Kate Griffin freelance journalism and editing

An article I wrote is the cover story for the latest edition of Metal World, the quarterly magazine for the International Federation of Metalworkers (IMF). I was very excited to see the feature in print today, accompanied by Andrew Wiard’s excellent photos.

The ADM for the National Union of Journalists happened over a week ago, but this is the first time since then that I’ve been able to sit at my home computer and collect my thoughts about it. Even now, this is going to be a rushed "what I did on my holidays" post, because I have to go off and do other things. In summary, I’m very glad I went, and very grateful to Anna (secretary of the Oxford & District branch) for giving me the push I needed to go along.

Good surprises:

The Times website was criticised for its coverage of Saturday’s “Mili-band”, the climate change protest where hundreds of people formed a ring around Kingsnorth Power Station in Kent.  Robin Henry’s piece was illustrated with a stock photo of helmetted police in a riot situation. (This has now been removed, after reader complaints, and replaced with a stock photo of a power station which may or may not be Kingsnorth.)

Twitter is full of the claim that the Green Party is “anti-science”. Some of the people making that claim are on my own feed; they’re people I like and respect. So I’m disappointed that so many of these self-appointed champions of science seem to be basing their claim on the same Times article, while others don’t bother to give any source at all.

Who cares about journalism? Judging by the turnout at last night’s meeting, the answer is: “More people than you might think.” The Long Room at Oxford Town Hall was packed with local journalists, councillors and members of the public.

Earlier I criticised e-consultancy.com about an article purporting to explain what journalists look for when they come to a website. I'm going to post some constructive advice soon, but first I want to highlight the assumptions behind the article and why they're wrong.

This online guide to what journalists want sent a shiver down my spine.

It reads as if the writer has enrolled in a Victorian object lesson about journalism, but never actually met a real live journalist. It represents the newsgathering process about as well as What Women Want mapped the depths of female consciousness.