Two weeks today I will boarding a one-way flight to Aarhus, Denmark. I have a feeling that it'll be pretty emotional but only because I'll be stepping into the unknown and won't be taking everyone I love with me. However I am feeling a lot better about the prospect as I was added to the Erasmus Mundus Journalism 2013 group on Facebook last weekend. I have been chatting to my course-mates and learning more about them. The most exciting thing is that they come from so many different countries. I think there are only 4/5 British students amongst the group of 100. There are people from Brazil, Guatemala, the Caribbean, Egypt, Cameroon, Russia, Lithuania, China, the list goes on and on. I actually cannot believe that I have been selected for this programme and keep wondering if the organisers made a mistake. I mean, what an opportunity!
Yet just as I began to call my selection for the course into question, I was given some consolation in the form of a nomination for my former publication, the Wessex Scene, for the 'Ones To Watch' 'Student Publication of the Year'. I found out last weekend and it popped up on my iPhone just as I was making some toast for my brother and I. I got so excited that I burnt the toast!
I was Editor of the Wessex Scene last year, so from June 2012-June 2013 and the nomination is for the August 2012-August 2013 period, thus whilst I was in charge. This is a huge achievement firstly for myself, my deputy editor Jo and our editorial team but also for the new Editor Sam and his team which took over in June this year and secured a nomination for Student Publication of the Month in May during exams. The nomination is truly the result of a huge team effort and it is a huge honour to have been placed among the top 8 student publications in the country. Voting has now closed, I'm afraid so I should have blogged earlier really but I've spent the past week pestering all my friends on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to vote for us. We will find out next Sunday whether we have been placed in the Top 3.
My year as Editor was extremely tough and there were times when I really questioned whether it was worth it. But it really was, on so many levels, the experience taught me so much about journalism, student politics and about myself and I now have a real drive to make it as a journalist.
The Wessex Scene for whatever reason had fallen out of favour within Southampton University's Students' Union, with many students preferring our rival paper The Soton Tab, by the time that I took over. It took many months of hard graft: publicising our content online and on campus, redesigning, relaunching, re-establishing our goals, reworking our relationship with the Students' Union and learning from mistakes to get it to this point where it is now placed in the top student publications. The 'Ones To Watch' website features the best articles from student publications nationwide and has featured a lot of articles from the Scene over the past year, thus our content must have been of a high standard and of a national interest. Their Student Publication of the Year award is not something that we nominated ourselves for, we were selected. There is still much that can be improved with the Wessex Scene but I hope that we have put some strong foundations in place and put in a springboard from which the publication can reach new heights.
On the 'Ones To Watch' article about the 'Student Publication of the Year' the Wessex Scene was the only publication out of the eight nominated to receive negative comments. This trolling on social media and from our rival publication was our biggest problem last year. Not a day went past without us being slated for something. Obviously there were times when my judgment was rightfully called into question due to mistakes made by myself or members of my team but I always admitted wrongdoing when appropriate and stood up for myself and the team. One thing I really tried to encourage was that my editors give their writers good feedback so that we could assist them with their writing. This had two benefits, firstly we were able to ensure that all articles were of a consistently high quality and secondly the writers weren't fed to the wolves and could be proud of what they'd achieved. There were times when this did not happen but I am happy to say that in the majority of cases it did. I see no use in allowing a piece to be published which is badly written and will just attract the attention of internet trolls who show no mercy.
Trolling within the media must be a relatively new problem but it is a plague which threatens to poison a lot of very good work especially that of writers who are just starting out. But looking back over the past year I realise that though they tried to get me down and to poison my publication their comments have made me a stronger person and journalist and actually I face the future with a strength which I might not have acquired had my editorship been plain sailing. Also these comments have helped the Scene gain a lot of exposure and get a lot of people talking about us so in essence their attempts to bring us down have in fact done the opposite.
Also I realised today, that journalists have far more to worry about than anonymous comments written by a handful of bitter and twisted people, regardless of what these trolls might think. A good example is found in today's Guardian in Greenwald's article about the detention of his partner under anti-terrorism laws. Greenwald describes this as an act of 'intimidation' and 'bullying' linked to his writing about the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ. If this is true then it shows that anti terror laws can be manipulated in an attempt to silence the media. This in itself is scary, especially since it happened in our country. In my opinion, journalism is the pursuit of information and the relaying of this information to educate, inform and assist consumers in making decisions about their own lives and by extension shaping the core values of this country. British journalists should, as Greenwald states, be defiant against such acts and be emboldened in light of this incident to continue in their work.
I have a feeling that these opinions might change during the course of my MA course and I am very excited to find out what my course-mates think about journalism and why. I know that my views are heavily influenced by the culture in which I have grown up so it'll be interesting to see how different cultures have impacted on journalism from other countries.
Please comment about any of my ideas but once again I urge you not to be a troll. :)
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