Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Journalism students and work experience: getting the most out of a newsroom
Journalist Patrick Smith tweeted some sensible advice for student journos preparing for the world of work experience this week:
Friday, 16 April 2010
TV land v Real World: What happens when a newsdesk gets a bomb call?
TV Land is great. Just about every time you see a newspaper reporter on television they are incompetent or unscrupulous and - of course - the libel and Contempt of Court Act is something that doesn't exist in UK Soapland. It's a familiar - and lazy - story.
But there's another newspaper scenario in TV Land (and, come to think of it Cinema Land) that I particularly enjoy watching; it's the Call To The Newsdesk.
In TV Land the Call To The Newsdesk goes something like this:
Ring ring...
"Hello, Newsdesk"
"This is the [Insert ridiculous pressure group name here]; we are fighting for the [insert improbable cause here]. This is our [improbable and pointless ideology here]; there is a bomb in the bin in the bus station car park. It will detonate in 10 minutes".
Editor to MI5/SAS/MI6/shadowy other: "I've just had a bomber contact my newsdesk with obscure yet cryptically detailed information that will lead you straight to the ringleaders within the next 40 minutes or however long this storyline needs to last. Don't feel the need to keep us informed in any way as your investigation continues, despite our being fully aware of the threat."
Then the action cuts immediately to some cutting edge government/police organisation that will prevent said bomb with seconds to spare.
Sounds efficient and calm doesn't it? Yeah right...
This is what happens when a newsdesk received a phonecall alerting them to some sort of local security threat, if that call follows the normal parameters of the general public contacting a busy regional newsdesk:
<bellow>"NEWSDESK"bellow> [subtext: I am an extremely busy newsdesk person and you are boring me already]
"Hello this is the [insert ridiculous pressure group name here]; we are fighti-"
"WHO??" [Bloody PRs]
"We are figh-"
"Who do you want to TALK to?" [Jesus, deaf AND in PR]
"Um..."
"If it's an emailed press release then we'll consider it on its merits" [I'll never even open the email]
"I'm ringing to tell you there is a bo-"
"What name do you have on your database? Because we've had a reorganisation here and it sounds like your information might be out of date".[Get your database up to date and stop bothering me. I have another edition to get out]
"No problem! Sorry to bother you! Bye!"
[Click. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr]
And this, just to add some context, is what happened when I answered the phone to someone purporting to be a bomber.
<bellow>"NEWSDESK"; [subtext: I am an extremely busy newsdesk person and you are boring me already]
Monotone woman: "This is the [obscure branch of an anti-hunting group]; there is a bomb in the bin on the side of the [A-road near Bishops Waltham, Hants] by X garage"
Me: "Um..."
Monotone woman: "We are committed to ending the slaughter of innocent creatures by... [etc etc etc]
Me: "Hang on, you say there's a bomb. Is it live? What are you-"
[Click. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr]
Me: "Gordy [my news editor] that was someone saying there's a bomb planted in a bin in Bishop's Waltham. Has Fareham edition gone?"
News editor [yelling at production desk] "Hold Fareham front - we've got a new splash!!!"
I did ring the police, of course - I wanted a comment for my story so it was a case of two birds with one stone. There wasn't a bomb by the way; it was just some group's way of getting attention. And this was all pre 9/11 and 7/7 too - I'm not sure they'd get treated with the same weary "bunchanutters" tolerance nowadays.
A frankly huge police officer, who would have buffered any detonation if he'd been standing between bomb and populace, came to interview me later but it was a total waste of his time. Other than "it was a woman and she was rude" I couldn't tell him anything useful about the call.
But it gave the Southampton Echo's Fareham edition a splash on a day when there wasn't much else kicking around, so on the whole I like to think everyone got something worthwhile out of it.
But there's another newspaper scenario in TV Land (and, come to think of it Cinema Land) that I particularly enjoy watching; it's the Call To The Newsdesk.
In TV Land the Call To The Newsdesk goes something like this:
Ring ring...
"Hello, Newsdesk"
"This is the [Insert ridiculous pressure group name here]; we are fighting for the [insert improbable cause here]. This is our [improbable and pointless ideology here]; there is a bomb in the bin in the bus station car park. It will detonate in 10 minutes".
Editor to MI5/SAS/MI6/shadowy other: "I've just had a bomber contact my newsdesk with obscure yet cryptically detailed information that will lead you straight to the ringleaders within the next 40 minutes or however long this storyline needs to last. Don't feel the need to keep us informed in any way as your investigation continues, despite our being fully aware of the threat."
Then the action cuts immediately to some cutting edge government/police organisation that will prevent said bomb with seconds to spare.
Sounds efficient and calm doesn't it? Yeah right...
This is what happens when a newsdesk received a phonecall alerting them to some sort of local security threat, if that call follows the normal parameters of the general public contacting a busy regional newsdesk:
<bellow>"NEWSDESK"bellow> [subtext: I am an extremely busy newsdesk person and you are boring me already]
"Hello this is the [insert ridiculous pressure group name here]; we are fighti-"
"WHO??" [Bloody PRs]
"We are figh-"
"Who do you want to TALK to?" [Jesus, deaf AND in PR]
"Um..."
"If it's an emailed press release then we'll consider it on its merits" [I'll never even open the email]
"I'm ringing to tell you there is a bo-"
"What name do you have on your database? Because we've had a reorganisation here and it sounds like your information might be out of date".[Get your database up to date and stop bothering me. I have another edition to get out]
"No problem! Sorry to bother you! Bye!"
[Click. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr]
And this, just to add some context, is what happened when I answered the phone to someone purporting to be a bomber.
