My first travel book

I first came to Europe in 2003 for a professional exchange in Portugal. After a month there, I decided to backpack alone for another two months in Spain and Italy. It was a great time, I enjoyed travelling and meeting new people from all over the world and I learnt a lot about life. When I went back to Brazil, I decided to write a book about my experiences. After three months of frantic writing, I finished it and I was quite pleased with the result.

The forgotten poor book took five years of waiting in the drawer to finally be published and the launch is going to be on 13th January, in Brazil. It is difficult to find a publisher that believes in a new author, so I decided to seek sponsorship in the travel industry and it worked quite well.

Although I love writing, I don’t think I will run to start another book: there is a lot of work involved and the recognition is more of a gamble. When I say a lot of work I don’t mean just the writing process. I mean the rewriting, the re-rewriting, the editing, the editing again, and again… And again! Especially over a period of five years, we always find something to be changed, it is incredible! After that, there is the hunting for a publisher or sponsor, and once you found one, it is time to think about ways of advertising the book. I am not expecting to make any money from it, but probably nobody does with the first book, do they?

Writing as a freelancer for Brazilian magazines, though, is more profitable, immediate and doesn’t require the same amount of work. However, you need to be patient and carry on pitching ideas, until one finally fulfils the editor’s obscure wishes. Once you have delivered the text, then will come the long wait to get paid, which can be quite stressful, as you need to keep reminding them of their duties to you.

I came across many situations when a good idea was refused because I didn’t have good pictures. In travel writing, the picture is frequently more important than the text, even if you have been to an undiscovered far away place and have an extraordinary story to tell. Without pictures, who is going to believe you, anyway?

Travel magazines in Britain: a review

Naturally, it is part of a good marketing plan in any industry to boast about saying “we are the best”. So, there are several “best travel magazines” in Britain, but we don’t necessarily need to agree with them, do we? I selected four to have a closer look:

Conde Nast Traveller: Their motto is “truth in travel” and they explain why: “Unlike other magazines… we don’t accept travel press trips. This means that you can trust us to speak our mind. As a result, CNT is the most authoritative and influential travel magazine on sale today.” Maybe they are right. They speak their mind, that is true, but to say that their mind represents “truth in travel” makes me laugh.

Obviously, CNT’s truth is the one their readers want to see. And most of the time, it involves only the bright, luxurious and expensive side of the truth. There are far too many adverts and reviews on luxury hotels and restaurants, and they can't manage a creative cover; there is always a heavenly blue sea in the background and a woman relaxing on a sandy beach . They have an easy and simple layout, and as I said before, almost half the pages are adverts, which makes the magazine quite thick. I definitely regret to have subscribed to it, because my concept of good travel writing is another one.

Wanderlust: “for people with a passion for travel”, they say on the cover. This magazine explores the adventurous side of travelling and they are not afraid of showing all sides of reality, even the less glamorous ones. I believe this is the best travel magazine I have come across so far here in Britain. Wanderlust’s features are often related to responsible and sustainable tourism. The layout is quite funky and we are not annoyed by endless pages of adverts.

Real Travel: “real people, real places, real experiences”. This Bristol based magazine more or less tries to take on Wanderlust’s style, not just in the contents, but also in the layout, although it gets too jammed sometimes. They rely heavily on reader’s reports, which are unpaid. They are a quite new publication, with some things to improve, but a lot of potential. Let’s keep an eye on them.

The Sunday Times Travel: Their motto: “Be informed, be inspired, be there”. I have the feeling that they go for the let’s-make-an- easy-mag route, trying to please everybody, and maybe just doing a mediocre job. Like most of the magazines, they can’t resist making lists of the five best for this, ten best for that, which I can definitely do without. The layout is simple and works well.

Travel writing in the blogosphere

I would say that travel writing in the blogosphere has many advantages over the traditional way through books, newspapers or magazines. And this comparison between online and print can be generalised to any area of writing. The use of links makes the writing go quicker and smoother, without a lot of interruptions for in-between-the-brackets explanations. Another plus is the use of video clips and a lot more pictures.

Some travel publications, like Wanderlust and National Geographic, have a section for blogs on their websites. Real Travel also offers the opportunity to the reader to create his or her own travel blog, through its webpage. Travel blogs can very often be found in the online version of newspapers as well, as with The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail.Aside from the established publishers, I have found some very interesting travel blogs.

Let’s have a look why they caught my eye.

