Gary Andrews

Heard the one about the journalism graduate offered a job for £10k in London? Yes, that is an actual position that came up in conversation with a friend the other day. The experience, work-wise, sounds excellent. The experience, life-wise, probably amounts to renting out a cardboard box under Hammersmith Bridge.

I only mention because ever since last month there’s been an ongoing debate rumbling on, started mainly by Ed Ceasar’s Sunday Times piece, Hold The Front Page, I Want To Be On It, where he details the lengths – and financial pain – journalism graduates have to go through to get onto a national paper. The picture painted was somewhat bleak and depressing.

Since then, others have contributed to the debate. Adam Tinworth notes that Ceasar is very narrow in focus and omits vast swathes of the media:

“Journalism is a very, very broad church – and it was so long before the internet came along to knock down some walls, pop in an extra transept or two, and generally widen the whole place. Radio, TV, newspapers (local and national), consumer magazines, business magazines, niche subscription-only titles. Online news sites. Blogs. And now the whole, growing world of hyperniche and hyperlocal sites.”

Roy Greenslade partly agrees with Adam on this point, but also says that in his experience, most of his journalism students aren’t interested in these opportunities:

“I may exhort them to think about entrepreneurial journalism. They may learn about successful online news start-ups. They often tell me that mainstream media controlled by big, bad, profiteering moguls is a danger to press freedom. But these so-called “digital natives” still want to work for mogul-owned media.”

And Laura Oliver from journalism.co.uk, who is one of those people who, hopefully, acts as an inspiration to other recent graduates feels that the focus of the journalism postgrad courses are too narrow.

“I graduated from City’s newspaper journalism course in 2007. I applied for graduate schemes on national newspapers along with the rest of my classmates, but largely because I felt I had to. I wanted to work online and for a smaller newsroom/company where I hoped I could make more of a mark. But from day one it felt as if the expectations of our course were national or nothing – and I know from speaking to other recently-qualified journalists that it wasn’t just my course that pushed this view.”

Of course, this is nothing new. I sketched out a few thoughts on the subject just over two years ago and it doesn’t seem like much has changed. If anything, the world for new journalism graduates is even more unclear now than it was back then.

There’s a lot I recognise in all viewpoints. Ceasar’s article is all too depressingly familiar and chimes with the experiences of a lot of friends and colleagues.

Even those who managed to get themselves onto the nationals did so with a hideous level of debt that they’re nowhere near to repaying, and jobs in the market aren’t really offering huge salary boosts. When I applied for a interesting position, with an unspecified level of pay, a while back, I backed out after realising I’d have to take an £8k pay cut. And this was for a relatively senior role.

But then again, there are so many more opportunities, so many more publications online and the boundaries of media and the online world are so vague that willing graduates could find themselves in an excellent job that gave them plenty of training and experience if they’re prepared to think beyond the usual suspects.

And these kind of roles don’t necessarily mean a job on the nationals is beyond you. I’ve met a variety of people from a variety of ages ranges who’ve all made it to national media through completely different means. And yes, while increasingly a postgraduate is necessary, the path post-degree is of varying length and direction.

But for me, still, what it comes down to is money. Or lack of.

No matter how many different opportunities and different media and organisations there are out there, you still have to pay the bills – and your student debts – somehow. And that’s getting harder to do these days.

Not that pay will rise anytime soon. Universities are still churning out a large number of media graduates and even when you take into account the postgraduate courses, the job-to-graduate ratio is still at the stage where employers can keep their wages low – they’ll always be another talented, well-trained eager young thing willing to get that first foot on the ladder.

This doesn’t even take into account the large number of websites and web-only publications. It’s unlikely many of these will pay vast sums of money, either for freelance pieces or permanent positions. Partly because a lot of these places are so small that they don’t have the cash, and partly because there are enough people who’ll happily accept the odd low-pay commission for a bit of extra cash.

Put simply, no matter what the ideal situation is or how many opportunities there are out there, the economics of media pay do not paint a rosy picture.

As for the national positions – the national papers, the BBC TV and radio prime reporting positions, those big name magazines – those with the talent and drive to get there stand a good chance of doing so, although those with some cash stored away and a place to stay in London will always have an advantage. Unpaid internships and just being able to have that flexibility to come into the office helps.

