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.”
  

The editor’s right of reply

TELLING newspapers editors where they’re going wrong is a bloodless sport – I should know, I made a living out of it for 20 years – and especially easy when you’re sniping from the ‘anonymous’ sidelines.
A couple correspondents to this blog – ‘anonymous’ of course - were quick to tell me where I’m going wrong on a post I made about our innovative soapbox campaign here at the Essex Chronicle.
“IT’S GONE DOWNHILL IN THE LAST YEAR. WE WANT LOCAL NEWS,” shouted complainer No 1.
“We say 'hear hear' to the response by 'anonymous',” says complainer No 2, following up with “...we feel that the LOCAL part of your Chronicle has gone in the last year/two years - if something is popular with your readers then why do you suddenly get rid of it??”
I tend to roll with the punches and if readers want to have a go, either anonymously from behind the big sofa of the internet or more straightforwardly by letter or email, I’ll let them. The editor will always have the last say and that does seem a bit unfair.
But then another post turns up from Anonymous No 2: “Any chance of a reply (we've replied, as requested) to those of us who posted the 'responses'??. Or don't your 'local readers' count??”
Well, yes, Mr A, of course you count and here is that reply. Enjoy!

Welcome to Telegraph-land, scraping by spending £9,000 a month

I WENT to a conference talk about 20 years ago when David Hepworth, then journalism’s next best thing as editor of Smash Hits, gave this memorable glimpse into the secret of his success: Plagiarise, plagiarise and plagiarise again!
I’m a paid-up member of there’s no better great idea than someone else’s great idea so my magpie instincts were piqued by the Telegraph Magazine’s cover story: Where does all your money go? We ask one family to account for every last penny.
Just the sort of thing to have my Joneses keeping up with each other on our papers from Folkestone to Leatherhead and all points in between.
And what a delightful read it is too, prying into the shopping bags of Christoph and Sarah Alexander as they chomp and chip 'n' pin their way through £8,971.22 in September. Yes, the best part of NINE THOUSAND POUNDS in just one month.
Come off it, even in Telegraph-land there can’t be many people who spend nearly nine grand a month just living. “I’ve been astonished how it mounts up,” admits self-employed publisher Christoph. Here’s how, mate: £299 on an in-car iPod system, £155 on woolly jumpers, £108 on a self-storage unit for your ‘various hobbies’ and £120 for your son’s tutor, which you’ve engaged after ditching private school as ‘a bit too pressured’.
Sarah – £350 on clothes and £120 on physiotherapy – marches towards 2010 without a backward glance. “We buy what we need to buy,” she says, “we’re not extravagant.”
I think we will have a crack at this. I’ll try to find some representative folks from our readership in Brentwood and Margate, and I can guarantee they’ll have their feet much more firmly on the ground than Christoph and Sarah.
And the main reason for that will be because our editors in those towns know their communities and know their readers.
Seems like the top table at the Telegraph needs to get out more.

Harriet, we're watching you

NO SURPRISE, then, that Harriet Harman got off her driving while using a mobile phone charge.
The Labour Party deputy leader was fined £350 today after pleading guilty to driving without due care and attention after she reversed into a parked car in Camberwell, south London, last July. She was on the phone throughout the ‘low speed’ incident Westminster Magistrates Court heard, but the charge was withdrawn.
Not so lucky were the motorists caught in the act by Essex Police and our Essex Chronicle reporter and photographer team. We featured them on this week’s front page along with another pile of people on a spread inside who we nabbed in the act.
Among the bizarre excuses was a woman who said she was on the phone paying another fine she had been given for the same offence.
Our photographer also spotted her car sticker celebrating the anti-establishment anthem Their Law by Prodigy. There’s not much to the lyrics from Braintree’s finest but they do contain the lines I’m the law and you can't beat the law, Fuck ’em and their law. So that’s them told.
Some people see this as low-level anti-social activity rather than anything illegal. We’ve had some stick for “holding friends, neighbours and family up to ridicule”. Tough wotsits, we say, especially when so many accidents – ‘low level’ or otherwise – are caused by this practice.
And, people of Essex, watch out. We plan to repeat the exercise. Don’t call us...

