Like living in the dark ages!

I have had a very busy festive period. In the run up to "the most wonderful time of year" I had a few university deadlines which saw me running around like a headless chicken for a few days.
I spent two weeks in early December on work placement at Lifestyle magazine based in Heaton in Newcastle. The fortnight was extremely exciting and enjoyable and reinforced my beliefs that I am taking the right path to my dream career.
During my time at Lifestyle I was lucky enough to be assigned a variety of writing pieces and received great feedback from staff. As I worked on the February edition you can expect a post all about working on the magazine then!
Despite being enjoyable it didn't leave much time for Christmas shopping - welcome to the real world!
On Monday I started a two week work placement with Accent Magazines based in Gosforth, Newcastle. All is going well so far.
Yesterday the Internet in the office was down making my research task very hard. It is scary how reliant we are upon technology these days (she says as she sits typing this post on her new iPad 2).
Being in the office of a magazine is a great experience which I am so glad I have had the opportunity to complete. It is just a shame that I have to go back to Uni - bring on the real world!

14th Journalism Leaders Forum

Yesterday I attended the 14th Journalism Leaders Forum which was held at UCLan. The forum was held in order to discuss the recent scandals within the press.

The panel was made up of Bob Satchwell, the executive director of the Society of Editors, Bettina Peters, director of the Global Forum for Media Development, Professor Chris Frost author of Journalism Ethics and Regulation, Martin Moore director of the Media Standards Trust and a founder of HackedOff, Martain Wainwright, northern editor of The Guardian and Professor Peter Cole former head of journalism at both UCLAN and Sheffield universities and co-author of Newspaper Journalism.

The evening, which was conducted in the style of BBC's Question Time, was chaired by Michael Williams.

The main question of the night was, in light of recent issues with phone hacking, should the press be free or do we need some kind of statutory control to regain public trust and prevent anything like this from happening again.

Photograph by Emerson Utracik

Chris Frost said that the main point of 'hackgate' was not what was exposed but the way newspapers are conducting themselves. He did however highlight the fact that as it was the Guardian that broke the 'hackgate' story the press are still doing their job.

Martain Wainwright said that we don't want to lose the fun side of journalism saying that it is a "ethically hazardous but very enjoyable" industry.

Bettina Peters, who was talking at the conference via video call from Columbia, said that Britain needs to look at the press regulation of other countries such as Sweden and Denmark where law establishes the rules but the press is regulated through the journalists, publishers, editors and judges.

No one can deny the need for an improvement of press regulation in Britain, the public are loosing confidence in the press the question is how we go about this.


To draw the forum to a close Michael Williams asked the panel how we could regulate the press, Peter Cole said that the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) should be given investigative powers, Bob Satchwell said that we need to strengthen the press and media as a whole and remind people that the press play a big role in the democracy of Britain.

Chris Frost said that for as long as people can opt out of the PCC problems like these could still happen, Martain Moore said that there needs to be statutory recognition within the press regulation while Martain Wainwright said that the punishments used need to frighten people.

Bettina Peters said that it is important that Britain's press strengthens public interest and admit that the press need to change.

Photograph by piper caldwell

I feel that Britain's press freedom is essential to the running of our country. One of the major roles of the British Press is to hold the government to account. If we have statutory regulation the press may no longer be able to fulfil this purpose.

Overall it was a very insightful night which I enjoyed taking part in.

Trying my hand at something new...

I am not an expert in fashion but in a bid to try something different I decided to get involved in the style section of the UCLan students union PR1 magazine. I got my piece published online and it can be seen here.

My front page

In my magazine design class earlier this week we were given the task of inventing a front page of a made up magazine with a theme of our choice. Saying as I am interested in going into travel writing I thought I would give designing the front page of a travel magazine a go.

Here is the front page I designed;


I based my front cover on The Sunday Times Travel magazine as they use a single striking image with text over the top. According to the website Brad, The Sunday Times Travel magazine is a

"Dedicated travel magazine that covers holidays worldwide and centres on one specific destination per issue. The varied editorial features cover holiday types, countries, city guides and deals along with beautiful photography"

Brad says that it has a target readership of "ABC1 adults aged between 25 and 50, affluent with money to spend on their lifestyle. More adventurous than the norm and book independently where possible"

I wanted to create something that looked of a similar quality and was very proud of my design. Unfortunately I can not take credit for the photograph - because the exercise was sprung on me I didn't have access to my own photographs of Prague. I got the photograph from the address below.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=prague&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&sa=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&biw=1366&bih=649&tbm=isch&tbnid=fYPkSFsdozFg5M:&imgrefurl=http://www.bookyourhotel.org/info/romantic-holiday-in-prague/&docid=zWzeC2I43rSu6M&imgurl=http://www.bookyourhotel.org/info/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/prague1.jpg&w=3543&h=2583&ei=OZqhTpqyLMiZ8QPj6bHeBQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=332&sig=103878679062256418800&page=1&tbnh=127&tbnw=171&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0&tx=117&ty=93

Heading in a new direction (again)

When I left school I knew I wanted to be a journalist. I had my first piece of writing published in The Evening Chronicle when I was 13 and loved the thrill of seeing my name and words in print.

During my first year at university I got to try my hand at radio and television journalism but chose to continue on my path to a career in newspapers. Last year I was suddenly distracted away from newspapers by the glossy life of the magazine industry.

I have now decided that I would like to go into food, lifestyle or travel (I'm not fussy!)

Back into the swing of things

I have had a very busy summer working for the university and, as a result have not been blogging as much as I would have hoped.

After two days back at university I am fully back in to the swing of things and learning the dreaded shorthand. I may regret saying this so early but I am surprised at how well I am picking it up - although I don't know how I will get up to 100 words per minute!

It's very exciting to be back at uni but it looks like I will be extremely busy for the foreseeable!

Live from the court room...

Yesterday Sky News reported that "The Justice Secretary has come under renewed pressure to allow television cameras into the country's court rooms"

While the main idea behind this argument is so that the rest of the country can find out what is happening with those involved in the recent riots I disagree that television cameras should be allowed into court rooms.

I simply feel that if cameras were allowed in to the court rooms the Judaical system could become over dramatised and Britain's criminals could become famous which would set a bad example for the British Youth.