Jon Snow delivers the Bob Friend Memorial Lecture

“This is a true coalition,” jokes Jon Snow whilst standing next to Rob Kirk of Sky News just before he delivered the annual Bob Friend Memorial Lecture.

This year’s lecture was titled: From Film to Twitter – the Media Revolution: Is the Golden Age of Journalism Come or Gone?

I gave myself the night off and for once didn’t take notes, but upon realising that no one from the Centre for Journalism will post the video until Monday, I thought I’d mention a few things from memory.

Let’s get this out of the way first, shall we? Jon Snow’s tie – yes, it was as bright as ever, and in case you were wondering why they’re always so loud, Snow said when they re-designed the C4 studio he realised he was the dullest thing in it, so he brightened up the ties.

So back to the ‘golden age’ – he says it is now.

“This is the most exciting time to be alive.”

However, he did tell the students present that we would be working for crumbs. He added that the use of free interns in the media industry is ‘alarming’. Snow named the Independent as a frequent user of interns.

However, whilst he believes it is the most exciting time, he also noted how people don’t want to pay for it, saying: “”How do you monetise what we do? People can get what we do for free”. But, he said, when Gordon Brown resigned who had the helicopters in the air following the car’s every move? Was it Google? No, it was the news channels documenting this historic event.

The problem now is that people don’t need the channels’ archives because much is put on YouTube for free.

You should be able to get a full report on the evening from the CfJ on Monday.

Here’s a list of tweets people made during the night: