After our first full day of exploring London and getting some much needed sleep, we used our new knowledge of the Tube to make our way to Regent’s University for a lecture on the media landscape in the UK with Jason MacKenzie. I must say I was a little hesitant going into this meeting considering it was the first media visit of the trip and I believed it would set the mood for all the rest to follow. I can now say that I was pleasantly surprised by Mr. MacKenzie, and if this visit is to set the bar for the others, then I expect to be thoroughly engaged.
Before this visit, I expected Jason to simply speak to us for an hour or so and take our questions before sending us off, but he actually made the presentation very interactive. Considering he has a teaching and PR background, it makes sense as to why he was such a great presenter. He made the conversation very open, and it was obvious that he enjoyed the interaction between presenter and presentee as much as we all did. Personally, I found it interesting to hear him speak about his background, as well as list some stats about media in the UK. For example, he informed us that for every 1 journalist, there are 6 PR personnel. Even as an outsider, I could see the significance in these numbers. I also thought the activity he planned for us was pretty neat. He split us in groups and gave us each a different newspaper so we could then identify things, such as audience, easy read, political spectrum, and the most “British” story. It was fun getting to answer these questions among our group and then hearing what our groups found in their papers.
Near the conclusion, Jason made the comment that there are many citizen witnesses, not journalists, which I really liked because I think that today it is so easy for someone to pick up a phone at a live event and capture something, but that doesn’t make what they captured journalism. They might have been a witness to something, but they are not a journalist. That’s probably the key thing that I’ll take that away from this visit, which ended around two hours after our arrival.
Following the lecture, we were able to separate from the group and had the afternoon/evening to ourselves. Mya and I decided to spend the remainder of the day exploring the city. We changed out of our professional attire and headed to the sushi place across the street called Wasabi. I branched outside of my comfort zone and got pieces I wouldn’t normally get, so I was relieved when I actually liked them. We filled up on sushi and made our way to the Natural History Museum for a little before they closed. We made a pit stop outside at a telephone booth for a touristy photo before continuing to the Victoria & Albert Museum. Without access to the Dior exhibit and less than an hour before closing, we concluded our visit and set off for yet another place to explore.
We ended up at Piccadilly Circus, which I felt bared a striking resemblance to Times Square. With giant screens, and M&M store, and a crowd the size of one in NYC, it felt as if I had only traveled a couple hundred miles instead of a couple thousand.
As the sun started to go down, we searched for a place to eat. Oddly enough, we both were in the mood for Shake Shack since there are none close to us back home, and I’m glad we were because that portabello mushroom hit the spot. With full stomachs, we made our way back to the hotel to write blogs and talk to our families.