Why are the best jobs in journalism never advertised?

FleetStreetBlues is currently on holiday - and while we're away, we've handed the reins to our readers. Our final guest post comes from Alex Ariel, who's currently trying to break into journalism and writes his own blog, Chiasm.

Why are the best jobs in journalism never advertised?

The best jobs in journalism aren’t advertised because, simply, they don’t exist. For every graduate who gets a lucky break there will be hundreds who follow a different career path after a year of feckless searching.

As we have been repeatedly told, the print media industry is diminishing. Why, then, do journalism graduate numbers increase each year? As one investigative journalist once told me (a career for which I still harbour romantic intentions): 'If you had any investigative skills you’d know this is the wrong career to get into.'

Couple this with the fanciful notions journalism students approach employment with (I genuinely thought I’d be writing features for the Guardian within a year) and you find out where all the good jobs went. Nowhere. They didn’t exist in the first place.

Like any ‘multimedia, NCTJ-qualified journalist with experience’ I have whiled away many hours searching Gorkana, HoldTheFrontPage and even FleetStreetBlues’ paltry selection of hack jobs. I’ve emailed CVs to every major daily, every magazine in the newsagents (except the top shelf) and lost months to unpaid internships with nothing gained but the promise of a letter of recommendation.

The truth is that we, the mass exodus of unemployed journalists leaving expensive courses up and down the country each year, know the weather report is grim but still go out there expecting a lovely sunny day.

Modify your expectations of what constitutes a good job. Or choose another profession.

Want to write for FleetStreetBlues? Got a hot tip or gossip you want to share? Email us at fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk. We will return on Saturday 3 September.

Why iPhones and iPads are just a load of app

FleetStreetBlues is currently on holiday - and while we're away, we've handed the reins to our readers. Our fifth guest post comes from Kevin Duffy, an experienced journalist who now runs Duffy Media.

iPod… iPad…iPhone…I don’t and I won’t have one of these over-hyped and over-priced slabs of glass and metal.

Apple sold over 20m iPhones during the three months ending in June, and 9.25m iPads – and I simply cannot understand why the damn things are so popular.

For the record, I do have a mobile phone – a nice HTC Desire. But Apple acolytes are on a mission to convert non-believers, and one who never misses a chance to evangelise is my friend Peter, an international flight attendant.

We were catching up in a bar between his return from Bangkok and his departure for Los Angeles, when he whipped out his newly-acquired iPhone 4 – white, naturally - and said: 'Kevin - YOU should get one of these!'

Taking a leaf out of the politicians’ book, I met a question with a question: 'Why would I want one?' I asked Peter innocently.

'You can get apps for it,' he gushed, waving his iPhone in my face.

So you buy a phone for hundreds of pounds but then you have to buy more bits to make it work, I enquired?

'Well, no. Some apps are free!' enthused Peter.

Such as?

'Well, I’ve got one that tells me where cheap petrol stations are,' he replied.

I pointed out that if he could afford well over £400 for an iPhone and a shedload more for the contract, he probably didn’t need to save 13p on a tank of petrol.

'It’s got GPS,' he shouted. 'It tells you where you are!'

I can look out the window for that, I said, and reminded him that GPS is the phone equivalent of those electronic tags they attach to early-release criminals. I’m not sure I want Big Brother – or even just a mobile phone company – knowing exactly where I am, every moment of the day.

Almost hyperventilating by now, he said: 'Look at this! I’ve got an app that gives you cocktail recipes.' I pointed to the bar without a word.

Peter just shook his head and looked at me in despair…

But without realising it, he strengthened my belief. When you look closely at this app business, the sheer pointlessness of the iPhone, iPad and all the rest is laid bare. That word “app” is missing a 'C' and an 'R'.
Most of what these apps can do is either not worth doing in the first place, or they can be done better, quicker and easier by other means. For example, why do I need an app to tell me where the nearest cinema, take-away or train station is, when I can just log on to my computer? And even if I was mad enough to waste money on this piece of technological junk food, most ordinary mobile phones now come with internet connections anyway, meaning you can just Google it up.

The simple truth is that apps are just very clever marketing tools. Companies can’t believe their luck because punters are downloading advertising to their phones voluntarily and usually paying for the privilege too.
Inspired by phone-geek Peter, I did some research into apps, and the result was not pretty.

The GroceryIQ App, for example, is condemned by its own blurb: 'With GroceryIQ, you can create lists of items you need to get and even organise your lists by aisle or store so you can shop as efficiently as possible.'

Well, that might be useful if there’s a world shortage of pens and paper, or if you develop total amnesia.

Staying with food, the Epicurious App will give you recipes. But, unless you’re living off the land and looking for new ways with baked hedgehog, recipe books on the kitchen shelf should be more than adequate.

What really tickled the bit of my funny bone marked 'Black Humour' is the CPR And Choking App which shows what to do if someone collapses or has food trapped in their windpipe. It’s quite possible, however, that the unfortunate victim’s last earthly vision will be people hunched over an iPhone, iPad or iPod watching a video demonstration of the Heimlich Manoeuvre.

