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In praise of the sub-editor

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Got details today about a play about sub-editors, cunningly entitled Subs, which is on at London’s Cock Tavern Theatre. It tied in nicely with a subbing course I was running, and gives me an excuse to tell one of the great pro-subbing stories.
It was a good course, despite the range of people (including one from a council newspaper, a New Zealander from a government department and an Aussie pharmacist now working as a journo on pharma titles).
Shows how the old days have skipped on a tad. I became a sub because my writing had reached the stage where I was considered good enough to be allowed to touch someone else’s writing.
You got paid more, too. Wasn’t much, but by local paper standards, it put me several pegs above the hacks. And it was the faster route on to Fleet Street.
Nowadays, some start their career on the nationals as subs. Would make me nervous as hell when my downtable subs didn’t understand the writing process thoroughly. But now subs have become a optional extra in many areas.
Websites and magazines think they don’t need them because theit writers are so good. Hmm. Not hard to see why you’ll see mistakes everywhere, is it?
I’m not just talking about grammar, spelling and punctuation. I think such things are still important, but I’m looking at some stuff from the Daily Mail, where the writer (and the sub) hasn’t understood the difference between colons and full stops. Does it matter, or am a dinosaur?
Anyway, back to the story. The scene: The Sun, pre-Canary Wharf. Kelvin Mackenzie days.
We’re lounging around. It’s post-first edition. One of the writers, a new kid on the block, comes over and says accusingly: “Someone’s changed all my copy round!”
It went very quiet. We looked at each other. Then this hard-drinking Scot pipes up and says: “Aye, I dun it. What’s the matter?”
“Well, you’ve changed my words round,” says the lad, indignantly. “It’s got my byline on it, but it’s not my story. There’s a new intro, there are different quotes and the whole order’s changed.”
The Scot thought for a few moments. “Listen, son,” he said. “You’ve got the glory, but we’ve got the power. Now piss off.”
Was there ever a better retort to pretentious writers?

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Students

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

At the risk of sounding like Victor Meldrew, I despair of what’s happening to university students with aspirations of becoming journalists.
Trudged up to Durham this week to give a talk about getting a job in journalism. Eight hours in the car on the A1 for an hour’s talking – and just two of those who attended seemed curious enough to ask any questions.
In fact, Durham is one of the better universities for these talks. (Last year, more than 100 turned up for my talk.)
Allegedly, 60 per cent of all students want jobs in the media, but I’ve had as few as 12 turn up on these sessions.
Might be I’m a boring ol’ fart to listen to, but surely they should at least wander through the door when a talk is called something like: The Inside Line: Find Out The Truth About Getting a Media Job.
If all these students really want jobs in the media, and I’ve already told them that a key skill for a journalist is curiosity, wouldn’t you expect them to have a question or two at the end?
Increasingly, we are taking fewer and fewer people straight out of university for our postgrad magazine course. Those who have been in work for a couple of years, or who have spent some time writing to ads in The Guardian and never even getting a reply, are much better material.
They have started to realise that it’s a cruel world. Heat and Q, it turns out, aren’t actually so devastated by a 2:2 in media studies, they immediately create a vacancy for someone whose main qualification is that they like going to the cinema.
Goodness, there’s that Meldrew tendency creeping up on me again. Eight hours on the A1 listening to Tom Waits does strange things to a man. But where’s the passion to do the best job in the world? Not in enough students, I’ll tell you that.

