Axegrinder is inclined to agree. Apparently the BBC has sent a memo around insisting that all on-air journalists wear their poppies…a few days ago I saw a Sky news journalist reporting from the rebel-held Burmese jungle wearing a poppy…and now this:
Posted by
Axegrinder on 2 November 2010 at 11:30 Tags: The Independent
Experienced newspaper readers will know that when the headline ends in a question mark, the answer is always no.
So Axegrinder held on to his hat when he saw today’s ‘i’ front page headline stating: Has a cure been found for the common cold?
But then as ‘i’ claims to be targeting a new generation of time-poor commuters who don’t currently buy newspapers perhaps they fell for it. Those who forked out £1 for The Times would have been given the rather less sensational page 11 headline: “Scientists one step closer to a cure for the common cold”.
The discovery by Cambridge researchers showing that antibodies can fight viruses once they have entered cells “may open up new avenues for developing antiviral drugs”, the boffins tell The Times, opening up the possibility of a cure for the cold some time in the future.
For 20p i is amazing value, and a great round-up for the all the news for someone in a hurry - and its dedicated staff of ten production journalists must work incredibly hard to get it out each day. But I think they could have done better with the two other front page headlines as well.
The ‘revelation’ that Nick Clegg smokes the odd fag, in his appearance on Desert Island Discs, prompted a flurry of stories in the Sundays and further reports through this week.
The Iliffe News and Media-owned Cambridge News had a curious choice of photo to illustrate a story about a woman who was subjected to verbal abuse on a train by thuggish Cardiff City football club fans.
The woman apparently became so fed up when the driver refused to intervene that she stood in front of the train forcing it to terminate at a village station, leaving the fans with a walk home.
The choice of picture used to illustrate the story is unmistakably the railway line leading up to the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland where, according to some estimates, more than one million Jews were massacred by the Nazis.
Axegrinder understands that the story page in question was created from a Press Association feed to all the Illiffe newspaper websites of national stories - so it was PA’s fault, rather the Cambridge News.
The agency said in a statement: “We apologise for any offence cause by this unfortunate human error. The photograph was removed from the story as soon as we realised the mistake and we have taken steps to ensure this does not happen again in the future.”
Nuts are off the menu at regional media group Archant following a “potentially severe incident” involving a member of staff.
One response might have been to suggest that the individual involved brings in their own lunch in future. Archant has instead decided to embark on a group-wide nuts fatwa.
Not content to ban nuts from catering outlets, staff have also been banned from bringing “nuts and nut products” on to compamy premises.
Surely such drastic action is only going to send nut-consumption ‘underground’, possibly leading to unregulated roasting, high salt content, black-market prices and so on…
Here is the full amazing email from Group Health and Safety Manager Lester Marshall:
Nut allergy is on the increase and the latest estimates are that 1 in 200 people may have this life-threatening condition. Following a potentially severe incident with one of our staff this week we have taken expert advice and then discussed the matter at Group level. After careful consideration we have taken the decision to instruct Olive catering to remove products that contain nuts or nut products, which will happen over the next few weeks.
Whilst we are doing all that we can to remove nuts from the premises we cannot guarantee that all products will be nut-free, and if you have an allergy you are advised to continue to read food labels. Such action is now commonplace in schools and colleges with many employers following their lead after assessing the risks.
As this can be a life-threatening condition, we ask staff to refrain from bringing nuts and nut products into the building.
We are sorry that this may be a slight inconvenience to those who enjoy these products but this is far outweighed by the risk of not responding appropriately.
A nut allergy factsheet can be found on the Intranet together with some questions and answers.
A clear frontrunner has emerged in Axegrinder’s headline of the year competition.
It’s The Sun’s awesome headline from February this year about the news that Rap star P. Diddy had blown £220,000 on a luxury car for his teenage son - who did not even have his driving licence.
NEW CAR DIDDY KIDDY DUMB DADDY DOUGH
It has garnered more than 60 of the 100 votes cast so far.
Unfortunately, the utterly crap piece of software Axegrinder used to collate the votes so far - Polldaddy - only lets me collect 100 votes, and we have already exceeded that limit.