The Travel Rag: Most of the posts have interesting angles. For instance, a recent feature on Lake Como, Italy, recreates Henry Fox-Talbot’s photography from 1833, using a similar camera in the same places. You can also read about rugby in Paris and religion in Arkansas.

World Hum: It has an easy to navigate layout, which would be better if the scrolling down in the opening page was shorter. It has a tell-me-your-experience style, so you can expect to read about a blogger visiting Vietnam who asked a local waitress out at New Year.

Vagabondish: It is not just about travelling; it is about a travelling life style. It has a section on travel news and like most of the blogs, it uses twitter, delicious and all other available gadgets.

Travel Blogs: Great layout, some crazy ideas and a section for travel literature, several blogs together on one platform. One of the best I have found.

Illustration:davidastle.wideweb

How many words is a picture worth?

People seem to get busier every day. We need fast and easily delivered information, we can’t waste time with long texts and many don’t have time –or patience- for the words. We can be sorry for the last ones, but the truth is that, even more than ever, we live in a visual world.

If a picture is worth a thousand or ten thousand words, it can be said that a piece of travel writing without photography has become something impossible to imagine. However, does any shot do the job of talking for itself? I believe that the principles applied for travel writing also count for travel photography.

We should avoid the clichés, capture the unexpected showing reality through new angles and be very careful when using Photoshop (are we going to take the documentary or the PR angle?).

My own good and bad examples, on the broad subject “Rome”.

Who still needs to see this kind of picture on a travel piece?














What about these ones? What do they say?
















(* don't touch me)

I couldn’t finish this post without mentioning National Geographic’s pioneering work on travel photography. It has inspired travel photographers around the world since the advent of photography, in the C19th.

Photo: en.wikipedia.org (Machu Picchu, published in the National Geographic in 1911)

Describing the world

Travel writing has been closely linked with the exploration of the world since its very beginning. So, it can certainly be assumed that ever since the human being could write and travel, there has been the necessity of reporting the experience.

"The Voyage of the Beagle”, written by Charles Darwin during his famous five-year trip and published in 1839, is a good example but definitely not the oldest. During the Age of Exploration, the travels undertaken by the Europeans to the New World always had a person whose task was to write about the new findings. When the Portuguese arrived in Brazil in 1500, Pero Vaz de Caminha wrote a 27 page letter that is considered the first “official” travel text about the country. Perhaps, Marco Polo was history’s most famous travel writer. In his travels he wrote of journeys in Asia between 1271 and 1295, where he was a guest at the court of Kublai Khan.

The first travel texts were very descriptive and that would be enough. As nowadays there is nothing or little left to be discovered around the world, a successful piece of travel writing must have much more than a description of the place. First of all, an original angle has to be discovered, as nobody has time to waste with old novelties and travel clichés.

While exploring the chosen angle, it is not a bad idea to bear in mind the principles of documentary and photojournalism - unless you have been commissioned by a tourism board and need to perform a PR task.

Illustration:en.wikipedia.org (page from the book "The Travels of Marco Polo" originally published during Polo's lifetime)

Feature: travel writing

I decided to write the feature on travel writing. I like to travel, obviously, and I have been doing a lot of freelance work in this area. Also, I am just about to launch my first book on this subject, next January in Brazil.

My forthcoming posts will be more or less like this:

I’ll first give an overview of the beginning of travel writing, commenting on angle, purpose and style then and now. I also intend to write about the relationship between documentary, photojournalism and travel writing, as well as the importance of pictures and how I believe they should be used. Finally, I’ll review some British travel publications and talk about my personal experience in the field.

Photo: Giovana Zilli (Bombinhas, Brazil)

The group blog - a critical evaluation

A blog about international news sounded just perfect, considering the international background of our group. Our basic idea was to analyse what was being reported in the British media, from this angle.

The target audience of Our Global View were students, people interested in international news and foreigners living in the UK. A continent was allocated to every member of our group and I enjoyed the experience of researching about South American news everyday. I knew beforehand that my continent is often neglected in European media, a fact that I could confirm during the five-day-blogging period. So, I ended up reporting news (published through South American outlets) more than analysing what the British media was saying about South America.

Posting everyday was quite time consuming, especially during the busy time at the end of semester but as I said before, I enjoyed it! The blog platform chosen was definitely not the best one, because it limited our freedom to edit and overwhelmed the editor of our blog, who had to do the entire posting alone. Another thing that was not so good about the platform was its unchangeable opening page. This was reflected as well on the linking process, as all of us would have the same single link for all posts, which would not allowed other bloggers to link with directly with them.

