This Northern Rock stuff has me thinking that maybe newspapers could be improved if there was a run on truth.
You know, you invest your money in buying a paper, you invest your time in reading the stories and, let's face it, there is an awful lot of credit extended to journalists in the hope that you will get a return on your investment in terms of cold, hard facts.
When that investment fails to materialise and you realise that you have extended credit to what can only be described as a sub-prime borrower, shouldn't you have every right to queue outside the newspaper's offices and demand the return of the money and time you have invested with them?
Monday 17 September 2007
Wednesday 29 August 2007
Where was this when I were a lad?
When, oh when, are people going to turn all of this web 2.0 wondrousness towards the good old-fashioned dead-tree newspaper?
While trying to scale the Bloglines mountain of stuff I've bookmarked but not read, I came across a post by PF Bentley who points out that you wouldn't let your IT department choose your stills camera so why would you let them choose your video gear?
Quite right -- but let's take it a step further. Why should editorial types put up with the content management systems, or word processing systems or page makeup systems thrust upon them from above. I've used quite a few in my career (I find subs tend to have a bit more experience and aptitude for editorial systems than reporters, but feel free to weigh in) and most of them are rubbish. They simply are not designed to be used by or for people who need to quickly edit text, write headlines or crop pictures.
Why can't purchasing managers, or managers in general, make the not substantial leap to understand that the faster we can knock the stuff out, the more time there is to write the killer intro, the grab-you-by-the-collar head or crop the "jesus, would you look at that" image.
In short my question is this -- why is the internet awash with tips, advice and consultants' blogs on "THE ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE YOUR NEWSPAPER KICK ASS ON THE WEB" when most of the people responsible for running the paper don't know their ass from their elbow when it comes to QPS over Hermes or Tera over DTI. And that's just purchasing the damned things, let alone setting up a workflow that works for your particular newsroom.
I could take this scrying over the future of a 10- to 15-year-old medium a lot more seriously if the guys who claim to have all the answers would take their load of crystal balls and apply it to improving the form and function of a 500-year-old medium.
Don't get me wrong -- Mr Bentley is right. We need to choose the tools of our trade. We're the ones who will be using them, after all.
Just don't forget who (for now, at least) pays the bills -- we are as sick of shoddy equipment bought by unqualified personnel as the shiny, new videojocks are. So how about a list of what the not-too-bright newspaper exec should be doing, and what equipment he/she needs, to make the newspaper kick ass?
While trying to scale the Bloglines mountain of stuff I've bookmarked but not read, I came across a post by PF Bentley who points out that you wouldn't let your IT department choose your stills camera so why would you let them choose your video gear?
Quite right -- but let's take it a step further. Why should editorial types put up with the content management systems, or word processing systems or page makeup systems thrust upon them from above. I've used quite a few in my career (I find subs tend to have a bit more experience and aptitude for editorial systems than reporters, but feel free to weigh in) and most of them are rubbish. They simply are not designed to be used by or for people who need to quickly edit text, write headlines or crop pictures.
Why can't purchasing managers, or managers in general, make the not substantial leap to understand that the faster we can knock the stuff out, the more time there is to write the killer intro, the grab-you-by-the-collar head or crop the "jesus, would you look at that" image.
In short my question is this -- why is the internet awash with tips, advice and consultants' blogs on "THE ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE YOUR NEWSPAPER KICK ASS ON THE WEB" when most of the people responsible for running the paper don't know their ass from their elbow when it comes to QPS over Hermes or Tera over DTI. And that's just purchasing the damned things, let alone setting up a workflow that works for your particular newsroom.
I could take this scrying over the future of a 10- to 15-year-old medium a lot more seriously if the guys who claim to have all the answers would take their load of crystal balls and apply it to improving the form and function of a 500-year-old medium.
Don't get me wrong -- Mr Bentley is right. We need to choose the tools of our trade. We're the ones who will be using them, after all.
