"Student journalists are sidelined to being like ancillary press officers"

I,ve met Joseph Stashko a couple of times now.

He is a student at Uclan who along with his colleague Andy Halls is working on a new hyperlocal news site for Preston.

I wish them luck with that but on this blog post he looks at a couple of issues regarding student journalism and subjectivity but I particually liked his take on writing for the student paper

I saw time and time again editors hand out stories, almost ready made for print, just needing a few rewrites and possibly quotes. Student journalists are sidelined to being like ancillary press officers, simply reduced to moving phrases around and adding a few minor embellishments.

Uclan places digital at the heart of strategy

Good to see that my former place of learning is championing the digital community.

How Do reports that

The University of Central Lancashire has created the new role of 'project champion for digital industries' as it looks to build strategic links between itself and the sector on a regional, national and international level.

adding that

Lisa Harding has been recruited to take up the post and direct UCLan's 'University Knowledge Transfer agenda for digital and creative industries'

Today I am turtling

At least I think that is the verb.

What's a turtle you may ask?

Well it is quite simply a discussion box and they are being run by the people organising Open 09 at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston over the next couple of days.

I shall be taking part in two turtles.The future of the web in whcih some of the questions posed are

1. Will the future of the web be led by education or industry?

2. What are the implications of open source on the future of the web?

3. The future of the web depends upon…?

and the future of media

But it is not just about media and the net.There are a number of turtles running including the future of music,the future of animation.textiles and fashion as well as product design futures.

You can hollow on the blogs and also on twitter following the hashtag #OPEN09.

It should be a good couple of days

Unistats on the career prospects of journalism students

Josh Halliday spent his Sunday pouring over the Unistats statistics of the UK's Universities and Colleges to look at how media students fared in the job market in 2009.

My eyes fell straight at the figures for Uclan which showed that 39% of journalism undergraduates ended up in a media related profession whilst 85% of post graduates did likewise.

Tops was Sheffield where the figures were 70%

Of course it is fairly impossible to analyse these results further and you probably have to question that categories that the universities provide.

Nevertheless some interesting statistics and congratulations to Josh for ploughing through the figures.

Tomorrow's cleaning goes live

Just a mention for a former student colleague at UCLAN who has gone through the experience of launching her first online magazine as editor.

Charlotte Taylor's Tomorrow's cleaning went live this week and promises that it is

the future of our cleaning industry - providing exclusive content and the latest news, advice and products,

I for one wish Charlotte all the best with the new venture.

.Singer's vision of the future

Jane Singer's roadmap for the future of journalism is worth a read.

Currently the Johnston Press Chair in Digital journalism at the University of Central Lancs,her piece won the a contest on the future of journalism held by the AEJMC

Entitled a Bird's eye view it looks at the evolution of the journalist,the platform of which she says

The website houses all content. Basic information, including routine coverage (local and wire), is free and continually updated; it is supplemented by user contributions of various types and in various forms. Original niche content and labor-intensive information (results of investigative reporting, multimedia packages, databases, etc.), are available online for those who pay for them in one way or another; newly developed products (for instance, unique content delivered to mobile phones) also may be available only to fee-paying users.

Taking a break

Well today was the end of University at just after 12.30 time out was called on the Public Administration exam.

So apart from handing in my portfolio and my project that is it

Nearly three years on after my life changing career change now comes the next stage.

But first a week out.I and this blog will be taking a break in the sunshine of Cyprus.

Hopefully will be back blogging on the 26th May.

Jon Snow finally makes it to UCLAN

At the third attempt Jon Snow finally got to UCLAN this morning,although Virgin Trains conspired to delay that arrival and bite into the Vice Chancellor's lecture to staff.

Met by a rousing cheer as he entered,he maintained that his appetite for news was fostered by a meeting with Harold MacMillan at an early age when the former Conservative Prime Minister had more important things on his mind (such as his wife's affair with Bob Boothby)

What Snow radiated was an enthusiasm for journalism.Journalists ,he said, should not simply want to tell the story they should want to change the world.He also questioned whether it was enough simply to leave university with a journalism degree without having an experience of another subject."Knowledge of how to play the latest computer game was not enough"

Journalism backed by the onset of technology was at the cusp of a golden age he maintained.

