The Dirty World of Student Journalism

2007-01-14T14:51:00.000Z

Just in case anyone happens to check here I'm abandoning this blog. It was forced on me and now I'll force it into oblivion.

I don't blog much anymore but that may well change. If I do it'll be here:

http://catherinegee.blogspot.com or, as I like to call it, Old Blog.

Sometime I'll update the links, change the photo so it's not just my ear and actually stick some meaningful posts on it. Maybe.

Bloody Americans

2007-01-05T22:19:00.000Z

That there on the left is "Ugly Betty". Except ugly Betty is actually rather attractive. I'm sure many a lesser-looking person is genuinely jealous of this 'ugly Betty'.

Is it so damn hard to actually cast an ugly person in an ugly role. Or is that too much for those fat, lazy Americans to cope with? For some reason a person can never be properly ugly, they can only ugly themselves up by adding to their existing appearance. Put on glasses for a bit ugly. Braces make you definitely ugy. All you need now is a dopey fringe and poor dress sense. How much would you like to bet that she gets herself a makeover (and becomes a better person as a result) before the end of the program? If only it was so easy for the rest of us.

UGC or citizen media

2006-12-03T14:57:00.000Z

I'm sick of hearing about it. Newspapers and journalists have got their knickers absurdly twisted in the whole matter and it's just plain daft. OF COURSE it's not going to threaten real journalism you ninnies. It'll be on your heels to do a better job of the often factually inaccurate cliched rubbish that gets churned out these days but where's the problem there? It's just a shame the job's going to get a bit harder to coast by in. Dear me, maybe it'll stop all the rich media idiots hiring their mates to do jobs rather than the most qualified person. I'm sick of all this 'it's who you know' rubbish anyway.

Please find something else to moan about. Please.

Me and my nevers

2006-11-28T15:14:00.001Z

Geordie says to do this. He says other people have to too.

It's a list of ten things I'll never do. I'm currently in a lecture learning InDesign so I'll probably do the full ten now.

1. Write a blog post as funny as Dr Matt.
2. Embrace the phenomenon of Coca-Cola/Pepsi/any of its varieties. It tastes like sweat of a fat person who's got AIDS but the people of the world have their tastebuds blinded by clever marketing.
3. Never write a politics-led post as good as Geordie. He's diverse don't you know.
4. Dye my hair blonde.
5. Buy anything to do with ABBA.
6. Stop getting excited when I get a new mobile phone.
7. Stop being embarrassed by at least 10% of everything I do/say/fall off (it used to be higher so I'm doing well).
8. Learn to accept that I'm a tree-trunk-stomper-legs.
9. Stop worrying and learn to love the fruit and veg over chocolate and pastry goods.
10. Use excrement in sexual/culinary acts.

I can't be bothered tagging people as I reckon Geordie will have already tagged them. I would urge you to take part though. For the good of mankind.

This is a duplicated blog post as now that I have two blogs I can't decide where to put it. Thanks.

**Feature idea

2006-11-23T14:52:00.000Z

My feature idea will be based around the increase of video within online journalism and what this may mean for photographers in the future. Dirck Halstead, editor of the Digital Journalist has often said he sees a big change afoot for digital photography and the role of the photographer.

People’s reluctance to read on screen and increasing bandwidth means that online video is likely to grow in the next few years. We've seen the difference YouTube has made to online presences and the value of this supposedly revolutionary idea ($1.65bn).

I’d like to examine and estimate the extent of change that will take place, taking into account existing online articles and outside opinion as well as the development of other sites in the past couple of years.

Daniel Meadows

2006-11-23T14:38:00.000Z

Creator of the website Capture Wales, Daniel Meadows came to talk about digital storytelling and the potential of video within the online world and what this means for the average person with a video camera.

Nice as the site is, it's not journalism in the traditional sense, more an extension of blogs and and online networking. It makes an interesting insight into what people choose to capture on screen and what they deem worthy of placing online as well as the content of their videos. Acting more as social commentary than actual news gathering it creates a new subsection of media away away from the depersonalisation of traditional news sites.

It's raining cats and dogs

2006-11-23T13:57:00.000Z

According to Richard Burton, former editor of the Daily Telegraph online, newspaper readers and online readers can be divided into two catagories, dogs and cats. Dogs are loyal and go to the same place for their news whereas cats will look around and go where the news is best.

Initially I had thought Richard Burton to be rather full of bluster but a few occasional back glances to his blog has lead me to believe that bluster or not he's got a damn sight better view on the workers of the media than many of the most successful of editors. First this makes a refreshing change to the constant yapping about how media degrees are useless when I believe the truth is entirely opposite. Also was another offering of support for us poor students here. Essentially the media is drowning in its own overbloated sense of self worth and is convinced that unless someone has years' worth of experience they do not deserve pay or help for even the lowliest of jobs. It's nice for someone to recognise that sitting in the lecture theatres at the moment (even the media ones) are tomorrow's media workforce and they should be treated as such.

