The Media Guardian reported this week that over 40 Mexican media companies have signed a 'Drug Reporting Pact':

"They have agreed, for example, not to publish gruesome images, such as the photos and film of beheaded bodies that are commonly published and broadcast at present. Both newspapers and broadcasters have also agreed not to glorify drug traffickers, saying they will refuse to publish any drug cartel propaganda. Drug barons will not be portrayed as either "victims or heroes"."

The agreement also promises that more action will be taken to protect journalists. More than 20 have been killed in Mexico since 2006.

However, several major media companies have refused to sign, claiming that the agreement could lead to infringements of press freedom. This is despite the fact that the agreement specifically defends the right of the media to criticise government security policy. I haven't got access to the full agreement, but its main points apparently include protecting the rights of victims, treating people as suspects rather than presuming them guilty, encouraging citizens to report crime and reporting violations of human rights by police. It looks wise and valuable, an attempt to cool the escalating soap opera narrative of crime in the public eye and allow the police to get on with their job more easily. It has also been applauded by the International Committee to Protect Journalists.

I wonder if the refusal to sign comes more from the fear that removing sensationalised images and text from drug reporting will reduce sales/audience figures. Press freedom is hugely important, but should it really have no limits? In a strong democracy the media should be free but self-regulating, with a culture of high journalistic ethics. A free press is supposed to staunch corruption in public officials, but sometimes corrupution in the two spheres appear to be feeding each other. The UK comes in at number 20 in Transparency International's global ranking of least corrupt countries, and some parts of our own, very free, British media also seems to struggle with acting ethically (see the recent phone hacking scandal).  Mexico is in 98th place, revealing significant levels of corruption amongst public officials. The fact that the agreement specifically bans publishing "drug cartel propaganda" indicates things have gone badly wrong in the press as well.

Clearly the state imposing its will on the media is no way to deal with a lack of ethical conduct, but neither is the media refusing any and all constraints, especially self-imposed ones. The campaign against drugs in Mexico is bloody and entrenched- let's pray that this is a turning point which reveals how a free media acting morally can turn the tide in a society and work for the common good.

You probably won’t read this whole article will you?

The other week I attended a training course called ‘Writing for the Web’. It was excellent, run by Sticky Content for The Media Trust. I learnt a lot about how to make websites ‘user-friendly’, how to minimise the number of clicks needed to complete a task and most importantly, to turn copy into lists of bullet points. It was all very clear and helpful, but as I went to get a coffee at break time I felt deeply troubled. The reason was the title of a book which the trainer repeatedly referred to: Don’t Make Me Think. This is, apparently, the ‘bible’ of web usability, and you can read a sample chapter if you'd like a flavour of it. Before she mentioned the title, I was sort of nodding along to the theory; yes, we are all too busy to search for things, no, I don’t want to read great literature online, yes, I never really finish an article or a blog. And then... “don’t make me think"!?! Is that was this all comes down too? I no longer want to think? If that is true then shouldn’t we all give up and go home?

Of course, the trainer might have argued, it isn’t that people never want to think, just not when they are browsing the web. They can think in their jobs, or reading a novel. But as more and more of our everyday activities move online I fear this attitude will become increasingly prevalent.

I am no luddite- I tweet, blog and have had to download LeechBlock to keep myself off Facebook (bit of embarrassing public confession for you there). I am somewhere between  a ‘digital migrant’ and a ‘digital native’ and I think that the revolution of our information systems has brought many good things. This is no call to shut down the internet and send us all back to cave painting. It is a call, however, for Christians to be thoughtful as things develop, to be aware how our changing technologies are changing us.

According to my training course, if I found this piece of copy on a website, I should edit it as follows:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1 v1-5)

The Word:
•    Was with God at the start
•    Made things
•    Was life and light
•    Is not overcome by darkness.

Simple, scannable, digestible. But true? Impactful? Or a distortion? It gives us the key points, it treats the words (!) purely as units of information, made as transmissible as possible.

The bible is not made up of units of information, and nor are we. Yes, these ‘usability’ techniques are completely appropriate for basic task based editing, they make our lives easier. But the more prevalent they become the more we risk losing the ability to really read, to really digest the things that matter. Because the things that matter are complex, they require thought, contemplation, and crucially, time. But how we get more of that is a question for another time.

If you’ve got to the bottom, well done! Here’s another article about complexity and simplicity in the media.

Image by earth2marsh

Something strange happened on prime time entertainment television this week. A bunch of glossy stage-school teenagers spent the best part of an hour talking (and singing) about religion. Glee, the smash hit American serial about a geeky singing club in an American High School, more renowned for provocative Britney routines and auto-tune, chose instead to ask the Big Questions.

Don't immediately go to 4OD expecting to see any nuanced theology though. The episode is called Grilled Cheesus, because one character sees the face of Jesus in a toasted cheese sandwich and starts praying to it. There is some pretty dodgy crowbarring of very polarised views, as each member of the Glee club has to represent a different position on a spectrum of belief. And those characters that do profess religious faith are, let us say, not razor sharp in their defense of it. However, I was deeply encouraged by the episode of the whole. I wept, because in its own clumsy way, this shallower-than-shallow drama was attempting to deal with suffering, with why we hurt each other and lose each other and fail. It is not an episode which is sympathetic to Christianity, but it was at least asking the important questions. At one point Emma, the student guidance counsellor says to Finn "The big questions are really big for a reason. They're hard. But you know what? Absolutely everybody struggles with them".

And that's the truth. We all ask these things. Most of our society deems them too large and scary to ask in public, too dangerous a topic for a dinner party. Alpha is successful because it gives people a place too. And now, incongruously, so is Glee. It is funny, sharp, well done telly, and it isn't attempted something most producers of UK TV and Radio haven't got the balls to try. If it gives a few people an opening to turn to someone they know and say “so what do you think?" then I can't think of a better use of the airwaves.