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The

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Been a bit remiss on the blog post-Pakistan. In fact, it’s only someone who feared I was eating lichen with Taliban fighters in a Kandahar cave that prompted me to reassure readers.
But my creative juices were also spurred by hearing someone had PAID for an internship at Condé Nast. It wasn’t quite as it sounds: it was one of the “prizes” in an auction. Still, the fact that some misguided clot was willing to bid more than £3000 to spend two weeks tidying the fashion cupboard, fetching the staff sandwiches and being allowed to write a caption worries me more than somewhat.
And I can see some mercenary companies thinking: Wow! It shows we could actually charge people to work for us! That sounds good!
This intern thing is a particularly nasty way that some publishing houses are riding the recession. They offer three or six-month internships to eager young things who believe it will lead to a journalism job. I even saw one that lasted a year.
Imagine! A year, working for nothing! Is it any wonder that journalism gets accused of being swamped by middle-class kids? And I seem to remember that the Revenue was supposedly getting tough with companies keeping people on for more than two weeks under a “work experience” stamp.
The taxman’s argument was that they were being used as unpaid staff with no rights. After two weeks, they were effectively employees. They were doing a staff job, so companies had to pay tax and national nsurance for them.
Quite right too. What chance do those who have undergone often expensive training have to find jobs when newspapers, magazines, PR companies and websites are loaded with suckers working for nothing?
It may well be that this is very convenient for the government. After all, these people are “working”, aren’t they? So we don’t include them in the jobless figures.
But who benefits? Certainly not the people involved. It’s a mugs’ game. If a job comes up, who’s gonna get it? The intern who’s been opening the post, or someone with the skills to do the job?
The companies, maybe. But wearing a publisher’s hat, the prospect of filling pages with the work of totally inexperienced people would terrify me. Libel? What’s that? What can’t I lift pictures and stories off the internet?
Some claim it’s the only way to get experience. That’s not true. You’re being sold a car with no engine. The publishers, websites and PR companies doing this should be ashamed, and the Revenue should leap upon them from a great height.

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Keep

Friday, November 27th, 2009

Have rod, will travel. It’s been my mantra (and my escape) whenever I jump on the big white bird and head off to train journos from Houston to Singapore, from Oslo to Moscow.
Except this time.
In a few hours, I’m off to Karachi for three weeks’ work with journalists on a new daily newspaper. However, this will not be a trip where I head for the hills, rod in hand, at weekends. At least, not unless I want to become a ransom note.
I’ve spoke to loads of people about what to expect. Not one has told me: “Oh, you’ll be all right.” On the contrary. They all advise: “Keep your head down, do your work and get out.”
Come on! This is Karachi, Pakistan, sixth most populous nation in the world. Civilised, sophisticated city! Can’t be that bad…can it?
Well, I’ve got an armed driver and an armed guard. I will live in a “secure compound”. That rather puts the kibosh on boarding the train with the locals at weekends and trying a spot of trout-fishing in the hills. Unless, maybe, the guard and driver are keen anglers.
I’m going there to help with training staff on a new daily. Normally, you’d chat to people in the street and in cafes about the papers they read, what’s right and wrong with them; monitor buying habits; maybe bring some of the better UK ideas to the table.
With my mobility sharply limited – and unless I have a death wish – a lot of that stuff will need rethinking.
My wife is worried to hell. Surprisingly, I’m not at all concerned. I find it a fascinating challenge, and I’m really looking forward to it.
My only worry? If the worst came to the worst, and I was kidnapped, would anyone bother to pay a ransom for me?

–>

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The

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009


If you wondered why people’s eyes glaze over when the fifth and the 21st letters of the alphabet come together, take a read of this. “Building a strong professional sense of camaraderie among practitioners of journalism should be a major concentration, especially during an era in which media moguls are leading a transition that does not prioritise the defence of quality journalism.”

Got it? Depressingly, that’s one of the clearer missives coming from Brussels. One thing about training any of the EU institutions is that you’re never short of material. They churn out a vast number of words, but most of them fall into the category of typing, rather than writing.

I’ve just finished a series of workshops for Eurocities, an organisation that represents major European cities. The delegates were a delight: bright, multi-lingual people who only need telling once and they’ve got it.

But they are battling against an unyielding monster called Brussels English. This bastardised language features everyday words like “modalities”. All those famed bullshit bingo terms must appear at least once in every sentence (which in itself has to be at least 50 words long and lack any punctuation).

Who is the fool (come to think of it, there’s probably a sea of them) that thinks this sort of nonsense has anything to do with communication? Is there some shadowy bureaucrat who leads a grey team, scribbling through anything that risks being immediately comprehensible, replacing simplicity with obscurity?

The problem is not with the foot soldiers, I suspect, but with the generals. Either they don’t know, don’t read or don’t care.  But if Brussels want to tell the rest of the world what it’s achieving, it needs to do so in a language that human beings can understand.

