Reasons to be cheerful...please

Posted by Graeme on September 18, 2008 3:52 PM

What with Northern Rock, the credit crunch, the floods and Newcastle United, it's been a pretty depressing few months. Just when you think things are going to get better, a dead whale washes up on the beach.

Every day at The Journal we go into conference - where we discuss the stories of the day - and share more bad news: people being laid off, energy prices going up, the value of your house is going down and so on and so on.

At this morning's conference there was more of the same and we discussed whether we could do a story with some reasons to be cheerful. We all agreed that we should...then couldn't think of any.

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Stories I wish had happened in Newcastle (part 768)

Posted by Graeme on September 16, 2008 5:13 PM

This happened on the Isle of Wight, unfortunately, but is clearly one of the greatest names ever:

"A medic told today how he saw a colleague called Clive Greedy eating a piece of celery as they were treating a dying man who had collapsed in his kitchen."

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Keegan and NUFC: an insider told me...

Posted by Graeme on September 2, 2008 5:01 PM

The media has been going faintly mental today over a story in which, it seems to me, we don't know a single thing.

Depending on who you believe, Kevin Keegan has either resigned as Newcastle United manager or he's been sacked. Or, quite possibly, he hasn't.

Rumours have been circulating on Tyneside about Keegan all day but as I write this at 5.04pm, the club has said nothing and neither has he. In short, we don't know - for definite, that is - anything.

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Top of the league

Posted by Graeme on August 29, 2008 10:20 AM

This may mean nothing to anyone outside this office, but we are all celebrating this morning after The Journal beat the Evening Chronicle in the Newcastle Media five-a-side football league.

To be entirely accurate, I should probably point out that we beat a team that used to be called Evening Chronicle but has just changed their name to NUFC Beat, but it's near as we're going to get to a derby victory. I believe this means we have the "bragging rights" in Thomson House at the moment.

After two weeks of the Media League, The Journal is top with two wins out of two. Things can only go downhill from here, but we're still, as the old football cliche would have it, over the moon.

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Champagne moments at The Journal

Posted by Graeme on August 13, 2008 2:30 PM

My working day got off to a good start today when I arrived at my desk to find that there was a bottle of champagne sitting there.

The champers was a gift from ncjmedia to mark my 10 years' service to The Journal - a milestone that had rather slipped my mind. I was reminded of a quote that the late, great John Peel once gave about his long career at the BBC: "You could see it as selfless dedication to the cause of public-service broadcasting or a shocking lack of ambition. It's been kind of both, really."

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Monty on the telly (again)

Posted by Graeme on August 6, 2008 11:53 AM

If you've listened to the radio or watched any of the rolling TV news channels in the last year or so, you will probably have come across Journal deputy editor Peter Montellier.

The broadcast media call on Peter whenever they want someone to talk about Northern Rock because (a) he's pretty good at it (b) their researchers don't always try that hard to find talking heads and (c) the Rock's own staff aren't so keen.

The Rock seems to have had a policy of keeping its head down ever since news of their troubles broke and I'm sure they have their reasons. (For what it's worth, I think they've been far too quiet and allowed a lot of the national papers - probably with input from the Rock's competitors - to dictate the news agenda, but there you go).

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Useless but fun

Posted by Graeme on July 23, 2008 11:49 AM

I've recently come across a site called Wordle which takes a load of text - or the url or your website - and turns it into pretty pictures.

Fairly useless in the grand scheme of things, I know, but fun nonetheless.

Here's what it makes of Journal Blog Central:

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I'm the backbone of democracy (apparently)

Posted by Graeme on July 17, 2008 3:46 PM

Two differing views of the press came out in Parliament this week.

Speaking after he announced that newspapers would be given access to court documents for free, Justice Secretary Jack Straw said that "local and regional newspapers are indeed the backbone of our democracy."

