And best editor goes to...

David Montgomery. The steely-eyed, dour Ulsterman was not everybody’s cup of tea but he was a genius at spotting a story and telling it with maximum impact. He was Editor of Today in the immediate post-Eddy Shah days and I was the Production Editor, tasked with manhandling the wobbly colour and mainframe-powered ‘on-screen make-up’ system, as it was called then.

Montgomery worked six days a week, and seemingly all day and all night. He called me at late o’clock to make changes to pages that had already been changed and he called me at early o’clock to find out why the papers were late in Truro.

His attention to detail was troubling but his feel for how to play the big story unerringly precise. On the Sunday morning after the Hillsborough disaster we pored over hundreds of images looking for the most powerful pictures that would tell the story without being distasteful. He didn’t shy away from disturbing but he knew from his experience at the News of the World just what the readers couldn’t stomach.

He loved a poster front and powerful picture spread and all this in pre-digital days. I was the man who had to load the slides into the carousel the right way up first time round, a task I can still perform if ever required.

I joined Today pre-launch as part of Shah’s vision to bring bright young things from the provinces into the rough-tough world of national newspapers.

Working alongside the old hands - deep breath here - including Brian MacArthur, Jonathan Holborrow, Jane Reed, Anthony Holden, Pat Pilton, Ron Morgans, Tessa Hilton, Ray Cave and Len Gould was a fantastic education.

A lot of us – including future editors Colin Myler, Amanda Platell, Nicola Jeal and Geordie Greig – have a lot to thank Today for. And I have a lot to thank David Montgomery for.

• An extract from ‘Six of the best’ which appears in the May 2012 issue of PressGazette

My best to tip? Never confuse journalism with brain surgery

What's the best tip you could give to an aspiring journalist?

Just do it. Last year, fed up with inflated CVs and clunky application letters, I asked for applications via Twitter. 140 characters to sell yourself and then we’ll go from there. I had more than 500 responses, including the very nice lady who wanted to be the Essex Chronicle’s correspondent in Bolivia, and tried out a range of people in various newsrooms.
But what struck me most about the majority of the applicants was that they hadn’t actually done anything. No blog, no website, no contribution to other media. Just a ‘burning desire’ to be a journalist with the ‘hunger and ambition’ to succeed.
Yes, it’s true that there are plenty of ‘qualified’ journalists out there, but there aren’t many who are any good. Journalism isn’t brain surgery; you don’t need any special equipment or specialist knowledge and it’s unlikely that anyone’s going to die if you get it wrong.
So, aspiring journalist, when you’re looking for a job assemble your work in one place on a blog or website and in your CV and covering letter link to published work. Don’t tell me what you can do, show me what you’ve done.

An extract from 'Six of the Best', a feature for the upcoming issue of Press Gazette

Your new job is here, tweet me now

Dear Sir or Madam,
Please find attached my letter and CV for your attention.
Thank you for your attention and consideration.
Yours Sincerely

Wake me up before you go go, indeed! This landed on my desk today along with approaches from several other would-be journalists who were obviously asleep during the class on intro writing.
I’m fed up wading through turgid ‘letters of application’ and monstrous CVs outlining an early career in retail handling and a flirtation with the upper slopes of the Andes.
I want reporters who can find stories that no-one else has got and write them quickly and accurately.
That’s why in my latest recruitment ad potential recruits have to respond via Twitter. They’ve got 140 characters* to tell me what they can do and why I should consider them.
I keep getting told there is an over-supply of qualified people wanting to do journalism. Well, maybe there is but there’s definitely not an over-supply of people who are any good.
Tweet me now, please @alangeere
*If you’re not sure what 140 characters looks like it’s the Dear Sir or Madam effort at the top of this page