Stand up for the not-so-silent majority

AS AN exercise in public democracy it wasn’t quite up there with the fall of the Berlin Wall or the storming of The Bastille.
But the Essex Chronicle Soapbox did show how important it is that free speech continues to have a platform in society.
To recap, we pitched up in Chelmsford High Street on Saturday morning with our own soapbox to give people a chance to air their views free of any editing or interference. As editor Alan Geere said himself from the box: “Forget your Facebook and toss your Twitter, now is the chance for everyone to talk directly to your audience.”
And you duly did. We heard why the troops should be pulled out of Afghanistan, why Stansted should not be developed and why the bible is right or wrong depending on your viewpoint.
But what was most striking was not just the people talking, but also the people listening.
The crowd ebbed and flowed during the two-hour session. Some heckled, some tried to argue but most simply listened in a respectful and admiring silence. All were grateful for the opportunity afforded simply to be part of our democratic exercise.
And now there’s more to come. We plan to make this a fixture on the town calendar. We are working with the Borough Council to find a more permanent home and once we do there will be regular soapbox sessions, featuring the great and good of our community. We’ll invite MPs, community leaders, church and faith organisations, pressure groups and of course you, dear reader.
The media in general and newspapers in particular have an important part to play in the democratic process. People are feeling less and less connected with the process of government and more and more disillusioned with how a chosen (or in some cases appointed) few can have such a dramatic impact on our lives.
We are proud to yet again stand firm with the now not-so-silent majority.
From editorial column on the Essex Chronicle, October 15 2009

Move along please, nothing happening here

HERO cop Stewart Gason prevented a terrifying pile-up when he jumped aboard a runaway lorry and stopped it after its driver suffered a stroke.
Wow, what a story! You may have read this terrific tale in your Sunday newspaper – and all this drama happening right here on the A12 near Chelmsford.
And quite rightly you turn to your reliable local weekly newspaper for more detail. Perhaps an interview with the ‘hero cop’ or even a talk with the driver if he’d recovered enough.
And we were ready to do just that until Essex Police sent out a ‘correction’. In one swift sentence – repeated here in all its police-speak glory – we moved from:
Sgt Stewart Gason alighted from the police car and ran alongside the moving lorry, jumped into the cab and managed to apply the brakes just prior to the dual carriageway.
to
Sgt Stewart Gason alighted from the police car and ran alongside the moving lorry and attracted the lorry driver’s attention by shouting at him to stop and throw his keys out. The lorry driver, though unwell, responded to this and stopped just prior to the dial carriageway.
So, what happened, we asked? Could the ‘hero cop’ explain to us how he first ‘jumped into the cab’ but then just ‘shouted at him to stop’. Sgt Gason is too shy to talk, came the official reply from the Essex Police media machine. Could you tell us anything about the driver? No.
So there we have it. An unexplained mystery. Had we got a reasonable explanation you wouldn’t even be reading this now. But we’re not prepared to let you think that we hadn’t bothered to get the full story and that we just settled for the prescription story doled out by the media managers that so many of our less-inquisitive colleagues in the media settle for.
Who knows, by next week, we may even have the full story. Watch this space…
Taken from The Essex Chronicle Says August 13

Smile, you’re on our mobile candid camera

LIKE MOST good ideas the notion to taking pictures of people using mobile phones while driving – which, of course, they shouldn’t oughta – and publishing them in the paper is ridiculously simple.
What comes next seems ridiculously complicated.
Our ever-industrious Gazette news team came up with their own cure for the summertime blues and set up a photographer at a notorious roundabout in the middle of town. In just an hour he snapped 15 people in cars and vans clearly using their phones. Job done.
A simple yet elegant design complete with as few words of possible to explain what’s what and we’re ready to roll (click on the image, right, to see it in more detail). Well, not quite.
Mr Lawyer has his say. We’re OK to run the pictures but must be prepared for all the people featured to come back at us with a defamation claim.
“I wasn’t talking on the phone; I was just holding it.”
“I wasn’t driving; I was parked.”
“It was an emergency.”
“I’ve lost my job and it’s all your fault.”
“Right-thinking people are shunning and avoiding me.” (Mr McNae)
And if we did end up in front of m’lud the photographer would have to stand up and be counted. He’d have to attest that it is a genuine photograph taken when and where we said it was. For a variety of reasons, not least that aforementioned man who’d lost his job has now lost his home and family and is coming after you, we decided that probably wasn’t fair.
Determined not to lose what we’d done we switched to Plan B, pixilated the faces, published and now sit back waiting to be damned.
The paper is on the streets tomorrow (Weds) and we can’t double guess readers’ reaction. Will they thank us for exposing the ongoing flouting of the law in such a dangerous way? Or will they feel we’ve unfairly targeted family and friends who were just doing something that everybody does?
I simply don’t know. And I’m not even sure I made the right call with pixilating the faces.
What I do know is that we’re doing it all again in four weeks time to see if the good people of Brentwood have learned their lesson.
And to make sure we can publish properly and be damned I’ll even take the pictures myself, Your Honour.

