'Just married': The Times says it best as Royal Wedding clears every front page

Major news events create, as we've written before, a special challenge for newspaper subs and editors as they compete to come up with the defining front page, and both yesterday and today the competition was fierce.

Yesterday, the Sun edged it - they used the same picture as others, such as the Mirror, but with a much better headline: 'Mum would have been so proud'.

Today, we're calling it for the Times - if only because they're pretty much the only paper to eschew the predictable balcony-kiss shot, instead using two pictures of the Aston Martin on a wrap and then on the front page. 

On a day when pretty much every paper carries the same story, a better headline and a better picture are what counts. Tomorrow, story strength might have something to do with it.


UPDATE: Peter Sands, former direction of PA Training and editor of the Northern Echo, agrees with our assessment too - and has a more detailed commentary on some of the front-page picture cropping.

Can't write, won't write - how journalists can hit back at superinjunctions

There's been a lot of chatter over the past few days about what journalists can do to fight back against the blizzard of injunctions, superinjunctions, hyperinjunctions and other privacy rulings which seem to be coming our way at the moment.

Much of the talk is fanciful at best - for example, the idea that all the nationals should club together and simultaneously break the injunctions, hoping for safety in numbers. (As well as being impossible to organise, this does have the slight disadvantage of still breaking the law, whether or not the law's right.) But looking at the Independent's front page yesterday got us thinking: what if there was another way?

Flicking through the paper's list of other gagging orders, a bit of a theme emerges. 'Leading sportsman', 'prominent married actor', 'high-profile television presenter' - the one thing most of them have in common is that they all enjoy a high public profile, and indeed rely upon it to make money.

Andrew Marr, the one subject of a gagging order to be revealed so far, is no different. Since he took out his super-injunction in 2008 he's been the subject of numerous other newspaper articles which have raised his profile and helped him earn money both directly and indirectly - for instance through reviews of his book The Making of Modern Britain and his widely covered remarks about 'socially inadequate, pimpled and single' citizen journalists at last year's Cheltenham Literature Festival.

So, here's the idea. If someone takes out an injunction or super-injunction, for whatever reason, then journalists should just stop writing about them. Stop writing about them completely. 

No book reviews, no profiles, no interviews, no TV round-ups, no match reports, no celebrity gossip, no news, no nothing. Not in the nationals, not in local papers, not in magazines or on TV or on the radio. As far as the public is concerned, they will simply have dropped off the face of the earth. If someone takes court action to limit what a free press can write about them, it should become a point of honour amongst all journalists and their editors to just stop writing about them entirely.

Would it work? No, almost certainly not. Getting journalists to do anything together is like herding cats, and you'd have to be pretty ballsy to start filing match reports about football teams while refusing to mention key players (though if the Sun can rename Southampton as 'South Coast Team', it's not without precedent). But crucially it wouldn't be, as far as we know, illegal - you may be able to jail journalists for writing about someone but you surely can't jail them for not writing about someone, so long as they don't say why they're not writing about them. And if it was even half-successful, it might make anyone who relies on publicity to be successful - which is lots of them - think twice before taking out an injunction.

Like the idea? Let us know - and if we get enough support, FleetStreetBlues will go all out and launch a 'Can't write, won't write' campaign. Leave a comment below, email us at fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk or Twitter at us @fleetstreetblue with the hashtag #cantwritewontwrite. Who's with us?

Telegraph asks: 'Whose boobs are these?'

We're not entirely sure which is worse - that the Telegraph genuinely ran a blogpost asking readers to help them identify the pair of breasts hovering somewhere above Ed Miliband's left ear at Prime Minister's Question Time today, or that the Guardian ran a follow-up blogpost simultaneously condemning and celebrating the original question. Truly, a battle of the broadsheets.

Who actually cares about local journalism?

A post over at the Wannabe Hacks tackles an interesting question: who actually cares about local journalism?

We're not talking about the concept of local journalism, the need to have local reporters covering councils and church fetes, school boards and traffic accidents. No, we're talking about actually reading it.

Is this because I don’t rate the quality of local journalism? Not at all. Is it because of the mass of ads and regular wrap-around pages which often hide and overshadow the content? 

That doesn’t really bother me. No, the reason I don’t read any of the local newspapers at my disposal is that I don’t care about local news.

It’s terrible isn’t it? I really am quite disappointed in myself but if some of you are honest (and I’m sticking my neck out here) then I am sure that there are more of you like me.

I don’t have any interest in the local community or even the local politics. I don’t want to know what plays or shows are on and despite being sport mad I have no interest in the trials and tribulations of the local football team.

Instead of consuming local news, the Wannabe Hacks argue, most readers in the increasingly mobile 21st century would much rather read about global events, national politics and top-level sport. It doesn't matter how good local journalists are, they suggest - what they're writing about is simply boring.

Which is about half right, we'd argue. Yes, we live in an increasingly connected, globally aware world, where what's happening down your street can often feel of less importance than events much further afield. There's a limited interest in the goings-on of county courts and parish councils, no matter how worthy the subject. And in particular, there's a question over whether what was popularly termed 'hyperlocal' news a couple of years ago will ever really work. If news about your town has limited appeal, restricting coverage to news about your street probably isn't going to solve the problem.

But there are two important counter-arguments too - and here we're hoping our many readers working on local papers might like to chip in too.

First and foremost, it's important to remember that young student journalists who've moved to London are about as far from a local newspaper's target audience as it's possible to be - as the Wannabe Hack acknowledges, 'an expose on council refuse collection would have my friend's mum riveted'. You don't have to be elderly to enjoy local papers, but important rites of passage such as buying a house and sending kids to school give people a stake in their local community they simply don't have otherwise - and make them care about what happens in it more as a result.

And secondly, reporting on council meetings and the like sounds boring and it can be, but that's not what local journalism is really about. Local journalism, like any other kind of journalism, is about finding stories. Many of the best, most outrageous tales in the nationals start out as page leads in some far-flung regional paper, and they got there courtesy of hard-working hacks with a nose for news.

