A visit from Joanna Geary, The Times web development editor, was really inspirational. Her success is demonstrative of just how far becoming part of the ‘conversation’ can get you. After years of struggling on little money to get her foot in the door, she got a job at The Birmingham Post. Despite all the hard work in journalism, it was actually a sideline – starting her own blog – that got her noticed by The Times and led to such great success.
A blog, however, is not inherently good. It gains value only by the hard work of the contributor and an interesting choice of topic. Joanna’s stood out for its contributions to the online debate over the role of technology in the future of journalism. This is a subject that cannot be far from the minds of anyone involved in journalism, 0r wanting to be involved in journalism, at the moment. There are already many great thinkers involved in the debate online, from NYU professor Jeff Jarvis, to ex-WIRED editor Kevin Kelly and the ever-present Clay Shirky.
The idea of becoming part of a debate of such high calibre is intimidating, but this is exactly what Joanna did. Before I became involved in journalism, there always seemed to be an invisible barrier between myself and the people I read and read about. Realising that I could actually find and speak to these people has probably been my most fascinating discovery so far. I think it could be this division which is preventing people from feeling truly engaged with news and the societies they are a part of. As blogging works towards removing these barriers for everyone, I think it could be an incredibly powerful tool.
In this case, Joanna Geary was a journalist very much aware of the potential pitfalls facing the industry, while herself experiencing the redundancy process at a local newspaper. By writing a blog, she was able to engage in the public conversation around the topics that were directly effecting her. Putting to one side the fact that, as a professional journalist, raising her public profile proved highly beneficial to her career, the idea of enabling those actually effected by a story to become a part of the process of reporting on that story sounds to me like a highly enriched journalism. In terms of quality of the news that is produced, I don’t think anyone has anything to worry about.
