Marrying revolution and transition – can it be done?

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These are two apparently very different films that I see as being totally on the same page. The first How to start a Revolution, is already out, garnering jury prizes at film festivals around the world. I haven’t seen it yet but I love the book on which it’s based, From Dictatorship to Democracy. It […]

New masters of the media universe? I don’t think so.

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I couldn’t help but weigh in on the Observer comments thread in response to this frothy article about the new celebrities that are our mainstream financial journalists. These are people with enormous influence and power. Sadly, they are not helping us much in tackling the feral behaviour of unrestrained and barely regulated international financial markets […]

Paul Mason on revolting

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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

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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

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  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

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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

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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

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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 […]