Following up a post on Paul Bradshaw’s Online Journalism Blog recently, I argued that journalism sits awkwardly in the higher education pantheon, and there are an awful of a lot of courses on the books – too many perhaps. Steve Hill has weighed in to suggest, broadly, that journalism should indeed be the subject of academic […]
I approached yesterday’s feedback session with journalism students with some trepidation. Although I wanted my criticism to be robust, I also wanted to avoid putting them off writing for life. As it was, I needn’t have worried. It went pretty well. No one actually went for me with a sharp object, and some said they […]
Paul Bradshaw on the Online Journalism Blog responds to a journalist’s query about whether there’s a glut of journalism courses by saying, essentially, that it’s the wrong question. He argues that there are only too many journalism degrees or courses if you think a journalism degree is about training people to be journalists. Which, as […]
I have noted before that journalism students seem loath to actually write anything – as if creativity is a limited resource and they need to save it for when it’s really needed (ie when they have a hand-in). But they also seem strangely reluctant to offer their work up for feedback from tutors. It’s a puzzle. […]
The excellent and sweary Playing The Game blog has some top, on-the-money advice for journalism students going on work experience. I particularly agreed with: Please don’t take it personally that you write for shit and someone dares to help you structure a story. Because, actually, journalism students, you can’t write. Not for the most part. […]
I’ve been spending some time with UCA journalism students for the past week, overseeing their online journalism projects. On the whole, things are going well. The third years are dipping their toes into PHP using a useful WordPress plugin called Widget Logic. This allows a user to specify on which pages of a WordPress site […]
It’s always interesting to observe the changing requirements of media employers. But sometimes you have to wonder what’s going on at these companies. Eager young journalism graduates wanting to make their mark in the world of showbiz reporting might well be tempted to apply for this recent ad from entertainment news agency Bang Media International […]
My post on internship experience of UCA journalism graduate Adam Leveridge attracted some interesting comments, including one from another UCA Farnham graduate, Matt Burton, whose work I also liked at the UCA graduate show. I’d like to flag it up here because Matt’s experience is so directly relevant to the whole debate about whether there’s a […]
I posted a while ago about the graduate journalism show at UCA in Farnham. I was impressed by several of the final year projects, and mentioned the F1-focused piece by Adam Leveridge. As it happens, a little while after the show Adam landed a nice internship with a web content company called Adfero. It’s the […]
This week sees the undergraduate journalism timetable crank back into gear – and this year I’m getting more involved. As luck would have it, I get to be lead tutor on a second-year online journalism unit at UCA, and I’m also having quite a bit of input into the third-year unit. The big change has […]