How nice of Mr Straw. His Labour colleague Jim Sheridan seems less enamoured with us, however, saying: "A high proportion of people living in the UK have some difficulty in even believing the racing results printed by some of our newspapers".

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It's not big and it's not clever...

Posted by Graeme on July 15, 2008 12:12 PM

It's not big and it's not clever, but the fact is that journalists do tend to swear a lot.

Most of the myths about journos - that we all wear trilbies with cards in the brims and are drunk by lunchtime - are no longer true, I'm afraid, but the idea that we're all pretty foul-mouthed cynics is a bit nearer the mark.

I don't know why swearing is so much of the journalistic culture, but it most definitely is. My dear old ma, having brought me up right and proper, would be distraught if she could hear the way I go on this office, I'd have to say. And the sweariness that abounds in The Journal newsroom does occasionally get us in trouble.

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Now here's the news

Posted by Graeme on June 23, 2008 5:15 PM

The headline on the front of today's Daily Express - "Now Your Shopping Bill Hits New High" - is the latest example of a worrying trend I've noticed recently on some right wing nationals.

There's nothing wrong with the story as such, but I just wonder why the Express needs to use the word "Now" in the headline. Surely the fact that the story is happening "now" is taken as read - we're newspapers after all.

"Your Shopping Bill Hits New High" seems to me to mean exactly the same as "Now Your Shopping Bill Hits New High", making the word "now" completely superfluous.

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Plucky Brits/pesky foreigners

Posted by Graeme on May 27, 2008 12:24 PM

You always have to be careful when reading the newspapers the day after a Bank Holiday as the news agenda can often be distorted by the fact that, well, nothing much happens.

Many of today's nationals, for example, have gone big on fuel protests, though it's noticeable that their coverage of fuel protests is much more sympathetic to British hauliers than it is to French fishermen.

Both are protesting about the same thing - the price of diesel - but the stories about French ports being blockaded are all about the dastardly foreigners and how a few plucky British yachtsmen have defied them.

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Unfortunate press releases of our time (part 408)

Posted by Graeme on May 15, 2008 2:37 PM

"Rangers fans keep cool with blood pressure lowering water," says a rather unfortunate press release that reached The Journal's newsdesk e-mail this morning.

"The Manchester based company behind a bottled spring water which helps reduce blood pressure is distributing water to Rangers fans to help them keep their cool ahead of the UEFA Cup Final.

"Works With Water's 120/80, named after the optimum blood pressure level, contains dairy peptides which are clinically proven to help lower high blood pressure."

The subsequent riots, you have to think, were not the advert they were hoping for...

The water should help keep stress levels under control amongst the estimated 100,000 fans gathered in Manchester as tensions rise ahead of the big match.

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Why you have to love Billy Bragg

Posted by Graeme on April 30, 2008 9:22 AM

Last night I went to see Billy Bragg at The Sage Gateshead and I don't mind telling you that he was absolutely fantastic.

Anyone who knows me will know that I would probably pay good money to see Billy Bragg if he was singing a selection of Ethiopian nursery rhymes accompanied only by the spoons. But of the many times I've seen him over the past 20 years, I think last night was one of his finest performances - full of passion, humour and, of course, great songs.

Now you may be wondering what my Bragg review has to do with a blog about life in the Journal newsroom, so I'll explain...

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Being Judith Chalmers

Posted by Graeme on April 28, 2008 2:08 PM

One of the great things about journalism is that occasionally you get to do things you never imagined you'd do.

This weekend, for example, I've been showing an Australian film crew around Newcastle and Gateshead and helping them film a segment for a programme called The Great Outdoors (their version of Wish You Were Here, I think).

This basically meant walking around town with a bloke called Ernie Dingo (honest) and talking to him about local attractions and then trying to teach him how to speak Geordie.

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PR will eat itself

Posted by Graeme on April 17, 2008 2:59 PM

Sometimes you just have to admit defeat.

For months I have been taking the mick out of those awful surveys punted our way by desperate PR firms.

