The Observer’s mission statement from its inception in 1791 reads: “Unbiased by prejudice – uninfluenced by party. Whole principle is ­independence, whole object is truth, and the dissemination of every species of knowledge that may conduce to the happiness of society.”

The Observer was born during the age of enlightenment, as a new set of values emerged at the core of western societies – freedom, democracy and reason. Rationality replaced dogma, science trumped conjecture, empiricism bested speculation. Even more importantly for the Observer, the idea of liberalism – the ventilation of diverse opinions and a tolerance of same – took root at this time.

The world has changed, as has the Observer, but these beliefs are still at the centre of the paper.

The Observer remains an independent voice and one that is committed to liberal and social democratic values. We’re committed to other issues too. We like fashion and food and football, for instance, but what distinguishes the Observer are its values. These are the philosophical scaffolds holding the paper in place, which help create a ­distinctive (not better, or worse, but different) voice on a Sunday and build on the paper’s legacy and its proud history as the oldest Sunday paper in the world.

And what a history. The Observer supported the Chartist movements for political and social reform in the 19th century. It backed the rise of early trade unionism. It sided with the North against the Confederate slave states in the American civil war. It played a vital role in helping to establish Amnesty International and Index on Censorship and became the principal supporter in the British press of Nelson Mandela.

This is the paper’s legacy and we will be trying to build on it next Sunday, when the Observer will be published as a four-section paper, plus our monthly Observer Food magazine. News, Sport, the Observer Magazine and our New Review section have all undergone significant changes.

The paper’s new incarnation came out of a series of rigorous discussions that looked at the role of a Sunday paper in an age when newspapers have radically changed and in an age of digital revolution. What is the proper role of a Sunday paper in that changed environment?

That was the challenge and we had to emerge with a paper that was distinct from the competition, that played on the Observer’s core strengths and that took account of what we could provide in an age when readers are increasingly at the receiving end of a media tsunami. Amid that chaos there is a role for a Sunday paper that offers increased reflection, discursiveness and analysis. But it also has to offer engagement, passion and a commitment to highlighting issues in line with the founding principles of the paper. The Observer has to stand for something, and to stand out as a result.

The new-look Observer will devote no less journalism to the topics at its very core – politics, arts, science, culture, international affairs, education. Not forgetting food (with the brilliant Nigel Slater), football (with the award-winning Paul Hayward) or the sundry other diversions that we all expect from a Sunday paper. A reformatted and redesigned Observer Magazine continues to offer that diversion.

Arts, literature and cultural affairs will be at the centre of our New Review – with additional pages, improved newsprint and an elegant new design – which will further enhance the Observer’s reputation as the premier Sunday destination for discursive and thoughtful analysis of cultural, philosophical and artistic issues. The New Review will also include a new section devoted to ­science and technology, increased space for critics and the return of seven-day TV listings.

In the news section, we will tilt toward more news analysis and comment. We will continue to be driven by domestic passions such as the need for constitutional and voting reform but will give more prominence to international affairs. We will be internationalist and proudly European.

We won’t just provide news, but a context for news, too. More analysis, more reflection, more debate, and more discursiveness will mark out an Observer that will seek to interpret, analyse and, crucially, to offer different voices and opinions to help the reader make their own sense of the world.

The paper that appears next Sunday will be substantially changed from the first edition of the Observer on 4 December 1791. But we will also have a great deal in common. That first edition set out its blueprint for Sunday journalism as one intended to “apply the strictest attention and care to greater objects of general concern”, but also promised to report on “the fine Arts,­emanations (sic) of Science, the Tragic and the Comic Muse, the National Police, ­fashion and fashionable follies”. It still holds true.

Step 1 .. Seize the opportunity when someone like Banks comes to visit. Ex-editor, broadcaster, columnist, he is someone who is listened to in the news industry.

Step 2 .. Don’t just listen, share what’s being said. Report. Josh tweeted a few times from the cinema, then wrote a blog post about it when he got home.

