Student Media Awards ignore blogging

I don’t get it. Not one week ago both Leo and I were both singing the praises of The Guardian and it’s new Open Platform. And yet I note with some dissapointment (not for the first time it must be said) that The Guardian’s Student Media Awards have once again completely overlooked social media and its increasing relevance to journalism. One glance down the categories for this year’s contest is enough to confirm that for such a forward thinking media organisation they still do a good line in ‘dinosaur-thinking’.  Aside from the fact that they cram audio and video journalism into one pretty lazy ‘Broadcast Journalism’ award, they’ve completely overlooked blogging as a medium.  How? Why? What utter lunacy!

Ok so they have ‘Website of the year’ but that is hardly the same now is it. Despite the huge emphasis the Guardian puts on its blogging enterprises they’ve seen fit not to recognise it in their Student Media Awards when surely digital natives are the most perfect, brilliant, fabulous candidates for such an award as they actually *get* social media. I have a number of student journalist friends (not to mention a few who are now fully fledged journos) all of which I met as students and all of which have blogs and all of those blogs are very good. Worthy of being judged at any rate! And the reason they have blogs (other than the enjoyment of blogging)? Becuase blogging, so they tell me, is the way the industry is going.  So isn’t it about time student journalists were judged in a medium relevant to their future?