Journalism 101: The Journalist’s DNA

What journalistic values did Rory Cellan-Jones have to bear in mind when he wrote a blog analysing Google’s move to implement restricted access to news stories earlier this week?

TV and radio journalists recommend planning a news package or documentary. Where budgets are involved and teams of people required, so schedules, shape, story arcs and goals are vital to delivering the end product in time for broadcast. How can you tell a story if you don’t know where you’re going?

That’s what they say. But surely planning out the question and answer so rigorously beforehand removes some of the joy from the process? Doesn’t that make the process of interviewing something of a cold and lifeless affair?

I’d tested out my ”killer” question on a handful of other journalists before I met up with Rory, this in part because I wanted things to be watertight before I entered the Business and Economics Unit in Television Centre.   

But having tested it out, I realised I knew the answer already about the difficulties facing a BBC journalist when writing a blog entry about an online competitor.

Merely asking the question around other journalists made the answer obvious: A BBC journalist has to maintain impartiality. That’s the obvious difficulty when writing about online competitors. And it’s obvious not only because it’s one of those ingrained BBC values. It’s also one of the major sections of the College of Journalism website.

Still, as hoped, Mr Cellan-Jones did present his tasty soundbite in an interesting way. “It’s in the DNA,” he says in the video interview.

I responded with, “So it’s just experience then?” although at the time I was wondering where I might find a shortcut to acquiring that DNA.

Impartiality feels like a scary value, one open to interpretation and demanding vigorous debate from time to time. It feels like a value with no hard and fast or right and wrong answer. Surely there’s the equivalent to an operating system patch available somewhere, isn’t there?

There maybe an easier route. Personal values must surely offer a firm foundation for understanding impartiality, or at the very least a good place to start. Begin with common sense and bolt the more complex stuff on top of that. That was certainly one way of looking at it when debating whether or not to include the critical feedback I solicited from Rory after the interview was over.

That and getting at least four pairs of eyes to look over it too.

4iP investment in Slugger O’Toole

Considering blogger Mick Fealty began blogging” by accident”, the acquisition of Slugger O’Toole by Channel 4’s 4iP is an interesting development.

Speaking to CoJo’s David Hayward a month ago there was a grassroots edginess to Slugger O’Toole in the way Mick Fealty described it and it’s reach. Back in October Mick stressed the unique position the blog had alongside journalism. In light of a lack of resources to pay ‘good journalists’ to go out and do ‘good journalism’, the site he said acted as a powerpack to other journalists to do the job instead: “It’s not about handling mass audiences,” he added.

Writing on 4iP’s blog today, Ewan McIntosh described the acquisition (corrected after error in usage was pointed out by Ewan McIntosh) development as a “co-investment” and “a means of exploring localised political debate at scale.”

McIntosh ascribes an impressive byline to the Slugger site, describing it as the journalist’s “watering hole of choice”.

And yet the large readership which Fealty and his team of bloggers have built up over the past seven years is a massive draw for Channel 4 and 4iP. Just look at the banner graphic at the top of the 4iP blog: “Rethinking public service media”. First on the list is a revamp to make the site more accessible to “newbies” in a currently crowded market in pursuit of making the site’s ethic penetrate the mainstream. It’s not just a watering-hole then.

Does this represent 4iP buying up an audience and, if so, will it water-down Slugger O’Toole’s reputation? Or, once that all important redesign is complete, will it demonstrate a keen eye for the benefit on public service media of emerging newswires, a sign of bloggers and blogging’s rising reputation and much-needed validation?

Journalism 101: Consider your timing

One thing about editing vox-pops which may have escaped your notice: going over the same clips time and time again has the effect of rooting the words of your contributors deep into the recesses of your mind.

So much so, you could even find yourself waking up in the middle of the night reciting what the BBC’s Director of Global News said in the briefest of interviews seven days ago. What I took from that series of interviews was how important error checking is to the journalist. The words echo around my head. It’s a mantra now.

It’s the same with freelance journalist Adam Westbrook who I met up with yesterday.

If you want to find out about an industry, speak to the people who work in it. Speak to the people who speak or write about it. Follow your instincts. Find out what they have to say.

Inevitably, I fell into that oh-so-predictable trap of not pressing the record button before I engaged in a thought-provoking discussion about the future of journalism. Adam and I met for an hour, although all you’re seeing in the video is six minutes we recorded after our conversation.

Still, there’s something which resonates after our conversation. If there’s a question about the future of journalism as there has been for twelve months now, there are distinct opportunities which lay ahead.

Strip journalism down to its constituent parts. It’s nothing more than storytelling. Like prime-time dramas, successful storytelling is measured by the attention it gets.

The likelihood of audience attention is increased when a story engages with people. And sometimes engaging with people needs to be done in an unexpected way.

The same can be said for journalism. If you want people to pay attention to your story, you’re going to need to connect with them, be it visually, audibly or on the internet. Just like drama or entertainment, that may mean a change to the traditions of visual language, for example.

And if that’s the case, that opens the opportunities wide to a great many more individuals whose aptitude is not judged solely on their years of experience but on their grasp of the core skills.

Now that … that is an exciting prospect.

 

• Adam Westbook blogs here
• Watch Blood and Treasure – Adam’s piece on troops in Iraq

 

 

He said what?

You know when an editor is happy with the product, when he starts blogging about a password-protected website and namechecking one of the people involved in its production.

The BBC’s new College of Journalism website will soon be public and when it is a year of my life (and a handful more years of others) will draw to a close.

Like editor Kevin says in his blog post, the site is primarily written for BBC journalists outside of their usual BBC environment although it’s becoming increasingly clear as we tour around the country with our various events that the 2,500 pages of content will also appeal to those aspiring to be journalists too. That’s gratifying. Especially given our lengthy meetings about what to put where on the site.

It’s an exciting time. No really, it is.

Belle du Jour, Brooke Magnanti, Paul Carr & The Sunday Times

Given it’s a Sunday afternoon and I’ve managed to twist the arm of my Significant Other to prepare one of Clarissa Dickson Wright’s beef stews, I’m not especially surprised I’m feeling relaxed. There’s the newest episode of Doctor Who to watch this evening, a backlog of Cranford to watch on Blu-Ray and the rest of The Sunday Times to read.

According to the cover of the newspaper, £2 represents great value for money considering all the sections available to me. Whereas the Observer has recently announced swingeing cuts to its Sunday newspaper, it seems Rupert Murdoch and his bunch have been keen to underline how some parts of the Sunday newspaper industry are not apparently in danger. That’s good then. As we’re approaching the winter, I’m going to need a supply of suitable material to put on the roaring fire we like to have at the weekends. Yes, we’re that middle class.

I only buy the Sunday Times this morning because I’m at the garage getting some dishwasher powder. And it’s only the Sunday Times because there are no more Guardians left. (I was momentarily tempted to purchase the News of The World to read about Jedward apparently watching pornography in the X-Factor house but think better of it when I imagine my work colleagues laughing uncontrollably at me when I inevitably reveal the truth the following morning at work).

But why by a Sunday newspaper when for the past five months or so I’ve steered well clear of purchasing newspapers at all after my tyrannical subscription to the Guardian came to an end?

