So, Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists is closing down, apparently. The ring, part of the excellent journalism.co.uk site, was intended to be a place where future journalists could share ideas and discuss the future of journalism with one another: a vibrant community where those most affected by the rapid changes in journalism could have their say.

If you visit it today, that’s not what you’ll see.

The site’s barren, and the lack of interest in supporting it has left journalism.co.uk editor Laura Oliver with no option but to shut it down. I used to be a contributor, and popped along recently to catch up on the debates and maybe start writing a little again. After all, it’s driven more traffic to this blog than any other activity of mine. But what’s there is little changed since I left. Worse, a lack of maintenance appears to have left the site with a bunch of broken links.

But the most disheartening thing is that Laura, who took on the job when previous editors went and got hired by major news organisations, did her part getting the word out there and recruiting interested parties, and they just didn’t care enough when it became clear it would actually involve sitting down and writing. She claims that she had more than enough sign-ups, and that people just didn’t deliver.

@davemolloy Hi Dave - Oct debate q was posted but had no responses despite 100s of sign ups - unfortunately am going to have to kill it
...
@davemolloy it’s a real shame, but it may be a time thing - lots of interest, then people went back to uni/training

Now, I’ll accept that I haven’t contributed a post in a long time. But this really, really annoys me. I should have been pushed out due to inactivity by brighter, better, younger stars. On one of the most prominent UK industry sites, they can’t attract people willing to contribute a few hundred words once a month? And this business is supposedly over-saturated with talented people who just can’t get a break?

Bullshit.

I’m seeing this elsewhere, too. At Una Mullally’s excellent Dancing About Architecture (a music journalism lecture series) over the past four weeks, I’ve seen the apathy so-called hopeful journalists have in abundance. The venue was packed to the rafters on week one with an extensive waiting list, yet by the end, the wind and rain of a cold November meant that many didn’t bother to turn up. I was sick myself one week, but it was clear that many people who had reserved a place simply didn’t bother. And they missed some excellent stuff, with week three being positively inspirational.

I’m working a day job 9-5 to pay the bills and not spending nearly as much time as I would like, and really, as I need to, on my fledgling journalism career. I’m not working hard enough, and that’s my own fault. But when I see this kind of lark, I stop worrying and kicking myself, because I’m probably still doing more than most of these people. It’s easy to say you’re going to work in the industry, but clearly, many just aren’t that interested.

Jokers.

If you’re looking for an excellent young journalist’s discussion/blog/source of info, I highly recommend http://wannabehacks.wordpress.com/, five lads trying to break into journalism by different methods.

Posted by Dave Molloy in •Journalism
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Two weeks ago, The Guardian‘s Martin Robbins took a hefty swing at popular science journalism, particularly that of BBC Online. The piece was pretty humourous, but astonishingly it accounted for 15% of all traffic to The Guardian that day. That’s a hell of a lot of people who could relate to the author’s complaint. So exactly what is so wrong with mainstream coverage of scientific issues?

Lots, actually. Thanks in the main to links provided by my scientifically inclined journalistic friend @martinjmckenna, I’ve been reading a bit about the issue. It seems like the scientific community as a whole is sick of journalists reporting new reserach in broad strokes and completely failing to comment on the value or validity of claims. As you can read in Robbins’ follow up article, the use of weasel words and ambiguity is driving readers of science journalism insane.

They’re called ‘Scare quotes’ and they are used by writers to distance themselves from the words inside, or to indicate paraphrasing – unless you’re a cynic, in which case scare quotes are a get-out-of-jail-free card that allows journalists to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the words mentioned.

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Posted by Dave Molloy in •Journalism •Tech
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If you want some top tips for the best student newspaper experience possible, you’ll want to head over to the always excellent blog of Suzanne Yada, who has published a cracking list of the very best advice, whether you’re a writer, editor, sub or whatever.

This advice is actually the result of being interviewed by Rachel Kanigel for the forthcoming update to The Student Newspaper Survival Guide, which I recommended as a great resource the other day. Yada knows her stuff; check out her blog for plenty of interesting bits and pieces.

Posted by Dave Molloy in •Journalism
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I went to an interview recently for an online journalism position. This was actually the third interview, and I was meeting the top brass, so to speak. Then, it happened. I was asked about my blog.

More specifically, I was asked what I was writing lately, since I finished up my full-time commitments elsewhere. I talked a little about the freelance work and my clients, and thought I had handled the question well. My tech-savvy interviewer, however, looked at me and said:

Well, with the explosion of the internet, the definition of what constitutes publishing has changed. There’s nothing stopping you from writing every day. Do you have a blog or anything like that?

Well, colour me surprised. I honestly thought this would never come up in an actual real-world physical interview. I explained that yes, I did, though it had recently come through a period of not being updated. I had, in fact, just finished redesigning the blog from scratch, and would be looking to write a lot more from here on out. That didn’t impress.

I missed out on the position in the end, and I doubt a blog or lack thereof was the deciding factor. I’m just surprised that the interviewer in question brought it up. And I missed an opportunity there to talk about the highly interesting, regularly updated home of my daily writing. Food for thought, folks.

(I was also asked this question about ten times yesterday at a “creatives” discussion forum, but that’s less surprising).

Posted by Dave Molloy in •Business •Journalism •Tech
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