I'm blogging this while watching the 13th miner being rescued from the Chilean mine. It's extraordinary. I've only just tuned in but I can tell from the activity on twitter and the volume of facebook statuses about it that it has been transfixing people for most of the day. News 24 must be getting its highest viewing figures for the year. They have more content than they can use- underground shots, capsule shots, family shots, interviews, archive inserts of the disaster. The journalist doing the running commentary has been speaking for hours, but never runs out of things to say. It is one of those rare stories that feels completely universal- jeopardy, potential tragedy, human ingenuity and resiliance, and most important of all, a happy ending. For once our priorities seem in the right place- this is about family, and good attitude, and leaving no man behind. The complexities of a giant corporation, the cost, the political negotiations, and all those using this story to boost their own image are subsumed in the straighforwardly good news story being told, and shown, and dissected, 33 times.

Is this a good thing? It is certainly heart warming. It feels sort of nostalgic to see so much of our usually fragmented and distracted population united on one strory. It is a good news story, and we all need more of those. For Christians it is exciting to see prayer and God given more air time than the rest of the month's TV put together.

And yet. So much else is going on the world today. So many other stories, good and bad. Do we need to have rolling coverage? Can we not rejoice with these miners and their families, thank God for their lives whilst still covering some of those? Or is this culturally important, a rare ritual that we should just run with? Let the other stories wait? Give in to letting the world seem a friendly, uncomplicated place? I'm not sure what I think, but I imagine I'll keep watching.

I've recently started writing a blog . It was really simple to begin- fifteen minutes after googling 'start a blog' I'd got a name, an URL, a simple template and the beginnings of my first post. Little did I know how much that snap decision would come to mean.

Three weeks later, and I am a complete addict. If blogging has taught me anything (and it has in fact taught me many things), it is that everything in life is spiritual. My blog is not about anything explicitly christian (unless you believe, as I do, that bicycles are a divine form of transport), but my goodness it has challenged my character.

If you have seen the film Julie and Julia (which is, incidentally, brilliant, mainly due to Meryl Streep) you will have watched one of the least sympathetic leading ladies I have ever seen in a Hollywood movie. Amy Adams plays Julia, and the film follows her story from beginning to blog to achieving her dream of a book deal. My goodness she is obnoxious. Her long suffering husband points out that blogging is essentially narcissism, believing that your life and your outlook is interesting to others.

Of course this doesn't apply to all blogs- some are simply resources, go-to sites for facts, advice and information and presented in a fairly faceless way. My blog however, like Julia's, is pretty personality driven. And therefore I'm faced with a quandry- do I only write for affirmation? Is this all about my ego?

To begin with it wasn't a problem. When I only had a handful of readers and the lone comment was from my Dad correcting my grammar, there was no temptation to pride. But slowly the numbers have crept up and readers from other sides of the world have begun to interact with me. It is like a drug. Knowing that someone in South Korea (and Romania! and Japan!) cares about what I saw on my cycle to work is thrilling. I have found myself checking my blogger stats compulsively, fascinated by the sources of traffic, the ebb and flow of the numbers. It has become nothing less than an idol.

I love writing and I think it is a good thing to be developing my creativity. I don't think there is anything inherently negative in being in public and interacting with a community- in fact quite the opposite. I don't want to stop blogging, but I've realised I need to take a breath, to work out how I want to do this. To ask, essentially, How Would Jesus Blog? What does it mean to persue exellence, to take advantage of the interconnectedness of the web, to hone a craft....without turning into a shameless self-promoter always seeking a bump in her traffic? To use the influence I have for good, to put a fine point on it, for God's glory? Even if it is all about me and my bike?

I'd really value your input.

Lars was our guest speaker for the Southern Gathering in London last Thursday, and has written some lovely things about the evening on his blog.

I think we've made a new friend!

I always encourage members to let the rest of the network know what they are up to, so even thought it feels like shameless self-promotion I thought I'd mention that I am writing a bike blog. It's stories from the road, rather than techy details, so please do check it out at :

http://thetrustysteed.blogspot.com/

If the rest of you are writing blogs we'd love to hear about them.

It's one of the biggest conundrums in the media industry, and one we regularly scratch our heads about in this network: what is the future of journalism? Where do we go when everyone wants access to great reporting, but no-one wants to pay for it? Murdoch's experiment with the paywall may or not hold the answer. If it doesn't, and if online content cannot be made to pay for itself through advertising (as Alan Rusbridger at The Guardian hopes it will) then the first type of journalism to be lost will be investigative reporting. 

Over at God's Politics (the Sojourner's Blog), Duane Shank has been lamenting the possible demise of this vital method of holding governments and organisations to account. He cites the example of a recent Washington Post investigation which uncovered the prolific expansion of counter-terrorism bodies since 9/11.

"More than 20 people, headed by veteran investigative reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin, worked on the project for two years. According to The Post, these included cartography experts, database reporters, video journalists, researchers, interactive graphic designers, digital designers, graphic designers, and graphics editors.  They did not say how much it cost.

This type of investigative journalism is what we are losing as newspapers in the U.S. are slowly dying.  It is the lengthy, detailed research, interviews, putting the pieces together that cable talk shows and blogs that increasingly pass as journalism can never duplicate.  In a news world dominated by the demands of the 24-hour news cycle, producing what is largely entertainment and rumor journalism is losing the capacity for this type of careful work"

Is it though? Doesn't the fact that the example used is so recent argue that some, at least, is still going on. In the UK I can think of the expenses scandal uncovered by the Telegraph as a recent example. What IS changing is an increased collaboration with 'citizen' journalists and the public through sites like WikiLeaks. Duane, though  clearly feels pretty concerned about the problem:

"What does this mean for us?  Finding out what our government is doing, often behind our backs, and with unlimited amounts of our money will become a thing of the past.  Scandal and malfeasance will go undetected.  And our democracy will be diminished because of it".

