Journopig

I’ve been browsing the programme for this autumn’s Cheltenham Literature Festival, with the aim of seeing a few things over the course of the week. However, a few things have perturbed me about the programme, which seems to reflect the way our society is heading.

Firstly, the fact that there are so many BBC-bods appearing at the festival. I wouldn’t normally associate working for the BBC as indicating an expertise in literature, but Cheltenham will soon be bursting with employees.

There’s Andrew Marr, exploring technology, current affairs and journalism. Then he presides over a recording of Start The Week for Radio 4. Again from Radio 4, Today presenter Justin Webb is one of the participants in a debate on the 2010 General Election.

Newsnight‘s Gavin Esler takes part in a discussion about British Prime Ministers, and he and Justin Webb also take part in a debate about the economy. Eddie Mair talks about loss and grieving, and separately, about female politicians. Nick Robinson and Emily Maitlis discuss the General Election.

Newsnight‘s defence editor, Mark Urban, talks about the invasion of Iraq. John Simpson gives a talk based on his latest book about journalism. BBC journo Andrew Bryson talks about the valedictory speeches of ambassadors. James Naughtie and Bill Turnbull team up to discuss beekeeping, and then Naughtie interviews novelist Susan Hill.

It’s quite a list. Some of the items seem to have been sponsored by Radio 4, which explains the ubiquity of their presenters in the programme, but I still found it surprising that so many BBC journos supplement their income by appearing at a regional literary festival. Some rehash stuff they’ve been doing for years at work; some have written books; the beekeeping, in fact, is a welcome diversion.

But there’s another interesting thing about the programme, and that is its apparent enthusiasm for classing celebrity autobiographies as literature.

Comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli gets to interview Oxo mum and Loose Women panellist Lynda Bellingham about her autobiography. Comedienne Jo Brand talks about her autobiography. Alexei Sayle talks about his upbringing, which seems to be based on an autobiographical book.

Then we have Phill Jupitus giving a talk based on his autobiography; Stephen Fry does the same; as does ex-GMTV presenter Fiona Phillips, and on 16 October, a whole variety of celebs discussing their memoirs – Gok Wan, Jerry Hall and Chris Evans.

It’s obvious what these personalities get from appearing – a fee, presumably, and lots of publicity for the books they have – I hope, perhaps naively – written themselves. Perhaps there may also be an element of kudos – “Look! I’ve been asked to talk at a posh literary festival!”

But their works are not literature as I see it. Will their writing be commended in a century? I doubt it. Is there anything of unusual merit in their tales of “how I got rich/famous/lucky”? I don’t think so.

Sadly, though, to sell tickets at a literary festival, you need lots of “names”. Famous people who people will have heard of. It doesn’t really matter what they’re famous for; the sales for their events will help subsidise the more esoteric, intellectual talks and debates.

I’m only surprised that Katie Price and her make-up artist – both of whom have published autobiographies, which just shows how debased the genre has become – haven’t got their names in the programme. I expect that fact will be rectified next year – unless Mark Thompson has his memoirs out by then.

A sad local story this week involved the death of a 16-year-old West Oxfordshire boy, Alexander Codrington, who apparently shot himself whilst on the phone to police.

Now, I was interested in this story as Alexander died very near to my home, and it’s obviously a waste of a young, promising life.

The story made the national papers, and I was interested to see what the weekly locals would make of it.

The Oxford Times (5 August) duly ran a large piece on page 3, headlined “Shooting Tragedy In Woods”. But it was clear what it saw the news as being. The first line summed it up:

“The teenaged son of a west Oxfordshire baronet…”

And in the second line:

“Alexander Codrington, 16, son of Sir Christopher Codrington…”

The news was that this was the child of a baronet. Now, of course, this raises valid issues such as why a child from a privileged background would be so unhappy as to kill himself. The Oxford Times does, in all fairness, explore this, looking at Alexander’s love life and the fact that his relationship with his girlfriend had just ended.

But the emphasis seems to be on his wealthy background not as an exploration of how money can’t buy you happiness, but simply as a news peg. The story says:

“He had gone to the £27,000-a-year Stow School…”

But this is reasonable compared to the bizarre two lines that finish the article:

“Alexander’s father is Sir Christopher (George Wayne) Codrington, 50. The family title stretches back to 1876.”

Now, the piece has already mentioned – early on – who Alexander’s father is. So why the reporter feels the need to repeat this fact at the end – with the completely unnecessary addition of middle names in brackets – is a mystery. And who cares how far back the family title reaches? Does that have any bearing on the story?

Or is the Oxford Times just obsessed with title and rank, and sees the father’s title – and middle names – as more of a story than a sad, lonely suicide in an Oxfordshire wood?

On a trip to London today, I took the chance to have a read of City AM, one of the capital’s numerous free papers.

