There’s nothing wrong with aiming high

The Homeless World Cup 2008 in Melbourne

Originally uploaded by littlesaint_uk.

This time last week, Tom Gockelen-Kozlowski was standing outside an office in Kings Cross handing out his cards to staff as they arrived at work.

The 22-year old graduate hoped his initiative would impress bosses at the Guardian enough to hire him as a journalist. Well it certainly impressed some Guardian journalists – one actually asked him to blog about his experiences

A week later and Tom has had a blogpost in the Guardian’s money section and has been discussed by a number of other bloggers and on Twitter. He may not have a job yet, but he is certainly being talked about. And unlike one of the Guardian’s previous rookie bloggers, the infamous Max Gogarty (now what ever happened to him?), the reaction to Tom’s post has been largely positive.

A challenging role in challenging times

A delegate holds The Journalist at the NUJ ADM

Originally uploaded by David Hedges Photography.

It’s not everyday that readers get to choose a publication’s editor. But members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) did just that last week when they elected Christine Buckley to become editor of The Journalist, the union’s magazine.

Union election don’t usually result in high turnouts – I admit that I’ve a tendency to leave my ballot paper languishing on my desk, rather than filling it in and sending it back. But for many members this election was different, for a number of reasons.

Conference Call

Chain Reaction 2009

Originally uploaded by chainreaction2008.

In the past month, I’ve attended two conference-type events. Nothing unusual about that, other than they were the first events in the UK I’d covered as a journalist for more than a year.

In the eleven months up to August, I was out of the country and on my return to active service I noticed big changes to the events I attended. Previously, organisers had attempted some sort of interactivity, but it often felt token and meaningless. Both events were more successful in promoting interaction from delegates than previously – one reason for this must be the popularity of social networking.

The changing face of television news

For anyone involved in newsgathering, hearing from leading journalists the nature of the news we will see on our televisions in the future was an opportunity not be missed.

The Media Society event Will We Have News For You? brought together five journalists from public and commercial broadcasters to discuss the future of regional news. The panelists involved in the discussion at BBC Television Centre, were:

Nick Pollard (Former Head of Sky News in the Chair)

Mary Hockaday (Head Multi-media Newsroom, The BBC)

Jonathan Munro (Deputy Editor and Director of Newsgathering, ITV News)

Jonathan Levy (Editor General Election Sky News )

Stephen Cole (Presenter Al Jazeera English)

Back in London

It’s been a while since I posted – in that time I have travelled from Melbourne back to the UK via Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and India.

I’ve also lived back home in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear for the first time in twelve years. I’ve been spending my time there learning to drive – resitting my test in December – and working for New Start and the BBC in Newcastle (see my biography for more details).

I’m now part-time assistant editor at New Start and will continue to cover London events. There’s a lot coming up so I hope to be kept very busy. I’m also planning to do a lot more blogging, so watch this space to see how this blog develops!

Is the Australian suburb under threat?

Australia’s most famous suburban street

Originally uploaded by littlesaint_uk.

Well it could be according to a Brisbane-based planning academic.

Professor Tony Hall of Queensland Griffith University has noted that backyards are shrinking across Australia. In an interview published in the Sydney Morning Herald, Hall claims this reflects a shift away from the outdoor-loving lifestyle that Australians have long treasured.

Hall has found the newer homes have smaller backyards. He blames this on home-buyers desire for bigger houses and too little time to spend in their gardens.

Beauty and the backpacking beast

First Thailand, then Vietnam and now Laos have become a must-do destination for backpackers in the far east. While Thailand has its islands and Vietnam spectacular bays, Laos’ main asset is its dramatic landscape – and good, cheap beer!

Backpackers’ favoured combination of extreme sports and excessive drinking come together in the resort of Vang Vieng. The town is famous for waterbourne pub crawls where participants ride the rapids between waterside bars on inflatable inner tubes.

But there are concerns that if action isn’t taken, the natural beauty of Laos could be destroyed by intensive tourism development. In a recent issue of the magazine Planning, I wrote about a project seeking to ensure that one of Laos’ up-and-coming destinations is protected from the negative effects of tourism development.

The High Line

Originally uploaded by littlesaint_uk.

If you are lucky enough to be going to New York this summer, make sure you leave time to check out its newest park – the High Line.

The High Line, which opens later this Spring, has supporters ranging from U.S secretary of state Hillary Clinton to actor Edward Norton. The difference between The High Line and a traditional park is that you won’t find it at ground level. It has been cultivated on a disused elevated railroad above the streets of Manhattan.

You can read more about the story behind the High Line’s creation in an article I have written for the March edition of New Start.

Face off on Facebook

Until today, I was a member of a Facebook group called “the BNP are nasty racists and shouldn’t be here” (For non-British readers, the BNP is the UK’s ultra-right wing party). The group was set up a couple of years back to protest against a BNP presence on Facebook and it eventually gained hundreds of members. While casually flicking through my notifications today, I noticed that it had changed its name to “the BNP are nice and should be on here“.

I clicked on the link to find out which joker had changed the name of the group. My boyfriend suspected that Facebook had asked moderators to change its name for some reason. But when I saw the group, I realised that not only had its name changed, but also its description, thus altering its philosophy completely. It now was a pro-BNP group. Worst of all, I was still a member! I promptly left the group (along with many other members) and posted a warning to my Facebook friends via my status update.

How architects can’t solve every problem

Earlier this month I attended a symposium at Melbourne University about public buildings from the modern era (1945 onwards) and how they could be preserved. The University’s school of planning and architecture managed to assemble speakersfrom around the world to share their views on why it is important to conserve our modern heritage.

One thing that struck me during the morning session is how public building programmes in post war Europe were often used to try and foster a national identity, with mixed results. A speaker from Belgium talked about how in the Flanders region of the country, a series of cultural centres were built to reinforce local people’s Flemish identity.