(Not that it’s much different outside of London. I got my first freelance shifts after essentially coming in and working for free every day for a month at my local radio station. Not that I begrudged this – they didn’t force me and I had nothing else to do that summer, plus I really enjoyed the work. But I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t done the unpaid, unrequested work.)

I can’t speak for B2B publications and websites as I don’t have any direct experience of these, although general impressions are these are an excellent place to start on a decent salary, especially if you know finance, economics, or science. They’re also probably a neglected option by many graduates, sadly.

As for locals – and here I definitely disagree – plenty of postgrads I know or have trained with have been happy to go onto the locals. I was delighted to get a job in local radio. It’s an excellent training ground and I’m immensely proud of my work and background there.

As much as anything, just as there were those who were determined to make it to the national media, there were also those who were happy just to get offered a job, or those who saw it as a stepping stone to bigger things.

Locals are a great training ground and, mostly, a great place to work but ultimately, again, money plays a huge part. Salaries are typically low and pay rises are rarely forthcoming.

This is fine when you’re fresh out of university with no commitments and the debt something that can be dealt with at some other time. But eventually you start having to make important decisions like settling down (with a partner), deposits and mortgages, kids, career and just how much disposable income you want.

It’s at that stage where idealism fades into practicality  - and pushing yourself to get onto a national has, perhaps, a slightly more limited window of opportunity, if that’s the way you want to go.

That said, I know so many different people who work for so many different media, all of whom juggle the issues listed above that it’s difficult to generalise, as I’ve inevitably done above. But that doesn’t mean that money doesn’t hang over most media professionals’ heads.

To paraphrase one journalist, as we were chatting post-twofootedtackle podcast about the diversifying new media and the number of people prepared to work for free, “The media is changing and I’m not sure if I like it. I’ve embraced it, but I don’t necessarily like it.”

I think all of us have had that thought at one point or another.

written by Gary \\ tags: Ed Ceasar, journalism, media debates, national newspapers, pay in the media, postgraduate journalists, Roy Greenslade

Ever since Murdoch brought paywalls back into fashion like bad mullets in indie videos, I’ve been wrestling with assorted pros and cons (having heard from both sides), so I thought I’d put them down here.

So, lets take this hypothetical. David Conn is one of my favourite football writers, and somebody I would be happy to pay to read his articles.

I also enjoy reading Gabriele Marcotti’s pieces and while I’ll make a point of reading them, I probably don’t like them enough to pay for them.

Let’s imagine, hypothetically, the Guardian put a paywall around Conn’s work. I’d happily pay for it as, I suspect, would other fans of Conn’s work. But his potential audience would be diminished.

Now, Conn is one of the few writers who consistently picks up on issues not covered elsewhere. His are articles that deserve the widest possible audience because of the content he covers and the financial implications for football.

But if you put Conn behind a paywall, these important stories reach a much smaller audience. Important issues that get casual readers thinking may be missed. He will, if you like, be preaching mostly to the converted.

But on the other hand the money generated from the paywall will most likely easily pay for Conn to carry on his excellent work, leaving the consumers (or Conn-sumers, if you like) satisfied.

Meanwhile, Marcotti is unaffected as he remains free to everybody, and may well pick up extra readers as a result of Conn and his colleagues vanishing behind a paywall.

Now reverse that. Conn is free and available to read for all, but Gabriele Marcotti’s articles go behind a paywall.

Marcotti is an excellent writer and provides quality analysis on the Premier League, a topic all too readily filled with hyperbolic dross that panders to the masses.

But by restricting access to his articles, it encourages readers to look elsewhere. For while there are plenty of people who write about the Premier League, both in other papers and on blogs, there are very few who cover the topics Conn does, with his investigative journalism.

So Marcotti will attract his devotees and subscribers but those, like me, who enjoy his work but want to save money, will look elsewhere. There are more likely to be other insightful Premier League writers than investigative football journalists available.

