Day off? Yule be lucky
It was great not having to work on Christmas Day. Don’t know why, but there was a tikme when I always seemed to draw the short straw and end up watching the Queen’s Speech on one of the TVs that dangled over the news desk.
The production editor used to say: don’t worry, it’s only a few pages, the night editor used to say: it’ll be a breeze. Nothing ever happens, the facilities manager used to say: we’re laying on food in the room next door.
Most years they were right. Until Ronnie Scott, the jazz musician, died which meant changing the obits page and problems formatting the chess column on the social page weren’t helped when I rang the social sub to find him prematurely pissed.
Then Richard Branson’s balloon made a crash landing in the sea just as we were closing the first – and supposedly only – edition. Four hours, two new splashes and a complete rehash of an early spread later, I left an empty building and got into my car, having exceeded the cheap stay rate at the Canary Wharf by a mile and was stung for an £18 ticket.
A few days later the social sub meandered over and handed me a crested letterhead. It was from Buckingham Palace wondering why our coverage of events at Balmoral was not as comprehensive as usual.
Belated apologies ma’am.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Day off? Yule be lucky
It was great not having to work on Christmas Day. Don’t know why, but there was a tikme when I always seemed to draw the short straw and end up watching the Queen’s Speech on one of the TVs that dangled over the news desk.
The production editor used to say: don’t worry, it’s only a few pages, the night editor used to say: it’ll be a breeze. Nothing ever happens, the facilities manager used to say: we’re laying on food in the room next door.
Most years they were right. Until Ronnie Scott, the jazz musician, died which meant changing the obits page and problems formatting the chess column on the social page weren’t helped when I rang the social sub to find him prematurely pissed.
Then Richard Branson’s balloon made a crash landing in the sea just as we were closing the first – and supposedly only – edition. Four hours, two new splashes and a complete rehash of an early spread later, I left an empty building and got into my car, having exceeded the cheap stay rate at the Canary Wharf by a mile and was stung for an £18 ticket.
A few days later the social sub meandered over and handed me a crested letterhead. It was from Buckingham Palace wondering why our coverage of events at Balmoral was not as comprehensive as usual.
Belated apologies ma’am.
It was great not having to work on Christmas Day. Don’t know why, but there was a tikme when I always seemed to draw the short straw and end up watching the Queen’s Speech on one of the TVs that dangled over the news desk.
The production editor used to say: don’t worry, it’s only a few pages, the night editor used to say: it’ll be a breeze. Nothing ever happens, the facilities manager used to say: we’re laying on food in the room next door.
Most years they were right. Until Ronnie Scott, the jazz musician, died which meant changing the obits page and problems formatting the chess column on the social page weren’t helped when I rang the social sub to find him prematurely pissed.
Then Richard Branson’s balloon made a crash landing in the sea just as we were closing the first – and supposedly only – edition. Four hours, two new splashes and a complete rehash of an early spread later, I left an empty building and got into my car, having exceeded the cheap stay rate at the Canary Wharf by a mile and was stung for an £18 ticket.
A few days later the social sub meandered over and handed me a crested letterhead. It was from Buckingham Palace wondering why our coverage of events at Balmoral was not as comprehensive as usual.
Belated apologies ma’am.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Give me a break from the c-word
I don’t want to sound mean-spirited but if I read another headline in my local paper with Christmas in it, I’ll cancel my subscription and buy Watchtower. The latest edition of festive fonts in seasonal serif reminded me why I handed out humbugs to my staff at an editorial conference many Decembers ago.
My objection has nothing to do with political correctness, just an assault on the senses.
Page lead after page lead managed to shoehorn in the c-word. Apart from the usual round-up of seasonal events for local prisoners and patients and an interview with a Christmas card maker, we had a court report which told us a thief will be behind bars for Christmas, stolen ponies recovered in time for Christmas and a teacher retiring as the children broke up for Christmas.
Ok, there was a Citizens Advice piece on seasonal credit card debt, a picture of the local MP judging a Christmas card competition, but - get this - the sports pages carried headlines about the rugby team looking for a “points-filled Christmas” and a leading football club being in good shape for “the festive period”.
Even the splash came gift-wrapped. Under a sprig of holly in the masthead, the usual “seasons greetings”, puffs for a Christmas TV guide and a festive quiz sat a good yarn about police using a new law to close a drugs den. The headline? Christmas joy as police close crack house.
