The Osmond's revival

Indelibly imprinted on my mind, "I'll be your long head lover from Liverpool"; the track from a bonny Donny Osmond.

Years on I might well have met my unlikely idols.

( Hey it's cool to go retro so, ease up!)

But alas I'm up to my kneck with other bits and pieces, assessment's and Phds and the likes, so I sadly had to decline.

But think about the footage and what I could have done with it. The financial company where the Os are backing a charity, gave carte blanche.

"Revival", now that's a word which we're hearing less and less of - almost unheard of in the newspaper industry.

As I prepare for WAN, and complete my keynote [ that's keynote - apple] on training needs, expanding on themes from Camp Videojournalism I rang a senior industry figure, whose eyes and ears pick up the slightest tremors in the industry's demeanor.


News on paper
Well, there's a 5 percent down turn and it's also looking pretty grim he said. What may be a viable solution is to offshore some of the capital intensive and running work costs.

"Journalist based in the UK, seeks designer and layout in Malaysia" could be the headline. What's apparent he added rather matter-of-fact is that in 10 years time at this rate, the world of newspapers will look anything but.

Though, yes, I still love the smell of papers in the morning, and I still love to instruct students I'm supervising and the rest to layout their creative ideas on A3s, the notion of your news on paper may become an anachronism.

Meanwhile it looks like newspapers have had their fill with video journalism. That is video with journalism as according to my contact many are now revising their online operations in search of something more than traditional video.

There is a world of difference between video journalism and videojournalism, not just semantically but how one is designed for the time-attention poor netizen in mind and the other which er may just about satisfy your craving for information.

The Ning Journalist
Back to newspapers, print may be feeling the pinch but the the Net continues to exert its primacy as a medium for news.

Fancy that. I so remember the chatter from news people that that would never happen. It has and continues, but as I'm likely to mention at WAN the response, let alone level of proactivity from some media companies still looks pretty thin.

If you never considered yourself a Ning Journo or network journalism sounds like train connection written up by a scribe, then you might be in a spot of bother.

"What's the best route for snaring a job?" one Masters grad asked me.

I have no idea, but you do yourself no favours by not getting your head wrapped around mash-ups, word press and building a community".

Crazy times huh. Crazy horses - the latter one of the Osmond's hits. Shame I couldn't get to meet em, cuz I might just have mentioned there's a great site lurking some where beneath there current one.