Moving

It seems I've moved again - from now on, you can find me here.

Back

Well I almost managed to go a fortnight without thinking about Croydon before blowing it right at the last minute.

Flicking through a dog-eared copy of the Sunday People in a Spanish airport in the early hours of this morning I came across a spread headlined 'The town where even the police get beaten up' and suddenly I was right back in Advertiser House. You can read it for yourself here.

It was quite interesting coming to this type of story completely fresh, and I have to say it didn't make Croydon sound like the kind of place I'd like to go shopping, and I shudder to think how these continual incidents will impact on the local economy.

(Incidentally, some of you may recognise the name of the report's author. Josh Layton worked at the Advertiser where he was named Press Gazette reporter of the year after a series of gang-related articles.)

That aside, I'm not really back into the swing of things yet, and haven't finished wading through my email backlog which I suspect will take me the rest of the afternoon.

Schools

The news that Edenham High head Jacey Downes has been suspended took me by surprise.

I don't know her personally, but the newsdesk have always been impressed with the way she would come out fighting whenever her school was in the headlines for the wrong reasons rather than hiding behind a 'no comment'.

Ironically, it's a 'lack of communication' that's been cited as one of the reasons for the school governors' move, so make of that what you will.

I guess I should point out that the governing body insists Mrs Downes has not been suspended, but that her absence is the result of an 'arrangement'.

I have absolutely no idea what that is supposed to mean, but what is indisuputable is Mrs Downes' deputy is currently running the show.

As well as the Edenham story, we're continuing to give extensive coverage to the ongoing schools review.

The Advertiser's stance on the overhaul hasn't changed since the start. Some of our schools clearly need a lot of attention, and you can't fix things by tinkering around the edges so brave decisions are needed.

Whether the detail of the proposals is correct isn't for us to say - that's an issue for parents, councillors and education experts to debate. Our role is simply to provide a forum for all points of view.

This week the attention seems to have shifted from the detail of the proposals to the non-appearance of Maria Gatland and Mike Fisher at recent public meetings.

It's a tricky call - if they do turn up, the meetings could easily descend into a slanging match and do more harm than good.

On the other hand, if you are in a position of responsibility you have to be prepared to front these things out sometimes - I have to go to the occasional council and police meetings in the full knowledge I'm just going to be moaned at for an hour. You take it on the chin and carry on.

Elsewhere in this week's paper, I think Aline has done a fantastic job interviewing teenage killer Adam Eastmond.

Eastmond stabbed Gavin Brown to death at the age of just 15, and is back on the streets just 16 months after being jailed for manslaughter.

I finished reading the article with mixed feelings. It will never seem right that you can take somebody's life and then walk free in less than two years.

But if you want to know why teenagers are carrying knives, this is about as clear an insight as you are going to get - even though it doesn't paint a very optimistic picture for the future.

Finally, this may well be my last blog entry for a couple of weeks as I'm going somewhere where the default weather setting isn't grey and drizzly. By the time I come back our website will look completely different and we'll hopefully have recruited a couple of new reporters.

In the meantime, news editor Jo Wadsworth has started her own blog - you can read it here.

Pigeons and poetry

Many thanks to the reader who reminded me that Mr Mappin (see below) is the same man who set up a series of 'good news only' papers a while ago.

I don't think they're still going, but you can read about them here.

Many thanks to the other reader who made an equally valid comment on the same topic, although I hope you understand why I've decided it's probably best not to publish it for now.

Right, back to Croydon and our reporter Aline Nassif poetically claimed that 'stories were falling on her like pigeon droppings' this week.

She's right as well.

One story in particular, which is currently causing a few legal shenanigans, will make a very striking front page, even if some people are trying to block its publication.

It's shaping up to be another strong paper all round, with another two or three stories easily strong enough to be the front page lead in any other week.

Oh, and work continues apace on the new Croydon site - I think I'll post the temporary address later this week so you can have a sneak preview.

Diseases

For some time now I've had the misfortune to be on the mailing list of a gentleman called John Mappin, who owns a hotel and restaurant called Camelot Castle in Cornwall.

I'm not really sure what he's all about, although I think there's a Scientology link somewhere along the line.

His castle isn't just a castle, apparently - it's also a 'luck machine' and he's written a frankly mind-boggling 'Magic Poem' on his website to prove the point. You can see it here if you really have nothing better to do.

