I like him. I still think he’s a bit stupid, but I like the fact that, if he’s honest with himself, he knows he was a bit stupid too.
Best of luck to you, Adam.
EDIT: If you were wondering about the copy that got filed that fateful night, you can read it here. It has been removed from the Mail’s site, but thanks to the wonders of Google we can still read the cached version.
One night a little while ago I sang an awful karaoke attempt of Heal the World and, in a less than sober state, duly lapped up the moment while being recorded on a friend’s mobile. I woke up dreading what could appear on Facebook the next day.
Today I feel decidedly less stupid. Imagine waking up and remembering doing this?
Oh dear. Here we are, then, this reporter, the Birmingham Mail’s Adam Smith, who is clearly (and the brummies might say) “off his tits”.
Journalists being drunk isn’t a new craze by any means (hurrah!), but what Adam’s done is a tad more serious. He’s noted the fact that he’s gone — on the Mail’s payroll, let’s not forget EDIT: It was a voluntary trip — to Miami to report the election. By his own admission, Miami wasn’t really an exciting place to be. Everyone knew it would end up going Democrat, as always.
He was there because it was “where the party is”. And, he admits, he can’t get enough of the women. He’s clearly doing a great job of attracting said women while he sits on a bench in the dead of night writing away on his laptop. Hardly the Diet Coke man.
But sadly for Adam, that’s not it. He openly delves into his journalistic technique of copying and pasting from the BBC website. He acknowledges the flaw of what he’s doing, saying that while history is being made, the B’ham Mail readers are merely getting his take on history and, well, he’s bladdered. He may have even started the first paragraph with something like “You know what readers, you’re my best mate. I bloody love you.”
He finishes on a high. He resigns. “Fuck you,” he says, flicking a v-sign at the camera. And in an instant, a journalism career is ruined.
Fool. His copy was, I’m guessing, originally here, but it has since been wisely removed.
[via Hold the Front Page]
EDIT: The journalist has made some comments via YouTube:
Right, the thing is, right I’ve just woke up. And seen this video, which I don’t really remember. I’ve been told to phone the Birmingham Mail because I am in trouble. I was off duty, I am on official holiday working at the South Beach Miami Barack Obama campaign where I had just done a 18-hour shift trying to make the world a better place. Please check every BBC News outlet and see if I have cut and pasted anything. I have not, it was a joke and should be taken in the spirit it was said.”
And then later:
Thanks for the kind comments, it has meant a lot to get the backing of so many people I respect. I’m currently in hiding at the Gansevoort South hotel in Miami tryin to come to terms what’s happened whilst sipping rum and coke at the pool. I guess I’m going to have to face the music when I get back.
Adam Smith, aka Steve Zacharanda
Technically, still a Birmingham Mail reporter.
But definitely editor and founder of Goggle-eye magazine and Cheeky Media.
Cheeky Media indeed!
Election night was great, wasn’t it? I managed to keep up ‘til about 3am, when Ohio officially came in.
My choice of coverage was the BBC. They did a lot right. But they did a lot wrong.
Jeremy Vine is a man I love to watch — or in his normal day job, listen to — and I was hoping election night would be his time to shine. I called it a coming of age in a piece for NewsWire in New Zealand.
But it was all a bit lost. Early doors — before any results came in — we were facing problems. The producers seemed unable to isolate Dimbleby’s voice out of Vine’s ear when he was using his funky touch screen. On one occasion, Vine whipped his ear-piece out, such was the extent of Dimbleby’s waffling in his ear.
Dimbleby is as much a fixture in election coverage as Peter Snow and his swingometer. But last night he looked tired right from the word go.
Amazingly, he made the most exciting night in world politics in a generation seem rather routine. More should have been made of Pennsylvania, that’s for sure, and when the final presidency-clinching result came in? I almost expected Dimbleby to come out with a cynical “who cares” remark.
I’ve seen the effort involved in the BBC election result service being a great asset to the coverage, but there’s no avoiding the fact it was SLOW on Ohio. Fox called it way before the BBC did. Fortunately, the pundits alongside Dimbleby made the public aware that Fox are unlikely to call a battleground state as Democrat given its fiercely Republican bias. They wouldn’t risk it. But Dimbleby refused to get excited. It wasn’t over until the fat BBC sang. Sadly, the other networks were on the encore while the Beeb was still enjoying the mid-way interval.
