Dearest darling Jezebel,

As a sometimes angry, mostly hysterical feminist with a passion for gender politics and reproductive rights and a penchant for pretty boys and trash TV, I thought I’d never find the perfect news website for me. All the “SERIOUS FEMINIST” sites were no good for a laugh on my lunch break and the other women’s mags just made me feel fat while they tried to sell me concealer.

Then you came along. I can’t even remember how we first met, but now I can’t imagine life before you. How do I love you? Let me count the ways…

The Postgrad blows Jezebel a kiss.

In your manifesto you say you will “attempt to take all the essentially meaningless but sweet stuff directed our way and give it a little more meaning, while taking more the serious stuff and making it more fun, or more personal, or at the very least the subject of our highly sophisticated brand of sex joke. Basically, we wanted to make the sort of women’s magazine we’d want to read.”

Well, girl, you’ve delivered. You’re my first port of call for a snarky digest of the weekly gossip rags, a Katch-up with the Kardashians or a cuteness overdose of baby animal pictures. You denounce media misogyny, offer me practical fashion tips, and you’d never, ever call a girl fat.

You do serious, ground-breaking journalism, too. Who could forget your launch, exposing a pre-Photoshop glossy mag cover? Or your dedicated campaigning against over-Photoshopping ever since? You stand up for the right to an abortion in a country where it’s constantly under threat. You called out the violent misogyny in the way other news organisations reported the DSK rape case.

I know I’m just one in a legion of admirers – what other mainstream news site has such a engaged community of commenters? And so well-behaved! The Guardian’s Comment is Free crowd could learn a thing or two from the Jezzies.

Jezebel, you inspire me when other women’s mags make me despair. Sometimes I dream of editing a UK equivalent, full with wit and a feminist take on the news and celebs from this side of the pond. Why don’t we have one already? Where’s our Gawker Media, ready to mother something as beautiful and special as you?

So, Jezebel, if you ever want a British sister – hit me up. For now, I’ll just be checking out the weekly Thighlights…

With love,

The Postgrad

Artlee Mhlanga is a final year student at Coventry University, studying Journalism and English. He is currently the editor of ‘The Source,’ Coventry University’s student newspaper and an intern at Communicate Magazine. He spoke to Freelance Journalist Judith Townend and got her tips on how to break into the industry as well as her thoughts on Al Jazeera’s growth and the fallout from the Leveson inquiry.

Most young hacks nowadays are training to be efficient across all media platforms from broadcast, audio, online to print journalism. There is a never-ending debate about whether a modern-day hack should be a jack of all trades but a master of none.

Speaking at the first instalment of the Coventry Conversation series 2012, Judith Townend, a digital journalist, gave young journalists some insight as to how interactive media is changing journalism. With copies of her CV being distributed across the room, few could doubt her credentials. Boasting a degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge Townend trained in journalism at City University London in 2006/7.

Townend is looking forward to seeing what's next for Al Jazeera

Like many hacks, Townend developed the passion for journalism early on. “I’m not sure when I first got the idea. Media and journalism was something I was always interested in and while I was an undergraduate – doing social anthropology – I decided to have a shot at making a career of it. In my last year I organised a jam-packed summer of work experience and applied for the City University newspaper journalism course.”

While many strive for that ever elusive early career break, the industry demands experience and it is what you have done that will get you noticed. “While I don’t like the increasing tendency for unpaid internships in the UK, work experience is incredibly useful for those first contacts and getting your foot in the newsroom door,” she said. “That summer of back-to-back work placements set me on my way, I think. I was lucky to meet a few journalists that summer who gave me very useful advice that has stayed relevant.”

That summer included placements at The Independent and The Australian. Freelance pieces for AP soon followed earning her roles at Journalism.co.uk, Index on Censorship and the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma.

On the list of guests scheduled to attend the first term of Coventry Conversations, beneath her name was the title ‘Digital Journalist.’ Is it not the case that these days all journalists need to have online and multi-media skills? “Good point: I can’t see how any journalist can work without the internet. Even if you don’t have active social networking profiles (and there could be good reasons for doing that if you’re an investigative hack who needs to keep a low profile) you’ll need to use them for research.

“I think it would be unwise for any journalist entering the profession not to prioritise digital skills and awareness. Having said that, traditional methods are still tremendously important – it’s about getting a balance between the two.”

