http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/greycardigan Dispatches from down table at the Evening Beast Sat, 10 Dec 2011 13:45:38 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en WHEN I were but a lad, the accounts department was a dusty Dickensian relic full of smelly old Miss Havishams and little rotund Pickwickian men in powdered wigs who wrote with quill pens in dusty ledgers all day long. They were locked away in a remote upstairs office and our ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/greycardigan/2011/12/here-come-the-new-kids-on-the-block/ Another day, another board meeting, another round of budget cuts. The week hadn't started well. I'd spent Monday at the funeral of an old colleague whose liver had disgracefully betrayed him. He was an old school regional daily sub, from the days of marking up triple carbons in pencil and pasting ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/greycardigan/2011/11/grey-cardigan-meeting-the-invisible-man/ This week, Press Gazette was nominated as the best work experience gig in the country by the Wannabe Hacks blog. How ironic then, that this should be an extract from my June column.   THERE’S been much debate over the use, or exploitation, of work experience kids and whether or not they ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/greycardigan/2011/06/grey-cardigan-who-put-the-workie-in-the-cupboard/ WHISPER IT softly, but I have finally embraced social media networking. Not BookFace or whatever it’s called, but I am now officially on Twitter. Yes, I Tweet.   I wouldn’t say that it’s been a simple process. In common with most newspaper groups, the suits at the Evening Beast’s head office suddenly ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/greycardigan/2011/05/grey-cardigan-farewell-to-the-crap-spouting-clowns/ REMEMBER how I told you that my newsman’s nose had detected the stench of a big sacking lingering over the Evening Beast? Well it turns out that the target wasn’t me, but the Eminence Grease, our loathed managing director.   I didn’t even know it had happened. I was in the newsroom ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/greycardigan/2011/04/grey-cardigan-the-newsmans-nose-strikes-again/ I MENTIONED last month the strange atmosphere around the Evening Beast office that had got my old hack’s nose twitching. I also mentioned that a recently-departed national newspaper editor had written a splendid piece on how it’s not the big things that get you sacked but the myriad of little ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/greycardigan/2011/03/gray-cardigan-its-the-little-things-that-get-you-sacked/ SINCE I’VE managed to acquire a new phone with Caller ID (nicked from the accounts department as it happens), I’m now in the happy position of being able to ignore any phone calls from an 0207 number, thereby weeding out the relentless torrent of shite peddled by the PR industry. Anyway, ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/greycardigan/2011/02/gray-cardigan-its-pr-but-could-you-pay/ NOW please don’t think that I hate all PR people. They perform a valuable job in terms of disseminating information, but fuck me, they do not do themselves any favours sometimes. We’ve touched before on the antics of Mr Shaun Robinson, mouthpiece of United Utilities in the North West, but his ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/greycardigan/2011/02/grey-cardigan-pr-wonk-sprays-legal-threats-around-over-hosepipe-ban-story/ http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/greycardigan/2010/12/grey-cardigan-more-tasteful-juxtaposition-on-the-mail-website/ THE Editor of this esteemed organ emails through the December deadline and suggests “something Christmassy”.   Christmassy? Well how about some jokes about receiving your cards or getting the sack? Because that’s all that’s happening around here at the moment. Not only is our one miserable overnight edition being printed on an ... http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/greycardigan/2010/12/grey-cardigan-the-december-column/