I am not in a position to say wether investigative reporting is indeed diminishing (input appreciated!) but I do think that keeping secrets is getting harder. The comments thread following the blog is interesting for the contrastingly positive tone of many of the posters- they actually see more potential for transparency in the digital sphere. What do you think?

It is probably the time of year, but I've spoken to a lot of people recently who REALLY need a holiday. I know all industries have time pressures, but I do feel that media, along with law, is perhaps one of the worst for people working long hours. Being frazzled is a badge of honour- I spoke to an exec producer recently who admitted he has worked every weekend for the past two years. My hours are not drastically long, but because I juggle two jobs I often find myself checking work emails before bed. The arrival of webmail and blackberries has done us no favours in terms of keeping a work/life balance. Most of the freelancers I know avoid booking holidays because they fear having to turn down a brilliant job, and they don't rest in the periods in between work because they are out touting for more!

As ususal, the Bible has some pretty good advice on how to avoid burnout, and it's very straightforward.Take one day off a week. Really off. Complete downtime, family time, God time. I'm not sure it matters when we take it, just that we do. It should not be something we feel guilty about, as it was made for our good, not the other way around (Mark 2:27), but we can't go too long avoiding something God designed us to need.

The following is a quote from Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell (p18):

Sabbath is a day when my work is done, even if it isn’t.

Sabbath is a day when my job is to enjoy. Period.

Sabbath is a day when I am fully available to myself and those I love most.

Sabbath is a day when I remember that when God made the world, he saw that it was good.

Sabbath is a day when I produce nothing.

Sabbath is a day when I rermind myself that I am not a machine.

Sabbath is a day when at the end I say, “I didn’t do anything today,” and I don’t add, “And I feel so guilty.”

Sabbath is a day when my phone is turned off, I don’t check my email, and you can’t get ahold of me.

Jesus wants to heal our souls, wants to give us the shalom of God. And so we have to stop. We have to slow down. We have to sit still and stare out the window and let the engine come to an idle. We have to listen.

One of the ways we can be distinctive in this industry is to operate out of a place of rest. It take practice to say no to things, to let that email wait, to prioritise sanity over success, but it is worth doing. I hope we can encourage each other in this- I certainly need reminding.

The BBC College of Journalism Website has lots of useful stuff on it, and this little guide is particularly good for practical tips. If your'e working in other parts of the industry but fancy having a crack it is well worth a look.

Hacks/Hackers is a blog that brings journalists and technologists together, and they've come up with a really useful glossary for the digital world. If you spend as much time as me feeling bemused in a strange land, print it off and stick it up behind your computer.

I'm back at work today-or rather, i'm doing this job rather than my other job or my masters, which may be part of the problem.  Part of what I do as development worker is keep all you MediaNet members informed about interesting things going on on the internet. I'm always on the hunt for inspiring articles, insightful blogs, jobs, training...you know, you get the overly perky emails. This means that I probably spend a bit more time than average following links from tweets, blogs and CiF threads. I love my job. I've always been interested in ideas, and one of the things we want to do with this network is help us collectively think more clearly about what we do and how it interacts with what we believe. People have done this always, swapping books, radio programmes, sermon notes, stories of a galilean rabbi passed hand to hand and heart to heart. It is not new, this sharing of ideas, but the internet is a golden field of fuel for this quest, providing instant access to great thinkers and wise disciples who have walked this road before. We are all more connected than before, can have this conversation more widely and this is a Good Thing.

However....

This morning, as I was whizzing around the invisible highways of that world-sized web, I stopped momentarily on this blog post by Andy Crouch, called Fasting for the Mind. I skimmed it, nodded in agreement, retweeted it, and moved on. I did the same with a really, really interesting article about wikiculture at the brilliant Image Blog. At least, i think the article was interesting, I read the first paragraph and the conclusion. I could see where it was headed. And I believe that Image is a brilliant site and journal, because I've read a lot of their headlines and they sound like things I'd like. It's on the list of things I've sort of half done and intend to do really soon- great books to read, albums to listen to, plays to see,

But I don't really know if Image is a great resource, because I've never read anything properly on there. Not without checking my emails half-way through. Not in the way that allows ideas to resonate, to ferment in the mind, mixing with the existing atmostphere and creating something new, and well, useful.

So today I've gone back to that Andy Crouch blog post and reread it, in full. It isn't long. We live in a world saturated in ideas, and no matter how brilliant they are we can only usefully absorb so many. There is a immense pressure to be conversant in many more things than our parents ever would have been- not just the field we work in, but different branches of Christianity,  culture, food, music, art, politics. We gobble up content but never really digest it.

My mind needs a fast.

I don't know what that might look like (could have been more specific there, Andy), but I'm wondering if some mental mono-tasking on one big, important idea would be a start. Maybe I'll start with Grace. So send me all you your book reccomendations, blog posts, articles and song choices that are related.

No, wait a second.....

LIVE BLOG FROM THE CHURCH AND MEDIA CONFERENCE

We've just heard from the controller of BBC English Regions- lots of stats, not much illumination. Gavin Sheppard from the always encouraging Media Trust is speaking a bit more thoughtfully about local media. The 24 hour news agenda is only a reality for those repsonsible for filling schedules- most people don't consume news that way but in small chunks. In terms of how local people consume media there are other things beyond travel, weather and sport that interest them. Often the church newsletter is now the only way villages and small towns get their hyper-local news. There probably is a local website, but the church newslatter arrives, you don't have to search it out.

The Media Trust is just about to publish research from Goldsmiths about what local people think about their local news and it seems people are getting less trusting of their local press. Surprisingly, people seem to trust news online more than they trust papers- especially the increasingly common papers run by local councils. Sheppard is concerned that as more and more power is decentralised to local councils there will be no one to hold them to account if they councils themselves are producing the news.

The Media Trust thinks the media has the power to transform lives, to let people know they have the chance to control their destinies locally, and a strong local media is key for this.

Duncan Williams, a 'newspaper entrepreneur' echoes Sheppard, saying that this is an incredibly exciting time. He believes change comes from the bottom up, that local newspapers if they take a positive editorial line and are serious about supporting the local economy can succeed.