With an increasingly large number of journalists being trained on all fronts, Townend spoke of her adapting to this change. “I was covering developments in digital journalism and inevitably that changed the way I perceived the industry. The process and product of my journalism changed as a result – I tried to be more conversational in my approach and was aware of the multitude of free digital resources available.”

For those who have been in the industry before the rest of us young hacks had completed our UCAS forms, the role of a journalist has been redefined through technology. “There has been massive upheaval since I first trained in journalism. I have seen rapid change in the prominence and importance of online journalism, the digital tools at our disposal and the types of jobs available,” she said.

Al Jazeera is another name that Townend has been associated with and speaking on their rise to prominence in the last 12 months she said: “It’s been really exciting to see the Al Jazeera network grow, especially during events last Spring. It doesn’t surprise me because I think there’s demand for high quality news content from under-covered areas of the world, with original angles. I look forward to seeing what they do next.”

The Leveson inquiry is a cause for concern for every journalist and more so young hacks. “It’s certainly placed press behaviour and ethics centre-stage – whether it will change the way newspaper journalists work remains to be seen. We’re very likely to see a new newspaper regulatory system emerge,” she said. “My own view is that regulation is going to become more complicated in practice, as the platforms become increasingly inseparable. Is it logical to regulate a television website differently from a blog or a newspaper? Module two on media relationships with the police should be fascinating to follow too.”

A final piece of advice for those aspiring to build a career in journalism, Townend simply said: “Digital skills and understanding, coupled with age-old journalistic nous – a nose for a story, cynicism and curiosity.”

Should we be leaving photography to the experts? Photo courtesy of marjoleincc

We’ve gone on time and time again about how we need to be jack-of-all-trades journalists. (As well as having a specialism – we don’t ask for much, eh?!) And I mentioned way back in October that I was taking a module in photojournalism this year.

At the time, I naively said: “I firmly believe that not only can any hack take photos, but I believe they should be taking photos too.”

Well, now I take it all back. While I did really enjoy the module, it was really hard work. But I’m not say we should steer clear of photojournalism because it’s hard. That’s ridiculous. Everything is a challenge when you first start out. And I’m definitely not a quitter.

However, I do think that there are some situations where it’s better to let the experts take charge. Namely things like performing life-saving surgery. Or fixing my poor car. And now, a recent addition to my list, (having spent twelve painful weeks trying to master the skill) taking photos for newspapers, magazines or online publications.

Now, I gave photojournalism my best shot. I went out so many times to try and get pictures but so many times I came back with disappointing results. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I set my standards too high or I’m actually just a really bad photographer. But no matter how hard I tried every set I took would have one major thing wrong with them: a white balance that wasn’t right, really bad composition across my shots or even just something creeping into my pictures that shouldn’t be there.

For example, one of the things I took photos of for my assignment was a gig. And it proved to be an utter nightmare. The lights meant that the white balance was off, so photos had people having turned some very interesting colours. Also, because of the stage lights, the auto-focus on my camera (my beloved Olympus E450) couldn’t auto-focus, which meant I had to rely on manual focus, which not only was hard to judge in the lighting conditions but also was easily knocked leaving horribly out of focus shots. Oh and just to really throw a spanner into the works,  when a band is playing they don’t exactly pose for photos so once I saw a good shot I had to get it immediately or it would be gone, or someone’s head would pop up and get in the way.

And it’s that need for immediacy and accuracy in taking photographs that leads me to think maybe it is a job best done by the specialists. Yes, I came out with half a dozen pretty decent shots out of the hundred-odd I took. But a trained photojournalist would be coming out with a hundred-odd decent shots. Maybe we should reconsider our jack of all trades approach and start becoming a master at some?

Oh and, in case you wanted a good laugh at my expense, here’s two of my photos that prove some things are best left to the experts:

You couldn’t have missed the story of Caitlin Reilly’s experience of the current government work scheme in the news recently, where she was forced to work for free at Pound Land. Okay, so it was only for two weeks, hardly slave labour.But is forcing young graduates to work for free the right way to solve the unemployment crisis?  

Money, money, money. Image courtesy of Rogue Soul.

No, you could argue that ultimately it will not create jobs but take paid jobs away. If there is a task to do, be it sweep floors, work on the checkout or stack shelves that is a space for what would be a paid employee. Instead Pound Land and other institutions on the scheme are gaining a free worker making money for their private company.

