MASTERCLASSES

Friday, 3 June 2011

Masterclass 29: Celebrity, showbiz and arts reporting

Celebrity and showbiz news has traditionally been looked down on by the posh newspapers and the BBC

They have arts correspondents, putting the emphasis on culture and arts policy matters

Celebrity News magazineIt was redtops, and the more ‘tabloid’ TV channels that went for showbiz gossip, kiss-and-tell tales about soap stars, footballers and reality TV wannabes.
But that’s all changed. Now even the poshest papers recognise that their audience, however high-minded it might be, is also interested in celebrities and what they get up to.
On channels such as BBC3, the news is bite-sized showbiz gossip. The Guardian and The Times both have writers who focus on celebrity.
In this masterclass we’ll look at what a massively expanded journalistic area this is, and at the opportunities for celeb and showbiz reporting there now are.
Much of the growth in celeb news has been fuelled by websites – often maverick, sometimes plain nasty. But while they began often as email newsletters distributed among friends, the most successful now have millions of readers, make millions a year, and are challenging the existence of established celebrity publications and the red tops.
The other big driver of celebrity news is the way celebrities themselves have taken to Twitter, often writing about themselves and what is happening to them, and sometimes conducting their love-lives in public.
So we’ll look here at several things:
  • Why celebrity and showbiz news is so big - and how it got that way
  • How to do celeb and showbiz reporting
  • Twitter's vital role in your reporting
We’ll have a case study in how to create a full newspaper article from the tweets of celebs (and a bit of telly watching) by analysing how The Times’s Caitlin Moran told the Royal Wedding story through celebs' tweets.
We'll also have:
  • Celebrity Twitter accounts listed
  • Star celeb and showbiz reporters
And we won’t forget about arts reporting. We’ll look also at what it is and where you can get a job doing it, plus list the Arts tweeters you should follow

Next, for subscribers to MMJ only: Why celebrity and showbiz news is so big - and how it got that way

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