Since iPhone fanatic Peter was clearly brainwashed beyond rescue, I emailed Jacquie, an old friend and iPhone user who owns a creative design consultancy in London with a string of blue chip clients on her books.

'Not a good phone…' she wrote back, '…because reception is often poor.'

Gulp. This is not what I expected to hear. Worse, said Jacquie, email on the iPhone is slow, expensive to download abroad and, once a week, the device becomes scrambled and has to be rebooted. Crikey Moses, I thought!

Then she added: 'But…and this is the point, I think, when working properly it is a delight to use. Actually even writing this email is a pleasurable experience. I love the click it makes, I admire the layout and the ergonomics are a joy. I haven’t mentioned the apps which are both fun and useful. My current fave is ‘Chirp’, a birdsong identification app.'

Perhaps Jacquie’s nailed it; in other words, the iPhone is not necessarily the best device, but once you have one you don’t want to let it go, for reasons that defy explanation in mere words.

Friend James, a director of a century-old estate agent in Greater Manchester, described his iPhone as 'communications crack', which just about says it all – Apple’s products are addictive. In fact, with hunched shoulders and desperately fumbling fingers, prisoners of the iPhone cult look a lot like smokers peeling a pack of cigarettes for the first nicotine hit of the morning.

And, just like smokers and their toxic love affair, iPhone users – along with the iPadders and the iPodders, come to think about it – are very defensive.

When I told airline worker Peter that I was going to subject this iPhone/iPod/iPad business to critical journalistic scrutiny, he turned very sour-faced and his exact words were: 'How dare you question the iPhone. It has enriched my life. It is a wonderful, wonderful thing.'

Of course, let’s not get too hysterical here! It’s our appetite for newer, brighter, shinier things which keeps the economic wheel turning – if somewhat slowly, at the moment. Most people chuck out TVs, vacuum cleaners, sound systems, etc that work perfectly well and replace them with new, upgraded, and inevitably more expensive models. In fact, I daresay I’ll keep on consuming vigorously into 2012 and beyond, just like everybody else.

But will I buy an iPhone, iPod, or iPad? iWon’t.

Want to write for FleetStreetBlues? Got a hot tip or gossip you want to share? Email us at fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk. We will return on Saturday 3 September.

Should local papers celebrate the positives - or be the voice of doom?

FleetStreetBlues is currently on holiday - and while we're away, we've handed the reins to our readers. Our first guest post this week comes from Sam Blackledge, chief reporter at the Dorking & Leatherhead Advertiser, who also runs the Learning is Fun blog.

If there is one thing I have learned during my four years in journalism, it is that people love a good moan.

Potholes, parking, trains, traffic - readers' gripes are the bread and butter of local news, and we would be nowhere without them.

But what should our approach be when a good news story comes our way? Should we embrace the positives or be the voice of doom?

Earlier this month the London to Surrey Cycle Classic brought the towns of Dorking and Leatherhead, and several surrounding villages, to a standstill. Thousands of spectators lined the streets to watch 140 elite cyclists tackle the Olympic route.

For a fairly sleepy rural district this was a pretty big deal. It took a lot of planning by Surrey County Council, the Olympic organising committee, the police and various other bodies, all of whom came in for their share of flack on our letters page.

The main gripe was the road closures. We haven't been told what's happening, traders claimed. We will be prisoners in our own homes, residents complained. We even received a press release from a wildlife charity saying animals' lives would be in danger if they couldn't respond to emergencies.

As it turned out, the event went smoothly and was hailed as a success. But it raised some interesting questions about the role of a local newspaper.

On the one hand, we should absolutely be holding the authorities to account, questioning their methods and using our power to get the answers the readers cannot.

But with an event like this it is also our duty to celebrate our district, to promote the business opportunities it will create and to reflect the genuine excitement of the majority of residents.

We can’t win. But we will continue to try.

Want to write for FleetStreetBlues? Got a hot tip or gossip you want to share? Email us at fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk. We will return on Saturday 3 September.

How to make it in journalism, in 140 characters

FleetStreetBlues is currently on holiday - and while we're away, we've handed the reins to our readers. Our third guest post comes from Jo Rourke, who writes for the Huffington Post and also her own personal blog, Spaghetti Ham and Cheese.

As a wannabe journalist – or even a wannabe dogsbody, tea maker or general skivvy – I have romantic notions of my future career in journalism providing the UK public, and then the world, with insightful, articulate pieces that readers will quote and try to pass off as their own musings. My articles will be hard-hitting and astute, but with a prose-like beauty which will illicit rueful shakes of the head and murmurs of wonder at the use of metaphors and overuse of brackets and semi-colons. I plan to pun generations of readers into submission and eventually appear on shows like Newsnight, where I’ll make like my heroine Caitlin Moran and bring up clown porn and vajazzling – because I can.

