Guardian coy on columnists' income

Guardian columnist George Monbiot caused a bit of a stir yesterday by publishing a 'registry of interests' on his website, which declares his earnings, savings and investments.

The key figure, since you ask - his annual contract with the Guardian - is £62,007, while he also has a £40,000 deal with Penguin book publishers over 3-4 years and earns £5,400 rent from lodgers.

But while the Guardian has been keen to champion a more open, transparent form of journalism post-phone hacking, it seems his employers weren't entirely thrilled at his decision to be quite so, erm, specific.

The MediaGuardian covered the story, with the £62k figure, as soon as he published the register - but there was an interesting word in the first line: 'Guardian columnist George Monbiot has called on journalists to sign up to a mandatory register of interests – and taken the first step by unilaterally declaring his own'. Unilaterally?

And then there's today's paper, which features a front page plug for George's declaration and the strapline: 'Want to know how much I earn?'

Only problem is, when you get to the article itself (the online version of the print article is here), as Harry Wallop points out, you won't find out. There isn't actually a figure.

So why is the Guardian so coy about the numbers? Well, for a start, now everyone else on Fleet Street knows exactly how much it costs to poach him. And then there's his better-paid/worse-paid colleagues, who'll be immediately looking at their own contracts again.

Transparency on pay is all very well for the readers. Just so long as the journalists don't find out how much their colleagues are earning.

Reporter - Sunday Post

Dundee-based DC Thomson is recruiting a reporter to work on the Sunday Post (which boasts the great tagline 'a thoroughly decent read') and the Weekly News.

You'll need an NCE qualification, two years' experience on a newspaper, 100 wpm shorthand and a full driving licence.

Apply with CV, covering letter and current salary details to recruitment@dcthomson.co.uk. Move fast though - deadline is tomorrow, Friday 30 September.

'My Daily Mail feature-writing hell'

Ever wondered what it's like to freelance for the Daily Mail? Well, Anna Blundy, an author and former Moscow correspondent for the Times, caused a bit of a stir earlier this week when she wrote a highly negative blogpost about writing for the paper.

Essentially, she'd been commissioned to write a first-person piece on the death of her father, a war correspondent, which was heavily edited, then dropped, and for which she wasn't paid - and so she decided to write her own first-person piece detailing her experience from start to finish. Payback.

You only have to read the features pages to understand that something strange is going on – lots of first person pieces all written in the same style, with the same vocabulary, the same mawkish self-revelatory nature and bizarre turn of phrase. Who are these people who all write exactly alike, suffer bereavements, mental health problems, addictions and family troubles, wear brightly-coloured dresses and too much make-up?

Well, we are the unprincipled writers who will do almost anything for the money. The Mail is the only paper that still pays decent rates and so we email them, call them and go into the office to meet them, desperately hoping that our own first person trauma will take the commissioning editor’s fancy.

It goes on from there, and predictably had those who love to hate the Mail in raptures, with tales of women in trousers being banned and bizarre style rules (do they really ban the letter 'I' from the start of every paragraph? Not here they don't).

The main complaint though seems to be that her piece was edited and she was asked to add things (IN CAPITALS, no less). And then, after she refused to comply, it was dropped.

It's always disappointing when you're asked to re-angle an article, of course, and when it's a personal piece about a bereavement it's that much more sensitive. But while Anna accuses the Mail of a 'complex deception' in getting her to write a piece with a 'weirdy Mail angle', FleetStreetBlues can't help thinking there might have been a good reason they didn't want her to write it straight. Especially since she wrote it straight for them three years ago.

Independent editor wants to ban bad journalists

So unbelievably it turns out at least one Fleet Street editor is in favour of the Labour party's crazy plan to issue licenses to journalists.

The MediaGuardian reports that the Independent's new editor Chris Blackhurst has backed the licensing plan, and with it the idea that journalists should be 'struck off' the new register if they're found to have committed gross malpractice. Newspapers should 'take charge of their own industry', he added. Wonder where we should start?

Licensed to grill

So as eye-catching, headline-grabbing, look-at-me-even-though-I'm-in-opposition policy proposals go, Ivan Lewis' suggestion yesterday that journalists guilty of gross malpractice should be 'struck off' - and therefore, by implication, that there should be some kind of register or licence for all journalists - was perfect. The only problem was it grabbed all the wrong kind of headlines.

It's not really worth outlining in detail all the reasons why it wouldn't, couldn't and shouldn't work - although FleetStreetFox has done an excellent job here. But it is worth pointing out, yet again, that this kind of proposal, unthinkable just a few months ago, is the inevitable result of journalists' dragging their own collective name through the mud with the phone hacking furore. Roy Greenslade and Guardian colleagues may be outraged, but they can hardly be surprised.

For now, stung by the rather unsurprisingly hostile reaction from the media to their plans to clamp down on the media, Labour have backed down in what's been dubbed 'the fastest U-turn in history'. But the post-hacking clampdown has only just begun.

The fine T-shirt at the top of this post is available to buy for both women and men at a very reasonable price as part of FleetStreetBlues' exclusive fashion range - which also features hoodies, T-shirts and even mugs protesting superinjunctions and campaigning for greater press freedom. Remember those days?

'City trader' Alessio Rastani unmasked

Yesterday 'financial expert' Alessio Rastani became an overnight sensation thanks to his astonishingly frank appearance on the BBC. Now, after a day of speculation it might have been a hoax, the Telegraph has spoken to the man himself and he's admitted: 'I'm an attention seeker not a trader'. At least he's not a taxi driver.

What would Kelvin do?: How to decide if a story's in the public interest

An interesting debate in the Times this morning - behind a paywall online, of course - asking 'How far can the press go in the public interest?'

