Recently I've been reading a lot of articles/tweets about journalism students needing more than just the traditional skills; they need entrepreneurial skills. Goldsmith's journalism department featured in this morning's Media Guardian for possessing those exact skills. It also mentions Birmingham, City, Newcastle... but not Kent.
(Yes, here she goes again...)
So there I was, sitting at the start of the Power without Responsibility lecture, thinking we're going to have a big gap here after Christmas. At first, I tried to remember what free time felt like, failing that, I began to think of things that we could do in that time...
Perhaps the idea of a tabloid-style website wasn't popular, but can we just make a website? I don't mind if it covers solely students or a wider audience. We're halfway through our time at university now - isn't it about time that we started hitting the headlines?
You never know, we might all leave here, fail to become employed, and all those late nights of coffee-chugging, just to meet multiple deadlines, will seem pointless. Referring back to the second article I linked to - "With media jobs being cut, we are aiming to do it ourselves - to make a living from our journalism."
Comments
I'd be up for it
Do you mean set up something and do it all from our various homes over the break? Should we have that meeting we keep talking about and discuss it/the magazine?
We could talk about it on the
We could talk about it on the last Wednesday before we break up - think most of our deadlines are finished by then, right? Want to book the room, John?
Sounds good.
Free time makes me lazy anyway.
Probably shouldn't just cover students, though. Finding stuff to fill a monthly magazine has been hard enough. It isn't as if the campus is exactly alive with activity. On the way to the newsroom today every group of people I walked past made reference to so and so's facebook status.... fun.
+ You have a Twitter feed! That should pretty much make it worth doing in itself, right?!
I'm sorry but...
...the campus is simply buzzing with activity. Lack of activity = complaints about lack of activity, it all balances out! There is a wealth of stuff going on out there waiting to be tapped into... Any time I go out I get talking to people about their on-campus experiences and I always uncover new angles to check out in the future ^^ Gotta say how much I'm loving the Medway atmosphere already and how after Christmas I 'm looking to get stuck into what I've seen to be a incredibly vibrant news scene so far here at Medway!
Hope this didn't offend anyone (sorry if it did!) but seriously, there is so much stuff going on in our campus to investigate further that it's just brilliant! My one problem is settling on a line to explore instead of trying to cover it all...
On the idea of a website: EXCELLENT. I actually started planning to do this, so if you want to go ahead with it I would LOVE to be greatly involved! It's a fantastic opportunity and I want to be at the heart of it if I can! (;
Elaborate on this "wealth of
Elaborate on this "wealth of stuff" for me, please.
Where does one start?
This reply is also partly in response to Ali's comment as regard being a politician and a journalist. Where I got almost all my ideas and policies for my election campaign was in fact from searching for stories on campus as a journalist in the weeks since I got here. There is quite literally a mine of stories out there and just from talking to people you can find all sorts of angles to chase, like:
I could go on for ages yet, I'm nowhere near short on suggestions of stories that someone could do relating to the campus or campus life. Really, it's absolutely thriving with them! Talk to people and the stories just abound.
Fair enough...
...but Rob wasn't just saying that there's nothing going on on campus (a debate I'm not getting dragged into), but that it's been hard getting a magazine together. In other words, it's all well and good having lots of ideas, but we need people and the time to write them all. That's what's been hard, too.
Not disagreeing there...
Fair enough, but I was responding to the point asking me to elaborate. It's to my eternal shame that I myself still haven't managed to find the time to write a single article for UMM...
It is true that a blog or website is a lot easier to run and less time consuming in many ways, which is why when I ran a student newspaper in my old school that I switched to a blog when I couldn't get the resources I needed (though this was also linked to heavy censorship imposed by my school). But at the same time, a physical newspaper/magazine is just (to me) more impressive and potentially it's also going to be looked at more than a website since it can be physically be handed out to people.
The idea of setting up a blog or website though, great as it does sound to me, would worry me in that it would potentially split people helping between the magazine and the blog to the detriment of both. What would work certainly is if once you are sure you have a solid and established magazine, with regular writers, you then create a website to support it.
Or perhaps you could distribute the magazine as an e-zine in addition to it's current physical format; hopefully lowering costs, not requiring too much additional work and maybe reaching a wider audience.
Key Point
You're right, it needs the writers.
We could have 100 ideas (and you have shut me up, to a point, on that). But when you only have around 5 or 6 people willing to regularly give up time to thrash out stories it will collapse. It has already become apparent after just three issues that it is a struggle.
The site is a great idea because, yes, it is easier to maintain and Becci and the other editors don't have to faff around designing a magazine with no stories to go in it.
But with the space left by Power Without Responsibility next year, hopefully it'll be a success story.
On that wave of positivity... I'm going to watch Rocky... erm... IV I think.