Step 3 .. He tweets about his blog post, getting his work out there, and it’s picked up by journalism website Fleet Street Blues. After all, how to make newspapers work online is a subject of much debate at the moment.

Step 4 .. It then gets picked up by leading media commentator Roy Greenslade, on the Guardian website.

There’s no big secret to this, just good media habits. It means Josh gets invited to places like this, the Guardian Student Media Awards.

For a man who best describes himself as an engineer, producer and entrepreneur, Dominic has an impressive CV that includes roles as co-founder of Beeb.com. He now heads up ITV.com.

Living by the motto ‘Love, Simplicity, Optimism’, Dominic reflected on how he has been able to transform the online forum into a space where people can connect and interact wherever and whenever they like.

With broad experience in the media industry, he gave students digestible information on the future of news and online, with the content revolution at the heart of his presentation.

Dominic explained how ITV.com is changing its ways—not only for its users, but to generate more income for ITV. “The BBC have more of a budget to spend than ITV,” he said, as means to explain the discrepancy in online visibility.

This may have come as a surprise, even to Dominic, bearing in mind ITV is a commercial organisation. He admitted that throughout the process of maximising content for the online user, “we [ITV] had to learn what is acceptable for advertisement on the ITV player.”

Cameron provided students with an in-depth knowledge of the online world, and a great opportunity for students to meet such an influential person in the business.

His lasting piece of advice? “Everyone in media, including graduates, must learn how to learn. Technical skills are given but the key thing is to be acutely curious.”

– Abigail Horseman is a L3 Sunderland University journalism student

About me: Discovered journalism through student politics and talked my way into Mirror Group graduate training scheme after writing series of articles on Northern Ireland during the “Troubles”. There were only 12 trainees in each year and my group included Nick Davies (Guardian writer and author of Flat Earth News), Tom Utley (Daily Mail uberlibertarian columnist), Matthew Symonds (co-founder of the Independent) and Pratima Sarwate (chief sub, Daily Mirror).  Andrew Morton and Alistair Campbell were other ex-MGN trainees. Pressure to succeed was enormous.  My one claim to fame as a trainee was getting an exclusive interview with the Sex Pistols. Fluked a job as a sub-editor on the Daily Record, Glasgow, and then became a political spin doctor in Scotland before another stroke of luck took me to Newcastle and, within a year, the editorship of the Sunday Sun. Seven years later I was working in the City with all the bonus-fuelled fat cats and enjoying the dark side of corporate PR. Joined Sunderland in 2000 as Head of Journalism & PR.

My Media Week: Dip into any paper or magazine that happens to be lying around, but only papers delivered are Sun and Guardian – contrast helps give an almost balanced view of journalism and life! Like everyone in the media, I’m struggling to stay on top of the constant information flow from Twitter, RSS feeds, favourite blogs, YouTube, etc.

Best Piece of Advice I’ve Been Given: Anyone who knows me will know that my great weakness – and, I hope, strength – is that I have never followed any advice in my entire career. Like all true journalists, I believe in the hack as maverick.

My Proudest Piece of Journalism: Editing the Sunday Sun for seven years and putting on circulation while more than doubling the cover price – not many editors can say that. But, in reality, the thing that always gave me most joy was “turning over” a powerful, establishment figure who thought they were too powerful or rich to be taken on. Absolutely loved it!

Research: The interface between journalism and PR and the changing balance of power between the practitioners of the two professions.

In the real world: Crazy. Living with my partner and her two children while trying to act as father to my own two at more of a distance.  Love most sports and used to be season ticketholder at Newcastle.

Twitter: @ChrisRushton

Office hours:

About me: On and off I’ve been at Sunderland for over 20 years, and spent the last 11 of those teaching shorthand. I also work for most of the local papers, helping their trainees to increase their shorthand speed and preparing them for preliminary and advanced shorthand exams. I did Law for my degree and before teaching shorthand I taught Business Studies at the local college.

Media Week: I read the Sunderland Echo on Jobs night and Property night, and Hello magazine!!

