Why if you're a student, you MUST blog

Oh what like I don't know? It's been raked over ad nausea:"why should students blog", but here's my bent as a senior lecturer, former broadcaster, and blogger.

Firstly, I'd wish the name blogger had an alternative to it when looking to brand studious and prolific writers in journalism. At the next attempt launching a writing template, please simply call it "writer" and watch the fundamental difference it would make amongst student journalists.

Updates soon from "Writer lite", "Pro" and "Gold standard." Which one would you prefer?

So why should all students blog?

• That perennial yawning catch phrase that your lecturers cease to let go off; you become your own publisher. Tick box.
• Then, your blog will enable you to write about matters which concern you and your friends if you wish, a re-wording of the previous point. Tick box.
• And then a moment of silent clarity and internal huzzahs: you've joined the new world, a journey into digital journalism, the unknown, but which gathers pace in its quest to reformat the art of knowing and telling. Tick that box.

So why is it some students or trainee journalists resist the urge to blog or feel at best it's an inconvenience, worst rubbish?

This is something I come across wearing my top hat as a BJTC council member.

Briefly, the BJTC is the body which sits at the interface between journalism colleges, universities and the media industry in the UK, and whose kite mark of accreditation is much recognised and admired within the industry.


Why you don't blog
There are a number of limited reasons why I could think as a student, professional or who ever you may be, you should blog, but I'll keep this to students.

Overheard at our last BJTC council meeting yesterday by one member: "Oh if they could just write, our HR (Human Resources) could do with students who could just write and write well. Getting techie, yeah, but write".

Now here's the its not rocket science bit.

If you want to be an actor, act; if you want to be a psychedelic pharmacist, you're going to have spend some time in the lab; if you want to be a writer, write. With some professions theoretical knowledge alone just won't do.

Here I'm referring to writers as journalists and not fictional novelists. Two separate desires, no less superior to each other, though many journalists in their lifespan tend to become novelist than the other way round.

What blogs do is strip bare the tenants of journalism.

Disregarding the most complex of tasks, setting up the blog in the first place and gathering any number of widgets, you're being defined by the art of pen to paper; key to screen.

You are who you are by your posts, the frequency and quality of your style and argument.

Were I a media manager, I would insist on seeing an interviewee's blog. I understand the Guardian Newspaper does.

A blog provides a crucial insight into a potential journalist employee. That never mind all the wonderfully well phrased entries on that CV, the blog says the following:

I James Meredith Sinclair, studying journalism, blog because I am:

• Interested in writing - determined by the frequency of your posts.
• Can display broad interests or how well honed my specialist knowledge is - determined from the quality of your writing.
• That fundamentally, and often overlooked, it is my online CV, my "newspaper cuttings".
  

Yes strange as it may seem job applicants once used to walk round with dog eared binds, stuffed with their columns and bylines painstakingly cut from newspapers, and if you were a broadcaster researching any number of subjects you went down to the cuttings library. Ho hum.

Reasons why you don't blog
Often young trainees and student journalists will have reasons for not blogging. They vary, but some reasons are more prevalent than others.

• Not knowing what a blog is - fairly common.
• Not having anything to write about ranks in the top three
• Too busy with all my other work is a strong favourite

You could probably come up with your own counterpoints for the aforementioned. Here's mine.

• If you're unaware what a blog is and you want to become a journalist, then I may question your hunger. Just as if you wanted to become a chef and you didn't know what a microwave was you'd have me reaching for the next candidate.

• Having nothing to write about portrays a lack of high media consumption and perhaps forming your own ideas, which yes, is a skill that will develop at journalism schools. But if you don't listen to any radio news, read other blogs, watch the news, then you're isolated and will have little to fire the imagination into damming the hubris of that politician or health care spokesperson.
  

• And if you're too busy, then whilst that's to be applauded, you're exhibiting a key flaw of journalism practice which is a lack of organisation and priority.

Here's my back-in-the-day lecture. Sorry!

But back in the day, in 1989, when Daniel Boettcher, now one of the BBC's all rounder correspondents, was my classmate, and blogs were not around, our lecturers at Falmouth in Cornwall pressed us with work. At times it became mind-splitting, until the low down in organisational skills was aired.