Based in the City, and aimed squarely at either aspirational Wall Street-types or those already motivated by – and amply rewarded by – money, it’s an interesting read.

It’s perhaps not aimed at those like myself, who are amused by the frequent photos of bankers and hedge fund managers with their glamorous Barbie wives, and who regard it as a red letter day when they find 20p in the gutter whilst out walking.

However, I still found the Living pages of today’s paper – in particular, a page entitled The Knowledge – to be informative and entertaining… just perhaps not in the way the newspaper intended.

It’s Q&A section features, apparently, genuine letters from readers to City AM’s resident estate agent-cum-agony uncle. The first question was from someone who clearly isn’t suffering from the effects of the global recession:

“Dear Russell, I am looking to invest in a London property. Is central London still the best place to buy?”

Funnily enough, Russell says yes; although in Bayswater, apparently, you can get “a bit more for your money”, and Kensington and Chelsea are also good places to buy. I’ll be getting my bijou apartment (did you SEE that tiny High Street Ken flat on Location, Location last night?!) straightaway.

There’s also a letter from two City workers who want a nice family house. Russell gives them the helpful advice that it’s “not enough” JUST to find “the property of your dreams”. You must find the perfect house, in the perfect catchment area. No mention of finding the money to do so – it’s taken as granted that all City AM readers have the necessary money already.

On the other side of the spectrum, there’s the same page’s focus on moving to Thornton Heath in south London (Russell advises a reader that south London suburbs are popular with families where the adults work in the City).

There are three properties featured on the page – one at £150k, one at just over £400k, and one – which isn’t even IN Thornton Heath – for £2.59 million.

Now, if you’re trying to sell your house – especially if it’s a multi-million pound property and you’re selling during a recession – you might be quite chuffed that your property is being featured in the pages of an aspirational newspaper in the capital.

This publicity will surely help you sell your property… won’t it?

Perhaps not.

For next to this des res is a box detailing all you need to know about the local area, which includes the selling point:

“Crime: generally worse than the national average, especially for robbery.”

Nice. I think that’s sold it for me.

There is something rather quaint about journalists in the 21st century using pens and notebooks to record what goes on in court hearings when the tools of the trade now include laptops, mobiles, BlackBerrys and other digital paraphernalia. Why not use them in court? In fact, why not report live from the courtroom? The obvious answer is that judges won’t let you.

In the US, lawyers have been fighting for the right of reporters and others to live-blog and tweet from court with some success. The Tribune, in Greeley, Colorado, is currently tweeting the trial of a man accused of killing his wife and last year, in Iowa, the Cedar Rapids Gazette live-blogged a tax and mail fraud case.

The practice is not yet widespread, and this month the Media Law Resource Center published a model policy on using electronic devices in court, which aims to persuade judges across the US to abandon restrictions on journalists. Fears that court proceedings would be disrupted and jurors prejudiced by live-blogging and tweeting can easily be overcome, the MLRC policy argues, by requiring electronic devices to be switched to silent settings and instructing jurors not to use the web to research cases they are hearing.

Central to the debate is the principle of open justice, which requires that justice should be seen to be done. Connected to that is the long-standing recognition that journalists (and now others) carry out an important social function when they witness court proceedings and inform the general public about them. “The role the press plays is an important role and the question becomes why shouldn’t they do it in the courtroom as opposed to stepping outside the courtroom at intervals,” says Steven Zansberg of Denver law firm Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz.

He makes a good point. The current set up, unchanged for decades, is that reporters, especially those working for wire services, rush out at convenient points during hearings to file copy based on their shorthand notes. The Press Association often has two or three journalists operating a relay system during trials so that when one leaves court to file an update another takes his or her seat. That seems like a lot of faffing about when journalists could be filing stories, blogging, and tweeting, live from the courtroom.

The Contempt of Court Act 1981 does not allow sound recordings to be made without the court’s permission. It’s also an offence to take photographs or make sketches (in court) of judges, jurors and witnesses – although the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 says that doesn’t apply to the supreme court. Since there isn’t a statutory ban on creating text by means of electronic devices, it surprises me that journalists and bloggers haven’t already lobbied British judges about reporting directly from the courtroom.

There are some lawyers and journalists who have reservations about this: “You’d need to trial it, to see how it worked,” says Mike Dodd, editor of Media Lawyer. “I’d be very suspicious about tweeting – I’m not sure that court cases are the sort of thing where you’d want to put out short, pithy messages.”

The difference between scribbling notes (publishing later) and filing copy instantly from the courtroom using an electronic device is self-evidently slight and there’s a lot to be said for the sort of full, accurate, contemporaneous, reports of court hearings that live-blogs and twitter reporting could achieve.

