We’ve been contacted by Bliss magazine, one of the country’s most successful titles in the teen market. They are looking for a male journalism student who would be up for writing a 500 word monthly column on the issues that affect teenage girls from a boy’s point of view. This could be a great opportunity […]

News is everywhere: on the internet, in newspapers and on blogs – yet original journalism is becoming endangered. News aggregation websites are filled with ‘feeds’ of news stories arranged according to topic etc., and brand themselves as news agencies. An example of this is All Headline News who paid an unspecified sum for using Associated […]

The Dutch photographer, Hugh Van Es, who has died in a Hong Kong Hospital, took some of the most memorable photographs of the Vietnam War. He worked in the country between 1969 and 1975  for Associated Press and United Press International.  Several of his images are available on line via these links and you can read a brief obitaury here. He was 67.     

News satire show Newswipe has returned to BBC4 for a second series, presented by the seemingly ubiquitous Charlie Brooker (it’s in a similar vein to his Screenwipe – about TV). The first series was certainly worth watching, mostly for the guest segments (the best of which were by Adam Curtis and Peter Oborne). Funny – […]

No script: Karadzic No script: Israeli/Palestinian   STORY: British retail banks should be stopped from paying big cash bonuses and use the money instead to support new lending, the opposition Conservatives’ finance spokesman insisted on Monday (October 26). “What about the government’s banking package and the Prime Minister’s promise that the era of the big […]

Lecture notes on social services and Access to Information now available in module notes. Paul

There will be no editorial conference tomorrow, Tuesday 23 Feb. I have to be in London to judge the 2010 Reuters/UACES Reporting Europe competition. Many apologies. I shall be back, fresh as a spring lamb and twice as fragrant, on Wednesday.

With Twitter emerging as great source for rapid and concise news, many of the nation’s journalists have taken to the social networking site and now use it both an outlet aswell as a source for information. With the likes of the BBC, CNN and Sky News all taking to the social networking site, reporting a […]

We will spend some time in tomorrow’s class to ensure everyone is on the same page getting ready for the essay. Amy is putting up some links for the benefit particularly of the MA students. I recommend any student who hasn’t read, listened to or watched the following do so before class: 1.John Simpson’s TV […]

Just before the second year undergraduates head to the pub to celebrate the conclusion of your final exam this afternoon, it’s time to look forward to next year. Before term ends on 18 June, you’ll need to have submitted a number of outline proposals for your third year projects. We’ll be going through the rules of […]

The roles for this Friday’s Year 3 assessed print news day are as follows: Editors: Angela Davey, Dean Kilpatrick, Dan May Executives: James Averill, Ella Copeland, Joe Cladingboel Assessed reporters: George Ocaya, Melanie Wimmer, Alex Dack, Danielle Cheney, Paul Dunne, Grant Gibb, Sophie Jackson, Sara Malm, Jade Selby, Eva Tsipi, Jason West, Laura Hartmann News […]

James Murdoch’s resignation from News International is perhaps a rather effective way of killing two birds with one stone. In the ever continuing midst of last summer’s phone hacking scandal, the reputation of the company has failed to recover. It’s been just six months since the closure of leading title News of the World and […]

Operation Moshtarak may have sounded good on paper, but as McChrystal knows – and is at pains to point out – it’s no good if civilians keep getting killed. Bad PR for NATO.

I have been infuriated by news reporting of the controversy surrounding the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Time and again editors have tried to pin blame on the UK government without considering the bald fact that this decision was taken in Scotland by a Scottish Nationalist government. The pack has been motivated more by ideology than by any desire to […]

Lance Armstrong was the story so many people wanted to believe.  I recall some of my most impressionable school days sat through morning assemblies listening to teachers and guest speakers talk of the most inspirational stories and people of our day.  Armstrong was chief among them, and was cited as an example on a number […]

As many of you know, I dream of editing in tabloids, so I couldn’t let the phone-hacking scandal at my beloved News International go uncommented.  Currently doing work experience at The Sun, I’m smack-bang in the middle of it all, and I have written about it on my blog Scandilous Life on The Medwire. “As a journalism student infatuated with […]

Last night on Radio 4’s The World Tonight, there was a package on Northern Ireland that went on for over 9 minutes. You can listen to it here. It starts at around 15 minutes into the programme. Is a package this long worth doing?

Having had to sit on the sidelines for what must have seemed like an eternity, watching daily Telegraph exclusives on MPs’ expenses, The Guardian is hoping making its mark on the story with an interesting crowdsourcing experiment. It is publishing all of the heavily-censored documents released today under FoI legislation on its web site and is asking readers to help its team […]

MA students: 10.30am-11.30am Year One students: 11.30-12.30pm

In sport, great victories and moments of pure genius can be toppled by sheer incompetence, idiocy or outrage. Take England’s disastrous football World Cup exit in South Africa in June with Frank Lampard’s wrongly disallowed goal which in some quarters overshadowed Germany’s emphatic  4-1 winning performance and England’s deficiencies. Or perhaps last October’s revelations by tennis’ Andre […]

After hearing word that the peaceful protesters on Parliament Sqaure had lost their appeal I decided to venture down to London to find out! I took the trusty camera and a couple of friends and had a word with some of the now locals on the square. It seems that they have become a nice little community. […]

The Easter work placements for first years at the Kent Messenger Group have now been allocated. The list of dates and locations is below. If there is  a compelling reason why you can’t fulfil  your allotted placement, please let a member of staff know immediately. You’ll be required to make contact with your editor directly nearer the time […]

This week introduced the new Google SPYW (Search Plus Your World) which has fallen sharply into a love/hate divide by Google users across the world.  The feature will be used on Google to give more personalised search results aimed at the individual user, based on previous searches and who and what they have on their […]

We are running a little low on radio mikes for the Third Year newsday tomorrow, Thursday. Anyone not using a radio mike you have checked out on please check it back in with Gerardo tomorrow, Thursday, morning. We will most likely be able to reissue the radio mike to you by early afternoon.