Category Archives: Training

Don’t direct students to file FOI requests to universities, Texas lecturers told

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From the US last week, but worth reading – a curious situation for journalism academics:

Journalism teachers sometimes instruct students to file such requests under the Texas Public Information Act to gain experience using an important tool for reporters.

But in response to an inquiry from Tarleton State University in Stephenville, an A&M [Texas A&M University] campus about 155 miles north of Austin, the system’s general counsel warned that a faculty member could be disciplined and even fired for directing students to file requests with any of the system’s 12 universities and seven agencies. Faculty members are free to direct students to file requests with other state universities and agencies.

Full story on Statesman.com at this link…

How Do: Redefining media studies at the University of Salford

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Interview with Jon Corner, the University of Salford’s MediaCityUK director, about the uni’s plans to “redefine media studies” from its new base at the Salford centre.

I agree with you about certain prejudices surrounding the notion of ‘Media Studies’ – but really Salford will be focused on new digital content creation and new digital content delivery. Ours is a very technological, industry-focused offer with the relevance the international sector is hungry for.

However, I do think there’s a potential growing mismatch between what’s happening at forward-thinking higher education institutions like Salford and how ‘media’ is delivered in UK secondary schools. It’s something I’m personally passionate about and I think we have an opportunity to begin to redefine and change that delivery by opening up new types of dialogue and shared practice with schools.

Full story on How Do at this link…

Girish Gupta: What happens when you invoice for work experience

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Recently the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said it would offer legal assistance to interns wanting to claim back unpaid wages. Well, freelance journalist Girish Gupta decided to take action and invoice the Independent for two week’s unpaid work experience.

Read the results in the blog post at this link…

(HT – FleetStreetBlues)

Does a blog still cut it for journalism students?

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Following a journalism event earlier this month on blogging your way into a job, City University London journalism student Rajvir Rai takes a more reflective look at the advice given:

[I]t is clear that a few years ago a blog really set you apart from crowd, but now with a plethora of people (including many who have no desire to become professional journalists) jumping on the bandwagon, standing out to the extent that the industry recognises you is becoming increasingly difficult – if not impossible.

Unless you have stuck upon a totally unique idea it is unlikely that your blog will be the reason you get a job. Using myself as a case study, I blog about areas that interest me (sport, Asian issues and the media) and I do okay out of it, but I don’t for one minute think that a potential employer will be impressed enough with this site to offer me a job.

If simply having a blog won’t cut it anymore, how else can journalism students make themselves stand out online?

Full post at this link…

Journalism MA student: why I deferred after a month into my course

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A frank post on the Wannabe Hacks site from blogger ‘the detective’ on why he has deferred his place on a postgraduate journalism course:

After just a month living in Bethnal Green and at the start of my fourth week of my MA at City University London I made the very difficult decision to defer my place at City. Having spent the past weeks debating my choice I know now that I made the right decision.

Money was becoming to be a problem and despite my best efforts to make savings, I knew that by the end of the course in June I would be completely broke having lived in London for a year without an income on top of the debt from my undergraduate degree. I am not for a minute suggesting that I am the only postgrad with money worries, nor am I looking for any sympathy, I am just outlining the factors in my decision.

Full post on Wannabe Hacks at this link…

NCTJ discusses cost-cutting measures with universities

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Directors of NCTJ-accredited university courses discussed ways to cut costs at a meeting with NCTJ management last week at the annual NCTJ undergraduate forum.

Ideas put forward included streamlining examiner training, providing additional online resources and doing more proactive block marketing of accredited courses.

The NCTJ has posted details of the discussions which took place during the meeting which focused on the impact of government cuts to higher education funding.

The forum also discussed the importance of the industry accreditation, which it claimed was “crucial for maintaining high standards and maximising employability in the face of spending reductions”.