However,good writing will still differentiate the good journalist from the rest of the pack,good journalist will not be based on an ability to electronically edit.

The problems of who will pay for the content will be found he said, as the news industry has always reinvented the business model.People will pay for quality.

Update-Snow has blogged about his visit to Preston

Peston points the figure

Last night's journalism leaders forum at Uclan never really got started until the question and answer session at the end.

The star of the show,the BBC's Robert Peston, appeared via webcam.

Ahead of his appearance this morning in front of the commons select committee looking at the media and the financial crisis,he recognised that the media would have to look closely at itself in how it reported the crisis.

However his anger was directed at the people he termed those on he termed the people on high salaries who are paid to monitor and regulate.

Kevin Anderson,head of Guardian blogs, made the point that he felt the media had failed to do their job."a failure of journalism is when someone asks why should something that happens in China makes me lose my job" he said.and added that another of the failures arose due to the global nature of the crisis

"Journalists didn't act globally together to pull together the global elements of financial complexity."

There was also a consensus feeling that PR and the advertising model had a role to play.Journalists were perhaps a little too eager to take for granted what they were being told.

Head of journalism at the college Mike Ward questioned the panel as to whether people would lose interest in economics once the green shoots of recovery start to appear.

As a conclusion,the panel agreed that there was a shortage of financial journalists.Perhaps,they felt, journalists need the essential skills of understanding business to report on that same business

New Journalists lacking some of the basics

Another interesting piece that has come out of the Society of Editors conference is the consensus that a lot of new journalists are coming into the industry without the necessary skills.

A study by the NCTJ reveals that

found that 71 per cent of employers felt there was a skills gap for journalists to work and be trained across multiple platforms.

I have to admit that I find this strange having had the multi-platform requirements literally forced down the throat whilst at UCLAN.Perhaps the journalism school is in the minority.

Of the 217 employers surveyed, 59 per cent said new entrant journalists lack sufficient video recording and editing skills, while 57 per cent found a skills gap amongst trainees in writing for search engine optimisation (SEO).

Perhaps even more worrying though is the news that

More than 200 media organisations and 50 training organisations were surveyed. The research identified a skills gap in the ability of new entrants to find and write stories, with 64 per cent of those asked highlighting it as a problem area. Use of language came in second as a trouble area with 51 per cent.
The report found that ‘old-fashioned’ skills such as gathering facts and a tight writing style were still paramount, and interviewees said that the basic journalism skills must not be lost as new skills such as video recording are taught.

Will journalism survive? Journalism leaders forum tackles the question

Despite the economic turmoil surrounding the journalism profession,will good journalism survive?

Last night’s 10th Journalism leaders forum at Uclan asked the question how the media should cope with the rapidly changing environment which is the last few weeks has been made far worse by the decent into global financial meltdown.

Steve Yelvington summed up the position at least from an American perspective when he summarised the economic implications for the structure of the media. For Steve three things had changed.

Most importantly the trend of the past few years for media concerns to conglomerate and consolidate with a consequential rise in borrowings had left companies exposed to the banking crisis.This was allied to the collapse of a component part of the revenue model,that of classified advertising,especially for him that of real estate,cars and employment adverts.

Simon Reynolds from the Lancashire Evening Post giving a UK regional perspective begged to differ. He is convinced that the US model is the same in the UK :“what is happening in the industry is a need to find a new business model to sustain journalism.Like the US there has been losses of revenue but allied to this he has seen increases in revenue from digital streams.

For Steven Grey also with an American perspective,large pieces of newspaper content are now provided online and individuals are now sitting in front of a large free news stand,people are turning to the internet to find local solutions.
Newspapers need to become the provider of information of choice,”the local information utility” as he puts it.

As for the consequences for the journalism profession,The Guardian’s Kevin Anderson stressed the need for flexibility,using the use of his paper’s embracing of twitter as a example. News organisations ,according to Kevin “have not taken advantage of the new technology and still focus on the large scale broadcast model.”
Simon Reynolds believed that the greatest challenges lay in the mental state of journalists, the ability to think across a number of mediums.

