image credit: taijofj on Flickr

Interviewing and ethics

“In The Journalist and the Murderer (1990), [Janet] Malcolm described the inevitable betrayal involved in the journalist-subject encounter; the subject will regress like a patient in psychoanalysis, childishly trusting their questioner, only to discover that the journalist is not a compassionate listener but a professional with an agenda and a story to construct.

Thus, according to the book’s oft-quoted opening: “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.”

(Taken from The Journalist and the Biographer – Sydney Morning Herald)

Frost Nixon

This snippet of the Nixon interviews with David Frost in 1977 (sorry – it can’t be embedded – you have to click on that link) encapsulates the point perfectly. It shows Frost poised, concentrating. Head down a touch, eyes up. Meanwhile Nixon’s body language is defeatist: shoulders thrown back, head bobbing about, hands outstretched before him.

It’s a fascinating snapshot of the journalist at work.

Interviewing as an art

Interviewing is a learned art as much as a natural-born skill. I thought I’d add some examples below of encounters – some famous, some not – that have stuck in my mind.

All of these interviews throw up different challenges. Some have more successful outcomes than others.

1. David Dimbleby runs into a grumpy Gore Vidal on the night of Obama’s presidential victory in 2008.

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2. Devina McCall in caught wretchedly in a clash of style – between pop tv and rock music in this interview with James Dean Bradfield.

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3. Al Capp takes on John Lennon at his Bed-In in Montreal

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4. Jeremy Paxman interviews George Galloway on election night 2005 – and goes straight for the throat

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5. Trouble between interviewees – a famous incident between Gore Vidal and William Buckley in 1968

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6. And back to Lennon again. This is an old favourite and great work of art: a 14 year-old Beatle fan meets Lennon at around the same time as the Al Capp incident

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(Image: Prebends Bridge in Durham, by BigBadsWorld on Flickr)

Much maligned: media studies.

One week and one day before 11 September 2001, Michael Hann, who is now Film and Music Editor at the Guardian, wrote a feature: Media studies? Do yourself a favour – forget it.

The best part of a decade on, it’s interesting to have a look back at this. On job prospects, he said:

This autumn, students around the country will enrol for undergraduate journalism degrees, probably imagining that their three years of study will place them in the forefront of those students seeking jobs in the media when they graduate…

…many will face disappointment. Undergraduate journalism degrees are a new creation in this country. Even a decade ago, it was accepted that studying journalism as a student meant one of two things: either the pre-entry courses run by the bodies that oversee journalists’ training, or one of the postgraduate courses run by a number of institutions, headed by the Oxbridge of journalism: the one-year courses at City and Cardiff universities.

It’s hard not to claim cause and effect, when, in the last few weeks alone, there’s been a blog post by Lara O’Reilly on the scarcity of opportunities for recent grads and another on Journalism.co.uk which runs to similar lines by Joseph Stashko.

So maybe Hann was right? Or maybe not. Listen to this:

In their desire to gets bums on seats and fees in accounts, too many colleges and universities are running courses that do not provide students, even after three years, with the skills they need to get a job. Worse, because they need the money the students generate, they fail to identify students who are simply not good enough to work in journalism and warn them of their shortcomings. Why would anyone do a journalism degree if they thought they would not get a job at the end of it? They would not. But don’t tell them that: we might lose the cash.

Every editor who takes work experience students has had the same experience: a student in the final year of a journalism degree who will never get a job. I have seen students who, literally, could not string a sentence together. Not one of their tutors had ever sat down with them and explained the bitter facts of life: you can’t write, can’t sub, can’t interview, won’t ring round – you’re unemployable in journalism.

People like that have always wanted to be journalists and they have always been disappointed. The difference now is that they waste three years of their lives and thousands of pounds before they find out. And course tutors collude in it.

This point is more difficult to square – and a decade on Hann will probably have to concede that this was an unfair caricature. Those starting off in journalism today might not be any more or less talented than those a decade ago, but they are certainly much better prepared.