I bought the paper because of Paul Carr. Paul was tweeting as he worked on his Techcrunch column. Then he tweeted when it was available, the blog being in response to the Sunday Times interview about Belle du Jour research scientist writer Brooke Magnanti. I haven’t read the Belle du Jour blog. I know only a small amount about it. I know only a small amount about Paul Carr, but my interest is piqued. I buy the newspaper. Monkey see, monkey do. I’m predictable like that. I’m exactly the kind of non-thinking newspaper-purchasing member of the public Rupert Murdoch must look out for on a lazy, sunny Sunday morning.

There’s not a great deal to India Knight’s interview, it has to be said. Blogging since 2003, the Belle du Jour (formerly) anonymous author Dr Brooke Magnanti now feels the need to “come out”. The phrase alone is enough to see my hackles rise. Please for the love of God don’t commandeer that phrase us gayers have owned since the beginning of time. You’re not coming out at all. You’re merely telling us your full name and your association with a blog.

She’s telling us in part because she has a mouthy ex-boyfriend who threatens the very fabric of time and space and also (we’re led to believe) the Archibishop of Canterbury’s recent comments which led Magnanti to think it was time to explain she wasn’t glamourising prostitution.

Some people fall into prostitution because they’re in with a bad crowd, others follow that path for purely pragmatic reasons. Her explanation as to what she was thinking before she went into her 14 month stretch of hookerdom seem eminently sensible. I’m not especially shocked. I’m not especially concerned about women up and down the country. It’s just someone I don’t know telling me her name, telling me what she did prior to 2003 and what she does now. So what?

She’s done incredibly well out of it as far as I can see. She had an education and in part successfully realised career in science as well as demonstrating a pragmatic solution to resolving some financial difficulties which she in turn translated into another, almost certainly more lucrative income for the future. In that respect she was acting like any journalist would – sell the story in as many different forms as you possibly can. Wring the rag dry.

And now, by revealing her name she has merely established herself on the market as the talented writer she obviously is. It’s time for the next stage of her career, something which was unlikely to happen if she attempted to remain anonymous.

Sure, you might as Paul Carr’s argues, question whether or not the Times were employing underhand tactics merely to raise sales of a weekend title. If that was the case, it worked (in part because Paul Carr alerted me to it late last night). But it’s down to Magnanti’s audience to judge her.

And as far as I can see, the only way I can judge is by trying to fight against the instinctive bitterness and resentment I have for irritatingly talented lady. Like the prefects at school who secured their questionably responsible role for being adept on the sports field as well as in music and academia, Magnanti has demonstrated she’s a good writer both in entertainment and science. I hate that.

As a blogger who took her experiences as a prostitute and translated them into a money earner for ITV, she epitomises the dream we all have in the back of our minds. Thus whether Magnanti was outed or not by a newspaper looking to ride on her coat tails is neither here nor there. If she continues her writing career (as surely she must) then she’ll weedle her way into our hearts as a geek who did salaciousness and humour and earnt money from it. Good on her.

It’s still easier to be jealous of her though.

Journalism 101: What is journalism exactly?

Typical me. I naiively trot and skip and bounce along to the Reuter / Amplified 09’s unconference about Twitter and whether it can save the world or not and spectacularly miss the point.

I went along because they were discussing what the impact of Twitter is or will be or has been on the future of news.

News, I think. That’s journalism. There’s something to report there. I could shoot some video. I could tweet stuff. I could meet other people. I might get some ideas. I must go along.

At least that’s what I was thinking in my pseudo-journalistic brain last week when I booked my ticket. Then I posted a discussion post on the BBC’s College of Journalism networking thing (you’ll need to be a) a BBC journalist and b) working in the College of Journalism to get into that particular club – it’s very select, you won’t get in the back door) and my brain starts filling up with something else.

I’d moaned about a particular news story I’d seen on the internet and in so doing posed the question that there was a serious risk to journalistic values (ie make sure there’s an actual story there to report when you put your news story together) if headlines are written to optimise traffic. In other words, if you write your headlines to grab attention but the pay-off is there’s hardly anything there of substance, isn’t there a seriously negative impact to your audience?

I’d qualified all of this in my discussion post on the CoJo network by saying I was probably being unfairly critical, something I reckoned came easy given that I’d missed the journalist-boat a number of years ago and – frankly – even if I was given a chance to work in a newsroom I probably wouldn’t survive anyway. I’d probably stand in the corner crying into a hanky with some old-hack coming up to me and whispering in my ear how “it’s probably best you run along now Jacob – don’t think you can play with the big boys anymore”

Self-deprecating as the dismissal of how I reckoned I’d be working in a newsroom, the comment did reveal something I’d overlooked. For years now I’ve accomodated a stereotypical view of what kind of a person a journalist is, possibly as a way of explaining to myself why I wouldn’t have been any good at it anyway. It’s almost as though the dismissal of the profession using a stereotypical view was a way of making the disappointment I hadn’t followed up that teenage career aspiration seem less painful.

It was that which prompted me to ignore the main discussion point set by the BBC’s Director of Global News Richard Sambrook at the Reuters unconference. I did try discussing whether or not Twitter could curate journalism or merely fuel with @reutersjeremygaunt and @mrsbunz amongst others but instead wanted a few important questions answered instead: What is a journalist? What is journalism? And what sort of person do you have to be in order to be one?

The resulting piece isn’t want you’d call far-reaching journalism but it does answer the questions for me. Pursuing my original career aspirations doesn’t seem like such an impossible task really.

Journalists are human beings too

My two week jaunt around the country is coming to an end. I’m relieved. I’m getting tired of the hotel experience (although the central Belfast Holiday Inn more than makes up for the prison-like interior of Newcastle’s riverside Travelodge). I’m keen to see my cats and I’m longing to see the garden from the kitchen window. I’m a sucker for home-life.

Hotels aside, it’s not all been bad. My brief has been simple: to cover as much of a series of events titled “New Tools for a New Way of Working” in a social media capacity for the new BBC College of Journalism website (currently beta for BBC staff).

CoJo (get used to the BBC College of Journalism acronym) has filmed a few of the specifically journalism related events in Cardiff including a presentation given by Executive Editor Kevin Marsh on how audiences are sourcing their own background information on a given subject following a news “announcements”. It’s changing the nature of news consumption and necessarily what methods journalists employ to tell their stories.

Former Assistant Editor of the BBC Six O’Clock News Mark Georgiou also made a repeat appearance at BBC Northern Ireland today, sharing his thoughts on producing news stories for a variety of multiplatforms. Memory is fading of the time when a producer and his reporter could film one piece about one story for one news programme. Now they have to be across the whole thing.

Some do it better than others, it has to be said. Some people take to writing blog entries and web stories and look for new ways to share their stories online, on radio and on TV. Georgiou offered practical tips on how to meet the challenge some producers may face when embracing multi-platform production.

It is during events like this I find myself impatient and unforgiving. I subscribe completely to the need to produce the same story in a variety of different ways for a variety of different outlets be it radio, TV or the web. My style may need finessing in some areas and skills might need to be acquired but still I’m surprised and frustrated such an event is even deemed necessary.

