History is rewritten by the internet, as yesterday’s five-year-old boy survivor of the Yemeni air crash off the Cormoros islands today morphs strangely into a 14-year-old girl. I’m sure it’s nice that the incorrect official statements have been corrected. But I’ve noticed that sometimes this has happened without much acknowledgement of the change. So Google […]
Today I’ve invited another blogger to join me in a discussion about the future of web journalism and the economics of publishing in a rapidly digitising world. Blogging about the world of amateur horticulture under the name Soilman (well, it’s nice to have a hobby), he also has wide experience in journalism and editorial training. […]
Yesterday I suggested journalism students should read Jeffrey Goldberg’s financial feature “Why I fired my broker” from the May issue of The Atlantic magazine. But I’m well aware that most student journalists aren’t that keen to write insightful business articles. Instead, I’m sure a lot of you want to write witty and amusing columns of your clever […]
A little while ago, I suggested journalism students should read Raymond Chandler instead of just reading journalism. But I also promised some suggestions for really good journalistic writing to read. (Well, it’s summer, so what better way to relax on the beach?) I’ve got two suggestions – one, which I’ll look at today, is a […]
It seems that “the long tail of blogging is dying”. For those who prefer English to techie jargon, the long tail refers to the millions of blogs with few incoming links, compared to a relatively small number of dominant blogs with many thousands of readers and lots of presence in the wider web. But this […]
FleetStreetBlues is offering a fantastic opportunity to blog about your search to find work in the journalism business for no money at all. But you do get, you know, exposure. Go on, give it a go…
Here’s a very interesting post by, of all things, a Belgian linguistic researcher, about the differences between print and online journalism. I like its academic slant (something which often puts me off), as it actually helps to illuminate the murky way that news journalism is constructed and then passed off as something whole and authoritative. […]
Bill Bennett’s Knowledge Workers blog is running an ongoing series of posts on better writing. Today’s offering suggests why short sentences are only best up to a point, and why you need variation in your writing to help it develop an engaging rhythm. It follows others that cover journalistic staples such as the inverted pyramid, […]
Shocking though it is to say, as I’m not a huge Guardian fan, The Guardian‘s comment on the unmasking of a police blogger by The Times is spot on. Crucially, Guardian digital content director Emily Bell recognised The Times‘s move was: No surprise given that old publishing models benefit from restriction rather than spread of […]
There’s an interesting comment from Soilman on my post on whether a donation model can fund web content. It’s worth a closer look. He argues that the three things users may pay for are: Data Services Software/apps If you’re a business mag/website, you create a software programme that helps professionals in your industry do their […]