Student media. (c.2001)

Around the same time that Hann was writing his piece, I was about to start my degree at Durham. It was a small, odd place in comparison to the county that I had just left. All crooked houses, towering cathedrals, stone bridges and cobbled streets. After a bit I started writing for Palatinate, the student newspaper – which at the time was about all the early journalism training that we were expected to get.

@rebeccats might well back me up on this, but I confess that we weren’t especially good. None of us had had any proper training in how to give a news story shape; half of the features were indulgent and wore on like a church sermon and the whole thing – a broadsheet paper with accompanying arts supplement – was cobbled together on a doddery Mac by a group of aspiring writers who had all of the design nous of a gibbon.

If you look at student media a decade on, the landscape has changed entirely. Students like Joseph Stashko (who is a journalism student at UCLan) are running hyperlocal sites such as Blog Preston in their spare time. Josh Halliday – who did his BA at Sunderland – has blogged his way to a trainee job with the Guardian, and up at Birmingham City University, Paul Bradshaw has set up a course which is so far in front of the rest of the industry that a good chunk of the media travels up their JeeCamp Unconference each year to see what might be happening next.

While this all might be reflective of a rather jumbled up industry, it is far more democratic than how it used to be. A decade after Hann’s article and journalism grads are unquestionably better trained and prepared to enter the industry than they were before. Good students are now fully NCTJ trained and in addition they know about design, they know about coding, they know about data and they have the tools – both hardware and software – to get the job done quickly and sometimes brilliantly.

During our degrees we didn’t have any of this training. We just learnt in public by occasionally making a hash of things, knowing that we’d have to go off and do a postgraduate course at some point in the future. With Halliday’s appointment – the kind of position that you’d have expected to go to a breezy-bequiffed English Lit or History grad back in the early 2000s – it’s clear that nowadays the industry is taking journalism undergraduate degrees seriously.

(Have a look at Paul Bradshaw’s list of recent successful grads at the bottom of this post to see more examples of top jobs going to grduating journalism students).

One Blair, one Bush, one photo

One incident from my time on Palatinate sticks in my mind particularly. It was in about 2003, in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, when President George W. Bush arrived to visit Tony Blair at his Sedgefield home. Bush ate a pub lunch while surrounded by a scrum of security and then disappeared off the sky in his helicopter.

The most we managed on the event was a grainy photograph at 150 paces and a short news piece. I wonder how that story would have been reported now with trained bloggers and teams of student journalists: Twitter, AudioBoo, Posterous and all the rest of it. It’s would be a good measure of how student reporting has moved on.

But where are the jobs? There has been a 24% increase in applicants for journalism courses over the last year and the industry is being squeezed. You can’t help get the feeling that trying to get all the journalism graduates into relevant jobs is like trying to jam an elephant into a thimble.  So on that count, I think Hann’s first point stands – and that journalism educators and universities should make this fact as plain as possible to student applicants. After all, no torture is equal to that of encouragement of hope.

I still think, though, that the good grads (have a look at Lara O’Reilly if you want an example of one) will still do well and find their way. They’re already better prepared than a load of us lot were back in the summer of 2004 and what the best ones need now more than anything is a little luck.

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Paul Bradshaw has recently begun a series on successful journalism students who have gone on to great jobs in the media. To see all nine of those profiled so far, have a look at the New Online Journalists.

Nineteenth century newspapers

I spent Saturday searching through newspapers at the British Library branch up in Colindale. It’s an odd enough place with pale blue walls, stiff wooden doors and an atmosphere that is best described as a mix between a 1960’s comprehensive and an old village hall. It’s not too difficult to detect that the old building will be closed in 2012 and that – in the meantime – it is more lingering on than existing outright.

