Category Archives: blogs

Highlighter-photoblogging the NUJ report pt3

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If you want to know what I think in more depth, read Neil McIntosh’s summary. I’ve taken over his mind to save myself typing. Tomorrow he’ll wake up feeling woozy and wondering why The Guardian have decided to launch a site devoted to Bolton Wanderers.

Meanwhile, here’s some more highlighterphotoblogging:

More from Martin Stabe.

Google granted ‘magazine patent’

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From ITproPortal.com:

“Techcrunch and Huomah are reporting that Google is looking into launching a Do It Yourself Publishing Service for Magazines.”The patent abstract says that Google is investigating

“A method includes receiving personalized content from a plurality of content sources. The personalized content is based on user input. The method further includes receiving a personalized advertisement based on user input, and creating a customized publication including the personalized content and the personalized advertisement.””

More here. Thanks to Richard Grimes of the NUJ New Media mailing list for the link.

An open letter to Roy Greenslade: Why I’m not leaving the NUJ

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Dear Roy,

For someone who believes in the merits of the web conversation, your decision to leave the NUJ strikes me as strange.

You say you

“cannot, in conscience, go on supporting this crucial plank of NUJ policy when it is so obvious that online media outlets will require fewer staff. We are surely moving towards a situation in which relatively small “core” staffs will process material from freelances and/or citizen journalists, bloggers, whatever (and there are many who think this business of “processing” will itself gradually disappear too in an era of what we might call an unmediated media).”  Continue reading →

How can you study media without studying new media?

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We’ve had an ‘Applicant Day’ in my department today – and I discovered that some people studying a HND in Media were not covering new media. My reaction?

  • Television production companies are now required to submit ‘360-degree’ programme pitches that include a new media element. Often the budget for that is bigger than for the programme. Add to that red-button interactivity, streaming, mobile TV, and DVDs.
  • Photographers routinely package their work on CDROM, or sell it online. A web portfolio is essential.
  • Public Relations employees are required to understand viral ‘word of mouth’ technologies like social networking, blogging, promotional games, websites, and email.
  • Radio has been going digital for some time now. Most radio stations are streamed online.
  • The music industry has been transformed by the web. Some pointers for you: Napster; Kazaa; iPod; iTunes; mp3; MySpace; Last.fm; Radiohead.
  • And there’s journalism… well. Just read every post, ever, on this blog. Ever.

What else did I say? Nag your tutors, and start swotting up in your spare time. Your college is doing you a disservice, but that shouldn’t stop you.

How to be a journalism student – the wiki

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Last week I wrote a post entitled ‘How to be a journalism student‘. The response was generous, with many people adding their own tips on separate blogs or pointing out areas for clarification or addition. A wiki is an ideal place to both collate those contributions and enable corrections/clarifications to the original list – so that’s what I’ve created. The wiki is at http://howtobeajournalismstudent.pbwiki.com/ – please add, remove, change and correct as much as you like (just click ‘Edit page’).

The password, by the way, is ‘howto‘

How to be a journalism student

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A colleague of mine once wrote a hugely entertaining blog post entitled ‘How to go to uni‘. As the new term begins, here’s my supplement: How to be a journalism student. (Note: there is now a wiki if you want to add extra tips/corrections/clarifications). 

 

  1. Read the news. Amazingly, some journalism students don’t read newspapers. I don’t know why they want to write news, but chances are they won’t if they don’t read it. And yes, that means newspapers, in print or online. For the most part newspapers dictate the news agenda that broadcast news and magazines then follow. But yes, watch television news and listen to radio news as well, and read magazines. And do all of this often, and do it critically. Continue reading →

NUJ ADM: union to investigate web profits

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NUJ members today voted for the union to investigate the profits being made by news organisations from their websites.

The motion at this weekend’s Annual Delegate Meeting in Birmingham, instructed the National Executive Committee to “compile information on the growth of web-based income of major media companies” with the view to campaigning “for the right of media workers to benefit from the large profits now being generated by many media corporations from using freelance copy on their websites”.

When completed, this will certainly make interesting reading – not just for journalists but for publishers still maintaining the difficulty of making any profit from the web. If it disabuses the common perception that the web is a loss-making part of most media companies it would not only mean claims for increased pay and conditions from union members, but also (I hope) more investment from previously hesitant media orgs.