But there comes a point when you can't satirise these people any more and that came today when we got a hopeless PR survey...about PR.

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An April Fool writes...

Posted by Graeme on April 2, 2008 11:56 AM

As someone who celebrated his birthday on April 1 - thanks for all the cards, folks! - I've always been a big fan of April Fools.

The Journal's current policy is not to do any April Fools. I think that's a shame, though having been on the end of phone calls over the years from irate readers who've been hoaxed I can probably understand it.

I've been here long enough to remember some good ones - the bridge to Lindisfarne and advertising being sold on the wings of the Angel of the North stand out.

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Express delivery?

Posted by Graeme on April 1, 2008 3:17 PM

What is the poor old Daily Express going to do now that the Diana inquest is drawing to an end and all of the conspiracy theories about her death are being blown out of the water?

Hardly a day has gone by over the last few years without some story about her being in the Express, but after an exhaustive inquest and acres of coverage, surely there's nothing left to say about the woman.

It's not like they can even fall back on some stories about Kate and Gerry McCann - their next favourite tale - after having to issue a grovelling apology to them about fabricating stories to fill the news void.

The poor little Express Delivery lad - y'know, the one who pops up at the end of any Express TV ads - must be sitting in their offices, scratching his head and wondering what they do now.

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No shame

Posted by Graeme on March 13, 2008 2:59 PM

A couple of weeks ago I had one of my regular rants about the PR industry, in particular its tendency to send out rubbish surveys which will never be covered in a newspaper.

To illustrate my point, I made up a silly (and clearly fictitious) survey about macademia nuts, but I've learned this week that however stupid you try to be, someone in PR-land might just top you.

"Are Geordies & Mackems becoming Latin lovers?" reads a press release that landed in our email inbox recently.

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The curious tale of the Rock's rugby pitch

Posted by Graeme on February 29, 2008 3:22 PM

Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph carried a story about Northern Rock buying the Newcastle Falcons rugby ground just before its financial troubles started last year.

As often happens with broadcast media, the BBC read the story and followed it up on their breakfast programme and then later used it as its lead story on Look North.

There is nothing particularly unusual about that, but for the fact that the purchase of the Falcons ground was reported pretty widely in the North East press last December.

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Journalese-English Dictionary (first edition)

Posted by Graeme on February 22, 2008 3:12 PM

My suggestion for a dictionary that can provide a translation to those words you only ever see in newspapers has proved highly popular.

Thanks for all the suggestions that have come in so far - it's clear that many journalists (and I've probably been as guilty as any in my time) are often lapsing into lazy cliches that have little or no relation to the way people speak in real life.

Here are some of the best (though I'm open to any more suggestions - keep 'em coming!):

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Love is in the air

Posted by Graeme on February 13, 2008 5:28 PM

As if to prove the point I made about PR surveys this week, the industry has been working into a lather over rubbish surveys it can peddle around Valentine's Day.

I have literally lost count of the tosh I have been this week, but in a three-hour period this morning, I learnt that:

* 71% of employees would choose to stay late on Valentine’s Day (thanks to Lloyds TSB Insurance);
* 85% of men would dump their girls on Valentine’s Day to watch their club (courtesy of Nuts TV);
* 53% of people in the UK think Valentine's Day has been over-commercialised (Alliance and Leicester);
* and there has been "a massive 40% increase in lip enhancement procedures compared to the same time last year" (Transform).

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"Beautiful" Ashington

Posted by Graeme on February 8, 2008 2:17 PM

At the risk of turning my simmering feud with the PR industry into all-out war, consider the following press release that The Journal has just been sent:

"Close to the city of Newcastle," it says, "the beautiful rural town of Ashington lies where you can find your perfect home..."

Now there are lots of things you can say about Ashington, but I think most people would say that "beautiful" is stretching things a bit, while "rural" is just plain wrong.

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The conversation I have each day...

