November 2010
8 posts
August 2010
3 posts
July 2010
2 posts
Firstly, a quick thanks to those who’ve stumbled upon this site and spared a moment to read my musings below.
My blog posts have been written during the course of my Masters in Television Journalism at City University in London - a year which has hopefully prepared me for some of what’s to come.
Since it’s finally time for me to put down my books, I won’t be posting any...
The morning after the night before
As the journalists left one by one and the spin room emptied, the singularity of debate night hit. The third and final priministerial debate had finished, the spinners had spun, and hours of news has been broadcast from Birmingham.
They’re odd places, spin rooms. Created as a base from which journalists tell the truth, with the understanding that it’s a very specific version of the truth...
June 2010
3 posts
Press room warms up at Prime Ministerial debate
Sitting in the press room at Birmingham University ahead of the third debate, the atmosphere is warming up in preparation.
A couple of spin doctors have been in to case out the joint. Labour’s spinners will be keen to focus attention on the subject at hand tonight, the economy – Gordon Brown’s pet topic – and away from yesterday’s disastrous series of events.
Beyond the notional impact on the...
Yesterday's best bits
Some interesting bits and pieces from yesterday:
ITV’s political maestro Tom Bradby thinks Clegg has made a mistake prioritising electoral reform
Michael Wolff reports the political editor of the Sun will go far to get David Cameron into Downing Street
Ed Balls is the man to go, says Iain Dale
Jon Snow considers the latest Pope scandal
While I'll vote local instead of national
The election campaign has been in full swing for just over two weeks now and we hear day in day out about the national issues that supposedly differentiate the parties. They’re issues that affect me, I know, but I can’t really feel it. Between the spin and forced smiles, how are we to decipher what we’re actually voting for on May 6?
Ask me a month ago, and I would have said I was voting for...
April 2010
6 posts
6 tags
The triumph of image over substance
An extract below from an academic essay I wrote last year about President Nixon’s televisual education — how a straightforward policy man had to learn the tricks of a new medium — to great success in September 1952 , when he made his ‘Checkers Speech’ to save his place on Eisenhower’s presidential ticket — and to great failure during the infamous 1960 debate with JFK.
Forgive me if it looses...
6 tags
Haiti 2.0: A case study in real time news
Last night, a terrible tragedy struck the Caribbean island of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The earthquake that hit as night fell in the UK has devastated the already crumbling town of Port-au-Prince and the humanitarian aid currently on its way will be much needed.
As the quake struck, I went to work at Sky News, to prepare for its Sunrise programme at 6am. Usually I...
7 tags
Link and you will be linked
A new blog on the BBC’s website was brought to my attention last week. ‘See Also’ is a blog dedicated solely to linking out to interesting content not produced by the beeb’s journalists.
What? I hear you cry. A MSM platform linking out and away from their own very valuable content? Can it be true? The answer is yes, the word of new media god Jeff Jarvis has finally got through: Cover what...
2 tags
3 tags
4 tags
MapUMental
Now I love to surf around online. It’s the best fun. In the course of said surfing, I found a lovely new site called MapuMental, founded by mySociety, in partnership with Channel 4iP.
Now, if you’re like me, you automatically want to know who these clever people are. Maybe you want to be one of these clever people. mySociety seem like a lovely bunch of interwebbers; they are a...