These romantic notions are fading somewhat though, their sparkle a little dulled by the screaming silence of my inbox after another round of article pitches to editors who are overworked and under-praised in the current age of austerity and journalistic scandals. There’s also the added pressure of social media – like many young wannabes I am carefully (and slowly) building up a Twitter following, but I can’t help but feel that the lynchpin of Twitter – ie its brevity - is something that might work against my plans to be a modern Wordsworth (or wordsmith – I’m not fussy.) Forget the elevator pitch – 140 characters barely gives you time to press 2nd floor, and those carefully selected, not to mention written, articles are summarised in text speak and Twitter verse. Soaring pieces of journalism (not mine - mine are more ostrich than albatross) are reduced to a title, a shortened link, a summary and a PLS RT – many of them will go unread, as in our fast-living society it’s often felt that headlines and the general gist are enough.

On the flipside though, Twitter’s reach means your blood, sweat and tearstained piece has the chance to reach and touch people who you’ve never met – it certainly has meant for me that it isn’t just a loved one reading my work (thanks Mum). So I’m going to keep on going with Twitter, the dream and the email assaults on the editors. All that’s left to say is: Thx 4 reading, pls RT.

Want to write for FleetStreetBlues? Got a hot tip or gossip you want to share? Email us at fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk. We will return on Saturday 3 September.

Could a mutually-agreed paywall secure the future of journalism?

FleetStreetBlues is currently on holiday - and while we're away, we've handed the reins to our readers. Our next guest post comes from Sam Brodbeck, a young aspiring journalist from north London who now lives in Brighton, and who writes his own blog here.

The hacking fallout, the growing power of the Twitterati, the news that all of Britain’s regional titles are to be produced by one grateful unpaid intern... Following the news at the moment – both in and outside the world of journalism – is the best kind of rattling rollercoaster ride. Every day brings better, more exciting revelations than the day before. However, still lurking beneath a thousand newsdesks is the real concern of journalists and editors: how and who will we pay for journalism in the digital age?

News consumers have never had it so good; for no cost anyone can access unlimited words, pictures and videos that cost millions to produce and maintain, yet the same people will gladly part with £15 to find out what happens next to a wizard going through puberty. We very quickly become used to how much things cost. Already the public see online news as free and as ubiquitous as search engines. Online journalism needs to be valued and to be given the chance to support itself on the back of its quality.

What perhaps we need is for all the warring media factions to lay down their arms. Instead of The Times vainly pursuing online subscribers while its competitors watch it haemorrhage the kind of money only the Murdochs of this world have, why don’t the media bosses agree to simultaneously put up paywalls or micropayment systems? Picture the scene: 1 January 2012 and the country wakes up in a collective hangover, makes its way online to find pictures of Boris Johnson drunkenly swimming in the Trafalgar Square fountains from the night before. Sixty million muggy-headed readers scrabble for their credit cards and a new media landscape emerges. The Guardian, Daily Mail and The Times would do well while those who have forgone investing in their online editions in favour of quick print profits would be forced to change fast, or disappear.

A digital renaissance? What about the BBC undercutting everyone else? We’ve heard it all before I know, but the place to start must be co-operation between titles. Imagine – people paying directly for content. It’d be like the old days, before full-page Pizza Hut adverts and promises of package holidays for a pound.

Want to write for FleetStreetBlues? Got a hot tip or gossip you want to share? Email us at fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk. We will return on Saturday 3 September.

Are the media afraid to cover the consequences of war?

FleetStreetBlues is currently on holiday - and while we're away, we've handed the reins to our readers. Our first guest post comes from journalism student David Champion, who writes his own blog here.

I am 100% sure that there are certain topics the British mainstream media is afraid to cover. The British media is by and large free to report how it pleases, and compared to the press of most other countries is a beacon of balanced, positive and powerful journalism; working in the public interest to expose wrongdoing and corruption in the corridors of power and keeping an eye on the issues that matter in the world. However the mainstream British media is also incredibly and regrettably stifled and censored when it comes to reporting on the wars we fight. I feel that the mainstream media in this country is in some ways rife with propaganda which helps influence public opinion and in turn support our Government’s military agendas.

Our country, along with its Western allies, has been at war in the Middle East for almost a decade. We’ve overthrown and executed a vicious, murderous tyrant and we’ve killed probably the most famous terrorist figurehead in the world. These conquests were sparked by terrorist attacks in the first decade of the 21st century which killed thousands of innocent people. This gives the vast majority of the Western population the feeling that we are essentially the good guys; fighting for wider democracy, freedom and, on a more visceral level, revenge against bad people who want to harm us and our way of living.

The thing which bothers me is the mainstream British media’s agenda when reporting on these wars. I feel that since we first set foot in Afghanistan in 2001, we have been subject to a massive dose of pro-war propaganda which has discreetly and conveniently overlooked the incredible destabilisation of an entire region and the thousands of innocent men ,women and children who have died as a result of our actions.