Just don't forget who (for now, at least) pays the bills -- we are as sick of shoddy equipment bought by unqualified personnel as the shiny, new videojocks are. So how about a list of what the not-too-bright newspaper exec should be doing, and what equipment he/she needs, to make the newspaper kick ass?
Wednesday 25 July 2007
The fate of empires
Aristotle wrote or said or sang: "All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth".
I have had the benefit over the past two nights to view three BBC TV shows that I had previously missed:
The music of the primes -- Marcus du Sautoy's fascinating look at the Riemann Hypothesis. Like most journalists, maths isn't my strong suit, but it's to do with prime numbers.
The show, however, tied in Alan Turing, the Enigma machine, music, history, notions of beauty in maths, computer cryptography and quantum physics. I was gripped.
Absolute zero -- a semi-dramatised and mind-expanding look at a state where superconduction is possible, fluids can flow uphill (in a container, anyway) and the speed of light can be reduced to less than the speed of your family car.
More importantly it tied the personalities (There was a real Captain Bird's Eye! -- who knew?) behind the quest to reach zero degrees Kelvin into the societal changes wrought by refrigeration, the move from rural living to urban living, air conditioning and the destruction of southern US communities, right up to manmade climate change.
And finally, Coast -- biology, sociology, exploration, mythology, all lightly told by passionate presenters. For anyone living on an island nation or who just needs recipes for seaweed, it should be required viewing.
The next right-wing, free-marketeer journo that decries the state of British science education, blames the government for it, does nothing to redress the balance and then screams shrilly that "THE LICENCE FEE IS AN UNFAIR TAX" could do worse than switch off the fear-inducing headline-writing machine, make a cup of tea, sit back and actually learn something.
Enjoy.
I have had the benefit over the past two nights to view three BBC TV shows that I had previously missed:
The music of the primes -- Marcus du Sautoy's fascinating look at the Riemann Hypothesis. Like most journalists, maths isn't my strong suit, but it's to do with prime numbers.
The show, however, tied in Alan Turing, the Enigma machine, music, history, notions of beauty in maths, computer cryptography and quantum physics. I was gripped.
Absolute zero -- a semi-dramatised and mind-expanding look at a state where superconduction is possible, fluids can flow uphill (in a container, anyway) and the speed of light can be reduced to less than the speed of your family car.
More importantly it tied the personalities (There was a real Captain Bird's Eye! -- who knew?) behind the quest to reach zero degrees Kelvin into the societal changes wrought by refrigeration, the move from rural living to urban living, air conditioning and the destruction of southern US communities, right up to manmade climate change.
And finally, Coast -- biology, sociology, exploration, mythology, all lightly told by passionate presenters. For anyone living on an island nation or who just needs recipes for seaweed, it should be required viewing.
The next right-wing, free-marketeer journo that decries the state of British science education, blames the government for it, does nothing to redress the balance and then screams shrilly that "THE LICENCE FEE IS AN UNFAIR TAX" could do worse than switch off the fear-inducing headline-writing machine, make a cup of tea, sit back and actually learn something.
Enjoy.
Friday 15 June 2007
Wherever I lay my tinfoil hat ...
Neil McIntosh has a great post concerning the recent hokum from Panorama on "the evils of wi-fi" (that phrase works better if you wave your hands above your head and wiggle your fingers, bogeyman-style) and how these scares are not a modern invention.
What is wrong with Panorama? Little wonder Ross Kemp on Gangs stole the BAFTA. MRSA and C.difficile are killing people and these guys focus on unproven dangers from radio waves? Counterfeit medicine, e.coli, even dodgy nursing homes, all kill more people than wi-fi (more in this case meaning more than any). So you've done it before? DO IT AGAIN. At least you'll be able to sleep at night.
The one UK broadcaster that doesn't depend on advertising fees and they need to scare lowest-common-denominator audiences with rubbish like this?
What is worse is that newspapers then pick up the scare story. The Daily Telegraph ran the story on its front page, if memory serves, under the headline: '"Wi-Fi risks in schools 'must be reviewed' ".
