Life’s a Riot with PRs versus Hacks

Okay let’s give this comment some context before I launch into the rant.

I now work in a dual role taking in both public affairs and press office work. I’ve formally been a PR account manager and I’ve also been a journalist.

When I was a journalist I would rage about PRs ringing me up when I was on deadline to ask if I had received X release and when would I use it. Those that bugged me most were the young keen ones that really tried so hard to sell. Personally, I felt I was intelligent enough to spot a half decent story – just send it – if it’s okay the chances are it would be published.

One truly rancid local Newcastle based PR company used to ring up and regularly use the dumbest line – it’s been everywhere else, are you going to use it soon?

There were other times, of course, and journalists to tend to forget this, that I relied on PRs. Ad department sold an eight-page property supplement to be written by tomorrow? Hmmm. Anyone got numbers for housebuilders’ PRs? I need a dozen of them to write 600 words each sharpish.

In truth, I believe the figure is something like 70% of the content of newspapers is PR driven. That’s not just because PRs are overly zealous gatekeepers. Those ever growing newspapers are not going to be filled by an ever dwindling number of staff.

So then, we can agree. We really do need each other. Right…

Later I left papers for PR. Suddenly I was the other side of the fence. I had bosses that requested I ring journalists and ask why they hadn’t used my release. I knew from my own experience what an utter pain in the arse this was. I avoided it where I could.

Likewise I didn’t “sell” every release, though plenty did, and to be fair they enjoyed decent results. Why? Because your average hack is so disorganised that they lose everything and anything. Then they ring you and ask why they didn’t get the story.

Personally though, I still reckoned that if I wrote a decent tale and wrote it well then it would appear. And they did. Quite often, word for word.

Now I work in a press office and local and national media enquiries come in every day. What’s more I read plenty about my region written by people who’ve never even been here.

Bugbears? Look at a f*cking map. No Berwick is not in Newcastle. No we are not in Northumbria. Northumbria hasn’t actually existed for several hundreds of years. There is NO SUCH PLACE now. No the GATESHEAD Sage is not in Newcastle. Neither is the Angel of the North.

The Baltic Arts Centre? No, Gateshead again. The Gateshead Millennium Bridge? Take a guess.

To the national hack that rang the emergency mobile on a Sunday morning to ask: “Where is Clayton Street?” well my contempt is unlimited.

To the major TV news programme who asked a young American work experience kid to ring us for a complex statement that they were never ever going to use – please, find better ways to amuse your interns. This kid had no email address to send information to and when I read out the long statement she quite obviously didn’t even write it down. Several hours work wasted.

Also, some days it feels like the majority of journalists are yet to discover Google.

And now we have bloggers getting in on the act. If this snotty piece is anything to go by then they are the worst of all.

To my mind the trouble with bloggers is that they should be immune from all this. Blogging was punk. It was new, fresh and didn’t just not work for The Man, it gobbed on The Man and gave him a good kicking.

Bloggers shouldn’t be complaining that PRs don’t offer enough cash, as the above link did. Nor should they complain about how they are approached. By all means take the piss. But don’t do it as a result of your own over-inflated importance.

Because the same applies to bloggers as hacks. Use it if you want. Don’t use if it you don’t want to. If it’s of interest to your readers then stick it in. If it’s not then don’t.

We soon get the message.

However if you’re a hack and 70% of editorial comes from PRs, then looking through our emails and taking our occasional calls really IS part of your job.

In the meantime there will continue to be some stupid PRs AND a smattering of ignorant, arrogant journalists.

But can’t the rest of us call a truce?

In the Soup

Posting this pic from this weekend’s trip to Souter Lighthouse seems like a good excuse to tell you about my “Soup” page.  Check it out here.

In short, using the magic of RSS feeds, it takes all the content from my blogs (ie this one and the new Cameroon one) and my Flickring, Twittering, Last FM-ing and Deliciousing and streams it all on to one page.

Right now, well, there’s probably not that much to see, but once we hit a full on Cameroonian assault hopefully there’ll be quite a flood detailing my African adventures (and it’s soundtrack).

In the meantime I’ve been, as you might imagine, searching by all means necessary to find out more info on Bamenda, my new Cameroonian home.  So far so good.  Lots of people seem to like it and if there’s no real expat community to speak of there do seem to be plenty of other volunteers around.  No doubt there will be some beer buddies amongst them.

I dropped a message to say hi to zzilch (Peace Corps, I think) who posted this photo complete with info stating:

After spending two days at our post, we travelled Friday morning to Bamenda, the capital of the Northwest Province. Since our post wasn’t far from the training village and we still had 3 days left of site visit, we took the opportunity to visit other volunteers in the area.

Bamenda is a great city, with a large market and even a supermarket that has things like corn flakes! Since the Northwest is one of the two Anglophone provinces, we had to shift gears and go from speaking nothing but French in the West to speaking English and even a few words of Pidgin (which I’m learning) in Bamenda and the surrounding villages we visited.