Concerns about the impact of the education funding cuts on the journalism industry were also raised by the new  cross-media accreditation board, which met for the first time in September, with members calling for the protection of accredited courses. Following the debate which ensued Journalism.co.uk began a poll to measure ongoing opinion on the value of the NCTJ accreditation. At the time of writing the majority (47 per cent) had responded that accreditation is ‘useful but not necessary’, while 27 per cent feel it is ‘unnecessary’. The remaining 26 per cent have split evenly between viewing the accreditation as ‘essential’ and ‘in need of updating’.

You can still have your say here.

‘Only when you’ve done your homework…’ Kirsty Wark tells Coventry students that research is key

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I knew that Kirst Wark hadn’t lost it when I saw her doorstepping Nick Clegg all the way up the aisle of Sheffield Town Hall on Election night 2010. He was not best pleased. It was then that I decided to try and get her to speak at Coventry Conversations, and last wednesday she did, delivering a masterclass for Coventry University’s journalism students.

At that same Sheffield election count, Wark was about to do her first live stand-upper into the Dimbleby programme when two old ladies came by, “in a Moris Minor I think”. They told her that they’d not been able to vote, the queues at the polling station were too long and had shut before they could get in. A good yarn, especially as, in line with BBC post Hutton rules, it had two sources – both in the same car. Wark had to make a judgment call based on that hinterland of life in front of and behind the camera. She decided to broadcast thirty seconds later. She was right. She broke the story and it ran for hours overnight and for days afterwards. You cannot teach that nous.

Wark has now been in front of camera for nigh on three decades. She was a producer and director for BBC Scotland when the series producer suggested she take a try the other side of the lens on a political programme. She has never looked back. Today she commands the studio of Newsnight’s Review Show.

Wark left her Coventry town and gown audience in no doubt about the secret of good TV journalism – good research and hard work. Each interview is meticulously researched and brainstormed with her producers. “When you’ve done your homework, only then can you throw it away and respond using what you already know,” she said.

Wark was her own fiercest critic when it came to the interviews that had failed. When asked if she thought her style in the Alex Salmond interview in 2007, which was criticised for being rude and dismissive, was justified, Wark responded frankly: “It was overly aggressive and I later apologised”, she said. She told the audience that her favourite interviews were with Margaret Thatcher and Libertine Pete Doherty. Her least favourite was with disgraced Tory peer Lord Jeffrey Archer – “he was condescending”.

Wark stopped in Coventry on her way from her home in Scotland to London to present Newsnight the next evening. Her day would start early, she explained, with phone calls to the editor of the night at 9am and continue right through to transmission at 10.30pm. Newsnight satisfied her ‘nosiness’ but also meant she had to be constantly abreast of the world through reading, reading and more reading, she said.

She is buoyant about the state of journalism today. She believes no matter who the reporter or what the content, “as long as the journalism is rigorous and investigative it’s valid”. She added that if it helps to introduce a different demographic of viewer to news and current affairs, then programmes such as Sky’s Ross Kemp in Afghanistan have just as much place in the sphere as Newsnight.

So what’s next for Kirsty Wark? With a book and a documentary in the pipeline, as well as Newsnight and the successful Glasgow-based Review Show, ratings are as strong as ever and it appears that she will be a fixture on our screens for some time.

John Mair is a senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University. He founded and runs the twice weekly Coventry Conversations.

Scottish Parliament offering placement to ‘news hound’

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The Scottish Parliament and the Fife Free Press this week launched a competition offering a week-long placement for one journalism student in Parliament’s Media Tower.

The competition is open to final year and postgraduate journalism students studying at Scottish colleges and universities.

According to a release from Scottish Parliament the winner will get to work alongside top political correspondents and file copy for publication in the Fife Free Press.

Details on the entry process can be found here…

Photographers discuss how to change society’s suspicions

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Press photographers came together today to explore society’s suspicions of cameras and debate how to change these attitudes in support of a free press for the future, at the House of Commons for the ‘Who’s afraid of photographers’ seminar’.

Opening the seminar, MP Don Foster said photographers need to take “collective action” in ensuring police officers are correctly trained.