It begins with a high-minded piece by one of Fleet Street's elder statesmen, former Sunday Times editor Sir Harold Evans, who suggests a simple and very effective test.

In editing contentious stories, I always asked myself a simple question: are we ready, on publication, to describe the steps we took to make our revelations? If we cannot, we should not take them.

Then Kai Diekmann, chief editor of Bild, offers an overseas perspective, explaining that while German newspapers might pay for information, it would never even occur to them to break the law. He's followed by Freedom of Information legend Heather Brooke, who argues in a digital age, truth will always out.

And then there's Paul Staines, aka Westminster blogger Guido Fawkes.

Whenever FleetStreetBlues mentions Guido Fawkes, we are invariably scolded by journalism's old-timers. 'Guido Fawkes isn't a proper journalist,' they sniff, and of course he isn't. But his contribution to the debate sounds like pure tabloid hack.

Just like newspaper tabloids we face editorial dilemmas almost daily. Can we risk cracking a joke at the expense of a supposedly suicidal politician? Is it in bad taste to run a picture of the empty booze bottles overflowing from the dustbin of an alcoholic MP who claims he is on the wagon? Is it fair to use an old Facebook picture of a young girl in a bikini who is now a parliamentary researcher and said to be carnally linked to a politician? More importantly, was she over 16 in that downloaded picture? Those are much tougher dilemmas than worries about classified e-mails from Downing Street advisers, stolen ministerial documents and purloined computer-disk evidence of expenses fraud...

... I do not claim to be philosopher king. I know that my moral code is not to the taste of everyone. When the blog has overstepped the mark, our readers have let us know; in that sense they are our true regulators. When on rare occasions we face sensitive judgment calls about the most difficult ethical editorial dilemmas we call on a higher authority — a former editor of The Sun. We ask ourselves: “What would Kelvin MacKenzie do?”

'What would Kelvin do?' A code we can all live by...

Chief reporter - The Cornishman

The Cornishman, a Northcliffe weekly title based in Penzance, is taking on a new chief reporter.

You'll need two years' experience as a senior reporter, with NCE qualification or equivalent, and there's the usual spiel about having great contacts and a nose for a story. It might also help to have your own transport, given it's a pretty rural patch, although that's not explicitly covered in the ad.

Salary is £21,000 - £23,000 pa.

Apply with CV and covering letter to the editor, Jacqui Walls, at jacqui.walls@c-dm.co.uk. Deadline Friday 14 October.

Creative destruction, FOI ID checks and feeding your journalism cow: Read all about it

If you're looking for something journalism-related to read this Monday lunchtime, here's where you could start:

• Adrian Monck has the perfect quote to illustrate his point about the dangers of creative destruction
• Press Gazette editor Dominic Ponsford reviews the new documentary Page One - Inside The New York Times
• The Wannabe Hacks on the difference between an internship in the US and work experience in the UK
• David Higgerson covers the bizarre case of a council which demanded a birth certificate before processing an FOI request
• And finally, Adam Westbrook's asking a very relevant question in a particularly well-worded way: do you feed your journalism cow?

The Daily Torygraph

Given that it's been running since March last year, it's hard to believe we haven't come across this blog before, but last week was the first time FleetStreetBlues had encountered the Daily Torygraph.

The idea is very, very simple. Each day, the author of the blog (and apparently it's an ad man, Dave Waters) sets to work on the top half of the Telegraph front page, armed with nothing more than a Tippex and a black pen.

Last Thursday's (above) was a particularly fine specimen, but they're consistently as inspired as they are simple, and it's well worth checking out the back catalogue.

Occasionally satirical. Generally crude. And very, very funny.

Local paper ad is Sofa King rude

Kudos to Dave Lee and the Media Blog for spotting this X-rated pun in the ad at the bottom of the Northampton Herald & Post's front page. How did the sales team sneak that one in then?

Sir Peregrine's flagstaff-sized indiscretion

A former editor of the Sunday Telegraph, Sir Peregrine Worsthorne is a legendary journalist, writer and cheerful iconoclast, who at the end of last month became embroiled in a bit of a row with the novelist Philip Hensher, whose new book contains several explicit gay sex scenes. 'Of course I believe in free speech,' he told the Independent on Sunday. 'But reading Hensher's latest novel I was shocked by all the grisly detail. It's completely unnecessary.'

Well, now the Spectator has done the sensible thing and got them to produce a debate piece out of the row, discussing 'Are explicit sex scenes OK?'. And Sir Peregrine's contribution, spotted by Simon Ricketts yesterday, is extraordinary.

He starts sensibly enough, attempting to make the case that explicit portrayals of gay sex could somehow provoke homophobia:

Contemporary gay novelists like Philip Hensher — one of the best — who quite brazenly portray the promiscuous and squalid side of homosexuality are taking a great risk. For underneath our surface of tolerance still lies, I believe, a deep-seated aversion to those practices which has been present in England since time began.

And then he gets personal. Eye-wateringly, cornflake-chokingly personal.

In my youth at school and university (Socrates and Alcibiades) and in the army I too had passionate friendships with other men. We wrote letters and poems to each other, kissed and embraced to the point of orgasm — at Stowe notoriously on a sofa with George Melly — and all went swimmingly until one day in Holland in the war a fellow officer, who tragically went on to have his balls shot off, on a camp bed broke the romantic rule by trying to put his flagstaff-size penis up my bum.

Sir Peregrine was born in 1923, so it's possible he may not have come across the phrase 'TMI'. It means 'Too Much Information', Sir Peregrine.

