London Review of Books: Diary
Wednesday, 28 July 2010, 14:59
From a 2008 LRB article by Leah Price: "Journalism degrees in Britain still include a speedwriting test; the persistence of a requirement dropped in many other countries can be explained either by the peculiarities of British libel law (shorthand notes are admissible in journalists’ defence) or by the prohibition on the use of sound recording in court. But the distinction that emerged a century ago between mechanical devices (forbidden) and human scribes (permitted) is beginning to blur."
Sarah Hartley: Will journalists write off journalists?
Tuesday, 9 December 2008, 15:58
Sarah Harley contrasts a conference she was at on Friday with the NCTJ event the same day: "[A]ttending Friday’s social media seminar in Manchester really brought one issue home to me – the relevance of the journalist is under scrutiny. … At least part of the [NCTJ] conference considered the skills survey carried out among employers and training providers, and what did the employers want of this august body – shorthand! [D]oesn’t this rather exemplify a gulf between what’s actually going on in a landscape where all the rules of engagement are rapidly shifting and what’s perceived to be the issues within (still largely print-centric) newsrooms?" (Amen.)
Press Gazette: ‘Shorthand essential in fast online era’
Friday, 5 December 2008, 18:00
Aargh. Why do debates about the future of journalism education in the UK always reduce to this boring moot point? A student in sociology or anthropology could probably write a PhD on the role of shorthand in British journalists' professional self-image.
Thursday, 8 May 2008, 08:05
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"[I]n a world of new media where everything is digitised and where so much of journalism is about re-working material, do you need to devote 100 hours to teaching 80 words per minute of scribble?"
