Just the other night I was watching Mastermind. On it was Football Focus presenter Dan Walker , who accounted some advice he was given by Des Lynam as a child, in regards to how to become a BBC football journalist.

“He told me to get a good undergraduate degree – not in media, and then do a post-graduate journalism qualification.” Queue nods of agreement from John Humphreys.

This followed a recent lunch with a friend and BBC correspondent  who said that it was still ‘difficult’ for graduates with first degrees in journalism to get jobs in the organisation.

“We prefer them to have a proper academic degree first,” she said. “And then they should train on the job while doing a post-grad qualification.”

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Students working in Teesside University's news studio

I have a number of issues with this ill-informed bias demonstrated in some quarters of this great profession of ours.

Firstly, it does not allow for the fact by demanding an unfunded post-grad qualification, following an already expensive undergrad degree, fewer and fewer kids from working class backgrounds are going to break in to the industry.

Now I’m not having a pop at traditional ‘academic degree at a Redbrick/20-week postgraduate course’ route in to journalism just because I lead an undergraduate programme. It’s the way I – and the majority of my colleagues over the years – trained.

But I was also lucky. I’d done so much unpaid works experience for my local newspaper by the time I graduated, the then editor gave me some paid shifts to cover the tuition fees of my post-grad course.

If he hadn’t – like many of the students we teach at Teesside - I would not have been able to afford another course after university to open the magic door to industry. I’m pleased that because we are NCTJ accredited our students can get their professional qualifications as part of their degree programme.

Secondly, these limited views show little understanding of the level and variety of technical and practical skills needed by young reporters attempting to break in to the industry today.

Our students learn how record and edit video and audio for both broadcast and online. They come up with concepts for original news websites; then monetize them; then build them.

They can produce interactive graphics using a range of data; design and sub-edit news pages; use Photoshop to create interesting and dynamic story illustration; come up with short and long-term policies for search engine optimisation; organise participatory campaigns with audience; they news-gather, in the real world to produce  a website, newspaper, and news programmes for TV and radio for campus.

They are multi-skilled to reflect the needs of a converged industry.

On top of this they do their professional exams, including learning shorthand to 100 words a minute. They are in classes up to 18 hours a week. It’s great value for money for them – and puts the six hours of week lectures I did for my ‘proper academic degree’ to shame.

This means they are really employable. In this time of decreased opportunity we’ve got graduates working in journalism, online content creation and PR posts for employers as diverse as steel companies to local newspapers, from fashion catalogue websites to sub-editing agencies and even – perhaps best of all , for themselves, creating new revenue.

Finally, this snobbery around undergraduate programmes works on an assumption that academic and practical learning are separate entities.

It infers the training of journalists is primarily about teaching process and that somehow a first degree in an academic subject will automatically foster critical thinking in the workplace.

But how can you teach process and practice without teaching students the cultural significance? Understanding Baudrillard or Foucault is great. But being able to utilise it to explore issues and debates in the field you are going to work in is surely better.

It enables you not only to understand the societal obligations of the industry, but when your publication is fulfilling and when they are ignoring them – thus being able to challenge the status quo. As Chris Paterson and David Domingo argue in the second volume of Making Online News:

“Journalists to not exist in a vacuum, and a young journalist with little concept of journalistic obligation, of the social context of the field, and of the possibilities, limitations and evolution of the latest forms of journalistic practice, may well do society, and the news organisation, more harm than good.” (2011: viii)

In these times of increased media scrutiny  one of the greatest opportunities afforded by longer training courses is space to foster informed ethical practitioners who have a deep understanding of the modern media landscape, how we’ve got here, and how we can make it better. Journalists who see that without them democracy would fail, and that they are essentially, servants of the public.

It takes an entire generation of well-trained and dynamic young people to change an industry. And for me, that’s what training over three years rather than cramming it in to 20 weeks gives us the opportunity to do.

While – limitations to kids from lower socio-economic backgrounds aside – I have no issue with the traditional red-brick/post grad qualification route into journalism, I am under no illusions that I entered the industry better qualified to work in it than the graduates leaving our undergraduate degree.

