Sustainable Journalism

Some days I panic, some days I don’t. Yesterday I had somewhat of a momentous wobble, fearing everything beyond the end of the week let alone what will happen when I finish this course. The profession myself and my colleagues are aiming for seems as if it’s in a perpetual state of flux, in all three disciplines. I take some confidence that we are at one of the best institutions in which to be learning the craft of journalism, but seemingly these days such a skillset is simply not enough.

In order to survive we are going to need thicken our respective skins and become resilient and tenacious freelancers. Never before have journalists had to market themselves as a singular product, or all need that ruthless entrepreneurial streak running through their veins. Gone is the day where you can expect to become a BBC lifer and look forward to getting a pension. Gone is the day of fortress journalism, where the bastions of print and broadcasting fought it out against one another for the best scoop with a stranglehold on audience or readerships of a tripartite medium- print, the wireless and the tellybox. The internet has destroyed these fortresses, gradually eroding them like a dry rot rather than a cataclysmic meltdown. However, as I’ve been banging on about since the birth of this blog – the ramifications have been huge. It’s a tale of espionage by the citizen journalist and blogological warfare.

I read yesterday about the Postgraduate Journalism students of Goldsmiths in South East London, who have been working on the EastLondonLines magazine. What a great idea, a website to serve the commuters of the soon to be reopened tube line. From this they’ve already had some of their stories go national and they are really immersing themselves in the community in which they are studying. Maybe studying broadcast is a bit different, but it’s a shame we’ve been slow off the mark on this one and not combined our work as a whole, to try and market our own journalistic product.

I’ve been giving it a go with a couple of my environmentally geared colleagues with Welsh Green Dragon, but not to the extent of EastLondonLines. It’s time to get my business head on. How can I make it pay?

The deeper we get ourselves in, the more it seems like we’re on a reality TV show. I’m thinking at the moment it’s like a mixture of The Apprentice and Dragons Den. Goldsmith’s are on course for an offer from the dragons. We need to make sure we keep Margaret and Nick from getting us fired.

I dunno who Suralan (or should I say Lord Sugar of Clapton) is going to be yet but when I find out they’ll be getting my CV.