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. […]
The first in a no doubt ongoing series, (which also happens to combine my hobby and my day job). A bout of insomnia had me watching Channel 4 at an ungodly hour this morning. I managed to catch the second half of Psyche and Eros – an animated retelling of the ancient Greek myth (god […]
A very good piece by Bob Garfield in Advertising Age explains why not only print is dead, but the rest of the media as well. The key is this quote from Randall Rothenberg: “Today the average 14-year-old can create a global television network with applications that are built into her laptop. So from a very […]
Regular readers of this blog will know that I can get a bit cranky and irritable about the generally poor literacy of undergraduates. Happily, however, there is still some very good work being produced by journalism graduates, as I discovered yesterday evening at the private view of UCA Farnham’s graduate show. Adam Leveridge – who […]
With one bound, this blog has gone viral. (Well, kind of). I’ve always been curious about social bookmarking, but never really explored it very much. Aside from signing up to StumbleUpon to see how it worked, I haven’t really used sites such as Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us to steer or filter my web use. […]
Good writers read. They read a lot. And they read widely. If you’re a journalism student, the best advice I could give you would be exactly that – to read, and read widely. Most importantly, it would be to read not just journalism. I imagine that’s probably difficult when you’re doing a journalism course – […]
Because marking student worked is tiring, my goodness yes. Yesterday’s all-day marking bonanza was certainly interesting (it was my first time, but they were gentle with me). There were some shockers. Some of the spelling and grammar was pretty weak, and there was at least one example of a student writing submitted assessment work using SMS-speak […]
…fear my judgement – yeay, fear it! Yes – today I enjoy actually marking the work of online journalism students in Farnham. After blathering to them about blogging and web video, among other things, I get to look at the end of year assessment work. But fear? Really? No. Actually I will stand as impartial as the […]
Steve Hill’s New Journalism Review blog has a note about the comparison of Quark 8 and InDesign CS4 in MacUser (which isn’t yet online, apparently). My take is that the debate on software features misses the point a little. The question of which to buy normally doesn’t depend on which is the best product. It’s […]