Anyhow, I normally delete his unwanted emails with a quick tut and shake of the head, but his latest offering - which he kindly sent me many copies of - caught my eye because it claims newspapers can give you cancer.

Over to Mr Mappin to explain further:

"It is not provable yet, but there is considerable evidence that there is a direct link between over exposure to the negative news in the media and the precipitation of illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, arthritis and many more common psychosomatic illnesses that today cause a considerable burden on individuals lives and society."

Well that's just great. It's one thing when I get the usual old comments about how we increase fear of crime, but it's quite another to be accused of spreading terminal diseases.

Truth be told I'm not sure why I'm giving him the publicity apart from the need to take a break for building our new website, which is certainly responsible for giving me a banging headache.

Admin

I'm spending way too much time this week doing some of the donkey work involved in setting up our new website.

There's no two ways about it - it's really, really boring. However, the alternatve would be to launch without any content on the site which isn't ideal.

I've been reassured by the news one of our reporters has already pulled in a sensational-sounding story for this week's paper, so I'll be keeping my head down for now.

I should write something about the teenage murder in Thornton Heath, but what can I really say?

It's a thoroughly depressing sign of the times. It's not just a problem for Croydon, it's a problem across the whole of London and it only seems to be getting worse.

The stabbing missed our print deadline, meaning we've had a very busy morning online instead.

I'm going to take a break from that now though to start wading through the CVs as we look for Lizzie Smith's replacement.

A couple of them are going straight in the bin. One is addressed 'to whom it may concern', which is just lazy, whilst another one manages to spell Croydon two different ways - both wrong - in two paragraphs. Aside from that though, it's a good field to choose from.

Bill bother

Hot on the heels of the complaint about my baseball posting, I've had an email from another unhappy reader.

The lady in question isn't complaining about the Advertiser itself, but about the news bills we put out every week - in particular the one last week that stated 'Mum gang raped.'

She feels this was overly-lurid and the Advertiser is now 'as bad as the South London Press'. (I'll take most criticism on the chin, but that's a particularly low blow!)

For once, I'm not really sure how to respond to this one.

Yes, it was quite a hard-hitting bill but they are designed to grab people's attention, and it's pretty difficult to describe a gang rape as anything but that.

This week's Croydon front page is also pretty hard-hitting. The Sian Simpson murder trial was looking like the obvious splash this time yesterday, but something even more attention-grabbing came in. (Oh, and advance warning to the council's press office that they seem to be getting a particularly hard time this week.)

Finally, and still on the subject of front pages, I've just been flicking through the splashes on other titles in our group and one of them has the marvellous headline 'Pet fish in fight for life.' I'm off to read that now.

Baseball pt 2

I've been taken to task by a reader for daring to suggest yesterday that baseball is something of a minority interest in the UK.

In an email to our sports editor, he succinctly states: "I think your editor ought to realise there are a few hundred players and families of players of Croydon who are also readers. Positive copy sells local papers not negative."

Fair comment, although in my defence I'd say that I still think I'm right.

I'm not completely ignorant when it comes to baseball having once sat through an Oakland A's game, even if most of the spectators seemed more interested in how many giant pretzels they could fit into their mouths than anything happening on the pitch/field/grid.

Anyway, I think I'll leave that well alone from now on.

Something else I'm leaving well alone is the newsdesk, which appears to be nearing boiling point right now.

A series of big stories are breaking at precisely that point in the week when the subs begin bombarding them with queries about dates of flower shows and the like. It's looking like a strong paper this week though - more tomorrow.

Freaky

Here's a picture of sports editor Hassan playing baseball.

I'm not particularly interested in the sport itself - nor are most other people on this side of the pond as far as I can tell - but I am interested in what on earth's happened to his right arm in this picture. Yuck.

Church

Our story about the church leaders being taken to court to force them to stop using their headquarters as a place of worship has sparked a big response.

Like any journalist, I spent the early part of my career sitting through boring council meeting after boring council meeting, and as a result I'm well aware planning law can be a complex issue.

Some perfectly innocuous-looking applications can be turned down not because of the impact the plans themselves would have, but because of the dangers of setting a precedent if you approve a building's change of use.

That said, seeing the Emmanuel Inspiration Church of God dragged through the courts leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, and you have to think this is a case where a little more common sense could have been applied.

