We Media, you insignificant lowlife
Published by on May 4th, 2006
Although I (thankfully) was not attending the main We Media event yesterday, I was asked to speak and be official BBC Radio 5 Live Pods and Blogs correspondent at the We Media Fringe event in Soho last evening.
The fringe event was hastily put together by Robin Hamman, who spent much of the evening wandering around like a rabbit in the headlights somewhat bewildered that he had managed to pull it off, I think.
The main We Media event was to be partially centered around the new wave of citizen journalism and a means for the pros and non-pros to all get together and talk about the future of news media. But the consensus of opinion from fringe attendees who had spent a grueling day at the main event, was that it had been very much an ‘us and them’ atmosphere. In Suw Charman’s words “It sucked.”
I had two jobs on the night: firstly to speak about UK podcasting, and secondly to record some audio with whoever I could tackle, which might be suitable for Radio 5 Live’s Pods and Blogs.
Speaking was no biggie of course, though unsurprisingly I did end up automatically kicking in to pseudo standup mode, but as they asked me to condense my unprepared fifteen minutes into just five, I was sounding a little like I’d had to many Red Bulls.
Face to face recorded interviews in that environment, particularly for a BBC programme was a little more nerve-racking - it’s not something I have done before and the first time I’ve handled a mini disc player (thanks to Hugh Fraser for a quick lesson at the start). Looks like I managed an hour or so of stuff so hopefully they can get something out of that.
I’m not entirely sure I am overly comfortable in these environments. Lots of high level talk about the media, about convergence and divergence, about activism and politics. I suppose I am more of a doer than a talker - or perhaps since these environments are still too new to me and I’ve just got to wear the clothes in a little more.
Far more lyrical opinions and reports on both events are littered around the net and a doddle to find if you are interested. Click on the technorati tags below to get to the most recent.
Pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/wemediafringe/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/wemedia/
Technorati Tags: we media, we media fringe, wemedia, wemediafringe
3 Responses to “We Media, you insignificant lowlife”
May 4th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
I think you should definitely come to more of these sorts of things. They are fun, and the talk even gets interesting and informative at some of them.
May 4th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
Thanks Suw. I’ll definitely be at more, if only to boost the podcaster presence
With some of the commercial activity I’m involved in it’s going to be increasingly necessary.
May 5th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
[...] Id3 Magazine have published my audio interview with Neil Dixon of Britcaster and Dean Whitbread of The UK Podcasters Association. [...]