PUB: 24-hours in journalism 2013

One Day. One World. One Billion Stories
Telling the story of those who tell the story

 24 Hours In World Journalism 

 

6am 11 March - 6am 12 March, 2013 (GMT)

 $10,000 in Awards 

 

Dear Colleagues Worldwide

As one working journalist to another, I'd like to invite you to take part in a new project, 24 Hours In World Journalism. It's about telling the story of those who tell the story.

Please write a simple chronological snapshot of your day as it unfolds, giving a personal narrative and timetable. Enrich it with your ideas and reflections.

Help me – and other journalists around the globe – understand why your day is unique. What do your stories reveal, about you as well as those around you? Do you work for love or money? What do your family and friends think? Do you need to be bold or brave? Do you ever regret being a journalist? Is it the only job you've ever wanted? Why is it different, interesting, even addictive?

   Describe how you are tackling your stories – your interviews, thoughts, dilemmas, crises and successes – all the things which we as journalists go through in one 24-hour period? Enrich it with personal matters and reflections, your colleagues, home and social life.

I am sure you will approve of the project's aims – journalistic excellence, the promotion of freedom of expression and the recognition of journalistic courage and integrity. In pursuit of these ideals, $10,000 will be awarded to contributors, as detailed below*

It may also raise individual public profiles internationally.  

   Recently my book, 24 Hours In Journalism, became a finalist in the British Journalism Awards 2012 and was voted one of the 40 ‘best books about journalism’. I am now using the same format – tracking one 24-hour period – to portray our work on a larger, more global scale.

   I sincerely hope you will participate. 

   Last year – 2012 – was the deadliest on record for journalists, increasingly threatened by tyrants, religious fanatics, organised crime, militias, oligarchs, lawyers, politicians and many others who hate the truthful headline, broadcast and blog.    

   With your help, this project will show journalists reporting on Somali gunmen and Mexican drug smugglers, on African warlords and Chinese crime bosses. It will roam from Bollywood to Hollywood, from Teheran to Washington, from Rio to Beijing and everywhere in between. It will travel through the earth’s time zones to reveal how the media – newspapers and magazines, TV, radio and the internet – operate in this age of globalization. It will journey with war correspondents under fire. It will invade newsrooms. It will sit next to editors. It will explain why journalists succeed brilliantly and, occasionally, tragically.

   It will also deal with human interest, health and family, love and motherhood, showbiz and fashion, travel and shopping, politics, work and sport – all human life – and describe the power of the photograph and the video. 

   You may choose to write about the gentler, funny side of your working life. There are no restrictions.

   The date and time for this 24-hour project: 

   Start:   6:00 (6am) Monday, 11 March, 2013. 

   Finish: 6:00 (6am) Tuesday, 12 March, 2013. 

   These times are UK/Greenwich Meantime (GMT). It means the project begins in, for example, Los Angeles at 22:00 Sunday 10 March ... Mexico City at midnight ... New York at 1:00am Monday 11 March ... Rio 4:00 ... London 6:00 ... Kinshasha 7:00 ... Istanbul 8:00 ... Nairobi 9:00 ... Moscow 10:00 ... Kabul 10:30 ... Karachi 11:00 ... Delhi 11:30 ... Bangkok 13:00 ... Shanghai 14:00 ... Tokyo 15:00 ... Sydney 17:00 ... 

   Please synchronise according to your own time zone http://www.timeanddate.com/time/map/#!cities=136.

   All I can say with confidence is that it will be the 82nd birthday of Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul. At the other end of the working spectrum, there are the foot soldiers – like the vast majority of us – who will be pursuing our regular or irregular reporting beats in London or Lagos, Mogadishu or Mexico City, Shanghai or Chicago, Mumbai or Moscow, Delhi or Damascus, Tripoli or Tokyo, Havana or Harare, Baghdad or Beijing ... and digging up stories, some to amuse and entertain, others to cause mischief, because that is what journalists do. 

  Write a snapshot of your day as it unfolds hour by hour. Write the document in the first person. Add colour and dialogue. Give your motivation, your hopes and fears. Reports from photographers and videographers – including paparazzi – are very welcome. 

   Length: 500–1000 words. But you decide. Make it longer if you wish.

   Write in your native language if you prefer.  Send it as a single document, after that period has ended.

   Please email to: 24hours2013@hotmail.co.uk

   Thank you in anticipation,

   John Dale 

  What top media commentator Prof. Roy Greenslade says in the Guardian, London: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/feb/15/newspapers-national-newspapers

 

 

 *$10,000  Awards

    John Dale Publishing Ltd (JDP Ltd) will award a total of $10,000 (ten thousand US dollars) to 7 individual contributors as follows: one award of $5,000; one of $2,500; and five of $500 each; plus a further 5  contributors will be sent a free copy of the book, 24 Hours in  World Journalism (working title), and a further 5 contributors will be sent a copy of the book, 24 Hours in Journalism (2012 edition). 

    In allocating these sums, account will be taken of each contributor's working conditions in terms of journalistic opportunity, freedom and personal risk; the awards are intended to encourage and empower good journalism, promote freedom of expression and to recognise journalistic courage, integrity and ideals, as well as increase public enlightenment.

     The awards will be announced within 28 days of the publication, electronically or in print, of the full, completed book, 24 Hours in World Journalism (working title). The judge's decision will be final. In the unlikely event of non-publication, the process will be declared null and void, no money or books will be awarded although some ex-gratia payments may still be made at JDP Ltd's discretion.

     All submissions grant JDP Ltd the right to publish them in edited form in the proposed book, electronically and in print, and in any extract and adaptation based upon this book, but otherwise copyright will remain with the originator. 

    Independent verification of these awards will be made by the law firm, Lloyd Brennand, of High Street, Brentford, Middlesex, United Kingdom TW8 8AH. 

    More details at http://www.24hoursinjournalism2013.com

 

    For guidance, you can read (free) how the previous book was edited by clicking here: 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/24-Hours-in-Journalism-ebook/dp/B008L2V7PG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1357134140&sr=1-1 

    Please email 24hours2013@hotmail.co.uk.

 

    More details at http://www.24hoursinjournalism2013.com

Guardian (UK) article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/feb/15/newspapers-national-ne...