But where the American networks triumphed, the BBC innovated, right? Maybe. Their ‘less shouting, more statistics’ approach online was a breath of fresh air. Despite my insistence that tonight was going to be the night of social media and bloggers, I soon grew tired of some of the people online getting ahead of themselves. The BBC gave results, expert comment and quality journalism from the off. Good show. Except Dimbleby who, and the Standard agrees with me here, was off the pace.
Back on the television, we had the blog team. Or rather, two geeky-looking women in Times Square transfixed on their iBooks.
Who were they? We weren’t given so much as URL to check out their stuff. And we knew, before they spoke, that they weren’t great bloggers, or else they’d be working on the election in other, more productive ways.
Had Arianna Huffington been sat there casting an eye on the ‘sphrere then we might have had a reason to listen. But these two randoms offered no insight other than the ability to Google ‘Obama+result+florida” and hope for the best.
At one point, one of the bloggers said “My inside source in Florida says McCain’s lost”. Admittedly, she was right. But then many people predicted it. Here, the blogger was playing big-time journo. Inside source? Nobody says that anymore. If you’re going to say it, back it up. On television, you can’t get away with that sort of ambiguity.
I’m not blasting the role blogs played in this election. No way. I am, of course, a promoter of all things bloggy. I even toyed, today, with making my about page say I’m a social media evangelist — such is my determination that social media is the future of news.
But the BBC got it horribly wrong. These bloggers were little more than people with computers. They let the rest of us down. If the BBC plans to take blogging seriously in its coverage of the UK elections in May, they need to get themselves involved with the big name bloggers. Guido Fawkes springs to mind, but I’d be kidding myself if I thought the Beeb would take the risk.
The viewing figures for the BBC’s coverage were huge, but I hope that doesn’t breed complacency within the team producing the UK election show in May. Just because a lot of people watch it, doesn’t mean your coverage is good. If the World Cup Final was live on one channel and one channel only, then the viewers will be riveted no matter the quality of broadcast.
Yes, British viewers had a healthy choice — but only if they had Sky/Cable. And, since this was a night of bedtime viewing, many would have been restricted to the five trusty channels on analogue telly.
So, to sum up: Must try harder.
On a more cheerful note, well done America. While the front pages of today’s papers really, really sucked (owing to the time restraints), it was a wonderful moment seeing one Evening Standard seller shout “none left” outside Liverpool Street Station tonight.
It was almost as if people had to read it in a newspaper in order to really believe it.
A few media commentators have used the Brand/Ross fall out to take swipes at the BBC licence fee. I fear it’s a debate that will escalate even more now that Jonathan Ross has been suspended for 12 weeks, an admission that the presenter got it very, very wrong.
I feel I’ll struggle to show objectivity with this post, given my current career developments, but hopefully people who know me can verify that my admiration of the BBC has existed for a long time — not just in the past few weeks.
When I taught in New Zealand, I introduced the BBC website as being the greatest news organisation on earth. Several students expressed their envy at not having such a well-respected public broadcaster on their own shores.
So why do I constantly come across opinion pieces, comments and blogs rallying fiercely against the £131.50 yearly fee? Do we really believe it isn’t good value for money?
The fact that we pay the wages of both Brand and Ross seems to have added an unwelcome fuel to this current fire. Anyone resents having to pay compulsory fees for anything; even something we enjoy as much as television and radio. Surprisingly, though, millions upon millions of us think nothing of paying the fee amount three for four times over to receive Sky Sports. Ironically, if the licence fee were higher, BBC Sport would be able to compete in that arena too.
It’s not often I agree with Noel Edmonds, but a while ago he made a terrific point about the BBC licence fee. Here it is (from the Independent):
Edmonds claimed his one-man protest was against the corporation’s “we know where you are” ad campaigns against those who didn’t have a TV licence, which he argued were threatening.
Spot on my shoddy-shirt wearing friend. The TV Licensing adverts are disgusting. They’re said in the same grumped-up tone as the adverts on benefit fraud. The psychology is all wrong. The BBC shouldn’t just be telling payers that they have to pay, they should be shouting about why it’s good to pay. What am I getting? Where’s the benefit? Where does my fee go?