There has been a backlash against unpaid internships but the government work scheme is far worse. At least with internships, they are at most for only a few months and are (hopefully) going to help the individual work towards their chosen career, resulting in a job.

Jan Moir, columnist at the Daily Mail has slated Cait stating that we all can’t do jobs we love, that we all have to be a shelf stacker at one point in our lives and that Cait thinking working at Pound Land is “beneath her” is ridiculous.

To some extent, she’s right- even if you are a graduate with an amazing degree, if you can’t find work in the area you choose (or at least not straight away) you should be prepared to take on retail or any work you can find in the meantime. Self entitlement is not a good look, which from the surface of it, Cait at first appears to be.

This was my initial thought, but having read Caitlin’s you could say “come back” piece she says, she would happily work anywhere, do anything than live off benefits. However, unfortunately she cannot find a job. So she is instead volunteering at a museum and is at least showing initiative that she does want to work and build towards her career. A solution to Caitlin’s money worries would be to volunteer at the museum and work part time as a waitress or sales assistant in a shop. After all, as much as you may love working in a museum you have to make ends meet.

I can see why the government has undertaken this scheme. For too long now, people have been literally living off benefits. People who have accepted benefits all their lives, rather than go out to work. This is who this scheme is targeted at, to get those who simply do not want to work, up out early and realise that they cannot accept benefits without a single days work. However, for graduates who are actively job seeking, desperate to find an entry-level job but cannot due to the economic climate the scheme is not suited for. Work at Pound Land, like Caitlin says offered no training, no prospect of a future job, no hope for progression.

So, whilst I do agree with the ethos of cutting benefits and toughening up on the work shy, you cannot force people out to work when there are simply not the jobs out there. The prospect of getting a job has never been tougher with a record 1.04 million young people unemployed. So, ultimately whilst we do need to break apart the welfare society, its tricky to do this in the middle of a recession.

I feel for Caitlin and hopes she breaks out of the unemployment trap, advice and help is what she needs- not Pound Land. I vividly remember once going to the job centre  and it was the most wasted trip I could have made. I wanted advice, but the first and only thing they said to me was- ”Want to go on benefits?” There was nothing suited for graduates, they couldn’t even tell me what temping agencies there were in fear of “favouritism”, so I walked out angrily and found the agency myself. For people who do not have that willpower (not bigging myself up, but you know what I mean) no wonder the country is in the state it is when the government will readily hand out free money.

And as for the new work scheme, it isn’t going to help graduates get into the jobs they want. Hell, it’s not even helping grads get into the jobs they don’t want. It is purely offering a free service to private companies giving them the extra buck, whilst we receive no training, no possibility of a job at the end. What a hopeless scheme.

What do you think of the government’s new work scheme? Have you had difficulty in the past securing a job and had to go on benefits? Interning for free, a must do for journalism and other media roles puts people in a tricky financial situation so let’s hear your thoughts. Comment below or tweet us @wannabehacks.

Matt Hewson is a philosophy undergraduate at the University of Birmingham. He writes for the student paper Redbrick and occasionally blog at HuffPost UK.

Paying to read the news online is for many of us, an unusual concept. Most British newspapers have thus far opted to keep their internet-based content-free. Not so in Slovenia – since the 16^th of January, readers have had to buy a subscription in order to access most news sites. Nine major Slovene publishers have banded together to create a national paywall that will guard elements of their collective material.

The move was coordinated by Piano Media, who were also behind the erecting of a paywall in Slovakia last year. The process will be very similar to the change that took place in Slovakia, but there are a few key differences.

The amount of information paywalled in Slovenia will be three or even five times more than in their European cousin, peaking for some publications at around fifteen percent of all content. Slovenian users will also find themselves paying around €2 more than in Slovakia – €4.89 for a monthly subscription rather than Slovakia’s €2.90. There will however be no restrictions on commenting, something that was initially in place in Slovakia, and a measure that was not received favourably; as Niemen Lab noted during an interview with Piano Media’s CEO, “citizens of a former Communist regime don’t want their free speech impinged upon.”

Broadly, the plan is to keep only the most interesting and exclusive content behind the wall, with a view to incrementally the amount over time. Features, interviews and columns are all to be restricted.  It’s an interesting idea and a sensible one too – free online material simply can’t justify itself.