 

 

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Spreading

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Off to Brussels by train and to train Eurocities (“a platform for its member cities to share knowledge and ideas, to exchange experiences, to analyse common problems and develop innovative solutions, through a wide range of Forums, Working Groups, Projects, activities and events”).
Its mission statement gives you some idea of the issues, but the people were great: bright young things from Sweden, Holland, Portugal and Poland who speak a swathe of languages but needed a bit of help in writing to communicate.
Depressingly, their grammar (despite the fact that only one had English as a first language) was better than most people who attend PMA courses.
On the other hand, they did admit to using the word modalities and not being very sure what it meant. (It’s a favourite word within the EU, meaning, er, “the classification of logical propositions according to their asserting or denying the possibility, impossibility, contingency, or necessity of their content”. Any the wiser? Nor am I.)
Still, I was told that in Westminster, an even worse word is very popular at the moment: granularisation. Think it means breaking things down into smaller parts, but I could be wrong. People who use it ought to be granularised.
It amazes me that so many organisations (generally government departments or large companies) claim to encourage plain English but actually fill their reports, briefings and proposals with those bullshit bingo words. I had an article sent in a few weeks ago that talked of “empowering our silos to have a two-way dialogue on the issues”. Uh?
All examples of similar meaningless tosh gratefully received.
Meanwhile, may I commend those travelling to Paris or Brussels to take the Eurostar, rather than suffering the airline indignity of being charged for being a kilo overweight on your luggage.
I left St Pancras at 1pm, and was in the heart of Brussels at 3pm. Beats hell out of trying to outrun the Easyjet crowd across the tarmac.

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Testing

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

There’s only one thing worse than covering an exhibition, and that’s working at one.
I’ve just come back from three days at the CLA Game Fair and I’m not in the best of moods. Ten hours on your feet, answering inane questions or trying to convince someone who does dressage or races ferrets that they can’t live without a magazine on antique fishing tackle. Thank goodness I never chose to work in ad sales.
God bless Rob Ganley of Practical Motorhome who lent me the staff bus. Without that, I’d have been camping. Great if you’re 20 and having mud fights at Glastonbury; not so good if you have to look vaguely respectable, showered and shaven.
In previous years, the Classic Angling stand has been a place for social networking. Didn’t sell many subs, but met a lot of old friends and dined healthily on burgers and pork rolls from the concession stands.
Not this year. Riva came along to ensure I chatted less and sold more. I never got near the hog roasts. Every lunchtime, it was greenery of some sort. Not proper bloke food at all.
Overall, the show didn’t seem that good. The CLA’s post-show press release claimed 136,000 came along. Not past my stand, they didn’t.
Friday was slow because the greedy CLA bumped up prices by a fiver. One of my readers put it well. “You’re paying £25 to shop in a field.” And a wet one. Torrential rain  and gale-force winds just about rounded off the day.
The only light relief was the evening round of parties: The Field; Hardy’s; the Irish Tourist Board, Trout and Salmon and various others I never reached. The day, viewed through a cocktail and red wine haze, suddenly didn’t seem so bad after all.
Saturday was OK, but Sunday was slow as a snail with a limp. Didn’t sell a single sub. On the other hand, when I totted up the tenners from the books and reels I’d sold, it turned out that I’d made enough to pay for my trip to Texas in a few weeks.
And ploughing through a pile of scribbled notes, I’ve sourced five very promising features for forthcoming issues.
The only bad news: Riva loves the motorhome concept. She thinks we should turn into snails and carry our house with us whenever we go on holiday. So keep those press invites coming in, and save me from a life of salads.