Fonejacker — brilliant show about, topically enough, prank calling — has a wonderful character named Terry Tibbs. Terry is your old-school business man. And, ridiculous as he is, he could have some choice words when it comes to persuading people that the licence fee is worth it. In one sketch, he says this about buying a car:
“Hang about. Look. We’re not talkin’ money jus yet. Alright? I wanna know a bit more about the car before we get into that. Come on, you gotta seduce me. You don’t just jump into bed with Terry Tibbs. You take Terry Tibbs out to lunch. You wine and dine him. You give him an oil massage, and then he gives you nineteen-fifty, if you’re lucky.”
Now while that may just be an excuse to mention Terry Tibbs in a blog post, I think if the BBC imagined Terry when pushing TV licence adverts, there’d be a lot more enthuasiasm for our public broadcaster.
Rather than: “We’ll find you.” They should be saying: “Look what you’re getting, isn’t it brilliant?”
Yesterday, I visited a friend in Norwich. While I was there, I went to the wonderful new BBC building. In it was a library, cafes, studios… loads of stuff. Around the floor, stalls sold products for charity or small business. It was packed out — on a Wednesday. It’s just one small example of the goodness an organisation like the BBC can bring.
Think of the licence fee as a tax on a nation’s intellectual well-being. We pay tax to keep our roads in order. We pay tax to keep our health service running. Personally, I think a tax that ensures knowledge, entertainment and world class journalism is just as valid. Let’s never forget how important it is.
Sure, you may not like Russell Brand. That’s fine. Millions of people, however, do like Russell Brand, making the money paid for his services justified. The same can be said for Jonathan Ross, too.
I don’t like Cash in the Attic all that much, but I don’t object to my licence fee going towards it because I know many people do.
If we can get the public to understand all the goodness that comes from the BBC licence fee, then the battle to regain faith is almost complete. The first step is some positive fee-related adverts. Seduce me.
Wowzers. Take a look at this list of stories on the Russell Brand fiasco, all taken from Media Guardian. There’s 49 in total — and that’s before the inevitable truckload of posts that will follow now that Brand has resigned. I predict we’ll hit the 100 mark by the end of the week.
None of the links I’ve added here have been online for more than four days. Can anyone honestly say there has been this many developments? I don’t think so.
There’s analysis, and then there’s just anal. Enough of this madness.
Web-savvy standup with a licence to thrill and offend
Puerile prank that left BBC stars and executives on the ropes
Suited and booted: fall and rise of a showman
Patrick Barkham on Russell Brand’s ‘Hare Krishna’ chant and temple visits
Georgina Baillie: the Satanic Slut at the centre of the Ross-Brand controversy
Video: Russell Brand quits as BBC radio host
John Harris: What they did was grotesque
Andrew Sachs: profile
Russell Brand resigns from BBC as Jonathan Ross apologises for ‘juvenile remarks’
Video: Andrew Sachs on Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand: ‘I’m not collecting apologies’
Maggie Brown: Suspension is not enough for Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand
Broadcast rules should have saved BBC
In pictures: ‘Sachsgate’ – who’s who in the BBC hierarchy
Media Monkey: more from Sachsgate
‘Sachsgate’ – who’s who in the BBC hierarchy?
Loads more after the jump…
» Read more: Russell Brand: Analysis or overkill?
Trust in the media is something we talk about on a grand scale. The Queen having a strop, for instance, or the uproar over You Say, We Pay on Richard and Judy.
We dissect the issue of trust when there’s been a major breach. But what of the minor ones?
I’ve long since got over the fact that some content is magazines is made up. Those sex stories in lads’ mags, for example, are not really sent in to the title. Rather, some delightfully imaginative staffer pens out some filthy fantasy.
It’s a white lie. A fib. I can deal with things like that, because they’re damn entertaining to read. Not a problem if they’re not true — I’m not relying on Nuts for tips in the bedroom, thanks.
I’m a lot more concerned about something I learned just this week. Over on a forum I frequent, a member posted a dilemma. A press trip to stay in a hotel (for reviewing purposes) was all set to go ahead. Booked it, packed it, etc. But then the magazine folded. The now angry hotel wants the journalist to pay in full anyway. The journalist explains:
“The hotel (a very swanky expensive one) offered three nights on a comp basis half board plus four nights on a media rate.
