Speaking to a group of journalism students soon, and so will be asking them if any know what a weblog is. I’m always disappointed by the response - last time, one hand from a group of 15 went up, and she was an American who’d heard about blogs before she came over.
Yet blogs, to my eye, represent the best way for young journalists to show what they can really do, unencumbered by space, subject or cautious editors. It proves motivation, a certain degree of technical literacy and, most of all, a connection with the world in which they want to work. It should really be one hand in 15 not going up.
And it appears that Neil Stevenson, founder of Popbitch and ex editor of the Face, agrees:
“If I was starting again now, banging my head against the walls at dance magazines, I would definately start a weblog. At least that way you have examples of your voice, opinions and writing skills out in the public domain and you don’t have to struggle to get clippings.”
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COMMENTS / 6 COMMENTS
Jackie Danicki added these pithy words on Nov 22 04 at 6:03 pmIf you were talking to students in the US, France, Japan, Poland or Iran, probably all 15 students would know what a blog is. The UK is, maddeningly, lagging far behind the rest of the world when it comes to awareness of blogging.
pieman added these pithy words on Nov 23 04 at 2:45 amTosh, can you let us know what these students say after you’ve drilled them? Keen to find out what the word with the youth is on blogs. Is it really just the thirtysomethings with all the ideas in UKblogdom?
Couldn’t agree more on your point though. Blogs are like fanzines without the prittstick and ‘actual’ cutting & pasting and minus the expensive photocopying costs. My fanzine cost me more to produce in 1985 than my blog does today. The blog looks better too.
Jack added these pithy words on Nov 29 04 at 11:00 pm“You don’t have to struggle to get clippings”? I really wouldn’t fancy anyone’s chances cold-calling an editor for work and pointing to a weblog as evidence of journalistic experience.
And I think the difference between fanzines (which you certainly used to be able to use to wangle those scary first jobs) and weblogs is that even the crudest fanzine screamed ‘This person really, really wants to write about stuff! Enough to blow all their money on something twenty friends and a Japanese schoolgirl will read! Give them a chance!’. Weblogs just don’t give off those signals, do they?
pieman added these pithy words on Nov 30 04 at 6:35 amDepends how you do it Jack.
A journalism student with enough nouse to put together a well written blog that really tackles a particular issue of interest to them would, I think, go down really well with a prospective employer.
If I was an Science/Environment Editor, I’d probably be keener to chat with someone who came to me passionate about their blog delving into the decline in the UK sparrow population than someone who brings in the odd clip from the Canterbury Echo’s ‘Country Diary’ pages.
Just as I did in fanzine days, I could go off and interview people and blog the findings. Maybe try and sell a story or two. Before you’ve finished your journo course, you could well end up a recognised and respected resource on sparrows or whatever.
Jack Mottram added these pithy words on Nov 30 04 at 9:52 pmI’m still not sure - I know that if I were in a position to commission that a well-written weblog would mean a lot more than mediocre clippings, but, at a guess, more than half the editors I deal with would either laugh, because they have a half-baked, LiveJournal-ish idea of what weblogs are, and the other half just wouldn’t know what our sparrow-fancier was on about. (Of course, I may just deal with a freak set of non-weblog reading editors.) I don’t doubt that this is changing as we speak, it’s just that we’re not quite at the point where a weblog can be seen as an alternative to the old-fashioned routes into writing for a living.
pieman added these pithy words on Dec 01 04 at 10:30 amYou’re no doubt absolutely right about the majority of Editors, but who wants to work for the majority? Go for a job/work placement with the likes of Tosh’s paybitch and a decent weblog could just swing things in your favour. How many new fanzines do you see coming out these days? And how does that number correlate against Technorati’s blogboom figures?
Also, the process of publishing a blog, via typepad for example, really isn’t that much different from the way newspapers get printed these days either. At the very minimum bloggers learn about modern production processes by doing it themsleves than non-bloggers. By comparison, a Fanzine producer is still in the stone age, even if he’s well flash and uses Quark Xpress.
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