Marcotti, again, may manage to pay for himself through the paywall, but, again, we lose insightful analysis. As with the loss of Conn behind a paywall, it is readers who lose out, unless they want to pay. But he may well pick up less subscribers.

But then, in this hypothetical world, if Conn’s employers can’t fund all his work, that could also lead to a drop in quality or number of articles from Conn. But those that are written will reach the maximum possible audience.

It’s a really tough argument with many pros and cons here. Do you want to ensure your favourite writer can afford to keep writing? But what about the lac of impact a genuinely hard-hitting piece could have.

Certainly, with football content, I’ll be surprised if paywalls will ever be the answer, given how much coverage is out there. I’d happily pay for David Conn or Tim Vickery’s work, but I wouldn’t miss the Sun or even the Times’ coverage (although may pay for an occasional piece by Marcotti if recommended to me).

And therein is the crux. Conn and Vickery are popular writers on niche content. There are very few other journalists who cover the financial implications of football or South American football as well as these two.

They are more likely to succeed behind a paywall because there are very few other places you can go for similar writing. But this is a great loss to those who are yet to discover and enjoy the writings of Conn or Vickery.

Meanwhile Gabriele Marcotti, while one of the best writers around (in my view), writes on standard topics that generate thousands of column inches and opinion pieces. He would initially be missed, but there is more likely to be somebody out there who can fill the void.

Tough, isn’t it. I’d rather not have them.

written by Gary \\ tags: David Conn, football journalism, Gabriele Marcotti, paywalls, Tim Vickery

In newspapers, Rupert Murdoch still very much matters. In the internet, his influence may not be as keenly felt, but when he speaks, people still listen, especially when what he says hints at blocking search engines from his news sites.

How likely is this to happen, and is this a Murdoch misstep or will he surprise us yet again?

It’s worth just quickly starting with paid:content’s report. Murdoch didn’t exactly say that his publications would block search engines, as he seems to be unsure of how his own publication, the Wall Street Journal, currently handles search.

The consensus on Twitter seems to be that Murdoch would be shooting himself in the foot by withdrawing from Google and Google News. As Charles Arthur notes, Google are unlikely to be troubled by this.

More than that, if Techcrunch are to be believed the WSJ gets around twenty-five per cent of its traffic from Google and Google News.

Even if this is some plan to get more people buying into the content he’s locked down behind a paywall, it still doesn’t totally make sense. People still have to find the content somehow (although I suspect The Times, Sun, WSJ et al would only need a fraction of their current users to pay in order to make a decent amount of cash).

Is this a case of a big beast of the old media not really getting the internet? Some would point to MySpace as another example, but I’m not so sure. At the time it was probably a decent buy (not any more, though) and it’s not like Murdoch is the only person from traditional media to make a less-than-stellar purchase of a popular online company. Hell, enough online companies make the same mistake.

Murdoch clearly thinks he’s onto something and it would be more beneficial to him to be out of Google’s directories than in it. Personally, I think he’s mad in this regard – SEO is hugely important for newspapers -but there’s always the nagging sense that he might be working on a masterplan that will have us all in awe.

And it’s also worth remembering that if he somehow convinces a new Conservative government to break up the BBC’s online news offering (not beyond the realms of possibility) then suddenly Murdoch will be in a lot stronger position. Albeit still without SEO or Google ranking.

My own feeling is that Murdoch thinks he can take on Google in a straight fight, much as he took on the UK newspaper market and won. But he may not have realised that the game has changed slightly.

Google isn’t in competition with Murdoch’s empire – at least not directly, and not where journalism is concerned. Google also probably won’t be too fussed if Murdoch’s publications remove themselves from the directory. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of other news sites out there.

Murdoch strikes me as one of those from the old school who seems Google and others as being parasitic. But the trouble with parasites is that unless you find a way to manage them, they will eventually kill their host Murdoch would do well to keep this in mind.

written by Gary \\ tags: Google, Google News, Rupert Murdoch, Wall Street Journal

Funny, really, how many individuals’ blogs in my RSS reader are having more posts saying: “Sorry, been a bit busy, here’s what I’ve been up to.”

Funnily enough I was thinking of posting something similar myself. But it also got me thinking.