The British media is superb in its reporting of the deaths of our soldiers and the people affected by these deaths. The area in which I feel that the British media falls down is the reporting of the people killed on the other side of the fence, whether they be Taliban fighters, terrorists or civilians. When the Ten O'clock News features a story about a British soldier dying while fighting in Afghanistan, the report should also contain details of the insurgents or civilians killed during said fighting. People in this country are led to believe by the mainstream media that only our soldiers are ever affected by the fighting and that the whole affair is a black and white, good vs evil battle - when in actual fact countless civilians are killed as a result of our country’s actions.

The most stark and shocking example of what I think is not far short of a media blackout has been the reportage of the war in Libya. If you scratch beneath the surface, you will find that many papers and broadcasters have reported on the fact that NATO bombs have killed civilians and hit schools and hospitals, but I don’t think the mainstream media places enough emphasis on this fact. Instead they tend to focus on the plight of the rebels and on the negative aspects of the Gadaffi regime and of the man himself. A report I heard on Monday on Radio 1 focussed heavily on the fact that Gadaffi has a strange dress sense and employs only female virgins as his security staff. I feel that the British public should be regularly reminded of the human cost of the war we are fighting as well as the motivation for it.

Furthermore I feel that the censorship of our media is too strong. I think that the population should be confronted with the raw images of the brutality and death which is being dealt out by our Government. I think that news reports past the watershed should not hesitate to show graphic images of the suffering and violence which occurs in these war-torn countries. If the images are not gratuitous then they should be shown as a matter-of-fact consequence of the wars we are fighting in order to inform the wider masses.

I’m sure that the British Government recognises the fact that fair, complete and uncensored reportage of our military campaigns would cause bad feeling within the public, and a war is far harder to fight without positive public feeling. This means that our mainstream media has a skewed agenda towards the wars and presents the public with a highly sanitised view of the wars fought. However surely if a population would be resistant to supporting a war if they were presented with the truth, then the war should not be fought at all. The population of a country at war has a right to know the facts and consequences of the wars they finance. The masses cannot make an informed decision about whether or not to support a war if they are not given the whole picture. I feel that the mainstream media is reneging on its journalistic responsibilities by not showing the full story and is too heavily influenced by the agendas of external bodies.

Want to write for FleetStreetBlues? Got a hot tip or gossip you want to share? Email us at fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk. We will return on Saturday 3 September.

On holiday

FleetStreetBlues is taking a short break, but while we're away, our readers will be filling in for us. Over the next few days we'll be running a series of guest posts on anything and everything to do with journalism - a big thanks to everyone who submitted articles.

We will return on Saturday 3 September.

Tales from an unemployed hack

What would you do if you were made redundant tomorrow?

It's a bridge we all desperately hope we never have to cross, but most of us have worried about it at one time or another. A lack of real job security is something most journalists have had to live with ever since their first job, and every time they read about another round of redundancies, a paper closing or a colleague fallen on hard times, the same thought occurs: There but for the grace of God...

All of which is by way of introduction to a brilliant new blog we've come across this week called, simply enough, unemployedhack (you can also follow it on Twitter). It's essentially the diary of a 'downwardly mobile journalist' who used to work on a national tabloid, and is now living hand-to-mouth on the dole. She - we think it's a she - writes simply but engagingly of life on the poverty line, surviving with her cat Chaplin and desperately trying to find a job without the money to even pay for travel to interviews.

I never thought I’d struggle to afford train travel to interviews as I drove up and down the country for stories. I never thought I’d need benefits to pay my rent as I moved from city to city always finding work. And I never thought there would be no work for qualified, experienced journalists with some top tabloids on their CV. 

The last time I was poor I lived alone in a back-street terrace with no central heating, in a northern town during winter, while working for press agencies. I earned less in a year than some MPs fiddled in a week but I still had enough to eat, still had enough to go for a drink with friends after work and would’ve been able to put the heating on had there been any. Jesus it was cold! Then I moved south and felt the warm glow of radiators and tabloid pay. 

Of course, many people I met along the way will be living the same high life I witnessed from a distance: such as those who actually paid to stay at the Ritz-Carlton Al Bustan Palace Hotel in Muscat while I enjoyed a press trip, the MPs I interviewed who, although shocked by change, won’t be losing their homes, and the sort of people who bought their food shopping at Harvey Nichols and Selfridges while I got things I got for free. 

On the whole things are changing for all of us. Us who work for a living. As we stare into the dark, soulless eyes of a double-dip recession I wonder how we will change as a people. I hope it’s for the better. 

I know I’ve been on a learning curve while unemployed – I will never again take the luxury of a tin of Harry Ramsden’s mushy peas for granted.

It's very readable, gut-wrenching stuff, and no matter what kind of journalist you are, just a little chilling. There but for the grace of God...

Your (last) chance to write for FleetStreetBlues

Why are the best jobs in journalism never advertised? Are there certain topics the mainstream media is afraid to cover? Is Twitter a waste of time or the future of journalism? How can we make journalism pay? And is there nothing the Guardian won't write a liveblog about?

These are just some of the pressing questions you might want to tackle, as we invite you, the readers, to take over FleetStreetBlues while we're on hiatus. We've had a couple of submissions so far, for which we're very grateful, but it's fair to say we're still open to more. Email your article - which can be credited with a link if you wish, or anonymous if you prefer - to fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk. You have until 10pm tonight.