Why you're never too busy
News does not respect time, it is not guided by what period of day it is, neither is it sensitive to whims; it happens. It's relentless.

And when it happens on your patch, you'd best be there, and when another big story happens on your patch again, you'd best be there as well. You simply don't have the luxury to say you are busy.

You may have made the decision not to do anything about the latter story, but that's a different matter entirely.

This was best put to me by the venerable and inveterate ITN News Editor Phil Moger, a true powerhouse in journalism and passionate about it to his retirement having served it many years.

I had some shifts in the 90s at ITN with Phil as Editor. After the niceties, for the following half hour my to-do-list kept rising steeply with one assignment or another.

At each turn, either Phil or a correspondent would request where I was in the task and why I hadn't finished. I'd been used to multitasking, but this was something else. Soon I would approach Phil, and after our exchange, he smiled.

There's no such things as being busy, just know how to prioritise and once you make the editor aware of what you're doing, let the ed make the call.

Later I would learn how to say "I'm busy" and by then it was understood and appreciated how truly busy I was.

Prioritising and finding the creative period in your day means a daily post should take you minutes. More on that in my next post.

The new writers
I have come across some wonderful student bloggers. It would be inappropriate to single anyone out from the current Masters programme, but from previous years there's the likes of Richard Brennan of Newsjiffy ( class of 2006) whose blog gets to the point, far swifter than I have here.

And also from outside where I teach comes Adam Westbrook from City University, whose latest post indicates how far City Uni have come with blogging.

I still remember that moment when having spoken about Adam to my students, various friendships were formed and Adam and us (students and me) would later meet at the Front Line Club.

Students from competing universities who share something in common - a creative common.

Then there's Dave Lee, whom Like Adam defines the future. In both cases, yes, they've recently pinged me, but that's not really the self-vanity point here. They're good strong bloggers reaching out.

And there are countless more, including as I alluded to before current Masters students whose blogs I read. But there are many others who have not taken the plunge.

Ultimately, and something Darwinist might say, that needs to happen. There has to be a distinction. There needs to be difference, a hierarchy.

You may rubbish this, for we're all not built the same, what interests you may be nonchalant to me.

But our job is to provide a route so that everyone has an opportunity to make strong their case for becoming a paid and respected journalist.

Blogs to some people, may actually not matter, but they do provide a weather bell, and if no one reads them nay mind you're at least, at least, doing something no one else can do for you which is....

There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as do exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft. ~Jessamyn West, Saturday Review, 21 September 1957

Next week what to blog about and what we've discovered in access to blogs.

David wrote his first published article at 15 for his school mag about the Neutron Bomb ( pretentious Ba*****) He doesn't believe blogging will save the world, but it will make a world of difference to understanding issues. He sits on Council of the BJTC

Rise of the super blogger and possible erosion of core journo values ?

Air JetLiner Crashes into Sea

November 1996, one of the most potent images by a tourist (pre- citizen reporter)
became the subject of a broadcast bidding war.

Could the "them an Us', broad attrition between broadcasters and super bloggers, become an imploding force between emerging bloggers and the rise of the super bloggers?

And how the clamour for superdon is eroding one of the basic tenants of journalism practice, attribution and sourcing. Does that matter or is it time to seek a fresh way of attributing material, beyond external links?

A two parter which culminates in the Alchemy of Journalism.
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Image from WeMedia 2006

Everyone of us starts somewhere, most of us at the bottom.

Broadcasters have made strong claims on citizens' offerings from the Zapruder film and before then, to the more recent tragic events in Mumbai, here clipped on Journalism.co.uk.

Two years ago I shared a stage with the Director of BBC News, Helen Boaden.

We got onto the subject of citizen contributions. It's not a new phenomenon, citizen journalism, I said, broadcasters have always relied on the Joe and Josephine public for contribution.

Boaden, like so many broadcaster who've been finger-wagged for not being CJ friendly enough agreed.

What is new, I added later of stage, and where broadcasters have been founding wanting has been the level of plurality and recognition in using this source.

