Posted by Grey Cardigan on 10 December 2011 at 12:21
Tags: Journalism
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 contact with them was minimal.
Once [...]
Continue ReadingPosted by Grey Cardigan on 20 November 2011 at 09:32
Tags: Journalism
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 together paragraphs on copy paper [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 20 June 2011 at 20:50
Tags: Journalism, Regional Newspapers
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 should be paid. (Can anyone [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 28 May 2011 at 10:20
Tags: Journalism
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 noticed the collapsing classified ad [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 14 April 2011 at 12:11
Tags: Journalism
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 when my mobile went. It [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 19 March 2011 at 16:07
Tags: Journalism
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 things. So I thought I’d [...]
Continue ReadingPosted by Grey Cardigan on 19 February 2011 at 15:30
Tags: Journalism
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, one of them managed to [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 15 February 2011 at 11:11
Tags: Journalism
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 latest missive takes some beating.
It [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 4 January 2011 at 15:08
Tags: Journalism
And once again, editorial manages to scupper a marketing initiative!
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 31 December 2010 at 11:40
Tags: Journalism
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 30 December 2010 at 15:44
Tags: Journalism
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 industrial estate 50 miles away [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 29 December 2010 at 18:15
Tags: Journalism
From the Mail on Sunday’s Live magazine.
I haven’t exactly been banned from talking to them, but I’ve certainly been discouraged from approaching them in the office. Who?
Photographers, of course. Whenever one comes into the office, the art department always go to great pains to ensure I’m occupied elsewhere, so I don’t say anything to embarrass [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 28 November 2010 at 12:13
Tags: Journalism
DESPITE MY own demons of frustration, drink and a red-mist temper, I have always tried to deal fairly with my underlings. Unless they were utterly inept or terminally lazy, they’ve always had a fair crack of the whip because we all know that this thing of ours is a demanding and exhausting trade.
I hate having [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 28 November 2010 at 12:11
Tags: Journalism
Great piece by Alan Prosser from InPublishing magazine on the problem with those hated hubs and those brilliant reporters who can’t actually write (and we’ve all known them). Via Jon Slattery.
“Part of my youth was spent as a sub-editor, toiling away like Graham Greene, on a regional evening paper. Because of my eagerness, I was [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 16 October 2010 at 10:12
Tags: Journalism
This is yesterday’s Daily Star front page.
This appears to be the source of the story: “The President of Chile Uno Gomez has announced the mining disaster site will be preserved as a theme park for tourists to discover ‘the spirit of Chile’
“Once the miners have been rescued, Sidney World Entertainment Co. (Chile) will move in [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 29 September 2010 at 17:32
Tags: Journalism
Brilliant interview with outgoing Loaded editor Martin Daubney in this months’s Press Gazette.
“I shot radioactive wolves from a helicopter, rode a powerful motorcycle past Bucko House dressed as a duck, was chased by Cuban cops on an illegal motorbike while dressed as Che Guevara, flew burgers to David Blaine in a little helicopter, and paid [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 20 September 2010 at 17:24
Tags: Journalism
TO NUMBER 10 Downing Street, for a reception for regional newspaper editors in our group.
Now while I understand the need for security, is it absolutely necessary for the hard-faced copper on the gate to frisk leading members of the Fourth Estate with quite such vigour? If the editor of the Evening Beast really wanted to [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 9 September 2010 at 09:05
Tags: Journalism
The Daily Mail’s take on the Wayne Rooney affair:
Miss Wood, 23, a university lecturer’s daughter, and Miss Thompson, 21, the privately-educated child of a wealthy oil company executive, have turned out to be flag-bearers for the celebrity-mad, lascivious culture that has consumed the nation.
And at the bottom of the piece?
Have you got a story on a celebrity? [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 1 September 2010 at 12:19
Tags: Journalism
Yes, I know that isn’t unusual, but advertising for an entire subbing team raises the question of what happened to the current incumbents? Beamed up to a double-decker bus on the Moon perhaps?
CHIEF SUB-EDITOR (NEWS) (£41,101pa)
DEPUTY CHIEF SUB-EDITOR (NEWS) (£37,688pa)
ASSISTANT CHIEF SUB-EDITOR (NEWS) (£35,928pa)
NEWS SUB-EDITOR (DESIGN) (£35,928pa)
SUB-EDITORS (NEWS) (£26,000pa - £33,053pa (performance-related banding)
SUB-EDITORS (SPORT) (£26,000pa - £33,053pa (performance- related banding)
Can anyone enlighten [...]
Posted by Grey Cardigan on 20 August 2010 at 11:01
Tags: Journalism
This one has been knocking around for a day or so, but it’s so intriguing it’s just got to be shared. From the Herts & Essex Observer, I think.
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