{"id":64125,"date":"2012-10-24T13:25:14","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T12:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=14580"},"modified":"2012-10-24T13:25:14","modified_gmt":"2012-10-24T13:25:14","slug":"journalist-spotlight-nick-cowen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/journalist-spotlight-nick-cowen\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalist Spotlight: Nick Cowen"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Nick-Cowen-003.jpg\" alt=\"Nick Cowen gaming freelancer picture\" title=\"Nick Cowen gaming freelancer\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-14595\" \/>Nick Cowen<b> <\/b>is a freelance journalist and blogger who writes about video games for<b> <\/b>a variety of publications including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/technology\/games\" title=\"the guardian games section\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.t3.com\/Games\" title=\"T3 Games\" target=\"_blank\">T3<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shortlist.com\/entertainment\/gaming\/\" title=\"Shortlist gaming\" target=\"_blank\">ShortList<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nuts.co.uk\/news\/archive\/games\" title=\"Nuts gaming\" target=\"_blank\">Nuts<\/a> and numerous gaming press outlets.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Nick started his career in news broadcast journalism in South Africa. Following that, he moved to England and worked for Reuters producing news bulletins for their WAP phone service. He was then hired on a freelance basis by the Daily Telegraph where he worked across a range of its website channels including Finance, Arts &amp; Culture, Travel, Property, Features and Motoring. <b><\/b>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2006, Nick was offered the opportunity to write videogame reviews for the Daily Telegraph\u2019s Digital Life section. From there, he edited and contributed articles for the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/technology\/video-games\/\" title=\"Daily Telegraph gaming\" target=\"_blank\"> Daily Telegraph\u2019s video game website<\/a> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Quote-Nick-Cowen1.png\" alt=\"Nick Cowen discussing writing, freelancing, the guardian, t3 and other publications\" title=\"Nick Cowen quote on writing\" width=\"180\" height=\"144\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-14583\" style=\"margin: 1.5px 0px;\" \/>and, with the help of his colleague Tom Hoggins, transformed it from a relatively small section into a comprehensive source of gaming news, previews and reviews. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">How many hours do you spend gaming in a normal week?<\/span><br \/><\/b>It varies. During the months leading up to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.e3expo.com\/splash\/\" title=\"E3\" target=\"_blank\">E3<\/a>, it can be anywhere between 24 to 30 hours although this slows down dramatically in July when the gaming industry\u2019s release calendar is deader than a graveyard in a ghost town. Then review work starts picking up in the mad rush towards the Christmas retail window and I can be spending days glued to my console on review code.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">What\u2019s your favourite game?<\/span><br \/><\/b>Of all time? That\u2019s a tough one. I guess it\u2019d have to be BioShock, which I play at least once a year. To my mind, you won\u2019t find a better story told in gaming in the last ten years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">How does mobile gaming (through apps and the like) compare with traditional console\/PC gaming?<\/span><br \/><\/b>It\u2019s easier to duck in and out of. A lot of the best gaming-on-the-go titles are designed to be played in bite-sized chunks. Mind you, PS Vita titles have started to challenge this trend, and I have to confess to missing a couple of stops on the Tube because of the Vita Uncharted title.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Do you get sent a lot of games\/hardware\/software?<\/span><br \/><\/b>Indeed I do, it\u2019s one of the perks of the job. I post up pictures of a lot of it in the <a href=\"http:\/\/gamewaste.net\/tag\/shiny-stuff\/\">Shiny Stuff<\/a> section on <a href=\"http:\/\/gamewaste.net\/\">GameWaste<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">How does GameWaste blog work with your freelancing\/Guardian reportage?<\/span><br \/><\/b>GameWaste is kind of like a display case for all the pieces that just don\u2019t fit for any publication I\u2019d write for. It also keeps me writing when I don\u2019t have a deadline, which is important. If you don\u2019t exercise the writing muscles they wither and die.<\/p>\n<p><b><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Anything you would like to add?<\/span><br \/> <\/b>Just that I\u2019ve been involved in all sorts of journalism and games journalism is easily the most fun I\u2019ve ever had. This is the most exciting industry to cover, and it\u2019s filled with the loveliest people!\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><strong>Editorial information on Nick Cowen and thousands of other media contacts, can be found in the\u00a0<a title=\"CisionPoint\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/products-and-services\/cisionpoint\/\" id=\"link__inpage_65\"><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">CisionPoint<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<a title=\"Media Database\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/products-and-services\/media-database\/\" id=\"link__inpage_66\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">media database<\/span><\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nick Cowen is a freelance journalist and blogger who writes about video games for a variety of publications including The Guardian, T3, ShortList, Nuts and numerous gaming press outlets.\u00a0 Nick started his career in news &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":322,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[248,350,3532,5741],"tags":[2232,3291,3314,4020,4021,4022,729,853,1740],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/322"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}