Poverty, defeat, pain and execution: here is the news

It feels like there's been a lot of bad news around lately - and judging by the business headlines this morning, there's only going to be more of it. But still, this snapshot of the New York Times homepage yesterday, saved for posterity by Tom Gara, seems particularly bleak. Can't MailOnline lend them some celebrity beach body photos or something?

Chief Sub Editor - New Scientist

If, like FleetStreetBlues, you always spell it 'scientest' until the auto-correct kicks in, this one probably isn't for you. But if you can spell - and if you're a sub already then that's probably a given - then there's a chief sub position going at the New Scientist.

As well as an 'impeccable track record' in subediting both for print and online, you'll need a science degree, an 'awareness' of developments in law and technology and experience of line-managing a large team.

Apply with CV and covering letter to editorial@rbi.jobs, quoting job reference number 01404.

Picture of the Day: 22 September 2011

Newsy it ain't, but this shot from a BBC photojournalism feature, 'When man meets beast at a country show', is a little piece of genius. It's by Dorset-based photographer Paul Russell - you can see more of his work here.

Reporter - Cambridge News

The Cambridge News is recruiting a reporter.

It's a senior reporter position, and they're ideally looking for someone who's already a senior and is keen to get some newsdesk experience. But the ad also states that they will 'consider applications from outstanding trainee reporters'. The 'competitive salary' will no doubt vary accordingly.

To get an application pack, email Nicole Want at nicole.want@cambridge-news.co.uk. Deadline Friday 30 September.

Stat of the day: 20 September 2011

£1,183,248

That's the cost of Operation Weeting - the Scotland Yard investigation into phone hacking - in the six months since it was set up in January. It works out at roughly £200,000 a month, the Press Gazette reports. Not nearly as much as it's costing Mr Murdoch...

Thankyou for not smoking

If you read as many journalism job ads as we do here at FleetStreetBlues, you can quickly tell what's been written by a journalist and what's been written by someone in HR - but rarely is the difference as obvious as in this ad, for a trainee reporter on the Harwich & Manningtree Standard and the Clacton Gazette, two local weekly papers in Essex.

It begins sensibly enough, asking for NCTJ qualifications and emphasising 'good organisational skills'. Then the HR bots take over.

Over 20 - count 'em, 20 - lines of well-meaning waffle, we're told that the papers offer a 'fun and challenging work environment', that you can collect application packs in person from the newspapers' various offices, that 'regretfully' (sic) they are unable to take phone calls, and that Newsquest Essex is 'an equal opportunities employer and invites applications from all members of the community'.

They don't really mean it, however, if the last line is anything to go by: 'We operate a no smoking policy'.

Quite why they've decided to include this gem is anyone's guess. Did they think that young would-be hacks might otherwise get the wrong idea, and light up in a news meeting on their first day? Are they particularly proud of the fact, or under the mistaken belief they need legally need to include it in every job ad? Or is it more sinister and do their restrictions in fact go further - not only can you not smoke at work, if you smoke even outside work you won't be considered for the role?

In any event, the sheer irritating elf'n'safety-ness of the ad can't help but make FleetStreetBlues look back fondly, to the bad old days when men were men, women were, admittedly, scarce - and hard-bitten hacks lived on a daily diet of cigarettes and alcohol.

One thing is certain, anyway. Ed Murrow need not apply.

(Hat tip: Jessica Elgot)

Journalists vote 10-1: Hari should have been fired

So, Roy Greenslade reckons that Johann Hari's punishment fit the crime. FleetStreetBlues readers would beg to differ.

Since the Independent ruled last week that Hari can keep his job, we've been trying to avoid writing about the case - at least directly - if only because it's all so ridiculous.

The Independent's top columnist and interviewer admitted, almost unprompted, to fabricating parts of interviews over a number of years. (Forget whether the quote-lifting was 'first-degree' or 'third-degree' plagiarism; the bits in between - 'We stare at each other for a while. Then he says in a quieter voice...' were pure fiction).

That's it. That's all that matters. Unlike many of Hari's critics, we have absolutely nothing against him personally. But for him to keep his job after that is absurd.

When is it OK to go graphic?

How much is too much? That's the question asked by the Guardian's readers' editor Chris Elliott today, as he looks at the ways in which journalists cover deaths and injuries - and he uses as an example a photo from the Tour de France earlier this year which is guaranteed to make you flinch.

It's an interesting question. The truth is, journalists constantly offer a somewhat censored view of the world. And in most cases the censoring is something that we do ourselves.

Conventional wisdom has it that there's only so much readers will tolerate as they flick through the paper over their cornflakes, and of course that's right, to a degree. But readers are a funny bunch. They'll tolerate vivd descriptions of the most appalling crimes much more than they will relatively innocuous photos. Pictures of dead foreigners are occasionally acceptable; pictures of dead Britons much less so. And the rules around anything which might be construed as sexual get highly complicated. The photo above is of course controversial not because the cyclist's injuries are extremely gory... but because you can see his arse.

It's worth remembering too that the rules vary with location. In some parts of south Asia, for instance, it's seen as normal, where newsworthy, to print quite graphic photos, or broadcast quite graphic footage, while in the US journalists tend to err on the side of caution.

And then there are other confounding factors too. What constitutes an invasion of privacy? Are the rules different for criminals - or suspected criminals? And does censorship, even self-censorship, inevitably slant the way journalists report the news, for instance by shielding a public which supported a war from the consequences of their decision?

All difficult questions, and it's impossible to come up with an answer for every scenario - but FleetStreetBlues would suggest one hard and fast rule. Journalists have two jobs - to report the news, and to help sell papers (or page views, or whatever). If printing, publishing or broadcasting something graphic genuinely helps with the former, it's OK. If, when we're honest, it's anything to do with the latter, it's probably not.