Croydon clearly has a growing problem with gang culture and knife crime and, regardless of religious beliefs, this church can only be having a positive impact in the community.

To be fair, the council holds its hands up when it gets things wrong.

The recent story about the pensioners being warned they face prosecution over their plastic flowers is a case in point, and I believe the decision to pursue this latest legal action is another.

Sami part 2

I'm glad to see Sami Mokbel's Palace blog has got a fanbase wider than just the Selhurst Park faithful.

I'm not sure whether 'Lucy', 'Beccee' and 'Clare' had any interest in the Eagles before Sami's picture appeared on the homepage, but they have now. Still, hits are hits.

And finally...

Full marks to Katie Larkworthy, who is clearly a 'glass half full' kind of person judging by her comments at the end of this nib destined for next week's paper.

"PLUCKY Tandridge youngsters finished bottom of the pile in last weekend’s Surrey Youth Games.

Seven to 15-year-olds from across the district battled it out in sports such as judo, badminton, athletics and basketball in the annual competition held jointly in Guildford and Woking.

Despite their best efforts, Tandridge came last out of the 11 districts, notching up 34 points overall compared to winners Spelthorne district which got 87.

“I am very proud of everyone who has taken part in the Surrey Youth Games and look forward to hopefully even greater achievements next year.” said Katie Larkworthy, Team Tandridge organiser."

Bin

We're a bit spoilt working in a great news patch like Croydon, but I have to say I was rather surprised this story from a paper down in Sussex warranted QUITE so much attention.

Departure

One of our Croydon reporters, Lizzie Smith, is leaving today to start work on the nationals.

Lizzie's been a great addition to the team since joining us from somewhere weird in Wales.

But every reporter with ambitions to work on the national press has to make the leap at some point, and I'm sure Lizzie will make a big success of it.

It does mean, though, that I've now got to embark on another torturous recruitment process, which I am not looking forward to at all.

Another thing I'm not looking foward to is regularly seeing Palace reporter Sami Mokbel's blog getting more hits than mine. But it already is, and it's only been up for an hour. Bah.

Sales

I'm just looking at the sales figures for the edition where we put Big Brother's Alex De-Gale on the front page.

Surprise surprise - it was one of the biggest-selling editons of the year. Credit where credit's due, it was content editor Andy Worden who suggested splashing the story as I hadn't really considered it.

I don't even mind being made to look stupid by splashing the story the day after confidently predicting I'd never do anything of the sort. (Many thanks to holdthefrontpage for bringing that to people's attention!)

As is the fleeting nature of reality TV fame, Alex's star is already sinking - she slipped from the front page a fortnight ago to page 15 last week, and is lined up for page 23 this week.

Expect to see her hovering around the planning applications come July.



In fact sales in general are doing really well, which is a credit to the entire editorial team who have had to put up with some fairly major teething troubles during our switch over to a new production system.

This week's paper is also shaping up to be a cracker, more of which later.

And finally, check the website tomorrow for Palace reporter Sami Mokbel's new blog. I don't know what he's going to be writing about yet - and I suspect he doesn't either - but it should be entertaining.

Farce of Croydon

Fun and games this afternoon as it emerged the winner of the Face of Croydon competition doesn't, erm, live in Croydon.

A sticky situation for the organisers, made worse by the fact the winner Kym Whittle is the sister of a marketing executive at Croydon Business, which had been backing(but not actually organising) the competition.

Oh dear, all very unfortunate. The fashion festival - which the Face of Croydon had formed part of - has actually gone a long way to getting some positive publicity for the town.

The Observer article I posted yesterday, in fact, was inspired by the festival itself.

For what it's worth, I don't think there was anything underhand about the choice of winner, but privately I suspect Croydon Business will be fuming that this has put a dampner on the competition.

The Observer ran a fairly large article on Croydon's charms yesterday, inspired by the town's first fashion festival.

It was a bit less sneering than you might imagine, helped by the fact the author was from Croydon herself. More here.

Wonder stuff

Ho hum. A sub-editor with a sharp eye for detail has written to content editor Andy Worden looking for work, but has accidentally called him Andy Wonder. (Which is, admittedly, a very good name).

I briefly considered splashing the story about the eight-year-old boy who took a knife into school yesterday. Looking at how popular it's proving on the web today, maybe I should have done so.