What is the funding model for the future? Williams thinks that connecting to mobile companies who will provide contracts for ipads etc is the way forward. It has to be self-sustaining, partly through advertising.

Gavin Sheppard believes that we need not to get carried away with hyper-local and digital citizen journalism. He quoted some research that shows that nearly 100% of stories linked to by bloggers and tweeters originated in traditional media.

Russ Bravo pointed out that we have thousands of young people in training for a media landscape that no longer exists- there are two many trained journalists for the number of jobs that now exists. Williams thinks that young people coming in will need to be incredibly entrepreneurial and keep hold of their moral compass.

p.s. not sure i've got the hang of this liveblogging thing yet- keep getting distracted....

I know I am always going on about KORE, but i really do think they are brilliant and an extraordinary resource. Their most recent project, Shibboleth, is a series of short animated films telling modern day parables. Beautifully made, completely non-cheesy and thought-provoking. Fill your boots.

http://www.kore.uk.com/shibboleth

Carol Midgely writes with typical wit about the london-centric attitudes of some employees of the corporation. As someone who's moved from London to Manchester and back again I've been on both sides of the north-south divide. I've feared the gritty urban rainy north and slowly learned to truly love it's myriad charms. Then I dispised the thought of moving back to the overpriced, over-crowded, self-satisfied capital and am now once more appreciative of its cultural delights. Whilst I was working for BBC Manchester I did volunteer as a 'buddy', a north based staff member trained to guide the new arrivals through their descision and advertise the delights of the area. We had our smiling photos on the website, and got free lunches when we helped on tours. And all of us commented on the seeming ignorance of many of the questions, including "isn't the food terrible?". But equally, some Manchester colleagues assumed I would be pretentious, with steely ambition, and constantly pointed out how annoying the tube is and how many people were getting stabbed down south. No mention of Moss Side.

Both cities are amazing, and I'd happily settle in either.

The Media Show ‘Paywall Debate’, recorded with a live audience, wasn’t really a debate at all. The presenter, Steve Hewlett, was like an amiable Uncle between two rather suspicious teenagers, both intent on saying nothing that could be incriminating later. It was clearly intended to be an ideological ding-dong about the nature of journalism, pitting Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Scott Trust- owned Guardian, against John Witherow from The Sunday Times, a Murdoch publication.  However, the two didn’t really engage with each other at all, and from the outset it was clear that ideology had been checked at the door. Alan Rusbringer, questioned about whether his reason for wanting digital content to be free was based on principles rather than economics (as the poor researcher had obviously understood it to be) answered that he didn’t “want to be fundamentalist” and that obviously if the Time’s subscription experiment worked the Guardian would follow. The two refused to hypothesise, repeatedly saying “we don’t know”, which rather took the wind out of Steve Hewlett’s sails.

However, despite the reticence of the ‘debaters’, the programme did underline just how vital these issues are. The Guardian and the Observer is running at a loss of roughly £100,000 a day, the Times and Sunday Times more like £250,000. If a new model is not found then newspapers (whether print or digital) will disappear, leaving us all dependent on untrained, unpaid bloggers for our information about the world. So what are the options?

Essentially, in the next few months The Times and The Sunday Times websites will go behind a ‘paywall’, meaning that readers will have to pay £1 a day, or £2 a week to access content. If you already have a subscription to the print version of the paper you’ll get the websites thrown in for free. There is some precedent, the New York Times briefly went behind a paywall and got 250,000 paying subscribers in a relatively short amount of time. They ended the experiment, apparently not for economic reasons (although that doesn’t sound like very many subscribers to me) but because the commentators felt like they had been ‘cut out of the conversation’.

The Guardian, on the other hand, is hoping to be able to fund their continued existence through advertisements. I was surprised to hear that their digital advertising revenues have gone up 100% since last year, and they are making in the region of £40 million pounds from it. Rusbridger expects this to continue. His ideological argument, much as he seemed willing to discard it, relates to the New York Times- he sees that the digital information eco-system is based on collaboration and interdependence, that paywalls really will cut newspapers off from the conversation and make the broadsheets even more elite. Perhaps eventually, obsolete.

It remains to be seen whose model will work- economically and morally. In the mean time one thing the two did agree on is that print’s days are numbered- neither expects to see newspapers on newsstands in 20 years time.

This week's Sunday Telegraph reports that the Bishop of Manchester, Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, has warned the BBC not to cut further hours of religion programming. As the BBC consults on how to make significant savings in the near future, the Church of England has submitted suggestions for a Radio 1 religion programme to appeal to a younger audience. The church believes that the BBC is in danger of losing its essence as a public service broadcaster if any more religion hours are lost. 

This is not the first such intervention this year, at the General Synod in February a motion criticising the BBC for their lack of commitment to religious programming was proposed but not passed.

As I pray for the BBC and for the church, I wonder how useful it is for us to stamp our feet on this issue. Very few other 'minority' groups (and let's face it, we are, no matter how many people would tick a box on a census) have ringfenced programming, and a sense of entitlement engrained through years of institutional priviledge is hardly is hardly a powerful, or indeed a godly, argument for us to keep it.

This is very much a personal opinion- I'd be interested to hear from those of you who think this is a fight worth having.

.

I bid for four tickets to see this Radio 4 show being recorded on Tuesday 18th May in Broadcasting House, London (starts at 6.30pm). I can no longer attend- who fancies a good value night out?

Following on from thinking about sounds  vs images people- if you're a sound person and in the London area there is currently a sound installation on at Somerset House called River Sounding. It's based in the twisty passages and cellars under the building, where you feel like you might meet a smuggler, to showcase recordings of the Thames taken along it's length, above and below. It's very cleverly done with a sparing use of images too- somehow all these diverse bubblings and rushings and ringings and suckings become the river's story. Brilliant for anyone interested in experiemental radio or indeed just good sound design in general.