Trainee reporter - Dorset Echo

Here's an entry-level position on a local paper in deepest Dorset - the Dorset Echo is hiring a trainee reporter to work out of its newsroom in Weymouth.

You'll need an NCTJ pre-entry qualification, shorthand and a driving licence, although there's no specific mention of needing your own car as well. Send your application to the editor, Toby Granville, at toby.granville@dorsetecho.co.uk. Deadline Friday 30 September.

'hyhyhyhy yhyhyhyhyh'

Memo to subs and the web monkeys at the Medway News - any story which talks about someone improving their English skills in the first par really deserves a vaguely coherent headline.

Hat tip: Laurie Allsopp

Designer - Daily Mirror

The Daily Mirror is hiring a designer.

The ad is short, to the point, and deliberately understated - you'll need to be 'excellent' at InDesign and must 'be able to work under pressure'.

Apply with CV to deputy managing editor Aidan McGurran at aidan.mcgurran@mgn.co.uk. Deadline next Friday 23 September.

Quote of the Day: 16 September 2011

Fleet Street Fox, offering to train Johann Hari in the newsroom of hard knocks:

If he wants to spend three months with me rather than attending seminars on the free press in Somalia I'll not charge him a penny. I will teach him shorthand, lecture him on the Contempt of Court Act 1981 and Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1976, grill him on local government, the council tax system, the defences against defamation and how to win a drinking contest.

I'll send him out on deathknocks, pack jobs, magistrates' hearings, junkie inquests, tell him to drive 300 miles on a hopeless tip at 10pm then insist he's back at work for 7am, make him spend his birthday at a late-night local council planning committee, publish his phone number and paint his name on the side of his car so everyone knows who he is. I'll show him what to do when someone comes at him with a lump of wood or collapses in tears, and how to file off a notebook down a bad line while you're being shot at to someone who's drunk.

It's not perfect and I could probably think of some more stuff but that seems to me like a syllabus which will teach him to care about his trade, the people in it and those he writes about.

Take her up on it, Johann. You'll learn more than you will at Columbia.

Guardian keeps it in the family

We've all been there. You're filing a short story for the back of the paper, you're on deadline, you need a quote and anyone will do. Someone, somewhere, please say something.

That was the situation Guardian reporter David Batty clearly found himself in a couple of days ago, when trying to drum up a little outrage about some allegedly 'sexist' Topman T-shirts which had been withdrawn.

He had a couple of Facebook comments, but needed one more - and this is what he came up with.

Bella Mackie, who works for the Guardian, tweeted: "Seriously, comparing women to dogs? Classy."

Seriously? You can quote your fellow reporters in stories, and be that blatant about it? FleetStreetBlues had no idea, but it's certainly going to make our job a lot easier from now on. Who knew our best sources were sitting all around us? Then again, maybe there are different rules if the journalist in question is the editor's daughter...

Five reasons to give financial journalism a chance

Plenty of stories, very little walking and the chance to meet lots of eligible bachelors - what's not to like about reporting on finance? Today we have a guest post from Laura Dew, newly minted staff writer on Financial Planner magazine, who explains how she fell into financial journalism - and why you should consider doing the same...

I vividly remember in the final weeks of my journalism course (I studied at News Associates in Wimbledon) discussing with my course mates that we should have done economic/business degrees rather than English degrees. We were all looking for jobs and there were clearly far more finance jobs than news jobs. Little did I know that, despite my own English (and German) degree, I would indeed end up in one of these finance jobs.

I had never intended to work in finance and didn't even have much interest in the subject. But when a job came up 10mins from my house for a finance magazine, I decided it was worth a shot if only for the amazing location. Long story short, I got the job, despite not even being able to describe the FTSE 100 in the interview - and I have now been working there for almost five months.

So what's it like working in finance?

1) Don't worry if you don't know much about finance. Having spoken to other journalists it seems most people 'fell into finance'. It's also accepted it's a specialist field and not one that everyone is expected to know about, most bosses will be understanding about you learning on the job and you'd be surprised how much you pick up day to day. That said, brush up on your finance facts before your interview in case they ask you about it and make sure you know from the newspapers if any major news is happening like the Budget. There are also some great books available like Age of Instability by David Smith and Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin which give a summary of the financial crisis.

2) Now is a great time to be covering finance. Since the financial crisis in 2008, all sorts of reviews and changes have been happening to rectify mistakes and many of these will come into practice in January 2013. Not only this but only recently there was another stock market crash, the riots in Greece, the US downgrade and the euro-zone crisis. More than plenty to cover. So much of finance is connected too, so finding how an event like the US downgrade filters down to affect ordinary people can be really interesting.

3) Unlike news reporting there's very little walking round looking for stories in the local area, although contacts and press releases still play a large part. Instead lots of news comes from reports and documents released by banks, companies etc. The story comes in finding that one line hidden away which admits they've lost £1m or are firing 1,000 staff. Similar things include attending conferences and watching the stock markets.

4) You can decide whether this is a pro or a con but the finance industry is very male-dominated. At conferences it can easily be 80-20 male to female. While obviously not everyone is a journalist, the other delegates from accountants, bankers, stockbrokers, traders are undoubtedly male. There's thankfully a more even split among the actual journalists. So good news for girls, as they are keen to recruit more females into the industry (and for single girls there's plenty of eligible bachelors!).

5) You specialise very early on, my own role focuses on financial advisers and wealth management while other jobs might focus on mortgages or energy markets. This can sometimes be stifling when you can't report on other big news that might be happening but I try and think of it like having to report on a small patch on a local newspaper. It's also gives lots of opportunity to travel - check out Gorkana and you'll see finance jobs in Frankfurt, San Francisco, Hong Kong etc.