I’ve promised them I will try very hard to get something placed elsewhere BUT they have come back and said the hotel now wants to charge me the media rate for all seven nights and it’ll only be B&B.
So the stay will now cost me around £600-700 extra. Not good news.”
Not good news at all. But by far the most alarming part of those paragraphs were the words ‘media rate’.
One member shares my concern:
“I might be missing something here but how can you review a hotel when the hotel knows you’re reviewing it?”
To which comes this reply:
“I’d love to be able to review in secret but given my editors aren’t in a position to pay my expenses, the only way most of us can do travel pieces is by being hosted on press trips of one sort or another.”
Which is backed up further by another member:
“Straight hotel ‘reviews’ are pretty rare in travel journalism, really…they’re much more likely to be just mentioned in the fact box, with maybe a name check in the text for letting you stay for free. The nature of the assignments (ie. they would cost several thousand pounds to do) mean that in fact almost everything within travel journalism is paid for by someone other than the journalist.”
Thus rendering them useless, no? If hotel staff know you’re there to review the hotel, you can bet you’ll be getting preferential treatment. Quicker food, the best rooms, friendlier staff. In fact, I bet in the staff rooms they’ll have a list of which rooms have people paying ‘media rate’.
One member points out:
“I wonder how many negative reviews are written by journalists on freebies. It’s no wonder sites such as Tripadvisor are proving so useful.”
Quite. It goes back to a post made by former-Press-Gazette-now-PaidContent journalist Patrick Smith, who questioned the validity of film critics:
“A more extreme and amusing example of obscure film-blurbism Guy Ritchie’s not-awful-but-completely-bewildering Revolver (about gangsters, unsurprisingly). The film was universally panned by critics, yet huge billboards appeared around towns declaring it ”Brilliant…Guy Ritchie back to his best!”
Fair enough if that’s what you think, except that the line is from The Sun’s online film e-zine Film First which had bagged a WORLD EXCLUSIVE interview with the director, as The Guardian pointed out at the time. Private Eye established that the “brilliant!” part of the quote was from none other than The Sun’s Page 3 girl Ruth (she makes a brief appearance in the film).”
Are journalists really going to pan a hotel when they know that if they big it up, they’ll probably get another free trip again soon?
Perhaps more worrying is this scenario from another member:
“I only adored one of the hotels (one was fine but naff, and the other was fine but austere) they only used the one for the hotel I genuinely loved. I still got paid for all my work.”
So not only can we not fully trust motives behind hotel reviews, we also don’t get to see the ones that don’t get a favourable write up. Why is this? If it’s a high-profile hotel which turns out to be a complete stinker, isn’t the press in place to provide the service of warning us?
From when I was in New Zealand, I recall Jim Tucker telling me about how he went around Wellington reviewing restaurants. This wasn’t a press trip, and I’m certain Jim didn’t let them know he was there to review the food. His reviews never saw the light of day. Why? Because he dared to criticise.
We often call for high-profile journalists to declare their interests. In fact, a member of the same forum that I’ve been quoting from here has suggested we produce a national register documenting those interests. Great idea, I say. And, let’s not forget Robert Peston who is being ‘looked at’ because of some of his financial coverage. I believe we’ll find that Peston is merely a brilliant journalist and an astute financial genius, but we just don’t know how cosy he is to the people he reports on.
They’re more serious examples. But why not apply this practice to all journalists? If a hotel review has conducted with the hotel’s prior knowledge, then I think we, as readers, have a right to know this.
I don’t think it’s fair that some of the local press is getting in a strop with Sir Michael Lyon’s plans for better regional BBC content.
Read this article in today’s Times for a bit of back story:
Newspaper groups are unhappy about BBC proposals to introduce ‘hyper-local’ news websites, covering a town or county, which they believe will stifle their digital growth, at a time when their profits are crumbling in the wake of the economic downturn caused by the credit crunch. The plans, though, have to be approved by the BBC Trust, which Sir Michael heads.
That paragraph, on its own, seems to present a good point from the regionals. Why should the BBC juggernaut — and it is a juggernaut, despite its well-publicised hardships — trample on the local press with its own hyperlocal offerings?