There are two key areas that we have to look at, existing legislation and the way legislation is interpreted and used by various forces of law and order. One great piece of news is that the coalition government, through Nick Clegg, has suspended Section 44 of the Terrorism Act. But please don’t say we’ve won because I used the word suspended. What we need to make absolutely certain is that it is actually repealed and removed, not just suspended. I think that’s really important.

You need to talk about the ways in which you can engage with those law enforcement agencies, in particular the police, to help work through with them what is legitimate, and what is not legitimate. That means you have to engage with police in their training procedures with new recruits. So far there has not been a great deal of success, but today I think this is something you should take collective action towards to ensure there is proper training that goes on.

Professor Chris Frost, head of journalism at Liverpool John Moores University, who outlined the ethical guidelines impacting on journalists added that he felt there was increasing concern on the part of the public over their privacy in public places.

People seem to be much more concerned about where their image is going to be placed, they are much more aware, possibly because there are more cameras around now.

He added that this is also fuelled by increased fears of terrorism, peadophilia, identity theft and state interference.

David Hoffman, a social issues photographer, talked the seminar audience through the relationship between photographers and police at demonstrations over the past decades, from the poll tax riots to the G20 clashes, during which he claimed to have lost four teeth. But in recent months there has been “a patchy and fragile improvement”, he said.

I am now finding the police more cooperative. I hope my experience is being reflected elsewhere. I am confident…we have an opportunity to build on the progress of the last 18 months.

We’re at a crossroads, this government has made promises and it’s that baton, not the one hanging from the PC’s belt, that we need to take up now.

So why has there been such a difficult relationship between police and journalists/photographers? John Toner, NUJ Freelance Organiser proposed the following theories, summarised below:

Some police think the press are out there just to take photographs of them behaving badly

Some are afraid of having their photo in the newspaper as could become target

Some believe they’re moral guardians

Some believe there is a law in this country which protects privacy. Even if that were the case, that’s a civil matter.

Looking to the future, and echoing the earlier comments of Don Foster, the seminar participants called for greater training of police, such as through web videos/units and training alongside photographers, as well as penalties for the misuse of legislation rather than the re-distribution of guidelines.

In support of practical training for police, Jules Mattsson, who claimed to have had his camera confiscated by police and been restricted from photographing two cadet parades, said time should not be an excuse.

If there’s not enough training time to train the police who uphold the law, then I think that’s a much wider problem than this.

I think publicity and education is important, also for new photographers, student photographers. We need to also expand our reach to educate people in our rights.

Emily Bell answers questions from Columbia University journalism students

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Former digital director at Guardian News and Media Emily Bell gives some great answers to questions from students at Columbia University, where she is now director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism.

The video is available at this link (no embed available unfortunately) and features answers on paying for news online (“Charging for news is incredibly expensive”) and journalists’ need for business savvy (“Every reporter should understand what the options are as to how you tell a story and how much do those options cost”).

Last night Bell helped to officially open the Tow Center with a speech that is well worth reading in full and is available on her blog.

Online journalism needs to be “of the web” not “for the web; journalism in the future must have a better understanding of the processes and business underwriting it and journalists must build relevancy and trust, she says.

In rebuilding – or rebooting – journalism, digital technologies are central to the solution, and not as many would have them, the source of the problem.As journalists, facing our own “Wapping moment”, we must examine some of the foundation stones of journalism and build better. We can acknowledge and perpetuate what is good about the best of our craft, but there is in truth so much opportunity to improve. We do not want to sustain parts of the business that need not a new model, but a sledgehammer. When we rebuild journalism we want it to be a more diverse and inclusive than the parts of the profession we have all at some point worked for. A rebuilt journalism has to hold power to account, but be accountable and transparent itself.

Rebuilt journalism has to be sustainable and not carry with it the extraordinary and untenable fixed costs of the past. It has to understand how to uphold free speech and tell stories in a world where protecting sources is evermore complicated. Rebuilt journalism has to use new ways to re-engage a generation alienated by old formats and for who screen-based portable devices bring the world to them. It has to live in a world of scarcer resource by understanding how to create production efficiencies, and measuring and understanding the impact of its output.