So there you go, five reasons to give finance a chance. If you're thinking about finance but worried you won't be up to scratch, don't be. Just go for it, and you'll be surprised how much you learn.

Want to write about journalism? Got something you want to get off your chest? Or simply keen that everyone sees your rival publication's latest subbing blunder? Email us today at fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk.

'Well it's a great quote, but...'

Not sure why, but FleetStreetBlues can't help feeling there's a lesson in there somewhere. Maybe they teach it in 'journalism training'.

Still picking

Phone hacking and other kinds of journalistic skulduggery are back on the front pages of this morning, courtesy of a pretty comprehensive investigation of Operation Motorman in the Independent. It's the scab we can't stop picking.

Quite what's brand new and what's a summary of what's already known FleetStreetBlues couldn't tell you, to be honest. Certainly there's a sense of raking over the embers of an Information Commissioner's Office investigation from eight years ago, the findings of which were largely ignored at the time - but there's also some pretty damning quotes from the lead investigator at the time, who claims he was banned from interviewing journalists about allegations of blagging because the authorities were 'frightened' of tackling the press.

A whole range of other newspapers -  the Daily Mail, the People, the Sunday Express - are also mentioned, although with carefully worded caveats about the activity they were engaged in not necessarily being illegal. Still no smoking gun.

Most interesting, though, is a line slipped in at the bottom:

There are around 400 named journalists in the files, from investigative reporters and newsdesk executives to showbiz hacks and diary writers.

We're told higher up in the piece that 'the Whittamore files have also recently been requested by the Metropolitan Police's Operation Tuleta team, which is investigating the use of computer hacking by journalists', so presumably this is going to run and run, with potentially hundreds more suspects to interview.

How much has this all cost so far? Are we sure it's really still in the public interest?

Tweet your way to a journalism job

As anyone who's ever gone through the pain of a journalism job hunt will know (and that's pretty much everyone reading this), one of the most depressing things about the process is the sheer length of time it takes.

Trawling ads. Crafting cover letters. Personalising CVs. Digging out clips. And all in the hope your finely honed labour of love might catch the editor's eye as he skims through 100-odd identical applications.

Well, maverick regional editor Alan Geere, editor-in-chief of the Essex Chronicle Media Group, is equally tired of the whole process - and he's come up with a novel solution.

I’m fed up wading through turgid ‘letters of application’ and monstrous CVs outlining an early career in retail handling and a flirtation with the upper slopes of the Andes.

I want reporters who can find stories that no-one else has got and write them quickly and accurately.

That’s why in my latest recruitment ad potential recruits have to respond via Twitter. They’ve got 140 characters to tell me what they can do and why I should consider them.

The official job ad linked to this opportunity, such as it is, promises openings across Northcliffe Media South East for full-time, fixed term, trainee and freelancer reporters, with the deadline set for next Monday 19 September.

Send your 140-character applications to @alangeere - and if you like, you can also send them to @fleetstreetblue and we'll publish the best. But best get a move on - they've already had 50 applications and counting.

Could this be the best film about journalism ever?

FleetStreetBlues wasn't lucky enough to catch the film Critical Assignment when it appeared on TV last week - but having checked out the trailer above, we can't help wishing we had. It's no exaggeration to say this might be the best trailer for a film about journalism we've ever seen.

Killer dialogue. Slow motion leaping. The squarest of jawlines. And an investigative reporter who gets to fly a helicopter in pursuit of a story. This is how journalism was meant to be practised.

Local papers jump the gun on boundaries embargo

Westminster mischief-maker Guido Fawkes put the cat among the pigeons earlier today, when he decided to unilaterally ignore the embargo on the Boundary Commission's reshuffle of MPs' constituencies, which was meant to hold until midnight tonight. Publish and be damned.

FleetStreetBlues has written before about embargoes, and how they're an anachronistic leftover from the days when print was king - and the Guardian's media editor Dan Sabbagh is similarly unimpressed.

MPs are ringing the Guardian to comment, or would like to, were it not for the fact that this newspaper is under embargo. It's a nonsense. This is the modern day equivalent of the old 14 day rule - the rule that used to prevent the BBC from discussing any area of policy that had been debated in Parliament in the last fortnight. The 14 day rule was dropped in 1957 because it was obviously a nonsense then. That was the era of Suez. But, in an era where news moves that little bit faster, it seems to have returned in a new guise. Broadcasters and newspapers cannot report on or explain the changes to Westminster constituency boundaries, when the whole of Westminster knows the proposals and anybody interested can read all about it online.

If traditional media keep this up, they can look forward to the blogosphere cheerfully stealing some of the easiest scoops known to reporting. Somebody ought to stand up for serious journalism and break ranks.

Fighting talk - but it seems that somebody won't be the Guardian, which seems like most of the national media to be honouring the embargo regardless.

Interestingly, though, the local press have no such qualms - the Enfield Independent and Waltham Forest Guardian are just two of the papers to have already reported the boundary changes based on the Guido Fawkes leak.

Private Eye turns 50

In just over a month, Private Eye turns 50 - and to commemorate the anniversary the MediaGuardian has an in-depth profile of the legendary Soho-based satirical rag.

Everything you'd expect is there in terms of the magazine's eccentricities, insider jokes and ramshackle organisation, but there's some interesting details in there too about the Eye's surprisingly steely business model. How, in an age where digital supposedly rules, does the magazine clear £200,000 a year through print alone? Well, circulation is key, and sales are now at an 18-year high, despite fluctuations in recent years.

As editor Ian Hislop puts it: 'Like John Terry's shorts, in the past they may have been down - but now they are firmly up again.'