This may be in a small part down to the realisation I made a few years of my original career aspirations when I approached the end of my GCSEs 20 years ago. If I wanted to be a journalist, I’d obviously need English, which in turn meant an English degree. A-Level studies were fine. One term at University however and I soon discovered I wasn’t going to be able to meet the one book a week requirement demanded of me. I switched courses soon after and stupidly dropped my journalism aspiration too. A career in music administration, IT support and website management followed.

It’s only now I find myself in the journalism world I once thought I’d want to be a part of, even if I’m not actually – in the strictest sense of the word – a journalist. But having embraced the internet and its technologies (whilst steadfastly maintaining a healthy distance from any accusations of geekdom) and insodoing finding an outlet for my creative juices, I’m surprised there might be those who find the web platform a bewildering affair.

In short, I work on the basis ‘if I get it, it really can’t be that difficult, so why can’t you?’ Of course, such a view is blinkered and unforgiving, but it is the truth, one no doubt fuelled by a spark in my head that maybe at some point I might just end up doing what I thought I’d wanted to do 20 years ago. Who knows.

My lack of patience for those who perhaps need a bit more time to become accustomed with new ways of sharing stories is tempered by the experience of BBC Wales Political Editor with the Welsh Politics blog she writes on the BBC. This is no small part because she’s a pleasure to talk to and (as you would expect from someone used to delivering 2 minutes on tv or radio) and an effortless interview. During her New Tools presentation in Cardiff last week she said “I have become accustomed to it [blogging]. It’s not my enemy now.”

So as I approach the end of our two weeks away from the London CoJo office, I’m reminded of the blinkered and unforgiving view I have of journalists and the kind of people they are. They aren’t all one kind of person and they’re not necessarily anything like me. No surprises there. If only I could remember that the next time I sense that frustration rising up like bile inside of me.

Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time

If you’ve searched on the internet and hoped for a breakdown of what happened during *that* BBC Question Time with Nick Griffin, you will almost certainly be disappointed. I didn’t watch it as it was broadcast. Instead, I caught up on what happened on Twitter, via some twitter pals and reading accounts provided by The Guardian, The Daily Mail and the BBC website.

A reminder of what felt like the TV event of recent weeks or months was flagged up at the end of a busy few days filming some BBC College of Journalism (CoJo’s launch reported here) events in the leafy setting of the BBC’s Broadcasting House in Cardiff. Attention had been duly focussed on making sure we got the best shots for a series of videos which will with any luck make it onto the College’s learning-rich website when it goes public. It had been a demanding few days. When we all said goodbye at the end of it, it did rather feel like we’d delivered even if there’s some post-production to go through yet.

Being out of London for that relatively extended period of time probably explained the shock we all experienced when we stopped dead in front of the plasma screen outside the studio. There streamed live on the BBC News channel were shots of Television Centre seemingly under siege by protesters registering their disgust at the appearance of BNP leader Nick Griffin on the BBC’s Question Time.

Not for the first time since signing that all important BBC contract, I left Cardiff’s Broadcasting House wondering whether the BBC was a hated institution. Was the BBC wrong for having Griffin on Question Time. Should they have refused him? Were they giving a voice to something fundamentally wrong? Had the BBC and all who worked for it and subscribed to it’s values, followed the wrong path? Was this another nail in the coffin? More importantly, in my pursuit of a dream job with a dream organisation, had I backed the wrong horse?

History will judge that fist full of questions. And, if it doesn’t, I’m not the person to provide an objective view on it. To do that I’d have to be working for someone entirely different, quite possibly in an entirely different field.

Instead, I took solace in the words of the taxi driver who submitted to my line of jovial questioning effortlessly executed during the short journey back to the miserable hotel I’ve been staying in these past few days.

“You’ll have missed Question Time tonight then?” I asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

“Oh yes. But I’ve been following it all day.”

“What do you make of it all?” I asked, keen not to make things appear too obvious.

“I don’t agree. I don’t agree with him but we’re about free speech. I don’t like that. I don’t like him having that time. But he had his time. He was voted in. We’re about free speech. He was allowed his time. “

“Do you think the BBC was right to have him on?”

(It was only a six or seven minute journey to the Copthorne Hotel. Time was of the essence.)

“Of course. I trust the BBC. I know what I hear from the BBC is the truth. And if they get it wrong they’ll tell me they’ve got it wrong. I appreciate that.”

What the taxi driver said isn’t important. (Technically speaking I should have provided you with an audio record of the conversation so this blog is fully backed up in terms of evidence. Sadly, the journey – including the 3 minutes spent at the cash machine getting the necessary £10 for the journey home – only amounted to 15 mintues and we spent 5 minutes of that talking about Radio 4.) What’s important to me is the sense of relief I felt when that one individual expressed appreciation of what the BBC does and the values it’s recently demonstrated.

I confessed my allegiance shortly before he pulled on the handbrake outside the front door of the hotel. “I wondered why you were asking,” he said handing me my change, “but don’t misunderstand me whatever you do lovely. I like the BBC. I trust the news I get from it. I don’t like Radio Football – there’s never any mention of the rugby scores from Wales on a Saturday evening and I can’t stand Strictly Come Dancing. But you lot who do the news. You lot get it right mostly. And when you don’t, you usually tell us you haven’t.”

Bless him.

New music composers everywhere

I took a night off from the Proms this evening – well, OK, I listened to Ravel’s Mother Goose suite performed by the Philharmonia. Good as it was, my eyes were swiftly drawn to the latest blog post from WordPress.com triumphantly announcing the latest code allowing bloggers to embed SoundCloud content in their blogs.

What the hell was SoundCloud? Do I really want to sign up for something else?

Yes. I found it difficult not to. And when I had done I realised I’d stumbled on a library of MP3 creations by other users. My particular favourite was this. I’m not a big fan of techno or house or garage or dubstep or whatever the hell the other genres are, but this soundscape seem to fire up my imagination.

Oh look. Free WordPress is even lets me embed it too. Hows about that.

Coca Cola “Coke Heist” Advert

Thanks to @JGONeill for alerting me to this smashing reworking of an excerpt from Peter and The Wolf for the latest Coca-Cola advert, note our man @JGONeill did later realise Peter and the Wolf was by Prokofiev not Tchaikovsky.

The production work in this advert is something to behold and certainly beats some of Coca-Cola’s sickening efforts at Christmas time.

The reworking of the music sits well. I can’t usually abide the usual juxtaposition of a famous classical melody alongside everyday objects largely because that melody eventually becomes so ubiquitous the original joy of the music is lost. But in this advert there’s something fresh about the developing the melody most will recognise from class music lessons. At least, I think it’s reworked. I can’t be sure. I don’t recall that far back. Maybe it’s not reworked at all. Maybe it’s just edited. Maybe I need to go listen to Peter and the Wolf again.

Robinson’s Be Natural ‘Bird House’ Advert

It’s a far cry from those adverts for weak lemon drink featuring sweaty tennis players sat at the side of the centre court at Wimbledon mopping their brows. Now Robinsons have opted for a eye-catching and charming little piece for their new push featuring a bird returning to his pad from a busy day of … well, being a bird. Keep an eye out for the criminal cat on the TV news bulletin especially for birds. The avian take on the cuckoo clock is especially classy. Quality work indeed.