This article contained such gems as:
"Researchers working for the BBC's Panorama programme found the maximum signal strength one metre from a wi-fi-enabled laptop in a classroom in Norwich was three times that measured 100 metres away from a mobile phone mast nearby."
So the signal one metre from a laptop was higher than from a mobile phone mast 100 metres away? You don't say. How strong was the signal one metre from the mobile phone mast? Or 100 metres from the laptop? And was either signal proved dangerous by independent, peer-reviewed studies?
But this was Nobel-Prize stuff compared to the Daily Mail's The clasroom 'cancer risk' of wi-fi internet, where the figures were stripped out altogether:
'The demand [for a safety review] came after it was revealed that classroom "wi-fi" networks give off three times as much radiation as a typical mobile phone mast.'
Did the Telegraph or Mail print a correction, despite the BBC Trust putting Panorama's wi-fi story under the microsope? Not that I saw. And to add insult to injury, the wi-fi danger has now entered columnists' arsenals as a pseudo-fact. Rowan Pelling in The Telegraph writes:
'My siblings and I survived thrilling re-enactments of William Tell and airgun pellets in our buttocks, but would we have survived the microwaving of our brain cells from wi-fi and mobiles?'
Now I know Ms Pelling used to edit The Erotic Review, but surely having William Tell in your buttocks calls for some sort of child services intervention. That aside, maybe she should check the number of children killed or maimed by airgun pellets and crossbow bolts against those killed by mobile phones or wireless broadband, then ask which she would rather have pointed at her child's head.
And Julia Stephenson has a go in The Independent with:
'Two years ago I got Wi-Fi. It was convenient, as I could work anywhere in my flat. But within a few weeks [I] began to suffer from a lack of energy and insomnia, and had difficulty concentrating. Other factors could have caused this, but I suspected that the Wi-Fi had something to do with it, so I returned to fixed broadband. My symptoms disappeared.
Ta-daa! I too find wi-fi causes insomnia and lack of energy, but find it has more to do with looking for last week's Dr Who on alluc or, as of tonight, writing this blog.
For anyone who would like a thorough debunking of the Panorama story (or virtually any science story that appears in a newspaper that uses responsibility-dodging quotes in the headline), read Ben Godacre's excellent Bad Science column in The Guardian.
For anyone without the time to check these shoddy 'facts', try to remember that every time you flick a light switch, sit on the Tube, or just sit in your living room within 50 miles of a radio station, you are bombarded with electromagnetic radiation. And cosmic rays. If you're outside, you can add ultraviolet and infrared radiation to the spectrum.
Cue headlines reading: Sunlight can 'cause cancer'. Oh, wait ...
What is wrong with Panorama? Little wonder Ross Kemp on Gangs stole the BAFTA. MRSA and C.difficile are killing people and these guys focus on unproven dangers from radio waves? Counterfeit medicine, e.coli, even dodgy nursing homes, all kill more people than wi-fi (more in this case meaning more than any). So you've done it before? DO IT AGAIN. At least you'll be able to sleep at night.
The one UK broadcaster that doesn't depend on advertising fees and they need to scare lowest-common-denominator audiences with rubbish like this?
What is worse is that newspapers then pick up the scare story. The Daily Telegraph ran the story on its front page, if memory serves, under the headline: '"Wi-Fi risks in schools 'must be reviewed' ".
This article contained such gems as:
"Researchers working for the BBC's Panorama programme found the maximum signal strength one metre from a wi-fi-enabled laptop in a classroom in Norwich was three times that measured 100 metres away from a mobile phone mast nearby."
So the signal one metre from a laptop was higher than from a mobile phone mast 100 metres away? You don't say. How strong was the signal one metre from the mobile phone mast? Or 100 metres from the laptop? And was either signal proved dangerous by independent, peer-reviewed studies?
But this was Nobel-Prize stuff compared to the Daily Mail's The clasroom 'cancer risk' of wi-fi internet, where the figures were stripped out altogether:
'The demand [for a safety review] came after it was revealed that classroom "wi-fi" networks give off three times as much radiation as a typical mobile phone mast.'
