Advice for independent journalists covering violent demos

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq95DvG8ZWE] Journalist Mark Covell was beaten unconscious by Italian police during the 2001 Genoa G8 summit. He speaks here about the power of independent media and how independent journalists should buddy up, train and prepare to cover potentially violent demos so as to keep safe. He was speaking before a screening of Black Block, […]

Gonzo journalism? Sounds more like the brighter future to me

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I enjoyed this recent video interview by Tanya O’Carroll, a fellow volunteer at visionOntv, with mobile media maker and professional blogger Christian Payne. The man  talks great sense – I agree completely with his thinking about a future for journalism that includes the many citizen journalists in addition to the full-timers. Just the sort of […]

The bloody realities of self publishing

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Self-publishing is a grind. Don’t kid yourself that you can just kiss off that bestseller, throw it up on line as an eBook or paperback then lay back and count the royalty cheques as they roll in, particularly if you forgot to put in the teen vampires chapter. Here in the grunt room at Fraudcast News, […]

Democracy, journalism and film nights

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It’s never been easier to complain about our politicians and our journalists – neither species has covered itself in glory over the last little while. The big challenge is what to do about all the problems they leave unresolved. Rather than railing against the failures, it’s far more uplifting to investigate alternatives. This post, which […]

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 […]