Category Archives: Events

#JNTM: Journalism’s Next Top Model event at University of Westminster (follow live)

Leave a reply

The University of Westminster and British Journalism Review is hosting a two-day event (8/9 June) discussing Journalism’s Next Top Model – the industry discussion takes place tomorrow (Wednesday). Wifi access is limited, but the Cover It Live blog below should pick up some of the tweets coming out of the event. Westminster students from the event are due to update their blog at this link. The University plans to livestream some of the event at this link.

Update: It’s Day Two (Wednesday), and the keynote by Professor Robert Picard from the Reuters Institute at Oxford University is due to start soon. The University’s video live stream from the main room was working yesterday; follow it here.

#VOJ10: Polis director to publish report on value of ‘networked journalism’

Leave a reply

As part of Friday’s Value of Journalism conference to be held in London by the BBC College of Journalism and media thinktank Polis, former broadcast journalist and now Polis director Charlie Beckett will release a new report looking at ‘networked journalism’.

In the report Beckett describes ‘networked journalism’ as a “synthesis of traditional news journalism and the emerging forms of participatory media enabled by web 2.0 technologies such as mobile phones, email, websites, blogs, microblogging and social networks”. It looks at:

The current running order for the event is available at this link. Tickets can be reserved online for the conference, which will be held at the London School of Economics. Journalism.co.uk will be reporting on the day’s events – to follow on Twitter follow @journalism_live and the hashtag #VOJ10.

Shortlist announced for Mind Journalist of the Year 2010

2 Replies

Mental health charity Mind has announced the shortlist for its annual media awards. The prizes, which commend excellence in reporting on mental health issues, include journalist of the year and student journalist of the year.

Those nominated are as follows – the comments on individuals come from Mind’s awards team:

Mind Journalist of the Year Award
Edward Davie, British Medical Association News
“Edward Davie submitted a series of articles on the issue of private healthcare providers refusing to treat NHS patients with psychiatric conditions. Davie’s articles were noteworthy for the depth of personal investigation involved and the clarity with which he highlighted this tricky area.”

Nick Morrison, the Times Educational Supplement
“Nick Morrison demonstrates a deep understanding of stress and mental well-being at work in a feature on the mental health of teaching professionals. Packed with first-hand experiences of teachers from all walks of life, this honest account is a wake up call for the education sector.”

Alexi Mostrous & Ben Macintyre, the Times
“In a frank and exposing article Alexi Mostrous and Ben Macintyre investigate mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder among current and former soldiers, and present revealing insights from ex-service personnel who have experienced mental distress.”

Barry Nelson, the Northern Echo
“Local journalist Barry Nelson writes on topics ranging from stigma and PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] to the use of art therapy as a mental health treatment, showing the many ways in which mental health can impact upon people’s lives both directly and indirectly.”

Deborah Orr, the Guardian/G2
“Deborah Orr recounts her experiences shadowing professionals involved in sectioning patients under the Mental Health Act, producing a sobering take on the challenges faced daily by mental health workers and the realities surrounding the process of admission to psychiatric care.”

Max Pemberton, the Evening Standard and the Daily Telegraph
“Max Pemberton’s columns explore the stigma and misunderstanding that still persists around mental health. A doctor as well as a journalist, Pemberton presents different perspectives and incites readers to think differently about how subtle mental health discrimination can sometimes be.”

Patrick Strudwick, the Independent
“In an in-depth investigative feature into the world of straight-to-gay conversions where homosexuality is seen as a mental health problem, Patrick Strudwick challenges the reader with controversial questions such as whether tighter regulation of counsellors and psychotherapists is necessary to protect the public from abuse at the hands of therapists.”

Student Journalist Award
Jennie Agg, Student direct Mancunion (University of Manchester)

Daniella Graham, Gairrhydd (Cardiff University)

Laura Mackenzie, Leeds Student (Leeds University)

Adam Walmesley, Exeposé (University of Exeter)

Journalists compete for Oxford poetry professorship

Leave a reply

Two journalists are among the nominees competing for the University of Oxford professor of poetry post in 2010, in the contest’s first online elections (in which only holders of Oxford degrees can vote).

