Just been sent a link to Roy Greenslade’s blog in today’s Grauniad [sorry – knee-jerk old sub’s joke on the notoriously badly typeset 1980s style Guardian. Just the sort of SEO unfriendly copy we must now stamp out]. He is part justifying the decimation of the subbing function in many publications – possibly to be […]
Saw this on the excellent Online Journalism Blog – a video taken at the Society of Editors 08 conference about the skills seen as desirable by media employers and by training and education providers. There’s a very interesting statistic at about 3m:30s in the video, which is the willingness of the different groups to compromise […]
Painful though it is to admit it (and I’m only just allowing myself to), I did possibly the most stupid thing I have ever done in what passes for a career last summer. After, that is, not doing a law degree and becoming a corporate lawyer on a six-figure salary. Obviously. For only last August […]
Just as Haymarket canned Promotions & Incentive‘s print edition, it also made Marketing Direct web-only. I’m not as sad about this, though I did work on its launch about 10 years ago and have written and subbed on it over the years, so it does affect me. And like P&I, the web-only move means just […]
Paparazzi! v0.4.3 is a great little utility that lets you grab the whole of a web page, even it extends below the bottom of your screen. Saves a lot of time grabbing twice, then stitching together in Photoshop. Just type the URL in the space provided and hit the Capture button. You can also […]
A sad day for me recently with the news that one of my very first freelance titles is closing its print edition. Haymarket has decided that Promotions and Incentives mag isn’t cost effective to print and distribute any more. I am genuinely sorry. Obviously that’s because I won’t get to write any more thrilling features […]
Recently a sub I know was made redundant by a trade magazine. The grand total of sub-editors it now employs is zero. While we both found this shocking, he found it a lot more shocking than I did (and not just because it was his job that went belly up). In fact, this a recurrent […]
According to Dictionary.com, this is the word that means “a person or thing that shows the existence or direction of a trend”. But it’s nothing to do with the way the wind is blowing. So it’s nothing to do with the weather. “Bellwether”: a sheep (wether: a castrated ram) with a bell around its neck […]
“Lose” is a verb that describes how one may mislay something – like punctuation. “Loose” is an adjective that describes something that is not tight – like much writing. (Though sometimes, but not often, it’s a verb that means “to set free”.)
“Free rein” is when you give something considerable freedom of movement, like loosening the reins on your horse. “Free reign” might be something to do with the monarch if it even existed as an expression. It doesn’t – ditch that “g” people…