Indeed, what I say to our students is that if they engage fully with the opportunities on offer, they can leave the institution with the same level of training and experience I had post my senior journalism qualification which I sat after 18 months in industry.

This is topped by a broad knowledge base of how the industry operates and how it could be improved, which I didn’t really get until I entered the world of academia. Few journalists I know really have the time to investigate how the industry could improve.

There are lots of employers who see the opportunity of employing one of our grads.  Sly Bailey, CEO of Trinity Mirror Newspapers, said: “Teesside has produced what many in the industry see as one of Britain’s leading, groundbreaking journalism degree courses.

“Producing your own paper, working on your own stories and having a website - as well as learning entrepreneurial journalism and how to monetize content,  sets this course apart.”

But there remains areas who won’t even consider them, based on an antiquated sense of how journalists should be trained, which increasingly seems rooted in snobbery.

It’s time they woke up.

It’s a a cosmic- looking social curation community tool, which allows collaboration between like-minded peeps for information building and sharing. Think a more visual delicio.us, meets Storify, meets a kind of LinkedIn which introduces you to others by similarities in the content you’ve shared.

I’ve been using it to gather and find up-to-date information on digital journalism and storytelling for third year students, but I think it could be a really interesting way to create backgrounders for news.

At first glance I thought you couldn’t embed your Pearltrees on to WordPress.  A little hunting around the internet brought me to Vodpod, which allowed me to use my Pearltree embed code to create a video of one of my Pearltrees (see below.) Actually Vodpod is lovely too. Great usability –  which feels somehow more  intuitive than YouTube.

However, while at first it appeared as a video within the body of this blog, when I published it, it became a link (see below). That extra click is getting right on my nerves. Back to the drawing board -  suggestions gratefully received.

It needs Flash to work, so IPhone lot, we’re out of luck (allow the App already Apple!). But hey, we may all be buying PCs anyway this year, if you believe the hype about the new ultrabooks.

If you’re interested in similar things, why not team up with me. I’ve got some Pearltrees on the go at the moment on WordPress, collaborative working and digital journalism.

http://cdn.pearltrees.com/s/embed/getApp

Soothing words from Mr Harrison.

I was really enjoying it before, what is now referred to in Chez Usher, as ‘the bad time.’

Many thanks to the numerous former colleagues and journos I’ve never even met who defended me. To others who saw it as an opportunity to sling some mud, I really wish you nothing but blessings, love and peace. (I know, I’m a right cheesy hippy…)

So now I’ve been exonerated and made all the statements I am going to about the whole affair, I’m going to get back to one of the things I like to do most. Musing about the news!

Is there anyone still out there…….?

Today, this video really grabbed my attention. Not only because it is an example of police brutality on a peaceful protest, or the fact that their peaceful reaction finally diffuses the situation, – I found the ending incredibly moving – but because of the number of people newsgathering at the scene.

Look at the crowd. From mobile phones, to iPads to traditional cameras, there are dozens of people recording these events from different viewpoints. It is becoming increasingly difficult for authorities to deny or misrepresent events. And this has huge significance for how they conduct themselves.

My good friend Einar Thorsen and his research buddy Stuart Allan published a fantastic book on citizen journalism and it’s effect on newsgathering. The introduction can be read for free here.

You only have to consider the unlawful killing of Ian Tomlinson  – and the fact a citizen handed it to The Guardian – to bring it to public attention to see the positive effects of citizen and traditional media working together.

However, in Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives Einar and Stuart  also explore not only the benefits but the potential risks facing some news organisations who have allowed citizen content to appear unvetted.

For me, a professional journalists job is to check, steer and give context to citizen or user-generated context. To allow it to appear without context, reduces its value for the audience.

It should not be the key news gathering resource. And that fundamentally changes the system of news production, as this table by the Media Center at the  American Press Institute demonstrates.

If you want to keep up with a range of videos from the worldwide Occupy movement – which is not getting the attention it deserves from the mainstream media, subscribe to OperationLeakS YouTube site.

