Tag Archives: diversity

The third edition of the Online Journalism Handbook is now out!

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The online journalism handbook: skills to survive and thrive in the digital age, by Paul Bradshaw

A new, third, edition of the Online Journalism Handbook is now out.

A comprehensive update to the 2017 second edition, it sees the addition of a new chapter on writing for email and chat.

There are new sections on formats from scrollytelling and charticles to threads, vertical Stories, social audio and audiograms, plus advice on how to use gifs, memes and emoji professionally as a journalist.

One notable development of the last few years reflected in the book is the improvement in accessibility provision — which is covered alongside techniques for better inclusivity and diversity in journalism practice.

Developments around harassment and online abuse, misinformation, news avoidance, and trust are all covered — and, of course, the impact of the pandemic on journalistic practices, including remote interviewing tips.

I’ll be publishing extracts and the material I had to leave out (it’s 20,000 words longer than the last edition) in the coming months.

This is how I’ll be teaching journalism students ChatGPT (and generative AI) next semester

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Robot with books
Image by kjpargeter on Freepik

I’m speaking at the Broadcast Journalism Teaching Council‘s summer conference this week about artificial intelligence — specifically generative AI. It’s a deceptively huge area that presents journalism educators with a lot to adapt to in their teaching, so I decided to put those in order of priority.

Each of these priorities could form the basis for part of a class, or a whole module – and you may have a different ranking. But at least you know which one to do first…

Priority 1: Understand how generative AI works

The first challenge in teaching about generative AI is that most people misunderstand what it actually is — so the first priority is to tackle those misunderstandings.

Continue reading →

What changed in 2017 — and what we can expect in 2018 (maybe)

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Because he sends me an email every December, Nic Newmanhas a tag all of his own on this blog. So as this year’s email lands in my inbox here’s my annual reply around what I’ve noticed in the last 12 months — along with some inevitably doomed predictions of what might happen in the next year…

Surprising in 2017: horizontal storytelling and Facebook disappointments

The rapid spread of horizontal storytelling (‘tap to advance’) struck me particularly this year. 2017 saw it become the default for new launches, from Facebook’s new ‘Messenger Day‘ feature and Medium’s Series, to Instagram‘s Carousel feature and WhatsApp‘s Status feature, while the BBC news app’s videos of the day feature used the same approach too. Continue reading →

“If you ask most people” – how to burst a journalist’s filter bubble

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Here is a fascinating post by Laurence Jantalipinski (h/t Giuseppe Sollazzo) which takes assumptions made by a reporter and tests that against actual polling. The subject itself is irrelevant — but the method is a great anecdote to relate to journalism students to demonstrate why it’s important to challenge your own assumptions about what “most people” think.

Here’s how it goes: a reporter makes a casual assertion:

“If you ask most people why they don’t trust Labour, they will respond with one of the following…”

…before listing reasons which, perhaps, are articulated within her own social circle. But is one reporter’s “most people” representative?

Well that’s the thing. When Talipinski tested those reasons against other possibilities using a proper poll with 1100 people, he found none ranked in the top five: Continue reading →

Want your reporting to better reflect the diversity of your audience? There’s a free ebook for that

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Everybody In ebook

The ebook is available as a free download

Two of my colleagues at Birmingham City University have produced a rather wonderful free guide to help journalists and journalism educators make reporting more inclusive and diverse. As they explain in the introduction: Continue reading →

Two pieces of information

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Two pieces of information that came to my attention today:

Firstly, from a piece of research on aspiring journalists in France:

“Students from the least privileged social sectors are more socially committed and more aware of their civic responsibility: These students want “to reveal cases of corruption, show realities that are unknown to the general public, and to do investigative journalism”.

“The students belonging to disadvantaged social classes value the profession of journalism the most, and have a culture of effort and selflessness, which has been inherited from their families. The force lifting the social elevator to access an intellectual profession like journalism is their constant effort. They consider journalism to be a “useful and noble” profession. They have a more romantic and social view of the profession: they want to be a real communication channel for the village people, the forgotten, and the voiceless … However, these students practice self-censorship by not working in recognised and prestigious media, unlike the students from more privileged social classes who do so because they have greater social capital and contacts in the profession of journalism thanks to their families.”

Secondly, from a number of sources on Twitter:

“Independent.co.uk is offering a rare opportunity to an aspiring young journalist. We’re looking for an exceptionally motivated, intelligent and organised undergraduate with a passion for our brand, the world of news, and student life, to come and gain work experience within our Digital team for three months this summer 2013.

“You must be able to work from Monday 17 June through to 30 August 2013. This is work experience, so it is not a paid opportunity, but your travel and lunch expenses will be covered. You will need to provide a letter from your university, confirming that this work experience placement is beneficial and supports your course.”

Over to you.