September 11 Twitter tribute backfires

One thing that's striking amidst all the tenth anniversary coverage of the September 11 attacks is how journalism itself has developed in the past decade. Unthinkable now, but ten years ago there was no Twitter, no YouTube and no live-blogging. Which hasn't stopped the Guardian giving it a go a decade later.

Some bright spark at King's Place decided to set up a dedicated Twitter feed, @911tenyearsago, to re-tell the events of 11 September 2001 in real-time.




Unfortunately, as you can see from the very first tweet, the account was abruptly pulled - after a less than positive reaction from readers.




You can see what they were trying to do, of course, and no doubt it was intended in the best possible taste. But it's a fine line between commemoration and disaster-porn. Better chalk this one up to experience.

Quote of the Day: 10 September 2011

Love this quote from Folkestone Herald editor Simon Finlay, defending his widely-derided out-of-date pasty story. The story appeared to be on the front page of the paper at the height of the silly season last month (although it was apparently actually the page three lead as the paper had a wrap-around cover that day).

Anyway, here's his excuse:

'I received abuse from members of the public, asking why I had put the pasty story on the front page. I didn’t have the heart to tell them we didn’t have anything else.'

Top marks for honesty, Simon. We've all been there...

Trainee reporter - Rotherham Advertiser

The Rotherham Advertiser is recruiting a trainee reporter, in what has to be one of the more shambolic ads we've seen recently.

You'll need to have passed your NCTJ, with 100wpm shorthand, and somewhat ambitiously for a job which only pays £16,000 pa, they also ask that you have your own transport. The ad also promises that the Rotherham Advertiser is 'where news is king and where exclusives is the norm'. Grammar, not so much.

To request an application form, contact personnel manager Debbie Commander at debbie.commander@garnett-dickinson.co.uk. Deadline we think is Friday 23 September (although the ad actually lists two separate dates).

The second, third and fourth drafts of history

As anniversaries of news events go, they don't come much bigger than ten years on from the September 11 attacks, and so far the UK coverage leading up to the anniversary, while extensive, seems in keeping with the magnitude of the attacks (we'd be interested in your take in the poll at the top right).

But still, this week more than ever seems a good time to revisit number 100 in the excellent list of Stuff Journalists Like - anniversaries.

For most industries, it’s about looking forward. But for newspapers, it’s all about looking back (must be part of their winning business strategy). 

Newspapers aren’t content with delivering just the day’s bad news. No, no, no. Newspapers and journalists are determined to remind readers of bad news year after year. 

Much like Hollywood’s penchant for sticking to sequels, editors and publishers think readers want to revisit the same story year after year. Just as people and communities try to move beyond these horrible incidents, newspapers think it’s journalists’ jobs to rehash painful memories. Anniversaries are like scabs journalists can’t help but pick at... 

...Journalists like anniversaries, well, because they remind journalists that not only do they write the first draft of history, they are expected to write the updated editions as well.

Stat of the day: 8 September 2011

£48,427

That's the average salary of someone working in PR, according to a story in PR Week magazine. We'll say that again. That's on average.

Jon Slattery, who sensibly advises any journalists looking at the figures to 'read them and weep', adds:

According to the survey, press officers average £28,384; senior account managers £36,514; media managers £39,091; head of comms/external affairs £55,203; PR directors £55,516; chief executives/MDs £60,925; and comms directors £83,191.

So even the poor souls who badger you 'just to check if you've received the email' or the press officers who stonewall you on deadline earn more than the editor of some regional papers. Something to remember next time you hang up on one.

Applying for a job? Tell 'em we sent you...

A heart-warming tale from one of our readers Sandy Kilpatrick, who a month or so ago sent us a tweet thanking us for posting a job on a regional Scottish paper, which he'd somehow missed in his job search.

Well, he got the interview, with the Dumfries and Galloway Standard, and yesterday there was even better news. He got the job.

That he got the job, of course, is nothing to do with us and everything to do with him. In this case, all we actually did to help was spot that the job was out there. But we have heard several similar tales of people who have mentioned FleetStreetBlues in their application, or even in their interview, and have had particularly good feedback as a result.

We've also had similar comments from the other side of the interview table. At least three editors have volunteered independently that candidates name-checking FleetStreetBlues tend to be of a generally higher quality.

So, here's the suggestion. If you're applying for a job you've seen on here, rather than mentioning where the paid-for ad was originally placed, tell them you first spotted it on FleetStreetBlues. It won't get you the job - that's down to you - but it might give you an extra 10%, and help you stand out as someone who follows a blog written by journalists, for journalists. Chances are your new boss is a reader too.

Chief Sub Editor - The Strad

The Strad, a magazine published by Newsquest Specialist Media and 'the voice of the string music world since 1890', is looking for a chief sub editor.

You'll need to be a 'linguistic pedant' and as well as the usual subbing skills, will have to be confident dealing with highly technical copy written by 'non-English speakers'.

Apply with CV and covering letter to Ariane Todes at ariane.todes@thestrad.com. Deadline Friday 16 September.

Eating off the People's Princess

Not strictly anything to do with journalism this, not yet, but a reader alerts us to what has to be the ultimate in comedy niche blogs, the bizarrely-titled Eating off the People's Princess. 

Yes, it's a collection of pictures by someone who likes to eat their dinner off commemorative Princess Diana crockery, and publish photos of it on the internet alongside awful puns. (The one above is captioned 'She's in a better plaice').

It's tasteless, ridiculous, pointless and just a little bit compelling. Nobody tell the Daily Express.

First they came for the News of the World...

