Thursday, 14 June 2012

Advice from Steve Molkington, Reflections and a Summary of Journalism This Semester (week 13)


“You have the opportunity to connect with bum-scratchers around the world”
- Steve Molkingon, 2012

In my final week as a student of journalism, I had the pleasure of listening to Steve ‘Molko’ Molkington –television blogger and master couch potato. Steve described himself as egomaniacal, with aspirations for “world domination”; “an opinionated kind of guy who likes to sit on his arse and watch television.” I found both his personality and personal experience entertaining. Listening to the advice and anecdotes that came from establishing his successful blogger ‘brand’ in just two years was of great use. Above this, though, it nicely summarised everything we have coved this semester regarding the baffling, ludicrous and wonderful world of journalism.

Hearing about a man who simply writes about things that he is passionate about came as refreshing change to the topics we covered in recent weeks, which focused on journalism as a vulgar and largely unethical career with few redeeming factors.

The discussion that he started initially focused on the importance of experience in writing for online platforms like microblogs (Twitter), and the advantages that this has. For me, one of my biggest milestones in this course was creating a Twitter account. I had always avoided Twitter as if it were some kind of disease; I couldn’t understand the reason or the use for reading one hundred and forty character statuses describing what various people were doing in their mundane lives. Meaningless glib like “It’s breakfast time, how about some cereal LOL” was what I imagined the Twitterverse to be filled with. Much to my delight, however, I discovered its real beauty once I actually started using it. I like Mr Molkingon’s description of twitter as “loud” – it is purely about communication, and being forced to use a limited number of characters makes you think and care about what you’re writing. As pretentious as this is going to sound, writing on twitter is similar to poetry in this way. As Stephen Fry (my favourite person in the whole universe ever) once pointed out, when you are forced to follow a limiting structure, writing about a specific idea becomes like filling out a crossword. This is, of course, in stark contrast to the word-vomit that constitutes blogs like this one.

Importantly, Twitter can be used to talk directly to any other user (assuming they want to respond to you), which includes some of the most influential people in the world.  A perfect example of this is Molko’s anecdote describing how he organised an interview with Will Anderson – simply by directly asking “are you free for an interview today?”

Following the discussion on Twitter, I found Molko’s  most interesting point to be the fact that blogs promote a connectedness within a global online community. It allows those who are passionate about a subject, topic or idea to appreciate the opinions of others out there. He used the example of ‘bum-scratchers’ which is an online community that I dread to imagine. This very blog is testimony to Steve’s point, though – it is just one biological science-related blog out of thousands scattered throughout the internet. Some of my favourites are listed here:


http://geneticist.tumblr.com/  

With access to the remarkable work of others who share my passion for science, the internet establishes an international community of like-minded people, and I think that is a powerful thing.

Steve also emphasised the importance of using blogging experience as a tool for future employment. While this blog might not be a Muma mia media empire, and while I’m no Brian Stelter, it has certainly been a worthwhile experience. I look back on this blog as if it is a loved child. Granted, I’ll probably read this in a decade or so and cringe in the same way that I presently cringe reading middle-school feature articles that I wrote. For the moment, though, I am proud of my baby; I, prince of the technologically and socially challenged, have made a whole blog. I deserve a gold star or something. It still amazes me that some people actually read this (or at least look at this page) without being forced to do so. The weird but wonderful world of journalism has been a pleasure to be part of, I have learned a lot. 

THE END. 

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