We stayed with a volunteer who is posted near Bamenda, and his friend took us and two other trainees to ride horseson Saturday morning. The view from the summit of a hill we climbed on horseback was so beautiful, it was almost worth the five full days of beaucoup de pain all of us had as a result of the three hour ride.

We made some great friends, both Cameroonian and American during our trip that we’re looking forward to seeing again when training is complete.

On Sunday, the five of us who met up in Bamenda headed back to training on a bus that was surprisingly uncrowded for the first few hours of the trip. Then we changed buses. The last hour on the bus was cramped, bumpy, and polluted as a Cameroonian bus ride should be.

As ever I appear to have entirely lucked out in being assigned the most beautiful place to live in. I always was a lucky f**cker.

Some Thoughts on Cameroon

As you might imagine, I have been giving my upcoming post in Cameroon a great deal of thought.

In particular I think the fact that this is not my first VSO posting actually makes it harder.  While Africa will be new to me, doing THIS, ie the whole VSO thing is not.

I think it’s fair to say that it was the new that fired me up and kept me going in Vietnam.  I followed the same curve that every volunteer there has ever been has followed – sheer euphoria, followed by exasperation and tiredness followed by a surge with the end in sight.

So where do I start on that curve this time?

I also don’t want to start every sentence with “When I did VSO in Vietnam we…” and that goes for work, socialising and blogging.

And there is the fear too.  I am slowly admitting to myself that Vietnam was, all things considered, pretty cushy in every respect.  In all honesty I struggle to think of a placement that could be any easier.  But Africa and Bamenda?  This will be very different.

I’ve learnt that it will be not be too hot.  It will rain a lot.  There is very little to do and despite it being a sizeable city there is virtually no expat scene.  When I am not working I can expect to be doing a lot of reading, pottering and tuning in to World Service.

I think. I repeat, I think, I am fine with that.

I didn’t want to be doing expatty stuff.  But then again, just how much can I amuse myself?

In time I’ll put together some rules for myself in terms of how I treat my Cameroon experience, but certainly the first is: I may be a returned volunteer but I know nothing.  This is all new and I should act accordingly.  It’s important that I show be neither a know-it-all or a cynic.

And to be honest, unlike surviving in Asia I feel like I wouldn’t know where to start in Cameroon.  I really do know absolutley nothing.

* I have been reading two Cameroon blogs – first off Rev Tracy’s thoughts from Bamenda itself and also Yer Man in Cameroon who amongst a great number of other fabulous post has a heartening piece on Bamenda.

* No pic is not African, nor is it symbolic in any way.  It’s from my holiday snaps – a little bit of sunshine in Zakynthos – I returned today.  Full set is here.

Our Man in Cameroon

Remember that big news I have been alluding to in the comments section of this blog?

Well finally, now that I’ve resigned my work, told my parents and let friends know, here it is.

In September I shall be leaving Newcastle to live and work in Bamenda, Cameroon for two years. Yes, it’s another VSO gig.

More details later but, in short, I am going to work as a fundraiser for an AIDS awareness charity.

It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Some links – Wiki, Flickr, videos.

Oh and it’s nothing but a shell and brand, new spanking domain but set all RSS readers to www.ourmanincameroon.com.

Yup, you’re coming with me.  Things are going to get a lot more exciting around here.

* Should also add that I am off on holiday for a week from today.  More information when I get back.  Apologies if comments remain unmoderated while I’m away.

Fall Down Like the Rain

There was a moment earlier today that I kicked myself for not attending Glastonbury. 

A quick look at the webcam and it looked, well, dry.  And there are few better places in the world than a dry Glastonbury.

But then I just checked again and this is what the place looks like now and all of a sudden I’m glad I’ll be tuning into to it on the sofa later.

However this does give me the chance to tell a Glastonbury story. 

On my old old blog I once wrote this about the greatest performance I had ever seen – from a mystery performer in a tiny Glastonbury tent.  To tell the truth my memory is not that good.  I viewed the whole through a haze.  It had been one of the days.  But it was, kinda cosmic.  Man.

“His voice, when he started singing, was howling. Deeply mournful at first and the small crowd caught each other’s eyes and nodded and smiled in appreciation..”

“I had never heard the song before. I can’t even remember how it went. All I can recall is that it soon started to pick up pace and it moved from melancholic to joyful as it progressed through the verses.

“Our heads nodded more vigorously and our smiles grew wider as the song quickened. And, as it did so, it wasn’t long before the strumming of his guitar became a blur.

“By this time his howling voice was louder and clearer. He was holding notes for what seemed like forever. His eyes lighting up, watching us as we watched him in amazement.

Soon his right hand had become impossibly fast. You could no longer focus on it. The song was of the dueling banjos genre. He knew he could play faster and hold a note longer than anyone and he was enjoying watching our amazement

It was only earlier this year, while watching a DVD, that I found myself vaguely recognising the lead actor.  When he sang it became clear.  This was the guy.

I am fairly sure that this is my mystery singer.