It is free, open until the end of May and accompanied by talks and events. More info here.

So this won't apply to very many of you- but just in case all the information is here.

I recently had to negotiate the rate I'd be paid for a short term contract for the first time. I've always been on fixed term contracts and so grateful to have a job that it never occured to me to ask for more money than I'd been offered, but apparently I was being naive. One colleague started out like me and found several years later they were being paid considerable less than someone in the same job, becuse they'd never asked for more. I found the whole process quite unsettling and was very unsure of myself (partly because I'm rubbish at maths). If you're a freelancer you negotiate your rate with every new job- so how do you do it well? What does it mean to have integrity with money? How do you put a  value on your own time? And what is the difference between assertive and greedy?

Let's see if we can pool some collective wisdom....

Has anyone else seen Kick-Ass? I saw it on the big screen in Leicester Square on Friday and came out reeling. It is much, much more violent than I was expecting, (though I am a bit of a wuss with violence) but also much more entertaining and thought-provoking. What's really interesting to me is the exploration of ideas of justice, the playing on the idea of good guys and bad guys. It does this in a different way from The Wire, which shows us the humanity of the 'bad guys', and basically makes everyone equally messed up. In Kick-Ass the bad guys are two dimensionally unsympathetic, and the good guys are heroes we cheer for despite their flaws and bad motives and, in the case of the 11 year old female superhero, their filthy mouths.

I don't have any developed thoughts about what is going on, but was really struck by the use of the old gospel classic 'His Truth is Marching Home' at a key moment of extreme retributive violence, as the bad guys finally fall.

There is a really good review in the Guardian here, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Need someone cleverer than me to help us engage with it as I'm fairly sure it will be an instant cult classic....

The always excellent GRF Christian Radio people (who are also very lovely) have recorded seven ‘shorts’ (of approximately 4 minutes each) reflecting Jesus’ last words from the cross.They are free to use this easter in your radio programming, church or small group

The reading of each ‘last word’ from Scripture is followed by a short character monologue or dialogue which explores a contemporary insight into Jesus’ words, grounded in that character’s own experience.  Each ‘short’ concludes with an appropriate piece of music, inviting reflection.

The programmes are available via Audiopot: www.audiopot.org

GRF has also produced a fully-mixed 29-minute programme based on the same material.  This would be suitable for broadcast on Good Friday, particularly in a slot between 12 noon and 3pm.  This version is not available on Audiopot but can be downloaded directly from:

http://www.grf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/sevenwords09.mp3.

Enjoy!

……or ordered on a CD from GRF by calling Brian Muir on 07795 187 080.

The sale of 30 regional papers from the Guardian Media Group to their main rivals has shocked staff. The new owners have indicated that they will move all GMG Regional's northern operations to Oldham, leaving no editorial offices in Manchester, the historical home of the Manchester Guardian.

The sale raises further questions over the future of local papers- I'm praying today for all the staff who much now wait to hear about redundancies, and all of you working on local papers under difficult circumstances. I confess I am ambivalent about the necessity of their survival, never having read my local ones. However, I know many people are passionate about the community cohesion that local papers provide, not to mention their role in holding local government and business accountable. If they disappear then journalists will also have lost a traditional training route. What do you think?

For detailed coverage see here, and for comment  see here.

Two of the top stories on the Media Guardian website today involve dishonest practice amongst programme makers and journalists.

Channel 4 had tried to win a gagging order preventing coverage of a libel trial which alledging that parts of a Micheal Jackson documentary had been faked. Meanwhile the News of the World has been fighting to keep secret evidence that is thought to reveal illegal methods used by reporters, including phone hacking. Just earlier this week I was listening to stories from an ex-tabloid journalist who would regularly use with tip offs found in celebrities' bins. One of their most-used tricks involved fabricating a story and getting the person involved to deny it, allowing them to print, for example, " Top footballer denies affair...".

I'm struck again by the pressure to twist and distort stories, make our lives, our politics and our culture more thrilling, scandalous and extreme then they perhaps really are. No-one reads newspapers that are mundane, and you can't make a programme out of a non-story (unless you are very, very good). And occasionally something comes us, like the MPs expenses story which reveals the value of investigative reporting, perhaps even when it's a little shady.

The issue of integrity is on my mind today, and I'm praying for all of you who are involved in making these kind of desicions- that you would be so deeply rooted and grounded in truth that nothing else is a possibility. And that you would win awards anyway

Based in the north or fancy a move? The move of major BBC departments to new buildings in Salford Quays will create many oppurtunities. If it appeals this is the site you need to keep an eye on- at the moment you can just register for updates and apply for the few roles that are already open, but very soon you'll be able to submit your CV to be considered for roles that come up later. Keep checking in....

Their works shall follow them.

Doing good work is time-consuming and hard. Why do it? What is the eternal value of being creative? What is the point of technical excellence? Does our work matter? For how long? Doesn’t it all get wiped away at The End anyway? And what is The End anyway? And how does knowing the answers to any of these questions actually help in our day-to-day work?

At the 2010 annual gathering of Blueprint, we will be thinking biblically, and then practically, about these issues with the help of Ellis Potter and Jim Paul. In the afternoon, there will be seminars on the following:

In the Best Possible Taste – Ros Clarke looks at how Christians could deal with sex and sexual themes in the media and art.

Foot in Mouth Syndrome – James Cary deals with the issue of offence, especially in the area of comedy.

Habits of Highly Effective People and Other Myths – Jez & Miriam Carr examine the life of freelance work, motivation and other pitfalls of being selfemployed.

A sight for Sore Eyes – Alastair Gordon considers how beauty interacts with redemption.

Evangelism for Creative Types and Cynics - Rev Andrew Baughen looks at how evangelism is possible in a secular, creative working environment

This will be followed by a Panel Discussion on issues raised during the day.