There's always filler material in any paper, and refuse collection is a dull subject whether you're writing about it from town hall or Westminster. But there are a million cracking stories out there, just waiting to be had. If local journalism's boring, you're probably doing it wrong.

The politician, the reporter and the inquisitive field mouse

It's election time in South Africa, and our man in Cape Town Ray Joseph has been in touch again, with another great story.

His last dispatch, you may remember, involved a reporter's dog who stumbled across a murder victim while out on a walk. This time there's a mouse...

With local government elections only a few weeks away in South Africa, and politicians hot on the campaign trail, journalists are scurrying around looking for offbeat angles as an antidote to the crass electioneering - and this wonderful story comes straight from the annals of 'You can't make it up - even if you tried!'

And for reporter Carien du Plessis, after weeks on the campaign trail and probably bored with the standard election diet of empty promises and politicians slagging off the other side, this one must have seemed like a gift from the gods of mad news - when a mouse ran up the trouser leg of Opposition leader Helen Zille, and bit her in the, er...'groin'. 

(It would have been the crotch, if Du Plessis had not been a broadsheet reporter.)

Zille, who has proved to be a revelation when it comes to dance moves on the hustings - a must for any politician wanting to impress voters in South Africa's rural areas - brazened it out and, mouse intact, managed to conduct and interview and pose for pictures.

And, the story even comes with the happy revelation that no animals were harmed during the incident.

Pity about the very bland, boring headline. The sub missed a great chance to have fun - or maybe they did, and revise bottled out.

For more of the same you can follow Ray on Twitter @rayjoe.

Quote of the Day: 26 April 2011

The Fleet Street Fox delivers an unremittingly harsh verdict on the poor Mr Marr:

As a result of all this Marr can never question a politician about their private life, however legitimate the enquiry could be. He cannot comment or ask about fatherhood, paternity rights, the legal system, the creeping privacy law no-one in this country has voted for, or even raising a child when arguably his actions will have harmed the one involved in this story.

Andrew Marr should never work as a journalist again. He probably will, because the BBC can be very stupid like that, but his credibility is shot, his impartiality is gone and his reputation is ruined.

Senior Reporter - Cotswold Journal

The prettily-named Cotswold Journal, a paid-for edition of the Evesham Journal covering the north Cotswolds, is hiring a reporter.

You'll need to be NCTJ-qualified, have a driving licence and be ready to step straight into the role of district reporter covering what sounds like a charmingly rural patch. The Cotswold Journal is a Newsquest title, and you'll be based in Evesham.

Apply with CV and covering letter to the editor, John Murphy, at john.murphy@midlands.newsquest.co.uk. Deadline this Friday 29 April.

Marr abandons injunction: 'I did not come into journalism to go around gagging journalists'

The Daily Mail reports today that BBC journalist and former Independent editor Andrew Marr has 'voluntarily' withdrawn a long-standing High Court injuction he had won to stop the reporting of an extra-marital affair.

In a carefully-worded story, which declines to name the prominent journalist who Marr had the affair with, the Mail describes how the injuction led to Marr 'featuring in newspapers anonymously, with his face published as a silhouette, alongside other mystery celebrities who have cheated on their wives but who could not be named'. (According to a column in Marr's former paper back in June 2008, the injunction was of the super variety).

Marr says:

'I did not come into journalism to go around gagging journalists. Am I embarrassed by it? Yes. Am I uneasy about it? Yes. But at the time there was a crisis in my marriage and I believed there was a young child involved. 

I also had my own family to think about, and I believed this story was nobody else's business. 

The injunction allowed me and my family the time and space needed to repair and heal itself at a very difficult time.'

The fawning tone of the Mail's story today ('The BBC broadcaster is considered one of the stars of his generation, his languid charm and sharp intelligence making him a household favourite') suggests it was very much the result of a deal. And it appears Marr's motives in coming forward now may not be entirely out of a sense of journalistic propriety.

Mr Marr decided to go public after being contacted by another publication – thought to be the satirical magazine Private Eye – which planned to challenge his injunction, taken out in 2008 against Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail.

Curiously, though, Westminster blogger Guido Fawkes published the full details of Marr's affair - and who he was having it with - back in January 2008, in a story he dubbed 'The secret of three of Westminster's media-gatekeepers', and it's been up on his site ever since. Do injunctions not apply to bloggers then?

Bank holiday blues

The Guardian's Media Monkey column asks:

Which Fleet Street editor has banned holidays for the newsroom team for all of April, and has insisted on a full squad coming in on this month's public holidays - but has booked a personal break from Good Friday to royal wedding day?

Answers on an email please.

The lingering online legacy faced by the wrongly-accused

At the end of last week it was announced that Chris Jefferies - the Bristol man who found himself splashed all over the front pages after he was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Joanna Yeates, before later being cleared - is to sue six newspapers for libel and invasion of privacy. Those in the frame include the Sun, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Star, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Daily Record.

Now Mr Jefferies may well have a case as far as invasion of privacy goes - remember this front page? But if FleetStreetBlues had been a wrongly-accused prominent murder suspect, there's something that would bother us even more than whatever was printed at the time - and that's the stories that continue to be available online, long after we've been cleared of any suspicion of wrongdoing.

Google 'Chris Jefferies' and the very first article that comes up is a piece by the Sun with that famous blue-rinse photo and the headline 'Obsessed with death'. Other articles easily available include Daily Mail's story on 'Prof Strange' and a profile from the Mirror exploring his 'bizarre past'. None of the articles gives any indication he was later cleared.

This is, of course, entirely routine as far as online journalism is now concerned. While it's perhaps notable that, despite facing a lawsuit, the Sun has not seen the need to remove the stories it ran from its website, most media outlets end up keeping for posterity stories which name suspects who were later cleared. (A good example is the case of Tom Stephens, who was initially wrongly arrested for the Ipswich serial murders in 2006 - you can still read about 'the school nerd who liked to help vice girls' on the Telegraph website, and the 'secret life of victims' protector and friend' courtesy of the Guardian. All the papers do it.)

