Welcome everyone (or anyone?) to the digital ramblings of a kiwi journalism student.
As a trainee journo I have been shown the advantages of blogging and developing a social network, which is useful for circulating ideas for feedback, comments and advice, and more, as demonstrated to me by Dave Lee.
From left: Dave Lee, Jim Tucker, Luke Appleby.
And after watching my tutor Jim Tucker dive into the blogosphere so eagerly and take to it like a fish, I nervously enter a new stage of internet and media dependence with this blog.
Some background:
I was raised in Napier and lived there until I was 18, working in the maritime industry at the Port of Napier as a stevedore. I then moved to Wellington and took jobs in the automotive trade. In 2007 I went to live in Brisbane for a year working as a parts interpreter at a major panel-beaters.
Although I enjoyed my time overseas very much this was the turning point in my career. I knew I needed to steer away from the more labourious jobs and start doing a job which I enjoy, and there was no better time.
My interests have never really matched my employment, which include photography, technology, music (I try to play guitar and bass), current affairs, writing and fishing (although I was fond of ‘container ship fishing’ when the work was quiet).
The more I looked at journalism the more I started to see how it involved a lot of the things which I had enjoyed so much when I was younger. Of course having the background of a ‘nerd’ helps with typing speed, general computer knowledge etc, I also took photography and computer aided design at school, both essential to journalism today, so hopefully that will work in my favour.
Although I consider my English skills to be satisfactory, this is an area in which I am learning a lot, under the iron hand of Jim. Media style and a letter home to Mum differs greatly. Now I am beginning the saga of tee-line shorthand. God help me.
As for now, I’m putting a bit of effort into http://www.newswire.co.nz/ , our school news website. I have taken on a web-editor position, which involves resizing and cropping the images submitted by other students to make them web-ready. Hopefully I can manage to pass on these skills to many of my classmates, although juggling news-gathering, class lectures and shorthand study could impede me somewhat. But I’m pretty sure I can handle it.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Please check back in and nudge me if I don’t post for a while.
3 Comments
July 27, 2008 at 11:34 am
Good blogging, Luke. Welcome to the ’sphere (from one who has inhabited it for all of a month!).
Best
JT
July 20, 2008 at 11:03 am
Why hello there. Welcome to the blogosphere my friend.
July 18, 2008 at 10:17 pm
show the way dude, happy to see you, the three amigos shot is precious,
best
EM