Lecturer ‘arrested’ at golf club

From @KampalaNews
A 56-year-old English University lecturer was ‘arrested’ on the fairway of the 15th hole at Kampala Golf Club and marched at gunpoint to explain himself to the head of security.
Alan Geere (for it was I) was nabbed by a security guard as he headed down a well-worn path towards the clubhouse, where he wanted to inquire about playing at Kampala’s only golf club.
“You have committed a crime,” was the reply from the guard to all Geere’s protestations that he had only been in the country a week and didn’t know it was a ‘crime’ to walk on the golf course.
Geere was made to promise never to walk on the golf course again and released by the head of security with a cheery smile and handshake.
“It was a rather unsettling experience,” said Geere. “And membership costs the same as a small family car so I rather think I’ll keep the promise and won’t walk on the golf course again.”

The Press Complaints Commission…every unhappy customer’s best friend’s new best friend

THE BODY of a kayaker is washed up on a remote stretch of shoreline and our intrepid reporter doesn’t think twice before heading down there.
A quick whizz around some contacts in the area and she’s established a name and an address. But after chats with some neighbours, two knocks at the door and a polite note left she’s no nearer any personal details, but does elicit a response from the local police.
“It is extremely inconsiderate and unprofessional of you to approach the home address within a matter of a few hours of being given the devastating news,” writes a Police Constable within an hour or so of our visit.
“She [the dead man’s partner] had wished to deal with this in her own time as she was coming to terms with the shock herself, but is now having to deal with the intrusion from you and concerned neighbours. She is incredibly upset and angry and is seriously considering complaining to the Press Complaints Commission about your behaviour.”
Ahh…the Press Complaints Commission, every unhappy customer’s new best friend. Or at least every unhappy customer’s best friend’s new best friend. Whether it’s police office themselves, Family Liaison Officers (also police), solicitors, councillors, counsellors or ‘family friends’ suddenly everyone wants to involve the PCC.
I blame that nice Mr Leveson. Until he started turning his interminable handle no-one knew much about or cared for the unloved PCC. Now The Right Honourable Lord Justice has indicated that it’s on its last legs everyone wants to bang on the door.
The last people to try and get our knuckles rapped ended up with the door slammed in their face or, more prosaically: “After assessment the Commission has decided that no matters have been raised which show a breach of the Code.”
This one concerned us reporting the funeral of a ‘popular’ local lad who was killed when he came off his motorbike. We discreetly kept our distance and didn’t intrude but did go about our business looking and listening. Our story was a fair reflection of what happened, but some family members took exception to us being there at all.
The adjudication read: “The Commission was satisfied that the newspaper had paid appropriate regard to the feelings of the family. There was no suggestion that the journalist present at the church had initiated any interaction with mourners or disrupted proceedings in any way.”
Well, thank you very much for deciding that we could do our job. But my fear is that there are lots of young reporters and some inexperienced editors who will be put off by the easy recourse to go to the PCC. Rebutting the complaints is a time-consuming business and, although not really necessary, some editors call in expensive legal help.
Just as we were doing our job with the poor kayaker. Turns out he was struck by lightning. And who was the first to tell us? The very woman who originally wanted to complain, but has since become our best friend and wanted us to be the first to know the result of the post-mortem.

How a little production difficulty brings out the best in journalists

I AM FROM the last generation of journalists to work in ‘hot metal’, where type was set on labyrinthine machines and made up into upside-down back-to-front pages by men in aprons who held all the cards.

At the old Cambridge Evening News in Newmarket Road I found out the hard way what I could and couldn’t touch (anything) but also learned a respect for the beauty and integrity of typography.

“I haven’t got f****** rubber type,” shouted Nigel from the random where headlines were made up. Either the letters fitted on the line or they didn’t. No kerning, tracking or electronic wizardy here.

I can still count a headline from a hundred paces and cast off copy – decide how much it would make as set text – both now skills consigned to the history books.

Fast forward 35 years and this week we had a harsh reminder of the fickle finger of production fate. Our normally robust system let us down and we lost about 240 hours of production time. With nearly 40 papers to get out the door this could have cost us dear.

And everything did get done – eventually – but not without a delayed distribution here and a reprint there.

And that was all due to the spirit, flexibility and not to forget good humour of all our journalists across the region.

Back in the 80s I was production editor of Today, Britain’s first ‘electronic’ newspaper, wobbly colour ‘n’ all. The big mainframe Hastech system didn’t work very well and the Datrax system to send the pages to press was even worse. But it brought on the best in everyone, determined as we were to conquer the technical issues and produce the best possible newspapers.

And so it was this week. Contrary to what some nameless online trolls might say no-one was forced to work extra hours but everyone who could, did. They will be entitled to time off, but as of now no-one has even asked for it.

That’s what we do as journalists and that’s why I love this game so much.