Part of this also stemmed from a colleague asking for a list of bloggers for area x earlier today. My list was a bit small. “That’s great,” came the response, “but, er, is that it.”

I checked. Yes, that was indeed it. And, what’s more, it was probably a bit smaller than the last area x blogger list I sent over.

Which neatly melds these two lines of thought together. This isn’t a sign that the blogosphere (sorry) is getting smaller, nor are people stopping blogging. But they are consolidating.

Plenty of people still have personal blogs, but it’s kind of inevitable that blog activity tails off at some point. It takes a lot of time to run and maintain a blog, especially if it’s just you running it.

You know those blogging advice guides that tell you to blog every day. Great, but you try blogging every day on your own blog, plus having a job, plus having a social life, plus having a relationship, plus writing for all those other blogs you promised people to. Why, you’d almost think blogging was a full-time job.

It’s one of the reasons I’m quite a fan of Posterous.

It’s somewhat inevitable that, if you’re any good, you’ll either try and flex your muscles and write for blogs for bigger audiences, or group blogs that carry more prestige. After all, it helps you get more writing and blogging work, and so on.

So, I can either say: “Oh yes, I blog at Gary Andrews.net,” and people may expect a wonderfully daily updated site. Or I can say: “I write for Soccerlens, twofootedtackle.com, and Pitch Invasion. And I have my own blog.” Kind of sounds more impressive really.

If you’re really good, others will pick up on your work and you might even get a mainstream publication or two pick you up for occasional pieces. Plus you flit between half a dozen different blogs. Before you know it your personal blog is looking a little forlorn or serves merely as a place to dump everything you’re working on.

It’s not like it’s a surprise that blogging, and websites, and group blogs ape more traditional publications really. There’s only a small percentage of bloggers who have the time to consistently post, and these tend to be the ones who set up blog networks.

But this brings us to another point to briefly touch on – online PR. If blogs are consolidating, and bloggers are moving between online and offline publications, where does this leave your online PR specialist?

In times past, your non-online PR (no, I have no idea what the best name to label these as is) would take care of the press, the magazines, the TV, the radio and your online PR would beaver away looking for bloggers or cool websites.

But now your blogger is writing for the newspaper, and blogging as well, and that reporter you’ve got labelled as a star contact is spending more time updating his blog for the newspaper, while another journalist has set up an online magazine, yet the hot young blogger has launched his new news and opinion site for the same topic and, now you come to look at them, they look remarkably similar in terms of content. And they’re all on Twitter.

I’ll be shocked if online PR is still considered a separate discipline in five years. And I think I’m being generous in timescale here.

Yet you’ll still find people who insist online PR is a separate discipline; an area that only online specialists can deliver results. Yet, increasingly, your online and not-online PRs are pitching the same spaces and, if they’re doing it well, it’ll be in exactly the same way.

I’ve said many a time before, it’s not a mystery on how to pitch blogs. To that, you can add, there’s no point drawing up a long list of blogs and websites to get coverage on if you’re not going to see the benefits or the ROI.

You wouldn’t invite the Glossop Advertiser to a national policy briefing that has little relevance to Glossop, solely on the basis that it’s the same medium as the Guardian. Similarly, why would you want to pitch a blogger on a topic that has little relevance to them, other than the fact that, like Blog Y, they’re also based on the internet. Great, it’s been covered by 20 bloggers. But that’s not much use if it’s only relevant to the audience of 2 out of the 20.

There’s nothing mysterious about contacting bloggers, and there’s no shame in going for the biggest blogs in that area if they’re the most relevant. But it’s also worth remembering not to forget the smaller individual bloggers writing in the same area. After all, they’ll probably be editing the bigger blogs in a year’s time.

written by Gary \\ tags: blogging, consolidation, online PR

When the trade magazine for an industry closes, it’s a sure sign that things aren’t looking good for said industry. When the trade magazine for an industry that includes magazines closes… well, you tell me what that means. Nothing good, that’s for sure.

The Press Gazette has been bumping along, barely getting by, for a while now so while today’s announcement is somewhat of a shock it can’t be said to be a surprise.

