Farewell, adieu ...for now

Six months is a long time in the online world. My residency has finished at BMS and yet I feel I have only just begun to get to grips with all the latest developments. In October I go to the back of the class when I start work on a research MA which will focus on internet communication.


My time at the school has been life changing. Yes, really! And I would like to thank everyone at Bournemouth University, lecturers and students, for all their help and support. See you soon.

PS: I left the FT in September 2006 - regards to all colleagues past and present

Citizen journalism awards

The citizen journalism awards, sponsored by Press Gazette and Nokia, raised some hackles among hacks. But no-one could argue with the quality and range of the winning entries and nominations - could they? View pictures

Lessons from Valencia

According to Spanish journalist Juan Varela at Periodistas 21 we still have much to learn about how citizen journalism can contribute to a story such as the recent metro accident in Valencia.

The Editors Weblog reports that the mainstream media in Spain gathered much of its information and images from people at the scene. According to Varela, how we use this new 'feed' presents new challenges to journalists.


* the division between testimonies that help to understand information about a tragedy versus those which only feed morbid visions of the event

* since journalism is a labour of verification, more work needs to be done by editors to make sure that images and text aren't manipulated

* mainstream media also needs to distinguish between first-hand accounts of a story and opinion from those who may be expressing their feelings about an event

* because mainstream news organizations know that their website traffic augments significantly with galleries, they must maintain the same standards of photography with citizen contributions that they do with professional photography in order not to compromise themselves

* too many citizen contributions just creates noise. The MSM must edit so that the audience doesn't become confused by too much information

Newswatch ecosystem

The digital generation are more conservative than we think with no great ambitions to overthrow big media. That was one of the lines out of Newswatch 06 at BMS on Thursday. Full coverage of the day including the afternoon panel debate 'Who owns the content?' at the AP site. And this from Press Gazette - AOL news portal to become free to all net users.

My favourite moment? The chap who said he didn't see why journalists had to engage in dialogue with readers. Would love to talk to him and continue the debate as I think I might have cut him off a bit. Any idea who he was?

BMS bloggers

BMS student bloggers Lucy Meakin (MA) and Simon Copp (BA) will be reporting Thursday's Newswatch 06 event sponsored by AP. They will be blogging for Press Gazette which has a special report this week on new media with reports by the Guardian's Simon Waldman and a piece headed 'Can you cut it in the interactive era' - by someone closely connected with this blog.

New media ecosystem

How are we all going to live together in the new media ecosystem? Just one of the questions which will be posed at Newswatch 06. See you there on Thursday.

Interactive brew

Tonight's the opening night of "Grow" the BA Interactive Media Production Degree Show at The Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, London. The exhibition runs until June 5 and showcases a wide range of interactive works produced by Bournemouth's BAIMP3 students. These include installation artworks, a touch screen kiosk, mobile phone products, cool things with webcams, websites, interactive narratives and games. For a sneak preview