Christmas joy? Do I now have to look forward to “Happy Easter as jobless totals fall again? May Day delight as porn baron jailed? Rate rise means Solstice hell for shoppers?”
Memo to chief subs: a story is a story whatever the time of year. Which is what I told my young guns on one local weekly all those years ago. They weren’t best pleased: We can’t use Christmas in any headlines? What if the Arndale reports record Christmas sales? “Record sales” is fine, I said. People know what day it is. What if Father Christmas is mugged in his grotto? Use Santa it’s shorter, and more vulnerable. And if a single mum phones to say burglars have stolen all her starving children’s Christmas presents on Christmas Eve? Do me a favour: after you’ve used gifts, trees and tears, you’ll run out of space anyway.
And so it went on. My ears were burning at the office party later but I did concede to a touch of masthead mistletoe and one “highly relevant” 18pt s/col top:
Christmas chemists’ rota.
I don’t want to sound mean-spirited but if I read another headline in my local paper with Christmas in it, I’ll cancel my subscription and buy Watchtower. The latest edition of festive fonts in seasonal serif reminded me why I handed out humbugs to my staff at an editorial conference many Decembers ago.
My objection has nothing to do with political correctness, just an assault on the senses.
Page lead after page lead managed to shoehorn in the c-word. Apart from the usual round-up of seasonal events for local prisoners and patients and an interview with a Christmas card maker, we had a court report which told us a thief will be behind bars for Christmas, stolen ponies recovered in time for Christmas and a teacher retiring as the children broke up for Christmas.
Ok, there was a Citizens Advice piece on seasonal credit card debt, a picture of the local MP judging a Christmas card competition, but - get this - the sports pages carried headlines about the rugby team looking for a “points-filled Christmas” and a leading football club being in good shape for “the festive period”.
Even the splash came gift-wrapped. Under a sprig of holly in the masthead, the usual “seasons greetings”, puffs for a Christmas TV guide and a festive quiz sat a good yarn about police using a new law to close a drugs den. The headline? Christmas joy as police close crack house.
Christmas joy? Do I now have to look forward to “Happy Easter as jobless totals fall again? May Day delight as porn baron jailed? Rate rise means Solstice hell for shoppers?”
Memo to chief subs: a story is a story whatever the time of year. Which is what I told my young guns on one local weekly all those years ago. They weren’t best pleased: We can’t use Christmas in any headlines? What if the Arndale reports record Christmas sales? “Record sales” is fine, I said. People know what day it is. What if Father Christmas is mugged in his grotto? Use Santa it’s shorter, and more vulnerable. And if a single mum phones to say burglars have stolen all her starving children’s Christmas presents on Christmas Eve? Do me a favour: after you’ve used gifts, trees and tears, you’ll run out of space anyway.
And so it went on. My ears were burning at the office party later but I did concede to a touch of masthead mistletoe and one “highly relevant” 18pt s/col top:
Christmas chemists’ rota.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
No cause for alarm. It's simply deja vu
The Telegraph's new offices were briefly evacuated last night. For 15 minutes staff stood on the freezing pavements after a tannoy message announced an "emergency". It was a false alarm but it did left a few of them somewhat miffed.
For the longer serving faces who'd survived the countless cuts and can recall the early days of Canary Wharf, this may have been an unwelcome reminder of bygone days.
In those days, when the fabric of the newly-finished building creaked beneath your feet, the alarms went off all the time. Close to deadline, reporters would carry on working from mobiles in the lobby while subs nipped off for a pre-edition jar by the river. They were always false alarms. Often caused by the proximity of a sensor to a stir fry in the canteen kitchen.
Still, they broke the night up once in a while. Just like the printers tended to do in Fleet Street. Now can anyone remember those days?
The Telegraph's new offices were briefly evacuated last night. For 15 minutes staff stood on the freezing pavements after a tannoy message announced an "emergency". It was a false alarm but it did left a few of them somewhat miffed.
For the longer serving faces who'd survived the countless cuts and can recall the early days of Canary Wharf, this may have been an unwelcome reminder of bygone days.