<bellow>"NEWSDESK"; [subtext: I am an extremely busy newsdesk person and you are boring me already]
Monotone woman: "This is the [obscure branch of an anti-hunting group]; there is a bomb in the bin on the side of the [A-road near Bishops Waltham, Hants] by X garage"
Me: "Um..."
Monotone woman: "We are committed to ending the slaughter of innocent creatures by... [etc etc etc]
Me: "Hang on, you say there's a bomb. Is it live? What are you-"
[Click. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr]
Me: "Gordy [my news editor] that was someone saying there's a bomb planted in a bin in Bishop's Waltham. Has Fareham edition gone?"
News editor [yelling at production desk] "Hold Fareham front - we've got a new splash!!!"
I did ring the police, of course - I wanted a comment for my story so it was a case of two birds with one stone. There wasn't a bomb by the way; it was just some group's way of getting attention. And this was all pre 9/11 and 7/7 too - I'm not sure they'd get treated with the same weary "bunchanutters" tolerance nowadays.
A frankly huge police officer, who would have buffered any detonation if he'd been standing between bomb and populace, came to interview me later but it was a total waste of his time. Other than "it was a woman and she was rude" I couldn't tell him anything useful about the call.
But it gave the Southampton Echo's Fareham edition a splash on a day when there wasn't much else kicking around, so on the whole I like to think everyone got something worthwhile out of it.
Friday, 9 April 2010
Dear iPad, please save us...
My Reader is crammed with iPad articles at the moment. More than I can shake a stick at, let alone read, no matter what format you offer them to me.
As we all know, the iPad will
So I'm glad that's all sorted out.
Meanwhile, this seems to sum up the general feeling in my industry....
Cartoon by Brian Fairrington, caglecartoons.com
* Update (02/06/10) I remembered about this post when I spotted the same cartoon on the Editors Weblog today. Disappointingly, they chose not to link to Brian Fairrington's site - in fact, they seem to have just screengabbed it; I wonder if that was to avoid the automated link code? It may be a small thing but it's seriously irritated me.
In slightly more cheery news, I bought an iPad four days ago. It may not be the saviour of my industry but - for what it's worth - I think it is utterly wonderful.
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Journalist or blogger? Both, please.
The above is taken from Dictionary.net; I screengrabbed it as I particularly like the 'interchange' reference in no.2. I think it's something that newsrooms can lose sight of from time to time.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Getting to grips with data visualisation
This is my first word tree, made today using Many Eyes and the full text of the Chancellor's Budget speech from the FT - I happened to pick out 'Economy' but this is a living visualisation so it can be reset to search for other words and terms.
I joined Many Eyes some time ago but I'd never got round to actually doing anything with it. I've also just been dabbling with Chartporn and Flow Chart which is a pretty poor showing given that I love looking at others' visualisation and presentation of data.
(Click to enlarge)
Anyway, there are two things I've set my heart on this year - one is to knuckle down and do a Masters degree, and the other is to really try and get to grips with different ways of gathering and visualising relevant data. It's time to start learning things again.
I joined Many Eyes some time ago but I'd never got round to actually doing anything with it. I've also just been dabbling with Chartporn and Flow Chart which is a pretty poor showing given that I love looking at others' visualisation and presentation of data.
(Click to enlarge)
Anyway, there are two things I've set my heart on this year - one is to knuckle down and do a Masters degree, and the other is to really try and get to grips with different ways of gathering and visualising relevant data. It's time to start learning things again.
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Newspapers and Ronald McDonald - guest post by Neil MacDonald
I was talking to friend and colleague Neil MacDonald (over on Twitter as xxnapoleonsolo) the other day about dodos. It had been a long, rather difficult week, and I happened to express the opinion that dodos deserved everything they got, as they hadn't been able to evolve fast enough to overcome changing circumstances.The rather tortured parallel I was drawing was with certain sectors of the newspaper industry; it had been, as I say, a rather dispiriting week.
Anyway, Neil (the seasoned blogger behind the truly excellent Scyfi Love blog) came back with much better example of his own. I told him he should blog about it and he did - but since it doesn't really pertain to science fiction I'm hosting his thoughts here.
Over to you Neil:
Anyway, Neil (the seasoned blogger behind the truly excellent Scyfi Love blog) came back with much better example of his own. I told him he should blog about it and he did - but since it doesn't really pertain to science fiction I'm hosting his thoughts here.
Over to you Neil:
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
This is not a blog post... this is a confession
This was quite a taxing post to write. It took me a while to work through my thoughts and I suspect it might irritate some as, essentially, it advocates allowing the people we interview to see and change copy before it's finished.
So, before I get to the point, here's a story.
As a trainee reporter for a weekly paper I once arrived in newsroom to find a note in my pigeonhole from Fierce News Editor. His handwriting was - still is, I'd bet - too poor to decipher. So I asked him, and braced for impact.
Turned out he'd scrawled me a compliment along the lines of: "Liked your piece on Bird Woman; you're turning into a decent feature writer". I remember his words practically verbatim not because of any warm glow they produced, but because of the guilt.
So, before I get to the point, here's a story.
As a trainee reporter for a weekly paper I once arrived in newsroom to find a note in my pigeonhole from Fierce News Editor. His handwriting was - still is, I'd bet - too poor to decipher. So I asked him, and braced for impact.
Turned out he'd scrawled me a compliment along the lines of: "Liked your piece on Bird Woman; you're turning into a decent feature writer". I remember his words practically verbatim not because of any warm glow they produced, but because of the guilt.
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