The publication will be mourned by those in the media and rightly so. Not too long ago it was still essential reading. Even when it switched from a weekly to a monthly and got by on reduced staff it was still worth reading, if only as a place where you could get a reasonably comprehensive roundup of national, local and regional and it still provided food for thought.

But the writing has been on the wall for a while, as illustrated nicely by Dave Lee’s anecdotal post. It was still important reading but not vital reading. It was useful but the website wasn’t a daily must-read.

If anything its demise acts as a pretty good barometer and illustration of the industry itself. It was struggling with declining revenues, cutting costs, struggling with whether it was a print or online publication and, most importantly of all, struggling to stay relevant in an online world. It was just about managing this, but having mediaguardian.co.uk as a competitor didn’t help.

More worrying is what this means – and says – about the media itself. We’ve already seen other big name publications, most notably Maxim, disappear from our shelves.

And while we’re not quite at the levels of the US where several big names have gone, local press is seriously struggling to keep going here. Plenty of people I’ve trained with, worked with or have got to know have been made redundant or have been asked to work shorter hours. The prognosis is not good.

Roy Greenslade asks if anybody will be willing to save the Press Gazette. But we’ve been here before and the publication has just lurched from one owner to another, struggling to stay alive all the time.

And this is, let’s not forget, a media industry that, for whatever reason, cannot make a magazine about media aimed squarely at them work [1].

The industry will be much the poorer without the Press Gazette, especially as it seems their online offering won’t actually offer any proper journalism after the start of May (which kind of defeats the point in keeping it going). Hopefully somebody will give it the proper send off, the celebration of its life that it deserves.

It’s going to be a long hard year for the media, sadly. I still maintain that the cycle will come back round at some point (whenever that may be) and the industry will pick up.

But quite what the industry will look like at that stage is anybody’s guess. That the business model has to change is beyond doubt, but if anybody had a clue on how best to change it, it would have happened long before now.

Ouch.

[1] Although this is a slightly simplistic way of looking at it and the various owners can be said to play at part in this.

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: death of an industry, magazines, media, newspapers, Press Gazette, Wilmington

Otherwise known as a quick, likely-to-be-ill-thought-out, ill-informed pondering on the state of the media industry.

Everywhere media-related seems to be making cutbacks. Even places that you would normally have put down as safe are tightening their belts. Friends, colleagues and people I don’t know but have heard of are all getting laid off, and many of these have surprised given, given their jobs.

It’s not just that we’re in a global recession. It’s also that this industry really doesn’t know where the hell it’s going. Journalism. Broadcasting. PR. None of them safe. Or with any real idea of where they meant to be going.

If this were an interview and the media was asked where it would be in five years time, it’d have a hard job in answering. If it were then asked where it saw itself in ten years time, it’d find the question impossible to answer.

You do wonder if the skills you’ve been trained in, and others you’ve picked up along the way, will be completely redundant in the not-too-distant future.

Everywhere seems to be in trouble. We’re constantly told online is the future – and it IS the future – but it just doesn’t seem to be entirely sure how it wants to be the future.

I have an inkling things will pick up. Not in the sense of green shoots of recovery, but more to do with the fact that when this recession, and downturn and general media crisis of identity is over, there will be a need for quality journalism, PR and broadcasting.

Sadly this need will be because there will probably be huge holes in the market by this stage and, as with any good market, where there’s a hole and a demand, something will inevitably plug it.

So, yes, there will be an upturn. At some point. But when is anybody’s guess. If this were a Hollywood war movie, the sergeant would turn his face away and to the ground and sadly say: “We lost a lot of good men out there.”

At this stage it’s common for a blogger to offer his twopence worth on “hey, but this is how you can get through it.”

If only it were that easy.

All those of us in the industry – be it journalism, PR, broadcasting or a combination of some or all of these – can do is watch, learn, adapt to developments (both online and offline), try innovative stuff, and never ever compromise on quality or belief that nobody else, to quote Carly Simon, nobody does it better, no matter what we do. There, by the grace of God, we will survive. Hopefully.

(Then again, you do wonder if any print papers will survive when you read something like this.)

If anybody has any idea what they think this industry will look like in five to ten years type, please do leave a comment below. I’ll post my own thoughts at some point in the near future.