Update: It seems that the first posting had an embedded YouTube video which was subsequently removed by the user. Shame. It was a quality piece of work. Somebody must have complained. Boo. So, if this one gets removed and I haven’t picked it up, please be sure to let me know. Lots of fluff. Jon.

Bambuser: like I need more excuses

I can hear my harshest critic as he casts his eye over this blog.

“Jesus. Yet another platform for that Jacob bloke to get his face on. How very tiresome.”

I agree. At the same as the new service Bambuser (live streaming from mobile phone to internet) excites me, it does make me think twice about being carefully just what I do on it. Over exposure is a bad thing. People do very quickly grow tired.

Still, it’s a wonderful thing. At least it seems that way. With my Nokia N95 installed with a special downloadable application, a login to the Bambuser website and either a wireless connection or 3G connection to the internet I could (if I subsequently found sufficiently interesting to talk about) broadcast something live to the internet. The resulting clip is encoded by Bambuser’s infrastructure and subsequently offered on my own profile as an archive clip.

It’s like shooting video and uploading it to YouTube without having to upload it to YouTube. It’s using my mobile phone as nothing more than a camera and storing the results on a server on the internet. It’s cloud computing (sort of) although my phone does store a copy of the video movie at the same too. God only knows how it does that.

I did a handful of tests this afternoon which interrupted my viewing of the first brilliant episode in the first series of the revamped Doctor Who. Suddenly Christopher Ecclestone’s handsome face was a distant memory as I experimenting with different settings on the phone and application.

By far the best execution of live broadcasting can be achieved by keeping the camera device still, setting the audio quality to high and ensuring you’re utilising a wireless connection although even in my test I did notice that the further I moved away from the wireless router, the jumpier the resulting video became (inevitably). Mind you, the outdoors stuff over 3G was reasonably OK (in my humble opinion). What would make things better is if I had a Mac, no doubt. A Mac with a webcam embedded.

The most exciting thing about Bambuser is its relative ease of use and the fact that it delivers on what it promises. It’s also available for a variety of different platforms.

See all the other archive test clips on my Thoroughly Good Bambuser channel. Yes, that’s right. Another profile.

TV: Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe

I sometimes see Charlie Brooker walking up and down Wood Lane. I don’t stalk him, you understand. I just observe him from afar and when I do so I make a mental note, there goes an absolute god and he’s a year older than I am. 

It is because the man has the ability to pinpoint exactly what it is we all think about any particular given subject which gives the man his seemingly universal appeal. Though we know he’d balk at the idea, we’d all quite like to have the opportunity to invite him round for dinner, have him sit in the corner of the living room and prod him every time we feel the need to have a heated discussion brought to an end. He has that ability Brooker, you see. His full stops are reliable. What he says goes. 

Such was the experience I had on Friday night, sitting and watching the second episode in his latest series Newswipe. Me and a friend (who, it has to be said, often displays some quite unnerving similarities with myself) were entering into a third round over the recent death of reality TV star Jade Goody. 

My friend was vehemently opposed to anyone showing any sorrow about her recent passing on account of her flagrant exploitation of the media. I, on the other hand, preferred my usual confessional style. Yes her life was a bit of a strange one and yes she was part of the industry, but when the time came I did feel sorry she’d passed away and whatever media sins she might be perceived to have committed, I was prepared to forgive her for them the moment she breathed her final breath. 

Opposing counsel was having none of it. One side of the living room got louder and louder whilst I broaden my shoulders and looked down my nose. I was sure a supersillious tone would win the day. “I’m OK with feeling a slight sadness she’s passed away,” I said, “It reminds me I’m a decent human being.”

I didn’t sense the argument was won, if indeed there was an argument to win but I figured it was over. I was wrong. 

Minutes later, the difficult to fathom opening music of Brooker’s Newswipe had started up on TV. The assembled audience sat and listen to Brooker’s assessment of user generated content and the death of Jade Goody. After what amounted to the most appropriate, fitting and sincere tribute of the reality tv star, my friend was heard to say “OK Jon. Now I get it. Yes I see what you mean.”

I suspect it was the sequence when Brooker brought his audience’s attention to the fairly severe opinions the general public were sharing on the BBC website which sealed the deal. They were, as I’d seen the day she’d died, really quite unpleasant. 

What was impressive was the effect Newswipe had, something the man himself may need to get used to. Brooker is in serious danger of carving a niche in the very industry we’re all watching him critique. Soon he’ll no longer just be a broadcaster, critic, comedian, writer and columnist. He’ll be a journalist too.  He seems to be making a pretty good stab at interpreting the world at the moment.

Richard Sambrook to the rescue

During an uncharacteristically relaxing weekend, I settled myself to a serious going over the Observer newspaper and associated printed material whilst consuming numerous cups of coffee and munching on various high-calorie, low-fibre fast food meals.

It wasn’t long before I found myself fuming at Barbara Ellen’s dismissal of the forthcoming National Portrait Gallery Gay Icons exhibition (yes Barbara, not all of us jump up and down excitedly about the prospect of disco balls and handbags and that *doesn’t* make us dreary and academic) and at Nick Cohen’s criticism of the BBC and it’s priorities regarding serious journalism. 

With bile rising, it took all my self-control (and a considerable amount of persuasion from my partner also sitting on the sofa and observing how much nicer I am to be around when I am relaxing) not to reach for my laptop and start penning something in response. 

One of the key reasons I didn’t was because I don’t necessarily feel myself equipped with sufficient information to offer a well-researched response. More importantly, I’m not really senior enough at the BBC to deliver a suitably well-scripted and fair response either. It would only get me into trouble. I’d already fallen foul of one BBC / Proms fan who took me to task about me and my thoughts about music in opera. I also couldn’t be bothered thinking it would probably cause more trouble than it was worth. 

No problem though. Richard Sambrook, Director of Global News has committed his thoughts in response on his blog instead thus freeing up more thinking time for me to devote to responding to Barbara Ellen. 

Take my advice, it’s probably not a good idea to read any kind of opinion piece over a weekend if you’re trying to relax. It will only end in tears, or at least some mild heartache.

Jade Goody

“It’s all bollocks!” was my considered response to a colleague when I found myself skating towards a conversation about Jade Goody I didn’t want to engage in.  

I didn’t mean the Jade Goody machine per se, more the story in which the OK! production team defended the early publication of “that” tribute issue saying that the Goody family supported it. It did all seem like bollocks to me. Bollocks because it was a redundant act. I didn’t want to hear about it.

Marina Hyde’s column in the Guardian on Saturday reassured me, indicating the family’s feelings may not have necessarily been as accurately portrayed in the OK! press release as first thought. Who knows. I mean really. Who knows and, given that Goody died this morning. who really cares now?

Paddy O’Connell on Radio 4’s Broadcasting House described the Big Brother star as someone who polarized opinion, something borne out even this morning on Twitter by @almostwitty. @rfenwick tweeted this account of a Bishop giving his view on Sky News.

There are others, of course, who don’t necessarily feel the same way. At the time of writing a an emerging trend on Twitter was “RIP Jade Goody”. People might be tired on celebrity news and celebrity exclusives, but it seems as run of the mill and relatively common experience death is, it is her final act which is connecting people. The Canon at Motherwell church invited prayers to be said in her memory during Radio 4’s morning service this morning.