The obvious argument - and legal defence - is that it's simply not practical to retrospectively update news online. Online articles come with a date of publication at the top, and it should be taken as read that just because someone was once named as a suspect does not mean that they were actually found guilty.

But somehow, to us, even if that's technically OK, morally it doesn't quite cut it. Search engines are no respecters of dates of publication, and even if newspapers report a case entirely fairly, someone wrongly accused of a crime can find themselves damned for all eternity. Friends, contacts, prospective employers - they'll all Google you and read about the crimes you never committed. And while you can clear your name in court, clearing it online could prove pretty much impossible.

What's the solution? Well, papers could voluntarily insert a link or a paragraph at the end of such articles to make it clear that the suspect was later found innocent. They could even - in particularly egregious cases such as that of Mr Jefferies - voluntarily to remove some of the worst-offending articles. The problem, of course, is that systematically updating or removing all articles is a nightmare logistically. And otherwise, the only solutions seem even more drastic - perhaps forbidding the media to name suspects at all before they are charged, as they do in some countries.

At which point we'll stop, because if there's one thing we don't want to be arguing for right now, it's a greater clampdown on press freedom by judges. But we're just saying: the system as it stands doesn't seem fair on the wrongly-accused, and this is a problem which is going to get worse.

Poll result: Phone-hacking - is it time to move on?

The Sunday scoop: Prince William stag do pictures

We haven't even looked at the other papers yet, but something tell us the People's exclusive pictures from Prince William's stag do are a shoe-in for the Sunday Scoop. This week or any other week.

UPDATE:  OK, so we thought it might be a bit too good to be true. Turns out they're not actually from Prince William's stag do...

@fleetstreetblue BBC News Channel paper review says they are old pics of someone else's stag do, that Wills was at. Cheap stunt reallySat Apr 23 22:54:30 via webMario Cacciottolo
SOTMario

UPDATE No 2:  At least we weren't the only ones getting a tad overexcited...

@fleetstreetblue all the young hacks at the screws just went nuts 'best scoop ever', all the old said 'these cant be new pictures'.Sat Apr 23 22:54:31 via webBrian Whelan
brianwhelanhack

UPDATE No 3:  The full story's now online - and while the pictures are indeed very old (December 2002) on reflection it's still a pretty decent exclusive. One week before the wedding to be watched by two billion, it's the groom as you've never seen him before...

Which is Ant and which is Dec?

Ever find it difficult to tell those Geordie cheeky chappies Ant and Dec apart? You're not the only one.

Here's how the Sun's website looked earlier this afternoon:

Until someone who knows their PJ from their Duncan spotted it...

That's better...

Hat tip: Graham Henry

Data journalists do Doctor Who

Following firmly in the footsteps of 'multimeeja journalism' and 'citizen journalism' before it, 'data journalism' is the trendy new journalistic term of the past twelve months.

Quite what it is - or more importantly, how it differs from the age-old skill of regular journalists looking at facts and figures to find stories - has never really been figured out, but the general principle seems clear enough. If it moves, put it in a spreadsheet.

And leading the charge for this new journalistic wave has been - of course - the Guardian, which has its own Datablog boasting the tagline 'Facts are sacred'. On a daily basis they provide 'data visualisations' and 'data gateways' on everything from NHS spending to UK car production and a full list of the world's most endangered languages.

Today though, they've truly surpassed themselves, with the object of their unsparing journalistic gaze none other than... Every Doctor Who villain since 1963 UPDATED.

The feature comes complete with a Many Eyes infographic and a giant spreadsheet allowing open access to the data, which includes such key information as each villain's 'motivation' ('drink blood', 'world domination', 'get a time machine'). Truly the future of journalism has arrived.

Hat tip: Michael Barnett (who very sensibly suggests: 'Someone make an FOI request, for Chrissakes...')

How to find a journalism job paying £50k or more

We've been meaning to write for a while about the new-look Gorkana Jobs site, which has both its advantages and disadvantages. Certainly we can see why advertisers (and Gorkana's advertising department) likes it - prominent positions for premium jobs, a wider range of jobs to plug. For users, we're not so sure - in particular, mixing in lots of US jobs on the UK site isn't particularly helpful, although with a bit of effort they can be filtered.

Anyway, there is one neat feature, and that's the ability to sort by salary bracket.

Now, as anyone who's ever applied for a journalism job will know, recruiters are very happy to set out in excruciating detail every requirement they're looking for in a candidate, but are generally curiously reluctant to give even a ballpark range for what the job actually pays. You'll often see the dreaded three words 'Depending on experience', which in theory means 'We'll pay better candidates more', but in practice usually means 'However little can we get away with paying you'.

But now on Gorkana, even if the job ad itself is vague about what they're offering, each one is assigned to a salary bracket enabling you to tell what the range is, to the nearest £10k or so.

And surprisingly, they're currently advertising 12 jobs which pay at least £50,000 a year. OK, so a couple we wouldn't describe as journalism proper, one's writing about seafood and another's based in Baghdad - but if it's all about the money, there's a decent range to choose from.

Here are those currently on offer:

• Picture Editor - Red Online
• Deputy Chief Sub-Editor - Red Online (surely the most junior job on offer in this salary range)
• Entertainment Editor - Esquire
• Editor - Legal Business
• Tech Reporter - The National (based in Abu Dhabi)
• Senior Writer - Aviva (not really journalism)
• Senior Fashion Marketing Writer - Mr Porter (likewise)
• Editorial Manager - Institute for War & Peace Reporting (may or may not be journalism proper, but you'll probably be more focused on it being based in Baghdad)
• Deputy Editor - IntraFish Media
• Creative Director - Living Etc
• Digital Development Editor (Features) - The Times
• Head of Interactive Journalism - The Times

Who says journalism doesn't pay?

'Someone has to go there and see what is happening'

There's widespread coverage this morning of the tragic deaths of two photographers in Misrata, Libya - British Oscar-nominee Tim Hetherington and his American colleague, Pulitzer-nominee Chris Hondros.

