Art After Death

Met my former editor Ian Reeves last night. He is a keen monitor of how newspapers use video on their websites. Ian admires the Last Word feature launched by the New York Times which gets people to record their own obituaries on video before they die. This is best illustrated by the NYT's former columnist Art Buchwald here . There is no reason why other newspapers could not do the same although it must take a lot of tact to approach would-be participants.

Good-bye to Martin

Tonight I am off to the leaving do of Martin Stabe, new media editor of Press Gazette, who is joining Retail Week to edit its online operation. Martin is a very thoughtful journalist who really knows his new media stuff. I enjoyed working with him and he will be a big loss to Press Gazette. He told me he will continue blogging here

Print Not Dead: At Least in Ireland

As someone who has worked as a print journalist and is fearful for the future of local and national newspapers in the UK, I was fascinated to read a piece on Guardian commentator Roy Greenslade's blog that newspapers in Ireland are faring so much better than in other Western countries.

Why Am I Doing This?

I've started this blog because I am interested in new media and the capabilities of the internet. It was inspired by doing a course on new media run by the National Union of Journalists in London. I am a product of the old media. I trained as a print journalist on a local paper, the Lincolnshire Echo, and also worked for a news agency covering Crown Court cases and football. From 1993 until 2006 I was deputy editor of the journalists' magazine Press Gazette .