This system allows for entirely new revenue, with no losses, as subscriptions aren’t yet in lieu of advertising. While ads may eventually be dropped for subscribers, they’re currently set to stay. Marko Crnkovič, who works within digital development at Delo, Slovenia’s largest media outlet, wrote on the Delo site: “proceeds from the sale of advertising space on the Internet remain relevant.”

A deliberate desire to enact the changes gradually has seen a particularly novel approach from some of the paywall’s participants. Core information will still be available in most articles, but extra detail or multimedia elements will only available to subscribers. This is, Crnkovič said, to avoid alienating those who can’t afford to pay; “we will make sure that no one – not even those who will not be able or willing to pay – remains empty-handed.”

Furthermore, the effect that the wall has on the media landscape in Slovenia will be interesting to observe. The project’s predecessor in Slovakia failed to get one of the country’s major tabloids involved which, alongside Slovakia’s role as a national paywall guinea pig, is possibly related to their lower monthly subscription (although Piano Media have been extremely coy when it comes to releasing any figures).  In Slovenia nearly every major publication is on board. What will this do to smaller newspapers or magazines, which still provide free content? It would seem that Piano Media have been almost wholly successful in coordinating links between major publishers and publications; any remaining publications will be so specialised that their readership will be rather more secure.

Would such a system ever work in the UK? It’s not completely unforeseeable – The Times already have a paywall, as do The Financial Times. Yet a coordinated effort between publishers and proprietors looks at best unlikely. It would be tough to reconcile paying for hard news coverage with the presence of the BBC – people already have to buy a TV license, so why spend more when the Beeb provide good quality journalism?

That said, there could be scope for paywalling some of the magazine content, the sort of material that isn’t available anywhere else. Piano Media have said that bringing a system to the UK is some way off, and in an interview with journalism.co.uk CEO Tomas Bella also spoke of the problems caused by the status of English as a world language.

While it doesn’t affect the UK yet, paywalls abroad should not be ignored. Piano Media plan to roll out more in Europe this year, and their expansion seems likely to continue. Free online journalism simply isn’t sustainable, for journalists or publishers. Expect to start paying. Soon.

Yup, it’s another video! I’ve started to become more and more interested in exploring multimedia, to the point that I ran for the role of multimedia editor on our MA magazine. This newfound interest has got me thinking that it’s never too late to learn new skills and deviate from the route you thought you were on.

I’ve obviously still got a lot to learn and I’ve been really grateful for all the tips for great multimedia websites, etc that have been sent to me on Twitter. So please, keep them coming, because I’m starting from scratch here!

Courtesy of Gnal

There’s this old tale about Richard Nixon on work placement in the Sports department of a daily in the US. It supposedly goes like this:

A young Richard Nixon snags a summer internship as a sports reporter at a newspaper in the US (presumably via nepotism). He spends some time, does some stories and comes to the conclusion that:

Journalists aren’t as interesting as they think they are.

Now we know Nixon’s relationship with the press and I am certainly not a Nixon apologist. Far from it in fact, but I got to thinking while I was pretty much curled up in bed, sick and  fairly delirious on Monday – are we really as interesting as we’d like to think we are? Or are we just a bunch of egomaniacs for the most part.

Take this Tumblr that popped up during all of the Occupy Wall Street protests. It’s still going, to my chagrin.

The Huffington Post announced some thing about making a news channel, part of which would be a reality TV like, behind-the-scenes of the Huff Po (no thank you).

I’ve always wondered, are these things really necessary? I’m not sure, but I certainly don’t feel a need to remind myself why I got into this, at times, thankless profession. I don’t feel a need to co-opt a social movement and remind the rest of the world what an important job I do for the rest of anyone. I’m not looking for the thanks of others or for them to take notice.

Sure this profession is exciting at times, but what’s with all the rubbish about telling the world about it? Weren’t we always told to make the news, not be the news?

The first cover letter I wrote a long time ago centered on why I wanted to be a journalist. I’m fairly certain I went on the naive, 17-year-old spiel about wanting to save or change the world, feed the hungry and cure cancer.

There’s nothing wrong with a bit of idealism, but the heart can bleed too hard at times.

As time went on and I wrote countless other cover letters answering the typical prompt of why I wanted to get into journalism, I found that I didn’t so much want to change the world, but wanted to tell its stories and how it was changed by other, greater, people.

