Category: Journalism

  • Fighting on two fronts

    There is a recurring tension between disciplines that are practice-led, and those that see themselves as the champions of ‘theory’. The former often find themselves fighting on two fronts.

  • The night Havel became president

    On the death of Vaclav Havel, a flashback to the night he took office; and later, a press picnic at Lany Castle when he reflected on the mistakes made during the key transitional period.

  • Second Sight

    A researcher interviewed me about a women’s photography group that I had joined when starting out on adult life. Asked about our ‘philosophy’, I said: I dunno, we thought women belonged in public spaces, not just private ones.

  • Personal experience, turned outwards

    Reporting – finding out about the external world – can be understand as a form of personal experience, which is deliberately turned outward and tested by verification. Authenticity exists not only in marginal practices, but also mainstream ones.

  • The luxury of thought: Slow Journalism Part 2

    A round-up of references across the English-speaking media, which suggest interest in finding ways to meet the desire for more time to think, and figure out what matters.

  • Bank notes

    The Eurozone crisis sparked memories of the hard lessons learned in 1992 Prague: if Czechs and Slovaks were not going to have a common economic policy, all the logic pointed to separate currencies.

  • The road to Berlin / the road to Moscow

    A footbridge across Poland’s main east-west motorway brings home the geopolitics of Poland, a flat country with no natural defences, caught between two great powers. And now, our world feels very troubled again.

  • The ‘slow journalism’ meme

    A round-up of instances that show the history of the Slow Journalism meme, with thoughts on the alchemy of of ideas, and the difficulty of pinning down ownership in the digital realm.

  • Labels for uncertainty

    The important thing in journalism is not perfection but work that is done in good faith, which lets the reader in on the process. When that doesn’t happen, here is one way of asking questions.

  • Facts and feelings

    When President Obama sacked General Stanley McChrystal in June because of the military man’s indiscretions, no one was thinking very much about the literary implications.