Daft things that I come across
28/04/08 17:12 Coffee machine moments
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So I launched HRPodcast last week -
soft launch, not with a bang, going to be a slow
burner this one. Inevitably I'm looking for
interviewees.
I get this e-mail from a PR. Good timing, they say, our client's just done a podcast about HR. OK, I say, but doesn't that make them a competitor rather than a source? Oh, we can change the intro if you like, they say.
I'm still trying to work that one out as I type...
I get this e-mail from a PR. Good timing, they say, our client's just done a podcast about HR. OK, I say, but doesn't that make them a competitor rather than a source? Oh, we can change the intro if you like, they say.
I'm still trying to work that one out as I type...
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New podcast
Long-term readers will have noticed I've gone a bit
quiet recently. There have been a number of reasons
for this but one of the prime ones is my new business
idea - HRPodcast launches
today. It's a podcast. It's about HR (Human
Resources).
Do have a look and let me know what you think.
Do have a look and let me know what you think.
Too provocative?
The media scrum at the Olympic Torch ceremony
yesterday was extraordinary, by all means, but I did
feel that ITV News went too far at one point. People
who saw the bulletin will have seen their camera
operator knocked to the ground and - said the report
- kicked by the police.
Call me old-fashioned but if you deliberately obstruct someone under pressure there may well be the odd fall involved. It's simple common sense, I'd have thought. The serious bit is the suggestion that he was kicked when he was down.
That's what we call an assault. And in the UK, an assault is against the law. The problem is that I can't find any trace of a complaint having been made on the ITN site.
So it starts to look less like a serious assault and more like a bit of engineered sensationalism. I'll look forward to being proven completely wrong about this.
Call me old-fashioned but if you deliberately obstruct someone under pressure there may well be the odd fall involved. It's simple common sense, I'd have thought. The serious bit is the suggestion that he was kicked when he was down.
That's what we call an assault. And in the UK, an assault is against the law. The problem is that I can't find any trace of a complaint having been made on the ITN site.
So it starts to look less like a serious assault and more like a bit of engineered sensationalism. I'll look forward to being proven completely wrong about this.
Churner prize
03/04/08 09:20 Coffee machine moments
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Here's a good site, called the Churner Prize.
What's 'churner', you ask? It's simply a
reference to churning, the act of turning a
press release into editorial copy without
bothering to sanity check, go and find your own
story or anything old-fashioned like that.
It's something journalists are never encouraged to do (that should probably be 'encouraged never to do' in English). A lot of us end up doing it from time to time, though - in technology journalism it can actually be valid sometimes in order to make completely sure your technical details are accurate in whichever story you're writing at the time.
It's an excellent idea, highlighting lazy journalism like this, and a wake-up call to many of us. I'll no doubt fail completely to let you all know when one of my pieces makes it onto the site.
It's something journalists are never encouraged to do (that should probably be 'encouraged never to do' in English). A lot of us end up doing it from time to time, though - in technology journalism it can actually be valid sometimes in order to make completely sure your technical details are accurate in whichever story you're writing at the time.
It's an excellent idea, highlighting lazy journalism like this, and a wake-up call to many of us. I'll no doubt fail completely to let you all know when one of my pieces makes it onto the site.