AJE: Now is most exciting time to become journalist, says Jon Snow

Now is the most exciting time ever to be a journalist, Channel 4 News' Jon Snow told a journalism education conference on Friday.

Speaking at the Association of Journalism Education (AJE) event, Snow said there were real opportunities for new journalism graduates to set themselves apart and change the face of the industry and the world in which we live.

"Journalism is just an infinitely more intricate and democratic procedure than it ever was when we were starting out. And basically it's going to change the world, it's changing Iran. At the moment everything that is tipping out into the western world as information about Iran is being gathered by people who are living in Iran," he said.

"This is an incredible moment in our time, where we are party and we are training people to be prepared to make music with the most incredible development, a development which is going to clean out the gunk and clear out the hierarchical crap of the last 1,000 years, where people had station or place because of inheritance, or because of non-election, or dictatorship, or force of arms.

"Force of words and evidence and pictures and sounds and music and blood represented upon our screens are going to change the world."

[Listen to audio of Jon Snow's full presentation below]

Snow did not train as a journalist and, as such, had his first taste of training just recently - on digital journalism for Channel 4 News, he said.

He now blogs regularly and is an avid Twitter user: "My own working life has been completely transformed in the last three or four years, absolutely beyond recognition.

"My working life has changed to become more like the people who will inherit the earth."

Snow said he was now working harder than at any other point in his career, though conceded he was not able to travel on assignment as much: "It's possible that I do less journalism. You're not out there to the same extent that you used to be."

But journalism graduates need digital skills alongside a wider understanding of the world and other basic journalistic skills, he said.

"However au fait we get with the technology and however exciting the rest of it is, we have to somehow keep anchored to the rudiments of journalism," he said.

"If you don't find yourself curious about something on a really dull day, then don't bother. If you're not inquisitive or triggered by the things that you hear and see then there's not much worth doing it.

"The only people who are going to really make it are the people who ask the questions (…) It doesn't matter how good an editor they are or how good the sounds they've put down."

"Start going where there aren't many hacks, because that's what will interest people. It's now more possible to do that than at any other time. It's an incredible time to be somebody who can retrieve, prioritise, order, create and write in a way that makes it irresistible to read or listen to or view."

Snow on the government and political journalism
There are opportunities for new journalists to create a more egalitarian media and society by seeking out new stories and overturning conventional journalistic roles and territories, added Snow.

Referring to coverage of the recent MPs' expenses scandal, he said the public has previously been 'ill-served' by political reporting on the Houses of Commons and Lords.

"[T]he hacks that cover the conventional, the political correspondents, who know what an absolute rat house that place is [the House of Commons] (…) It's so completely out of touch with the world in which we live. It's a completely ridiculous, absurd place, not fit for purpose.

"But does anyone who actually dissects with it from the journalistic fraternity say so? No, because if they did so that was the end, they wouldn't be able to work there again. That's the compact they made with the devil."

Local media
Current journalism graduates have the opportunity to define a new sense of local and a new structure for local news and democracy, Snow added.

The concept of local is misunderstood by government and last week's Digital Britain report local media was 'in the wrong direction'.

"What does this man do?" Snow asked of communications minister, Lord Carter, who recently announced that he would step down from his role following publication of the Digital Britain report.

"We're going to be saddled with a man for 20 years in the House of Lords who did eight months."

Referring to a intranet for his home street, Snow said he could see a hyperlocal news model evolving.

"There is the potential for wonderful, close-knit nets in the really local, even urban area. That's what many of our people are going to be doing - they are going to be awakening local activity," he said.

"There's a complete absence of local in terms of recognition from above. But what have we got with us now, the real potential, that these cohorts of young journalists coming through are going to establish the local.

"It might sound like anarchy and the rest of it, but it will rejuvenate the system in which we live. We must start small, from the bottom and work up. It's no good having the government tell you what is local."

Audio of Jon Snow's presentation (some background noise):

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