What BBC London’s Leslie Joseph described as the “sweet irony” of Goody’s death coming in the early hours of Mothering Sunday makes her relatively bizarre life to some extent even more enthralling.

Born in South East London, plucked from obscurity and thrust into the bright lights of the mainstream media as a result of an appearance on Big Brother in 2002, Goody exploited the notoriety she achieved as a result of the personal traits she was criticised for.

We became hungry not just for the salacious detail or the disparaging comments (itself nothing more than a way to feel better about ourselves), but also to figure out whether we were being conned by a well-oiled, self-publicising machine. Was she really that dim? Or did she know exactly what she was doing and was milking it for all she was worth? Little wonder some people’s views are negative this morning.

As much as some may wriggle uncomfortably at the success she has achieved and the way she has achieved it, as well as the attention her life will continue to get, in playing out her death in the mainstream she has succeeded in doing one of many things.

Apart from the obvious financial benefits for her family after her death and the raised profile for cancer prevention and treatment in the UK, Goody has held up a mirror on society, forcing us to look at the way in which they react to her and the Goody machine.

Did she deserve to be on Big Brother? Did she deserve to get the media attention she did because of it? Were we applauding mediocrity and did the industry feed the mediocrity? And in dying did we owe her more respect or might she have forgiven us for being a little bit bemused and confused about how it was her life panned out ?

Gareth McLean, homophobia and crap jokes

Guardian TV critic and Radio Times soap expert Gareth McLean has penned a scathing attack on the use of gay stereotypes in comedy. He writes:

” … there seems to be no appreciation of the part that such characters, and the attitudes that spawn, them play in the continuing insidiousness of homophobia and the resultant violence, intimidation and bullying that gay men and women endure … “

His piece inevitably taps into Chris Moyles’ “insulting” use of the word “gay” in his radio show, the character Mr Humphries from Are You Being Served? and most recently, the gay war reporter Tim Goodall from the understandably much-maligned recent new sketch show from ubiqutous “comedians” Horne and Corden.

McLean’s piece in the Guardian leaves me seething. Always a good starting point for a blog post, I find.

As a gayer/bender/poofta/homo/batty boy/fudge-packer myself, I have a rather different take. I don’t object to stereotypes in comedy because I know when I see a stereotype. If it wasn’t a stereotype (in whatever comedy I’m watching) it wouldn’t be funny (assuming it is). In fact, as difficult as it might be to believe, I actually know one or two people who bear more than a striking resemblance to the Tim Goodall too. If derogatory terms should be outlawed, should we outlaw the individuals in society who do actually bear a resemblance to the stereotypes comedians sometimes rely on for a cheap gag?

More than all of that however, I have more of a problem with those who hijack the supposedly derogatory terms using them to build a soap box on which to stand on than I do with the words themselves. If you’re to take Mr McLean’s viewpoint a stage further, presumably the world will be a much safer place for me as a gay man if we ban all the nasty names and the cheap gags. Excuse me whilst I reach for my tight white t-shirt and dog tag and rub wax into my cropped hair but dahling … I’m fuming.

Why?

Words on their own aren’t offensive. It’s the context in which those words are used which causes the offence. If the context is an overture to a violent attack then obviously it’s wrong. If we’re having a laugh then having a laugh is OK. OK?

Here’s an example. Some years back I found myself in a bit of a sticky situation. I had met my partner. I’d fallen in love. He’d given me a set of keys to his flat and I’d given in my notice to my then present landlady.  

Up until that point I had always been in what Stephen Fry charming describes as “the vagina business” but having gone on a bit of a “Gay Road to Damascus” type experience, I found myself in need of “coming out”. I needed to explain why I was changing my chosen route, why I was moving in with a bloke called Simon who was five years older than me and why it was (should anyone call me on my new number) the landline answerphone had a message with Homer Simpson saying “I like my beer cold, my TV loud and homosexuals flaming!” Coming out seemed the best path to follow.

The process was traumatic. It was the greatest fear. Perhaps the most difficult thing in the world I could have done. I hated it. I decided to use my best friend as a trial.

It was an agonising telephone call I made her from Oxford Street. I ummed and aaahed. I hesitated. I couldn’t bring myself to say the word “gay” (because I’d spent many years denying it) and I certainly couldn’t bring myself to say the word “homosexual” either. In fact, I couldn’t bring myself to have the conversation full stop.

So with traffic thundering past in the background, sensing my obvious unease (and possibly tapping into something she had already sensed but dared not say before then) my friend took up the responsibility of driving the conversation.

“Are you engaged Jon?” she asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Are you pregnant?”

“Well no, obviously not.”

“So,” she said quite abruptly, “are you in fact a bender by any chance? Is that what you’re wanting to tell me?”

The word “bender” was the last thing I expected her to say, especially given her Sunday morning committments at church. “Yes,” I smiled, all nervousness now dissipated, “I am in fact a bender.” We laughed a great deal. The laughing was borne out of surprise and inappropriateness. It made less of the issue I was worrying about. I needed to laugh about it.

The joking continued in the coming weeks. She would call me to find out how things were going in my new relationship, whether I’d spoken to my parents and how other friends had reacted. Every time we spoke we would laugh over all the derogatory terms she could think of to describe me. Once she left a message on my answerphone using a put-on voice asking to speak to “a Mr C. Ferrett….”

Despite her best efforts to mask her voice (and the fact I recognised the number) it wasn’t until I called her back to discover the “C” stood for “Chutney”. Yes. Not only was I (technically) a fudge-packer but I could also be referred to as a “Chutney Ferrett”. It made me laugh. And laughing when I came out was the best way of dealing what was quite possibly the most traumatic process I’ve ever been through.

It almost certainly wouldn’t have helped to have Gareth McLean taking my friend (or me for that matter) to task over the use of language because it might be deemed homophobic.

Gareth Horne and James Corden are certainly not guilty of creating characters or script which might be seen as homophobic (just look at the latest clip on the YouTube which shows the camp and effeminate character Tim Goodall taking on an equally stereotypical character who has been taunting him as a “batty boy” – it’s the gay character who comes out on top – please forgive the pun).

If they’re guilty of anything, it’s only for having written and performed something which is as unfunny as it is (although interestingly I’m finding myself laugh a lot at this character possibly because of his unfeasibly white teeth). They’re not the first nor will they be the last comedy duo to have turned out some duff material, and as much as I don’t want to do this (I’m not a big fan anyway) I’m prepared to forgive them for that.

Does perceived homophobic comedy increase the chances or provide motivation for a homphobic attack? I find it difficult to believe there will ever come a time when attacks on gay men will stop by narrow-minded crazed individuals who failed at the well-adjustment classes most of us attended at some point in our lives. I’m sure as hell certain that banning words or comedy characters will make a difference either. What might help is stopping ourselves from leaping on the bandwagon marked “Crying Wolves”.

Copying isn’t theft

Adorable Nina Paley via Boing Boing has recorded a special little ditty making a strong case for copying stuff and doing away with such pesky irritants to the creative process as copyright law.

I think it could catch on.

Learning how to blog better

 

Why go on training courses exactly?

