An invitation to be a juror at the RTS Awards ( Royal Television Society) dropped in my email. I’m always grateful. The work is rewarding and it’s an opportunity to say hello to old C4 News friends like Mr Snow, showing here his crips cum hip hop creds.

Jon, there’s an invitation coming your way for a hip hop dance off, when this Covid-19 is all over ( see Marcus Ryder’s tweet below).

But to the present because at the same time, a tweet comes in. My desk is strewn with papers I need to mark. A deadline looms and I’m not up for being distracted. …

The utter anguish of it, staring at the screen thinking how and why did that happen. A new president whose credentials don’t bode well, but he’s there through the complicity of the media.

This was me leaning into my screen four years ago, when I said there were failures in journalism. These included:

“Treating Trump as entertainment. Journalists being misdirected and as such concentrating on values that were about character, rather than issues relating to jobs and the economy. And that Data analyst and pollsters got it wrong”.

Today the world has loosened its belt. Aliens outside the solar system might just have registered voice tremors from the singing and dancing. The President who discarded critical issues e.g. Covid-19, whose bombast style rubbed against cooperating is on his way out. …

Jude had to say it again before it fully sunk in. Wow! I thought. So, I put the not so hypothetical question to you.

If you had the opportunity to share a space with someone you did not personally know, but whose work you greatly admired, who would that be?

Jude Kelly CBE was then the artistic director of the Southbank Centre — that venue alongside the Thames vibrant with culture, music and the arts. Today she runs WOW — a global network Women of the World.

Jude had to say it again before it fully sunk in. Wow! I thought. So, I put the not so hypothetical question to you.

If you had the opportunity to share a space with someone you did not personally know, but whose work you greatly admired, who would that be?

Jude Kelly CBE was then the artistic director of the Southbank Centre — that venue alongside the Thames vibrant with culture, music and the arts. Today she runs WOW — a global network Women of the World.

I'm reading the Power of News by Prof. Michael Schudson. It’s been my go to book for years. Schudson writes with an ease that connects dots hidden in plain sight. It’s starts with a thought experiment to which I’ve slightly added my own insight.

Imagine a world in which governments, businesses, lobbyist, social agencies, deliver information directly to citizens on their mobile/computer. Nobody knew of this thing called Journalism. What would happen, he asks.

We’d rely on what the government says, the council, and the bodies that make up our social institutions. Then there would be various businesses and entrepreneurs telling us why we should buy their goods. This will make you lose five pounds everyday. That track and trace is bound to work and your data will be safe. …

My next Masterclass starts with a simple premise. “Ms Smith, what is it you want to be?” It’s a question many of us have entertained, and sometimes stumbled answering.

I did. I could have easily tanked my degree. I didn’t but my lecturers gave me a new lease of life. We’re going to let you sit that paper again. University was an experience and I was making sure I sucked the air out of it.

If Dr West ever stumbles upon this post, he might be as surprised as I am what his support meant for me. I desperately wanted to become a journalist, but how? …

I was moments from going on air to co-present a weekly show on BBC Radio London, when standing in the BBC newsroom watching LA in flames, stores being looted, a network television reporter said something that took our breath away.

His voice over talked about black people looting, but the pictures showed black and white people hauling electronic goods from a wrecked shop.

How could the journalist have got it so wrong? One of the producers (Black) I was next to was livid. She called BBC’s main newsrooms and complained.

It’s 29th April 1992, the LA riots.

Three reasons why I remember that event. …

I was moments from going on air to co-present my weekly show on BBC Radio London, when standing in the BBC newsroom watching LA in flames, stores being looted, a network television reporter said something that took our breath away.

His voice over talked about black people looting, but the pictures showed black and white people hauling electronic goods from a wrecked shop.

How could the journalist have got it so wrong? One of the producers (Black) I was next to was livid. She called BBC’s main newsrooms and complained.

It’s 29th April 1992, the LA riots.

Two reasons why I remember that event. …