Why we are the headline act*

LIKE A lot of journalists I know a little about a lot of things but not much about anything.
That’s why I’d struggle on Mastermind as I wouldn’t have a clue what to do in the specialist round.
If pushed, though, I’d probably do ‘Headline Writing’ if John Humphrys and the gang would allow it. I’ve been writing headlines for more than 30 years and still get a thrill when those words leap off the page enticing the reader into the story thanks to our skill and creativity.
I’ve been impressing on all or subs here how important it is to tell the story and not present the reader with a cryptic crossword puzzle clue or something that’s there just to show off to your mates.
They’ve responded with gusto, telling it how it is all the way from Folkestone to Leatherhead. Witness:
Man took dead
friend’s money
here in the Essex Chronicle.

Give me that any day as opposed to the convoluted old tosh that appears daily in the national tabloids, such as these in today’s Sun:
Potter plotter is
hotter to trotter
and
I was blind, bite
now I can see...
No, I’ve no idea what they mean either.

But outright winner is from our Whitstable Times:
Seagull flew
off with cat

How could you not read that story?
And the headline score so far is: Us 2, Them 0

*Yes, I know it's not that straightforward, but we all like to show off sometimes...

Come on Arlene

I tuned in to Desert Island Discs this morning hoping to hear Kirsty Young put actor Martin Shaw through the wringer.
But what a Desert Island washout.
What we got was a passing reference to the street fight that forced him to have plastic surgery on his face, a nod to what is still his most famous role (Ray Doyle in The Professionals) and what seemed like an eternity warbling on about his spiritual conversion to ‘teetotalism, vegetarianism and meditation’.
No insightful questions from Kirsty Young about his three wives, stalker Sandra Price who poured petrol through his partner’s letterbox or why he does that latest TV cop tosh, Inspector George Gently.
Young, a former TV news anchor, follows in the illustrious journalistic footsteps of other DID presenters Sue Lawley (South Wales Echo) and Michael Parkinson (Barnsley Chronicle) but seemed to have left her inquiring mind at the door with this episode.
Hopefully on next week’s show featuring Arlene Phillips (Hot Gossip, Strictly Come Dancing etc etc) she’ll be less of a PR pushover.

Justice for dead drunks

At 1.50 on Tuesday afternoon in a room at New Bridge House, the drab offices in Chelmsford that double as coroner’s court, a weary line was drawn under the sad lives of Susan Evans and James Grimwade.
The inquest heard that police broke down the door of their home in Pennine Road, Chelmsford and found their bodies in the ‘unhygienic’ house. They had a history of heavy drinking and the coroner decided they died as result of chronic alcohol abuse.
But hold on a minute.
Two people found dead in the same house at the same time. How often does that happen? At the time of the deaths back in February we asked the police and the social care authorities what they planned to do about investigating the deaths.
We speculated on what might have happened. Suicide pact? Poisoning, either deliberate or accidental? Adulterated drink or drugs? Overcome by fumes from a faulty boiler? Perhaps even murder?
But no investigation was ever forthcoming. The ‘nothing going on here’ signs went up almost from the start and the despite our urgings no-one wanted to do anything.
We had the feeling from the outset that quite simply no-one was interested. But what if two people in their forties had been found dead in a house in, say, Beaulieu Park or Little Baddow? Would the authorities have taken a different view?
We feel that Susan and James have been badly let down, probably in life as well as death, and thrown onto an administrative scrapheap simply because of where and how they lived
We find it highly unlikely that two people would die at exactly the same time in the same place, addled by drink or not. At the very least they deserve a proper multi-agency investigation.
A ten minute hearing in front of a coroner with no witnesses called and no reports ordered is not good enough. Not for Susan and James. Not for anyone.
Taken from this week's Essex Chronicle editorial

A voice for Tragic Amber

“Thank you for your kind comments. Luke and I cannot believe that our Amber was taken away from us yesterday. Amber’s sister Melody is holding us all together and giving us a reason to carry on. Thank you.”
Jacqui Whyte, Otford

IT IS difficult – no, impossible – to imagine how you could ever recover from your own car accidentally running over your own child.
The story of ‘Tragic Amber’, who was crushed against a post by her mother’s car, happened on the patch of our Sevenoaks Chronicle. Our team has reported the accident sensitively and professionally, not intruding into what is obviously a very private grief.
But then up steps our website, sitting there with all the facts and also with an opportunity to share a comment.
Many readers did, leaving their own tributes on what has become an instant online Book of Condolence. And who leaves the poignant comment reproduced above? None other than the mum at the centre of it all.
This is not the time to start warbling on about how the web is beginning to grow into the complementary medium we all hoped. Let’s just say it’s given a voice to a community in a very troubled time and leave it at that.