One main reason is to get out of the office, to wile away the afternoon writing notes you know you’ll never read again in a room you wouldn’t normally go in and you probably will never go in again.

Thus I’ve shamelessly confessed most of my motivation for going along to the BBC’s Future Now presentation on “Better Blogging” given by Nick Reynolds and Jem Stone.

In truth, I was also there because I knew I had to get some direction on how to blog. I needed to go with an open mind and see what I could pick up. Just being addicted to blogging isn’t anywhere near enough.

You’ve got to be able to knuckle-down, focus and be a bit more grown-up about this malarkey, I kept telling myself as I sidled up to Broadcasting House unwittingly arriving fifty minutes early, certain I was arriving ten minutes late.

Blogging best practice?

I return home six hours later and think about the work I have to catch up on and the ideas about blogging ideas I need to cement in my head. Here’s what I took away with me:

1. Establish your idea in one sentence. When PR people dangle the idea of a story in front of a correspondent’s eyes they need to make sure they’ve conveyed exactly what that story is about in the first line of the email. True, it’s not specifically about blogging, but I couldn’t help thinking I needed to adopt the same approach in my writing.
 
2. What blogging is good for. It provides an outlet for wasted journalism. Where TV and radio editors may well be the most difficult people to convince to take a story, blogs provide a catch-all area for those stories not picked up. When I find myself in the unlikely setting of a newsroom I shall remind myself of this advice.

3. Need to link to stuff. The more people I link to, the more people will link to me. The more people link to me, the more traffic I get. The more people I link to makes me look live I’ve done loads of research and that I know the marketplace and (most importantly of all) I’ll be able to tailor my writing thus presenting a more informed piece. Yes. I keep forgetting that. I do. Bad Jon.

4. Use your blog to do all sorts of things. Be transparent, respond to the audience use comments to create further blog posting (ie recycle stuff wherever possible), apologise for mistakes, reveal your thoughts, correct errors in the press, respond quickly to complaints and to explain sensitive decisions. Naturally, I don’t make mistakes, I don’t find myself written about in the press and I don’t make sensitive decisions. I’m always revealing myself and to the best of my knowledge I’ve never given anyone any cause to complain because I’m lovely.

5. Make sense of the noise. In other words, do your research, sum up stuff thus providing yourself with plenty of links to pepper your content with. OK. I get that.

6. Keep level-headed. Audience participation is great but don’t let it swamp your sense of creativity or (fundamentally) your self-belief. I have fallen foul of this in the past. I shut down my Yahoo 360 blog because I thought a commenter was getting way too sneery. I set up another blog three months later. I really should have hung on in there instead of abandoning my then favourite platform.

7. Don’t lose your sense of humour.

8. Be regular. Blogs don’t get traffic unless they’re regularly updated. Apparently, Iain Dale blogs 5-10 times day. If Iain Dale can blog 5-10 times a day, I won’t hesitate from doing a spot more. Watch out. You’ll all be sick of me if you’re not already. 

9. Get out there. I do this all the time much to the irritation of most people I know.

10. Pictures and video and audio are good. Use them. Sweet. That’s an easy thing to do.

11. Adopt a personal tone but don’t be personal. Always. I rely on it. I’ve always considered it a weakness but think otherwise now.

12. Be interesting not partisan.  I confess having to do a Google search on my phone to confirm the definition of partisan. I kept thinking of “artisan” and was a little confused. Now I know, I’m happy to confirm I’m not partisan. Modestly, I do consider myself interesting from time to time.  

13. Write concisely. Blogs shouldn’t be thousands and thousands of words long. Oops. This is fast approaching 1000 words. And anyway .. I really like the sound of my own voice whether it’s written or recorded.

You may not be surprised to learn I didn’t read any of these notes shortly before I started the group exercise (consisting of writing a blog entry on a story about David Beckham’s AC Milan / LA Galaxy thing) and this combined with my team members similarly low-level of interest in the story resulted in a typical irreverent effort yielding little more than a confirmation that I’ll probably only ever write a personal blog.

That said, keen to ensure I take away something from what has been an insightful afternoon spent in the glamorous interior of the BBC’s Council Chamber in Broadcasting House, I offer the following as an example of a blog I’ve recently stumbled on.

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Blog

The Orchestra of The Age of Enlightenment have an incredibly difficult name to say quickly. Tack the word “blog” on the end and it’s even more difficult to say without some kind of hideous tongue-related injury occurring.

However, the OAE’s recently launched WordPress blog ticks all the right boxes for me. It’s about an orchestra which plays music I like listening to and provides some behind-the-scenes stuff you wouldn’t normally associate with an orchestra.

Their latest blog is about a photo shoot they’re doing. It’s quite interesting. More importantly is the tone they’ve adopted for it. Here’s something which most people might consider is an enormously stuffy subject and yet whoever’s decided on the tone has ensured that everything’s written in such a way that every time I read it I want to reach for a pair of slippers, a mug of hot tea and a digestive biscuit. Oh .. and I might add, this recommendation has absolutely nothing with me being linked to from their blog.

So as you see … aside from the fact that this blog post is an astonishing 1090 words, I must have learnt something in the Council Chamber this afternoon.

Wendy Richard’s newspaper memorial

Commuters are the newspaper editors’ captive audience. Trapped in a train carriage or a tube train, an editor must surely know that their target audience isn’t just those who purchase their publication but also those travelling to work who clock the front cover of other publications in the hands of other commuters, or read a story over someone else’s shoulder.

There’s no more potent a reminder of this than this morning.

News of Wendy Richard’s death has provided tabloid newspaper editors with useful material. Gory details aren’t necessary here, instead an opportunity to juxtapose the word “institution” with full page images of the recently deceased in his or her heyday.

All the elements are there. A person instantly recognisable to a mainstream audience has died from an incurable disease. Richard is pictured a shadow of her former self. The implicit editorial guaranteed to tug at the heart strings.

It’s not just that it will sell papers. Stories like present a different angle on a disease which everyone hears about all the time but no-one thinks they will suffer from. More cynical observers might also suggest that such stories reinforce newspaper brands with its existing audience whilst striking a chord with a new one.

Such a deeply cynical view may initially appear as deeply insensitive. That’s not the intention, however.

Instead, the Richard story is a perfect example of how the tangible effect of newspapers steals a march over TV and radio. If reading news online provides a chunk of almost immediately disposable content, then newspapers have the power in some instances of offering something more lasting by judicious use of full-page images and highly-crafted copy.

Perhaps it goes some way to quieten the voices who pronounce the newspaper’s life is at an end.

La Boheme / ENO / Sky / Jonathan Miller

La Boheme / ENO / Sky / Jonathan Miller, originally uploaded by Thoroughly Good.

Opera is on the offensive thanks to a blossoming and mutual beneficial relationship between Sky Arts and English National Opera as demonstrated in a live TV event brimming with firsts.

Delayed 48 hours because of London’s heavy snow earlier in the week, opera loving Sky subscribers were able to indulge in a live relay of the opening night of Jonathan Miller’s production of Puccini’s La Boheme, direct from the Coliseum stage in Central London.