Posted by Graeme on February 5, 2008 3:35 PM

So here’s a conversation I have about three times a day.

“Hello, is that the newsdesk?�?
“Yes.�?
“Hi, this is Sian (or Nikki, or possibly Julian) from Really Cool PR (or Wow Marketing, or maybe Look at Me! Media) and we’ve done a survey which shows that men in Newcastle are the fourth most likely to eat macademia nuts in bed. Would you like to do a story on that?�?
“No.�?

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Abdul Latif RIP

Posted by Graeme on January 21, 2008 1:59 PM

There is a genuine sadness in The Journal's offices today at the news that Abdul Latif - curry king and self-promoter par excellence - has died.

It has pretty much been the rite of passage of every young reporter in the North-East to write stories about Mr Latif, such was his genius for marketing himself and his restaurant.

His free offers - curry for life to Jonny Wilkinson, a free meal for every Newcastle United season ticket holder if they win the Premiership - were legend, gaining national fame when Viz started to feature Mr Latif in its pages.

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You too can speak journalese!

Posted by Graeme on January 16, 2008 11:22 AM

Thanks for the replies I've been getting about that special language spoken only by journalists.

As well as the replies to my initial posting, I've had a number of colleagues suggesting words that are only ever used in newspapers but never in real life.

These include:

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Express delivery!

Posted by Graeme on January 7, 2008 9:56 AM

I tend to think that there are few things in life that are more annoying than the kid at the end of the Daily Express adverts who pops onto the screen and shouts "Express delivery".

But for local journalists, getting your stories nicked and then presented as exclusives by the nationals comes pretty close.

In yesterday's Sunday Express, there was a story about Fran Lyon, the Hexham woman who has fled to Europe to stop social services taking her baby, which contained the following line:

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Journalists, bad habits and tiny tots

Posted by Graeme on January 3, 2008 2:17 PM

Journalists have many bad habits, but the one in particular that often makes me cringe is our use of an odd language that no-one else in the world can speak.

We mostly write in English, of course, but occassionally reporters lapse into a strange lingo that I can only call "journalese", a strange collection of words that only ever appear in newspapers.

Who, for example, ever uses the word "slam" to mean criticism, except for journalists? (As in "A council was slammed for xxxxxx" or "A distraught mother last night slammed social services for xxxxxx")

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Gordon Brown must love the North-East

Posted by Graeme on November 29, 2007 5:37 PM

After writing a couple of weeks ago about the biggest news story of the year happening in our backyard it seems worth mentioning that the other two biggest news stories of the year seem to be now be happening, well, in our backyard.

If Gordon Brown wasn't sick enough of the North-East with Northern Rock, he can now add the Revenue and Customs crisis and the phantom donations that seem to have been made in the name of just about everyone living between Berwick and Middlesbrough (I am exaggerating for very nearly comic effect).

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Kelvin MacKenzie is offensive (again)

Posted by Graeme on November 23, 2007 1:03 PM

After making himself a figure of hate in Liverpool and then Scotland, former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie seems keen to add the North-East to the list of places he can’t show his face.

In a typically “considered�? column in The Sun this week, MacKenzie argued that the Northern Rock was only getting help from the Government so that Labour MPs in the region did not lose their seats.

“This wouldn’t happen if it was the Woking building society,�? he squealed.

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Between a Rock and a hard place

Posted by Graeme on November 21, 2007 1:51 PM

THIS year’s biggest news story has probably been the Northern Rock crisis and, as luck would have it, it’s happened on The Journal’s doorstep.

As a result, we have probably carried more column inches on the bank than most other newspapers, but our coverage has been markedly different to other media.

From the outset, we decided that while we had to look at what had caused Northern Rock’s problems as rigorously as anyone else, we also had a duty to the North-East to do what we could to campaign for the Rock’s survival.

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If only we were Italian...

Posted by Graeme on November 11, 2007 4:18 PM

Coverage of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Italy has shown just how differently the media are governed in different countries.