In those days, when the fabric of the newly-finished building creaked beneath your feet, the alarms went off all the time. Close to deadline, reporters would carry on working from mobiles in the lobby while subs nipped off for a pre-edition jar by the river. They were always false alarms. Often caused by the proximity of a sensor to a stir fry in the canteen kitchen.
Still, they broke the night up once in a while. Just like the printers tended to do in Fleet Street. Now can anyone remember those days?
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Codes are for breaking
Should bloggers sign up to a voluntary code of conduct? Only if bears promise to clean up after themselves. You can no more regulate blog content than ask estate agents not to fib.
The hard core have been banging on by the Tetrabyte about everything from Star Trek to the price of modem upgrades for years without so much as a backslash. Okay, so the new wave of beardless ones have occasionally been sacked for posting stuff better suited to the pub after work and a few heads have rolled on Capitol Hill, but never before has speech enjoyed so much freedom.
Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine touched on this recently when he said most bloggers tend to publish first and edit later and leave the refinements to others. That’s true so long as we’re happy knowing that the truth probably lies somewhere at the end of a link.
But it also brought home to me while taking part in a defamation forum last week how our laws have not kept pace with media consumption. More on this later when I’m not about to jump on a train.
It is an important issue. Only a matter of time before someone tells us we’re drinking in the Last Chance Internet Café
Should bloggers sign up to a voluntary code of conduct? Only if bears promise to clean up after themselves. You can no more regulate blog content than ask estate agents not to fib.
The hard core have been banging on by the Tetrabyte about everything from Star Trek to the price of modem upgrades for years without so much as a backslash. Okay, so the new wave of beardless ones have occasionally been sacked for posting stuff better suited to the pub after work and a few heads have rolled on Capitol Hill, but never before has speech enjoyed so much freedom.
Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine touched on this recently when he said most bloggers tend to publish first and edit later and leave the refinements to others. That’s true so long as we’re happy knowing that the truth probably lies somewhere at the end of a link.
But it also brought home to me while taking part in a defamation forum last week how our laws have not kept pace with media consumption. More on this later when I’m not about to jump on a train.
It is an important issue. Only a matter of time before someone tells us we’re drinking in the Last Chance Internet Café
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Blink and you'll miss it
I finished a 12-week stint at Kingston University yesterday. I was a last-minute replacement for a module called print media in the digital age and had to pick it up and run with it at short notice.
I worked from a learning template printed last year to guide students through subjects from convergence to the role of aggregators to the future of the written word.
It was a testament to the speed of change in the industry that I approved the reading matter ahead of the first lecture but much of it was out of date by the time the course ended. It was further testament to the way the industry has embraced new media that the best reading was not found in the library but the media pages. This could save time researching future modules if I can dismiss the reading list section with: "buy a paper every day."
I’m at City University from today, guiding international scholarship students through a project that requires them to produce a business newspaper. Old fashioned journalism. In print, and using Quark Express.
But I guess this will have changed by the time we're off the press. Before you can say InDesign, in fact.
I finished a 12-week stint at Kingston University yesterday. I was a last-minute replacement for a module called print media in the digital age and had to pick it up and run with it at short notice.
I worked from a learning template printed last year to guide students through subjects from convergence to the role of aggregators to the future of the written word.
It was a testament to the speed of change in the industry that I approved the reading matter ahead of the first lecture but much of it was out of date by the time the course ended. It was further testament to the way the industry has embraced new media that the best reading was not found in the library but the media pages. This could save time researching future modules if I can dismiss the reading list section with: "buy a paper every day."
I’m at City University from today, guiding international scholarship students through a project that requires them to produce a business newspaper. Old fashioned journalism. In print, and using Quark Express.
But I guess this will have changed by the time we're off the press. Before you can say InDesign, in fact.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Press Gazette VIP
Press Gazette had a lucky escape. To misquote Oscar Wilde, losing only one edition may be seen as unfortunate. Had it lost too many the industry may have deemed it careless and decided it could live without it. Glad it doesn't have to. Welcome back. It'll be interesting to see what format the awards take under new ownership.
Press Gazette had a lucky escape. To misquote Oscar Wilde, losing only one edition may be seen as unfortunate. Had it lost too many the industry may have deemed it careless and decided it could live without it. Glad it doesn't have to. Welcome back. It'll be interesting to see what format the awards take under new ownership.
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