Some (slightly meandering) thoughts on The Observer’s cracking investigative piece into the truth behind The Salt Path story, and the audience and media reaction to it.

With bonus description of my media theorist’s hat.


Having a big life re-evaluation moment with my wife. My City lecturing and my family are the non-negotiable bits, as is my wife’s (new) job, but we’re putting everything else up in the air: where we live, the rest of my working life. How we spend our free time.

It’s frightening but exhilarating.


It’s difficult to articulate how angry this piece about failed crowdfunding publisher Unbound makes me.

It’s one thing to fail. It’s quite another to lie consistently to authors and backers over what appears to be years.


20 years ago today, my commute was disrupted by the 7/7 bombings in London. And I accidentally stumbled into the beginnings of the “citizen journalism” age of news…


Doing my bit for the City St George’s undergraduate open day - persuading potential students that we’re the best place in the country to do journalism…

A classroom full of potential students is attending a lecture about subjects in the School of Communication and Creativity, as displayed on a large screen.

Doc Searls:

At this point, however, Medium is the pioneer that got Substack’s arrows in its back. And frankly, I don’t like either one of them, because they’re both silos, each with their own quirks and shortcomings.


Anna Wintour leaving Vogue:

Vogue editor-in-chief of 37 years and fashion mogul icon Anna Wintour will step down after the magazine’s next cover release. The inspiration for The Devil Wears Prada will continue her roles as Vogue’s global editorial director and chief content officer of publisher Condé Nast.

For context, I’m in my early 50s - so I was still at school when she took on this role.


Against AI: An Open Letter From Writers to Publishers:

At its simplest level, our job as artists is to respond to the human experience. But the art we make is a commodity, and our world wants things quickly, cheaply, and on demand. We are rushing toward a future where our novels, our biographies, our poems and our memoirs—our records of the human experience—are “written” by artificial intelligence models that, by definition, cannot know what it is to be human. To bleed, or starve, or love.


The iPad is already my preferred video editor for most tasks. It looks like that’s only going to get better with iPad OS26 later this year.

I’m excited! But not excited enough to risk the betas…


Something it’s important to get sorted…

A simplified illustration depicts a bottle pouring liquid onto a map with the text "Clarification of Beer."

Forcing all prospective students to make all their social media profiles public is chilling. This will make it much harder for US universities to recruit - but maybe that’s the point.

It may be good news for other countries’ universities, though.


Yesterday, I went to the Worthing Dome with my daughters as a (late) Father’s Day treat.

What a beautiful cinema. I can’t believe I haven’t been before.

A grand theater with an ornate ceiling and rows of empty seats faces a stage with a red curtain.

A beer in a church - an under-appreciated combo.

A person is holding a pint of stout inside a church where other people are seated.

Gorgeous afternoon down on the beach. 🏖️

A "Swimming Only" sign stands on a pebbled beach with the sea in the background.

Candle in the rain.


Walking the tightrope between AI and audiences.

I get the feeling that a lot of business are gonna take a tumble into a dangerous canyon… 


What happened to student Rag and Rag Weeks?


Just corrected a 15-year-old typo on my blog.

Hurrah.

That typo was older than my oldest child. Some of my students were still in nursery when I made it.


Here’s @ayjay pointing out the major flaw in one of the weaker arguments for AI:

A useful mental exercise: when people say “AI isn’t going anywhere” or “AI is here to stay,” substitute for “AI” the word “cancer.” A great many things that are here to stay are really bad and should be resisted as energetically as possible


Oh, Dr Beeching.

A tribute to an infamous moment in UK rail history.

#mbjune Day 10: Rail 📷

All the images from the challenge.

A cartoon character representing Mr. Beeching is depicted holding a red briefcase and an umbrella, with a note about his mission to close non-profitable railways at the Isle of Wight Steam Railway.