So I’m re-opening the voting again with a new poll widget, this time provided by Blogpoll.com
Don’t worry if you have voted already, you’re vote will be added to the new tally.
Here are the headline of the month stories and headlines from the last year, scroll to the bottom to cast your vote.
Remember to cast your vote wisely, bearing in mind that the author of the winning headline will receive a weekend at the luxury lodge on the Isle of Jura where George Orwell wrote 1984 - courtesy of our sponsors Jura single malt whisky.
September
Thelondonpaper
Actress Rachael Weisz wins rave reviews for her performance in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Donmar Warehouse.
WEISZ AFTER THE EVENT
October
Metro
A farmer has been given £500,000 to clean up the country air turning pig muck into electricity.
AND THIS LITTLE PIGGY WENT TO SPARK IT
November
The Sun
BNP activists round on BNP leader Nick Griffin after he puts in a lacklustre apperance on Question Time
DOWNFALL
December
Wembley and Kingsbury Times.
A shop owner in Kingsbury has been fined for selling fake Durex condoms.
JOHNNY ROTTEN.
January
The New Scientist
A new anklet device used in America can alert the authorities if alcohol-related offenders have breached bail conditions banning them from drinking.
THE ELECTRONIC FINK THAT WILL SQUEAL IF YOU DRINK
February
The Sun
Rap star P. Diddy has blown £220,000 on a luxury car for his teenage son - who does not even have his driving licence.
NEW CAR DIDDY KIDDY DUMB DADDY DOUGH
March
First Great Western Trains passenger magazine
Veteran tennis players to battle it out at a Masters Tennis competition
OLD BOYS’ NET WORK
April
Daily Mirror
Council chiefs and police have cut down 6,000 trees at beauty spot in order to stop couples having sex in the woods.
COPSE AND DOGGERS
May
The Coventry Telegraph
A thief conned a pensioner out of his savings before taking him out for a pub lunch.
SCUM DINE WITH ME
June
Channel 4 News
The UK political situation is finely balanced on 7 May after the general election delivers a hung parliament.
HUNG DRAWN AND COURTED
July
Daily Star
TV favourite Declan Donnelly, of Ant and Dec fame, apparently has a hair-raising talent for growing back his thinning head of hair.
IT’S ALL STRANDS ON DECK
August
Daily Star
Jeremy Clarkson was warned he could be physically attacked after he claimed on Top Gear that Muslim women wear kinky underwear under their burkas.
It’s been a year since Press Gazette revived its Headline of the Month competition, thanks to some generous sponsorship from the nice people at Jura single malt whisky.
Now its time to pick our Headline of the Year winner.
Why? You may well ask. Because the skilful sub who wrote our winning headline will be sent away for courtesy of Jura for a weekend’s break on the Isle of Jura where George Orwell wrote 1984.
The luxury lodge costs a small fortune to rent normally so this is a prize that is really worth winning.
There’s also a fantastic prize for the person who nominated the winning headline.
Cast you votes now.
Here are the winners again, you can vote using the poll at the bottom of this post:
September
Thelondonpaper
Actress Rachael Weisz wins rave reviews for her performance in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Donmar Warehouse.
WEISZ AFTER THE EVENT
October
Metro
A farmer has been given £500,000 to clean up the country air turning pig muck into electricity.
AND THIS LITTLE PIGGY WENT TO SPARK IT
November
The Sun
BNP activists round on BNP leader Nick Griffin after he puts in a lacklustre apperance on Question Time
DOWNFALL
December
Wembley and Kingsbury Times.
A shop owner in Kingsbury has been fined for selling fake Durex condoms.
JOHNNY ROTTEN.
January
The New Scientist
A new anklet device used in America can alert the authorities if alcohol-related offenders have breached bail conditions banning them from drinking.
THE ELECTRONIC FINK THAT WILL SQUEAL IF YOU DRINK
February
The Sun
Rap star P. Diddy has blown £220,000 on a luxury car for his teenage son - who does not even have his driving licence.
NEW CAR DIDDY KIDDY DUMB DADDY DOUGH
March
First Great Western Trains passenger magazine
Veteran tennis players to battle it out at a Masters Tennis competition
OLD BOYS’ NET WORK
April
Daily Mirror
Council chiefs and police have cut down 6,000 trees at beauty spot in order to stop couples having sex in the woods.