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When

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Having to work harder in recession? Then spare a thought for the chap I helped on a course last week. As well as being the editor, he is also the designer, news reporter, feature-writer and sub.
You probably think he’s just turning out a 16-page A-fiver. Wrong. The publication is A4 and typically 100 pages.
Although he works from home, he confessed that he struggled to get the mag done, even when he beavered away every weekend. The poor guy thought it was his fault for working inefficiently.
The only holiday he’s had over the past year was a French trip, where he turned out two features (and pictures, of course). Phew! That’s filled 10 pages!
And instead of doing what most journos do on such trips (going out for decent meals paid for by the hosts, getting pissed at your hotel bar at least once during the week), he sat in every night with his laptop, working on pages for the next issue.
You might say he’s dumb to put up with it. But he loves the subject (I’ll spare his blushes by not telling you the title), and because he knows no better, assumes that’s the way it is elsewhere.
Not yet, maybe. But over the past year, I’ve seen plenty of titles that once supported six staff now brought out by two. Advertising’s gone through the floor and is down into the inner core.
Blame what you like (Gordon Brown, greedy bankers, global warming), but those heady days of walking out of one job and immediately finding another into another are gone, at least for the moment.
And more magazines and newspapers may soon have to face the day when one or two names fill the flannel panel.
There wasn’t a great deal I could do to help that harassed editor. Even consoling him with: “Look on the bright side: at least you’re not having to sell ads as well,” didn’t help.
“Don’t tell them that!” he said. “If they find out I once sold space, they’ll have me doing that as well!”

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A

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

Those expecting to see me perform the Elliott Dance (free demos on all PMA workshops with Keith Elliott as tutor) will be sorely disappointed over the next few weeks. No gymnastics, minor or otherwise for me. I’ve just torn some fibres in my Achilles tendon – fishing.
Stupidly, I made the mistake of admitting the true reason I’m hobbling around with a stick. Now, if I’d said it was playing a particularly arduous game of squash or badminton (the most common cause of such an injury), it would have evoked much sympathy. But when I say that a mackerel caused it, it provokes not compassion but chuckles.
I won’t go into the story (though I did catch the mackerel). However, it also means that my training workshops over the next few weeks will be rather sedate affairs.
I’m not very good at sitting still. Every few minutes, I tend to jump up to write on a flipchart, check on people’s progress, and even act out charades when encouraging a slightly slow group on headline ideas. No such pyrotechnis now.
Getting up from a chair has to be executed with extreme care. I’m walking like the figure on the weathervane at Lord’s. I’m going to need to rethink my training; maybe, try a more cerebral approach.
Our postgraduate course starts next week and though I no longer work as course tutor (Roberta Cohen’s much more diligent, caring and patient than I am), I like to get involved on the news and subbing parts of the course.
Except I can’t scoot off to an exhibition with the eager young things while I’m walking like Igor. The prospect of trudging round Earls Court or 02 to find stories is out of the question for several weeks.
Some wag suggested I phone up and arrange a mobility scooter. “Maybe you could even get one of those little baskets on the front to put the press releases in,” he said helpfully.
Doesn’t quite fit in with the image of a thrusting, hard-drinking hack asking incisive questions, does it?

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An

Friday, June 5th, 2009

If you’re chewing your nails wondering if you’ll have a job next week, let me announce officially: things are getting better. And the source is impeccable.
This isn’t because I’ve been slipped a secret Treasury report. (It did happen once, but that’s another story.) It’s because companies are booking training again.
The bad news about running a training business is that your core product is almost the first thing that companies slash when profits drop. So you can imagine how much fun it’s been over the past nine months.
When you’re struggling to survive and having to make whole departments redundant, a training budget is a luxury on the same level as mink-lined lavatory seats.
Trying to drum up business by calling up old mates and regular clients provoked the identical response: we fear that any light at the end of the tunnel is probably an oncoming train.
Once, it was a battle to get through the media centre doors. Lunches were costing us hundreds a week. No more. The place was quieter than a Fulham home match. To think I was whingeing because I was so busy.
Many tutors felt that they’d fallen out of favour. It wasn’t that: just nothing for them to do. Talk to the bank? Huh! They were too busy saving themselves.
Another six months at that sort of level of inactivity and we would have joined the one in 55 companies that has sunk beneath the waves.
But the past month, thank goodness, has been healthier. Black figures rather than red. The phone’s been ringing. The website’s trebling, quadrupling its number of hits.
So take it from me, boss of Bellwether Business: the world isn’t going to end just yet, because it’s training again.

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