Is journalism too 'middle-class'?

Jon Slattery re-opens an old debate this morning, asking whether journalists are too middle-class - and he does so using an interesting set of quotes from Tony Evans, football editor of The Times, at an NUJ debate last week.

Evans, who is from Liverpool, said he had personal experience of riots: "I've fought with policemen. I've kicked in shop windows. I've stole from shops. A lot of people haven't, but I have. And I understand the frustrations that come from being in that underclass, where you're written off, where you're given no opportunities. And you're demonised. You're demonised by the media and you're demonised by the political system. It was 30 years ago, but I felt the same way they did."

He said the riots had been building for four years and the only people who appeared to be surprised by it were journalists and politicians. 

Evans claimed the riots were caused not by race but poverty: "Most of people reporting it [the riots] haven't lived through it. They are middle class," he said.

Now, FleetStreetBlues has a lot of sympathy with those who think journalism is too hard to break into. We're much less certain whether as a trade overall it's too 'middle-class' - whatever that means - although we'd like to know what you think in the poll at the top right.

But the Tony Evans quotes seem flat-out wrong in a couple of ways. Firstly, that in order to fairly report on the riots it helps in any way to have 'fought with policemen' and 'kicked in shop windows'. And secondly, that having fought with policemen or kicked in shop windows has anything at all to do with being working class.

Recycled cheese

The drop intro on this Daily Mail article on ex-Blur bassist Alex James creating a tikka masala-flavoured cheese looks a little familiar.

Compare and contrast with a piece in today's Independent.

The rest of the article's eerily similar too, quotes and all. The freelance journalist who wrote the piece, Rob Hastings, has good-naturedly tweeted that he'll 'take it as a compliment'. He could ask for a cheque...


UPDATE: Looks like 'Daily Mail Reporter' has had a bit of a rewrite - and there's now even a credit in there for the Independent.

Guardian still reaping

So the arrest of a police officer on suspicion of leaking information from inside the phone hacking inquiry has been reported by the Guardian today - which is at least an improvement on their coverage of the David Leigh admission. Although you do have to read down to the seventh par to find out the paper he reportedly made the leaks to was the Guardian itself.

Here's the key two pars from the story, which was clearly debated at length by the lawyers and senior management:

A spokesperson for Guardian News & Media, which publishes the Guardian, declined to comment on reports that the leaks had been to the Guardian, and said: "We note the arrest of a Scotland Yard detective on suspicion of misconduct in a public office relating to unauthorised disclosure of information. 

"On the broader point raised by the arrest, journalists would no doubt be concerned if conversations between off-the-record sources and reporters came routinely to be regarded as criminal activity."

The latter point is a good one well made, of course, and until the public frenzy whipped up during the phone hacking saga, would have been accepted almost without comment. But it offers a perspective curiously lacking in a story run by the Guardian this time last week, on a similar leak from within the Milly Dowler investigation. Different rules for the News of the World, of course...

Write for FleetStreetBlues

So next week FleetStreetBlues will be going on holiday - yes, another holiday - and this time, rather than leaving you without your daily dose of journalism ranting, we're looking to readers to fill in the gap. If you've always wondered about writing for FleetStreetBlues, or if you have something you're desperate to get off your chest to 1,000-odd fellow journalists, now's your chance.

It can be a polemic about phone hacking or a brilliantly incisive crystal ball-gazing piece on the future of journalism. But it doesn't have to be - casual columns, snippets of gossip or tall tales from the pub are also welcome. Tell us about your best-ever story, your worst-ever interview, or add your voice to those who've already told us about their work experience woe and how they broke into journalism.

Any length, any topic, anonymous or in your own name - just make it good and send it in to fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk, as soon as possible but by 6pm Monday at the latest. Show us how it's done.

'Arm the pensioners': If Pol Pot worked for Newsquest...

While the tone of riots coverage in national newspapers lately has swung towards the civil liberties lobby - four years for Facebook messages, really? - a group of papers in south London have taken a very different approach.

A reader alerted us yesterday to the following column in the Streatham Guardian - a column which, almost unbelievably, Roy Greenslade reports today has been run as an official 'Editor's comment' in a whole clutch of papers around the capital.

First it calls for the return of corporal punishment, next the return of capital punishment. Then it gets to the good bit:

Of course, if you're looking for a more radical solution. One idea would be to simply arm pensioners. On the same day you get your bus pass you receive a handgun and the legal right to use it. Those in post office queues might be a bit more jumpy, but I guarantee we'd have a new-found respect for the elderly.

Guardian bucks the sexy A-levels trend

OK, so it's definitely not mindless sexism - and Fleet Street Fox says why more eloquently than we ever could here. But Britain's snappers and picture editors left no stone unturned today in their quest to find the perfect blonde-girl-jumping-in-the-air-clutching-her-exam-results shot.

