Phil Sutcliffe

What Phil has to offer is deep knowledge and experience of music journalism from the days when five weekly papers ruled the Earth – or at least the UK – with circulations of up to 250,000 (NME, Sounds), through the ‘80s revolution into gloss (Smash Hits, The Face, Q), to the still unresolved Noughties digital upheaval and attendant steep decline in print media.

A freelance writer for more than 30 years, along with music journalists two generations younger Phil is wondering how print media will survive, how digital journalistic media will contrive to make a profit, how far journalism will continue as a profession when the web has attracted so much free “citizen” content?

It’s a variant on the conundra musicians and the music industry are facing and it only emphasises the potential for conflict between corporate business and self-employed creative workers – Phil has lately been one of the leaders of a copyright battle between freelances and Bauer, the publishers of Mojo, Q and Kerrang! which had a sticky outcome, but with eternal optimism he’s also involved in launching a digimag which could be seeking your attention by the time this course starts.

Since 1974, Phil has written about rock/pop for outlets ranging chronologically from the inky-fingered to the digital, including Sounds, Out Now (a Newcastle fanzine), The Northern Echo, Smash Hits, The Face, Q, Mojo, Los Angeles Times, Blender, Record Of The Day and emusic (a partial catalogue of his journalism is available at the extraordinary rbp archive www.rocksbackpages.com/writer.html?WriterID=sutcliffe).

He has also done some broadcast interviewing, reviewing and researching for Radio Newcastle, Radio 1, Radio 4, Sky and Channel 4 music shows Rock Steady and The White Room, and written books on The Police, Queen and AC/DC. To follow, hopefully, is a tome on his all-time musical hero Bruce Springsteen.

All the above led him into intermittent teaching/training: teenagers in Seychelles, journalism students at various colleges and universities, and journalists needing to learn how to run themselves as a solo freelance business – this last via two one-day courses for the National Union Of Journalists called Getting Started As A Freelance and Pitch & Deal (Phil is an elected London representative on the NUJ’s National Executive, a Member of Honour for “services to” – and co-author of the union’s booklet, Battling For Copyright).

Photo © Pete Jenkins.