I recently signed up for newsmodo.com, a website created to become a kind of agent to facilitate contracts between news organisations and freelancers. As a registered freelancer, I can post pitches for articles I'd like to work on using a carefully formulaic set of criteria on the newsmodo website. The ad goes up like a… Continue reading Newsmodo fills a gap in the freelance market
Category: Online Journalism 1
My Twitter Account is worth $US83.20
According to the experts at snpros.com - "The Social Networking Professionals" - my Twitter account is worth US$83.20 as of five months ago. If you have a Twitter account, I encourage you to do the same - just google your name and it'll be somewhere down there. Some robot has gone through all of our… Continue reading My Twitter Account is worth $US83.20
…and if you can’t go online?
Do you exist if you don't have Facebook? Is a place really there if you can't access the internet there? Colombia's Pacific coast, specifically the department (equivalent of an Australian state) of Choco, is like another country. Almost completely inaccessible from the rest of Colombia by land, except via the narco-trafficking port of Buenaventura, it… Continue reading …and if you can’t go online?
I’m not making a statement by not owning a smartphone
During second semester of 2012 and the first semester of 2013 I lived in Bogota, Colombia on exchange. Coming from country New South Wales and having only been in Brisbane 18 months before I left for South America, returning to Australia's "new world city" feels strange. I feel like I'm in the future. Home is… Continue reading I’m not making a statement by not owning a smartphone
The Man Booker Prize open to American authors – Now what happens?
Brisbane literary figures have expressed support for the Man Booker Prize’s decision to open the competition to any novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom. The prize had previously been open only to authors from the British Commonwealth, and some literary figures in the United Kingdom have expressed concern that American writers… Continue reading The Man Booker Prize open to American authors – Now what happens?
Tim Tebow breaks both legs in Dallas car crash
In her lectures to journalism students at QUT, Susan Hetherington often talks about celebrity death hoaxes and how they can suck in unsuspecting journalists desperate to be first at the expense of being correct. Well, a quick search around the internet has found that most of those celebrity death hoaxes (Jeff Goldblum, Charlie Sheen, Owen… Continue reading Tim Tebow breaks both legs in Dallas car crash
Nate Thayer is a Legend
Nate Thayer is an American freelance journalist who has worked all over the world and, in recent years, has focused more on North Korea. In March he wrote an article about basketball diplomacy in the country, following Dennis Rodham's visit to Kim Jong Un for the website nknews.org. After the article was published, Thayer received… Continue reading Nate Thayer is a Legend
I Don’t Think I Could Do Marissa Calligeros’ Job
In a media landscape of shrinking budgets and a growing necessity for immediacy in reporting, we're going to see more and more journalists with job descriptions like that of Marissa Calligeros from the Brisbane Times. Marissa is in charge of reporting breaking news for the Brisbane Times, and describes arriving on the scene of, say, a… Continue reading I Don’t Think I Could Do Marissa Calligeros’ Job
Listening to the Radio Man
It strikes me how quickly some more traditional (or at least I think of them traditional) media institutions have taken up the whole shift from paper to pixels. The ABC is one of those - the old girl usually the domain of crusty news anchors like Rod Young (well, I remember him as a little… Continue reading Listening to the Radio Man
Politicians are still finding their feet online
Am I the only one who feels weird about politicians using social media? Maybe I'm still too young to be feeling this jaded, but every tweet, every Facebook post seems so obviously contrived, so carefully worded by handlers and probably focus-grouped three times over before pressing the blue button. Until they go home and do… Continue reading Politicians are still finding their feet online