I think I managed to bring to our blog a good sample of what was going on in South America, and I was quite pleased to see that some posts drew comments. They were about my first post on the Brazilian floods and I should have responded to them, but I completely forgot about that.
Considering the positive and negative points, I can say that the experience of group blogging was quite interesting, and I have learned a lot from it.

Illustration: jeanmonnetprogram.org

Twitter: the uses and abuses of a gadget

It is amazing the amount of gadgets you can use in your blog nowadays. Ho-we-ver… I wonder, what is the relevance of knowing that somebody is having a full bowl of cereals and berries for breakfast?

So, the question shouldn’t be “What are you doing?” but… “Do you have anything interesting to share?”

Twitter can be of great use for journalists, no doubt about it (even Downing Street is twittering). But making the most of it doesn’t mean to update it every hour or day, if you don’t have anything relevant to say! And as Will McInnes says, Twitter is addictive, so… use it, but don’t be used by it!

Illustration:geek and poke

RSS feed? I don’t think I need it - at least, not so far

I have subscribed for less than half a dozen RSS feeds. The amount of information I have received is still so big that it makes me wonder if it is just as time consuming as going to the websites themselves. However, I don’t want to say that it is a useless resource, because it can organise things, making a quick skim easier.

It would be better if the online source gave you the possibility of choosing from a partial rather than a full RSS feed, which means you don't have to read all the news on football, fashion or other thinks that don't interest you - I mean, me. Unfortunately, the only thing it does not do is to add hours to your clock

Save your money, but don’t treat me like an idiot

There is nothing wrong with saving money, especially in times of recession. What annoys me is the environmental excuses some companies use to avoid admitting it. The standard one used by hotels to save money in the laundry goes along the lines: “reuse your towel and save the planet”.

Last month was Sky Mag’s turn to call its readers brainless. “Sky is committed to helping the environment in any way we can.” Well, you should try harder and change the magazine’s plastic wrapper for a paper one. “That’s why we are giving you a two month- issue.” Come on, don’t make me laugh! Everybody knows that it is a cost cutting exercise.

It is a fact: recycling policies can eventually reduce the bill and help to save the planet. Great, everybody is happy! However, it is quite unusual to hear of companies that sacrifice their profits in the name of the environment - and only for the sake of it, not for their public image. I know we live in a capitalist world and businesses are meant to make money. Somebody may argue that what really matters is the result rather than the reason. Fine, but sometimes the companies’ marketing gurus forget that there is intelligent life outside of their offices.

Perhaps, this is why small companies seem to be more honest. The Queen’s Arms of Brighton recently adopted a series of energy-saving actions, reported on the “Go Green, Save Money” section of The Publican online. Pubs need to show an eco-friendly Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) or may be fined up to £5,000. The industry’s paper summarises very well the reasons to go green: “Did you know that by implementing green initiatives in your pub, you could save money – and, in some cases, even make more money?”

Although this is not a perfect world, we still can believe some companies genuinely care about the environment, can't we? Especially with green laws and public opinion getting tougher on them.

McIntosh's speech at University of Westminster

Meanwhile, in the blog jungle...

One of the reasons I have never been interested in blogging before is lack of trust and time. I mean, I would do something properly, or I wouldn’t do whatsoever. There are really too many blogs in the cyberspace nowadays, and their number seems to double each minute. However, blogging is also a very efficient way of gathering good, reliable and newsworthy information.

Do you want some examples? There we go...

Worldchanging.com comprises a global network of independent journalists, designers and thinkers covering possible solutions to today's environment problems. I particularly like the section where they state: “Our things define us. What we buy, what we use, what we keep and throw away, what we waste, and what we save: the stuff that surrounds us and flows through our lives is a key indicator of the kinds of lives we're living.”

Globalvoicesonline.org has news and opinion pieces from all over the world, even from places often ignored by the big media organizations. The searching engine is very useful, allowing us to choose by area, country or subject.

Even the old and reliable Encyclopaedia has gone to the blogosphere. Have a look at Britannica.com/blogs

I am sure there are plenty of other good examples. I will leave to yourself to find the bad ones. Believe me, it is much easier.

