Kudos for magazines!

Over the last two days we have had lectures which, for once, were championing magazines. Most of the 3-part diploma so far has been so geared towards the newspaper and broadcast elements that it was frankly surprising to hear someone bigging up us lot. We are so often assumed to be the fluffy ones! The thing is, expressing opinion, using a mixture of serious and lighter techniques, covering entertainment rather than news subjects and understanding a visual medium does not make us fluffy. It just makes magazines a different but equally necessary medium. Despite the tedious and often irrelevant questions posed by some of our broadcast students to our lecturer Nicholas Brett, of BBC Worldwide today (most of whom need to read up on the difference between commercial and public service, by the way) I thought he did a great job of defending the business that we are entering, and its longevity. Good on him.