Date: 13th February 2010 Tickets: £15/£10 (Students/Unwaged) Venue: 577 Kingston Road, Raynes Park, London SW20 8SA Website & Booking: http://creativechristian.wordpress.com email: tongacrocker@yahoo.co.uk

 Blueprint Annual Gathering 2010 BLUEPRINT is a network from the Co-Mission Initiative. It exists to equip Christians in the Arts, Media and Design to do good work. The Co-Mission Initiate is a network of Evangelical churches in London.

If you're following the various camps who think they know how to save journalism, you may be intersted in this. And this.

What particularly interested me about the first is that the New York Times, which is about to start charging for most content, will still allow free access to blogs. With most journalists both blogging and writing articles there is clearly still a distinction between the two forms. But if we can get one, will we still want the other? Are we so unused to indepth analysis that a fact, a link and an opinion will do? Will making it harder to get at increase our appetite for thorough, subtle journalism, or just make blogs more like articles? Or neither?

Ah, for a crystal ball.

A few days ago Tim Luckhurst wrote an opinon peice in The Independent that challenged the long heralded death of the professional reporter. He thinks it has been assumed that with the growth of blogs, user generated content and the shocking decline in newspaper circulations " independent capitalist media barons such as Rupert Murdoch, Lord Rothermere and the Barclay brothers... will go the way of the dodo: they have no defence against the technology that has come to kill them". Luckhurst makes the argument that newspaper barons have often actually been good for public interest, and that models of professional journalism will adapt and thrive on the internet. The citizen journalist is not the answer to the problem- in fact the prediction of their rule is "a postmodern Marxist fantasy". Interesting. If you want to read the whole peice it's here.

On another note, does it strike anyone else is slightly irresponsible that journalism colleges are still pumping out newly-diploma'd young reporters? Anyone know if the intake is going down in line with available jobs? Presumbably that would rather ruin their business model...

Apparently five year olds need to be equipped to resist advertising, accoding to a government study. This article in The Guardian today reports that marketing agencies are increasingly targeting schools and playgrounds. I particularly liked the comment from the Advertising Association spokesperson, who said that the commercial world offers children oppurtunity for " for learning, social development and enjoyment."

The Vatican has spoken out against show-off media priests, according to a Times article today. As well as seeminly wanting to reign in budding Catholic Televangelists, there is clearly some soul searching going on about the wider implications of the television medium. The Pope's comments appear surprisingly reactionary. He said that images of evil and suffering on TV poison us and “This poison makes our faces darker and makes us smile less, stopping us from greeting one another or making eye contact." The longer speech might have been less stark, but it does reveal a fear of television.

It's good to see religous authorities engaging with modern communication mediums on more of a theoretical level, but this struck me as...well. Interesting. What do you think?

I came across this shocking article today. Apparently Mexico is the most dangerous country in the Americas for Journalists to work in, with at least 8 being killed in the last year. Reporters have formed an advocacy and advice group to defend themselves against repeated attacks. I think we forget just how much media workers sacrifice in other parts of the world in order to tell the truth.

Saying a prayer today for all those working in fear.

Doing this job (setting up and developing theMediaNet) I've spent quite a lot of time thinking about networks. The ways we interact with others is such an unconcious thing for the most part- I'm a highly social animal, spending lots of time keeping in touch with loads of different people in different places, but I've never had an ideology or methodology for what I'm doing. For that matter, community itself is something we do, we know it's important, but we rarely articulate just why that is. And yet we have a hunch that it is innately transformative, that purposeful relationships have value beyond the social and the professional. That is, in part, why this network exists.

At last weeks 'digimission' conference run by Slipstream at the EA I was given a few tools to help my thinking on this. Jonny Baker did a really brief introduction to Network Theory ( and small world theory), and reccomended a few books (not christian ones) including  Here Comes Everybody. As christians who want to be culturally engaged and aware of the key ideas bubbling under the surface of our society I'm more and more convinced that being together is vital.

Jonny also reccomended a really brilliant article by Margaret J. Wheatley which I  read today. I'm so glad I did. Take the time if you can (it's not an entirely easy read) but if not, here are the headlines:

• "the world doesn't change one person at a time.  It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what's possible" (so we don't need to worry about critical mass, simply critical connections, or as the very wise Marijke Hoek puts it, critical yeast)

• Life (whether in nature or societies) never changes from the top down, but as local actions become connected up. This can cause fast, surprising change, a phenomena she calls emergence.

• Networks are the most natural and effective way of organising- control and hierarchy mechanisms are not longer key, if they ever were really nessacary.

The fundamental message is that when it comes to changing the world, the more connected we are the better. The more we know what others are dreaming, doing, seeking and sowing the more effective we can be for the kingdom. I pray that God will be showing us how emerging thinking like this can be used for his glory.

Thanks for reading my ponderings- I'd really value your thoughts so why not leave a comment?

I've been thinking and praying a lot recently about status. As some of you know, I left a job as a researcher for BBC Radio 4 to take this role at theMediaNet, and also to go back and study for a masters in theology. In the process of losing my bbc email address, a large chunk of my income and my ability to leave my confused elderly relatives scanning all the (television) credits for my name I've learnt a lot about where my identity really lies. 

The overwhelming message we receive from the world around us is that ‘we are what we do’. Our occupation is the first thing people want to know when they meet us, and it’s more often than not one of the first signifiers we use to describe ourselves. Having an identity built entirely on something as transient as achievement causes huge anxiety for millions, and even for those who are in a ‘good job’ the fear of failure underlies many of our decisions.

In an incredibly hierarchical industry attitudes to status can easily get skewed, even for christians. In order to progress networking is key, but when we begin to mentally sort people into 'useful' and 'not useful' categories we are doing something pretty abhorrant. Jesus was perhaps the most status blind person there has ever been.

I read recently that 100,000 graduates are out of work. It prompted me to pray for them, that they would not start their working life feeling like failures with a big chip in their identity. I prayed for them, and for this network that we would know that we are loved and valuable outside anything we ever do to earn a wage. It is a simple truth that we think we know, but it bears repeating again and again, for those who are out of work and those who are glitting 'successes'- we have a sure status, an unshakeable identity because of the cross.