Perhaps though it was UCLAN’s owner digital chair professor Jane Singer who gave hope for the assembled students.The important thing was journalism,good journalism will survive

10th UCLAN Journalism Leaders Forum

Just a quick mention for the event taking place at the University of Central Lancs tonight.

It is the 10th edition of the Journalsim Leaders Forum and the title is quite aply

What are the tough times teaching media decision-makers about the way forward?”

It kicks off at 6.00pm and amongst the participants are Steve Yelvington and Guardian blogs editor Kevin Anderson.

Should be an interesting debate

Journalism degrees and jobs-the mismatch?

I am sure that this is a topic that is going to run and run over the dead months of August as Paul Bradshaw has asked the question in a post this morning as to should journalism degrees still prepare students for a news industry that doesn't want them?

The premise is that we could be facing the ultimate ground zero situation in a few years where the economics of the industry could mean that media organisations are shutting to an extent that there will be no jobs available.

I think that there are a number of perspectives to this argument.
Let's start from the point of view of the higher education system.Numbers are too high in many fields as universities are under pressure to perform as a profit centre.The balance between degree and job places is out of sync especially in the art subjects.But it is not just journalism,look at courses such as law and business related studies.

Numbers that are too high place enormous strains on the resources needed to teach,the result classes too large and inevitably the standard of teaching diminishes.It is no wonder that employers are starting to worry about the standards of student education and are bringing in their own measuring devices.

Now let me make that clear that journalism is only one of many subjects that is suffering from those problems.

With regard to journalism courses,I can only speak for the course that I am currently undertaking at Uclan.The journalist needs to be able to master many skills to compete in the real world and the degree generally tries to do that,given the constraints mentioned above.I would hope to come out of it this time next year having mastered the skills of being able to work in the journalism profession,whilst also showing an individuality and ability to think out of the box.
That second skill comes more from the university experience than the specific skills of the course.

Now the other side of the coin,the industry.In a rapidly changing environment,it is increasingly difficult I am sure to match skills to the industry.Courses,as Uclan has done will change to keep up with external developments,but the sheer logistics mean this is difficult to achieve in real time.

I don't agree that we are heading for the ground zero option.The nature and the structure of the industry will change,but jobs will still be there.However higher education facilities need to recognise that numbers will go down and must look at applications and adjust numbers.

Uclan student wins journalist of the year award

Congratulations to Ricki Dewsbury,third year student at Uclan who has walked off with the prestigous Student Journalist of the year award.

Ricki follows in the footsteps of another Uclan student Mark Hughes who won the award last year.

Uclan had a number of successes at the Press Gazette awards including student team of the year award,Tom Clarke won radio journalist of the year, BA Sports Journalism graduate Frida Larsson won multi-media journalist of the year.

Why blogging is important for prospective journalists

This week,students at UCLAN on the Ba Journalism course were invited to attend a meeting with members of the Periodicals Training Council (PTC)

The magazine route was aiming to get accreditation from the board,something that I am particularly interested in as that's the option I have picked for next year.

The course had great news as it received its accreditation and that means that BA Journalism is accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists, the Broadcast Journalism Training Council and the PTC.

It was interesting to talk to the members and one thing that came out was the importance of blogging for students.The panel said that not only did it show the writing abilities and the interests for potential employers but also how as potential journalists you are able to deal with comment and criticism.

With these comments in mind,it is interesting to read an article in this week's New York Times magazine by Emily Gould

She writes a very good piece on how it is not always easy to be on the receiving end of comments and how to deal with the line between privacy and public exposure.

Here is one piece but try and read the whole article

Some of my blog’s readers were my friends in real life, and even the ones who weren’t acted like friends when they posted comments or sent me e-mail. They criticized me sometimes, but kindly, the way you chide someone you know well. Some of them had blogs, too, and I read those and left my own comments. As nerdy and one-dimensional as my relationships with these people were, they were important to me. They made me feel like a part of some kind of community, and that made the giant city I lived in seem smaller and more manageable

Shorthand gives a journalist a competitive advantage

Our second year came to an end yesterday as I handed in my last piece of work.

Next year I am going to be following the magazine route on the course,more of that in a later post.

One of subjects that we have to study next year is shorthand.Two hours a day,five days a week and one of the grumbles that is heard is whether it is really necessary in this day and age with the various technologies.Of course there are situations where these new mediums are banned.In particular the court room.

