From truth to ego: Effective journalism in the digital age
What does being an effective journalist mean in the digital age? And what do journalists need to do to be effective?
Press freedom is all very well, but where’s the business model?
We have no press freedom until we have a sustainable way to pay journalists (and sub-editors and fact-checkers).
Two years on: My business gets a rebranding
Running a small business does not mean you have to do everything yourself – it means taking your time, figuring out your direction and then spending money smartly to move yourself forward.
Blogging 101: Just make a content plan
It is now three and half months since I last wrote a blog post. In spite of my undoubted time management skills and all I have learned about being a freelancer, it seems I still have a long way to go.
Project management for beginners
A long time ago I did a four-day project management course at the Graduate School of Business in Cape Town. At the time I was on the staff at a large news website, and working with technical teams in various aspects of changing or launching websites. Project management was happening all around me. These days, I am project managing the production of a book for a local publisher, and glad of the skills I have gained over the…
Why I love poetry (and how you can too)
Dealing with email can be a daily organisational chore – but it can also bring joy. In my daily emails, in among the serious stuff about the state of journalism and the endless promotional emails from Clicks (no matter how many times I unsubscribe, they find a way to send me more), is the Poem of the Day from the Poetry Foundation. I don’t remember now when I first came across the Poetry Foundation, but…
What is a CMS? What does it do?
People who work on newspapers or on news websites speak often of “the system”. Sometimes they mean it in a general sense (the way in which the world is run, or how their company works) – but mostly they mean the computer program that they use to write or edit their articles. These staffers sometimes don’t know that the system (which is often hated) has another, longer name: it is actually a content management system,…