Looking back even the wisest sages in broadcasting will say they didn't see it coming.

What the most 21st public pioneer of this form, "Oh My News" did was to not only prove there could be an honest brokerage of information without mal aforethought, but it could work en masse.

Because before then for every News summit convened for global broadcasters, the Net was an irrelevance.

Nothing New Then
Back in 1994 Channel One, a UK VJ outfit positively encouraged them.

It didn't have a large pool of reporters and so I remember several occasion soliciting video.

The more memorable was corralling an American tourist's video in Earl's Court when she emerged from a stationary smoke-filled underground train with pictures.

In November 1996, working at WTN, one of the most potent images by a citizen reporter became the subject of a broadcast bidding war.

The video was shot by a South African couple on their honeymoon on the Comoro Islands, East Africa, whilst lying on the beach.

125 people died on Ethiopian Airlines flight 961 including Africa's leading, and one of the world's most respected cameramen/,photojournalistst, Mohamed-Mo-Amin.

On scene reporters
The boon in the "every reporter within us" and the largely unfilled web 2.0 knowledge gap from broadcasters and publishers adverse to change, has been a major contribution to the rise of the this 21st centuries philosophers.

The successful media savvy ones often have backgrounds in the very institutions they're finding holes in, and deliver their missives with alacrity and a lack of pretentiousness. They are the super bloggers.

Many will admit that their openness is both their strength and weakness. The Net is all to play for.

It is an alchemists pen, pulling in consensus from the wisdom of crowds, buffeted by their own original thoughts.

Some of these are bound by grand theories, empirical or ethnographic research, otherwise their practitioners look to alternative and equally valid thesis which involves reshaping methods with antecedents.

The allure for superblog status appears intoxicating and what's emerging now is interesting in many ways.

• Broadcasters interaction with the (super) video bloggers.
  
• The Achilles for the meteoric rise in super blog status can often mean a loss of standard in journalism practice

Broadcast bloggers
The tragic events in India, in which twitters and bloggers, played a vital role informing audiences has some interesting characteristics.

Online, a number of bloggers/cj broke pictures with a number of traditional news sources as well as the blogosphere referencing them.

The link here to CBS and BBC World of an interview with a blogger seems to break far less ground.

The interviewer's aston/ super/ by line has changed to reflect this new standing, as the interviewee extracts witness/by stander information.

If you're a blogger/ CJ I would have thought it's high time a new code recognised this so any broadcast interview would reference your and url.

If you're good enough to be on air and you're trusted, you're good enough for a ping to your blog, though there's an obvious caveat here.

Also, that you should have a claim to the interview with the network so long as you are not selling the VT on.

Why? Because they the broadcaster will most certainly be running the VT with you ad infinitum for news gathering cred.

Gordian Knot for CJs
But herein with CJ lies an interesting issue.

A news correspondent on the ground will in their first minutes of contact on the scene do a couple of things.

• Look for eye witnesses
• Contact officials on the scene for facts, updates, injuries etc.
  
• Contact the office for latest wires etc.
• Assess broad areas of their story. What's passable/legal/ sound conjecture or otherwise.
  

All this before in minutes they'll be required to go on air.

I haven't looked at enough Mumbai tapes for the following point, it's more a generalisation.

But could the CJ be required to do the same or does the risk present itself for CJs to offer commentary based NOT on what they've seen, but what they believe. And yes I do acknowledge that Cjisms' modus operandi is not standardised.

However is this aforementioned acceptable? If the CJ has a background in international affairs and security, they're no different from the pundits wheeled into the studio, but if they don't?

This is really a matter for the recipient, the broadcasters, as truthfully a blogger may not be aware of what their role is going on air. Perhaps an agreement needs to be reached before doing so.

Difficult one as CJ by its very nature can be adhoc.

Every one's an expert
The second point is a more pressing one, which you've probably come across at the coal face training next generation journalists.

This is something I have also observed affiliated to the BJTC. That is the rise of the blogger and perhaps the correspondence quotient of the super blogger has blurred the lines with attribution and sourcing.

