My first — and so far only — proper job in journalism was, many years ago, as a staff writer on a kids’ computer-games magazine.
My first — and so far only — proper job in journalism was, many years ago, as a staff writer on a kids’ computer-games magazine. We were pretty good for what we were, but if we had a flaw it was that we were obsessed, absurdly and often fruitlessly, with being the first magazine to feature some new game that absolutely no one was talking about, usually because they hadn’t finished writing it yet.
It was my introduction to a particular kind of journalistic mindset: the belief that what is new, what is now, is intrinsically more fascinating than anything else. Have you heard blah blah band? Have you seen blah blah film? I can think of at least one Sunday broadsheet whose entire editorial policy seems to be based on fear of not missing what everyone else thinks is cool or the latest thing.
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