12th Forum: Andy Burnham on the past, present & future of journalism

[Update: Please note that Andy Burnham has had to cancel his participation in this Forum because of a scheduling conflict and has indictated that he hopes to participate in a future Forum. We'll certainly be inviting him again soon. 05/05/09]

Culture secretary Andy Burnham is all too aware that Government has a role to play in influencing the dramatic changes in the UK media landscape. Last week, he hosted a summit with media players to consider proposals put to him key industry bodies and companies.

On May 12th, he'll [a panel of media experts will] discuss the issues with a wider audience at the 12th Journalism Leaders Forum in Preston.

The panel discussion, part of the Spring line-up for the Journalism Leaders Programme, will be chaired by Mike Ward, head of the School of Journalism, Media and Communication at UCLan. Other participants will include Richard Frediani, head of news at ITV, and other prominent alumni from the England's oldest journalism programme.
Also that evening is a reception to launch an evolving exhibition and book project, Journalism at UCLan: past, present & future, which will mark the 50th anniversay of England's oldest journalism programme.

To attend the Forum at 6pm in Greenbank Lecture Theatre - as well as the reception from 5pm - please RSVP to Debbie Williams by email or call +(0)1772 894759

If you can't be there in person, there are other ways to join the discussion.

You can post your questions and comments on this site, or you can participate in the live Webcast by logging in here as a "guest". Online participants will be able to post questions to panelists and each each other in a text chat room.

The Forum is scheduled as part of the Journalism Leaders Programme's Spring seminar, Innovation and the Market: Understanding Users, Delivering Value, Growing Revenue, which runs from 11-15th May in Preston, Liverpool and Manchester.

Also in Preston earlier on the day of the Forum is the Spring meeting of the Digital Editors Network.

For more information about these and other activities of the UCLAN's Journalism Leaders Programme, which partners with media companies to develop leadership talent and strategic solutions for the Networked Age, François Nel, by email or Skype (francoisnel).

12th Forum to look at the future of journalism throught the rearview mirror

With the way ahead for the media industry far from clear, it might be worth reflecting on plain-speaking business wizard Warren Buffet's observation that "in the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield."

With that in mind, the 12th Journalism Leaders Forum on May 12th will explore the theme: Journalism: past, present &, future.

Mike Ward, the head of the School of Journalism, Media and Communications at UCLan will chair a panel of prominent UCLan alumni, including Richard Frediani, head of news at ITV Granada.

The event will also include a reception to launch an evolving exhibition and book project, Journalism at UCLan: past, present & future, to mark the 50th anniversay of England's oldest journalism programme.

To attend the Forum at 6pm in Greenbank Lecture Theatre - as well as the reception from 5pm - please RSVP to Debbie Williams by email or call +(0)1772 894759

If you can't be there in person, there are other ways to join the discussion.

You can post your questions and comments on this site, or you can participate in the live Webcast by logging in here as a "guest". Online participants will be able to post questions to panelists and each each other in a text chat room.

The Forum is scheduled as part of the Journalism Leaders Programme's Spring seminar, Innovation and the Market: Understanding Users, Delivering Value, Growing Revenue, which runs from 11-15th May in Preston, Liverpool and Manchester.

Also in Preston earlier on the day of the Forum is the Spring meeting of the Digital Editors Network.

For more information about these and other activities of the UCLAN's Journalism Leaders Programme, which partners with media companies to develop leadership talent and strategic solutions for the Networked Age, François Nel, by email or Skype (francoisnel).

WAN-IFRA's Martha Stone joins 13th Forum panel for paywall debate

Paywalls: build them, or break them - or look beyond them?

That's the theme for the next Journalism Leaders Forum in Preston on 29th October 2009. Kicking off that discussion will be Martha Stone, director of the World Association of Newspapers-IFRA's Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project. Charting the panel will be the director of UCLan Journalism Leaders Programme, François Nel, whose paper on innovations in online business models featured at the recent Future of Journalism conference in Cardiff.

