Blog - Page 13 of 14 - Patrick Chalmers

Paul Mason on revolting

Posted on 24th January 2012

Paul Mason interview with the Guardian in which the Newsnight economics editor gives an intelligent assessment of the global wave of revolts that began in 2008. Mason makes a great communications bridge between the conventional world and the protesters – one that is vital to both sides of the debate. He is always worth listening […]

Fraudcast News published as an eBook, paperback to follow

Posted on 23rd January 2012

So I survived. I not only talked (a lot) about writing a book on democracy and journalism, I then finally did it. In comparison, working my way through Lulu’s self-publishing process was a doddle. For Fraudcast News, this is what’s written on the packet: People like to quote Winston Churchill’s quip about democracy being the […]

A tale of two kitties

Posted on 19th January 2012

Interesting Wednesday night in London, during which I pitched Fraudcast News to the January’s Hacks and Hackers London meetup group. I gave a two-minute spiel about the book – which you can read at the end of this post – saying what it’s about, why everyone should read a copy and what comes next. I […]

Fraudcast News – an elevator pitch

Posted on 5th January 2012

I have signed myself in for a two-minute presentation on Fraudcast News at January’s Hacks and Hackers London meetup group, part of my efforts to market what will be a free-to-variably priced book to the wider world. My challenge is to flag the book‘s imminent existence and throw forward its conclusions and proposals in a […]

Bragg channels Guthrie into Occupy London

Posted on 25th November 2011

Learning how to do live TV interviewing with visionOntv is a laugh, you never know who might walk into their instant pop-up studios. I found myself interviewing the songwriter Billy Bragg this week down at the newly squatted Bank of Ideas, having dropped by to lend a hand. Bragg is a veteran of political activism […]

Not the nine o’clock news

Posted on 24th November 2011

It’s not the 9 o’clock news but then that’s probably a good thing. Below you can watch three no-edit videos I produced as part of a mobile phone training run by visionOntv for citizen journalists. It was part of a whole series of events being run at the Bank of Ideas, a building that used […]

Occupy your smart phone

Posted on 19th November 2011

You may have guessed I’m obsessed by democracy and journalism. I’ve read a lot about both and done a lot of the second. Journalism that helps improve democracy is what really gets me going. Not fake democracy, the odd meaningless election, but real democracy. That would mean people having direct and ongoing power over their […]

Hackers and hacks – dangerous liaison, lost in translation or the odd couple?

Posted on 6th November 2011

It’s not an obvious union but like all the best ones, it could be a winner for both partners. As a long-time hack journalist I have been a distant admirer of computer programmers – hackers, coders, geeks, call them what you will. Not so much for their coding skills, of which I am an enthusiastic […]

Tired of the TV news? Think you could do better yourself?

Posted on 5th November 2011

If you have ever dreamed of making TV news rather than just watching it, here’s some good news: it’s not nearly as hard, or as expensive, as you think. I am at the Mozilla Festival 2011 in London this weekend, a meeting of hacks and hackers working on media freedom and the web. Rather than […]

Media, freedom and the web – 2011 Mozilla Festival

Posted on 3rd November 2011

I’m going to this event on Saturday and Sunday in London’s North Greenwich – looks excellent. The aim? To assemble Open web developers, journalists and educators to reinvent media on the web. Not too ambitious then. Rather than just consuming and participating, I also plan volunteering with the prodigious VisionOntv crowd, interviewing people and reporting […]