And so to the Edinburgh Television Festival. Well, I didn’t actually go, you understand: my weekly stipend from the DWP doesn’t stretch to jaunts north of the Thames, let alone north of the border. But through reports in the papers, on the telly and the miracle of the interweb, I was there in spirit.
Taking their lead from that scurrilous tattle-monger the
Guardian, most of the media concentrated on the supposed dust-up between James Murdoch and Robert Peston. And while everyone covered Murdoch’s speech at length, seeing it as an attack on the BBC – which it was, up to a point – fewer covered
Peston’s speech. Which is a pity, because a lot of what he said was aimed specifically at journalists and how journalism is changing.
Whereas once he wrote two or three stories a week on a clapped-out typewriter, 'now I write up to five or six blogs in a single day,' he said. 'I broadcast on the Today programme, the Ten O'Clock News, as the broadcasting pillars of my output - and up to 20 or so other channels and programmes in a single day.'
Whew! Say what you like about Peston - and a lot of people do - we certainly seem to be getting our licence fee’s worth out of him.
I guess what he’s saying is that journos have to be good at multi-tasking these days – what he calls 'total journalism' - not just print nor just TV nor just radio nor just fish nor just fowl, but all of them. I’d be interested to ask the BBC’s Business Editor how he would square this with Adam Smith’s 'the divisibility of labour in pin manufacturing' which, from memory, adorns the back of the £20 note, but I guess that’s another argument, for another day.
But fired up by Peston’s words – and it’s not often you can say that – I determine to emphasise my multi-tasking abilities in future job apps. When it comes to multi-tasking, I’m a good ‘un.
For instance, this morning I saw a job advert for that rare bird, the lesser-spotted sub-editor (on and offline). I immediately started my application’s covering letter: 'Dear Mr Smith…'
I paused there, wondering if in these dress-down email times such formality is called for. A quick google of 'formality in emails' reveals opinion is wildly, even violently, divided.
I’m thinking about this when my email icon starts bouncing up and down, alerting me to a missive from a mate inviting to go to a YouTube site to watch a clip from the classic Billy Wilder movie about journalism, Ace in the Hole. It’s about a hotshot city reporter who wrangles a job on a paper in two-horse Albuquerque. It’s very funny, but sets me wondering: Where is Albuquerque?
Google Map time.
OK, after a few misspellings, I’ve nailed it. Then I start wondering whether it was Dorothy Parker who said about Albuquerque: 'There’s no there there.' A quarter-hour’s searching reveals the answer: it wasn’t Dorothy Parker, it was Gertrude Stein, and it wasn’t Albuquerque, but Oakland. Glad I got that sorted out.
The search for famous one-liners leads me to an article by Marcus Gran in the
Daily Mail on 'The Return of the One-liner'. It’s about how stand-up comedians are giving up on lame 'observational humour' and reverting to the quickfire gags beloved of the 70s show The Comedians.
That sends me back to
YouTube, where I spend an enjoyable hour watching Tim Vine, the modern master of the genre ('My local police chief gives a talk on heroin, but no-one can understand him') and then to Steven Wright, the American surrealist gagmeister ('I’ve got a sachet of Instant Water, but I don’t know what to add'). The surrealism makes me think of John Shuttleworth, and I’ve got some of his stuff somewhere in one of my CD folders. Twenty minutes later, I’ve found it, slotted it in and while listening to Radio Shuttleworth, chuckling away to his section on finding a job called 'Annoy An Employer', it strikes me it would be a good idea if I rearranged that CD folder into alphabetical order for easier future use.
After that, it seems like an even better idea to build a database of what’s on each of my CDs and DVDs I’ve got in each of my five folders, so I spend a solidly worthwhile half-an-hour or so trying out all my various programs, to see which would be best for this task, weighing up their pros and cons, which offers the best star rating etc. During this, I also find the time to carry out much needed research on whether the old 'milk first' or 'milk after' tea debate also applies to instant coffee. This surely must be the very essence of multi-tasking.
But I must also return to the matter at hand: my job application covering letter. After a quick check online to remind myself what job it was I was actually applying for five or so hours ago, it strikes me that if it’s multi-tasking they’re after, I could just detail all of the above into my covering letter.
That’s just the sort of thing today’s media employer wants from an on-the-ball, multi-tasking (on and offline) employee, I’m sure. Robert Peston, eat your heart out.
Two vacancies here for trainee reporters in North Wales, courtesy of Trinity Mirror.
One skill you develop when you're unemployed that I didn’t mention in my last posting about multi-tasking is the ability to sniff out a bargain at 50 yards.