There's plenty of coverage elsewhere describing how they were killed and the tributes that have been paid. But it's worth recalling the sobering speech given last November by Sunday Times foreign affairs correspondent Marie Colvin, to a special memorial service at St Bride's Church in Fleet Street for the British journalists who have died covering conflicts.

'Despite all the videos you see from the Ministry of Defence or the Pentagon, and all the sanitised language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes… the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers children.'

'In an age of 24-7 rolling news, blogs and twitters, we are on constant call wherever we are. But war reporting is still essentially the same – someone has to go there and see what is happening.'

'You can’t get that information without going to places where people are being shot at, and others are shooting at you.'

Churnalism.com's fatal flaw

Remember the fuss and general acclaim when the Churnalism.com website was launched earlier this year? Well, there was one fatal flaw with its rather one-dimensional approach to rooting out recycled journalism - and David Higgerson's set it out very clearly in his piece arguing 'In defence of the press release'.

It would be very easy to take a press release, re-write it and then stick it into the paper and consider it job done. In the eyes of the churnalism website, it wouldn’t be churnalism...

...When I worked as a council reporter, I’d get maybe a dozen council press releases a day. Many were simple ‘this event is taking place at x’ and, given that several of the press officers were former colleagues, they would be written in a way which meant they could be turned into nibs quickly. That would probably count as churnalism – but it’s also information which will be of interest to readers.

In hindsight, I’d still rewrite them, probably out of some sense of misguided professional pride. But why waste my time doing that when what had been written was fine as it was, save a small tweak for house style? Wouldn’t my time have been better spent looking at other press releases which threaten to have a good line in them but which need checking out, and additional information sourced?

American journalists don't do geography either

Remember the Miami Herald's mockery of British journalists' map-reading skills which we covered yesterday?

Well, a reader draws our attention to an interview in the same paper last year with the British angler Jeremy Wade, who appears in Animal Planet's River Monsters.

This week's episode, airing 10 p.m. Sunday, was filmed in South Florida so locals can get an inside look at the frightening critters that inhabit our canals.

One is the killer snakehead, and it ain't pretty. Wade talked to us from his home outside London about this deadly beast (that can crawl on land!) and other scaly creatures in his path:

'Outside London'? Well, it's not technically wrong. But a quick Google confirms that Jeremy Wade actually lives in Somerset, 'in the countryside near Bath'. About 115 miles separate the cities.

Trainee Reporter - Wiltshire Times

The Wiltshire Times is recruiting a trainee reporter over on HoldTheFrontPage's snazzy new-look website.

You'll be based in Trowbridge, writing for both the Wiltshire Times, a paid-for weekly, and its sister title the Gazette & Herald. You'll need to have passed your NCTJ prelims, have 100 wpm shorthand and you'll also need your own car.

Apply with CV and covering letter to Sue Cockrem at scockrem@newswilts.co.uk. Deadline Friday 6 May.

The secret secrets

So let's get this straight. The Court of Protection has issued an injunction banning all journalists from contacting 65 people or coming within 50m of four properties. The order specifically covers 'M', a mother who is seeking a court's permission to let her brain-damaged daughter die. Any journalist who communicates with M or any other member of M's family, 'whether orally in person, or by telephoning, text message, email or other means', risks being found guilty of contempt of court. The penalty is a fine or being sent to be prison.

And the best bit? They won't tell us who we're meant to avoid...

The Daily Telegraph reports:

In a penal notice published by the court on Friday, the judge made an injunction banning approaches to each witness in the case and addresses linked to the main parties, rather than just barring publication of their identities. 

FleetStreetBlues hasn't received a penal notice, and chances are you won't have done either. The list of people we're not allowed to contact isn't published anywhere either, for obvious reasons. What if one of the properties in question is next door to where you live?

It's a ridiculous, draconian ruling that makes a mockery of free speech. But without knowing who it is we're not allowed to talk to or where it is we're not allowed to go, it's also literally impossible to uphold. Who's making this stuff up?

British media slated Stateside over reporting of Florida double murder

There's lots of front-page coverage in today's papers of the sad case of the two British tourists who were killed while on holiday in Florida - but it's fair to say local journalists in the US haven't been too impressed with how reporters in the UK handled the case.

On Sunday, the Miami Herald ran the following story, with a brilliantly deadpan second sentence:

Officials: British tourists killed in Sarasota - not Miami

Two British tourists, reported by British media to have been murdered in Miami early Saturday moring, actually died in Sarasota, the British Embassy confirmed Sunday afternoon.

About 230 miles separate the cities.

Still, for several hours Sunday, multiple British medial outlets, including the BBC and The Mail, insisted that the victims, two men, ages 24 and 25, were fatally shot late Saturday in Miami, during a botched robbery attempt.

But Miami, Miami-Dade, and Miami Beach police officials denied the reports and said that no tourists or British citizens had been killed in either agency’s district over the weekend.

Sobering reading for anyone who believes most Fleet Street journalists could walk it Stateside - and if you think the story's brutal, try looking at the comments. Y'all need to get a map.

Phone-hacking - time to move on?

Back in January, we wrote about the phone hacking investigation and warned no good would come of it all. Now Press Gazette editor Dominic Ponsford has written a thoughtful column on the subject, bringing events bang up to date but with a very similar message. Enough already.

In a sense the police are damned whatever they do now. If they are seen to be too lax there will be more allegations they are in cahoots with NI – yet at the same time one has to question why 45 detectives are being used to investigate tabloid snooping when so many more serious crimes go unsolved.

It was a travesty that Clive Goodman was locked up in Belmarsh in 2007 alongside murderers and rapists for what was a gross invasion of privacy, but no more. And it would be a huge over-reaction if more journalists suffered out of proportion punishments because of widespread anger over the perception that News International has been involved in a cover-up over phone-hacking.

We do now need to get to the bottom of this matter. News International will find that sunshine is the best way to disinfect its reputation.

But it would be grossly unfair to punish more and more ordinary hacks. Phone-hacking spread far, far beyond the News of the World so where would we stop? They threw the book at Goodman and it had the desired affect. As far as we know, no British journalists hack mobile phone messages any more.