If we as Christians in a status-bound society see the office cleaner and the exec producer just the same, and know that our own identity lies elsewhere we will be truly distinctive, and perhaps, truly free.

Posted on Behalf of Lin Ball at the Association of Christian Writers

Writing for your church magazine is the focus of a day for writers in Porthcawl, south Wales, on Saturday November 14.

Two editors of ‘The Treasury’ – the magazine of the Presbyterian Church of Wales – the Rev Iain Hodgins and Eleanor Jenkins will speak and lead the workshops, which will be held at The Rest, Rest Bay, Porthcawl, from 10.30 to 4pm. The day is organised by local members of the Association of Christian Writers, but open to all.

The cost is £15, which includes a cooked lunch. Enquiries can be made to Pauline Lewis: Pauline_lewis777@tiscali.co.uk

It seems that paper is a dying technology. According to a guardian blog (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/oct/29/sales-fall-newspaper-readership) there is hope for journalism but it's not in print. The New York Times is diversifiying into the electronic book device Kindle and has more than two million 'followers' of it's twitter feed.

It's not like this hasn't been a long time coming (what's perhaps more amazing is how durable paper has been) but I wonder if we're aware of how it might change things. In a conversation with Doug Groothius (an interesting philosopher/theologian and the author of 'The Soul in Cyberspace') he pointed out that when we read the Bible online we read it very differently. We begin to see what is a long interconnected narrative collection as units of texts. Proof texting is nothing new, but when we're so easily able to pluck verses out of the air without even having to flick through the pages that surround them are we more likely to disregard their context?News stories tend to have less of an episodic structure, so are perhaps more suited to digital mediums, but..long editorials? Complexly argued but important opinion pieces?

And can you really get quality journalism of the NYT's calibre into 140 characters?

I realise this is a running theme for me- the power of ideas and how we communicate them. Perhaps I'm just already a generation too old for the new world order, perhaps God is the great communicator and the medium really isn't the message. The message is the message, in whatever format. Or perhaps not.

Any thoughts?

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/26/readers-editor-news-opinions

I think part of the reason that the predicted 'death of journalism' is so scary is that journalists are trained to differentiate. 'Citizen journalists' and bloggers are probably less so.

www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10422

Here a selection of is what's being said about the debate organised last week by the Church and Media Network. It was a great evening with some sound arguments on both sides- I still don't know what I think, and ended up abstaining. The strongest arguement for me on the side of those who opposed a change to the slot was that it would lost it's distinctiveness and slowly fade away. The humanist point that it's unfair and patronising to assume that all content that is not explicitly religious can be said to be serving the non-religious belief systems (mainly humanism) still has me wondering what I think. Should humanists be allowed space to 'talk to themselves' as they say Christians do in programmes like Songs of Praise? Would they really want to? Thus far I can't find anyone who's blogged about it who thought that humanist thinkers should be included in the Thought for the Day slot, or who thought the humanists, 'won', (it was a draw) so this looks a little unbalanced!

nickbaines.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/free-thinking/

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jonathanwynne-jones/100013083/atheists-make-apes-of-themselves-in-bbc-debate/

workofmyownfiction.blogspot.com/2009/10/thought-for-day.html

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

theMediaNet is really keen to promote media as a vocation amongst young people and young christians. Wouldn't it be great to have people of passion and integrity as the next generation of agneda-setters and story tellers? Here's your chance to get involved through an organisation called Growing Ambitions:

Speak about your career – give half an hour and make a lasting difference to young lives

Raising aspirations among young people is high on the UK’s agenda and you can help. Getting in front of young people and telling them about our jobs and careers is an easy but crucial contribution you can make wherever you are in the UK. Many young people have no idea of the career opportunities out there.

Register with non-profit, award winning Growing Ambitions at www.growingambitions.org as willing to be invited to speak. You then simply wait for an invitation from a secondary school, college or university near you, when you can negotiate a date and time to suit you. You can opt out (and in again) any time you wish so you’re not signing your life away. There is a Speaker’s Guide on the website.

Growing Ambitions has special options for employers of over 500 employees, too – so if you work in that kind of environment, do tell your HR department about Growing Ambitions.

Whilst Speakers just talk about their own jobs and careers – whether in a Christian or secular environment – they carry with them the Holy Spirit. As Christians we know that He changes lives and environments – prepares hearts and minds for God to work.

Growing Ambitions’ founder is Sally Davis, herself a Christian and core leader at Family Church www.family-church.org.uk. “As a Christian, I am especially keen to see Christians taking up this volunteering opportunity in droves, UK-wide. We invite everyone to email their colleagues and friends UK-wide – whatever their career types - and direct them to our site and to God be the glory! The vision is to help every teenager with good careers information.”

Contact www.growingambitions.org or contact Sally Davis on 023 9266 1600 sd@growingambitions.org

I was talking to a friend last night about the X Factor, and they were once again bemoaning the importance of the 'backstory' of the characters in gaining audience votes. It is not enought to be a good singer, apparently, but you must have overcome challenges, faced suffering- had a "journey". Narrative is hard wired into us, it seems- we seek beginnings and endings, heroes and heroines and happily ever afters. Historians shape infinite, disparate past events into smooth progressions, pointing out the 'turning points' and 'peaks'. I think many politicians are already shaping their own stories as they start memoirs on their first day in office.The desire to give our lives meaning and be stars of our own epic tale runs deep. Perhaps there's a connection to a bigger story, a greater teller of tales. The talk Don Miller gave in 2007 at Rob Bell's Mars Hill Bible Church called 'Story' explores these ideas far better than I ever could, and has been hugely influential. You can find it on itunes, or here: feed://www.marshill.org/podcast.xml I'm off to listen to it again.