I feel like the highest level of profession that we can ever hope to achieve as journalists is reaching that pinnacle of respect, where we can do that sort of unfettered work. There are exceptions of course, Watergate and the phone hacking scandal for example, but still the most important stuff is what happens the initial story.

Maybe it’s a lofty expectation, but I don’t see us much as those who change the world, but as agents of change, people who work in the background to be sure that the people that need to make the changes, do.

We’re nothing more than a spark. The interesting bit is what comes next.

So what of it? Is this the most self-righteous post you’ve read today? Have we become a marketable commodity for the entertainment of others? Are we really that interesting or do we just like to think we are? And what’s the best way to eat a grapefruit?

Comment below or tweet us @wannabehacks

Emily Ding is a twenty-something barrister turned freelance journalist-writer (that takes care of the identity crisis) based in London who aspires to longform narrative journalism. Follow her at www.mock-heroic.net and @mock_heroic.

I’ve always wanted to write. As a teenager I wrote short stories, but as I grew older I inched towards journalism. I was drawn to its “nonfiction” element, but felt limited by what I thought to be its creative boundaries… until I read Gay Talese’s Frank Sinatra Had A Cold (1966).

It was my first introduction to the genre – “narrative journalism”, “literary journalism”, “creative nonfiction” – and I knew that it was the kind of writing I wanted to do. But how does a wannabe hack go about it in the UK where the genre isn’t as popular as it is in the US?

To find out, I spoke to Julie Wheelwright (@jwheelwright), Director of City’s Creative Writing (Non-Fiction) MA, and Susan Greenberg (@sgediting / @Roewrites), senior lecturer at Roehampton’s Department of English and Creative Writing.

Definitions First

I prefer “narrative journalism” because it reflects the genre’s defining feature: a narrative arc in the shape of a beginning, a middle and an end. It is a true story with real names and real lives, but adapts literary devices – structure, voice, character development, scene-setting, dialogue – for dramatic tension.

Julie cautions, however, that everything must be “grounded in reality”, especially when playing with elements such as time, or when writing scenes not directly witnessed but reconstructed from interviews and observations.

Moreover, “There has to be some transformation because it’s about the development of character,” Julie said. You take the world as you find it, not as you imagine it, and yet the facts of the story have to be able to fulfil a narrative, which is what makes it so challenging. As such, not all stories are fit for narrative journalism as a form, nor can it be practiced in every setting.

Writing for a Living

Narrative journalism is time-consuming and expensive, requiring immersion reporting, accuracy, careful structuring and a lot of hard work, more than your average news article or magazine feature. Unless you are very famous, you probably couldn’t make a living on narrative journalism alone.

“You have to be flexible and willing to do different types of writing,” Julie said.

However, she encourages cultivating a subject specialism: “There is a huge advantage in researching a particular subject and being an expert on it. I worked as a feature writer for a long time and I was always surprised when reading about something I knew a lot about, how badly those issues were being covered.”

Get Your Feet Wet

I wonder if it is possible for a young writer like me to aspire directly to narrative journalism, or whether I first need to have years of formal journalistic experience writing news and features.

Julie’s advice is encouraging. “If that were the case, you would never have anyone young doing this kind of writing, and we need young people doing it.”

Julie and Susan both agree that it is useful to have the training and discipline of a journalist – pitching ideas, researching, having a nose for stories, keeping to deadlines – but that you have to be a more skilled writer for narrative journalism.

“You need to find that distinctive voice, you need to have something to say, be very observant. I think you need to have a lot of imagination,” Julie said.

Susan added, “The situation has become very fluid and entry to journalism through non-standard methods such as e-publishing and social media have become more common, so one cannot follow any hard and fast rules. And as with any form of writing, it is important to get as much experience as possible in your chosen form. So if you are interested in narrative nonfiction, there is no reason not to experiment with it right away. Even if it doesn’t lead anywhere immediately, it will provide a learning experience that can be applied elsewhere, and it will provide evidence of ambition and imagination, which is always attractive.”

Popularity in the UK vs. US

“It’s not that we don’t have those kind of outlets here. There’s The Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books where you can write long essays, though they tend to be more literary,” Julie told me.

“But maybe they’re not pushing the boundaries of genre in quite the same way as in the US and that might be because we don’t have the outlets for it.”