Compare and contrast. First, this story, in the Guardian on 12 August:

The police watchdog is investigating an allegation that a Surrey officer gave information about the Milly Dowler murder investigation to the News of the World.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said it was investigating the claim following a voluntary referral from the force. "An IPCC deputy senior investigator has been over at Surrey police this morning to get more information about the case and will be writing to the Dowler family, via their solicitors at their request, this afternoon and offering to meet to give them more detail," the commission said. "Until then, it would not be appropriate for us to make any further detail public."

The Guardian understands that the allegations relate to the early stages of the investigation into Milly Dowler's disappearance.

It is thought a Surrey police officer met a female journalist from the News of the World at a social event in London and told her details about the leads that officers working on the case were following. It is not thought that he was paid for the information.

And then this, from the Guardian earlier today:

A Guardian journalist has been questioned by police officers investigating alleged leaks of information from Operation Weeting, the police team pursuing phone hacking at the News of the World. 

Amelia Hill, a reporter behind several of the Guardian's key phone-hacking revelations, was questioned under caution several days ago in a case that has raised concerns about attempts to criminalise contact between journalists and off-the-record sources. 

A spokesperson for the Guardian said in a statement: "We can confirm Amelia Hill has been questioned in connection with an investigation into alleged leaks." Hill is one of several journalists at the Guardian who have been writing about developments in the phone-hacking scandal. 

The newspaper argued that the case could have lasting repercussions for the way journalists deal with police officers. The statement added: "On a broader point, journalists would no doubt be concerned if the police sought to criminalise conversations between off-record sources and reporters."

So last month, the Guardian believed that police officers handing journalists details of an ongoing investigation - without being paid - was worthy of investigation and coverage. Today, not so much.

Of course, the NUJ is right. It is outrageous that journalists are being hauled in to police stations because of their alleged off-the-record sources. Amelia Hill is a very good journalist, and deserves all the support she's no doubt getting. But Pandora's box has been well and truly opened, and there's no going back now. Journalists' ethics are under scrutiny as never before, thanks in part to the kind of Guardian story mentioned at the start of this blogpost, which has amped up the hysteria without necessarily even highlighting anything actually illegal.

Roy Greenslade cheerfully reckons there's still plenty of life in the phone hacking scandal yet. Here's hoping he's wrong.

The secret of happiness - reading The Times

Are you a Times reader? Do you co-habit with your partner and two late-teenage children? Do you live in Ilkley, and grocery shop at Waitrose or perhaps M&S? Then congratulations, you're officially one of the people in Britain most satisfied with your life, according to a slightly spurious survey by the research firm Mintel which is cheekily celebrated by a Times leader today.

All things considered, life is going so swimmingly for you — compared with town-dwelling readers of other dailies, who buy their food from different supermarkets — that there is every likelihood that any minute now Monica Bellucci will be pinging your doorbell offering to bear your children. Or maybe it will be George Clooney begging you to move in with him at his palazzo on Lake Como. 

But who knows? It may not work out with Monica or George, what with their probably not being regular Times readers, or Waitrose shoppers, or Yorkshire villagers. They may just get you down with their relative dissatisfaction with life. 

Deputy News Editor - Retail Newsagent

A decent role for an upwardly mobile B2B reporter this - the weekly paid-for magazine Retail Newsagent is recruiting a deputy news editor.

You'll need to be an 'ambitious and experienced' news reporter already, and as well as deputising for the news editor you'll be covering the news and magazine sector. Prior knowledge of the newspaper or magazine sector is 'desirable'.

The salary is £25k plus £2k 'performance-related pay'.

Apply with covering letter, CV and your three best news stories to recruitment@newtrade.co.uk.

'Curation' and the curious tale of Steed Malbranque

This is a strange one. A couple of days ago a story swept the football world about former Fulham, Spurs and Sunderland player Steed Malbranque, who recently joined St Etienne.

Steed had decided to quit after just one substitute appearance, we were told, in order to care for his cancer-stricken son. Cue widespread coverage from the papers and outpourings of sympathy from both fans and journalists themselves, the following from Phil McNulty, chief football writer for the BBC Sport website, being about typical:

Steed Malbranque retires from football to look after his son, who has been diagnosed with cancer. If we need perspective it is right there.Fri Sep 02 23:14:57 via webPhil McNulty
philmcnulty

The only problem? Turns out Steed Malbranque hadn't quit football. And he doesn't even have a son.

Quite where the rumour came from, and why, we'll leave to those better qualified to say. But as a cautionary tale for journalists it's up there with the urban fox killing video and the £3bn gold-plated superyacht (which the Sun still hasn't realised isn't a hoax).

Phil McNulty was far from alone, as he later pointed out.

Every English journalist I know reported Malbranque story from abroad in good faith & offered sympathy. Statement http://t.co/FqF6VITMon Sep 05 19:17:00 via webPhil McNulty
philmcnulty

But as far as journalistic standards go, we're not really sure that 'everyone made the same mistake' cuts it anymore. Anyone can repeat rumour - in a world when everyone's a publisher, our only value as journalists comes from sorting fact from fiction and making sure we're consistently right.

The latest buzzword among forward-thinking journalists at the moment seems to be 'curation' - collecting and organising content from other sources, using tools such as Storify and Storyful, rather than creating new content from scratch. Which is all well and good up to a point - but there might be a case for a rather older buzzword to come back into vogue - 'fact-checking'.

Back when FleetStreetBlues was a cub reporter, it had a grumpy, old-school news editor with a simple rule - if you hadn't stood the story up for yourself, you couldn't report it. Quite how that works in the world of 24-7 coverage, remote curation and instant retweeting is anyone's guess. It might help us get fewer things wrong.

