wake up and smell the copy
Posted in blog, online journalism on May 29th, 2008
Or: Why newspapers should wake up and smell the link etiquette. Been meaning to post on this for a while… now Mark Higginson has gawn done it, with this incisive observation on how annoying it is when websites insist on treating themselves as a final destination rather than one point on a journey. He takes [...]
Posted in blog on Apr 19th, 2008
Hmmm. I’ve just updated our software to WordPress 2.5. Despite my recent form and the terrifying detailed upgrade instructions, it appears to have worked. At least, I’d written that before trying to upload this screenshot which, predictably, broke. There’s a fix, but I seem to be channelling Alannis Morisette at the moment. Yesterday, someone sent [...]
Posted in blog, online journalism, technology, work on Apr 12th, 2008
I’ve come to a mini-realisation. There is no getting away from IT. Let me fill you in – I used to work in tech support, which was OK, but there’s only so many progress meters a man can take. If you laid mine end to end they’d probably reach Belgium. My plan was to begin [...]
Posted in blog, journalism, writing on Mar 10th, 2008
Right, I’ve sussed out this internet thing. We’re all turning into Smash Hits. Bear with me. A colleague sent me this a while back: a survey of US journalists’ attitude to and engagement with blogs. I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while now, but hey, I’ve got time on my hands this [...]
Posted in blog, online journalism, writing on Feb 27th, 2008
Kind of a note-to-self: editorial process is a Good Thing. And although blogging is all conversational and flexible and 2.0, it’s sometimes handy to ask a friend (or, what the hell, journalistic colleague) to cast their eagle eye over your draft. Especially when you’re planning to post at the end of the day. So, Handolio: [...]
Posted in blog on Jan 9th, 2008
Right. Regular visitors will notice that Hackbash has been in varying states of disrepair since Monday. It’s my fault – sorry and all – but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Anyway, we’re now situated at new web hosts, who have answered and solved all my emails for help. They’re dirt-cheap and I’m very grateful, [...]
Posted in blog on Jan 4th, 2008
Recent experience suggests that I’ve lost my IT mojo: that silicon and I are no longer on speaking terms. And yet, I persist in fooling around with forces more powerful than I can imagine. First it was the broadband upgrade, then a tedious episode over Christmas that started out as an attempt to breathe new [...]
Posted in blog on Dec 5th, 2007
We weren’t quite sure how to take mrsnakeface’s comment on my terms and conditions post (precious content?), but it made me ask myself a couple of questions: 1) Is this an angry website? That’s not the intention. Perhaps Charlie and I just have a lot of pent-up rage? “Hackbash” was coined with a gathering of [...]
Posted in blog, online journalism on Nov 6th, 2007
I recently wrote this article for the Press Gazette; some basic SEO tips for journalists. It’s nice to think that I might be developing a reputation for knowing what I’m talking about, but in fact the deputy editor found me through this blog. I find that hugely encouraging. It’s not often as a journalist that [...]
Posted in blog on Sep 13th, 2007
OK, so you might have noticed we’ve moved. This pretty much started out as me thinking out loud, so we ended up with an address based on my user name, a blog name that was the first thing to come into my head (and which sounded more pretentious with each repetition), and the first pretty [...]
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