Did the Telegraph or Mail print a correction, despite the BBC Trust putting Panorama's wi-fi story under the microsope? Not that I saw. And to add insult to injury, the wi-fi danger has now entered columnists' arsenals as a pseudo-fact. Rowan Pelling in The Telegraph writes:
'My siblings and I survived thrilling re-enactments of William Tell and airgun pellets in our buttocks, but would we have survived the microwaving of our brain cells from wi-fi and mobiles?'
Now I know Ms Pelling used to edit The Erotic Review, but surely having William Tell in your buttocks calls for some sort of child services intervention. That aside, maybe she should check the number of children killed or maimed by airgun pellets and crossbow bolts against those killed by mobile phones or wireless broadband, then ask which she would rather have pointed at her child's head.
And Julia Stephenson has a go in The Independent with:
'Two years ago I got Wi-Fi. It was convenient, as I could work anywhere in my flat. But within a few weeks [I] began to suffer from a lack of energy and insomnia, and had difficulty concentrating. Other factors could have caused this, but I suspected that the Wi-Fi had something to do with it, so I returned to fixed broadband. My symptoms disappeared.
Ta-daa! I too find wi-fi causes insomnia and lack of energy, but find it has more to do with looking for last week's Dr Who on alluc or, as of tonight, writing this blog.
For anyone who would like a thorough debunking of the Panorama story (or virtually any science story that appears in a newspaper that uses responsibility-dodging quotes in the headline), read Ben Godacre's excellent Bad Science column in The Guardian.
For anyone without the time to check these shoddy 'facts', try to remember that every time you flick a light switch, sit on the Tube, or just sit in your living room within 50 miles of a radio station, you are bombarded with electromagnetic radiation. And cosmic rays. If you're outside, you can add ultraviolet and infrared radiation to the spectrum.
Cue headlines reading: Sunlight can 'cause cancer'. Oh, wait ...
Kate Adie bravely walks into another warzone
So Kate Adie doesn't like blogs, eh? I guess that's her out of a job. How dare she? When every other journalist and his dog (and the publishing industry consultant hired by the dog) says we should be engaging in a conversation* with the audience. Where every user* is a potential expert and where the citizen journalist** reigns supreme, how dare a lowly war correspondent suggest that this headlong drive into online ego-masturbation is not a vital move to engage our dwindling readership/viewership/listenership.
As Ms Adie told Michael Mullane on multimediameetsradio:
"You are blogging to a peer group - that's all right - I can understand there is a demand for that. But journalists shouldn't have any time to blog - there are too many stories waiting to be told!”
To those who are already circling the bandwagons, just answer this question:
When was the last time you heard a reader, a reporter, a copy editor or an advertiser say 'Yeah this war coverage stuff is fine, but, you know, what we really need is a blog'?
To Ms Adie, I say bravo. But she should probably be prepared for comments along the lines of 'Yeah, Iranian Embassy, Tiananmen Square, yeah, Beirut, the Gulf ... whatever. You just don't get it Kate, you just don't get it'.
For future reference a * indicates vomit, and a ** indicates vomit interspersed with swearing
As Ms Adie told Michael Mullane on multimediameetsradio:
"You are blogging to a peer group - that's all right - I can understand there is a demand for that. But journalists shouldn't have any time to blog - there are too many stories waiting to be told!”
To those who are already circling the bandwagons, just answer this question:
When was the last time you heard a reader, a reporter, a copy editor or an advertiser say 'Yeah this war coverage stuff is fine, but, you know, what we really need is a blog'?
To Ms Adie, I say bravo. But she should probably be prepared for comments along the lines of 'Yeah, Iranian Embassy, Tiananmen Square, yeah, Beirut, the Gulf ... whatever. You just don't get it Kate, you just don't get it'.
For future reference a * indicates vomit, and a ** indicates vomit interspersed with swearing
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