Tag: felix salmon

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My career plan- who do I want to be when I graduate (Section 3)

I. New skills to learn:

In order to achieve what I have as a goal in my mind, I need to develop research skills, the ability to understand things exactly how they are and not to distort the information given to me. What is more, I would need to enhance my creativity thinking, so I can bear with the time pressure. I may often have to come up with ideas fast to keep my business active. And I have to learn to adapt to different circumstances quickly and get used to both approval and harsh criticism, both success and failure.

II. My media diet:

I have to examine carefully how topics like fashion, arts, astrology are covered in other media outlets, because I want to become an expert in these categories. Of course I will not stop looking at recent news and exploring issues that concern contemporary society, but I will focus my attention on magazines like Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Elle, Apollo, The Sunday Times, ES, Grazia, Aesthetica. I will also listen to the radio and a variety of podcasts, like GrownUpLand, These things shall pass: delusions and how to survive them , Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 , Fortunately… with Fi and Jane , The Chris Evans’ Breakfast Show , Drama of the Week , Evil Genius with Russell Kane , Time Travellers , Late Night Woman’s Hour.

TV programmes like BBC, SkyNews, ITV, would also be helpful with expanding my general knowledge.

Bloggers I should keep up with include Felix Salmon, Adam Tinworth, David Higgerson, Mary Hamilton and Many Jenkins.

Twitter accounts that are worth following are: Matt Thompson, Andrew Sullivan , Claire Lehmann , Jason Willick and Stoycho Kerev.

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III. What optional modules I chose/ am about to choose:

I picked up Polylang (Russian) as an optional module in Year 1, and I will definitely do it again in Year 2, because apart from journalism, I have another passion- astrology, and I am planning to enrol on an astrology course in Russia. I am planning to do Fashion Journalism as my second optional module in Year 2. I will select Dissertation and Performing Arts Journalism in Year 3. I love and I am used to writing a lot, so 8000 words would not be that big problem. And there is an unconditional love between me and the theatre ever since I was a child and I think I will have a lot of fun during last year of my BA degree. By doing all these modules, I will combine everything that I like in my monthly piece of paper, which does not have a name yet, but I will come up with it soon.

IV. Work placements that would be helpful:

Grazia Magazine Editorial – contact

Fashion Journalism Work Placement – intern@wonderlandmagazine.com

Fashion Editorial Work Experience –  Magazine: nowmagletters@timeinc.com
Web: nowonline@timeinc.com

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‘We need much more critical reading’, says Felix Salmon in ‘Teaching journalists to read’

Felix Salmon’s piece of writing provides some good food for thought. My first reaction when reading the headline was, ‘Can’t journalists read properly, or is there something more than meets their eye?’ . It turns out, Felix has the ability to witness the biggest problems concerning journalism:

  1. He believes that what is missing in the journalistic establishment is people who are good at finding and curating great material.

The main focus on Salmon’s speech during The Audit’s breakfast, is that the journalistic entities- newspapers, magazines, websites, have to start putting much more emphasis on reading. The reason why he emphasizes on this was because journalism is becoming much more conversational.

Think about it this way: reading is to writing as listening is to talking — and someone who talks without listening is both a boor and a bore. If you can’t read, I don’t want you in my newsroom. Because you aren’t taking part in the conversation which is all around you.

2. According to Dean Starkman, journalists who no longer work for old-fashioned media cannot be called ‘journalists’ , while Salmon thinks quite the opposite, and here lies the second issue- between old-fashioned and contemporary media.

Both of them produce material worth reading. The difference between ‘now’ and ‘those halcyon days’ is that today we have got more high-grade journalism available to the public than ever before.

3. And last, but not least, it is not about the shortage of journalists, but that of critical readers, who absorb the information, without misinterpreting it.

What makes one person a good journalist is his ability to read between the lines, to engulf fully in a situation until all points of view are considered. Everyone can be a publisher on Twitter or Facebook, but not everyone can create a content worthy of notice.

Teaching Journalists to Read

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