Calling all Digital Journalist, ethnic journalists in London etc.

Photo: a couple of years ago Programme maker and academic David Dunkley Gyimah hosted B3 Media's "Breaking, Entering and Staying in the Game" at the ICA Cinema with Nelson George (US' Filmmaker, writer), Catherine Johnson (Screenwriter, Bullet Boy, and author), Ray Paul (Executive Producer 1 Xtra, Specialist & Live Music programming 1Xtra), and Maxine Watson (BBC commissioning executive)

'New Media, Diverse Platforms' - NUJ Black Members' Conference
Will new media mean new opportunities for Black journalists? All ethnic minority NUJ members welcome. Speakers include David Dunkley Gyimah, international award-winning journalist and lecturer. Light lunch. Saturday 7 March 2009, 11.15pm-4pm at NUJ HQ, 308 Grays Inn Road, London, WC1X 8DP. To register email joannef@nuj.org.uk.

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A couple of days ago this (below) was posted on the Press Gazette's website. It concerned a major newspaper group for ethnic minorities folding and then finding a buyer. I'm speaking at the above NUJ gathering next week so felt this post apt and timely. Here's the thread. See what you think?

Press Gazette reports

New Nation saved from closure after buyer is found

New Nation and two other Afro-Caribbean titles have been saved after a buyer was found by administrators.

Last month, the Ethnic Media Group – which ran New Nation, Eastern Eye, and other ethnic titles – went into administration. ......(more - the link is further down).

It led me to post a response, which was replied to by Haile Dube Yaas who said

David, the fact is the mega-websites of The Guardian and Telegraph are loss-makers but are subsidied because they believe that is the future. The black media do not have the resources of these giants and need to break even today, not tomorrow. .......

I then replied to Haile.

The absence of any press which has had a relationship with readers, let alone ethnic, in communities establishing and developing their identities is likely to have consequences. This shouldn't happen I say, so what's the strategy?

Why you need (ethnic) media. In some cases it acts as a counter balance to the perceived status quo. When BBC 3 ran a populist but highly controversial programme: The Trouble with Blackmen, it caused an outrage within the press. I set about remaking my own version interviewing people like Doreen Lawrence. More here

Ethnic Journalism in trouble.

Please do take a look and see what you think. Here's the whole thread on the Press Gazette, but before you link of there, this below provides further chill winds.

From the US from New Media America: No Tears for the Chronicle. and from the editor:

Editor’s Note: The San Francisco Chronicle is teetering on the brink of collapse, if it cannot find a buyer or further slash its staff and operating costs. Bought by the Hearst Corp. in 2000, the newspaper lost more than $50 million last year and its readership has steadily declined. NAM editors asked ethnic media journalists and media observers what life would be like without the city’s major daily.

NAM Staff Comments on News of Possible Closure of SF Chron from New America Media on Vimeo.

What is the solution because there are some damn fine writers here, the US and elsewhere finding it hard. Not because of them. But because the dynamic has changed.

No one would have said the Monks of Valencia circa 1600s were not superb as they handcrafted the scriptures, but Gutenberg's press changed the dynamics.

So what do you do. Just what do you do. Do something or do nothing?

BTW if you're from the NABJ or similar it'd be great to hear from you. I have attended NABJ gatherings on and off since 1994- the Big Unity in Atlanta.

Who would have thought back then of this crisis. A crisis indeed for all, but acute for smaller business and ethnic press.

Diversity, programme making and role models

Al Jazeera's Rageh Omar and Race Czar Trevor Phillips at Channel 4 event on diversity


Several posts coming up.

If you work, or have aspirations of working in British television and are a minority then former tv presenter/producer turned Race Czar Trevor Phillips' findings co-published with Channel 4 may bring some comfort.

[Trevor could be described when he worked in television as Britain's answer to a Bryant Gumbel. Well respected, he was everywhere]

I got to speak to him at the end about how new media could drive the new economy. Trevor agreed. [luvvie fact (this is for peter@ shooting by numbers, who called me a Luvvie. I'm wounded @££!£$@

When I worked in television we shared the same agent, so at least he remembered me. Now what!]

I also bumped into an old friend Rageh Omar. We did our "arm reach-hug". I guess fist bumping's out of fashion after the New Yorker- Obama spat cover.

Never did get the cover's monty python irony folded on itself.

Rageh and I had a good short-power chat and I hope to bring you a vid interview with him in the future. Around 1993/94 we both freelanced for the BBC WS, African Service. Gosh! Those were the days.

Also there and friends from the past the talented tv maker Geoff Small, Guardian/BBC Radio 4's Safraz Mansoor ( we were at Channel 4 together) and the lovely Marcia Williams, exec at the UK film council.

Role Models
Meanwhile the Government launches an initiative to find role models, black role models. But how do you judge someone as being a role model? I have posted a short clip of equality race champion Doreen Lawrence on Viewmagazine.tv( she lost a son, murdered, in the 90s in race attack)

Dr Rachel Armstrong, Bruce Damer (all Phd smart labbers) came along to the channel 4 conference and we have some pictures to share with you.

And coming soon, finally the Apprentice. I'm close to cutting the package sent to me from South Africa which was turned into a mash-up prog.

Tomorrow will also post Bruce talking about creating life within - Darwinian stuff - in avatar world. Cooool!

The tao of talent and passion

Functionality many of us possess, passion we might muster, but can we see and recognise talent?

On our way home from filming the Ferrari 599GTB - a rare car I have been told - Kevin Haggarthy, a man with one of the envious jobs in the world testing super luxury cars started a conversation.

"Many of us can control a car, but few can drive one" - a treasurably didactive exchange then followed. The essence, that the talent to drive a car becoming one with its chassis, the ability to read the road, assess the future is rare. The height of this is that rarest of beast, F1 drivers.

The thread in this resonates with the two professions I have been privy to: the media and academia. Like most professions, the function of day to day work becomes second nature, but at times we're called on to tee off beyond our par, then something else must kick in: talent and passion.

In this month's Harvard Business Review the question of Talent and Talent Factories is adressed and makes fascinating reading. The upshot, what caught my attention: Fostering commitment, building engagement and accountability are values that sit at the heart of a company's bid to create and manage talent.

And companies we learn are pretty bad at this: the ability to create talent growth by nuturing staff, stimulate the work force, provide long term goals, is little more than gesture.

On the back end of that, two incidents. Firstly, a seminar organised by broadcast magazine (UK mag about the industry) called Future TV. The speakers, all eminent people, hail from the world of TV. Yep not a single "outsider" to tell of the greens of new ideas yonder in California, New York, Norway or closer to home in the bed rooms of the wunder kids.

But what really came home was the lack of any indication towards creating and managing talent. The organisers would have done well to have any number of university or business industry fellows addressing the issue of next generation talent. In this case with reference to the newsrooms. That is talent that might see the present structures re-adjust for the next phase of Net tastic, post 8mb. It's amazing how linear TV still is.

Secondly, a major event staged by a union I pay my subs to BECTU ( Broadcasting Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union). The quest is to get more people of colour into the News industry.

While admirable and long overdue, the question once again? Where are the structures that create and manage these schemes for ongoing success? No doubt there's a cluster where you are, but that's a rarity.

If managers really are serious about pushing boundaries, then they've got to as highlighted in HBR have some strategy to foster, pool and grow talent, because in the end everyone is richer for it; a real win win situation.