There have always been a lot
There have always been a lot of rumors about the swimming pool building – it’s the one next to the gym. All I know is that none of the universities want to buy it – but apparently they signed a contract to say that they’d have all the building “up to scratch” by 2010. I don’t know whether or not the latter is true.
As for Purple, I don’t think UMSA tried that hard to make it into a decent venue – who told you that out of interest? UMSA? Last time I walked past, it was once again full of storage. They need more space for the shop. Paul, if you become activities officer – get your hands on the results of the survey… I’m skeptical that students want a bigger campus shop instead of Purple, as they’ve told me.
RAG has a different executive this year... Apparently they left it too late to organize RAG week. So I’m assuming they haven’t raised as much as they did last year. We’ve offered them space in the magazine to advertise. They just haven’t done anything about it yet.
I know they’re charging for Greenwich coaches this year and it’s more than in 1999. The reason behind it I’m not sure about. Either way, at least they have a coach. We were going to look into this over Christmas for the mag.
Societies and clubs – I’ve been told that LGBT have been asking for the list of societies to be updated for ages – and they still haven’t. It even still says that Pulp is still around, and that’s been gone for 2 (?) years. Most sports societies have games most weeks – they’ve been sent various emails to send in match reports – only one has so far.
As for articles being “easy to do”, it’s true – but no one wants to do it, do they?
Strong allegations? The Facebook group flashed up in my feed after you joined it, so I read it. What’s this investigation? Only all the Facebook page says is “speculations and observations”. I was told that Canterbury Christ give the most money to UMSA. I also noticed that not a single Greenwich student had bothered to comment on the page. Besides, Greenwich own Coopers etc.
Our representatives are being changed this year – hence the elections. Although I noticed only 4 people on the list. Elections – always a shamble. Barely anyone knew they took place last year and the people who are elected have seemingly done nothing. I'd like to know how much they pay the election woman.
The rowing team is already writing an article for January’s edition.
Coopers – my housemate’s not home so I can’t ask her, but it was probably because they couldn’t get anyone to work.
Gym – the gym is Greenwich’s gym, although we can use it. Kent put their money into the Black Lion, which is why we can use it for free on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
So Paul, why not write some of these stories? They don’t write themselves...
If I can...I will!
Thanks for the feedback, and I certainly want to write for the magazine, it's a question of right now having too many things happening to find the time...
As I said in another comment on this page, it is to my shame that I have not yet had the time to write any of these stories - it's not like I haven't tried! I also said in another comment that I was looking forward to getting stuck into writing stories after Christmas, when I know I'll finally have a lot more time to spare.
But if I find time before then I'll definitely contribute! (;
My source on UMSA's stance on Purple was what was said at a meeting on setting up & running societies - it was mentioned that they were trying to get more societies to organise events that used the space in Purple so they could keep it open and use it more, since last year they tried and still it wasn't used as much as it could be. If it's not used this year, it was said, it will probably end up being changed for some other use. Whether as a different venue, a bigger shop or just storage space, it wasn't specified and from the looks of the survey sent out UMSA are still trying to decide.
As to the 'strong allegations'...these turned up after I also saw the facebook group and then asked Greenwich students what they felt about the matter. Many of them had no idea, but a few did have strong words on the subject. What I haven't got is fact to back this up - actually checking UMSAs funding it becomes clear Greenwich contributes a lot more than Kent does, so these allegations may have absolutely no grounds.
You start NCTJ lectures and gov/pol after Christmas, Paul
"A lot more time spare" is the opposite of what you'll have (that is, at the CfJ).
I don't mean to be a scrooge, but my point is this: if you're waiting to 'find' the time, then you never will. You've got to make it.
(PS: I don't mean to be harsh - but we're all in the same boat here, mate. I know the first term is like being dropped in the deep end (upside down, into a pit of writhing maggots, with your hands tied behind your back, at three hundred degrees celsius) whilst trying to hold breath as you have a panic attack. Don't worry, though, you ain't seen nothin' yet. ;) )
 No worries, I'm actually not
No worries, I'm actually not finding the course too demanding yet (people look at me strangely when I say this, but intense as the course is I'm not feeling overloaded yet!). I am trying to make time, but it's not the course that's taking up most of it - it's commitments to projects I was involved in before I started uni that I'm in the process of finishing off/handing over to others. After the Christmas hols this will be virtually done and dusted :)
Such a politician...
...and being a journalist AND a politician (at the same time) is not possible. I will try and get some stories for a website but whenever I have tried to do things for the magazine I have failed epically.
In the words of a journalist...
That's news to me.
Brilliant
Simply brilliant comment there Rob :D
Count me in
Count me in as well.
Match Reports
I will do hockey match reports (if I'm at the match)
Motivational Tool?
Since reviews are quite fun to write and pretty personal to the person doing them (and are the things that fill up quickly apparently)... Write articles and you get to write reviews ha.
Although.. that could back-fire. But try to look at it more as rewarding the people that do write articles rather than it being punishment for people who don't.