I went to a discussion hosted by Intelligence Squared called the future of news.

And that, so they tell us, is the end of the news. We won’t be buying newspapers any more to learn what’s happening in the world because we can get that information at no cost on the net, and without having to trek to the newsagent. We won’t be hearing from serious journalists any more: how can they earn a living if any old blogger can lift their expensively-crafted articles and post them on his own site?
–Future of news

Speakers: Matthew Parris, Turi Munthe, Claire Enders, Jacob Weisberg, David Elstein, A A Gill, Andrew Neil, Sir Simon Jenkins

I’ve never really been to an event of this sort, but am interested in media and thought it’d be worthwhile. The problem with it all was that there was no debate. Each speaker came to the podium and rambled about what they thought of media and where it was going. They should have just got Charlie Brooker to read out his article “The most dangerous drug isn’t meow meow. It isn’t even alcohol,” over the phone.

I was hoping the event would reveal the answer to why I paid £25 to go to the event, knowing full well that I could stream it live at home.

On serious journalism

The speakers didn’t appeal to me. If all of them had a blog would I read them? Maybe a couple. Columnists and journalists were once chosen based on a couple of stories and a nod of the head from the editor. Columnists would write and as long as the editor was happy, it was published and they were paid. The crux is, no one actually knew whether the public ever bothered to read what they wrote.

With the internet, that’s no longer the case. There’s instant feedback. Your readers will tell you. Take a long hard look at this article by the Telegraph, “Facebook ‘linked to rise in syphilis‘,” as its ilk will be extinct.

If that’s an example of serious journalism, then they’re right. It’ll die out.

Bloggers started writing for free, for passion. They wrote because they felt a compulsion.

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those, who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in a human condition
–Graham Greene

After years of writing as a hobby, they had enough visitors and made some money off advertising. They made a lot of money. Suddenly, they took it seriously, quit their day job and wrote their blog full time.

Newspapers are dying, journalists aren’t[sic]. Whether a writer writes as a blogger or for a large newspaper doesn’t dictate the quality, it’s whether they’re getting paid or not. Serious journalism can exist without newspapers. What we need are editorial standards and that’ll happen as the internet matures. The Huffington Post and Slate are sites with their own newsrooms. They aren’t the pinnacle of editorial standards, but they’re getting there and I’m sure many will follow suit.

I do agree with much of the panelists that crowd sourced media doesn’t have much of a future. The quality of Newsvine, Demotix and NowPublic just leave too much to be desired. They need an editor and to be paid.

Can old media become new?

The real question is whether old print media can morph into new media, or whether a new company will arise, unencumbered by all that legacy. To understand the state of newspapers, you have to understand what happened with other forms of media. Let’s take music.

Music
With the advent of the internet, music could be shared quickly and easily. Why go to the shop when you can just download it? There were no convenient legal option. The music companies were slow to react and give their offering. They were encumbered by legacy. Your options were:

• Napster
• The shop

A few years down the line and new legal options have appeared. The below scenarios are now open to me as a consumer of music.

• Pirate it, the most convenient of which allows me to go into a shop and find a CD I like, whip out my phone and take a snap of the bar code. By the time I get home, the CD will be on my computer.
• Spotify, I search for the song I want and press play. It’ll play instantly. Every few songs, an advert plays.
• Itunes.

So what does a 23 year old like me prefer to do? I personally use Spotify.

The music industry were in a quandary a couple of years ago. They were forced to adapt and they did, but truth be told all the innovation was brought by the start ups. Whether The Guardian, The New York Times et al live can live in the new world, depends on if they’re willing to make drastic changes. How can they though? They’ve still got bad investments, pensions, large expensive offices and foreign desks.

In the next ten years I personally see new companies starting up and filling the void. They’ll select their journalists from bloggers with a proven readership and have them all telecommute. As they mature they’ll have the same rigour as our current stalwarts.

Life has never been so depressing.

“Self Confessed Introvert”. I’m not sure why I chose those that title for the last 3 years of my life. Arrogance most probably.

I’ve worked 24 days straight. I wake up at 3:30am and join the drunkards on the way to work. I get in at 5:06 am and my shift starts. I stand in a corner of Heathrow, Terminal 1. For the next 8 hours i’ll whitter on; liquids, creams, deodorants. To the women i’ll ask ; mascara, lip-gloss, foundation, hand cream, face cream. To the men; deodorants, toothpaste, aftershave.  It’s not hard work and at £10 per hour I have nothing to complain about. It’s just the most depressing period of my life so far.

I get home at 2:00pm. If i’m lucky i’ll sleep and then catch a movie. If not i’ll sit in a daze waiting for the next shift. That’s my life.

Today

Yesterday

Fucking strange what people google. The above is a list of what people searched to find my website. Particularly funny is “Korean girlfriend for Steve.” I appear on the second page of results. Was someone looking for me in particular?

I asked Stef to come on Friday to the Koko which will be good if I can find the funds. She’s thinks I view her as quite a boring creature, when it couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s probably best. It doesn’t help that she’s probably read all the bollocks i’ve written about her. I’m sure i’ve written that before. New website, new obscurity.

