Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Writing style: advice to journalism students

We’re coming up to about halfway on several student journalism units I’m teaching – and already the prospect of student assessments is looming threateningly over the class. So – a few words of advice to J-students faced with writing assessment deadlines. Relax One strange phenomenon I’ve noticed about student writing is that it’s much better […]

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Prospective journalism students: the question I may not be able to ask…

Why on earth do you want to spend three years and £20,000 learning the ropes of what appears to be a dying industry? Well – dying in the sense of “very, very difficult to make a living in”. Yes, it’s student intake assessment today, and I get to play my part in deciding the fate of […]

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Student assessment hand-in. No last-minute panic, then…

It’s student hand-in today for one of the online journalism modules I teach. And students who have not made an appearance for weeks – sometimes months – are suddenly sloshing content into their site as if there were no tomorrow. Which, technically, there isn’t I guess. I don’t know why I thought it would be […]

Monday, December 7th, 2009

J-students: create your own e-magazine calling card

Electronic newspapers and magazines are being touted by the media industry as a way of clinging on to readers and revenue. Adobe spent a couple of days at last month’s MediaPro 09 publishing expo in London heavily pushing its Air publishing tool, which allows clients to publish a digital facsimile of their newspaper or magazine (complete […]

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

C4's Keme Nzerem: is it a good time to become a journalist?

[vimeo width=”500″ height=”280″]http://vimeo.com/7937150[/vimeo] Channel 4 news reporter and More 4 news presenter Keme Nzerem speaks to UCA Farnham journalism students on why now is a good time to enter journalism. Really. The video was shot by first year UCA TV journalism students and edited (quickly but with consummate professionalism) by TV lecturer Sean Walsh. Much […]

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Journalism students: how to top the Google rankings with 20 minutes' work

How do you get your student news story at the top of the Google rankings? And without really breaking a sweat? Basically: write it. Last week’s talk by Karl Schneider of Reed to journalism students at UCA Farnham sparked some interest on the web. Freelance Unbound provided a full report – complete with ropey video […]

Friday, November 20th, 2009

Building trust online: transparency and process journalism

Part 1;    Part 2;    Part 3;    Part 4;    Part 5; Last in this series of videos and write-ups of Reed Business Information editorial development director Karl Schneider’s talk to journalism students at UCA Farnham. The discussion comes as a result of a typically trenchant question from pugnacious student newspaper editor Michael Copus. It’s one that […]

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

How the social web has changed the journalist’s working day

Part 1;    Part 2;    Part 3;    Part 4;    Part 5; How does a cutting edge, web-aware journalist’s average working day compare to how it was five years ago? More from Reed Business Information editorial development director Karl Schneider’s talk to journalism students at UCA Farnham. Then Research for a beat (eg: crime) Calling contacts – police […]

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Reed’s Karl Schneider: “What is online journalism?”

Part 1;    Part 2;    Part 3;    Part 4;    Part 5; More from Karl Schneider’s talk to UCA Farnham journalism students (there’s no video for this section – stay tuned for the full multimedia experience in subsequent posts). How does web journalism differ from print? What are its defining characteristics? Five key areas: Multimedia Links Global […]

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Reed's Karl Schneider: "Most journalism will be amateur"

Part 1;    Part 2;    Part 3;    Part 4;    Part 5; Key elements of future journalism, according to Karl Schneider, editorial director of Reed Business Information: user-generated content – which will come to dominate interaction via Twitter, forums and blogs transparency and process journalism multimedia content – eg video and interactive graphics This comes from this morning’s fascinating […]