Hypatia Avenue

Bradshaw, BAFTA, Bloggers and Exceeding The Discipline and Ethics of Print Journalism

Thanks to the lovely Ms Banks who is currently working her fingers to the bone at The Guardian, myself and 3 Londonist chaps were invited to a debate entitled The Role of the Film Critic in the Digital Age at BAFTA, jointly organised by the newspaper and the academy. We were able to chat to our favourite film critic Peter Bradshaw and Mike had a his moment of shameless hustling with Nick James, editor of Sight and Sound.

While I'm not a reviewer or critic of film, I consider myself to be both regarding live art, and the debate was fascinating as well as frustrating to me, even though it was not my particular art form. The mediums in which I write - this blog, Londonist, my private longhand journals, the articles that will hopefully one day be included in mainstream print media - are all at a point of change. The growth of online self-publishing and the abandonment of established editorial discipline and ethics is unnerving.

But to me, it is also exhilarating. What a privilege, to be at the forefront of this change! I embrace the challenges, I exult the contantly shifting goalposts, I think it's wildly exciting to be part of the team that says "Well, we're going to do it differently and we're going to do it like this..."

I was dismayed at the end of the debate to find that there was so much fear and trepidation in the room, and it was such a pity because I thought that fear and nervousness, as is so oftent he case, was based on ignorance.

I contributed several paragraphs in the Londonist post here.

And The Guardian has its take on the event here.

Well. What do you think?