We were keen to read about the revamped blogs on the Sky News site this week, having come into contact with the Sky News team as part of our work on the Sky Young Journalist Awards 2008.
The new News site incorporates more video content, interactivity and varied blogs. Including Viewpoint which provides insight into journalistic choices and viewer responses, like this explanation of their coverage of the Jerusalem bus bomb on Monday. At the lighter end of the scale I think The Weather Girls and Miss H.Chondriac battle it out for the best pseudonym, not quite London Review of Breakfast level but pretty good – I’m a sucker for a pun clearly.
It’s interesting to see the changes following our work with Sky Learning to support the Young Journalist Awards. We have been helping them manage a series of blog posts syndicating between the Editor’s Blog and Bebo as well as general outreach about the awards. Pick up on sites like Journalism.co.uk, the Online Journalism Blog and student sites like The Student Zone show that journalism continues to be an attractive career choice.
There’s much doom and gloom among the industry, but these awards reinforce what an exciting career journalism still is. We wade through a lot of teen lol-speak here at Shiny, but I think that the exposure to blogs, 24/7 news and not to mention the fine art of the Facebook status, will inspire more not less kids into the profession. Whether on or offline, lots of young people are more immersed in communications and news than ever before. Hopefully interativuty and openness like that on the Sky News site will encourage more young people to get involved and hit the keyboard!