It's not just that we've had months and months of hacks writing about hacks, culminating in the somewhat distasteful and navel-gazing spectacle at the British Press Awards of one group of journalists hoping to get an award for investigating a second group of journalists represented at the same event.

It's not just that it's hard to feel genuine sympathy for the moneyed celebrity 'victims' who keep coming forward.

And it's not even that the whole thing has become increasingly political, and is now less about exposing journalists who hacked into voicemail messages than the Guardian taking down Rupert Murdoch and/or the Metropolitan Police.

No, the real reason to draw a line under the whole affair now is simply that it's increasingly, well, old. FleetStreetBlues strongly suspects that the public is much less interested in reading about the whole affair than certain journalists are in writing about it, and while Nick Davies et al have demonstrated real tenacity in forcing an apology from the News of the World, it's hard to work out exactly what the end game is.

As Dominic Ponsford writes, phone-hacking spread far beyond the News of the World, and was pretty much common practice on Fleet Street for a while. At the time, it seemed something of a grey area and everyone did it - now it's absolutely beyond the pale. (Here, if we're brutally honest, there is a rather uncomfortably close parallel with MPs' expenses).

If the Guardian is serious about trying to send every journalist who hacked a phone and every editor who knew about it to Belmarsh, it should be open about it - and rapidly expand the scope of its investigation beyond the News of the World.

If not, then any evidence of phone hacking which is still going on would be instantly newsworthy.

Otherwise, it might be time to move on...

Gentle walks and bondage products

When it comes to placing ads in newspapers, there's a bit of (fairly basic) skill involved. You want to make sure there are no obvious clashes with editorial, and that the audience for the one will be similar to the audience for the other. That way everyone - journalists, advertisers and readers - stays happy.

And so a reader brings our attention to the following, the 'Walks' page from a recent edition of the Brighton Argus's weekly Saturday magazine.

The editorial describes a gentle five and a half mile walk, taking an estimated three hours, complete with map, transport information and useful directions. The ad at the top right, placed by the National Trust and informing readers that 'spring time has arrived at Sheffield Park and Gardens', compliments the copy perfectly. The ad at the bottom right, not so much.

Head of Interactive Journalism - The Times

The Times is recruiting for an interesting role which should appeal to the 'hacks and hackers' types - the official title being 'Head of Interactive Journalism'.

It's a position open to both web-savvy journalists and journalistically-minded developers, with an understanding of technology crucial and coding skills 'useful but not essential'. It's an intentionally vague job description: the ad says 'we're looking for someone to redefine the way we will tell stories and advance Times journalism across all platforms'. Just so long as you don't mind working behind the paywall.

It's worth noting too that this is a pretty senior role - you'll need at least five years' technology or journalism experience.

Apply with CV and covering letter to Emma Clarke, assistant with the Times' digital team, at emma.clarke@thetimes.co.uk. Deadline next Monday 25 April.

'See below the fold': How one student journalist stuck it to The Man

So, you're a student journalist. You have a killer story involving a college professor and an off-campus seminar with strippers, and then the university authorities - who in this case fund and publish the paper - won't let you print it. Then, once someone else has broken the story and it's already out there, they will let you print it - but only on the condition you don't run it above the fold. What do you do?

Well, Vinny Vella, executive editor of the Collegian, the student rag at La Salle University in Philadelphia, came up with a pretty decent workaround.

Yes, the only thing printed above the fold were four words - 'See below the fold'.

An elegant solution to a tricky editorial problem, and a textbook example of something every good journalist lives for, sticking it to The Man. The boy will go far...

Joe Mott: 'I make AIDS jokes to all my gay friends'

Remember the 'Not being bad but' joke from last week's Daily Star Sunday, in Joe Mott's column?

Well, as predicted the throwaway comment prompted instant internet outrage, and this week a somewhat chastened Joe Mott uses his column to apologise to the world. Well, sort of...

I write this column slightly out of breath – for I have spent my week queer-bashing.

Until now, I have been a secret  homophobe but, thanks to the wonder of Twitter, I have been outed. 

It will come as some surprise to my gay best friend but, according to a large group of people who don’t know me, I am a gay-hating bigot. 

Last week I wrote about Ricky Gervais’ weight loss, suggesting that were he gay, I would wonder if he had AIDS. 

It’s the kind of joke I would make to his face if I met him. Because it’s the same joke I revel in making to my gay friends whenever they shed a few pounds. 

Mr Mott goes on to explain that he was, in fact, ridiculing the stereotype of someone who would make a comment as crass as the one he apparently made. Of course he was.


UPDATE: The man himself has been in touch to point out that we forgot to include the link to the column when the post first went up a couple of hours ago. Sorry, that was a genuine oversight. Read the full column and judge for yourself here.

The Sunday scoop: Wayne hooker tells all

A few very decent stories in the papers today, all very different from one another.

The Sunday Telegraph's report that best-before dates are to be scrapped may not have been the hardest-won exclusive, but it was intriguing nonetheless. FleetStreetBlues reader Claire French, meanwhile, put in a nomination for her own scoop - a nice story in the People revealing that teenagers volunteering for one of David Cameron's 'Big Society' schemes will have to fork out £100 for the privilege.

The Mail on Sunday's decision to run a story on the 'Probe into shocking film of 'revenge attack' on Iraqi civilian by British troops after the killing of six Red Caps' was intriguing - having video footage, which you can watch here, no doubt helped, although it still feels very much like Daily Mirror territory circa Piers Morgan.

Splash of the day though has to go to the News of the World. Unprintable stories about famous clients of prostitutes are all the rage at the moment, and the NOTW went for a new angle by quizzing 'Wayne Rooney hooker' Helen Wood on some of her other clients.

If you haven't got a NOTW subscription you can read the edited highlights on MailOnline here. She has apparently claimed to have had four-in-a-bed sex with another Manchester United player, and has also enjoyed the affections of (deep breath) two soap stars, an MP in Dublin, a senior police officer, a pilot, a visiting foreign dignitary and a judge. They're going to need a bigger injunction...