A tearful goodbye to a lifetime of front pages

I’M SAT in my now deserted office surrounded by the debris of three and a half years editing and some of the hundreds of front pages we have put together in that time.

Much to the chagrin of the ‘property and facilities’ people I stuck them on the wall with Blu-Tack and Sellotape (other brands are available!) and used them daily as a learning tool, something to impress visitors and a good place to go when you run out of ideas.

I’m also reminded of Rachel, who came to us on work experience for six months via Mencap and plastered a lot of them together at just the height she could reach – which wasn’t very high.

I’ve had too many jobs in too many places to get over-sentimental about leaving a building but these pages make the place feel more like a living being than just bricks and mortar. Some were award winners, others were turkeys. Some fell into our laps and other we had to work hard for. But all of them reflect the very best efforts of everybody at the time.

Now we’re off to the other side of town to a spiffy office with nice desks, posh computer stands and a ‘printing station’. I wonder if there will be room for a new ‘living wall’…

Headlines that lie and the pursuit of truth

WE’RE all used to the nationals and TV coming down when there’s a big story in our patch and trampling all over the community.

The reporting of the death of ‘cop killer’ Peter’s Reeve’s death in a churchyard just two miles from our office was no different. The live TV feeds were full of wild speculation and the Daily Mail’s story (right) the following day just wrong, wrong, wrong.

But we’re aghast at how a local free newspaper – our ‘opposition’ here in Chelmsford - can get it so wrong in its sensationalist reporting of the events.

Whilst it really grabs the reader’s attention, the Chelmsford Weekly News’ headline ‘Murderer kills himself on wife’s grave’ is simply not true. Even more so, because she is actually ALIVE and pictured on our front page.

To top it off, there is nothing in the story to corroborate this wild assumption.

Here at the Essex Chronicle, however, we did everything possible to find out the truth, after several national newspapers also made the same error.

On the day of the suicide, we had one reporter at the local register office trying to find out who the gunman’s relatives are.

Furnished with that information we sent three reporters down to the graveyard at 10pm, once the cordon had been lifted, so they could painstakingly search the gravestones to find that emotional link that the nationals had been so ready to peddle.

We even returned in the morning, and with the help of the local vicar, scoured the burial records.

So what was the local link? Was it Peter Reeve’s late father, mother, wife?

Neither. The truth is Peter Reeve had no close family connection to the gravestones in Writtle.

There are some Reeves buried there, but they are from the early 50s, when Peter Reeve would have been a small boy.

His mother and father are, in fact, buried at Chelmsford Crematorium, and his estranged wife is alive, and still living in Chelmsford.

I think we all deserve some sort of explanation.

Fun and games on work experience

WE LOVE having young people here on work experience – student journalists as well call them – and have had an many as six at a time over the past few weeks.

We always involve them in everything we do and get them out doing ‘proper stories’ that then appear in the Essex Chronicle and Brentwood Gazette

It’s nice to get at a thank-you note or even a box of chocolates but one of our latest recruits, 15-year-old Jaymie Baker went one further and penned this poem about her time here.

I think she may have a future in journalism…

The sex change teacher and the editor

A LETTER lands on my desk written to parents by the headteacher of our much-lauded Grammar School.
It starts:“I am writing to inform you that Mr XXXXXX XXXXXX, our Head of XXXXX, is undergoing the process of gender reassignment. After taking leave until the end of term, followed by the summer holidays, Mr XXXXXX will return to school is September as Ms XXXXXX XXXXXXX.”
And so it goes on, praising the courage of Mr X, directing parents to a gender identity research website and asking that they look at it with their son, pointing out that Ms X should be allowed to return to work “without fear of prejudice, intolerance and harassment” and stating that it is “not appropriate” to ask questions about the transition.
I remember someone much more vaunted than me writing about the “lonely hour” of the editor, when you have to decide what to do. I sought out m’learned friend - not really a privacy issue if you don’t name him – and a couple of editor chums, who said they would run with it, both with tasteful provisos.
My biggest concern was not the legal, or even ethical, position but what would the 100,000 or so readers of the Essex Chronicle make of it.
It is one of the best schools in the country, which even managed to put up with me from 1967-74, and an important part of the fabric of our city. As most local paper editors know, readers don’t like it when you run stories that portray community institutions in what might be considered an unfavourable light.
But, having found references to the letter on Twitter, spoken to pupils and got a response from the head, I ran this story, which I think shows the school in a very positive light and shows us to be a responsible local newspaper.
The readers, or even you, may know better. The paper is out this morning so we’ll see.

What every editor needs: A bottle of Drambuie and a telephone

WE'RE changing the guard here at Chronicle Towers and moving to new offices the other side of town.

We’ve been here at Westway since 1962, but the clanking press, men with inky rags and even the NGA chapel meeting call to arms are long consigned to the memory of the dwindling number of Chronicle staff from those times.