Still, the newspapers are what make the place and there are some fabulous collections stored there. I’ve always enjoyed reading 19^th century newspapers. They’ve a knack for savage clarity and pithy expression. Of course, they might be inaccurate, prim, judgemental and filled to the rafters with quack medical adverts, but nowadays, while browsing through them, these are things to enjoy rather than endure.

Best of all, of course, are the news snippets. Something like NIBS, I suppose, published weekly in a section usually titled ‘Home News.’ Here’s an imagined version of how they might have reported the Raoul Moat case. It’s a bit of a tonic from all today’s over-reporting.

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Manhunt

Saturday evening last. In a most calamitous incident Raoul Moat, of Newcastle Upon Tyne, did shoot dead with a shotgun one Chris Brown of the same neighbourhood. Moat, aged 37, a known villain, did, by the same weapon, moments after, shoot a subsequent victim, Samantha Stobbart, through a window, causing near fatal bleeding. A terrific chase was made after Moat by the town magistrates until the wretched criminal was discovered some days afterwards near a river in the village of Rothbury, close to this city. Moat, who exhibited many signs of rough living, held a shotgun to his temple in the most violent and effecting manner for a period upwards of six hours, raging wildly at the magistrates and agents of the law who had beset him on all sides. At a little after one o’clock in the morning, the lamentable man, who demonstrated very many signs of the hardest sorrows and most deranged ravings of the mind, did launch himself forever into eternity with the aid of his gun. An inquest was held on the body the following day by Ms Sue Sim, JP, Coroner. Verdict – lunacy.

Image credit:Effervescing Elephant

14,000 words per day

It’s worth taking a moment to thank Andrew Sparrow for locking himself up in the Guardian’s offices for the last month and producing a great live blog of the General Election campaign and the eventual change of government.

He’s written an interesting piece on the practicalities of live blogging and how writing up to 14,000 words a day gave him a unique insight into the campaign. Sparrow’s a fan of the art and so am I. Live blogging is another skill that should be incorporated into practical journalism qualifications.

Interestingly, he writes:

“If journalism is the first draft of history, live blogging is the first draft of journalism.”

It’s a great line, and it certainly has merit. But Sparrow’s blog was also a collection of information from elsewhere: quotes from MPs on Twitter, the recording of Gordon Brown and bigotgate on Audioboo, the photos of Cameron and the Queen on Twitpic and so on.

Therefore, perhaps I could amend Sparrow’s statement slightly and suggest that social media is the first draft of journalism?

Anyway. Here’s a very quick sketch of how news was reported throughout the General Election campaign.

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Image credit: C4Chaos

Image credit: My David Cameron

How to laugh at a politician

On election morning I thought it’d be a good idea to look back at the last few months’ online political satire. I’m not sure that it has been quite the digital election that I was anticipating, with TV being, if anything, the defining medium, but the Internet has certainly added something.

And here is a quick round up of the best digital satire.

1. My David Cameron

A website set up in January this year by by Clifford Singer, creative director at Sparkloop graphic design agency, shortly after David Cameron’s heavily airbrushed face appeared on 759 billboards about the country.

The site received 90,000 unique visitors in two weeks, with anyone able to share their version of the Cameron poster.

2. #itsnicksfault

After a furious press turned on Nick Clegg for daring to become popular without their support, their negative headlines were ridiculed on Twitter as Rory Cellan Jones explains in this blog post. Some of his highlights being:

“Just had a giant chocolate eclair with cream. All #nickcleggsfault”
“We’ve run out of houmous #NickCleggsfault”
“Pompey not being allowed to play in Europe. #nickcleggsfault”
“Got rid of the wasp and a new wasp has arrived. #nickcleggsfault”
“I got my debit card stolen #nickcleggsfault”

3. Charlie Brooker in the Guardian

Charlie Brooker has been on enormously good form in the last few weeks. I think my favourite paragraph of his was this, just after the final leaders’ debate:

According to some polls, Cameron won, or at the very least tied with Clegg. Which is odd, because to my biased eyes, he looked hilariously worried whenever the others were talking. He often wore a face like the Fat Controller trying to wee through a Hula Hoop without splashing the sides, in fact. Perhaps that’s just the expression he pulls when he’s concentrating, in which case it’s fair to say he’d be the first prime minister in history who could look inadvertently funny while pushing the nuclear button.

