Archive for November, 2009

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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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