What a way to restore our faith
in our perspective journalism careers. For our final lecture to our
introduction to journalism, the chemistry graduate turned media writer Steve
Molk covered the art and potential of blogging, twitter, and anything-social
media.
Suffering a mid life crisis, the
IT professional decided he wanted to write. He described himself as a lazy
person who likes to sit on his arse and watch a lot of TV, I’m not proud of it
but this is something that I can relate to ( I don’t know how but the morning
show sometimes has the power to make me stay in my pj’s right up until the
midday movie comes on, then I give myself a reality check and start my day.)
Steve’s take on the new media platform of blogging really motivated me. Although
it’s relatively new on the media scene, it’s very powerful. Blogs provide you
with an escape from mainstream media; I found it very interesting that some
countries like China and Korea ban some social media sites at the fear of
people finding out information that the government doesn’t want them to know. Another
point Steve mentioned that appealed to me is that blogging gives you ultimate
freedom to express your view, when you want, how you want and from whichever
angle you desire. This is something that your not able to do when you work for
a media organisation, you have sub editors and editors telling you what to do
and how to do it.
Steve talked about journalist Mia
Freedman. I didn’t know it before this lecture but since Mia has become my
career idol. At the age of 19 she did work experience for Cleo magazine, and as
I’m sure just like any other 19 year old girl this to would be my dream come
true. Just 5 short years later, she became the editor of Cleo, the moved on to
be the editor in chief of Cleo, Cosmo and Dolly. After leaving the magazine
world behind and working on the Channel Nine Network, Mia decided to leave
traditional media behind and join the new media revolution. This saw the birth
of Mamamia, a blog that you could say is extremely popular, covering everything
from current affairs to fashion and pop culture. I’d better stop here other
wise this post will become a bio rather then a lecture review, but she really
is living my ideal life.
Before I leave the subject of
blogging, I’d like to share some of my current favourite blogs.
Oracle Fox: Fashion Blogger, photographer and visual artist
What Katie Ate
Face Hunter: A fancy fashion blog
Steve then went on to talk about
the wonders of twitter. Until this course I had never imagined my self using
twitter, as a girl of many words I find 140 characters to restricting, but its
not all about the posting of the amazing sandwich you just ate. The ability to
connect and communicate with journalists, entertainment figures and politicians
is something we thought would never be possible without going through media
agents, PR people and personal assistants, but alas! Twitter has done it.
So I’m going to wrap it up here,
I must say I’m appreciative of this lecture. It was certainly an eye opener, motivational
and encouraging. I now realise that my journalism career has started in my
first semester at university and that as budding journalists the online world
really is our oyster.
Fun Fact: I only like oysters Kilpatrick
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