'What would Lady Grantham say?'

A slightly random item in the Ephraim Hardcastle column in yesterday's Daily Mail:

The always news-worthy Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville, 47, pictured – he plays tolerant, decent Lord Grantham in the ITV series, which returns in the autumn – is asked his present where-abouts by a female follower on Twitter.

He replies wittily: ‘I think I’m in the shower. Or is that a microphone? Oh my God, I’m in a cupboard with an anaconda.’ What would Lady Grantham say?

Investigations and Special Project Editor - Financial Times

This job ad lists in the requirements 'Pulitzer-sized ambition' - and you'll need it, because it's a Pulitzer-sized job. The FT is hiring an Investigations and Special Project Editor.

You'll be overseeing teams of reporters working on both long-term investigations and 'quick hit stories', and so an 'interest in mentoring and coaching' will help. Above all though you'll need to be a top investigative journalist, with 'international frontline reporting experience' and a 'proven track record at some of the world's biggest news organisations'. Local paper reporters need not apply.

Also worth noting - the salary listed on the HoldTheFrontPage version of the ad is one of the highest we've ever seen explicitly mentioned in a journalism job advert: £90,000.

Apply via the FT website. Deadline Wednesday 11 May.

Deputy Online Editor - New Scientist

This one has been up a little while already, but if you haven't spotted it yet and you're a science journalist with online experience, it could be perfect - the New Scientist website is recruiting a deputy online editor.

You'll need a science degree 'or substantial experience of science journalism', experience working online and also experience of managing a small team.

The job itself is much as you'd expect - you'll be commissioning and editing online content, managing the site on a day-to-day basis and working on social media and community engagement. It's based in central London.

Apply via the RBI website here.

Who is 'NEJ'?

The Daily Star and the Sun both splash this morning on the story that's been preoccupying the business end of Fleet Street for days - the mystery married actor who slept with 'Rooney hooker' Helen Wood.

Helen Wood can now be named after Mr Justice King yesterday ruled in the High Court that she could be identified as 'BDZ'.

But the identity of 'NEJ', the 'world-famous' actor, remains unpublishable, and the papers continue to sail as close as they dare to the wind (interestingly, for instance, the Daily Mail's story from yesterday, indexed on Google as below, has now been taken down).

The Daily Mirror reports:

The man is one of the most prolific actors of his generation, enjoys a clean-cut reputation and proudly boasts about his family in public. He has even talked about how lucky he is to have a supportive wife.

Despite his desire for privacy, he posts regular updates about his life on his Twitter page, which has thousands of followers.

It's an interesting and increasingly familiar battle of wills - celebrities, high-priced lawyers and injuctions vs the gutter press and the internet rumour mill. We give it until Sunday...

Poll result: Is studying journalism worth it?

Our lightning-quick poll probably tells us more about the proportion of FleetStreetBlues readers who are student journalists (it's a lot) than anything else. Interestingly though, not many went for the 'I'll do whatever it takes to get a job' option - despite the following comment on our original post about Kelvin MacKenzie's remarks:

I gained little in the way of practical skills from my post-grad course (at City), but what I did get was a line on my CV saying I had studied journalism. Without that I wouldn't have got a look in at any work placements and subsequently paid work.

My boss just turned down a workie applicant for her lack of a journalism degree. The profession is so competitive now having a relevant qualification is the starting point. Either that or have friends in high places...

Breaking into journalism: 'Hold out for the good days, because there will be good days'

We've started spacing them out, but we still have some cracking breaking into journalism tales in the cupboard - and if you want to submit your story, please send it to fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk.

Our next entry comes from a disillusioned young Scottish journalist who sounds old before his time - just three years into the career he loves and yet we can't help noticing a certain resemblance to the late, great Playing the Game blog. He's chosen to remain anonymous - for reasons which will soon become obvious - but picked 'Ben Bertolucci' as his pseudonym.

Would-be journalists take notice. Forget writing liveblogs for the Guardian, this is a much more common experience of frontline journalism - good and bad.

I landed on my feet getting a job.

My university work experience was ultimately a two week job interview seeing as I had applied for the trainee job at the paper.

I loved it. Then again, three years later I'm still being paid at the trainee rate - despite having a degree in journalism. It isn't exactly where I wanted to be by now.

Bloody NCTJ pay barrier. Get used to that. I can’t speak for south of the border but up here it’s bad.

The only advice I can give is prepare to be repeatedly raped - albeit figuratively - by management while bearing the brunt of the news and sport copy like Atlas.

But hold out for the good days, because there will be good days. Mainly at the arse end of the week when all the ad features are done, pictures are captioned and you can do a phone round. Possibly nip out of the newsroom and talk face to face with real people.

Days when you’ll get front page over your bigger rival regional paper because they've been too lazy to make a phone call.

That’s why I'm doing the job. Before our staff were cut we were the bare bones. Now we're into the marrow. So getting out of the office is a rare occasion…

Unless you want to do it on your own time. Which you’ll have to if you have any pride in your banner.

I've actively begun to take time away from my desk so I can have a brief lunch. An hour-long lunch - what's that like?

If you want the facilities and resources to do your job you're asking too fucking much. Throw some work experiences at it. That’ll fix it.

One day, maybe we’ll all get that second job. Close to deadline I wouldn't recommend it to anyone as a career. Go be a teacher. Fuck off and join the cops. Do something where you'll be able to get a deposit on a house. Not still living at home in your mid 20s.

Every day I can feel myself giving in to PR with wages more than double my own. It's tempting. Then again, I knew the money was crap before I got here.

I'll don't even want to imagine calling up a weekly to say: 'Hi! Did you get that email about some pish not in your area, with no one from your area. You did! Any chance you could find someplace for it in your paper?'

No thanks. I’m not ready to sell my soul at cost.

Whatever kind of journalist you are and wherever you're at in your career, we want to hear how you got there. Email your story of how you broke into journalism to us today at fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk.

Is it a pig or a turtle? An update...