Elections: My place in history

IT’S election day and we’re all atwitter about our coverage.
Our planning sessions have been all about laptops, mobiles, 3G cards and remote access but the fact remains that it still takes our dedicated team of editors and reporters to make it happen. Have a look later to see how they’ve done.
I got to thinking about my first election as a reporter, covering the count here in Chelmsford when Norman St John-Stevas (now Lord St John of Fawsley) won the seat for the second time in a year in October 1974.
I was excited to be asked by the local agency reporter to help out on the night and had visions of my quotes gobbled up and spat out by the Press Association and turning up in Nationals galore.
And how did I spend the crucial hour or so before the result was announced?
Camped out in the only phone box next to Shire Hall pretending to use the phone so no-one else could phone the result and so bagging us (or, rather, him) the premium paid for getting in first.
Dontcha just love journalism…

Would you run this ad?

OUR HARD-WORKING advertising people asked if this ad was ok run in some of our titles.
I ummed and ahhed and, after a quick poll in the office decided it was good to go.
It’s not planned to run in the Kent & Sussex Courier, so ‘disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells’ can keep his quill pen dry but there was some disquiet in the equally leafy lanes of Surrey where it was thought some readers might not find it appropriate for a family newspaper.
Anyway, it’s still good to go and is on page 20 of this week’s Leatherhead Advertiser. Are you offended? Did I make the right call? Over to you...

Work experience, Talent and more work experience

WE HAD two people come in on work experience today. One had pestered me to get in and by lunchtime had written a page three lead and learned the intimate secrets of the tea rota.
The other went out on police calls with a reporter and upon returning to the office revealed that it “wasn’t for her” after all and duly went home. Even by my shameful standards of brutalising work experience people this was a first: lasting less than 90 minutes.
Moral of the story – pester the editor, and don’t go into journalism with a film studies degree.

AT OPENING time we’re on the trail of the Banjo Brothers – our own little piece of Britain’s Got Talent winners, Diversity.
My initial idea of going out with a video camera and getting the populace to audition on the streets for the dance group was met with the usual polite derision. But we then got lucky when we found out that Banjo junior was sitting his maths GCSE at one of our local schools while the rest of the troupe were being entertained by Gordon at No 10.
Hours later and we’re in for the first (and hopefully, only) interview with Jordan – especially as he talked passionately and eloquently without the help of a PR minder – and some great pix of him, his classmates and even the headmistress.
Yet again I marvel at the ingenuity, dedication and not a little self-made luck that makes local journalism such a fantastic game to be in. Just a shame we’ve got to wait until Wednesday to get it onto the streets.

WE’RE HAPPY to entertain the work placement officer from Mencap and end up taking on a young person with learning difficulties for a couple of hours every week.
What was more shocking was her revelation that she had approached more than 20 local companies with the same request and been shown the door.
I’m no more caring and sharing than the next man, but I was genuinely taken aback. Cue feature on what it means to give someone a chance and some tough questions to those who refused.

The tears, the fears, the jeers and the cheers

Apologies for the short intermission, but thanks to popular demand (bless you Steve/Tom) I’m back.
I will be blogging from my vaunted position as editor in chief and editorial director laying bare the tawdry inside workings of a newspaper. Stand by for the tears, the fears, the jeers and the cheers.
Please feel free to comment and make this a ‘conversation’ – just like we’re trying to do our million or so readers across the south east.
Check out my editor’s chair colleagues Keith Perch, editor of the Leicester Mercury and Steve Dyson, editor of the Birmingham Mail to see what they get upto. Perhaps I may learn a thing or two about doing it properly…

Vice – A Magazine That Is Not Dull

I am hooked on Vice. Not the sort of vice that Jacqui Smith’s getting all hot under the two-piece about – “Excuse me, Madam Prostitute, before we get down to business can I establish whether you have been illegally trafficked?” – but the international style magazine and its companion website.
I spend a lot of time both in the classroom and the newsroom trying to get people to think differently and produce compelling content that is going to challenge the supposed norms of journalism.
Echoing what Daily Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre told the Society of Editors: “Dull doesn’t sell newspapers. Boring doesn’t pay the mortgage,” the first thing I get would-be journalists to write in the corner of every piece of copy is DBD – Don’t Be Dull – which sits there as a reminder.
Enter Vice, which seems to have cracked the dull code. It calls itself ‘the Coolest Magazine in the World’ and I don’t think I want to argue with that. It has:
* Serious stories that would embarrass any supposed investigative newspaper like ‘Inside the Violent Lives of Liverpool’s 11-Year-Olds’ and ‘Bloodthirsty Child Soldiers Tag Liberia’
* Difficult to get stories like ‘A Sperm Donor Who Has 46 Kids’ and its natural follow-up ‘A Guy Who Was a Test-Tube Baby’
* In-depth interviews with creative inspirations like Ian Hislop, Mike Leigh
*Stories you just have to look at like ‘A 74-Year-Old Japanese Porn Star’ and ‘People Who Just Had Sex With Each Other a Couple of Minutes Ago’