[Charlie Brooker - BBC debate was a cross between Songs of Praise and Over the Rainbow]

4. The Daily Mash

Odd and shocking as ever, the writers at the Daily Mash have obviously enjoyed the fact that there is an election on:

Clegg to clean up politics using his personal bank account – [link]

BNP launches aryan spread – [link]

Brown to be turned into glue – [link]

5. The election debates and social media

As Shane Richmond explains here, watching the leaders’ debates with Twitter added an extra dimension to the whole thing. Facebook was pretty good too.

6. Matt on the General Election

A cross over from the mainstream media here, but it’s well worth checking out Matt’s bank of General Election cartoons at the Telegraph. There’s a particularly good one of David Cameron pestering a sleeping couple.

7. Nope

Currently doing the rounds on Twitter. Published in response to the Sun’s front page.

Image taken from Mattlays’ Twitpic.

UPDATE 8am: It’s only an hour since I posted this, but already Liberal Conspiracy are publishing lots of different variations of the Cameron frontpage. It’s an echo of the airbrush moment, and it’s interesting to wonder what effect it will have – if any – on polling day.

8. The Peter Mandleson Experience

And, lastly of all, this video of Peter Mandleson and Gordon Brown having a jam is quite brilliant.

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Right. Enough silliness – I’ve got to decide who to vote for.

For the past few weeks it has felt as if balanced journalism has taken a break and that everything is propaganda.

I suppose it’s wise to be suspicious of  everything until 6 May has passed, and in particular it’s a good idea to question any information published by the opinion pollsters You Gov. Here’s a five reasons why.

1. Loaded questions

Here’s an example of a You Gov question, posted on a Digital Spy forum two days ago. In the words of the author: ‘Notice anything missing?’

27 April 2010 – Still No Lib Dems?

Click image for full-size – original can be seen here

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2. More loaded questions?

It’s difficult to tell how balanced You Gov’s questions are without going through them all, but from the evidence of this Twitpic image and the comments beneath, well – you can make your own mind up.

“Everything scares me about the Liberal Democrats” – 22 April 2010

Click on the image to view full size. Original posting can be seen here.

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3. Fixed debate polls?

As Michael Crick explains in this blog post, You Gov ran their post-debate poll following the second televised debate at a rather curious time. Between 9.27pm and 9.31pm, to be precise. The debate finished a 9.30pm – meaning:

In Crick’s words:

This may explain why Yougov gave David Cameron a better rating than the other post-debate polls did last night. For Nick Clegg ended the debate with a very powerful closing speech, probably the best of the evening.

According to the BBC video system Clegg didn’t start speaking until 9:29:18 and finished at 9:30:47

So many of those polled by You Gov last night must have voted without seeing his final speech. [link to Crick's blog]

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4. Stephan Shakespeare (the CIO)

You’d think that the most important aspect of any poll is that it is unbiased. And who’s You Gov’s CEO – the man ultimately responsible for making this so? Stephan Shakespeare, an ex-Conservative parliamentary candidate for Colchester and the owner of Conservative Home.

Perfect. Craig Murray offers his description of Mr. Shakespeare  here but if that is a little too, er, biased then you can have a look at his Wikipedia entry.

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5. Nadhim Zahawi (the founder)

A follow on from the last one. Nadham Zahawi founded You Gov 10 years ago and was its CEO up until February this year when, of course, he stepped down to stand as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Stratford.

It’s just the type of business arangement that I used to experience during my time in Madrid. Florentino Perez would be proud.

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Still, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that any information published by You Gov was false is any way. They might send me a letter or something.

Image credit: secretlondon123