Almost a year has passed since Tony Harcup interviewed myself and other digital journalists such as The Guardian’s Jemima Kiss about life, the universe and the news industry for a book he was writing.
(At the time I was recoiling at the possibility of being labelled a digital immigrant!)
Now he tells me his work is about to be published – and it’s got me thinking what a very long time a year is in the digital news world.
Back at the start of 2008, yes of course there were worries about reducing advertising revenues, but there weren’t the daily title closures, job losses and re-structures across the news organisations that we now experience.
ITV was saying of its Friends Reunited investment plans; “A further payment of up to £55 million may be made during 2009 based on EBITDA performance targets.”
Sly Bailey was telling the Trinity Mirror board how committed she was to acquisition; “”We’re not looking to sell things. We had our review very clear about what we were doing and why.”
The BBC hadn’t even started its consultation on the local video proposal, the Liverpool Echo did the UK’s first liveblog of an editorial conference and something called Twitter was being used by us geeky-types.
What a difference a year makes!
It will be interesting to see what Tony makes of it all – and whether what his interviewees said back then, still holds true today.
I know my thinking on the subject of journalism and its relevance to communities today has moved on a great deal over the months, so it will be intriguing to reflect through the lens of time when I get to see the conversation distilled into the printed word.
Dim Sum Digital 