To that end it's easy to direct the language of blogging, comment and opinion, into news reportage, when we should still entertain the idea, "if you weren't there attribute". [I'm speaking here not of CJ/bloggers on the scene but often the many reporting reported stories.]

"The attacks in Mumbai have resulted in several fatalities" - how was this fact arrived at? Who first reported it? Was it from the television?

Because otherwise a trend extrapolation of this could see an erosion of any sourcing at all, or lead to the passing of unqualified material down the story chain.

This is something addressed in another way in Nick Davies book Flat Earth . In his case how PRs feed the story flow, which can easily contaminate the news flow.

Reputable broadcaster, publishers and bloggers will say they will never knowingly get to this, hopefully, but for a generation of new journalists coming through there lies the risk that supposition may simply become fact.

It's something a few academics I have spoken to are already addressing.

Post script: Proof however that Cj and attribution can work and very well is illustrated here

Next post
The Alchemy of a story. Using chemistry to formalise story telling and the parallels for observing empirical values.

hard nosed video journalism reporting

Dave Lee - extraordinary blogger posted this below - a great conversation piece for the heart of coal-face video journalism.

I have posted a response below which I hope opens up the debate about video journalism-on-the ground.

Dave Lees Blog

The best reporting at the US elections, from an unlikely source

Back in January of this year I wrote a review of Gnooze, a quirky news site featuring the wonderful Marta Costello.

I remember thinking “she’s really on to something” back then. In a typical late-night surfing session, I decided to check in on Marta. See what she was up to. I wondered what she made of the elections.

I found this incredible report. Watch it. To the end. The final few scenes really are gripping stuff.

My response:

Strong story.

What makes it work?

A few things:

• Getting dirty ie huddling into the story, something photo jos do time and time again, and it may seem odd, but the stanza of video journalism, “getting down and dirty” is closer to photojoing than news broadcasting.

• Staying with the story - Many broadcasters will be working to a deadline show so will only be able to parachute in and out.

• A good VJ team would stay with the story, they do; a good VJ swarm team would “swarm and tag” the story from many quarters.

• Being fearless and discreet, where possible - smaller cameras give you greater cover.

• Intending to go off the beaten track of the news agenda - though you prob wouldn’t know the majors weren’t covering this till you got down there or enquired from the organiser.

Broadcasters WILL miss stories. VJims strongest asset is a combination of covering “Non news agenda” but also how the film is produced ie the exposition.

VJS strength

One aspect of the shoot is what we call “open wide”. It requires a fearless quality, good picture/location judgment and a steady hand from the shooter because the action’s unfolding before your very eyes.

Then the construct kicks in. e.g. some of the VJs I work with would have been trying to track the flight of the gas canisters. It’s the “verb” - the action thing that has a profound effect. Requires good whip pan tracking.

Also the presenter here conveys a good sense of what’s going on. She’s not afraid to brave it; something forcs ( foreign correspondents) , and yes some domestic reporters do more often in troubled spots.

Interestingly and lets not take away from the fact it’s strong “theatre”, but Dave you said it yourself ” The final few scenes really are gripping stuff”.

But how do you get to those scenes, the chronological way or strongest pics ( agency approach)

The options for the team was a slow build up in which case the cue could have hinted at later. Or to reveal a slice of what happens and then build backwards to reveal the dénouement .

I’ll go have a look at their site, because having done this, there’s some great follow ups to get.

Great stuff

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p.s latest addition to the post, the wonderful Marta Costello should learn the basics of shooting. She's talented plenty enough from what we see. However, the conventional route of reporter/ camera person is an achilles here, at least a major part at the end.

There were a couple of characters we could have gone back to during the riots, but the camera person did not have that immediate option, as he reaction from Marta was required. If Marta could film herself here this would have freed up the camera operator.

to get immediate reaction elsewhere.

p.s I have wanted to fold some of my deeper thoughts as well many newspaper, magazine articles and things like deep video, and managing story chaos into a manageable book.

Hopefully I'm a step nearer because of the fantastic Hillman Curtis. Once again Hillman thanks ever so much.

And thank to everyone else. I'm likely going to pull the plug on this blog soon, as I concentrate on a number of projects, one of which may well be looking at blogging itself.