Illustration: bihu.in

A Year in Tibet: A Tale of Three Monks

I rarely watch TV after dinner, but it was worth it to switch it on last night. I was lucky to come across an episode of A Year in Tibet: A Tale of Three Monks. Peter Firstbrook produced this BBC Four series on how Tibet’s ancient past is influencing the future of its people. Perhaps, it would be better if said in the other way round. Tibet’s new generation, represented by monk novice Tsephun, is clashing with the country’s old traditions.

Watch it here.

Photo:bbc.co.uk

Wanderlust prints issue 100

“The name says it all – you’ve either got it or you haven’t. And once you’ve got wanderlust in your blood you’ve got it for life.” – Paul Morrison, co-funder, who died in 2004.

Wanderlust is the best monthly travel magazine in the UK. Its readership ranges from 25- to 35-year-old single people looking for activity-based adventure holidays to older, empty-nesters looking for soft-adventure and cultural experiences. Know more about Wanderlust readership here.

Future is dark for The Herald

The head of editorial development for The Guardian Unlimited alerted last Thursday for the coming closure of The Herald. Neil McIntosh talked to University of Westminster students on the economic crises haunting several newspapers, the importance of blogging and his new job at The Wall Street Journal.

“The Herald is in real trouble,” he said, mentioning Emily Bell’s previous warning on the collapse of five national papers. McIntosh believes The Scotsman doesn’t have a better fate. According to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, over the last year The Herald had a fall of 8.87 per cent to its 61,948 daily circulation, while The Scotsman dropped its distribution to 49,841, which represents a decrease of 8.35 per cent.

Asked about The Independent, McIntosh replied: "They are losing a lot of jobs and cutting costs. No one is really suspecting it will close but the sales aren't doing anything great at The Independent.” Roy Greenslade wrote recently in his Guardian blog about the “terrible financial mess” The Independent was facing: “It has also failed to attract as large an audience to its website as its rivals, mainly because its short-sighted management refused to read the runes and invest early enough in online development.”

Talking on journalism and blogging, McIntosh was emphatic: “It is a place where you can show what you can do. You can build a reputation even before having a job,” he said. However, The Guardian’s editor added that just blogging is not enough: “A blog should be carefully maintained as your CV, but more regularly updated”.

McIntosh is leaving The Guardian next month to The Wall Street Journal, part of the powerful Murdoch empire. He admits: “Quality journalism is what attracted me to work there in the first time. There is a lot of ambition there”.

Photo: Sophie Borazanian

Reserching online: the elderly and the internet

Some interesting statistics at ofcom.org.uk.

Scientific research at informaworld.com."With the rise in technology utilization, specifically the Internet, can the elderly utilize the Internet for health care purposes?"

Two articles by the BBC. Click here and here.

The Telegraph says that surfing online is the best pastime for the elderly.

A blog about internet addressed to the elderly at digitalunite.com.

From the British Geriatric Society to skiing holidays, a list of websites can be found here.

The Third Age Trust is the national representative body for the Universities of Third Age (U3As) in the UK.

Another blog for the elderly here.

Photo: news.bbc.co.uk

Bad science loves bad journalism

So, who are the ones to be blamed on this endless scientific speculation? Are the scientists who publish incomplete/irrelevant results? Or are the avid-for-news journalists who forget to separate the wheat from the chaff?

Ben Goldacre, who writes for The Guardian since 2003, has announced:

"If you're a journalist that misrepresents science for the sake of a headline, a politician more interested in spin than evidence, or an advertiser that loves pictures of molecules in little white coats, then beware: your days are numbered.”

I agree with Ben, and his blog Bad Science is quite interesting as well, apart from some generalisations on homeopathy. The scientific community is sometimes arrogant on alternative and holistic therapies, although the various successful cases based on these treatments. Talking about homeopathy, I abandoned my skepticism towards it, when I become one of these cases myself.

Well, you can read more about bad science here, but for now, let's leave science to the scientists. Journalists are better off writing things that really deserve to be written - and read.

Photo: scienceblogs.com

Attention: Health news can cause you mental damage – part II

It would be good if alarming and confusing health news were found only in The Daily Mail. But it is not, so be aware. According to a study, to take health news too seriously can increase by 60 per cent the risk of getting sick or ill- tempered.

From The Daily Telegraph:

17th November: “Sleep after exercising to reduce cancer risk”

“Taking regular exercise combined with a good night's sleep can reduce the chances of developing cancer by 20 per cent, a new study suggests.”
(The next think they are going to say is that stop smoking can do the same!!)