Pow, pow, pow

Obviously I can't leave the office today in case I fall foul of Alex's gangsta pals, so I'll spend a bit of time seeing what else is going on from the safety of my desk.

First to Fairfield. I usually get criticised whenever I say anything negative about our premier entertainment venue's line-up, so I'm pleased they've got some big names like Jimmy Carr on the way.

But I can't let one particular show due to take place in September pass without comment - the Best of British Variety Tour 2008.

For one night only you can see the following names sharing the stage: The Brotherhood of Man; Paul Daniels; The Krankies; Frank Carson; Jimmy Cricket and Cannon & Ball.

I spent an uncomfortable evening in the company of Frank Carson in a marquee at Selhurst Park once as he made a series of jokes that may not have been entirely appropriate for our cosmopolitan town, and I had an unfortunate interview experience with the Krankies when I was a trainee reporter that I'm still too traumatised to recount.

Never the less, there's something quite so horrific about that line-up that I find myself bizarrely tempted to attend. Word magazine sum it up better than I can here.

Moving on, and they must have different copyright laws in Scotland as the Daily Record clearly has no qualms about copy and pasting stories from our site onto their one and passing if off as their own work. I'm sure they cheque's in the post. Or maybe not.


Finally after Wednesday's post about Tony Newman's YouTube debut, I'm delighted to see viewing figures have shot up from five to 44. You can still have a look for yourself here

Bye bye Alex

Boot her out, we said, and boot her out they did.

I doubt out anti-Alex stance will go down in the annals of Advertiser history as our most important campaign, but it was a victory of sorts.

We won't miss her wannabe gangster posturing on Big Brother but, in retrospect, we'll miss the hits on the website. Maybe she'd like to write a blog.

TonyTube

Croydon Council's Labour leader Tony Newman came into Advertiser House yesterday for a photo shoot to plug his newly-launched YouTube videos.

If I was in a mean mood - which I usually am - I'd point out that it could do with a bit of a push as only five people have looked at his current offering in the past week.

I know for certain that one of those was me, another was one of our reporters, one was our news editor and I bet Tony himself couldn't resist a quick peek. Which begs the question - who was the remaining mystery viewer?

Although TonyTube is obviously in its infancy, more and more politicians will no doubt be going down this route in future.

His current video discusses the schools review (and rather disingenuously refers to 'a local paper' breaking the news of proposed closures - we're always happy to receive the occasional plug too you know.) Have a look for yourself here.

Don't get too excited by the video of Tony Newman performing Soul Thing though - that's another Tony entirely.

Just to show we're still strictly politically-neutral, the Conservatives' Sara Bashford has been in the office too to discuss the 2008 Ecocitizen awards - more on that soon.

BBC

My previous post about our imminent new website - and the subsequent comment about another local news site due to relaunch soon - brings me onto the subject of the BBC.

I've always welcomed the fact Croydon is a competitive news patch - it keeps people on their toes and makes the job more interesting.

But at the same time I've always had an issue with the BBC.

I share the view of most people in the industry about the corporation's plans to roll out 60 ultra-local news sites, offering all the services we and our rivals try to provide without having to worry about how they are going to make any money.

You can see the background to the story on the Press Gazette website here.

The main players in the UK media industry - Trinty, Northcliffe, Newsquest et al - believe the BBC will completely skew the playing field if its Board of Governors approves such a huge expenditure.

From my own time at the BBC I know, despite its claims to the contrary, it's absolutely AWASH with cash. Just look at how many staff they've got at Euro 2008.

And don't get me started on the chauffeur-driven limos they provide for staff working unsocial hours. Even if I didn't say no at the time.

What I do know is that if every household in Croydon was forced to give me £139.50 each year regardless of whether or not they wanted the Advertiser I'd be able to create a bloody fantastic website.

I realise this is the kind of argument unlikely to win the hearts and minds of readers, but I really don't think the BBC's remit should be to attempt to crush traditional local media.

Still on the subject of the BBC, I've got a story I've been itching to post for ages now.

It involves somebody pressing the wrong button on the day of the Queen Mother's death and briefly broadcasting the wrong pre-prepared obituary to the nation. And when it comes to public figures, the one accidentally killed off was as big as they come.

I'll open a right can of worms if I say any more, but maybe I'll Twitter it instead...

