What makes for good music journalism?

Good music journalism should be

• Be entertaining.
• Take an angle on the material that is a little bit unexpected or unique.
• Be brief and therefore concise.
• Show an insight into why the music is good or bad.
• Able to put the music into a wider context (so you need to know your stuff).

Theses are the messages from an interesting article in The Guardian from four years back on what makes good music journalism.

The article solicited views from:

• Duncan JA Dick is deputy editor of Mixmag, the world’s biggest clubbing and dance music magazine
• Matilda Egere-Cooper is an award-winning journalist who graduated from the London College of Communications in 2002 and has since made contributions to the BBC, The Independent, Dazed & Confused and i-D magazine.
• Oliver Condy has been the editor of BBC Music Magazine, the world’s best-selling classical music monthly, since 2004. Before that, he was the deputy editor of Classic FM magazine
• Anna Britten is a freelance journalist who has written about music and the arts for Metro, Classic FM Magazine, Yahoo!, Q, Bang, The Independent On Sunday, Time Out, Bristol Evening Post and Venue. She is also the author of Working In The Music Industry
• JJ Dunning is deputy editor of The Fly magazine, responsible for commissioning and editing and writing the news section of the magazine
• Laura Hooke currently combines working for the careers service of City University London with freelance career consultancy.

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