So – after not posting on Freelance Unbound for nearly 10 years, I had a hack attack and thought I had lost the site completely. But no! Here’s an old backup on my laptop from 2011. Can I import it into a new WordPress installation? Yes! So here it is – the site has none […]
UPDATE: See the detailed methodological comment from Francesco at Pulsar TRAC for evidence that the Thatcher Funeral Twitter sentiment analysis referred to here really is super accurate. We still haven’t quite managed collectively to leave Margaret Thatcher’s death behind (don’t worry – I’m sure it will pass eventually). At the moment we’re in the weird meta analysis-of-the-analysis stage […]
With the recent announcement that the Telegraph was to extend its paywall to UK readers, paywalls have been back in the news, with several articles from different perspectives on how successful or otherwise they are. If you haven’t caught up with it all yet, here’s a handy round-up of recent paywall-related content… First – the New York […]
So good I almost fell for it, the Mumsnet Academy course on vajazzling is my April Fool’s Day tip for best media prank. Sadly, as April 1 is a bank holiday, it won’t get the – ahem – exposure it deserves. But here’s a thread on its very own forum of nearly 50 excited potential Mumsnet subscribers who can’t […]
There are many puzzles in the Oscar Pistorius did-he-murder-Reeva-Steenkamp-in-cold-blood-or-was-it-a-tragic-accident case – but one, at least, looks like it has a solution. Why, oh why, asked prosecutor Gerrie Nel, did tragic Reeva take her mobile phone into the toilet with her at 3am? Of course there is data to tell us. Research (or, ‘research’) by Sony and […]
We’re asking freelance journalists about their experiences in the book market and what tips they can offer to anyone who fancies taking the plunge. The third case study in our series is Trevor Merriden – an experienced business media editor who wrote several technology business books in the early 2000s, including Rollercoaster: The Turbulent Life and Times of […]
How can freelance journalists make the move into non-fiction book authoring? We’re asking freelance journalists about their experiences in the book market and what tips they can offer to anyone who fancies taking the plunge. The second case study in our series is a sports writing partnership – Martin Cloake (who took part in the Value of Journalism […]
They say everyone has one novel inside them and, given the number of creative writing degree courses on offer, there’s a lucrative market in encouraging people to excavate it. But a more realistic course for freelance journalists is a non-fiction book – probably on one of their specialist beat topics, such as sport or business. This […]
At a recent talk to journalism students at UCA in Farnham, Paul Marinko, media and public affairs manager at Surrey County Council, revealed the key skills required for journalism students who want to work in local government PR and public affairs. In short: Social media Video editing and package making* Content is king – you need storytelling […]
It’s time to tear myself away from the new term at the Open University (module S207 – The Physical World) to take a look at what passes for rigorous scientific and economic journalism in the nation press. So, the Telegraph – on a fabulous new development in synthetic fuel: “British engineers produce amazing ‘petrol from air’ […]