Your chance to get involved in the future of news
There’s lots and lots of talk about the future of journalism at the moment.
You can read it on blogs like this one, this one and this one.
You can occasionally read something new in one of the papers, like this one.
You can even pay some money and go to conferences.
And while they are all fantastic hotbeds for debate, they’re not really regular enough to be good forums for that most crucial currency of all: new ideas.
That’s why I’ve set up a new meet-up group to get things moving.
It’s called the UK Future of News Group. If you are in the UK, or even better, in London then please think about joining and coming along to an informal meet up. It’s free, and you don’t even need to be a journalist- just interested about the future of journalism.
It’s perfect for bloggers, J-students, young journalists, J-entrepreneurs, hyper-locallers, lecturers not to mention seasoned old hacks. You could be working online, in print, on radio or with a camera.
The first meet-ups going to be in a bar near Waterloo, on the 7th December.
(hopefully avoiding any early Christmas parties)
What it isn’t, is an arena to repeatedly lament the death of print, or the end of quality journalism, or to go around saying “paywalls must be the answer, journalists have got to eat!”
What it is, is a place where people can think positively, about tangible new ideas to determine the future of journalism. I hope someone will pitch a few ideas which we can all thrash out and stew over.
And maybe one of them will come up with the next big thing.
But most of all, I want it to be a forum where we can all have a say on the future of our craft, without having to pay hundreds in conference fees.
Adam Westbrook // ideas on digital storytelling and publishing 
Hi Adam,
If you want to publicise this further, the NUJ runs a mailing list of new media journalists with over 130 members and you’re welcome to join: http://mailman.journonet.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/newmedia (as are your readers, you don’t have to be an NUJ member to join). It’s a discussion list, so we’d welcome your input.
Cheers,
D.
Hi Adam,
Well, you didn’t need my advice in the end, you’ve done it already! 🙂
Well done! Hope to make a MeetUp one day.
Best,
Jon
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