Roll up, roll up for Newspaper Roulette

I SOMETIMES think we make this editing lark a bit too complicated.
Ok, so guilty as charged with the three-day training course I have devised, modestly called ‘How to be a Great Editor’ (£895 + VAT, discount for early booking) and apologies to the surprised reader who emailed me this week in cantankerous tones about why we use ages of people in stories only to get a pompous “in all my years as an editor...” phone call.
Today we’re sat in the newsroom in the middle of the first of three long, short weeks (© Blaylock, D. M.) trying to decide what to do with a half-decent tale about a popular town centre restaurant that we learn is closing down. It has succumbed to the pressures of cheaper competition and the site will be sold off for housing, or more likely ‘Delightful Waterfront Residences’.
I don’t like holding anything (insert own joke here) but the only decent space, without tearing up too many finished pages, is back in the twenty-somethings. Next week – a three-day week in the weekly newspaper world – it will get a decent show and maybe even make the front if we dress it up a bit.
So, what to do?
Easy. Toss a coin.
Deputy editor Paul tossed, I called heads and the story lives on to have greatness thrust upon it. It is the result we wanted, but validated by the transparency of the simple flip of a coin.
So, here’s a plan for next week: Newspaper Roulette. Every story is taken in turn, we spin the wheel and the stories are placed from pages 1-36 depending on where the ball falls. Any that fall in 0 are spiked.
As that reader, who called me “The Worst Editor Ever”, will probably agree it seems as good a way as any...

Women in Journalism? I love ’em all

Where are all the women? asks Jane Martinson in today’s MediaGuardian.
The author – “I left news for a part-time role in features” – argues that newspapers are dominated by (white) men and women don’t get a look-in.
“How can we offer a window on society when a big chunk of the population can't see themselves reflected?” writes Ms Martinson.
Well, come to the south-east of England, and I’ll show you windows and reflections galore.
Across our 10 newsrooms we have three women editors, three women news editors, a woman sports editor plus the head of our features team and the deputy of one of the biggest (and, of course, best) subbing units in the country are women.
They are all in their jobs because they are good at what they do, care passionately about the communities they serve and successfully juggle career, home, family and bringing in the coal (sorry, just a joke...).
I don’t know about the “inflexibility and long hours” of a career at Paul Dacre’s Daily Mail that Ms Martinson writes about, but we do our best to fit in with everybody’s life, not just women.
Perhaps that’s why people stick around on our wonderful weekly papers. We don’t do anything particularly special for women employees, but we try to treat everyone with respect and understanding.
In turn, they give us hard work, dedication and the benefit of their many valuable years in journalism.
Long may we all – ‘blokes’ and women – reign...

‘Stop the presses’: I want to get on

QUITE a few of us regional editors had a round-robin invite to appear on last night’s Newsnight, billed as a ‘special segment on the future of print media’.
Judging by the content of the half-hour piece entitled ‘Stop the presses’ and the high-flying studio guests (Lords Rusbridger, Barber, Thompson and Barron) I wasn’t the only editor to give this a swerve.
There was, in fact, no mention whatsoever of the provincial press. Just a yawning trundle through what the Guardian and BBC do and don’t do and how the Digital Age spells the end of the civilised world as we know it.
Perhaps as an industry we don’t do ourselves any favours by not standing up to be counted in a discussion forum such as this. But I prefer to let my papers do the talking. Here’s a sneak peak at tomorrow’s Essex Chronicle (sorry, not quite finished!). Nearly 30,000 people will queue up with their 75p to buy our quality journalism, a paper put together by our dedicated, hard-working, innovative and creative team of mainly young journalists. And who wouldn’t buy this?
But I did learn a new word from Mr Paxman – ‘Disintermediated’. Answers on a postcard, please.

Editor flogs papers to readers shock

TIRED of the newsroom? Feeling jaded after all those late nights at the coalface of journalism?
Then take yourself off on a life-affirming trip to meet the people that really matter – yes, the dear readers.
Editor of the Brentwood Gazette, Nev Wilson, newly-crowned EDF newcomer of the year, Iain Johnson, and I set up shop today in Sainsbury’s to ‘undertake community engagement’ as the consultants would have it.
And boy did we find some community to engage with. We sold papers, we picked up a couple of stories and we made some new friends.
But, as ever with this life we call journalism, it was a most humbling experience. People generally loved the paper, many didn’t want it because they’d already bought it or had it delivered and one lady even told me she’d read it every week for 59 years and it was her ‘life’.
It is a good paper, witness the newspaper of the year award also picked up at the EDFs, and we try hard every week to keep as many people in the picture with as much as is going on. And in a small town that’s not always easy.
And awards are fine - bring 'em on - but the real rewards are where it matters, in the hearts and minds of readers.