We interrupt our scheduled programming to bring you some more late breaking news from Somerset.

Remember the story in the Bridgwater Mercury last week about the crowd which gathered to gawp at an unidentified floating object (pictured) that had been spotted - somewhat ironically - in the water under the bridge?

Well, there's an update. Said unidentified floating object has been identified. Sort of.

The Mercury reports:

THE mysterious object in the River Parrett which brought Bridgwater to a standstill may have now been identified.

Mercury reader Tanya Clarke sent in this photo, saying it is fact a pig.

She said: 'I saw it on the way to Asda yesterday afternoon. The stick was already there. It's definitely a pig - a full pig. I saw it on Tuesday when it was drowning.'

It continues:

Our story has been read by thousands of people world-wide and had been trending on Twitter. People tweeted “Breaking News from the UK” – please retweet. Julie Benson, from Taylors Barbers, said she thought the object was a stone, while Jamie Meakin thought it was a dog.

But the consensus, supported by Adam Brame, Craig Little, Steve Chinn and Lewis Teather was that it was a pig’s head.

Some people waited for around two hours and said they did not see the object removed and believe it is still in the river.

Mercury reporter Angela Brennan returned to the scene today and could find no sign of the object.

It's official: no news is the new news. Let's just hope the Daily Mail doesn't decide to follow up its story as well...

Are 50 journalists at the Times really on more than £100k?

An intriguing snippet from yesterday's MediaMonkey in the Guardian, attributed to a 'weary Wapping insider', on the pay structure over at News International:

Monkey was accosted by a weary Wapping insider at the British Press Awards to be told that there were – apparently – 100 journalists across all News International's London titles paid more than £100,000 a year. Oh, and half of those were on the Times, a statistic not so popular at the other three papers. Sadly few names of the big earners were forthcoming but expect a lot of enthusiasm for the scrapping of the 50% tax rate for those high earners on the Times's leader page.

A whole new perspective on life behind the paywall...

'Not being bad but...'

It's really quite hard to believe that the following 'story' actually made it into a newspaper of any description, but we're reliably informed (by Jon Swaine, Richard Peppiatt, James Ball and others) that the snippet below about Ricky Gervais' 'dramatic weight loss' was indeed in Joe Mott's column in the Daily Star Sunday.

Because nothing says comedy like a joke about AIDS...


UPDATE: Joe Mott appears to be an active Twitter user, @TheJoeMott. Wonder if he knows Jan Moir?

Oxbridge revisited

FleetStreetBlues couldn't help but crack a wry smile when the whole David Cameron-black-students-in-Oxbridge row blew up earlier today.

The Prime Minister's erroneous claim was, we were soon told, based on the FOI request put in by Labour MP David Lammy last year - an FOI request which then formed the basis of the following Guardian exclusive: 'Twenty-one Oxbridge colleges took no black students last year'.

When the Guardian first put the story out last December, we were the first to flag up how dodgy the figures were, pointing out, for instance, that British-born Emmanuel College law fellow Dr Oke Odudu (pictured) would be very surprised to learn that Cambridge University had no black academic staff.

Our digging got a fair bit of attention, courtesy of Paul Waugh and the Telegraph, and Jeevan Vasagar, the Guardian education editor who wrote the piece, very decently got in touch offering some possible explanations for the various discrepancies - one of which was that the FOI response could be 'wrong'. But - as we pointed out at the time - the main Guardian article was left uncorrected for posterity, despite clear evidence it was inaccurate. As a result, four months on the same inaccurate story has been given a second airing.

The Guardian, incidentally, has covered the row in the same way as the other papers today, with the same journalist, Jeevan Vasagar, reporting po-faced that:

Oxford accused Cameron of quoting an "inaccurate and highly misleading" figure.

The university's admissions figures for 2009 show that just one "black Caribbean" candidate was accepted for undergraduate study, out of 27 black students in that year's intake. Last autumn, seven black Caribbean candidates were accepted and there was a total of 20 black students in this year's intake.

Downing Street later acknowledged that the prime minister was not specific enough in his wording, but stood by the broader argument over Oxford and race. A spokesperson said: "The wider point he was making was that it is not acceptable for universities like Oxford to have so few students coming from black and minority ethnic groups."

No mention at all of which paper first ran the story...

Hat found up tree, the scone-mad dog and other gems of local journalism

Here at FleetStreetBlues we love to celebrate the very best local journalism has to offer, be it a teenager banned from playing the piano too loudly, a crowd gathering on top of a bridge or multiple follow-ups covering the fallout from a false Johnny Depp sighting.

Now a new blog has been set up exclusively to cover such gems.

Like the superlative Angry people in local newspapers, This is the news keeps it simple, 'celebrating and occasionally giggling at the stories that make it into local newspapers, past and present'.

It's apparently the brainchild of a journalism student rejoicing in the name Jamie Dance Thunder, and it's already unearthed some real gems, such as the dog who's mad about scones, the hat found up a tree and our personal favourite, a 600-word opus about a mum in Whitstable who can't find any custard 'to top off her blackberry and apple crumble'.

It's early days, but we're hoping Jamie keeps it going and fills what's clearly a gap in the journalism blogging market. There's certainly no shortage of material. 

The Sunday scoop: Royal wedding guest list revealed

A relatively uninspiring clutch of stories in today's papers, but credit to the Mail on Sunday for tracking down what they claim is the definitive, official guest list for the royal wedding reception.

Despite the teasing strapline, there aren't actually that many surprises on the list - not least because the Mail on Sunday itself published 'an authoritative guide to who might well make the guest list' as far back as January.

Journalists of a more republican bent may groan, but like it or not, a severe case of royal wedding-itis is about to break out in newsrooms across the country, and it's going to claim by hereditary right a fair amount of front page real estate. Three weeks to go...

'Voicemail interception: An apology'

On page two of tomorrow's News of the World - read the full statement here.

Been a long time coming...

Why Kelvin was right

Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie prompted furious debate yesterday with a column for the Independent (well, sort of) on that hoariest of chestnuts - whether studying journalism is worth it. And for the most part, he was spot on.