Those of us who splashed out on an HD subscription and TV had the added bonus of seeing everything pin sharp too. Opera novices had the option of seeing a separate behind the scenes relay on Sky Arts 1. Shots from the wings, chorus members wandering around backstage and one or two glimpses of the director Jonathan Miller talking to members of the cast. There was something here for everyone.

It was an unexpected indulgence, made even more special because it was mid-week. Such high-brow entertainment surely sits more comfortably on a Saturday night, doesn’t it? For it to be broadcast on a Saturday night would have meant the performance would have been filmed. Those live TV junkies amongst us would have snorted with derision if that had happened. We like our performances live. If we’d wanted a recorded one, we’d have bought a DVD and we certainly wouldn’t be blogging about it if we had.

I’m not an opera fan. I don’t understand it. I recognise the composer’s names and hear the titles of popular operatic works and think I ought to know them. Opera seems like a huge mountain to climb. Something I ought to pay attention to, but am put off by the seemingly considerable commitment.

What makes the difference is a 50” screen, a large glass of red wine, a faultless orchestral performance and some obvious joined-up thinking in terms of broadcasting.

Petroc Trelawney (yes him, the bloke who used to do stuff on Classic FM and now presents BBC Radio 3’s In Tune from time to time) did the front of house stuff from the auditorium interviewing librettist Amanda Holden and director Jonathan Miller. Trelawney was engaging and in no way obtrusive. For the record, Jonathan Miller could have delayed the start of the second half. The man doesn’t get anywhere near enough air-time (assuming he wants it). The man could talk for hours and I wouldn’t bore of hearing him.

Over on Sky Arts 1 Trelawney’s cohort GMTV presenter Penny Smith ferreted around backstage talking to a petrified looking and rather subdued Alfie Boe, coercing interesting titbits about the trials and tribulations of life on an opera production.

I felt comfortable in the company of both her and Mr Trelawney and, surprisingly, didn’t feel as though seeing backstage was shattering the fantasy being created on stage.

To talk about the performance would overlook the importance of this evening. The broadcast was about demonstrating the possibilities of transmitting perceived high-brow entertainment to the masses. For someone who possesses a pompously critical eye for such things, this evening’s performance and broadcast was executed effortlessly. Would it persuade me to book a ticket to the opera? Yes, if it was the chance to see Miller’s production of La Boheme at the Coliseum.

Some might argue that the performers could sing anything, in any key with only scant attention to rhythm and intonation and it still would have been a special occasion.

As a relative newcomer to large scale opera I found myself marvelling at a stylish set and costume design and transfixed by soloists who looked good, sounded brilliant and acted utterly convincing. They held up well on HDTV.

Sweet.

Someone else who hates Twitter

I always hesitate before posting a YouTube video (which isn’t my own – yes, really). I usually look at the statistics and figure that most people who may occasionally read this may well have already seen the clip.

If you haven’t, this is the kind of 45 second clip which leaves me breathless. It does exactly what was intended. Short, punchy, funny and takes me on a journey to discover more of the content which sits on the channel. It makes gadgetry even more accessible. It might even give Suzy Perry a run for her money at The Gadget Show.

Clearly, I have a lot to learn.

Burger King dumps dumping a friend

Burger King’s advertising agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky has come to blows with Facebook it seems.

The social networking site wasn’t terribly comfortable with the idea that Facebook users might have their privacy rights trampled on by a Facebook campaign encouraging users to choose which friends to dump from their list in return for a Whopper coupon.

Bad form on Burger King’s part? Is it deeply unpleasant idea which leaves the victim with an unpleasant taste in the mouth and an increasing number of self-esteem issues as a result?

Or maybe .. just possibly … who knows … it was just a little joke? Something to have a giggle about?

Facebook’s response in this article makes me smile.

“This application facilitated activity that ran counter to user privacy by notifying people when a user removes a friend. We have reached out to the developer with suggested solutions.”

Maybe it’s a wild imagination or the fact that I’ve a warped sense of humour, I’m trying to imagine the telephone conversation had between Facebook and the developer. “Reaching out” wouldn’t be a phrase I would place high on my list of things which may have been said.

What’s the big deal? Obviously it’s the privacy thing and yet as I recall it’s hardly the first application developed which reveals to a user when he or she has been removed. I know. One or two people emailed me directly when they’d discovered I’d culled them. They wanted an explanation. So did I.

Like Burger King’s much-criticised Whopper Virgins campaign, I sense Burger King might have secured the equally dirty high-ground.

Review: 2008

When I draw back the curtains to reveal a dull grey south-east London on 1 January with the New Year’s Day concert live from the Musikverein in Vienna on in the background, it always feels like the start of something new, something exciting. I’ve got the opportunity for a new start. Everything from the previous year can, should and will be forgotten. At least that’s what I hope every 1 January.

In anticipation of that (and in a desperate bid to find something to write about two days before the end of 2008) I took myself off to our new hideaway and made a few notes. What were the things which I would remember 2008 for? Scribbling my answers down didn’t take long.

1. Jimmy Mizen
2. Eurovision
3. The BBC Proms

The list is both short and uncomfortable. The small handful of people who read this will, no doubt, note with interest the weird yet predictable juxtapositioning of a serious news event, alongside fundamentally inconsequential fluff and inevitable self-indulgence.

Truth is, I don’t have any other stuff on my list. Those three things really do sum-up 2008 for me.

Jimmy Mizen

Jimmy Mizen’s murder in May 2008 wasn’t the first teenage stabbing in east London this year. It was in fact the 13th.

There were 27 other teenage stabbings in East London this year. There have been plenty of others in previous years. Stabbings and murder and attacks were normally the stories which failed to grab my attention. So what makes 2008 so different from the rest?

Proximity was the most potent factor. Mizen died in Lee, an area in south-east London I often pass through on my way to the supermarket. Many people say it and a lot of us gloss over it, but it’s true when I say that 16 year old Mizen’s senseless death in the Lee bakery seemed all the more tragic because it was so painfully local. He worked there to get some extra cash. He was 16. The murder happened just a few miles away. That kind of thing isn’t meant to happen.  

Get a grip. This is London, after all. Surely a stabbing shouldn’t really be that incongruous against the backdrop of a supposedly violent capital?

Mizen’s mother delivered a clear message to all, something which I had forgotten about until I viewed the video clip on this page. Now I watch it again I’m struck by her strength. Her message is unusually inspiring. She isn’t angry (or if she is she’s avoiding it spectacularly) and doesn’t want others to be angry with the perpetrator’s parents. She even goes as far as to say “leave them alone”. That is admirable. There’s much to be drawn from the strength she displays only seven days after the death of her 16 year old son, a week after his birthday. She is to be applauded.

Eurovision collides

Around about this time, I was mid-way through a project at work which I’d always wanted to work on.

I’d followed the Eurovision for years. I’d even gone to Latvia to do a spot of naiive investigation during the 2003 contest. I rather like the Eurovision, you see. And I’d quite like us to win. 

As a result of finally getting a job at the Beeb in October of 2007 and (in precisely the right department) I shamelessly locked all of my self-promoting skills in gear and ended up working on the Eurovision website.