Mark Thompson has reportedly urged BBC directors to hire more mature female presenters to combat accusations of ageism.The current average age of female news readers is over ten years younger than the male's. ( www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/24/bbc-ageism-mark-thompson). Also this week, the London fashion world was rocked by the choice of one designer to use (whisper it) models who were size 14 in his catwalk show (www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/20/london-fashion-week-mark-fast).

These stories got me thinking about our assumptions on image and how we ascribe status to people- or rather (usually) women. Aging, paunchy men are apparently not so unsightly. How much do we as Christians bow to these pressures, how often do we (consciously or unconsciously) choose those who are 'photogenic' to front our events and publicity? Pretty often, I’d wager. Of course, we’re just making ourselves ‘seeker’ (or buyer) friendly. Are we just pragmatically catering to the culture to achieve an end- or are we compromising something very important when we send out the message that we, too, value the young and the pretty over the old, fat and unattractive?

I'm currently studying theological aesthetics (ask me later!) and the idea that God is beautiful and the creator of beauty is central in Christian thought: Psalm 24:7 One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.

However, although God is beautiful (and created us in his image, whatever that may mean), the uses of the word beauty in the Bible often relate to its deceptive, or at least fleeting nature. True beauty is instead found in character traits; fear of the lord, or wisdom, or a "gentle and quiet spirit". Jesus, we're told "had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him" (Isiah 53.2)- and yet, who has been more compelling? We have an instinct that beauty is an inherent good- apparently we tend to trust attractive people more as we unconsciously 'cluster' positive characteristics together when making judgements. The desire to put aesthetically pleasing people, as well as design, at the forefront in our creative projects probably has its roots in something good- an appreciation of beauty that is hard wired into us. We live in a visual culture and it's clear that to remain accessible and relevant to that culture we can't ignore how things (and people) look. Books are judged by their cover, and so Bibles now come in all the colours under the sun. The content is the same. In other cases though, is the content the same? Are we becoming (and valuing) people of integrity, of deep love and gentleness and hope AND being concerned with how we look to others? How our programs and projects look?

As usual, I have no answers to these questions, but am praying today for wisdom and the ability to value the unseen and eternal over what's before my eyes.

I've been been really interested in the coverage of the death of Sultan Murandi. For those who've missed it, journalists in Afghanistan, many of whom risk their lives to act as fixers and translators for western reporters have expressed their anger at the conduct and coverage around the death of one of their colleagues. Munandi had been kidnapped by the Taliban along with British journalist Stephen Farrell and was killed during the dramatic rescue operation by the British military. His body was left behind while that of a soldier who was also killed during the rescue was retrieved. More than 50 Afghan reporters held a mock press conference around his grave to protest at percieved double standards of both the military and the western media. Most of the coverage here has focused on the fact that Stephen Farrell had ignored safety advice- the question seems to be wether he deserved the rescue that cost a soldiers life, and less attention has been paid to his fellow journalist. It does appear that Farrell willfully put himself and his fixer in harms way, although presumably Murandi was free to leave if he'd wished too. Foreign correspondents and particularly war reporters have long had a reputation for being daredevils, pushing the boundaries of what is safe in order to get the story from the heart of the action. However, I wonder if the modern 24hr news environment has added to an implicit pressure- the rolling headlines need updating with ever increasing regularity. Is there also a sense in which we think that if something isn't reported it's not really happening? If a tree falls in the forest and no-one is there to hear it, does it make a noise? Yes, it does. Wars continue without reporters. We need to know what's going on to keep governments accountable, but perhaps the fine details of every skirmish are unnessacary, especially if they cost lives.

Do you agree?

According to yesterday's Observer (see here: www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/06/nick-griffin-question-time) the BBC is preparing to invite the leader of the BNP on to their political panel show, Question Time. Are they just showing 'due imparitiality' due to the recent evidence of the party's electoral support in the European elections? And do the other parties have a duty to engage with them, or are they justified in refusing to share a platform? These are some things I'm pondering today.

Today the online version of the media Guardian announced that ITV and BBC1 have had their worst ever ratings this August. Channel 4 hasn't had a lot of fun either. Read it here: www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/04/itv1-bbc1-tv-ratings-worst I know August has always had low figures, but with the supposed trends towards 'staycations' and far from barbeque-balmy evenings, what's gone wrong? Aren't we supposed to watch more TV in a downturn?Is it just terrible scheduling-or have we reached the tipping point when on-demand and other media wrest supremacy from the major channels? I read an interview with Dervla Kirwan yesterday in which she quoted the standard viewing figures for 'Goodnight Sweetheart' (rememeber that?)- 13 million. Unheard of now. What do you think?

Well, the tent is dried out, a mammoth sleep defecit dealt with and I'm once more fit to be seen (and smelt) in polite company. Yes, theMediaNet is back from Greenbelt, and what a weekend it was. We had a great time meeting people on the stall and at the tent venue we'd sponsered. It was such a priviledge getting to know all you christians tucked away in the various corners of the industry and hearing your stories. It's clear you're a creative and passionate bunch, but it's also clear that this network is needed. Many of you have periods of being pretty isolated, frustrated and disillusioned. We also met a scary number of people who had been working in the industry and have left for just these reasons. We heard some brilliant stories too, stories perhaps fellow media professionals will understand better than people at your churches. Getting you guys together began at our rather fabulous launch party on the Sunday- if you wern't there there'll soon be photos and a short film on the site. We hope to have further events in the near future (and not just in London)- so if you met someone interesting, hunt them out on the site and you'll get a chance to meet in person too. We're just at the beginnning, and for this to be something good and useful beyond Greenbelt and beyond this website, we need you. So get blogging, commenting and connecting. Tell us your stories, and your burning ideas. You might just find someone else has had the same one. I'm here to be as much help as I can, so if you have questions, suggestions or just want to have a bit of a rant in an unpublished form contact me on hello@themedianet.org.

The very wise Andrew Graystone added something to our stand at Greenebelt, and I think it's significant for what we're trying to do here, so I'll leave you with it.

We believe the best way to influence the media...is to love the people who make it.