Parliament & Lobby: Iain Dale on journalists & media today

MARCH 2011, Westminster. Journalism students of University of Sheffield visited the British Parliament, the House of Lords and House of Commons. Iain Dale, author, speaker, broadcaster & blogger,  was also there to share his thoughts about the relationship between politicians and journalists.

'Sometimes there is no training in journalism', he said. He had his first journalistic job in 1990 and since then he has worked in national newspapers, broadcasting and now in the Parliament.

'Political reporting is quite hard and competitive and usually the relationship between journalists and politicians is parasitic', he said.

The  Sunday papers is one of the things that he hasn't missed at all. According to him, it is really stressful  to realise on Friday afternoon that you don't have a story to publish on Sunday.

It hasn't happened few times to him to receive calls from Sunday  journalists that in the beginning  wanted to chat with him and then he understood that what they wanted is to ask if he had a story that they could use at the Sunday paper.

As a blogger, he didn't hesitate to refer to the role of social media today. 'Social media are complementary to each other', he pointed out. Blogging, for instance, is a good way to get noticed, display your words and enrich your  CV.