**Pete Clifton

2006-11-16T16:40:00.000Z

Here is man who, much like Richard Burton and not at all like Peter Preston, is what one would expect the high flying media bods of this world are like: almighty, slightly rough but very commanding. The imagined idea of him giving one of his employees a telling off could scare many a journalist away from the BBC (though not I).

He has his eyes set firmly on the future and how to keep the BBC at the forefront of media technology. As we have already guessed words and images are no longer satisfactory and the lengthy list of new ideas and developments is somewhat staggering. The most frequent trend amongst this bevvy of ideas is user-generated content, which he talked about at length.

He disputed that this new wave of citizen journalism would spell the death of traditional journalism but it is certainly changing the face of (particularly online) media. It is a change that the BBC has admirably embraced and, one can imagine, will only strengthen the quality of traditional journalism thanks to the opportunity for direct criticism and debate.

Yet not all seem to agree with this view and the notion of the death of the journalist seems to have gotten many a newspaper option student quaking in their shoes. But in a world where expertise is increasingly demanded from the workforce and just about every media job advert screams 'you must be NCTJ accredited!' it seems highly unlikely that the typical man on the street will ever be considered a 'journalist'.

Birt Acres

2006-11-16T16:39:00.000Z

Is far too warm for a lecture theatre. Hitler himself could be delivering a speech and everybody would fall asleep.

Where the heads do shine

2006-11-16T16:36:00.000Z

Pete Clifton is the man in charge of BBC Interactive. Once it was small and called Ceefax, then it got bigger and had to change its name to something far more all encompassing and powerful.

Are lads mags porn?

2006-11-13T22:24:00.000Z

Typical to everything I've ever come across, my normal like for blogging has been given a vasectomy following Simon Williams's immortal words 'blogs are compulsory'. Henceforth mine has remained untouched for a bit-too-long period of time.

So after spending seven minutes thinking about it, following a veggie curry not cooked by me, I decided something to write about would be lads' mags. They get my back up so many different ways and so I was more than merry to hear that the NUS have said they think they should be moved to the top shelf. And, according to El Guardiano, Sainsbury's have also begun bagging them to cover the rude bits on the front covers thanks to a few forward-thinking people and protective parents' comments. And quite right too.

Of course we are all entitled to read what we like but we should be free from the not-always-welcome sight of a woman's naked breasticles and alluring stare from a shop shelf. I'd certainly not want my young son or daughter's eyes to see them. We don't get to be innocent for long, why not at least pretend that there's no such thing as exploitation until they get a little bit older.

Regardless of how much these women get paid they are still spreading the view that women should at all times be skimpily-dressed sex kittens who are usually of a lower intellectual level and less capable at, well, anything except cleaning and blowjobs.

But this is a tired old argument and, given the huge selling power of these titles I can't see them being widely moved to the top shelf anytime soon.

And if there's any wonder, I'm not much a fan of woman's magazines neither. But I would probably go and work for either if I was asked.

**Iain Dale

2006-10-19T12:00:00.000Z

Today’s weekly important person visit to Birt Acres was made by Iain Dale, one of the country’s most proficient and widely-read bloggers, and now a presenter on the recently launched 18 Doughty Street.

As a self-confessed Tory it could be easy to dismiss Mr Dale’s ideas as ones of farce and whimsy, but after listening to him talk he seems a man worth listening to. In his own words he has no intention of using 18 Doughty Street, an internet television channel, to promote the Conservative party or push his own views upon the viewers. The purpose of the channel is to provide unregulated, uncensored balance and debate to a potentially unlimited audience.

As a regular blogger/politically minded person Mr Dale has some interesting perceptions of why politicians choose not to blog and why they should anyway, avoiding, to some extent, the degree of false crassness that has come across in Webcameron.

Though it seems we are heading into a society where all people who hold a job in the public eye are expected to blog (and support all the rest of the Web 2.0 excessiveness), as if we are demanding right to their thoughts and personal feelings. Many are no doubt scared of the notion that if they don't they risk being left behind. Yes, it may give us opportunity to understand these people on a new level but it also puts some unnecessary pressure upon them to have regular outbursts of opinion on their off-time. That said, however, I would quite like the opportunity to read those blogs.

The Beginning

2006-10-12T14:39:00.000Z

Herein lies the first of several blog posts, as instructed by The Diploma, on which I am currently residing. According to The Diploma we must regularly reflect upon the journalistic lectures we receive and the new thoughts we gain from them. More of this will follow. Or, if I've already posted it and you are reading it the right way round, you will have already read it. Or possibly skipped over it. Thus is the nature of The Blog.