It was therefore interesting to see an article by Charlie Beckett(via Martin Stabe) where at a conference he heard the question,“do you need to insist that ALL journalism students have good levels of shorthand?”

In reply it seems the answer is yes

Even with new media,it has become even more important because it gives the ‘professional’ hack a market advantage.

Good point and as he further says

There can be no harm in having a skill that doesn’t depend on a computer chip or a battery

Old and new sports journalism clashes

The old and the new faces of Sports Journalism clashed at last night's Journalism leaders forum at the University of Central Lancs.The old was represented by Mihir Bose,Sports Editor with the BBC and with many years experience of sports journalism.The new was Phil Townsend, Director of Communications for Manchester United whose previous incarnation was as Press Officer to the Sports Minister.


What Mihir represented were the day's long gone when sport stayed on the back page and the journalists job ended with the final whistle.What Phil represented is the new power of sport in dictating the content that we read,of controlling media access and of recognising that sport in itself is big business so why should independent news organisations get the benefits.

The highlight of the evening was Mahir's comment that Sir Alec Ferguson didn't need any lessons in spin,in fact he could have even given a better lesson that Alstair Campbell on how to spin the back pages

It is a dangerous route to take.One question that kept cropping up was that of impartiality.If clubs control the output how can the public be given access to a proper debate? In this sense though is it any different to politics and the rise of the Alistair Campbells of this world?

It was fitting that at the end the final question came from a journalist who pointed out that sport was not just about football but that there were other sports to consider.

Uclan journalism department gets a new lecturer

How Do reports that

Michael Williams, formerly deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday is joining UCLan on Monday as senior lecturer in print and online journalism.

I look forward to meeting him in due course

Youngsters not interested in news

A report coming out of Harvard yesterday that most kids have little or no interest in the News does n't surprise me at all.

I have written on these pages before that my experience as a mature student on my journalism course of how little interest some students have in current affairs.

I personally find it difficult to comprehend how some body who wants to persue a career in journalism cannot be interested in the goings on in the world.


This report is based on the American experience but I am pretty sure that a similar survey in the Uk would produce similar if not worse results


"Although some observers claim that 9/11 and the Iraq conflict have sparked unusually high levels of interest in current affairs among the upcoming generation of citizens, the survey does not support the claim, at least in the context of attention to daily news coverage. Teens are significantly less attentive to daily news than young adults, who in turn pay substantially less attention than older adults. The survey found, in fact, that 28 percent of teens pay almost no attention to daily news and that an additional 32 percent are casually attentive to a single source only. Taken together, 60 percent of teens can be considered basically inattentive to daily news, as compared with 48 percent of young adults and only 23 percent of older adults"

The report goes onto say

"In comparison with older adults, younger Americans were relatively more attuned to soft news stories (such as the death of Anna Nicole Smith) than to hard news stories (such as the congressional vote on the troop surge in Iraq). In many cases, teens and young adults learned of soft news stories through another person rather than from news coverage directly."

A fact definitely bourne out by my experience of the stories that are picked for assignments on the course.

Nothing ever happens in Preston

One of the complaints from many on the degree course that I am doing is that in certain subjects,we have to cover Preston based stories.

I cn understand the rational behind this,in that lecturers have to be in a position to verify sources when marking work and that to broaden the geographical area of coverage would make so much more difficult.

However it is not the most inspring place for news,given its large area and population.

However I am humbled this weekend when the city bursts onto the news.

I am not talking about Radio One's big weekend either but the news that an alleged mafia Godfather has been lying low in the city.However the choice of location has even managed to astonish the Italian police.


This from the Guardian

Vittorio Pisano, chief of the Naples flying squad, said
Mr Panzuto was "very dangerous" and was also wanted for extortion, illegal
possession of firearms and mafia association. "Panzuto is a very senior mafia
member and his arrest is of great significance," he said. "He was the head of
the Pincirillo clan which he took over from his uncles of the same name when
they were arrested two years ago."

Adding
Mr Pisano said he had never heard of
Preston before the arrest. "Preston seems a rather unusual place to hide out, as
mostly these criminals prefer the South of France or Spain. I had to look it up,
as I had never heard of the place."