The Sexy A-Levels blog was kept busy all day, with wildly enthusiastic leaping in Manchester, hugging in Wales, Badminton Sixth Form delivering what it had promised and two different sets of twins. And no prizes for guessing what makes the front page of tomorrow's Daily Telegraph.

Fair play to the Guardian though, for daring to be different...

Trainee reporter - Hull Daily Mail

The Hull Daily Mail is looking for a new trainee.

The job requirements are demanding for this kind of role - you'll need your NCTJ, 100wpm shorthand, a driving licence AND your own car, plus 'experience working on a regional daily or weekly newspaper' - we can only assume this means work experience.

Apply with CV, covering letter and clippings to assistant editor Jamie Macaskill at hdmtrainee@mailnewsmedia.com. Deadline Thursday 15 September.

Snappers, start your engines

The third Thursday in August is a fixture in every picture editor's calendar. A-level results day - the day on which the silly season boredom of both readers and journalists alike can be broken with some striking photos of nubile blonde beauties in improbably low-cut tops jumping for joy. Only this year we're worried.

For years, the picture choice on results day was a no-brainer, but then last year there was the suggestion that such photos had become a little too obvious, with the viral success of the Sexy A-Levels blog and the Guardian coming over all self-aware and putting a frankly obtuse picture on the front page of its website.

Then the FT caused a bit of a furore earlier this month, when its education correspondent Chris Cook revealed how some private schools were proactively supplying photos of their 'absolutely beautiful girls' and even inviting journalists to sports days ahead of the big day to, er, check out the talent...

Has taking photos of fit girls wildly celebrating their C in History of Art jumped the shark?

We hope not - and at this point we'd like to remind any newspaper editors out there who need reminding that it's not about the journalist, it's about the reader. Sure, everyone knows that the real stars of A-level results day are probably a group of spotty Inbetweeners heading to Oxbridge, but it's not about that. Pretty girls have never gone out of fashion, and if girls want to be photographed, and readers want to look at those photographs, who is the Fourth Estate to come between them?

Besides, if we're not taking photos of pretty girls, we're dreaming up other stunts, such as asking candidates to open their results live on air. Which, as the following clip shows, doesn't always work the way it's supposed to...

Disgusted people in local newspapers

Regular readers will know we're long-time fans of the excellent 'Angry people in local newspapers' blog, but here's a variation on a theme - a 'shocked and disgusted' person photographed for a local newspaper, complete with slightly blurry horse in the background.

The reason for the horse becomes apparent as soon as you read the decidedly Ronseal headline to the story, which reads in full: 'Linda Hogg from Sidcup saw a naked man next to a horse while she was walking her two dogs in a field'.

To be honest, that's pretty much the whole story right there, but if you feel the need to read on, head over to the News Shopper's website. August is slow on local papers too.

Proof at last

For years, they cried conspiracy, and no one listened.

They were called crazy, dismissed as irrelevant, derided as crazy, but still they persevered.

One newspaper carried the flame, convinced that one day fresh, new, irrefutable evidence would emerge, and they would be vindicated beyond all doubt. Today that day has come.

Yes that's right. Almost fourteen years on, the Daily Express has splashed on Diana again - and this time there's 'explosive new evidence'. What did you think we were talking about?

Quote of the Day: 16 August 2011

David Higgerson on the frustrations of court reporting - frustrations that a lot of journalists who don't normally cover courts have been driven crazy by in the last few days:

Any reporter will tell you that listings departments tend to be a law unto themselves. Some are brilliant, others act as though they’re a division of ‘The Grid’ on BBC’s ‘Spooks.’ But in an age where we can know about a news story occurring on the other side of the globe within seconds, should we really have to be present in our local court to know what has happened?

Was lax subbing at the Guardian responsible for the riots?

Ladies and gentleman, as silly season prepares to resume, we present to you a headline offering the ultimate QTWTAIN...

Post-riot coverage continues to dominate most of the papers today, with endless attempts to deconstruct and explain the outbreaks of violence last week.

In the Guardian, readers' editor Chris Elliot looks at the difficult issue of 'riots, race and reporting', and attempts to unpick the very complex interaction between media coverage of riots and the riots themselves.

And after a three-par introduction, Chris turns to tackle the heart of the issue.

Probably inevitably in such a highly charged situation, where language is an issue in itself, the Guardian has been criticised for some aspects of its reporting.

No doubt true - criticism is probably inevitable, but it's good to flag it up. So what's the very next sentence, the first, most important example of how the Guardian's reporting could have helped fan the flames of civil unrest?

Terminology is crucial, and one lapse from the Guardian's style guide occurred when the term Afro-Caribbean was used instead of African Caribbean.

A lapse from the style guide? Incendiary stuff.

Picture of the Day: Inside the journalists' studio

Ever wanted to see what it looks like inside Sky News as they're gearing up to go on air? Well, you can look all around it, thanks to this 360° interactive panorama, courtesy of defence correspondent Niall Paterson.

Liz Jones files from Somalia

So a few days ago there was much excitement among media types at the news that the Daily Mail's legendary fashion columnist Liz Jones had been dispatched to cover the famine in Somalia.

