Why isn’t the NUJ’s magazine online?

Monday, 1 January 2007, 23:37

There is a story in the current issue of The Journalist, the monthly magazine for members of the National Union of Journalists, that I’d like to discuss here.

Unfortunately the story is not online, so I can’t link to it.

In fact, nothing from The Journalist seems to have been put online since January 2005.

One of the union’s stated objectives for its journal is “to provide a forum for debate about matters of concern to the membership as union members and as journalists”.

What better way would there be to achieve this objective than by publishing the magazine’s contents online, perhaps in the form of a blog where NUJ members — or even the wider journalistic community — could debate the issues it raises?

Journalists are debating journalistic issues every day on their blogs. What better way could there be to inject union members’ point of view into the debate than to join this existing conversation?

There are many critical debates to be found in The Journalist — such as whether the union should affiliate to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, whether certain journalists are unfair to the governments of Venezula or Cuba, or the views of “‘911 Truth’ campaigner Tony Gosling” on how we should refer to alleged suicide bombers.

I’m sure we all have views on that.

Entry Filed under: NUJ,The Journalist (NUJ)