The headlines are straight-up what it says on the tin (albeit with that annoying US-style of Unnecessary Caps) and everything is written in a question and answer format, which I normally decry as lazy journalism, but here it just seems to sort of work.
And commercially it seems to work, too. There are swanky ads from household names like Ben Sherman, Levi’s, Dr Martens, Oakley, Red Bull, Sony and Nissan. Their media kit quotes £4,000 per page for ads just in the UK edition and a worldwide circulation of nearly a million.
The website not only captures the spirit of the print magazine but moves it on using the medium to best advantage. Check out DOs and DON’Ts, a section of reader-submitted pictures with a caption. The subsequent comments are not for the faint-hearted, but in an age where publishers are striving to engage better with their audience they must be doing something right.
And bang up to date, welcome to the November ‘No Photos’ issue. As they explain: “If you’ve gotten your hands on a print copy of the magazine, you know it’s a sumptuously printed tome containing the drawerly works of 35 of our favourite drawers with nary a photo to be found.” So how’s that for innovation? Vice rules!

Vice 'Table of Contents'

Birmingham Post in the Last Chance Saloon

So, there I am, nursing my half a pint of Banks’s mild in the Last Chance Saloon and who should walk in but my old mate, Birmingham Post.
“Hello, Postie,” I said, “finally got some new clothes, then?”
“Yes, do you like them?” he replied. “They’re a bit smaller and rather smarter, but I have managed to made do and mend with some my old stuff and make it look like new.”
“Not sure you’re new look’s going to be to everyone’s taste,” I ventured. “That sober businessman look is all very well, but a lot of people like a little sunshine in their life. And you look, well, er dull.”
“Yes, I know, but I guess it won’t be long before I don’t go out at all and people can just look at pictures of me on their computer.”
With that, he collected his drink. But Ms Bailey behind the bar wouldn’t let him put it on a tab. “Not sure you’ll be drinking here much longer,” she said. “And I want to make sure I get all the money out of you before you disappear.”

• See pictures of the Birmingham Post relaunch party.
• Read Alan’s guide to redesigns and relaunches in the latest issue of InPublishing.

The day the newspaper died

Shock, horror! Newspaper in trouble; editions close, staff go!
Hardly seems like news any more with the global recession and the march of the internet wreaking havoc in our industry daily. But when it happens to one of your own it all seems a bit too close to home.
I’m sad, angry and not a little perplexed at the latest turn of events at the East Valley Tribune in suburban Phoenix, Arizona – a title I edited 10 years ago. It was a feisty little upstart, biting at the bum of the giant metro Arizona Republic and prospered under both the benign management of Cox and the modernistic professionalism of Thomson.
It sold well in upscale Scottsdale, blue collar Mesa and in the new towns springing up in the desert like Gilbert and Chandler. It even had the university town of Tempe, home of Arizona State, bang in the middle of the patch.
Wind on 10 years and it’s suddenly downhill to giving up on Scottsdale and Tempe and going for a four day a week free distribution in what’s left. My successor in the editor’s chair is one of 46 casualties in the editorial department as the company sheds a total of 142 jobs in order to stay afloat.
The Trib’s own story spells out the details in a company announcement sort of way, but it’s left to the ‘alternative’ press to put some flesh on the bones. A blog from Ray Stern, a former Tribune staff reporter now at New Times (a sort of Private Eye meets Time Out), lists the staff going like a mournful memorial after an atrocity.
Some of the most interesting comments, though, come from readers (remember them, eh?) both on the Trib’s own site and at the Republic’s. They lament the passing of competition, recall ground-breaking investigations but also reflect on how slow newspapers seem to be at reacting to the threat – and therefore opportunities – of the internet.
Lessons here in the UK for our media businesses and the journalists who work for them. Be innovative, be bold and reinvent yourselves before you join my old pals Jim Ripley, Bob Satnan, Brad Armstrong, Paul Giblin et al on the sidelines looking in.