English Journalist based in Stockholm

One of the great things about working with words is being able to diversify. Yes, I enjoy translating and copywriting, but I particularly like journalism. Over the last few weeks I’ve been lucky enough to wear my journalist hat, talking to key researchers and exchange students at Stockholm University.

I’ve been interviewing and writing the last few days but there are already a stack of pieces up on the university’s website available here.

Journalists Beware

An ad over on Craigslist under writing gigs amused me this morning. It’s typical of web start-ups looking to get people working for free. There’s plenty of enthusiasm here. Hell, the future looks so bright I’m sure the “team” are all wearing shades. Still, its typical of the kind of rubbish I see all too often. Media people trying to get people to write for free with the promise of bigger things to come. 

Newsrooms Go Video

The Star-Ledger in New Jersey recently broadcast its first live, daily noon news show on the web. Although it was a tad rambling, I’m convinced this is the way forward for local news websites.

What better way to show your audience what’s happening in the region.

Thankfully, The Ledger took some good advice from Michael Rosenblum and decided to make the videos conversational webcasts that are a million miles away from the stylized crud TV news insists on shoving down our throats.

I loved the way reporter Brian Donohue seemed at ease chatting to the camera. His enthusiasm for the project was infectious and it’s clear that as the Net gets faster and faster, newsrooms around the world will be turning to more and more varieties of digial visual content. 

With The Trib launch just a few weeks away I’m beginning to play around with vlogging. The Star-Ledger’s initiative is really inspiring.

Blog Critics Put the Squeeze on Print-media

Absolutely fascinating article in The Observer this weekend about how the rise of bloggers is leading to stacks of professional critics being given the boot by newspapers.

One thing that struck me about the article was the pompous, arrogance of print-media critics typified by Brian Sewell, art critic of the Evening Standard, who declared: “The onlooker sees most. We are the skilled onlookers.”

Yes, I agree you are skilled Brian, but have the humility to get involved in the discussion. And wake up to the fact that the media is changing. Nowadays you need to engage your audience. Many blogging-critics do this. Plus they grasp the immediacy of the medium.

Nowadays there’s immediate response and commentary on the Net; newspapers are struggling to keep up with the pace of Ents reviewing.

Michael Billington, The Guardian’s theatre critic for more than 35 years, at least recognizes the need for critics to embrace new media practice. Then again, he works for the publishers of a newspaper which, historically, has embraced the online world with more enthusiasm than others.

Billington has been forced to join the debate on the web. His first piece for Guardian Unlimited (now guardian.co.uk) was about The Sultan’s Elephant, a public art installation involving a huge mechanical pachyderm striding through London in 2006.

“I wrote a piece attacking it and got hundreds of comments,” says Billingon. “They clobbered me. I wasn’t used to getting such a response…I was suddenly aware that there was an army of people with opinions as strong as mine. Journalists of my generation have to adapt. And we have to accept that the printed word no longer has aristocratic supremacy.”

For all The Guardian’s pro-blog approach, however, the article still fails to provide any links to the actual blogs it mentions. Typical. 

Swedish Blogging Goes Mainstream

Following a link on Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter this morning took me somewhat by chance to Allt om barn (literally, Everything About Kids). It’s not the kind of site I ordinarily visit but I took a bit of time to look around because the green colour caught my attention.

Allt Om Barn is part of the same corporate media empire that is responsible for DN and Expressen, two of the biggest media players in Sweden.

What kept my interest longer than a nanosecond, besides the colour green, was that I found it intriguing to see a corporate site working so hard to involve blogging. A selection of PR staff, columnists, editors and writers, linked by their interest in children, are blogging actively about family life and all that entails. Including parting shots of Expression’s newsroom.

It seems that this year is the year that blogging is really beginning to go main stream in Sweden. It’s no longer now just the territory of the hip and innovative. It’s appearing on what I would really consider corporate media sites and becoming part of the general media fodder. To put it another way; it’s light, bright and shiny online textual content. It’s cropping up as a natural way to generate web-traffic and, more importantly, build and hold an audience.

If you don’t read Swedish it’s a shame because site editor Ninni Schulman’s blog is both entertaining and informative.

It will be curious to see if Allt Om Stockholm embraces blogging too.

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