It would be great if traditional media were giving more attention to some of the fantastic content up there. But reporting of the Occupy Movement from a protester point of view in the mainstream media is increasingly sparse.

I’ve used Storify to attach my favourite ones into this post. Guardian, Reuters and Mail Online do this particularly well, with week or 24 hours in pictures. Their media galleries are easy to use and the captions tell the story in a nutshell. It also enables them to use striking images which are not associated with a specific news story, which may, otherwise, not be published.

Nick Ut of the Press Association's historic Vietnam War picture -one of the most memorable news images of all time.

This week my two favourite images are of a man taking plastic balls to market in India and a woman stepping off a bus into water in the Thai floods, both of which can be found in more than one of these galleries.
View the story “Fantastic Picture Galleries” on Storify]

I’d love to be able to embed those images into Mused News, or to create my own Week in News gallery which included them.

But if I was to gather the most striking images from other news organisations and picture agencies, I risk falling foul of copyright law and getting sued. Indeed some picture agencies have employed staff whose only job is to trail the interweb looking for pictures nicked without payment.

There are free copyright images out there, but you have to make sure you know what you are looking for, and they are often only useful for generic shots.

Today, I decided to use three databases – FlickrCC , Compfight and Wylio -  which allow searches for copyright free news stories to see if I can create my own, legally safe, Week in Pictures.

These databases are popular with photojournalists – some of whom allow their pictures to be used online for non-commercial purposes (like me – I’m making nowt off this blog)- and as such are a good place  to start.

I decided to be slightly more focused than many of the traditional news outlets, who will go for striking images regardless of their news value, and focus on specific leading stories from this week.

The stories I chose were; the Conrad Murray verdict; the Thai floods; Armistice Day; Syria being suspended from the Arab Nations and Berlusconi’s resignation following the Italian austerity debate.

After two hours and only two images later, I gave up. The truth is, if I was after generic shots rather than time specific, this would be far easier. But getting up to date news pictures is very difficult.

So I had a bit of a rethink and have come up with two plans of action.

1) Long term: I’ve emailed a major picture agency (I won’t name them yet), and asked, as this is a non-commercial enterprise, would they be willing to allow me to use their images.  I reckon it’s worth a go. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

2) Short term: I’ve used twitpic to gather some of the best images posted on twitter in relation to these news stories. In order to follow twitpic’s copyright rules, I’ve had to embed these pictures so when you click on them you are taken back to the twitpic post. I tried to create a gallery with them in Photobucket and using Flash, but using embed code instead of directly uploading the images made this impossible. (Any bright ideas gratefully received.)

So I’ll hand it over to you to decide how successful my exercise has been. I’ve captioned the pictures to give them a more ‘newsy’ slant, instead of using the original tweet.  Some of the pictures are better than others and obviously the usability is pants. However, I’ve also tweeted the people whose pictures they are to ask if they will waive copyright for me, and thus I could put them in to a gallery to compare usability.  Again, I’ll keep you posted.

Bangkok in chaos as flood waters rise. (@msnbcphotos)

Commuters leave their poppies on the tomb of the own known soldier after work on Armistice Day. (@cherylfougere)

Berlusconi looks tense during Italian austerity debate. (@presstvmobile)

Fans wait anxiously for Conrad Murray manslaughter verdict. (@MrChris82)

Syrian government forces continue to target civilians sparking suspension from the Arab Nations. (@Amazigh_Syria)

Berlusconi: Pull my finger?

In the Italian Senate, right now, the debate is taking place which will mark the end of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s political career.

Berlusconi is the kind of politician most journalists would give their back teeth to interview.

Not because during his seventeen years as a politican have changed the European politicial scene for the better. Quite the opposite, his financial policies of tax reduction for the rich have contributed to the current financial disaster by extending Italian debt.

But Berlusconi simply can’t keep his trap shut – and what comes out is the kind of  nonsense that fills column inches, and keeps the public enthralled.

To mark the parting of the media favourite the interweb went mad yesterday with Top Ten Berlusconi gaffes features.

