2:55pm Monday 27th April 2009
By Martin Buhagiar
ANYONE can be a journalist. Or so a lot of people think. Tap in a few press releases, have a few drinks in a pub, charge it all to expenses. Sadly that is how a lot of people believe it is done.
They will not know that a degree is no longer enough and that a local hack will spend two years passing their NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists) preliminary exams whilst working towards their final exam, the NCE.
But why let the facts get in the way of a good argument?
All journalists are aware of this and when attending functions prepare themselves for the usual diatribe that comes their way.
It is all too easy to criticise the content of a local newspaper because such publications are designed to interest as wide a range of people as possible. And as much as I would like to, you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
However, we hacks stand our ground, agree on our values and stick together.
Well at least I thought we did.
On Friday I attended the St Albans Chamber of Commerce’s St George’s Day lunch at Sopwell House where former broadcast journalist Martin Bell was the guest speaker.
After whittering on about all things English, Mr Bell – obviously running low of ideas for his predictable after dinner speech – decided to take a swipe at local journalists.
He claimed most simply “copied and pasted” their articles.
It would be as easy to claim that war correspondents “copy and paste” the information given to them by those in the army live on camera. If taking information and publicising it is copy and pasting then we are all guilty.
What we do is take the information provided and move it on. Dig a little deeper, attempt to get to the bottom of the issue and in some cases, resolve the problem for those involved. Local newspapers aim to be at the heart of the community, as the Review is.
It is worth remembering that without local newspapers there would be no Save Our Shops campaign, no Retailer of the Year Awards and no Community Gold Awards, to name but a few. Can you copy and paste articles on such events? Of course not. They are our events so we write them from scratch – as we do all of our articles.
Obviously I took exception to Bell’s rant and explained that it was my belief that the local and regional press were the only providers of “real news” as opposed to national newspapers filled with celebrity gossip and television news stations following suit.
I also defended our reporters, who remain out on patch searching for the kind of articles that have been snapped up and stolen by our colleagues who work at national level.
Proving that he had also worked in politics, Mr Bell did not answer my question and skated over the issues raised with a vague response.
He moved on when some members of the chamber spoke up and agreed that our newspaper was worth more than the generalised view of an out-of-date hack who, I suspect, has issues with multi-media newsrooms and the technology that reporters now use.
Why Mr Bell saw reason to slate the profession that buttered his bread for so long and gave him the platform to launch a career in politics and after dinner speaking is beyond me.
Newspapers and media groups in general have evolved vastly in a few years because of websites and have almost had to reinvent themselves.
I worked in newsrooms before the web boom and also as a broadcast journalist and I maintain that, even with all the technology at our disposal today, journalists are busier now than they have ever been.
No doubt there are some newspapers and some editors who are happy to let their reporters copy and paste press releases but we are not one of those. In fact I have spoken up before on this very issue and received a supportive email from the Campaign for Plain English – a group very close to my heart.
Mr Bell also criticised MPs – it seems none of his former professions are safe – and I did want to ask him if he claimed a second home allowance when he was one, but sadly he did not return to our table for more questions.
Mr Bell, and those who think like him, should remember that every news story is local to someone. Most national stories are usually first reported on by a local newspaper days before they explode into a feeding frenzy in national newspapers and on television stations.
But showing that old habits die hard, Mr Bell is obviously one of those from the old “why let the facts get in the way of a good story” brigade.
It is a shame when a person in such a position seeks to comment on a sector of a business they clearly have no understanding of for a few cheap laughs, offending the very people who probably look up to him.
But that’s after dinner speaking for you – anyone can do it.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.stalbansreview.co.uk