COPSE AND DOGGERS
May
The Coventry Telegraph
A thief conned a pensioner out of his savings before taking him out for a pub lunch.
SCUM DINE WITH ME
June
Channel 4 News
The UK political situation is finely balanced on 7 May after the general election delivers a hung parliament.
HUNG DRAWN AND COURTED
July
Daily Star
TV favourite Declan Donnelly, of Ant and Dec fame, apparently has a hair-raising talent for growing back his thinning head of hair.
IT’S ALL STRANDS ON DECK
August
Daily Star
Jeremy Clarkson was warned he could be physically attacked after he claimed on Top Gear that Muslim women wear kinky underwear under their burkas.
Here are the headline of the month finalists, as appearing in the July edition of Press Gazette:
Story: England scrape through to a 1-1 draw with the USA after a goal-keeping error from Rob Green gifts a goal to the Americans.
Headline (honours shared between the News of the World and the Sunday Mirror): HAND OF CLOD
Story: A missing letter from the French philosopher Rene Descartes is discovered after a scholar finds a reference to it on the internet.
Headline (The Guardian): Descartes letter exists, therefore it is found by web surfer
Story: US general Stanley McChrystal is sacked by president Barack Obama after criticising him in a magazine article.
Headline (The Sun): MAC THE KNIFED
But as always there can only be one winner and, not for the first time, a bottle of Jura single malt whisky will be finding its way down to Bristol to sharp-eyed headline spotter Francis Harvey.
Story (Daily Star): TV favourite Declan Donnelly, of Ant and Dec fame, apparently has a hair-raising talent for growing back his thinning head of hair.
Headline: IT’S ALL STRANDS ON DECK
Well done to Daily Star night editor Nick Bailey who came up with it and who also receives a bottle of Jura single malt.
The deadline for headline of the month entries for the September edition of Press Gazette is 23 August. Please email them to dominicp@pressgazette.co.uk
More tales reach me of work experience exploitation. This time it is the magazine of supermarket giant Tesco which is seeking an editorial intern who can work for nothing for up to six months.
Their posting on a journalism forum states: “The role will include providing administrative and organisational support for the editorial desk, along with the chance to learn and develop basic journalism skills including researching, fact checking and writing news and feature content.”
It also notes that Tesco Magazine is the most read women’s magazine in the UK with 6.5 million readers.
The post states: “The role is not salaried, but we will pay basic expenses.”
Two weeks is work experience. Six months is work. Shape up Tesco! Or more precisely, contract publishing outfit Cedar which publishes the mag.
And take note of this from guidelines drawn up by the PPA in 2004 for interns and work experience: “Where a student does work experience for more than two weeks, Working Time regulations would be breached if they are not paid the statutory rate for the job.”
Posted by
Axegrinder on 7 July 2010 at 15:00 Tags: Uncategorized
Axegrinder firmly believes that a story is not old until it’s told, so is happy to pass on the curious tale of a gun crime incident which mistakenly featured in a press release sent out by Joanna Burns PR to promote a film about, er, street violence.
The original press release was sent out on 18 March following the premiere of a film about gang warfare set in the near future called Shank. It appeared under the subject line: “FILM PREMIERE DRAMA - STAR’S EARLY EXIT (GUN AT VENUE IN BRIXTON)”.
It stated:
…upon arrival Grime music star Bashy was seriously threatened by a gun by another party reveller, prompting the actor/musician to leave the party.
Curiously, the next day the following release was sent out by the same agency:
Following the press release (18th March 2010) “Skins Star Kaya Scodelario bravely parties on….” we have investigated this story further. It transpires that this has been a case of Chinese whispers leading from misinformation.
The evening itself was very successful and apart from a minor altercation outside the after party venue, the evening was trouble free, receiving praise from both the Metropolitan Police and the venues used.
We understand that it is our responsibility to control media and public perceptions of the talent, the film and all related events. We have worked very hard to ensure both the film and it’s moral message are not lost or misrepresented. It is on that note that we would like to retract any statement or release surrounding the Shank premiere that may imply any negative connotation and apologise to all involved for any inconvenience.