Here I’ve gathered the best ones for you A top ten list of gaffe lists if you will. Reading these really is a fun way to start the weekend.

I’ve used Storify – a really cool piece of software which allows you to gather content from across the web.

Journos – it’s an excellent resource for online news backgrounders!

View the story “Berlusconi’s Best Bloopers” on Storify]

This week’s cool site – a long street in Zurich  -shows the possibilities of usings streetmaps for hyperlocal journalism. The functionality is lovely…

Thanks to Mark Handscomb for the tip off.

As the paper’s two stalwart librarians  –  who guarded the cuttings files with a rod of iron – were laid off a couple of years ago, I asked how journalists now do a cuts check on stories.

“We google it,” she said.

“And if it doesn’t come up, we’re pretty much screwed.”

Ten years ago this wouldn’t have been as much of a problem. In the newsroom of this local newspaper (and many others) there were journalists who had been there since the Arc with an encyclopedic knowledge of the paper and it’s community.

Now, as the number of reporters dwindle  –  and trainees fill the shoes of experienced seniors  – the knowledge in the newsroom of the stories which made the paper great has dwindled too.

Putting aside the potential legal issues (do a cuts check to avoid repeating a libel – remember that one from McNae’s?), there are clearly issues about how well that newspaper can serve the community.

Because if reporters don’t know where the newspaper has been, how the hell can they know where is should be heading? How can they know what matters most to the readers they serve?

And meanwhile the powers that be wonder why readers are trickling away like grains of hands through grasping fingers….

It is written for journalism professionals, students and academics as well as those who have an interest in the news industry, by Bethany Usher, programme leader for Multimedia Journalism at Teesside University.

Bethany is a former Fleet Street journalist who worked for various national newspapers, before becoming an academic whose research interests include the celebrification of politicans in print news and the effects of the digital revolution on news production.

On the left you will see ‘musings’ on various aspects of the journalism industry. If you have any information about what’s going on in  newsrooms up and down the country right now – or want to highlight something you thing Mused News should be focusing on please get in touch with us below, or tweet us @bethanyusher.

This twitter feed includes a variety of information pertinent to the creation and teaching of journalism.

So happy together.

And look at William…all grown up. Ready to become a husband.  Girding his loins to provide the country with its third heir in waiting.

It’s all so heartwarming. In these times of austerity and cuts, it gives us something to believe in. A fairytale to distract us from the difficulties of a nation.

I, for one, could barely contain my excitement. As I’m planning my own wedding next summer, I’m left in a state of fluttering anxiety, wondering when their big day will fall. Will we be married on the same day? Will I forever share an anniversary with Queen Kitty? It would be such an honour…

The Sun dedicated ten pages to the nuptials of our future King and his ‘middle class’  (but millionaire’s daughter) bride. “Quite rightly”, I hear you cry, “What else could be more important? This is Diana’s son we’re talking about!”

And what could be bigger news than her son getting married ? Certainly not Cameron’s sacking his media entourage. None of us really cared that it was costing £80k a year to fund his private media army did we?

And the fact that children’s centres in deprived areas will no longer be obliged to offer full daycare or hire staff with both Qualified Teacher and Early Years Professional status, announced by Children’s minister Sarah Teather at the Daycare Trust conference, isn’t really important is it? Those working class oiks don’t care who looks after their kids anyway.

Lets be honest, the less educated the working classes are the better, because that might stop it being a problem the Government also scrapped Aimhigher, the national programme to get working-class youngsters into England’s universities,  at the same time as fees for university students are trebled. I mean the pesky 50,000 students who marched last week to protest HE cuts won’t care about that, will they? 

And the small fact that 3000 jobs are set to be cut from the Greater Manchester Police Force, representing a 23 per cent cut in the workforce over the next four years – contrary to promises to protect frontline services – won’t affect anyone. Who would care about a little news story like that?

Anyway, perhaps a little belt tightening is in order. Because after all the nation has a wedding to pay for. And what, after all, could be more important than that?