What a crazy couple of days.
Last night was the first ever Lincoln Media Awards. I’m ecstatic to say that my newspaper, The Linc, took home most of the awards. Of the ten on offer, our team grabbed these five: Headline of the Year, Best Reporting, Innovation Award, Sporting Chance and, to my utter delight, Editor of the Year. I promptly made the worst speech anyone in living memory has made, but I couldn’t hide my excitement that we all did so well.
This morning saw the arrival of Issue 10. The biggy. We’d saved our best story ’til last, and boy, it’s a cracker. But we knew, early on, that it would pose many risks. As the editor, I would be sticking my neck on the line in very dramatic fashion. I had to be prepared for all sorts of criticism. And that’s what I got.
Some more valid than others. I won’t go into them here — it would be unprofessional — but it is interesting to see the reaction of certain factions in a large institution when publicly criticised. Most interesting was threat of being sued by one particular area. Two reasons why this gave me an inward chuckle. Reason 1) there’s no reason to sue us. Reason 2) by suing ‘us’, they’d be suing the University. And by suing the University they’d be suing… themselves. Private Eye would enjoy that one, I’m sure.
Tomorrow will be another hard day. I’m yet to hear the reaction from ‘the top’ and, what is more, the story will be hitting the ‘real’ press when it runs in the Lincolnshire Echo. Early indications suggest that they’ll be hiding behind us when it comes to legality. I’m predicting a “The University of Lincoln student newspaper The Linc has claimed that drugs are being used on campus” rather than a more satisfying (and equally as honest) “There is crack cocaine being used on the University of Lincoln campus” line. But we’ll see.
You’d think, then, that the cocaine story would be our website’s biggest of the day, yes? No. If there’s one thing I’ve learned today, it’s that mention the words ‘BNP’ in an article and you’re destined to get comments galore. I couldn’t possibly say it on The Linc website, but I can happily say it here: they’re a bunch of racist idiots.
NUJ on BNP: Putting words in journalists’ mouths
October 21st, 2009"Calm down dear, it's only a political debate!"
From the National Union of Journalists today:
Interesting. I’m not here to debate the presence of the BNP on QT. Indeed, this post should stand whether I agree or disagree.
My issue is with the NUJ deciding to speak on behalf of its members without having asked them in the first place.
If public opinion polls are to be believed, the nation is around 60 per cent in favour of the BBC’s decision. Therefore, it’s likely a sizable portion of NUJ members are in favour too.
Not all, maybe not even a majority, but enough to question the NUJ’s judgment in declaring the Union as a whole is against the show.
By releasing a statement like this, its effectively putting words into its members’ mouths without asking permission.
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Posted in Comment, NIJ, The BBC, nuj
Tags: bbcqt BNP nick griffin nuj question time