Tinker, tailor, sub-editor, spy

A somewhat unfortunate juxtaposition on the front page of today's Times, which sees a banner for the Venice film festival showing of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy above a very different tale about the secret service: 'MI6 knew I was tortured, says Libyan commander'. What would George Smiley make of it all?

Spotted by: Graham Price

Wannabe Hacks v2.0

In just a year they've made it one of the most engaging and readable journalism websites out there - and officially the country's second best journalism blog. And today the Wannabe Hacks pass the baton to a new generation.

It's the ultimate compliment that their application process, for what is essentially an unpaid gig writing someone else' blog, attracted an impressive 60 applications - and now the lucky five candidates have been unveiled.

They are, from left to right, The Intern (Emily Handford), The Jobseeker (Jon Offredo), The Undergrad (Natalie Clarkson), The Entrepreneur (Jonathan Frost) and The Postgrad (Hannah Bass). We wish them all the best. Those are some big shoes to fill.

Trainee reporter - Bolton News

The Bolton News is taking on a new trainee reporter.

You'll need your NCTJ with 100 wpm shorthand, a 'working knowledge of digital media' and some previous experience of working on a newspaper. Most important though will be your willingness to jump straight in the deep end - they ask for someone 'who is ready to be thrown in to the daily life of a journalist covering everything from door knocking to council meetings'.

Apply with CV and a 200-word covering letter to the editor's secretary, Lisa Schofield, at lschofield@lancashire.newsquest.co.uk. Deadline next Monday 12 September.

Johann Hari, misunderstood genius?

It's all gone a bit quiet on the Johann Hari front lately, as the Independent conducts its internal investigation into the various allegations against the columnist.

The investigation is due to report later this month, but the Guardian's Media Monkey column today has an intriguing snippet which features the supposed views of the man heading up that internal investigation, former Independent editor and sometime president of the British Board of Film Classification, Andreas Whittam Smith.

Merry chatter at a recent wedding was interrupted, Monkey hears, by a loud exchange between Andreas Whittam Smith, the saintly if often Eeyoreish founding editor of the Independent, and Mail columnist Tom Utley. Whittam Smith, currently investigating suspended Indy columnist Johann Hari's idiosyncratic way with interview "quotes", is said to have sorrowfully advanced the opinion that Hari is a "genius". Belying his mild-mannered columnar persona, Utley replied in a voice that carried to the furthest reaches of the wedding breakfast: "Then what the FUCK are you doing chairing the inquiry into his conduct?" Blushing nearby revellers examined their shoes.

Fair point.

The Sunday scoop: 'Dear Mu'ammar' edition

First of all, an honorable mention for a terrific feature in the Sunday Times today by David James Smith looking at the forgotten fate of the 9/11 'jumpers' - considered, long-form journalism at its best on a difficult subject.

But there's one big news story which in various forms dominates the front pages today - and it's long overdue. For months FleetStreetBlues has been a little perplexed at the coverage of the conflict in Libya, and the apparent forgetfulness of our recent history with the country. Can it really only be in 2007 that the transformation of relations with Libya was hailed as a key foreign affairs triumph? And where exactly have the usually vocal anti-war brigade been? Surely Libya has much more oil than Iraq ever did? Or is it only the Bush factor: it's not nearly as much fun opposing a conflict if the Americans are led by Obama and firmly taking a back seat anyway?

Well, whatever the politics of it, today recent history is reopened with a vengeance as the Sundays pore over files found on the ground in Libya. The Sunday Times leads with 'MI5 spied on Libya torture victims', while the Mail on Sunday goes party political and claims 'Labour lied over Gaddafi' (the article includes some cringingly friendly letters between Downing Street and 'Mu'ammar'). The Observer, meanwhile, claims both MI6 and the CIA aided human rights violations. This is a story which could run and run...

That was the month that was: August 2011

So in the last month FleetStreetBlues took not one but two holidays - and a big thanks to guest posters Alex Ariel, Kevin Duffy, Sam Blackledge, Jo Rourke, Sam Brodbeck and David Champion, who filled in while we were gone. Unsurprisingly though, traffic has been down, with the silly season finally and belatedly kicking in after a couple of false starts.

Most-read posts of the last month were:

1. Liz Jones files from Somalia
2. Elle Decoration puts bums and a vagina on its front cover
3. The Halesowen News' excruciating headline howler
4. As you sow shall you reap
5. 'Are you proud of what you did?': How journalists struggled to cover the riots - and one 'chiselled god of news' made his name
6. Why are the best jobs in journalism never advertised?
7. Recycled cheese
8. Tales from an unemployed hack
9. Nurse cleared
10. Is journalism too middle-class?

On the last point, incidentally, the consensus was overwhelmingly yes, it is too middle-class.

FleetStreetBlues is read by thousands of UK journalists and would-be journalists every week - including almost 3,400 who follow us on Twitter, 721 on Facebook and more than 200 via our daily email (which you can sign up to using the box at the top right). To send us a tip or write for us - or even advertise with us - email  fleetstreetblues@hotmail.co.uk.

Vanessa Redgrave and family: a correction

In today's Daily Mail, one hell of a correction.

Reporter - E-Health Insider

Here's a good opportunity for a first-jobber looking for a B2B role - E-Health Insider, an online news service covering healthcare IT, is recruiting a new reporter.

The detailed job ad makes it clear this is an entry-level position, probably best suited to a journalism graduate or someone with an NCTJ qualification, but there's a hefty list of requirements - an interest in technology is 'essential' and 'will be assessed at interview', you'll need advanced social media skills and you'll also be tested on your political knowledge.

Apply with CV and covering letter to managing editor Lyn Whitfield at lyn@e-health-media.com. Deadline Friday 9 September.