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Charlie Beckett

February 11th, 2009

Jon Snow Online: an old man does new media rather well…

3 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Charlie Beckett

February 11th, 2009

Jon Snow Online: an old man does new media rather well…

3 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

snowblog.jpgSorry to be positive two days in a row, but Jon Snow’s blog is very, very good. Why? because it is absolutely his voice, character and journalistic talent on display without ties, cameras and autocues to get in the way.

I was alerted to it by his Twitter feed and it’s clear that Jon is enjoying it. And in that dreadfully snooty and insiderish geek phrase: he ‘gets it’:

“…certainly stirred a hornets’ nest by raising the possibility that Britain’s many offshore tax havens offer the opportunity for fraud and misperformance. Many of you who complained about my blog did what so many do: suggest I said things that hadn’t. That’s the beauty of blogging: the blog is there for all to see, and I did not say you need £100k to get started in the Isle of Man.”

Speaking as a former C4News employee I confess that I still love the telly programme itself, but it was always a struggle to see how it could transfer online in an imaginative way without vast investment, akin to say, Guardian Unlimited. C4News is the classic serious, live studio and film-based news show. It is appointment telly – you tune in at 7pm because you will get the best comprehensive news coverage of the days events and issues  in one hour.

The C4News website is elegantly done with some interesting extra features. It also has useful clips from the show but it can’t compete with the real thing. At least with Snowblog we get a thread of C4News that lives online on its own terms.

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Charlie Beckett

Posted In: Journalism

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