NOW IS A GOOD A TIME AS EVER TO BECOME A HACK, SAYS C4 NEWS PRESENTER JON SNOW
Newbie tech news guy Jon Snow told a conference now was an exciting time for students to enter journalism. Snow, a long-standing presenter of the C4 News show at 7pm weekdays, has only just started blogging and using twitter, and is optimistic about where his profession is going.
He said: "This is an incredible moment in our time, where we are party and we are training people to be prepared to make music with the most incredible development, a development which is going to clean out the gunk and clear out the hierarchical crap of the last 1,000 years, where people had station or place because of inheritance, or because of non-election, or dictatorship, or force of arms."SNOW ON POLITICS AND MPS
On politics, Snow had this to say: "It's a completely ridiculous, absurd place, not fit for purpose." Most people at this time would agree with him... He then joked: "But does anyone who actually dissects with it from the journalistic fraternity say so? No, because if they did so that was the end, they wouldn't be able to work there again. That's the compact they made with the devil."So what do you think? Is it a great time to be entering journalism?
Contrast Snow's optimism with this quote from a disenchanted journo, who has a job, but not exactly where he wants in the profession: "There are just too many of us and the only ones who are going to survive are those who can sweat it out earning no money and doing internships and what not. It doesn't boil down to talent anymore, it's about staying power and how much your mummy and daddy can bankroll you. I would NEVER recommend that anyone study journalism. It's the biggest waste of a degree imaginable. If you have the chance to go to university then for god's sake study somehing proper. It's a farce of a course! I don't think I learnt anything. DON'T DO IT. If you really want to be a journo then do a masters afterwards, don't waste 12K studying it at university though. I really wish someone had told me this."Put you off? He is right though on one thing, there are loads wanting it, but not enough vacancies to go around. But that is like most industries. We have created the problem through over populating our planet? Snow interviews one of the rats, in the video above....
Thomas L. Blair is a sociologist and political blogger on the Chronicleworld 'for creative renewal in Black Britain and Afro-Europe'. His work is honoured in the British Library's archive of "social, historic and culturally significant web-based material from the UK domain". He won top prize in the blogging competition on The-Latest.
Sumantra Maitra is a freelance journalist from Mumbai, India. He is a correspondent for All Sports magazine, and a foreign affairs blogger for the Washington Examiner. He has written articles for news website Merinews.com and other regional publications. Sumantra runs a blog at DailyWorldWatch.wordpress.com. He provided exclusive eyewitness reports for The-Latest on the Mumbai bombings of 2008.
Brian Usher is photography consultant for The-Latest.Com. He is a highly experienced editorial and commercial photographer whose work has been published throughout the world, appearing in many well known magazines and newspapers. Brian has featured in several books and has been a writer for the Royal Photographic Society magazine.
Heidi Kingstone has spent time in Afghanistan reporting for a number of publications. Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, The Spectator, The Sunday Times and other international journals. She has also reported from places like Iraq, Rwanda, Lebanon, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenya. Heidi is The-Latest's Editor at large.
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