New website

As I mentioned last week, we're gearing up to relaunch the thisiscroydontoday website very soon.

I know we only seem to have had this one for five minutes, but you can't stand still in this business and the new site will be more user-friendly and Google-friendly.

We're taking the opportunity to add a host of fresh content to the site, and some of the editorial team - including news editor Jo - have been taken off-diary ahead of the launch.

Jo will be tracking the progress throughout via Twitter, and for those of you unfamiliar with it, she explains it below in her own words.

"Twitter has been described as micro-blogging, but anyone familiar with Facebook will probably recognise it as being more akin to that site’s status updates. Twitters basically send brief updates as to what they are doing whenever they want, which other twitters can sign up to follow.

"Twitter has been causing a stir amongst bloggers and mediawatchers lately. Last month, news of the Chengdu earthquake broke on twitter hours before other more traditional media organisations picked up on it.

And closer to home, Marc Reeves, the editor of the Birmingham Post, was the first to break news of the arrest of Karren Brady, MD of Birmingham City on corruption allegations in April. (I've had a brief look at Marc's offerings, and most of them seem to involve him talking about Dire Straits - Ian.

"I'm now a fully fledged twitter, and will be tweeting regularly through the next few weeks to share my thoughts on rebuilding the site – and inviting responses from anyone who wishes to comment or suggest what they wish (or to generally let me know what is going on in and Croydon). To find out what I'm tweeting about, visit www.twitter.com, search for me as jowadsworth, and click follow."

Big bother

We've had no repeat of last week's change page errors today, but I'm in a tremendously bad mood anyway and moaning at people left, right and centre.

It's not a very productive way to go about things - particularly when the main cause of my angst is a broken-down boiler at home which has left me without any hot water for two days - so I will try to snap out of it.

A mixed response to the decision to put Alexandra from Big Brother on the front page - one poster said Advertiser founder Jesse Ward would be spinning in his grave, which is probably a bit of an over-reaction. My hunch is it will probably sell pretty well.

That said, it's quite unusual for a local paper to campaign for one of their own to LOSE a TV show, but that's more down to her than us.

Back to the web, and it's been a source of constant frustration that this site scores so poorly when you look for Croydon news in Google or other search engines.

We'll be unveiling a new design fairly soon that will address that issue, and will also include quite a few other changes. Watch this space.

Hindsight

I'm glad the print version of the Advertiser has a substantially bigger readership than this blog.

At least that means not every reader will be able to laugh and point at a post from earlier this week when they see tomorrow's front page.

You may recall I said I couldn't envisage a day when we put a Big Brother contestant on the front page of the Advertiser.

Well, maybe I spoke to soon. I'm sure you can work the rest out for yourself.

In all honestly, I couldn't bring myself to put another murder on the front page, and went with the next best option.

As punishment I've banned myself from tomorrow's Press Gazette awards, where we are competing for the weekly newspaper of the year title. I'm sending my deputy Andy Worden and reporter Ross Lidbetter instead.

If any bookmakers are laying odds on the winner - which I doubt they are - lump some money on the Bath Chronicle.

Balloon

Good to see Croydon police are leaving no stone unturned in their quest to rid our streets of crime - photographer Danny Fitzpatrick has just been quizzed by one of Commander Gore's finest on suspicion of filming a balloon.

Danny was stopped in the act as he worked on a video about Friday the 13th, which we will be putting up on the website on, um, Friday the 13th.

Apparently the conversation went as follows:

Police officer: "What do you think you're doing?"

Photographer: "I'm videoing a balloon."

Police officer. "Oh."

On the same subject, chief photographer David Berman is appealing for readers to leave a voicemail message telling him how lucky or unlucky they are, which will apparently soundtrack the video.

The plaintive appeals he left stuck to the office coffee machine have clearly not had the desired impact, so he has turned to this blog instead. You can leave your message on 07530 753 303.

David also wants voice messages from people talking about how sad or lonely they are.

I'm not sure whether he wants these for professional or personal reasons, but you can leave your messages on the same number. I'm taking no responsibility for the consequences though.

Oh brother

Friday was the busiest day we've ever had on the Advertiser website.

I'd like to say it was down to our extensive coverage of the council's education proposals, but that would be a complete lie - it was thanks to Croydon's Big Brother housemate Alexandra de-Gale.