Zansberg dismisses arguments that tweeting and live-blogging shouldn’t be allowed because they don’t provide the whole context for a case. “No account reports the entirety of the proceedings whether it’s a newspaper story or the evening news on television,” he says. “There is always a snippet, a soundbite and [journalists] are always going to be engaged in an editing function.” He argues that the decline in newspaper sales and changes in the way that the people access news is one reason to embrace new ways of reporting trials: “Look at the statistics on how many people are getting their information from the web and social media sites,” he says.

• Afua Hirsch is away

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

I’ve been thinking about the vagaries of court reporting for a while.

In this day of social media, live blogging and so on, it seems strange that in Britain, court reporting seems to be stuck in the 19th century – all shorthand and whispered write-ups over the phone.

Want a picture of someone in court? Well, you’ll have to wait till you’re outside, and then try and draw a picture from memory – and half the time, it will bear little resemblance to the person inside.

Surely it’s logical to be able to transmit live proceedings of court action – if not live television, as per popular American series, then being able to tweet or blog proceedings as they happen would be good, enabling there to be a written record of what is happening, and who has said what to whom.

Luckily, other people are doing something to try and get the British legal and court system to become a bit more modern, transparent and accountable.

Heather Brooke has raised the issue; journalism.co.uk has taken up the baton, and so has Paul Bradshaw on the Online Journalism Blog. Alistair Kelman has set up a campaign on the government website Your Freedom to abolish the part of the Contempt of Court Act that makes it illegal to tape court proceedings.

The courts are stuck in the past as far as journalism and reporting events are concerned. If you want to make them more contemporary, get involved.

I went back in time this weekend, reading the Mail on Sunday, and wondered if the women’s liberation movement had ever happened.

On page 7 was a story by Royal correspondent Katie Nicholl on the Duchess of York’s seemingly never-ending financial troubles.

Throughout the article was an assumption that the Duchess should be bailed out by her ex-husband, with her “friends” complaining that the Duke had left his ex “marooned with absolutely nothing”.

Now, I hate to quibble, but the Duchess has been divorced for 14 years, and I don’t know of any divorced couple where the woman has expected her ex to continue to pay off her continued overdrafts and debts for more than a decade after their marriage has ended.

And this is a woman who has had several chances to make a lot of money – “writing” books, plugging WeightWatchers, making embarrassingly bad documentaries, and so on.

Yet we are now told that the Duchess is gutted about the Duke trying to save her money by getting rid of her PAs, dresser, hairdresser and personal trainer. Presumably, he has been paying for them as it is, if he is the one sacking them.

Her response – as her unnamed “friends” tell the Mail on Sunday – is to complain that her “control” has been “taken away”, and that:

“‘she has been offered no financial aid from Andrew, which is frankly astonishing.’”

Why is it so astonishing? They’re her debts, and so surely, as a 50-year-old independent woman, she should take the responsibility for paying them off, and not expect her ex to do it for her.

But her friends – and by implication, Sarah Ferguson herself – see it differently. One “source” says:

“Although Sarah knows she has got herself into this mess, the fact is Andrew is in a position to help her financially. He made millions from the sale of their former marital home.’”

What sour grapes. Now, the Duke of York may enjoy spending money – travelling to golf courses, for example – but he has let his ex-wife stay in the marital home, put up with her often embarrassing acts, and so on; and their daughters are now grown-up and away at university (presumably not being paid for by the Duchess).

But from the Mail on Sunday‘s tone, and those of the anonymous sources quoted in the story, you should absolutely expect your ex-husband to get you out of trouble for years and years after your marriage ends.

Why should you be an independent, grown-up woman, when you have an ex to pressurise for money?

And why should you ever take responsibility for your actions when you’re just a woman, and a man is there to help you out?

Poor Fergie. One’s heart bleeds for her situation. But at least she has the Mail on Sunday to purse its metaphorical lips and fight her cause.

I competed in a triathlon at the weekend, where, in my goody bag, was a copy of Running Free magazine.

I’ve seen this magazine in running shops before, but never read it – I’m not sure why as it’s free, it’s about one of my main hobbies, and it does tend to list some interesting features. Maybe it’s because it’s free, and I’m a snob about my magazines – I like to pay for them. Or something.

But after having read the copy I received in my goody bag, I think I was right not to have bothered reading it before.

This is for a simple reason. I like readability, and that includes correct grammar and punctuation. Any error in punctuation can create difficulty in reading a sentence or statement fluently, and that really grates on me.

And the editor’s intro on page 3 of the magazine is full of sloppy grammar that makes me want to put it straight in the bin.

Take the first two sentences:

“This month I was lucky enough to attend a workshop with 800m runner, Jenny Meadows, which focussed on those all important core muscles. And wow did I feel it in my abs (page 18).”

The comma before Jenny Meadows’ name isn’t necessary; but one after the “wow” would have been nice.

