DISQUS

Fred - from my perspective running a journalism grad school I'd say a lot of learning is done by students amongst themselves.

The social network is not just a bolt-on - it is the learning experience.

That's why good students want to get to elite institutions. Not to access the most inspiring teachers, but the most inspiring peer group.

Probably when I get round to using Disqus!

Tim - I hate to take issue with a fellow Thesis user, but people's changing social habits are surely the driver for most leisure activities and newspapers met those needs most successfully in the middle decades of the 20C. TV news took up the baton from the 1960s.

Of course there are qualitative differences in journalism, just as there are in any media but quality tends to be a threshold issue. And of course poorly resourced outlets produce thinner fare. It was ever thus - just read Charles Dudley Warner's The American Newspaper from the late 19C.

I posted about it here.

There's a lot of great journalism around today - more than ever online - but that's not helping to make journalists more valuable in a mature mass media.

We need more mergers not less. But the boat has already sailed on public service news quality...see ITN's budget.

Not quite free Brad. It costs UK license-fee payers $6bn a year.

I hate to say it but the General never seems to have met a platitude he didn't like.

"they were not driven away from the printed newspaper by disruptive digital technologies, at least not primarily. No, they were driven away by our industry’s old problem, the one that was killing us before we found a more convenient villain online: We’re boring."

Is that really the case? The old news media had poor feedback mechanisms that didn't directly impact on the political power of journalists within their own organisations...that's all.

Evening papers didn't lose readers because they were boring or bad. They died because you couldn't read them driving home...well, unless you lived somewhere REALLY quiet.

John Curtice did the best analysis of the limited power of the press to influence politics. The real question is - why? Why not just run the Gilligan stories and stand back? Identifying with Johnson so strongly doesn't seem to have much going for it as an editorial strategy...what, after all, is the payback from readers?

You could say the same for historians, I suppose...

The newness of the medium isn't the issue, it's the oldness of the practice.

Cue coffee and photocopying gags!

Well you do stats as part of the basic combined honours journalism BA (Hons) programme at City...and we're about to start licensing some software apps to do the kinds of stats work Holovaty is talking about, but also to do some more sophisticated investigative work. But when you kit people out with these skills - will they still want to be journalists! I think they'll be attractive to a whole range of employers...

Martin - I'm not as good at social media as you are - but I couldn't help thinking it might be an idea if there was a place all of us got together to contribute...anyone thoughts?

Martin - YOU are one of the UK's leading journo bloggers...

Excellent point, Martin

Martin - the labels are pretty anachronistic but I don't think they are responsible for the 'conservatism.' The things that inspire you to undertake a career are usually drawn from your past. Add to that the competitive pressures, and the financial commitment required and you can see why some students might wish to enter an industry that looks like the one they wanted to join when they were growing up.

Part of the process of education is to begin to give people the confidence to move beyond that, but the reality is few people have that confidence until at least a couple of years or so into their working lives.

Martin

Don't bother with the post mortem. The mag was its own obit, and you can and the rest of the team can be rightly proud of it. Move on up, as Curtis Mayfield would say if he were still with us.

Adrian