I wouldn’t want anyone to think it was plain sailing, or that everyone was necessarily as excited and relieved as I was to work on it. In retrospect, enthusiasm and passion isn’t necessarily something everyone applauds. One or two people hated me. There were one or two heated conversations/steaming arguments in corridors as a result of it. One fairly senior person accused me of being of a maverick as I stood in the corridor with a coffee in my hand. I was a little taken aback, to say the least. No-one has ever described me as a maverick before. Most deliver their assessment with an air of indifference.

I’d been working on the Eurovision site since late February. I delivered a smallish effort in early March (I did stamp my foot quite a few times) and following a series of false starts and one or two agonising nights failing to get to sleep, I ended up working on the main site during the run up to the main even in mid-May.

It was a hideous time.

A week before the Eurovision final (which happened to be the end of the Eurovision website project) I took myself off to Suffolk to see my parents. Work had become way too much for me to handle. I needed a break. I needed comfort food. I needed my teddy bear.

I was working harder than I’d worked in a long time (if ever there was a justification for the line “careful what you wish for” it was then) and it showed. My mother was quite worried about the colour of my skin. Now I come to look at the picture, I think she was right. 

I drove up to Suffolk to see my Mum on Saturday 17 May 2008. The journey started in south-east London. I headed towards Kidbrooke roundabout for the Blackwall tunnel. Lining the roads on the South Circular close to where I live in Hither Green, south-east London people walking solemnly in the same direction, all of them dressed in black.

Where were they going? They were heading towards Jimmy Mizen’s memorial service in nearby Lee High Road.

BBC Proms

The Eurovision came crashing to the ignominous end we’ve all grown accustomed to here in the UK around about 2am on Sunday 26 May 2008. It was then the website producer said “Yes, OK. We’ve got the finals scores up on the website. Everything’s done. We’re finished. Are you happy Jon?”

No. The answer was no. Not only had we come last but I’d had to code up a page which detailed exactly which country had come in which place. Typing the UK’s pitiful result last seemed like such a mean thing to have to do. Both of my friends who had accompanied me through the hell they knew it would be were now asleep on the sofa downstairs. The night was a right-off.

You’d think I’d have been happy to have finished something I’d always wanted to work on, wouldn’t you? You’ve done that Jon .. now sit back and feel proud.

The problem with me is that when I’ve been ridiculously busy for a couple of months, the resulting lack of something to do is the very worst thing for me. I start thinking when I don’t have enough to do and when I start thinking I start moaning. And when I start moaning everyone else around me starts thinking (and in some cases saying) “Would you be good enough to stop being so bloody morose about everything?”

It was Monday 27 May 2008 when I fired off an email to Radio 3 Interactive asking them if they were interested in some more Proms related videos.

With Eurovision 2008 a dim and distant memory, I was keen to look forward to the next big event and to see whether I might crowbar my way into that too. The response was favourable and despite one or two scary moments warranting enormous amounts of wine, charm and reassurances on my part, all turned out well. Everything turned out very well. In fact, it wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say that it turned out to be the best summer ever.

You need to be aware of the people who made it the best summer ever – or at least those people who were involved need to know I’m thinking of them – them lovely people being Andi, David, Ashley, Dean, James, Roland, Roger, Simon and, of course, myself. It’s a team effort this.

Far from a hard-hitting news review, is it? It’s not meant to be. These are the things which, as 2008 draws to a close, are flagged up as the most important. I only hope that when 2009 draws to a close any review I might choose to do will see me feature considerably less, if not at all.

Happy New Year.

Oh, and in case you’re interested, the UK’s 2009 hunt for someone game and able to represent us in the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow – Eurovision: Your Country Needs You – starts on Saturday 3 January (yes really, that soon). Or at least the first installment is the sort of “this is what we’ve done so far” programme before the main event begins the following week.

TV: Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe (5/6)

Sadly, pesky rights ‘n’ stuff might possibly mean that the nice piece about Oliver Postgate on Mr Brooker’s Screenwipey thing this evening may not be viewable again.

Really sorry. Still, follow this link just in case. You never know.

The thing is I’m really not going to want to check first thing in the morning. I really wouldn’t mind jacking this in for a bit really. Just a few days. It is Christmas after all.

Burger King’s Whopper Virgins

For the full video feature go to www.whoppervirgins.com

For a few days now I have been preoccupied with Burger King’s latest, seemingly controversial advertising campaign. Let me explain.

A tweet update takes me off to www.whoppervirgins.com and before I realise I’ve been taken off guard. My attention is drawn to the quality of the video I’m watching on the screen. Somehow, I’m seeing a high quality image without the usual pixellation I experience with an image of this size.

The player is set in a tasty black background. It communicates something. It communicates something serious, something slightly off the wall and yet considered at the same time.

When my eyes rest on the Burger King logo in the bottom left hand corner of the screen I find myself conflicted. This is a fast-food outlet and yet the sight of the page communicates something different.

Then there’s the video content itself. There’s a simple idea being communicated with an original notion being tested. Are the most accurate taste-testers those who’ve never tasted a burger before and, where exactly do we find those people?

In case you’re wondering, I hadn’t read over any other blog comments about Burger King’s latest campaign, so I came to this fresh.

The idea of the film seemed like a good one. There was something engaging about the idea of taking as much portable cooking equipment to far flung corners of the world and cooking up a burger for someone who’s never seen one before.

The way the video was shot communicated with me. This was proper video on the web. It was nearly eight minutes too and I was watching all the way to the end. This was breaking the three minute rule I’ve heard so much about recently.

Yes, the idea did slowly creep into my head about whether or not it was right. Was there an unpleasant after taste here? (Please forgive the pun.) I wasn’t necessarily seeing the poverty that some people say was obvious to all, instead I saw happy people dressed in their traditional garb. Even so, should we really be introducing something alien into a culture just for the sake of advertising?

That was a personal reaction based on very little researched information about Burger King or it’s rivals come to that. Free of the comments posted in response to the video I engaged with it afresh – not unlike the people who tasted their first burger really. The truth is, I didn’t get to the end of it and feel certain those contributors had been exploited. Everyone seemed reasonably happy (although admittedly, we didn’t necessarily get to see any footage of people really unhappy).

What spoke to me more was the initial idea and the way it was executed. I found myself engaged when I watched and whether it’s right or wrong, I found myself convinced that I would probably go for a Whopper rather than a Big Mac in future. And I found myself wanting a blog posting about it. Surely the digital agency behind it Crispin Porter + Bogusky  ticked all the boxes they needed to?

But if you’re reading this and thinking that I’m just another gullible so-and-so taken in by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, you’re missing one fundamental point.

I might think I like the idea of a Whopper burger more than a Big Mac but Burger King, like their rivals, is going to have to go a long long way before I feel comfortable buying one. Give me the choice between a restaurant or a fast food outlet and the sight of the latter is sure to persuade me to get me a table and sit down and take an hour to eat.

I just don’t enjoy the fast-food burger purchasing experience. It’s loud, it’s bright and invariably the places stink of chip fat and bleach. The floor is usually sticky underfoot and if I’ve braved the counter and ordered one the prospect of eating a burger inside fills me with fear and dread. Seeing as I object to people eating their burger on the tube, I realise the only place I can eat mine is on the street. And there ain’t any way I’m going to do that.

Burger King, KFC and MacDonalds have some way to go yet.