One, the Guardian writer Stephen Moss (@benonix on Twitter), says he was inspired to enter following last year’s national coverage of the episode resulting in Ruth Padel’s resignation. It highlighted the “absurdity” of the process, he says. Moss’ candidate statement – in which he admits he has only published about 6 poems and that “a literary friend at college” described his poetry as “the worst he’d ever read” – says he will “give the stipend away to needy poets and writers, and to good literary causes”.  Additionally, he promises to set up a new two-week poetry festival in Oxford. An extract from Moss’ statement:

So why I am standing? It’s a good question. The idea came to me over a curry at the Hay Literary Festival last year. News of Ruth Padel’s resignation had just broken, and I was struck by the sheer absurdity of the process – the curious electorate, the media’s fascination with poetic politics, the odd idea of an elected poet. It intrigued and delighted me and, perhaps foolishly, I decided I would stand. Once you enter the race, your campaign develops a life of its own. I wrote a rather good poem for National Poetry Day (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/07/national-poetry-day-moss-poem if you want to read it), my name was mentioned in a few places, and suddenly one is a “real” candidate. I asked my rivals to start spreading scurrilous rumours about me, so I could pull out in a huff, but they preferred to stay magisterially aloof from such tittle-tattle. So momentum, the Big Mo which is supposed to determine political campaigns, took its course and here I am, standing naked (metaphorically speaking) before you.

His journalistic rival is Roger Lewis, a biographer and author of the Seasonal Suicide Notes, whose statement can also be found on the Oxford site dedicated to the contest. Writing in the Times, Lewis says:

When I heard that the dons were sewing it up to elect either 77-year-old Geoffrey Hill or 75-year-old Michael Horovitz to the chair of poetry at Oxford, my heart sank. I’m sure they are nice old codgers, but I’m afraid I find their work serious-minded to the point of pain and obscure of purpose. But then I believe Alan Bennett is more worthy of the Nobel prize than Harold Pinter, as it is surely better to laugh at life than to lament it.

I can’t do anything about nabbing a Nobel, but I can stand for election in Oxford and lead a rebellion against sour academics, and with my mortarboard tossed into the ring, this is now happening. I have been nominated for the chair of poetry and I hope I don’t come ignominiously last.

Members of the Oxford Convocation are now voting until 16 June – and the winner is due to be announced two days later.

University of Westminster gets ready to discuss ‘Journalism’s Next Top Model’

1 Reply

The University of Westminster has chosen a more upbeat theme for its 2010 journalism event. Whereas we discussed ‘journalism in crisis’ this time last year, delegates from around the world will gather next week to find ‘Journalism’s Next Top Model’, a conference held by Westminster’s department of journalism in association with the British Journalism Review.

News media all over the world are failing as the traditional revenue from advertising bleeds to the web. Free news websites are discouraging the young from buying newspapers. So who will pay for what sort of journalism in the future?

The academic-oriented discussions take place on Tuesday 8 June; including presentations by Francois Nel from the University of Central Lancashire; Rasmus Kleis Nielsen and David Levy from the Reuters Institute; and Professor Steven Barnett from University of Westminster, who will be joined by speakers from all over the world – Sweden, Turkey, Norway and Macedonia, for example.

On the Wednesday, industry panellists will include: Jane Moore (the Sun); Peter Oborne (the Mail/ Channel 4); Roger Parry (former chair, Johnston Press); William Perrin (activist and blogger); and Claire Enders (Enders Analysis).

The conference concludes with the presentation of the British Journalism Review’s Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast Journalism prize; and a memorial lecture by Boris Johnson.

The conference will take place 8 June 2010 – 9 June 2010 at 309 Regent Street, London W1. Registration is via this form (download at this link) and we’re told applications will still be accepted on Monday.

#fong: New business bootcamps for journalists from Adam Westbrook

1 Reply

Freelance multimedia journalist Adam Westbrook – author of this book and this blog, is planning a series of ‘bootcamps’ to come up with new business ideas for journalism. The idea for the meetings, which Westbrook will host in his own London flat, follows the success of the Future of News Group – a network and series of events set up by Westbrook to discuss, debate and find new ideas for journalism and journalists.

The first Future of News Business Bootcamp will focus on making money from reporting on the developing world and human rights and will run on Tuesday 22 June. The group is limited to six people and the deadline to apply for a place is 11 June. To secure a spot, you need to email a pitch to Adam Westbrook explaining why you need to be at this bootcamp, what your interest in this niche is and (in one line) give an idea for how the niche might be made into business.

