Links and news from around the internet focussing on journalism, curated by @ukcameraman
Travelling to Ethiopia to investigate a story was a huge risk and one I will certainly take again.
The dream of being a travelling journalist is one that would appeal to most wannabe hacks, for me; it really was just that, a dream. The idea of covering exciting stories and working in hostile environments was one that I never thought could happen. In April of this year that dream turned into a reality.
I was 13 when I decided I would become a journalist.
Why? I wanted to make an impact, to inspire the masses. I wanted to change the world.
Was I naïve? Maybe. But even on the first day of J-School, I remember chills running down my spine as my professor stood before 400 would-be journalists commissioning us to go into the world and make a difference. We were inspired. We had dreams of how it would be. Some turned out to be true, others still might – and some certainly won't. Adjusting to the reality of working in such a dynamic, changing field takes time. But with so much to love, making the shift is well worth the effort.
Having just written what I consider a defense of the internet's effect on journalism and the media industry, I didn't expect to have to do it again so soon. But just after Andrew Leonard's short-sighted piece in Salon about how the internet has crippled journalism, David Sessions wrote on the same topic in Patrol magazine, and arguably did an even worse job of describing the current state of journalism, calling it a morass of "cynical, unnecessary, mind-numbing, time-wasting content."
It's not just the over-riding pessimism of both of these pieces that bothers me. It's the failure to appreciate that the complaints they have are the same ones that have been made about journalism for decades — combined with the unrestrained longing for some mythical golden age of journalism.
We each give different replies to the question of how to become a BBC journalist based on our own experiences, and of course there is no definitive answer. But as an organisation the BBC can offer some basic guidance and advice.
The good news is that opportunities arise regularly because the BBC employs several thousand journalists and people are always arriving, changing jobs or leaving.
For many journalists, the price of a story can be their freedom, or even their lives.
They are often the victims of authoritarian governments bent on silencing any opposition, or collateral damage in some of the globe's deadliest conflicts.
Using data collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Journalists Without Borders, News Online looks at some of the most dangerous places to be a journalist.
Reddit is a self-gatekeeping community known for the original content posted by its user-base, as well as links to other content on the web, which can be either up or down-voted by other users.
For new users, the platform – which comes with its own quirks and terminology – can initially appear daunting.
However, with a bit of practice, it becomes easy to navigate your way through the vast amount of content posted to the site each day.