Before that the paper had hopped around Chelmsford, ending up in a High Street office now occupied by Jessops, the camera shop.

Scrambling around for some pictures to illustrate our latest move we found this evocative image of the Editor’s Office.

For students of the genre, it contains:

• An empty milk bottle
• A bottle of Drambuie
• A complicated looking telephone
• A door with no window

Make of all that what you will…

Readers: Doncha just love ‘em

SO THERE we are feeling quite pleased with ourselves for being crowned Britain’s Best Weekly Newspaper for the second successive year at the Society of Editors' awards when a lovable reader of the Essex Chronicle brings us back to earth with a jolt.

The gentleman writes to berate us for confusing the Queen’s Coronation with the Diamond Jubilee festivities (guilty as charged; I’m off to The Tower) but then goes on to say:

“Frankly I find quite a few errors in your editions that makes me wonder if any of your articles are ever proof read before publication. 

"How you supposedly won Britain's Best Weekly Newspaper for the second year running beats me.”

Love you too, I replied, as I acknowledged his note and our mistake. Must try harder…

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.

Coming soon: My 140-character PhD

I’ve been threatening to do a PhD for years.
Like a lot of people who come to formal education later in life – I put myself through a do-it-at-home MA when I was 50 – I’ve rather caught the academic bug.
Having spent 35 years honing the 20 word brief and the five-word headline the freedom of an 80,000 word thesis is both a frightening and liberating prospect.
But I’ve always struggled to find the right topic. Some ideas like ‘The Rise of the Popular Press in the Caribbean’ were too, er, unacademic and others such as ‘The Decline of Union Power and Influence in the Newsroom’ too big and unwieldy to pull off.
I’ve been lucky to have a number of serious academic friends who have pointed me in the right direction, told me where I’m going wrong and even advised to not even attempting the doctorate but concentrate on producing the book (part textbook/travelogue/memoir) that I’ve been teasing them with for years.
But now I have a new bounce in my PhD step, thanks to Twitter.
I’m on, you’re probably on, our friends are on. Politicians, stars from sport and showbiz, captains of industry (and a few sergeants @lordsugar) and of course those pesky media types are all part of the enigmatic, egalitarian 140 character world that is Twitter.
This is the biggest revolution I’ve seen in my time in journalism since I swapped the emergency piece-of-metal filler pic in my pocket for an emergency piece of waxed paper.
I’m a Twitter novice of just a couple of months. But every day I see something that I didn’t know, something that I hadn’t thought of and some people who I never dreamed would be sharing their loves, hates, hopes and fears with me.
I confidently predict – drum roll, please – that Twitter will have the biggest impact on journalism as we know it over the next two years. Just about the same time it will take me to finish that PhD...
Follow me on Twitter @alangeere

Beaten up and left for dead: When the newsman is the news

IT'S NEVER easy featuring your own staff in the paper.

If they’ve run a marathon, lost eight stone or jumped out of a plane for charity we’ll probably find a home for them in the back of the book.

But what if they’ve been beaten up in the street and left for dead?

What if they were rescued by sharp-eyed CCTV operators who spotted the assault and alerted the police?

And what if the assailant was jailed for four years for what the judge called a “disgraceful incident”?

My honourable deputy editor, Paul Dent-Jones, had no qualms about what we should do with his own agonising and deeply disturbing story.
Run it on the front page.
We posed the same questions we would if it had been any other innocent bystander, not one of our top journalists:

• Do we have CCTV pictures of the incident?
• Have we got an interview with the victim?
• Are there pictures of both victim and attacker?
• Do we have the full court story?

Yes to all of the above, so page one here we come.
Paul even wrote a poignant first person piece about his harrowing experience and explained to his tearful wife why we had to run it.
He wrote: “Perhaps I could have asked my editor to overlook this story…”
To be honest, if he had, I’m not sure what I would have said.

Latest News: Editor Is Journalist Shock

MOST EDITORS - and I can think of a few honourable exceptions - started in journalism doing all the things we love best.
Reporting, writing, taking pictures, writing headlines and drawing pages are the building blocks of the newspaper game and we love 'em all.
But just as you get quite good at that someone comes along and tells you that you might also be quite good at recruitment, budgeting, going to meetings, making pearls from swine and sometimes cleaning the toilets.
So, off you go to the door marked 'Editor' and suddenly all that fun journalism seems from a different world.
Here, in no particular order as Dermot would say, are some of the things I've done this week.

• Helped set up meeting with Union reps about pensions
• Dealt with aftermath of over-exuberant office Christmas party
• Held an inquiry into company car usage.
• Hired three staff, said no thanks to another three
• Handled three angry readers, two upset MPs and a pigeon in a station tree (that's a story for another day).