In the last few days, a judge has said the people arrested showed “serious indications of their guilt�?, while police have released an alleged confession and even outlined much of their evidence.

This is the sort of thing that would never happen in Britain - not without our editor ending up in the cells for contempt of court, that is.

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Bob Geldof: I Don't Like, err, Webcams

Posted by Graeme on November 7, 2007 4:53 PM

You may not know him as a shy and retiring type, but it appears Bob Geldof was not keen to be filmed by The Journal today.

We had arranged to interview Bob when he appeared at a shopping conference in Gateshead but when we got out our video camera - we're all very multimedia now, you know - he stormed off, saying something about not doing things for websites.

You can read all about it in tomorrow's Journal.

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Spam spam spam spam...

Posted by Graeme on October 25, 2007 3:48 PM

An unsolicited email arrives at The Journal newsdesk.

"Spam, or unsolicited e-mail," it says, "has become an accepted annoyance for any business that uses e-mail as a communication tool."

Yeah - funny you should mention that...

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You have won the (postcode) lottery

Posted by Graeme on October 16, 2007 2:16 PM

Every so often a word or phrase worms its way into the national consciousness.

Newspaper journalists are not immune to this phenomenon, and indeed probably end up using stock phrases more than most people as a quick shorthand way of making a point.

One of my current favourites is "postcode lottery", a phrase that people use to describe pretty much any situation where one part of the country does things differently to somewhere else.

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The media: US and them

Posted by Graeme on October 3, 2007 12:42 PM

I have just returned from a holiday in America (get me!) where you experience a media that is very different from ours.

The TV news programmes are particularly odd, doing many things that would be completely illegal in Britain - such as interviewing jurors on why they jailed someone, or even speculating about whether someone was guilty before his trial.

The newspapers are also very different: either wildly tabloid scandal sheets or serious broadsheets that seem stuck in the 1950s.

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Donna Air talks: Gordon Brown listens

Posted by Graeme on September 14, 2007 2:03 PM

Today The Journal has received the following press release:

"Celebrity actress, presenter and ‘Organomum’, Donna Air, has delivered a wake up call to Gordon Brown in the form of a letter to Number 10 calling on Government to listen to the growing number of mums who back organic and asking him to publicly support planet-friendly organic food as a means of tackling climate change."

The thought of Gordon Brown being broken from his reverie and changing Government policy by the great political heavyweight that is Donna Air certainly amuses me.

But coining the word "organomum" is inexcusable, I'm afraid.

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A1 and the Tories

Posted by Graeme on September 13, 2007 4:50 PM

In recent weeks we have been discussing the possibility of throwing The Journal's support at the next General Election behind a party political party - even the Conservatives - if they would pledge to dual the A1.

Supporting the Tories would be a pretty bold move in an predominantly Labour area, but then upgrading the A1 is absolutely crucial to the future prosperity of the region and there's been decades of inaction on this issue. You start to wonder whether drastic action might be needed.

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Things I Wish Had Happened in Newcastle (part one)

Posted by Graeme on September 12, 2007 2:28 PM

Every now and again, you come across a story happening somewhere in the world and the journalist in you thinks: "Damn - I wish that had happened here".

I can only imagine the excitement in the newsroom of the Ulyanosk Bugle, for example, when the governor of the Russian province gave married couples a day off work to have babies.

Conception Day has been timed so women can have their children on Russia's National Day, June 12, with prizes on offer ranging from televisions to 4x4 vehicles to couples who have babies on the right day.

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Peter Beardsley - there's nothing he can't do

Posted by Graeme on September 7, 2007 3:10 PM

Let me start by saying that I stand second to no man in my admiration for Peter Beardsley.

On the football pitch, Beardo was an absolute genius. And on the handful of occasions I've met him as a reporter, he's always seemed a thoroughly nice bloke.

But even I was slightly taken aback last night when Channel 4 News turned to the former Newcastle United striker as one of the people they interviewed about the death of Pavarotti.

