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. Reading it just makes me feel anxious, although I imagine not half as anxious as the people who have to write it.
Pop music, of course, is the worst offender in this. A business that pretends it’s an artform, or an artform that wants more money and wants it now, it’s constantly dangling exciting new talents in front of us and waiting for us to nibble. At this time of year there aren’t many new records out, so instead ‘the buzz’ is all about who is going to be big in 2011.
It’s convenient that the journalistic hunger for novelty should coincide so neatly with the requirements of record company marketing departments. This year’s tip is a mouthy young woman called Jessie J, who has great hair, an annoying voice and as yet no songs.
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