Print journalism is not a profession. It's a job, a knack, a talent. You don't need a diploma, you don't need to belong to a professional body like solicitors or accountants do. There's nothing you can learn in three years studying media at university that you can't learn in just one month on a local paper. You cover a car crash, what's there to know? A golden wedding? A court case? University may be enjoyable: you make friends, drink a lot and occasionally turn up to lectures but you don't need any of those things to be a journalist. With the possible exception of the alcohol.

Journalism.co.uk has a roundup of some of the reaction - and predictably, Kelvin's being bashed from all quarters as a past-it Fleet Street dinosaur. But the counter-arguments for the most part just don't stand up.

Roy Greenslade - who admits he 'came up by the same route as Kelvin' - writes:

As for his substantive point about journalism education. I could boast about the alumni of City University London who inhabit key editorial positions on newspapers and magazines and in TV and radio.

They're in Wapping, Kelvin - James Harding and Will Lewis - and they can be found currently in the editors' chairs of The Spectator and the Independent on Sunday and Radio Times. They are key broadcasters on Sky News, the BBC and Channel 4 News.

But that would be special pleading. Every British university with a journalism course can list former students who now hold major positions in our trade. Imagine the double benefit of having an education and the "knack".

Well yes, that's true. But firstly, City University is extremely competitive to get into, and so you would expect those who come out the other side to do particularly well. And just because some of those who studied journalism have gone on to do very well for themselves doesn't mean they wouldn't have done equally well if they'd learnt on the job. FleetStreetBlues knows lots and lots of journalists, some of whom studied journalism and some of whom didn't. A year into the job, it's very hard to tell them apart.

Meanwhile the Wannabe Hacks' thoughtful response picks up on perhaps the biggest and most valid objection to Kelvin's rant - namely, that his advice for 18-year-olds with three decent A-levels to 'go to a local paper, then to a regional, and then head out on to nationals or magazines by 21-22' just isn't going to happen in today's jobs market.

Mr MacKenzie makes it sound simple but it’s obviously not. Just ‘go to a local paper’, he says – as if you can turn up and they give you a job. Job’s a good’un. Not that easy Kelv, especially, like a lot of wannabes, you maybe don’t realise you want to be a journalist until you’re 19 or 20 (ie university age) and therefore don’t have the necessary experience to force yourself into a newsroom post-A-Levels.

And, hypothetically speaking, if courses were scrapped and we all wanted to be local reporters on papers which he admits are ‘working out ways of getting rid of you, not hiring you!’ , there obviously wouldn’t be room for all of us. So what happens then?!

Which is a very good point, goes to the heart of the issue - and explains exactly why Kelvin was right.

Ultimately it comes down to supply and demand - there are many, many more students wanting to be journalists than our shrinking industry has room for.

Those would-be journalists will do whatever it takes to get ahead, and if that means shelling out thousands of pounds for a journalism course they don't really need, so be it. Employers, meanwhile, are faced with hundreds of CVs for every entry-level job - narrowing them down to just the candidates who have a degree or postgrad degree in journalism is just one way of bringing applications down to manageable levels.

As Kelvin puts it:

There are more than 80 schools in the UK teaching journalism. These courses are make-work projects for retired journalists who teach for six months a year and are on a salary of £34,000- £60,000. Students are piling up debts as they pay to keep their tutors in the lifestyles they're used to.

That's not entirely fair, of course. There are some very good journalism schools out there, and some truly inspirational journalism lecturers.

But the substance of Kelvin MacKenzie's argument - that journalism doesn't need to be taught - stands. Shorthand is a real skill, albeit one which can be learnt on an evening course, but what other essential skills do journalism students learn that they wouldn't pick up in their first six months on a local paper? That most journalism skills are best taught on the job is proved by the lengths most journalism schools go to recreate the 'real life' experience for their students, with student newspapers, mock issues, news patches to cover and the like.

And if the skills taught at journalism schools aren't absolutely essential, then what does that leave students with? A mountain of debt, mainly - and often the dawning realisation that even with a journalism degree finding a job is near impossible and they may have to get something in PR instead.

Forget 'Cashback for Interns'. If NUJ and campaigning types really want to do something to ensure opportunities to break into journalism aren't restricted to the wealthy few, maybe this is a place they could start.

Stumbling across a splash

Ever been told to just 'get out there and find a story'? Well, FleetStreetBlues' South Africa correspondent Ray Joseph (@rayjoe) has been in touch again, with a great tale of how a reporter in Durban did just that:

When reporter Paul Kirk took his dog, Earl, out for a walk in the park on Friday evening in Durban, South Africa, work was the last thing on his mind. 

Until Earl, 'barking and crying' dragged him to a secluded corner of the park, where he came across…a headless body.

And his find turned into a page one lead, complete with a photo of super canine sleuth Earl, in his newspaper, the Citizen.

The body was found near the home of former top rugby player Joseph Ntshongwana, in Durban, who was arrested last week after he allegedly went on a rampage with an axe, during which three men died, one of them decapitated.

The story captured the imagination of the South Africa media following the police manhunt that ended in the arrest of Ntshongwana, who is now in custody facing three charges of murder and one of attempted murder.

But the story took a dramatic turn – in classic journalese-speak – with Kirk and Earl’s gruesome discovery.

Let Kirk tell it in his own words, in his P1 splash headlined 'Dog's grisly find', with a boastful strap reading: 'Our reporter’s dog sniffs out body near home of axeman'.

In a page three first person sidebar to the main story about the gruesome find, Kirk wrote: 'Late on Friday evening, my Great Dane, Earl, made a contribution to justice. He ensured a murder victim would get a decent burial and brought closure to the victim's family. He might also have put another nail in a serial killer’s coffin.'

Later in the story he tells how Earl '…had been pulling in that direction for days, but on Friday, he pulled frantically, barking and crying' until Kirk spotted 'the unmistakable shape of a pair of human legs. Earl had found a murder victim.'

Like they say, you can’t make it up!