According to Susan, it is partly about economics. “The US market is large enough to sustain cultural niches,” though history and culture are important too. “If pressed I would say that the default setting in the UK seems to be literature=fiction and creativity=invention,” she said, which might explain why narrative journalism courses in the UK tend to come under the departments of Creative Writing rather than Journalism. (For more, read Susan’s article Slow Journalism, Prospect, 2007.)

Susan adds, “One does find decent narrative nonfiction in newspapers and magazines here, but there has been a tendency to favour work by writers who are otherwise primarily identified as novelists or dramatists.”

Where should young writers pitch?

Susan’s advice: “There has been a real blossoming of online literary magazines, both here and in the US, which should not be sniffed at. The live storytelling events are fun and provide good practice and feedback. It is also worth including American titles in one’s aim; they can be surprisingly keen to include writers from outside the US. And never give up on newspapers and magazines – sift through them carefully to identify likely “slots” (first person accounts, travel etc) and find out who makes the commissioning decisions for those specific slots.”

Courses

Susan’s Roehampton course offers narrative journalism as a BA in Creative Writing, where students begin specializing in Year 1 with Writing Journalism and Nonfiction, which “lays the basis for understanding basic journalistic forms such as news and features, and how they point to other innovative forms of nonfiction.” Year 2 is Feature Writing and in Year 3, a module on longform narrative nonfiction, Telling True Stories.

The result is a portfolio of work. Many students also take Combined Honours degrees, Creative Writing and Journalism. An MA option is also available.

Julie’s City MA course, on the other hand, is designed to help students write a book-length work of non-fiction, whether memoir or investigation. The course also helps students with writing book proposals and liaising with agents and editors. Julie says she gets about 12-15 students in a year, of which 2-3 of them would go on to be published.

She added, “There’s a kind of focus you have to have for books which is different. You have to think long and hard about how to sustain someone’s interest for that amount of time.”

“We normally suggest that those who are not yet ready take the short course we also offer at City.”

More Links:

Some of my favourite narrative journalism:

The Falling Man by Tom Junod (Esquire, 2003)

The American Man at Age Ten by Susan Orlean (Esquire, 1992)

Going So Fast… Gone Too Soon by Mitch Albom (Detroit Free Press, 2004)

Narrative journalism resources:

Literary Nonfiction blog by Paige Williams

Nieman Storyboard

Literary Journalism Studies

Narrative journalism magazines:

The New Yorker is well-known for narrative journalism, as well as Esquire, GQ, The Atlantic, Harpers and Salon. More specialist titles include:

Granta (UK)

Creative Nonfiction (US)

Brevity (US)

Narrative Magazine (US)

N+1 (US)

Guernica (US)

The Caravan (India)

Online publishing platforms:

The Byliner (online)

The Atavist (online)

Live Storytelling:

Spark London (UK)

Bright Club (UK)

Bookslam (UK)

The Moth (US)

Curation sources:

Longform.org

Longreads.com

Givemesomethingtoread.com

Image courtesy of Phil Guest. Turns out the Creative Commons is pretty limited when it comes to "Katie Price" and "Jordan", so this is what you're getting.

Yes, I get it. If something’s going down on Twitter it’s often worth a quick story. But it’s not worth rushing out and being lazy for a few easy SEO hits and Facebook shares. The following is a recipe for disaster, which is becoming increasingly popular:

Preparation time: 10 minutes.

1) Prepare controversial/unusual tweets.

2)  Mix with context.

3) Sprinkle with furious* twitter reaction.

4) Serve immediately without fact-checking for best reaction.

*If you don’t have any furious tweets, snarky ones will be an adequate substitute.

So, last week there was a publicity stunt that involved Katie Price’s twitter account pumping out some pretty out of character tweets, such as the following.

OMG!!Eurozone debt problems can only be properly solved by true fiscal union!!! #comeonguys

— Katie Price/Jordan (@MissKatiePrice) January 22, 2012

Instantly, and understandably, people assumed that the account had been hacked, and fair enough, it did look like it. I’ll come clean, even I tweeted that it had been hijacked.

Image courtesy of the Media Blog. The Daily Mail reports on the tweets

It transpired, however, that the tweets were actually the result of a Snickers PR stunt, and other celebs have since followed suit with sponsored tweets.

