Monday, November 1st, 2010

UK journalism jobs – a graphical guide

There are more journalism jobs around these days by the looks of the classified ads on sites such as Journalism.co.uk. But what is the jobs market actually like? Journalism students are generally obsessed with sport, celebrity and music as topics of interest. How will they fare in the media jobs market? And most journalism commentators […]

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Top tips for media freelancers #5

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] The last in our series of tips for media freelancers is from freelance production editor David Powning, who follows his first rule and goes the extra mile to give us half a dozen pieces of excellent – if hardcore – freelance advice. Go the extra […]

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Top tips for media freelancers #4

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] Today’s tips come from long-time freelance sub-editor Loveday Cuming, who recognises the importance of interpersonal skills to freelance success, particularly when it comes to office-based subbing and production shifts. Be proactive with your network It’s all very well having a bulging contacts book of potential […]

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

Top tips for media freelancers #3

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] Third in our roster of freelance advisers is freelance writer and editor Stuart Derrick. Like many in the world of business print publishing, he’s found his niche specialisms and their attendant titles disappearing, and his old media skills under threat from the digital revolution. In […]

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

Top tips for media freelancers #2

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] Second in the series of tips for freelancers features writer, editor, trainer and Londoner Martin Cloake. Martin has more than 20 years’ experience in journalism and writes books about Tottenham Hotspur Football Club – the latest being The Pocket Book of Spurs. Because it’s not […]

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Top tips for media freelancers #1

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] Things are getting a tiny bit easier in the media employment world – more subbing and production shifts are on offer, and some freelance writing is starting to surface. But we’re hardly out of the woods. So this week I’m going to be running another […]

Monday, January 4th, 2010

The media recession is over – we're drowning in jobs!

Oops – no we’re not. The 273 new vacancies advertised on Journalism.co.uk turn out to be mostly repeats of the same job. Please – don’t do this to us just as we’ve got used to the idea there’s no future in media: we can’t take the disappointment.

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Gardener’s World

From your gardening correspondent: Faced with the prospect of utter media meltdown earlier this year, I thought I might end up having to forage for food around the local area, given that a lot of the work I was banking on had fallen off a cliff. I did actually scrump some apples from the lane […]

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Journalism and survival

Thanks to Greg Watts and FleetStreetBlues for weighing in on my Beyond Journalism essay. I used a comment by FleetStreetBlues on my media recession poll as a springboard for some ideas I have been developing on creativity and the way that we tend to put boundaries around the things we do in life. Though they […]

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

So, how was our media recession?

Bit mixed really, it seems, if our poll results are to be believed. In the end the votes were split pretty evenly among my slightly unscientific poll questions. Here they are: How’s your media recession? Fine, thanks. I have plenty of work (21%) It was a bit rough 9 months ago, but things have picked […]