| MESSAGEBOARD | TIMETABLES | YEAR ONE | YEAR TWO | YEAR THREE | WINOL - NEWS ONLINE | NEW WINCHESTER REVIEW | LINKS | ABOUT US |
ACCURATE/ CORRECT SENTENCE MECHANICS (you need to master this before you try news writing)
Subject/ Verb Agreement - the basics of accuracy and clarity
Basic correct sentence construction / parts of speech
Easy notes on plurality agreement and case agreement
Correct punctuation, generally
Please blog other useful guides and crib sheets on the message board as you find them.
NEWS WRITING GUIDES / STYLEBOOKS
Guide to grammar, punctuation and news writing style (from BBC News Online)
BBC House Style (rules on particular problems)
Guardian Style Book (ie writing guide on particular problems)
Please blog other house stylebooks and similar on the message board as you find them.
ISSUES IN JOURNALISM
UK press standards:
Failures of the Fourth Estate - a positive review of Flat Earth News
A positive review of Flat Earth News
'Churnalism' - a critical review of Flat Earth News
NUJ Code of Conduct (other codes of conduct, editorial standards and guidelines)
Please blog other articles and similar dealing with this issue on the message board as you find them.
Tabloid TV news / Fox News and its critics:
Sky High - a more positive profile of Sky TV and Sky News
George Orwell, biased language, propaganda, linguistic corruption, advertising, spin, hype:
George Orwell: Politics and the English Language (the classic essay)
George Orwell: some weblinks (opens a vast web of material to explore)
Please blog other articles and similar dealing with these issues on the message board as you find them.
+ + +
The Birth of Now' - cultural and intellectual trends underlying modern pop culture, fashion, magazine writing and 'new journalism':
NEITZSCHE - MENCKEN - MODERNISM - ELITISM - INTELLECTUALS vs THE MASSES
Neitzsche, atheism, monkeys, evoluntionary psychology, Zarathustra
H. L. Mencken, Neitzsche, Journalism and the decay of democracy
A contemporary Mencken-like view of politics - The Power of Nightmares
Idiocracy - A contemporary satire based on Mencken's anti-democratic ideas
Amusing self-regarding American drama student reading The Anti-Christ
Neitzsche and posthumanism in pop culture (one of a many, many examples) - Blade Runner
blog other articles and similar dealing with this issue on the message board as you find them.
FASCISM
Neitzsche, eugenics, racism and fascism - the religious counter-attack on modernism
Mencken's brilliant reporting on the Scopes 'Monkey Trial' (the trial of the century)
Ricky Gervais - Neitzsche and anti-semitism, racism, man and superman
blog other articles and similar dealing with this issue on the message board as you find them.
COLLABORATION AND RESISTANCE - EXISTENTIALISM
WWII - the existential choice between collaboration and death in occupied Europe
Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir - Intellectuals in Nazi occupied Europe
Colonialism and anti-colonialism - third world nationalism and the Algerian resistance
More (unintentionaly hilarious) radical chic Che Guevara kitsch
More on Jean Paul Sartre and existentialism
blog other articles and similar dealing with this issue on the message board as you find them.
EXISTENTIALISM AND POSTWAR EUROPEAN/AMERICAN CULTURE
Sartre - Existentialism and Humanism (a partial philosophical refutation)
Simon de Beauvoir - femininity as an oppressive fiction, origins of modern feminist existentialism
Camus - The Stranger (or The Outsider - The Journalist - The Witness - Immigrant)
Jazz as the existential art form - sponatenous, non-conformist, unwritten and completely non-Nazi
Multiracial jazz scene in New York, 40s, 50s - Birdland
blog other articles and similar dealing with this issue on the message board as you find them.
JAZZ - BEATNIKS - '50s - "TEENAGERS" - BOREDOM and the search for 'kicks'
Jack Kerouac, Beatniks, "White Negros" , bums, hobos, Woody Guthrie, Motorcycle Gangs, West Coast
The Affluent society, boredom, Housewives, sexism, advertising, consumerism
Kerouac - On The Road (the cult of the Outsider)
blog other articles and similar dealing with this issue on the message board as you find them.
THE NEW LEFT - HIPPIES
George Orwell, the Failure of the Old Left, the Bad Faith of Communism: 1984 a Stalinist UK-USA
Existentialism and French Colonialism (1) Africa
Franz Fanon, Algeria, Radical Islam, Colonial Resistence, Black Power
Existentialism and French Colonialism (2) Vietnam
American Anti-War Movement / Hippies / New Left/ Woodstock/ Rock and Roll
Martin Luther King's last speech - predicts own assassination; better to be a dead man than a slave
1968 and all that: Revival of DADA-ism, surrealism, pre-war avante garde
blog other articles and similar dealing with this issue on the message board as you find them.
1960s NEW YORK AVANTE GARDE
Wittgenstein, language games, and the End of Philosophy
Language, Truth and Logic (Ayer - but see also Orwell)
Black History, language games, black consciouness, rap (Gil Scot Heron)
Marshall McLuhan - "Hot" vs "Cool" communication (The medium is the message)
Miles Davies - Hard Bop - The actual 'Birth of Cool'
John Coltrane - very cool (in McLuhan's technical sense) - also v.good Flash website
Andy Warhol, fame, celebrity, dark glasses, celebrity, supermodels
Nico, The Factory, Andy Warhol, Rock Music, Lou Reed
Andy Warhol's seminal INTERVIEW magazine (navigate to 'about Interview')
Pennebaker and 'low-fi' documentary making, road movies, New Wave cineman (JL Goddard etc)
William S Burroughs, Hard Bop, deviancy, drugs
blog other articles and similar dealing with this issue on the message board as you find them.
ALTERNATIVE POLITICS and the ALTERNATIVE PRESS - FEMINISM - PSYCHOPOLITICS - THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL - CONSPIRACIES
Watergate, investigative journalism, media control, CIA, government secrecy, conspiracies
LSD, mind control, paranoia, conspiracy theories
Drugs, paranoia and conspiracy theories : alternate lifestyles / alternate realities
Interview magazine (navigate to 'about Interview magazine). v.good use of Flash.
Pennebaker and Bob Dylan - 'Don't look Back' (drugs, counter culture, 'cool' film technique)
blog other articles and similar dealing with this issue on the message board as you find them.
RADICAL CHIC
Black Consciouness/ Black Power - Franz Fanon - Radical Islam
Black Panthers, Radical Chic (cf Tom Wolfe)
Che Guevara - resistance in the postwar world, cultural anti-Americanism, 'Third Worldism' etc...
Rap Music as 'alternative journalism' - Chuck Dee and Public Enemy
Please blog other articles and similar dealing with this issue on the message board as you find them.
'NEW JOURNALISM - JOURNALISM AS PERFORMANCE - GONZO JOURNALISM - LONG FORM JOURNALISM
Tom Wolfe -on Nietzsche, Individuality, neurology, Orwell, post-humanity, End of History, etc
Please blog other articles and similar dealing with this issue on the message board as you find them.