WEF 2008: So much FUN with mobile journalism...
June 08, 2008
Now, you may fault me for this, but it didn't strike me how awkward the abbreviation for a Mobile Journalist (mojo) sounded in Norwegian until I read this post by Eirik Newth.
Only then did it hit me that in Norwegian it sounds very much like a kid trying to say Moro (Norwegian for FUN) while struggling to pronounce the R: "skikkelig Mojo" = real fun, or a real Mojo, depending on the context and interpretation:-)
Still, I guess you could say there was a lot of childish pleasure about the opportunities offered by Mobile Journalism at the World Editors' Forum (WEF) in Gothenburg earlier this week, as this picture I snapped illustrates.
The gentlemen who discussed these opportunities do not look quite as amused in the picture below, but Robert Andrews, in the middle, did come up with one of the better sound bites from the conference, about having moved from backpack journalism to pocket journalism (link in Norwegian).
Now, when I wrote about this debate, several people pointed out that Norwegian media had been using these kits for a while, to which I can only say it's not the first time we've covered this issue, nor will it be the last. Newth, on the other hand, suggested Lojo (short for Lommejournalistikk = Pocket journalism) might be a less awkward title for Norwegian journalists excelling in this particular brand of journalism (click on the picture for full size)
Are the benefits of mobility for journalism over-hyped?
I went 6 months in the last 12 without even a mobile phone, and it was fine.
Headline, Twitter and updates I can appreciate - but real journalism surely consists of much more than that?
Posted by: Matt W | June 09, 2008 at 01:25 PM
Indeed. It's easy to be blinded by new gadgets and overplay their importance. Mobile kits do help ease access and speed up news delivery, perhaps you could say they help journalism adapt to a faster society, but I do think there are deeper issues the media industry needs to adress in order to remain relevant. And of course, as you hint at, the core skills of journalism are not technology dependent, but perhaps technology enabled? New tools, such as that wonderful thing called internet:-) make core tasks easiser than ever and make more things possible...
Posted by: Kristine | June 12, 2008 at 08:02 AM