Don't get me wrong, I love it all, especially making things happen when not much is happening but I am also determined to keep my journalistic hand in.
This week I've also written a panto review (Oh yes I have!), penned a trenchant comment and taken the front page picture for this week's Essex Chronicle (see above) complete with photo credit. My mum would be proud.
So, editors, wherever you've got to remember where you've come from and keep doing what you used to do.

Psst! Wanna be a journalist? The Apprentice meets X Factor

DODGING the traffic across London’s busy Victoria Street, determined not to miss his deadline another hopeful young journalist is eager to show he’s got what it takes to make it as a newspaper reporter.
He’s got half a decent story but his editor (me, also in the street) wants more. So back he goes (see above) and another exclusive, we-didn’t-know-that-before story is identified, researched and written all in less than an hour.
Welcome to The Apprentice meets X Factor as we take to the road to find today’s stars of tomorrow. Yes, there is an over-supply of qualified people and an ad for trainees will bring in hundreds of mad, sad and desperate applications.
So here at Northcliffe South East, sitting on our 45 weekly titles from the badlands of Thanet through the uplands of Sevenoaks and Dorking and back to the badlands of Croydon, we cut out the middle man and try to snare the best recruits before they’ve even finished their NCTJ accredited course.
I give them a quick heads-up with a romp through ‘How Not to Get a Job in Journalism’ – a You’ve Been Framed of the stupid mistakes made when trying to get a job – and then invite the keenest back to show what they’re made of.
It’s a simple enough assignment. Find a story for a specially devised publication and write it up. In that hour I can see if the ‘driven, ambitious and motivated’ applicant on the CV can actually talk to people, find an angle, write an intro that makes sense, construct a sentence and make a deadline. And you’d be surprised how many can’t...
With my sidekick Deanne Blaylock, editor of the Surrey Mirror Series and a perfect Margaret/Karren to my Sir Alan, we tease out the how, the why and the where of the stories and work out whether these people have got any chance in journalism.
Key for me, though, is the ability to engage with people. All the doom-mongers for journalism in general and newspapers in particular seem to have forgotten that finding people and getting them to talk to you is at the heart of it.
Further prophets of doom, like Nick Davies of Flat Earth fame who believes all journalists do is swallow PR guff, should come out with us some time and see the journalists of tomorrow find and write innovative, exclusive stories that are engaging and informative.
Earlier in the week I’d been walking with dinosaurs at the Society of Editors annual conference in Glasgow. A largely uninspiring selection of self-important big-wigs trooped on stage to tell it like it was/is/will be, few of them displaying any of the verve, excitement and ability to have a go that marks out the real leaders in journalism.
Then, Derek Tucker, outgoing editor of Aberdeen’s Press and Journal newspaper, and one of the many enthusiastic and knowledgeable editors I’ve had the privilege of working with weighed in with a heartfelt valedictory address.
“It frustrates me – and I know many other editors feel the same – that a lot of the young people leaving so-called university journalism degree courses are totally not suited for coming into newspapers. Very few possess the street cunning and inquisitiveness that is the hallmark of good journalists and it often appears that English is a second language.”
Tucker, who next year is set to retire after 18 years in the hot seat, told the conference newspapers were “reaping what we began to sow years ago” after deciding it was cheaper and more convenient to let academics train journalists on their behalf.
“Unfortunately though we also washed our hands of the careful selection process which places the attributes of a good journalist above or at least equal to educational qualifications,” he said.
“Tomorrow’s journalists must be identified and trained by today’s journalists not yesterday’s enthusiastic amateurs,” he added.
“Here, here,” say the cowardly blog commenters who haven’t even got the balls to use their names let alone do anything about the problem they perceive.
The trainees I see are trained to the highest standard by people who know and care. I don’t have the capacity or capability to teach shorthand to 100 wpm in 16 weeks or give a thorough grounding in media law or public affairs. I’ll leave that to the experts, thanks, Derek.
What I can offer, though, is a step on the first rung of a ladder that has taken the likes of Derek and me into a rewarding, unpredictable, at times frustrating yet always fascinating career. And I want to do my bit to keep that flame alive.
• This week I will be in Newcastle and Brighton talking to trainees. If you think you’ve got what it takes to work with us just get in touch alan.geere@essexchronicle.co.uk

• FEEDBACK FROM
  FRIDAY’S INTERVIEWS

• “It was a brilliant, fun and challenging task. Getting stories against the clock certainly puts the pressure on.”
• “Interesting and refreshing approach to an interview.”
• “It was great experience doing some real world reporting and it confirmed that I do belong in the world of journalism.”
• “Very enjoyable. Like no interview from my past. Different.”
• “I had great fun and feel I learned quite a lot. I would love to have the opportunity to learn from the best!”
• “Very enjoyable. We were made to feel comfortable and then challenged to prove our skills. I think it went very well.”