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Local news (from around the world)

Posted by Graeme on September 4, 2007 5:27 PM

While The Journal is a regional newspaper, we increasingly do stories from around the world as (a) people from the North-East move elsewhere and (b) lots of people from elsewhere move to the North-East.

Tomorrow's paper has stories about two Geordies trying to be understood on American television (you may know them as Ant and Dec), a bloke from County Durham trampled by an elephant in Borneo (he survived!) and a North-East university setting up a medical school in Malaysia.

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Rowing is not for posh people (oh yes it is)

Posted by Graeme on August 30, 2007 3:31 PM

Just as life is full of contradictions, so is the news.

Earlier this week, The Journal carried an interview with an international rower from Denton Burn, in Newcastle, which seemed to prove the notion that rowing is no longer just for posh people.

Today, we had another story about rowers and one of them was called Charles-Antoine d'Oncieu de Chaffardon. Ho hum...

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Stumbling onto the news

Posted by Graeme on August 29, 2007 4:49 PM

Today I was walking into work when I was stopped on Northumberland Street by a woman doing some market research.

Just as I was about to tell her that I was too busy, she let on that she was doing research on road charging in the North-East - a pretty hot topic in these parts.

With my keen nose for a story (!) I confirmed that, actually, yes, I would be happy to answer questions on road charging.

At this point, she handily gave me some maps with a load of options for different road prices - which you can see in tomorrow's Journal.

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Social services and the media

Posted by Graeme on August 27, 2007 1:16 PM

We have a great story on our front page today about a pregnant woman who could lose her child when it is born because of a history of psychiatric problems.

The story is remarkable enough as it is, but what is also worth mentioning is one of the comments made by the mother-to-be.

Fran Lyon, who is from Hexham, told our reporter: "Social workers have incredibly tough calls to make, but there is just no evidence to suggest I would be a risk to anybody, let alone a child.�?

People often clash with social services and many times use the press to fight that battle, but it's pretty rare for someone to maintain the objectivity and fairness that allows them to say "social workers have incredibly tough calls to make", I can tell you.

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Top 10s make us happy

Posted by Graeme on August 15, 2007 5:56 PM

You know it's been a good day in The Journal newsroom when a Top 10 accompanies a story in the next day's paper.

Top 10s are basically lists of puns that go alongside existing stories and there's nothing a bunch of journalists like better than trying to outdo each other in the pun department.

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A-levels: the bane of my life

Posted by Graeme on August 14, 2007 1:53 PM

For the last three years I have been The Journal's education correspondent, and though I now looking after all matters digital, I will be coming out of retirement on Thursday to cover the A-level results.

So if you are a lazy child or a worried parent dreading those results, take comfort at least from the fact that I'm dreading them even more.

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When is a story not a story?

Posted by Graeme on August 1, 2007 1:24 PM

If you read this blog often enough, you might start to get the impression that I am a little ball of ginger spite whose anger is directed solely at the PR industry.

Honestly, that's not quite true. There are lots of people who work in PR who I count as good friends, and many more who I think do a really good job.

But then there are the others...

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Football sells papers, don't you know

Posted by Graeme on July 24, 2007 5:28 PM

As a season ticket holder who has endured some grim times at St James's Park in recent years, the announcement of Freddy Shepherd being replaced as chairman made me a very happy little ginger boy.

As a journalist, it's made me even happier.

Nothing sells papers in Newcastle like football, and this summer has been a veritable soap opera from the moment that Mike Ashley bought out the Hall family's shares in the club.

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Behind the headlines

Posted by Graeme on July 20, 2007 12:43 PM

Welcome to my new blog about some of the things that happen in the Journal's newsroom.

Take, for example, the Sedgefield by-election.

You might imagine that covering an election for a safe Labour seat - where no-one else really stood a chance of winning - would be pretty plain sailing.

But you would be wrong, my friends...

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