline … it’s a Marks and Spencer decline noted: The store front is fading and a little grotty. The shop sign seems left over from the Fifties, baring […]
Highlight of the weekend – chancing on the mass handlebars of the second annual Tweed Run, which took place on Saturday, April 10. Kicking off at midday, several hundred tweed-clad riders pedalled from somewhere near Trafalgar Square to Bishopsgate, naturally taking in Saville Row on the way. Any proceeds go to the Bikes4Africa charity. Frankly, […]
According to most of the media today: Malcolm McLaren dies at the age of 64 after a long battle with cancer Apparently it was diagnosed six months ago. Six months is not a “long battle”. It’s actually quite short. Also – what the hell cancer was it anyway? Every account I’ve read says “a rare form”. I’m curious […]
Not quite in the Modern Media is Rubbish league, but still an interesting example of how journalism, even when it’s mostly factually accurate, still manages to misrepresent the world it reports on. From the Financial Times Weekend Magazine comes a photo essay on How modern Britain spends its Sundays, complete with a potted summary by […]
I just got my notification of the rollout of the shiny new NHS health record database. It also kindly offered me the chance to opt out (only because it was required to by our pesky data protection laws, I suspect). Hmm. What to do. Well, it sounds like a great idea that will save me […]
Given the turmoil in professional media at the moment, there’s been a fair amount of talk about entrepreneurial journalism recently (ie if no one else is going to pay you for being a journalist, maybe you’ll have to figure out a way of making it work as a business yourself). As it happens, I’ve been […]
It turns out that my friend and regular Freelance Unbound commenter Mel is at more-or-less the cutting edge of publishing. Apart from the time she spends as a welcome gadfly here, it turns out she is a secret novelist. In fact, I’ve just received her latest (well, first) outing through the post after ordering it […]
It seems Rupert Murdoch is actually going to start locking away his online newspaper content behind paywalls. From June he’s going to charge for access to the loss-making Times and Sunday Times. Will the gamble work? More informed commentators than I have argued strongly that it won’t (though that hasn’t stopped me doing the same). At […]
Caught yesterday in the Metro – a brief news report on a social networking survey by InSites (ugh) Consulting. As reported in Metro: 77% of UK internet users use social networking sites 42% of UK internet users use Twitter 50% of UK internet users use Facebook Let’s look at those numbers, shall we? First – […]
I’ve been rewriting some undergraduate course descriptions for online journalism and I’ve realised I have one big problem with them. I can’t think how to update the recommended student book lists. One problem is that whatever I choose has to have longevity. Every time a course is rewritten, it has to be validated by an […]