Metablogging = Blogging about blogging. The most boring act any blogger can do.

I took a little break from writing anything mainly due to the fact that I had fuck all to say and also to prove to myself that I was writing this for myself and not for anybody that might happen to peruse this site. Just waiting for the readers to die down a little before I started writing again. Somewhere along the way “The Register”, picked up a little entry I wrote and a couple of thousand readers started appearing. Hopefully them and everyone else has fucked off sufficiently so I can write my tedious crap.

Talking to myself is honestly so much more fun.

I couldn’t sleep so read Nick Hornby’s – High Fidelity. Cover to cover. Rock’n'roll.

Went to the library yesterday and sat next to a rather pretty girl. She smelt nice. I have an image of myself subconsciously leaning over for a whiff. After a couple hours I realised she was revising for her GCSE’s. Oh the memories. School boy error, literally. Made some small talk and bumped into her today. She has a thing for Max.

After taking this picture I burnt myself.

The day before that I went to the library with Jeannine and sat in the sun instead. It wasn’t very productive. Hopefully the picture is so small she won’t mind me posting it.

Now to get to the really interesting part of my day.

After a hard days revising I like to come home and stare at a computer screen for a couple of hours. Unwinding to the sound of JS executing and hits ticking.

I have more fun making this website than actually writing in it. Somethings have changed over the last couple of days, including:

Sidebar clean up – Because i’m not messy
Gravatar Implementation – Let me see you.
Threaded Comments – Talk to me.
Archive Page – Learn from my mistakes.
Q & A Page – Please ask a questions, seriously.
Technorati Tags – It’s good to link

For those who don’t know Gravatars are those icons next to your name when you comment. If you sign up you can change the picture.

It has recently come to my attention that this site is a tad narcissistic. Not only does it contain half a dozen pictures of me but even my signature. To be fair it is MY website and I can have anything I want on it. The website has been up in some shape or form for the last 3 years and contains roughly 3000 pictures, only a dozen odd being of me.

All of the previous designs never contained even a mention of me but I thought it’d be nice to show my face to prove to all that i’m not a 40 year old bloke soliciting girls for some webcam fun. If you’d like to have some webcam fun, do contact me.

In an effort to make this site less ME orientated i’ll be introducing several columnists over the coming weeks. Maybe then i’ll start revising.

Yes kids, Mike is a 21st century man. He’s not scared to moisturise, he’s not scared to express his emotions and most of all he’s wired up to the interweb.

the popes car has appeared on the german ebay and has become the most viewed item ever with over 5 million hits. journalists are not allowed to publish the link because of rogue bidders, but you already know what my views on cencorship/privacy etc are lol so here it is:

Pope’s Car Ebayed

You can check out his Blog at http://michaelhorlock.com. He’ll tell you the real address is at digi something or other but trust me Mike, that’s a marketing nightmare. An odd obsession to Pete Doherty is also forming which i’m not to sure whether to be weary about.

Mike’s kindly offered to write some short pieces on London life every week, much like Richard does with Music. If anybody else wants a slot, do ask.

I think i’ve completed a nice Journal redesign, something i’ll try not to touch for a while. I think it gives the Journal a nice homely feel and although some have commented on its campness I feel it just reflects my feminine side. It’s nice knowing that no other site looks like mine.

Nick Parrott and Kevin Davis who both attended a hustings at our school (Tiffin Schoo) with Edward Davey have a blog. I’ve emailed Edward Davey as to why he doesn’t when both his opponents do but i’m sure he’s “so safe he don’t care” (Edit=Reply below).

I’m sad to say neither cared enough for our fickle “student” votes enough to blog about them. Nick Parrott an Ex Tiffinian should be ashamed of himself, at least he managed to quote something from the hustings.

To be honest the hustings was a no contest. A main figure in the Lib Dem party up against Nick Parrott a fledgling of the Labour party who he himself claimed that he “doubt[s] Tony Blair knows who [he is]“.

I was quite bemused by the Conservative candidates blase attitude to the whole affair. Either he thought we were not old enough to vote or that a top grammer school full of pupils mostly planning to study Law, Medicine, Economics and Politics would ever vote Conservative. Maybe it was because our school is predominantly brown.

With Lib Dem having such a majority I felt there was some tag teaming. Lib Dem were all to happy to jump into bed with Labour at the expense of some votes as long as they wern’t swinging towards Conservative.

The reasoning is, with only Conservative with a cat in hells chance of gaining a majority, as long as the votes are going towards Labour the bacon is still coming home.

Nick Parrott

Edward Davey

Kevin Davis

For a response from Edward Davies click

Dear Steven Vu,

Thank you for your email about blogs.

We thought long and hard about this, as I originally thought it would be an excellent idea.

However, increasingly the experience is that they are abused, and a number of candidates, including my Tory opponent here, have removed theirs – in his case, I would note, not because of abuse from LDs, but due to “abuse”/embarrassing (for him) comments from former Tory councillors about the fiasco at the Tory Club.

Thus, we reluctantly decided not to proceed with our plans.

Thank you for your interest though.

Regards,
Edward Davey

You’d think i’d be finishing off my Geography rather than creating a Live XXX Wembcam feed.