Then we go onto:

“Core training, can also refer to getting inside yourself and sorting out your head!”

Another unnecessary comma that breaks up the sentence and ruins its meaning. There’s also the exclamation mark. Running Free likes exclamation marks. Sometimes it feels like you’re reading a school essay by a hyperactive 13-year-old.

Towards the end of the intro, there’s a worse sentence:

“on page 42, we talk to hospital soap star, Holby’s, Phoebe Thomas, about her race and training…”

Presumably, whoever does the subbing on Running Free likes commas, but isn’t quite sure of where to put them – so they end up randomly scattered throughout the text.

Perhaps they also know they’re not very good, and refuse to be credited for their work. The magazine’s credits list only an editor, sales director, art director, accountant, admin assistant and publisher directly employed by Standfirst Media Limited. No mention of any subs.

But never has a magazine showed the need for the sub and his or her job more.

For the past two weeks, the Banbury Cake has featured a story about a community leisure card being launched by Nexus Community, the organisation that operates some council leisure centres in Oxfordshire.

This must be big news, as it’s been covered in two recent editions.

Only from what I can tell, it’s not news, and there hasn’t been a launch.

Why do I think this? Well, partly because I have a community leisure card. And I’ve had it a lot longer than two weeks.

But also, the Nexus Community Leisure Card was launched in South Oxfordshire in September 2009. I assume, although I can’t find a relevant press release, that the scheme would have been launched in West Oxfordshire (part of which the Banbury Cake covers) around the same time.

Reading the detail of the story, it would seem that what the news ACTUALLY is lies in the number of people who have now got the card – over 1,000 in West Oxfordshire.

I can’t find a press release issued either by Nexus or by West Oxfordshire District Council this month to confirm that this is where the Banbury Cake (and its partner papers, such as the Witney Gazette, which repeated this story) got the “news”.

However, I assume it was such a release – or a statement by a councillor – that tried to draw attention to the number of people using a leisure card since its launch.

But why the Cake decided the news was something else entirely, and then repeated it for good measure, is a mystery.

The Banbury Cake‘s latest edition (8 July) actually attempts to give its rural outpost of Chipping Norton some important information.

On page 8, it publicises (albeit in a very small article at the bottom of the page – because it’s news that doesn’t affect Banbury) Oxfordshire County Council’s proposal to decrease the speed limit along the London Road in Chipping Norton – the town’s main road, that leads onto the A44 towards Oxford.

The county council is consulting on its proposals to reduce the limit, and the Cake helpfully states:

“Anyone who would like to comment on the proposals should write to the director for environment and economy…”

But if you do want to do so, get a move on, because:

“The deadline is tomorrow.”

Best to email, given the state of the postal system, eh?

Although perhaps the better option would have been for the Banbury Cake to publicise this scheme in an earlier edition, rather than wait until the day before the consultation closed.

The big news from the Banbury Cake this week (1 July edition) is that a woman has been found in Banbury who likes football (page 10).

Now, cynics might say this is a tenuous way of getting a World Cup story in the Cake, which normally wouldn’t be able to find a link between a small market town famous for cakes and a woman on a horse, and crap footballers.

But in the Cake‘s rather old-fashioned eyes, this is a hot story about a household where a woman is so into football (gasp!) that her husband – wait for it – has to do the family ironing (shock!).

So we have a picture of the poor, neglected hubbie, the wonderfully named Roy Mold, pictured leaning on the ironing board. He’s not doing the ironing, despite the picture caption claiming:

“Roy Mold does a spot of ironing.”

He’s just leaning, smiling at the camera, and the ironing board is noticeably lacking any ironing on it.

But let’s not let facts get in the way of a good story.

Albeit something that would actually be newsworthy to Gene Hunt circa 1976, but hey.

I tried reading this story a different way, replacing the “he” with “she”. A man is footie-mad. His wife describes him as a “football nutter”. He watches all the World Cup matches, is in a local amateur footie club, and shouts at the telly when matches are on. She, meanwhile, does the ironing and gardening.

Is that news? No, of course it isn’t. And it being a woman who is interested in football isn’t a story either. Most of my female friends are into football, shout at the telly, go to matches, have football club stickers on their car (hello, @lovemebobbins, I’m talking about you) and know more about the offside rule than many men we know.

In 2010, do we really need stories that implicitly suggest that it should be the woman doing the ironing and gardening, and the man watching football on telly? And yes, that is exactly what it does, by deciding that this alleged gender reversal warrants a quarter-page write-up and a dodgy photo opportunity.

Come on, Banbury Cake, get with the 21st century. Oh, and get your interviewees’ names right, too. Your footie-mad woman is “Sandra” in the photo caption, and “Samantha” at first in the text… before she is simply, and more safely in the Cake‘s eyes, referenced as “Mrs Mold”.