Chief exec of Trinity Mirror, Sly Bailey, has been doing the rounds lately. She’s been here there and everywhere defending newspapers. Her interview in Press Gazette was especially interesting — but since it’s not online, nobody can read it. Figures.
She pops up again in the Times piece:
Ms Bailey accused Sir Michael of holding “outrageous views” and making “an astonishing attack on the local press” and said that “research shows consumers rate regional press as more trusted than any other media, including the BBC”.
I trust my local paper. Why would I have any reason to disbelieve that a school put on a production last week? Or that someone is now 100 years old? I’m not dismissing local press as being trivial here, but my point is that it’s a lot harder for the BBC to maintain that trust when they deal with far more complex topics.
Here’s my main criticism of Sly and co.’s argument:
If the BBC doesn’t go ahead with its hyperlocal plans, will it mean local newspaper sites will improve?
I think we all know the answer.
My two most local newspapers — The Hunts Post and Cambridge News — aren’t doing nearly enough to engage with their readers online. The Hunts Post is a great newspaper. It has a small team. Too small, I’d argue, but that’s another issue. I don’t blame them for not spending too much time interacting online, because the paper still has a very strong print audience.
But the Cambridge News? Cambridge is a city of early-adopters. I once read that, as a percentage of total population, Cambridge has more people registered on eBay than any other European city. Sorry I can’t verify that with a source, but anyone who knows the city well wouldn’t find such a statement hard to believe.
Cambridge is a home to huge centres for the likes of Microsoft. Does its newspaper reflect that? I’d argue no, not at all. Their ‘blogs’ aren’t even blogs at all. Why is there not a news blog? Or a sports blog? Or, considering Cambridge is a hub for science in the UK, why not a science blog that is written in the same style as Bad Science in the Guardian?
If the paper has a Twitter presence, it’s not publicised enough. If they’re on Facebook, they’re doing a pretty poor job at making themselves known.
Now, it’s all well and good saying what’s wrong with a site. It’s another to prove it can be done better. Well there’s proof in Matt Gooding’s Cambridge United Blog. Matt writes for the Royston Crow — another newspaper starved of any kind of progressive internet publishing. I wonder if they know they have the likes of Matt in their ranks? A waste of brilliant blogging talent.
More to the point, though, if Matt is doing his Cambridge United blog in his own spare time, for free, using tools that are available for no fee, then why isn’t the Cambridge News? They couldn’t possibly complain of budget constraints. You know, even if they just aggregated his blog. Or linked to it. Or ANYTHING that acts as a service to readers to let them know that some brilliant, opinionated writing is out there.
The moral of this whole tale, of course, is that regional press haven’t dealt with the internet. It scares them. They don’t know how it works.
A friend of mine was recently told not to mention the internet in a job interview with a regional because “the editor doesn’t like it”. The editor should be sacked this instant. When I mention this tale on Twitter yesterday, I got a load of replies saying ‘I bet it was…’. All were wrong. But it goes to show that it isn’t an isolated problem.
If I was to meet Sly Bailey tomorrow, I’d tell her to wake up. Rather than have a go at the BBC for moving with the times, why not look into providing better websites yourselves. It doesn’t cost much. The site I created for Whitireia Journalism School in Wellington, New Zealand, earlier this year proves that so much can be done with so little time, effort and money.
I’m biased, of course, but I’d say Newswire.co.nz is a far better local news site than Cambridge News. Newswire’s total cost? About £200, plus my wage. Cambridge New’s total cost? I dread to think.
What will be most telling will be the response to my criticisms. There won’t be any — except maybe from Matt Gooding and those at Newswire. Why? Because they’re in control of their online identities. The likes of the Cambridge News won’t be aware of anything I’ve said. I hope they can surprise me, I really do.
I’ve used the Cambridge News as my example, but to steal a Sarah Palin-ism, I think it’s fair to suggest that Cambridge News is a microcosm of the UK regional press.
Many regional papers would be happier if the internet didn’t exist.
But here’s the good news: There’s still time. It can still be turned around. There is enough money in the kitty, and enough readership to give any regional paper some online success. Whether they rise to the challenge or not is up to them. If they don’t they’ve only got themselves to blame.
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