Edinburgh’s Wild West Town is currently up for sale and might soon be demolished or converted into residental flats. The reason for the Mexican – American refurbishment style was to provide an advertising feature for “The Great American Indoors”, a company trading Santa Fe style furniture in Morningside. “The only place that worked was the cinema, but that was well before my time. The rest is just for show.”, says Brian McLochlin, who worked for a year in the carpentry of the Western Town. He points out that the Western style attracts quote a bit of attention and visitors, especially during the festival.

Indymedia is so much better than professional journalism, in my opinion. No self-obsessed by-lines, at least here in Britain, accountability towards the reader and the other indy volunteers, no hierarchies, and instant possibilities of the reader to contribute opinion, clarification and corrections make Indymedia a much more happy community news resource than any other mainstream media outlet. Not that the amount of conspiracy theories would not be bothering – the slight flaw in the Indymedia philosophy of “discuss it all out and the truth will eventually win the argument” is that hardly anybody has the time to read and investigate facts and opinions and to really discuss them out.

The book has two parts, roughly separated in practicalities and issues. Though the whole book is about practicalities, the second part deals with the Press Complaints Commission and its guidelines, moral issues, the difficulties of knowing the audience’s interests, the rise of the internet with new possibilities and its limits. The first part is focussed on individual skills as to how to improve writing and reporting, expanding to the topics on how to get into journalism as a profession. It is the second part which is really usefull for beginners with a richness of examples and case studies. The book is recommendable for students and wanna-be journalists, the second part may also be of some relevance to initiate discussions amongst more experienced reporters and journalist colleagues.

There are only few journalists today who are trusted by the public, and even fewer whose reports are trusted by anarchists. Jon Snow is one of the few. That might be because of his radical left student past. However, also Andrew Marr describes himself in his biography as something similar to having been a “marxist” once upon a time. So, do former leftists have a quality of trustworthiness and integrity other journalists fail to deliver? Does ideology and attitude of the journalist affect his status in the general population? Is the description “have been a lefty once upon a time” as much of a quality assurance as having smoked dope at university a generation time before reporting on a mainstream media outlet?

Here is a review of The Guardian Media Conference: What is it like to work in the Media? from the Glasgow event on 18th of October 2005. I wasn’t very impressed and should have spent my time and money staying in Edinburgh reading books, persuing projects, job-hunting and writing. The long review is in the content box, including suggestions for making it better. Slight problem in how to get this review to the people who matter, and to get them reacting and changing for the better. Now, i wonder if anybody would appreciate that or not. Actually nobody would most likely appreciate it, subject to apathy and inertia from the organisers site and probably scared rabbit like behaviour from the audience.