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: future of journalism, future of the media, newspaper, PR, recession

There’s a brand new sport in town. It involves shaping a Twitter-shaped stick and bashing the hell out of whatever purpose that stick’s shape is best for.

Sometimes the target of this is Twitter itself and involves beating the stick repeatedly on the ground. Sometimes the Twitter-shaped cudgel is the right shape for giving something else a good thumping. And occasionally the stick turns into a scattergun.

I imagine that if the rules of this sport were ever to be written, they’d probably be quite similar to Brockian Ultra Cricket.

As with any flavour of the month, people are queuing up to give Twitter a darn good slapping down, whether it’s in the comments about the global Twestival, getting psychologists to make sweeping assumptions about the users, or decry any organisation that dares spend cash on social media that could be better spent on, ooh, let’s say locking up feral children.

To those of us who’ve been on Twitter for quite a while and use the tool as part of our everyday life, these articles can be seen as a bit baffling and tend to provoke an angry response. My Twitter feed on Sunday was full of people getting angry about the Sunday Times piece [1]. Indeed, my Twitter feed is increasingly full of anger about the way Twitter’s portrayed.

But is it really worth getting worked up about any more? Any flavour of the month is prone to Freddie Star Ate My Hamster stories. Facebook had it, MySpace had it, mobile phones had it, mobile internet had it, Friends Reunited had it. Email probably had it, if I could remember that far back.

Twitter’s well and truly entered the mainstream and when that happens you’re inevitably going to get sneering and snide comments, both from people who, for whatever reason, what to have a pop at it, and from media outlets who either don’t want to get it or know that’ll provide a response and get read and passed around [2].

So, is it worth getting worked up about every badly written Twitter article or comment now? Probably not. It’s a good thing the Twestival organisers popped up in the comments to provide a bit of context to those who didn’t like it. And if it directly affects you or your company, then it probably doesn’t hurt to put a quick rebuttal wherever appropriate.

But as for the rest? Meh, I say, and meh again. We know Twitter. We love Twitter. And Twitter is no big enough to stand on its own two feet without us rushing in to defend its honour on a regular basis.

There are plenty of sensible conversations going on outside of the traditional media sphere. The celebrities who are active on Twitter, like Stephen Fry or Phillip Schofield, will attract and probably encourage users into trying out Twitter and, hopefully getting the service.

And if you don’t get it, don’t worry. David Mitchell doesn’t either and is funny and accurate in not quite getting it.

Twitter’s now getting enough coverage both in and out of traditional channels (and often a mixture of the two at the same time). It’s now at the stage where having hoards of angry Twitterers leaping on every badly researched article (and by God, there have been enough and there will be more time come) makes the service look, well, a little bit closed to those who don’t like it. Which couldn’t be further from the truth and we’re a very friendly bunch.

While there’s a certain amount of fun to be had in picking apart the badly-done Twitter pieces, it’s getting to the stage where it’s not worth getting worked up about it.

I know Twitter’s useful in so many ways. And continuing to demonstrate that is probably the best thing that can be done to counteract any negative coverage. You just have to look at the money raised from Twestival or the instant news reporting from the Hudson Crash or Mumbai to show this.

Some have posited that the reason there are so many anti-Twitter stories out there is that the traditional media is worried that it might kill them off. Ok, there may be a slight bit of fear there, but I’d argue it’s just as much that Twitter is news right now so any way of shoehorning it in fits in with the news values. And there’s nothing like giving the flavour of the month a good kicking – it’s something the British media does well.

Twitter is another communication tool. It’s a great backchannel and, integrated into any news site, it complements traditional reporting rather than threatening it. Journalists are starting to understand that Twitter is a great news source. The really good journalists will have probably already written a lot of stories thanks to Twitter.

One thing’s for sure, the likes of Twitter won’t kill traditional media. It’s perfectly capable of committing hari-kari without any help.

Related reading: Shiny Red – The Twitter backlash starts in earnest in old media.

[1] And probably with good cause. It was a somewhat daft piece of space-filling.

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: criticisms of Twitter, Twitter, Twitter bashing