11th November: “A drink or two is advisable for women who are trying to conceive, says James Le Fanu.” (Doctor's diary)

(The effect here is related exclusively to the presumption that slightly drunk women can have sex easily. It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it?)

From The Times:

9th January: “2½ bottles of wine a week can save your life”

“People who drink up to almost 2½ bottles of wine a week have a lower risk of premature death than those who abstain from alcohol, research has suggested.”
(So... What are you waiting for??)

From The Independent:

5th June: “Regular drinking 'halves risk of arthritis’”

“Drinking alcohol is not only good for the heart – it is good for the joints too. A regular tipple cuts the risk of rheumatoid arthritis by up to 50 per cent – and the more you drink the greater the protective effect.”
(I beg your pardon???)

31st October: “Light drinking when pregnant may lead to calm babies, says study”

“Toddlers born to women who drank lightly during their pregnancy were found to have significantly fewer emotional problems.”

23rd January: “The more successful you are, the more you drink, research finds”

“Chief executives of big companies and public sector organisations are coping with their stressful positions by drinking the equivalent of almost three bottles of wine a week, new research shows.”
(Well, they are not doing so bad... They just need to reduce to 2½ bottles to lower the risks of a premature death, and they'll be fine - according to The Times)

From The Guardian:

9th January: “Help your heart with exercise - and booze”

“Moderate drinkers are at 30% lower risk of heart disease than teetotallers, according to a study of nearly 12,000 people. And those who combine a mild tipple with regular exercise are even less likely to die of the disease.”

04th February: “Doctors warn of alcohol risk to patients facing surgery”

“Patients due for surgery should control the amount of alcohol they drink beforehand, doctors have warned. A new study shows drinking even moderate amounts prior to surgery could slow down recovery and weaken the immune system.”
( If the surgery itself wasn't enought to worry the poor patients...)

Photo: teamsugar.com

Attention: Health news can cause you mental damage

Every day, scientists around the world publish the conclusion of their experiments. It normally happens in specialist publications, as it is aimed at the scientific community first of all. Thankfully, a journalist will get hold of the full scientific text, or a press release version, and will transform it into a more comprehensible text.

Unfortunately, what often happens is a literal process of transformation, which ends up misinforming the reader. Journalists should carefully filter serious results from speculation, when reporting scientific issues. They should also do it in a clear and honest way, because if there is bad science, there is also bad journalism. Who pays for it is always the reader.

The relation between diseases and consumption of alcohol is always present in health news nowadays, and it is not just because of alcoholism. It is important to know how to be healthier, although it is also important to know that we can trust the news. But, can we?

Some newspapers are quite prolific in creating alarming and confounding news. Let’s take The Daily Mail and the “consumption of wine”, as an example. It was printed on the 30th October:

“Some wines have been found to contain high levels of metals such as copper, zinc and nickel. Having just one glass of wine a day could expose the drinker to potentially dangerous levels of metals linked to cancer, heart attacks and Parkinson's disease, scientists warn.”

The mentioned research, carried out at Kingston University and published in Chemistry Central Journal, was based on previous metal analysis by other researches and does not involve wines from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, USA and Chile, all widely consumed in the UK. The Daily Mail report did mention the criticism towards the method used, but ignored what the researchers admitted in the original publication:

“(…) it is noteworthy that a large number of metal ions found (…) have not been well studied in terms of biological activity. This approach should be extended to the numerous dietary products that are consumed daily over a lifetime.”

After the first alarming paragraphs, it continued (and they must be joking!):

“However, the wine industry and Britain's food watchdog urged drinkers not to panic, saying that the levels of metals were within recognised safety levels.”

As wine consumption and its risks and benefits have been making news, there have been many more headlines from The Daily Mail this year:

19th October: “Just one of glass of wine a day increases women's risk of breast cancer”

“Drinking just one large glass of wine a day increases the chances of developing breast cancer by a fifth, say experts.”

07th October: “Red wine could lower men's lung cancer risk”

“Men who drink a couple of glasses or red wine per day have a lower risk of lung cancer, according to a new study.”

01st July: “How drinking red wine with your steak cancels out cancer causing effects of red meat”

“Scientists have shown that the drink cancels out some harmful substances produced by the meat in the stomach.”

