The Future of Journalism

A fascination for journalism and a belief in its importance has been a constant presence throughout my career. My first, direct experience of the power of journalism was felt at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, where I was able to secure media accreditation by simply having a website. I went to the Games mostly for scientific research, but found myself closely connected with the Olympic media. Back then, having a website was pretty rare, so I think it came across as pretty progressive to have one and so the registration team at the media centre took a look at what I’d been doing and gave me a pass.

This experience sparked a huge amount of activity for me, not least of which was my first book for MIT, but on a much deeper level, it spoke to me on the importance of societies supporting and enabling their citizens to assert their identities as media and for this to be a critical component of a democratic and free society.

By working within the Olympic Games media community and interviewing regularly for the world’s media, I’ve found a huge amount of common ground between what I try to do as a researcher and what…