There was a piece in the Guardian describing the assignment - sending a notoriously insensitive, comically self-obsessed writer to a disaster zone - as 'grotesque'. There was, inevitably, a Twitter backlash. There was even a dead-on fake Twitter account, @LizJonesSomalia, which raised an astonishing £28,742 for the Disasters Emergency Committee East Africa Crisis appeal.

Now at last the real Liz Jones has filed her copy from a refugee camp on the Kenyan border - and the resulting article's not quite what you'd expect.

The most poignant sight, in the vast sea of humanity that surrounds me, in among all the rags that flap, in the unrelenting sandstorm, against thighs that are mere bones, is one little boy who is wearing a pair of pink flip-flops.

These are girls’ shoes, with little rosebuds and one remaining sequin dangling by a thread. They are far too small for him, so end halfway along the sole of his foot, making it painful and awkward to walk.

But he thinks he’s the bee’s knees. He’s attempting to swagger on his tiny girly shoes — the sort of apparel that would make him the subject of ridicule anywhere else in the world. But here, in a place I would safely describe as Hell on Earth, he is king of his world.

It continues in similar vein, giving a vivid impression of life in the camp and hammering home the contrast with life in the West. It's generally well observed, fluently written and most importantly, self-aware.

Oh, I know what some of you may be thinking. What on earth is a woman like me — who has spent a lifetime working in the fashion world, and who has long written about her own battles with her weight, her image, her debts — doing in a place like this, where the cost of my recent facelift would feed, what, a thousand children for a year?

That is precisely why I had wanted to come here: to stare true starvation in the face. To put not only my own problems in bitter perspective, but the whole pampered world we inhabit. To show how obcene are our worries in comparison to the parents who must watch their children wither to dust before their eyes.

That, thankfully, is about as much as she writes about herself, and instead the rest of the piece focuses on a series of people she meets. OK, so it won't win a Pulitzer, but - and this isn't something we've ever written about a Liz Jones column before - it's worth reading in full. Whisper it, but it's actually rather good...

The Guardian gloats, the world's most expensive house and the editor who won't go quietly: Read all about it

Here's some of the things we've been reading in the past 24 hours:

• It may have been closed for more than a month, but the Guardian's still writing about the News of the World - and this piece by Roy Greenslade, we're pretty sure, qualifies as gloating...
• 'I'm an observer, not a cop': Journalist Sean Flynn describes how he was caught up in and assaulted during the riots in Lewisham
• Jon Slattery has an interview with the regional newspaper editor who's just been made redundant and won't go quietly
• Remember the £3bn superyacht that never was? Well, the same company's peddling tall tales again, and the churnalists are still falling for it - only this time, it's the world's most expensive house
• And finally, did the Sugababes really put out the world's worst-judged press release earlier this week?

Business Reporter - Telegraph

The Telegraph is recruiting a general business reporter.

Solid news experience rather than subject knowledge seems to be preferred - the ad over on Gorkana says they're looking for a journalist 'whose credentials at breaking stories is more important at this stage than a particular specialism or interest'. You'll be working across both papers and online.

Apply via Gorkana here.

Reporter - Dumfries and Galloway Standard

The Dumfries and Galloway Standard is hiring a reporter - but you'll have to move quickly.

A relevant qualification such as the NCTJ is 'advantageous', although interestingly not required, and you'll 'preferably' be a car owner. You'll be doing feature-writing as well as news, and they ask for a 'genuine interest' in the local area - which often means you need to be from the local area.

Apply to regional editor Kenny Barr via the Scotcareers website here. Deadline is TODAY.

Elle Decoration puts bums and a vagina on its front cover

Memo to designers working on upmarket lifestyle magazines - if you're going to use an arty blackboard as a backdrop on your front cover, best to sweat the detail and check to see what's actually scrawled on said blackboard.

Because if you don't, Popbitch probably will:

Nice cover of Elle Decoration this month. A pristine white studio, aninviting double bed adorned with various throws and pillows, and a large panel of blackboard paint which has been scribbled on, Basquiat-style, by the apartment's inhabitants. 

But - oh dear - perhaps the Elle Deco subs and picture editors should have been a bit more vigilant before signing off their September 2011 cover. A graffito in the top righthand corner of the black panel reads "Our friendship is tighter than a nun's vagina". Just below is a rather crude, public loo style illustration of a couple called "Rikke" and "Stina" fornicating. You just don't get this sort of thing at World of Interiors, do you?

Let's do the CSI thing and see it in detail.

Classy.

The Halesowen News' excruciating headline howler

What's the worst possible mistake a sub can make? A reader sent in the following blunder, from a few days ago now, and it has to come pretty close.

Is it getting someone's name wrong? How about if that someone is a popular young mother who has been brutally stabbed to death? And how about if it's on the front-page, in a four-word headline?

For the record, the victim's name was KERRY Smith. 

Trainee reporter - Aldershot News

The Aldershot News and Mail series is recruiting a new trainee reporter, based in Guildford.