To attend this free programme at 6pm on Thursday, 29^th October in Greenbank Lecture Theatre in Preston - as well as the networking reception from 5pm - please register at here.

If you can't be there in person, there are other ways to join the discussion. You can post your questions and comments on this site, or you can view the live Webcast by logging in as a guest. Online participants will be able to post questions to panelists in a text chat room.

Sports journalists must safeguard their freedom against large sporting bodies if objective coverage of sporting events is to be maintained

That's what was claimed at the recent 8th Journalism Leaders Forum hosted at the University of Central Lancashire on 29th January 08.

In a year which has seen large sporting organisations increasingly clash with journalists the debate was always going to be provocative and the audience was not disappointed. The panel consisted of renowned figures from the sports journalism world- Mihir Bose, BBC Sports Editor (right), Phil Townsend, Director of Communications for Manchester United Football Club, Andrew Moger, leader of the Newspaper Publishers Association’s digital rights campaign, Kadambari Murali, Sports Editor for the Hindustan Times (left) and Robert Hardie, Content Strategy Director for Associated Northcliffe Digital. The forum was chaired by Charlie Lambert, a veteran BBC North West sports presenter and commentator, who now runs the highly-regarded sports journalism programme at UCLan.

The opposing views put forward by Mihir Bose and Phil Townsend were particularly lively and served to illustrate the polarization of views between large, powerful sports organisations and journalists.

Andrew Moger said "As journalists we are letting ourselves down, we are letting a great industry down if we don't man the barricades against restrictive measures. We have been sleeping on this issue far too long. That includes publishers, owners and sports editors. We have tried to maintain relationships in the face of competition and control and we need to be much more robust on our own account."

If you missed the forum you can view the online recording at http://breeze01.uclan.ac.uk/p88174755/

Revisiting "Local Turf Wars" Forum

With a panel comprising Jay Rosen of Press Think, Neil Benson of Trinity Mirror Regionals, Darren Thwaites of the award-winning Evening Gazette in Teesside, UCLan alumnus Andy Mitten of United We Stand, and Emma Hemmingway of Into the Newsroom, it was always going to be a lively - and insightful - discussion. The 7th Journalism Leaders Forum, chaired by Mike Ward, head of journalism at UCLan and author of Online Journalism, was exactly that.

If you missed the event or want to revist the discussion, you will find a recording HERE.

Also, mark your calendar. The 8th Forum is scheduled on 29 January 2008, to coincide with the winter residential seminar of the Journalism Leaders Programme . Earlier that day, we'll also be hosting an afternoon of workshops and discussions for the Digital Editors Network.

Of course, if you have any comments or suggestions, we'd certainly like to hear from you.

Learning from digital media entrepreneurs

OK, I admit it. Perhaps the title of the 6th Journalism Leaders Forum in Preston - 'Editor as Entrepreneur: Lessons from the Digital Front' - was a bit misleading: none of the panelists nor the chair was strictly an "Editor". In fact, at the time, only one of them, Robin Hamman, was actually employed by a maintream media house (he's the BBC's Blog Network Coordinator and author of his own highly-rated blog.). And the other? Eamonn Carey had left traditional media operations to launch his own mobile start-up , Random Thoughts Media , while Nick Jaspan of How-Do has been a media entrepreneur all along.

Which raises a key question for traditional media houses: What can we do to retain talent in an age when the ease of access to technology and bandwidth means that today's star employee can (more easily?) be tomorrow's competitor?

If you missed the excellent case studies and provocative discussion chaired by the journalist-turned-tech whiz, Bob Eggington, you can watch an unedited version of the live Webcast here.

Reminder: the next Journalism Leaders Forum has been scheduled for Tuesday, 16 October 2007. On the occassion of the 45th anniversary of journalism education at Preston, we'll be looking at the opportunities digital technologies give local media to reach global audiences - and to make a global impact.

Hope you will join the conversation.