In the Real World: I love to travel, and take photos. I drive about 30,000 miles a year, sightseeing, as well as on teaching jobs. My husband says I’ve got Tarmac in my veins where other people have blood. I’m a Midsomer Murders and Miss Marple fan, and often visit the locations. In what would be some students’ worst nightmare, I actually live next door to my former shorthand teacher.

Proudest teaching moments: Every time I get an email from a student saying “I couldn’t have done it without you”.

Best piece of teaching advice: When I left to go into teaching my boss (who now gives advice to the Prime Minister on teaching matters) told me to remember that there’s no such thing as a group – just a collection of individuals, all with different needs.

Why shorthand matters: It’s a rare skill and a challenge, apart from the fact that most editors still regard it as essential for anyone reporting a story. The editor of the Daily Telegraph, addressing a meeting of shorthand teachers, said that reporters without 100 wpm shorthand will only ever get to cover “Golden Wedding” stories.

Are you a University of Sunderland student? Do you have a blog? If you answered yes to both of these, InJournalism.co.uk wants you.

InJournalism, soon to undergo a name-change and wholesale revamp, is looking to publish your blogposts and link out to your blog – think Huffington Post style -driving lots of valuable traffic to your own personal webspace.

Any featured blogs would also be listed on the InJournalism which features on every page of the site – so you’re never far from a new audience.

If you like the idea of this, leave a comment below or email journalism student and Degrees North Editor, Josh Halliday, at bd78gr@student.sunderland.ac.uk and he’ll get the ball rolling for you.

Happy blogging!

My Office Hours: Room 218, 2-4 Wednesday
About me: Programme leader for MA Public Relations, subject leader for PR in Combined Subjects and Level 1 PR tutor. I spent quite a while in newspapers, always travelling north and moving ever further away from Fleet Street until I became assistant editor of The Journal. Worked in PR for six years before joining the University in 2003.

My Media Week: Predictably, I get the dead-tree Guardian delivered every day and read several other newspapers online each morning.  Naturally, I read lots of blogs, mostly via Bloglines, and have waxed lyrical through Mediations since April 2004. Beginning my own blog was one of my best-ever career moves, opening so many doors – including being asked to co-author Online Public Relations, and conference invites to the USA, France, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, Lithuania etc, etc.   I read a lot of  fiction, not least for my Scoop! Journalists in Fiction and Spin! PR in Fiction projects.

Best Piece of Advice I’ve Been Given: Once got a £5 a week pay rise for having my hair cut ( a lot of money at the time), and probably learnt most from Allan Prosser when he was editor of the Northern Echo. Can’t think of one person who told me this but I quickly discovered that in the media you make your own luck – I got countless stories and opportunities because I had the curiosity and ambition to  just happen to be in the right place at the right time (see above re Mediations!).

My Proudest Piece of Journalism: Working on the Northern Echo’s award-winning campaign for haemophiliacs who contracted HIV from infected blood. Back in 1986 AIDS was still the ‘gay plague’ and I hope some of our pieces did just a little to challenge prejudices and fear.

Research: Heavily involved in Euprera’s EuroBlog project, investigating the impact of social media on PR practice. I also write about PR ethics, and representations of journalism and PR in literature.

In the real world: I like cycling (reasonable distances but very slowly), reading and learning Swedish. I listen to jazz, and lots of music that always seems to have some connection to Brian Eno. One day I will get a dog…

Blog: Mediations
Twitter: @mediations

Shorthand classes will be beginning in Week 3. This will mean we can give every student their specific times and make their start of shorthand as easy and straightforward as possible.

Level 2 and Level 3 students already know the importance (and fascination) of shorthand Level 1 students, you still have it to come, and you will have, we hope, bedded down into your programme by week 3.

Thanks for your patience. Any problems, do speak to your personal tutor or programme leader.

The Journalism team.

The survey results will be presented at The Future of Journalism Education conference in London on June 18-19. It’s being held by the Association for Journalism Education to debate how best to equip students for a job market that is changing all the time.

So this is a chance to have your say, whether you’re just starting out on your journalism degree or are about to graduate. Click Here to take our short survey – and thanks very much.