“The meet-ups have been running for about six months now and the group has more than 300 members so it’s been going really well. When I set it up I wanted it to be a forum for actual new ideas to emerge, rather than more talk about the future of journalism. The individual meet-ups have been great but I got the sense they’d reverted back to the speaker/Q&A format we see at all the other conferences. I thought of ways I could bring them back to the main mission of the group and realised smaller groups are often better for brainstorming and ideas. They’re going to be really focused sessions, diving straight into what the business models could be and how to package them into profitable products. Fingers crossed one of the bootcamps will bring up a gem,” Westbrook told Journalism.co.uk.

If the first session goes well, Westbrook says he’ll look into holding other ‘bootcamps’ for travel journalism, sport journalism, environmental journalism, local journalism and more.

‘Keep your cool, but lose it if you must’: Jon Snow’s advice for journalists

Leave a reply

Jon Snow has presented Channel 4 News for 21 years.He has worked in television news for more than three decades, always at ITN, but he is also the Visiting Professor of Broadcast Journalism at Coventry University.

What he does not know about making TV news and Current Affairs probably is not worth knowing and late last week, Snow passed on the wisdom of his years to young wannabe hacks at Coventry University.

Five golden pieces of advice from the master:

1. Stay sober: a lesson he learned in his early days at ITN then awash, in his view, with alcohol.

The truth is you had to be pissed to get on in television. People drank vast quantities whilst they were working. We had a bar inside the studios and people would put out the lunchtime news and go and have a few pints and then go back to work completely squiffy.

His road to Damascus came one day when after the early evening news, the editor at the time and next most senior person invited him for a drink:

I went across the road to the wine bar, sat down with them and after about an hour, realising I still had to do a piece for News at 10, there were six empty wine bottles on the table and only three of us, so I realised I must have drunk at least one-and-a-half of them. I was now squiffy in any case. After a time I wanted to go to loo, so I went downstairs to the gents and I was unsteady on my feet and lurched into the cistern. It detached itself from the wall and crashed into the throne and then exploded in an eruption of water cascading everywhere. I made a very fast retreat, shut the door, saw the water pouring out underneath. I saw these two guys sitting there and thought ‘they’re going to drown’ and I said ‘chaps, got to get back and get my piece on for news at 10’. I sat there watching out of the window thinking this was the end of my career.

It wasn’t. Snow has not really drunk on the job since.

2. Keep it simple: Jon explained how he had appreciated reporting from Haiti after the earthquake had struck in January, because it went back to his roots – finding stories and telling them, simply, to viewers using all original footage and through this simplicity touching the hearts of millions. He pointed to the fact that £100 million was given by the British public to Haiti Relief partly as a result of the messages from broadcasters. Snow is planning to return soon to Haiti to follow up on the stories.

3. Expect the unexpected: Tuesday 11 May was a moment of “complete magic” for Snow, as Channel 4 News went live outside Downing Street to broadcast the resignation of Gordon Brown.

At 18 minutes past seven the car comes out and we have no idea where things are going. Normally the great thing about anchoring any programme is that you’ve got this thing [an earpiece], the lifeline, the umbilical chord to the producer, and they’re saying, ‘Jon he’s going to the Palace’. But they didn’t – I was hearing nothing but silence. I suddenly realised I was on a one-to-one adventure with the viewer. The viewer and I were equally ignorant about what was going to go on; it was a sublime moment of total equality when we were both peering at this helicopter image and the car was turning right and turning left.

4. Have a point, but keep away from pressure: Snow said that TV had made the 2010 election with the Prime Ministerial debates dominating the agenda and the tabloid press having to follow that. The Murdoch-owned press fared especially badly, he said: “The tabloid press had a terrible, terrible election. They got it seriously wrong. Murdoch was beaten, in a fantastic moment in history Murdoch, decided to try and elect David Cameron and the Sun went out to bat for him. We now have the first government for a long time not elected with Rupert Murdoch’s support.”

Then when questioned about the success of Channel 4’s comedy election night coverage and what that says about the British public, Snow said: “It tells you that people are real who necessarily wants to watch drab results with people as old as the ark coming out and saying ‘bark, bark’.”

5. Keep your cool, but lose it if you must: Snow was very sympathetic to Sky News Political editor Adam Boulton about his outburst on air to Alastair Campbell on 10 May.

It’s no good asking, ‘should anybody have lost anything?’ He lost it, so what? Good God, the world would be duller place if people didn’t lose it (…) what’s misconduct? If he’s guilty of it I’ll have to go to the hang man’s noose.