What irritates me about this is that newspapers seem to be increasingly jumping the gun with Twitter stories just to get it out there. Fact checking seems to be a non-existent priority.

The Wendi Deng saga is another example of this, although on a more complicated scale. Twitter verified the account briefly, and supposedly so did someone at News International. However, if I’d been writing about the account activity myself (not that I would have been, because I don’t think it qualifies as news, but that’s a different point entirely), I’d have made bloody sure for myself that it was real.

As journalists we should be checking, double checking, triple checking anything that we publish for accuracy. This becomes even more necessary for anything pulled off the internet, not less so. If Twitter chat seems to suggest one thing, assume the opposite, and try to prove it

As the Media Blog pointed out, the Daily Mail published their story an hour and a half after the Snicker’s stunt was unveiled. It’s off the hook how ridiculous that is, and the story has since been removed. If you’re writing a story about Twitter activity, at least keep up to date with what’s happening while you write it. Things have a habit of developing very quickly when you look away.

The Daily Mail isn’t the only guilty party here. Plenty of publications have been rushing out stories based entirely on tweets. It needs to stop. We need to fact-check obsessively, and then do it over again before hitting publish. We should be hard-wired to ask questions and be sceptical. Don’t jump to the obvious conclusion. Stop taking Twitter news at face value, take a step back, and take a little longer to put out a story if it really deserves one – it’s not worth trading truth for immediacy.

On a hiatus from his degree Julian Benson fills his time writing for The Huffington Post, BeefJack.com, and occasionally even gets paid to write for Wired.co.uk. Somehow he’s become editor of both The Phonograph and Click to Enlarge, though those that appointed him can never exactly remember the circumstances in which they did so. (He also once wrote for the hacks)

In my time as editor of The Phonograph I’ve lost five writers in as many months. From our original team of eight only three of us remain. Yet, this has left us with a music blog that is no longer a student’s pet project but instead a professionally run (or near enough) site that is starting to get recognition from publications such as The Guardian.

Our blog’s transition has been a shambling one and I’d like to give some pointers to help yours be a little more graceful.

First up is the importance of working out how you’re going to organise writing duties. It may sound dull but it’s what defines your blog. We began by using a monthly schedule that allowed writers to write about whatever they wanted so long as it was ready by the deadline. But this system didn’t let writers respond to a recent event, instead forcing them to wait till it was their turn to post, up to a month later.

My first mistake was to try and implement a halfway system between the fixed schedule and something more flexible. We had five of the less available writers keeping to a schedule, the other three wrote as frequently as they liked but only on subjects inspired by current events, sort of like on-call writers. It was a mess. No one understood the system; deadlines were missed, posts were published unedited, and people got angry.

What I should have done as soon as we realised we had a problem with the schedule system was to work out why. We were going through a state of transition and our organisational structure didn’t resemble the site’s focus. We were becoming a current affairs site, but because we didn’t stop to see it we went through six weeks of muddle till we developed a system that let us respond to current news. Driving forward thoughtlessly got us to the other side but we went the most damaging route: three of our writers left in the six weeks it took me to recognise the change in the site.

The next problem was in communication. Our main goal was growth, and, to us, that meant both audience and presence. That boils down to page views, retweets, and comments. But, because we split all our messages to each other between a mixture of phone, email, Facebook and text it was easy to think everyone was on the same page when in fact our writers didn’t know what we were going for.

They didn’t publicise their posts: they weren’t active on other blogs trying to garner traffic back to our own, nor were they on Twitter shouting their existence to the masses. So we were less forgiving when writers were weak on this, yet they didn’t know how important it was to us, and this drove away the other two writers.

The solution that our project head, Phil Mace, has come up with is a weekly group email that states who is on-call that week and who is on marketing duty. The top down approach, especially on our small scale, eliminates confusion, and the person in charge of the roster knows what everyone is doing, and can direct the site towards its goals.

All blogs go through states of transition, growing pains, which, if you aren’t watchful, can be quite damaging. The good news is that, if you make it to the other side, your blog will be more focused and efficient than it was when it went in.

Which leads me to the ulterior motive for this post: we’re looking for a few new members to the team. If you’re interested in writing about the music industry (we don’t review albums or produce track feeds. We look at music in relation to other current issues eg politics, video games, sex etc) then get in touch with us at admin@thephonograph.co.uk