Blog of the Week

My blog of the week is Tomorrow’s Newsroom (Johnston Press and the Department of Journalism @ UCLan). This is an endless source of debates on all the important issues facing journalists (the much publicised and the very personal ones). Full of quotes, hyperlinks, pdfs .....oh and funny too!

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Back in the day it was all about the power of the pen. It seems that the pen has become redundant but, with the advent of blogs, the written word is mightier than ever.

Iain Dale, well-read political blogger and one of the creators of 18DoughtyStreet, the new online political TV show, gave us a lecture today.

Dale had much to say about the power of blogs, describing them as influential tools which are both "constructive" and "destructive" and which can initiate change as well as debate.

He is, apparently, thrilled by the concept of the blog as a means of giving a voice to "the little guy" and a space where anyone can say anything:

"I can say what I want unedited, I am my own editor".

This "anyone can say anything" business is, of course, not entirely true. Our law tutor, Professor Duncan Bloy, made it quite clear in lectures this week that the laws of defamation apply to blogs as much as to anything else.

Thus, as a blogger, I find myself in a difficult position. Dale recommends that unless you "keep it real" on a blog there is really no point in writing it and it certainly won't spark debate. However, I must always write within the law. What a pickle.

I never realized the power I was taking on, or the danger in which I was placing myself, by becoming a blogger.

Of course, I'm yet to write a controversial post, defame or even attract a reader but still it puts a whole new slant on this blogging malarky.

Blog of the Week

My blog of the week is the debate on the Guardian blogspot concerning whether blogging is the new journalism. This seems like a painful, yet essential read for any journalist. Equally, slanging matches are always good for a laugh. Check it out.

The Death of the Journalist

The death of the author is old news but apparently it's someone else's turn to kick the bucket - the journalist's.

Amanda Powell, editor of BBC Wales News online, gave a talk at the school in which she touched on user-generated journalism, discussing the possibile redundancy of the journalist as blogs, picture-phones and comment-pages reign supreme.

This topic was uncomfortably familiar to me, having earlier discovered a debate on the Guardian blogspot about whether bloggers are, indeed, the new journalists.

Panic! Is my chosen profession soon to no longer be a viable profession at all?

According to one debater, it wasn't a profession in the first place. "You don't even need a qualification to become a journalist", after all.

Amanda noted the big part users play in bringing in sources for stories these days but was quite adamant that "the journalist will always have a role".

What worries me is that journalists are quite sure that journalists are skilled, inimitable individuals, yet they seem to be the only ones.

Are journalists just a bunch of deluded and self-righteous fools?

I find that hard to believe. A good journalist is skilled and has a range of resources at her finger-tips that Joe Blogger does not. Most of all, journalism must be a refined skill or else I wouldn't be finding it so hard to master!!

The poet rejected the grave and I believe the journalist will follow in his footsteps.

Blogging is one thing, journalism is another.

The Journey Begins

As an aspiring journalist in the first month of my training, I have never had a steeper or more treacherous learning curve to climb.

I tend to be suspicious of the concept of learning curves. A comforting idea in principle but in reality there is nothing reassuring about imagining oneself at the bottom of one (nb. these particular curves go up like mountains not down like slides).

All that's in store is a hard trek and many false summits. And of course there's always that annoying individual on the pinnacle looking down on you as you stumble along.

Yet I feel that I need a change of attitude if I'm to enjoy/survive the next few months. I must see the learning curve itself as something to be cherished rather than just the touching of the summit stone.

In the following posts I will map my climb: my thoughts, ideas, successes and failures in order to pay witness to my development.

I hope that the discoveries I make along the way (meeting big-wigs in the industry, learning cutting-edge techniques and covering a wide range of topics) will be interesting for fellow bloggers and climbers to read.

Welcome to my blog. I hope you enjoy it.