Snow said he saw Boulton’s outburst as a possible result of pressures building up on Boulton and Sky News to move along the road to a more Fox News’ style approach.

Simple, to the point, straightforward – but that’s Jon Snow for you.

#Amnestyawards: A reminder of the content in the paywall chatter

Leave a reply

Ahead of yesterday’s Amnesty Media Awards 2010 ceremony, shortlisted nominee duckrabbit (@duckrabbitblog) tweeted:

If last year is anything to go by … take a valium before heading up to the #amnestyawards … sobering stuff

And they were right: the audience saw harrowing images and heard troubling narration, as the introduction to each of the shortlisted pieces of human rights journalism, across 10 categories in digital, print and radio.

It was the BBC Radio 4 Today programme’s Justin Webb, presenting the national newspaper prize, who reminded us of the substance behind the ‘future of journalism’ conversation. Joking that he’d undergone hardship in his own reportage (sometimes they went half-an-hour without a snack on the Obama campaign trail!), he said it was testimony to the diligence of the shortlisted contenders that they had completed this journalism. They, he said, had put aside the “chatter” of the organs for which they work and “talk of paywalls” to pursue their subject matter.

It was a particularly timely day for the awards – Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen mentioned the seizure of the Gaza flotilla activists by Israel, and the media’s vital role in reporting events. A special award for journalism under threat has been given to independent media workers in Burma, to raise awareness of the plight of 2,200 political prisoners held by the ruling junta, including more than 40 journalists.

In addition to the main prizes, two young entrants were named Young Human Rights Reporter of the Year winners, in a new prize set up by Amnesty International UK in collaboration with the Guardian Learnnewsdesk. Their pieces on bullying and child detention at Yarl’s Wood can be read on the Guardian site, along with the other shortlisted entries.

I’ve link to some of the shortlisted videos shown last night. Not all content is available to watch/listen in full, but even these snippets are a reminder of the kind of content that should be protected – and  prioritised – in the trade and in discussions on the future of journalism.

Gaby Rado Memorial Award

International Television and Radio

Nations and Regions

National Newspapers

Digital Media

Periodicals – Consumer Magazines

Periodicals – Newspaper Supplements

Photojournalism

Radio

Television Documentary and Docudrama

Television News

Public service broadcasting symposium to discuss digital future

1 Reply

Places are still available for a one-day symposium on the Future of Public Service Broadcasting, on Thursday 10 June 2010. The event is the result of the Public Service Broadcasting Forum project, which has debated public service broadcasting issues to coincide with the public consultation period for the BBC’s Strategy Review.

The symposium is organised by openDemocracy, hosted by City University London’s Department of Journalism, and chaired by Steve Hewlett, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show.

The aim of the day:

The symposium embraces the current consultation on the BBC’s Strategy Review in asking a broader question: what is the future for pluralism in the supply of public service content in the UK?

The schedule includes: The role of the licence-funded BBC and the significance of the Strategy Review with Caroline Thomson (chief operating officer, BBC), Professor Steven Barnett, Mark Oliver (Oliver & Ohlbaum Associates), Professor Richard Collins; How to identify, supply and fund the PSB needs the BBC cannot fulfil with Jonathan Thompson (Director of strategy, Ofcom), Geraint Talfan Davies (former controller of BBC Wales), Blair Jenkins (former head of news, BBC Scotland), Helen Shaw (Athena Media); and The public service media content that merits support in the digital future, and how it can be funded with Tim Gardam (Ofcom board member), Tony Curzon Price (openDemocracy), Claire Enders (Enders Analysis), and Jeremy Dear (NUJ).

Tickets can booked at http://psbf.eventbrite.com for £25 (including coffee/lunch)/£15 for students. Any enquiries should be sent to the PSBF’s moderator, Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal via daniel.macarthur-seal [at] opendemocracy.net.

Online Journalism Blog: Paul Bradshaw on journalism and enterprise, blogging and JEEcamp

Leave a reply

Editor of the Online Journalism Blog and reader in online journalism at Birmingham City University Paul Bradshaw talks to Matt Wardman about the opportunities running a blog has given him and why he decided to set up JEEcamp – an ‘unconference’ focusing on journalism and enterprise.

Interesting insight into what makes a good event – and why he decided to end JEEcamp after three years.

Full post at this link…