It's been over a year since my last post, I would say I'm sorry but I'm not, I've been super busy uprooting my life and entering the wonderful world of...local journalism! I've only started to get a full grip on local news abd everything it entails and here is a list of pointers I've leant along the way.
1. Expect the mundane and learn to love it. I'm slightly ashamed to say, but I was very excited when my editor asked me to report on a missing bench. 'Bench stolen? why yes, I'd love to!' and I wasn't being sarcastic. Lets face it, when are you ever going to write in such a quirky way? fill with puns, photograph angry looking residents pointing at said place where bench was nicked...sorted. Most of these 'slow news' stories actually mean something to somebody out there anyway.4
2. Expect to receive a large amount of hostility. Police officers, coroners, solicitors, press officers, court clerks...most of these people hate us with a dying passion because we weasel our way round crime scenes or ask annoying questions. In the good ol' days, so I'm told we had a good relationship with emergency services, we were respected, hell we even were invited to police Christmas parties and got wasted with a load of pc plods. Not the case these days, everyone is so worried about being sued or get caught saying the wrong thing it's bloody hard to wriggle information out of anyone with tying them down and dripping lemon juice in their eyes.
3. Be prepared for anything. Sounds obvious, but the best part of the job is coming in on a Monday and having no idea where the day will take you. Fires, road accidents, smash and grab robberies, it's always exciting to be one of the first people on the scene and get caught up in the drama of it all.
4. Politics is like a playground full of cartoon characters. Sometimes you sit in a council meeting bored out of your wits, and other times you expect some portly Lib Dem to smash a giant mallet on top of a Conservative's wrinkly withered forehead. From parking spaces to bin collections, expect an argument out of everything.
5. Try to keep an arm's length when dealing with death. The death knock, as many a reporter will know is when you have to turn up at the dead person's home address and try to wrangle an interview out of the familly. I've never had the chance to doa proper interview, but visiting a flat where a drug addict died, visiting the death scene or simply being in an inquest can be hard hitting. Don't take your work home with you, and as unkind as it may sound, for some reporters cracking a few jokes is the best way to deal with death.
6. Love your patch. Patch, being the term for your reporting town or city should be your number once concern. Get to know the people, become involved in campaigns. With the help of papers you can spread the message so much easier. The local news affects us much more than the nationals and it still baffles me that people are happy to ignore youth centres being pulled down in their area but are concerned that some celebrity gimpoid has poisoned themselves with a lethal cocktail of drugs and alcohol and lie dead in a hotel room. Get some perspective people.