You'll need to have passed your NCTJ and have a full driving licence, and unusually for a local paper ad they're explicit about wanting someone local: 'Applicants must live local to the North Hampshire/South West Surrey area, have good local knowledge and a strong interest in people and communities.'

Apply with CV and covering letter to the news editor Richard Pain at richardpain@trinitysouth.co.uk. Deadline Monday 29 August.

'Are you proud of what you did?': How journalists struggled to cover the riots - and one 'chiselled god of news' made his name

So FleetStreetBlues takes a ten day holiday, at the height of the silly season, and the streets of the capital descend into anarchy while we're gone. 2011 truly is the year of non-stop news.

For many journalists, in particular on local papers and on TV, this is probably the story of the year, far eclipsing the Japanese tsunami, Royal Wedding, war in Libya and what looks like an imminent second recession. If it bleeds, it leads, the saying goes - and this one bled extremely close to home.

It's fair to say, though, that it wasn't just the police and politicians who struggled to keep up with the pace of events - some journalists were caught slightly flat-footed too. Roy Greenslade's detailed analysis of how London's local papers covered the riots on Monday night online has predictably attracted a bit of a backlash, but on certain key points he was right. Local reporters on the streets went straight to the story and did well, but they were let down by those back at the office - websites crashing and erratic collation and curation of the material coming in meaning a lot of reporters did most of their work via Twitter. Journalism.co.uk too was critical of some regional online coverage, although David Higgerson has posted a staunch defence of the Birmingham Mail here.

From an objective editorial point of view - and also from a reader's point of view - much of the criticism seems right, but perhaps it's a little unfair. Small papers often have hungry and extremely talented reporters working for them, but they simply don't have the resources to compete elsewhere. In the age of 24-hour online coverage, the standard has been set very high, and it's simply not possible to match the Guardian's liveblogging when your web server's kept together with Blutack and sellotape.

There are, though, some journalists who have definitely had a very good riot, and none better than Sky News reporter Mark Stone, who was caught up in disturbances in south London on Monday night and filed a series of reports via YouTube in which he not only filmed the looters, but challenged them on why they were looting and whether they were 'proud of what they did'.



In an age when we're told all a journalist needs to report is an iPhone and a sense of adventure, it's perhaps surprising we haven't seen a lot more of this kind of dispatches from the frontline. But Mark's willingness to take on the looters in the same way most journalists would heckle an evasive politician marked him out, and the plaudits have flown thick and fast.

Yesterday, the Daily Mail's Ephraim Hardcastle column called for him to be given an award, and this morning the Daily Telegraph's Bryony Gordon went one better, and wrote him a love-letter.

Mark Stone, beefcake, hunk, my hero. A Sky News reporter who makes Buzz Lightyear look like Postman Pat, a breath of broadcasting fresh air after hours of Identikit aerial shots from the ubiquitous Skycopter.

This chiselled god of news fearlessly took to the streets of Clapham on Monday night to confront the feral youths rampaging through his local branch of Currys Digital. “Why are you doing this?” he said, strolling purposefully up to a human hidden under a hood. “We’re getting our taxes back,” sneered the voice inside the hood. “We pay tax, innit?” Then Stone ventured inside a looted branch of Boots and held up to the camera all that was left: an empty packet of Imodium.

Bad news for Bryony - Mark is married. And according to his Twitter feed this morning, 'extremely embarrassed'.

As you sow shall you reap

And lo, it came to pass. At last, a key development in the phone-hacking saga which somehow doesn't merit inclusion in the Guardian's wall-to-wall coverage.

The Sun and The Times predictably pick up the latest twist, but it's not just Murdoch papers and right-wing bloggers on the case. The FT reports:

The Guardian said it would give the judicial inquiry into press methods “all information necessary” about an article its chief investigative reporter wrote in 2006 admitting that he had hacked into a mobile phone. 

The newspaper has led the investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World, but until now had not been implicated in any illegal journalistic methods. 

David Leigh, then investigations editor of The Guardian, wrote in 2006, just as two staff on the Sunday tabloid had been convicted of phone hacking, that he had listened to the voicemail of 'a corrupt arms company executive' who had left his personal identification number on a printout. 

He said he was not, like the News of the World men, seeking “witless tittle-tattle” but investigating a story of bribery and corruption.

We hate to say we told you so, but we did, back in January. Ever since the Guardian launched its holier-than-thou crusade, it's been inevitable that something like this would emerge. And the only real surprise is that the evidence was hiding in plain sight all along.

The key difference, as far as David Leigh and the Guardian are concerned, is that the phone hacking in this instance wasn't chasing a celebrity story, but part of a serious newspaper investigation with an arguable public interest.

The only problem is, the law doesn't make that distinction - there is no public interest defence under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. And thanks to the climate of phone hacking hysteria so gleefully whipped up by the Guardian over the past few weeks, the public doesn't make any distinction now either. The circular firing squad just claimed another victim.

Summer break

With silly season now officially underway, FleetStreetBlues is taking a short break. There may be the occasional post over the next few days, but blogging will be light.

We will return on THURSDAY 11 AUGUST.