05th June: “Five glasses of wine a week 'could cut risk of developing arthritis by half'”

“Wine drinkers were less likely to develop arthritis. If you need a reason to reach for the bottle, this might be it.”

04th June: “Scientists discover the secret behind red wine's anti-ageing properties”

“Scientists have discovered a link between red wine and healthy hearts. Red wine may be the next best thing to the fabled elixir of youth, new research suggests.”

12th May: “Two glasses of wine a day 'puts breast cancer risk up by 50pc'”

“Just two large glasses of wine a day can raise the risk of breast cancer by more than half, research shows. A study of almost 185,000 women found even moderate drinking significantly increases the risk of the disease.”

06th May: “Hooray! Wine CAN be good for you...so are you drinking the right stuff?”

“Research has found that red wine in particular can lower the risk of heart disease, provide protection against stroke, prevent pancreatic cancer and even stave off potentially-fatal food poisoning bugs such as e.coli, salmonella and listeria.”

22nd March: “ONE glass of wine a night can increase risk of breast cancer by 60 per cent”

“Middle-aged women who drink one glass of wine a night increase their risk of breast cancer by 60 per cent, an alarming new study shows.”

17th March: “Wine is worse for brain than beer, scientists reveal in blow for women drinkers”

“Drinking wine damages the brain more than beer or spirits, scientists claim.”

04th March: “Just two glasses of wine a day 'can double blood pressure'”

“A glass or two of wine a day could more than double the risk of high blood pressure, research shows.”

Review: guardian.co.uk

The way to present news online is different to the traditional mode for many reasons. Easy navigation, frequently updated information, immediacy and interacting with the reader are key factors for the success of an online publication.

This year, The Guardian won the British Press Awards for the best website, reaffirming its position as a positive example of online journalism. The newstories gain constant updates, are easy to access and allow the readers to add their own comments. Video and audio clips, extra photos and hyperlinks contribute to better quality information, transforming the online version into a multimedia one. Apart from this, the reader can also access the archives, take part in quizzes, polls and chat forums, find a new job and upload a CV, buy everything from books and insurance policies to daffodils and knives, find a soul mate and book a restaurant, rent a DVD, share favourite articles with friends, comment, criticise, agree, disagree, appraise and – yes! - read almost everything he would do in the print version.

In terms of layout, The Guardian online is very well constructed, offering to the busy online reader, easy access to its various sections. Tags with different colours, a very simple but useful tool, are used to identify the sections. It also caters for accessibility allowing a bigger font size, what makes reading on a computer screen easier.

Will dinosaurs survive the journalism evolution?

Some living species of sharks and turtles are older than the dinosaurs. They have survived across the eras because, more then once, they adapted to the planet’s changing environment. Darwin’s evolutionary theories could never before illustrate so well the scenario in today’s journalism and mass media.

Journalism’s golden rule of “inform, entertain and educate” have been carried out by journalists, who bring a printed, broadcasted and online world to people’s lives. In fact, there is definitely no doubt that the world would be a different place without mass media journalism. However, does it also count for journalists? Are these professionals as necessary as journalism itself?

After the surge and popularisation of new media, to have a personal blog is easy and doesn’t require special abilities. Anybody can now share information and opinions on the internet. This has generated a lot of debate, especially in journalistic circles. Although the argument is basically centred on the reliability of such sources, there have been concerns on the future of journalism - especially as a profession.

Many people have argued that journalism is only the work produced by journalists, the ones who have skills, ethics and a diploma to do this. However, strictly defining journalism only as what is produced by journalists has become, in fact, rather limiting and elitist. It doesn’t mean that any piece of “citizen journalism”, posted by somebody on the internet, is going to be reliable, readable and recommended – in the same way some professional texts published by journalists are not. The joy of this new trend, though, lays in an improvement of democracy - a once passive audience can now write news stories and features.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that traditional journalism is condemned to death. It means that it is evolving, that people more than ever need journalism, but in a more interactive way. Journalists shouldn’t fear this new tendency brought by technology and framed by people’s needs. Actually, what has always made journalism possible is the sharing of information. If new ways of doing this are emerging, it is because the old model is no longer satisfying. Adaptation is not the secret of survival only in the animal kingdom. Journalists, rather than complain about and criticise the wave of citizen journalism, should show why their work is more valuable. The ones who preach from ivory towers, on their special gift as journalists, must be aware that they may only be guaranteeing a nice place in the media’s Jurassic park.

Illustration:nationalgeographic.com