Ever since the first story announcing her entry into the house attracted hundreds of readers in a next to no time on Thursday evening, it was clear she was going to be a big draw.

And on Friday, when we told how she had been arrested three times by police, the figures went through the roof and have stayed there ever since.

So for those people who posted comments asking why we bothered writing articles about her, that's your answer.

Although the Advertiser's print and online versions are obviously closely linked, that doesn't mean you have to treat stories in the same way in both.

I can't imagine a time when we'd splash a story about Alexandra in the paper, but on the web it's a different matter.

Editions

I'm pleased with the Croydon edition of the Advertiser today, but that's been overshadowed by a complete balls-up with some of our district editions.

To cut a long story short, people buying the Sutton or Coulsdon & Purley Advertisers and hoping to read about the Carshalton child deaths have been given a page from the New Addington Advertiser instead.

Because it's on an inside page, they won't realise the mistake until they get home - and quite rightly they're not impressed.

We're looking into how and where the mistake was made, but that's irrelevant to the readers. In these situations the newsdesk always bears the brunt of the calls, which is unfortunate as they are the ones least culpable.

The bottom line, though, is mistakes like this are simply not good enough and we can only apologise to readers and do what we can to provide them with an alternative edition with the correct story in it.

Glue

Over in our Reigate office, and I'm wrestling with a problem that comes up more often than you might expect.

What do you do when you pick up a story about somebody who has previously been a supporter of your paper?

The Advertiser's sister title in Dorking has landed a bizarre story about a newsagent convicted of putting superglue into the locks of pensioners' homes.

We've no idea why he was doing it, and since he denied the charges and offered no mitigation we're unlikely to ever find out.

Two issues: 1) The newsagent in question was recently named the Advertiser's local trader of the year and 2) His shop sells a good few hundred copies of the paper each week.

To be honest, there wasn't really any doubt that we'd put the story on the front page but, in doing so, we know it will probably hit this week's sale.

I don't expect he'll have copies on display, and I certainly don't think he'll be putting a bill poster up outside his shop plugging the story.

This kind of thing crops up quite often with supermarkets.

More and more papers are sold at out-of-town superstores these days, so I've always got mixed feelings when the newsdesks come forward with stories about people finding dead frogs in their bags of lettuce and the like. We've had papers pulled from the shelves of various outlets in recent months, and it really can put a dent in your circulation.

And don't even get me started on stories knocking estate agents - they can cause even more trouble.

The bottom line always has to be to print the story regardless of the commercial consequences, but in doing so we can quite often end up paying a price for it.

Back over to Croydon soon for a meeting with education chief Maria Gatland. I'd forgotten this meeting was diaried when I posted yesterday's blog entry but hey ho, I'm sure she'll take it in good spirits.

Email

It hasn't taken long for the political spinning to start over the council's review of our education services.

An email arrives in the newsdesk inbox from a former governor at a Croydon secondary school intended for our letters page, hailing the brave stance of the Conservative administration and Councillor Maria Gatland in particular.

But what's this? Scroll down and it seems the letter may not be all it's cracked up to be.

Before reaching Advertiser House, it appears to have been forwarded around to a select group for their approval including Gavin Barwell and - ta da - Councillor Gatland herself. (The latter's verdict: "I think that's good.")

In fact, it seems the letter underwent some hefty editing before being deemed suitable for our consideration.

The school our contributor was governor of was removed in case it encouraged other people connected with it to write in, and other sections were removed to cut down on any overlap with another missive we are apparently due to receive.

So why am I bothering to blog about this?

Simply because these reforms are hugely important for our current and future pupils and parents, and I've committed the Advertiser to covering them in as much depth as we can.

I think everyone concerned should just set out the facts and listen to the feedback, without trying to influence public opinion.

Carshalton child deaths

The deaths of two children in Carshalton at the weekend was a truly terrible story.

The first I knew of it was when I woke up on Saturday and read the news on our own website.

It quickly emerged that we had taken a picture of a third child injured in the incident at the time of her birth six months ago, and it had appeared on our regular Celebrations page.

This was the shot that appeared on our website on Saturday and the national press on Sunday.

Elsewhere over the weekend, I was interested to read some of the web comments about the school closure story. I'll repeat one below precisely as it appears underneath the article.

"Well done, Advertiser!! I know you're in the news business, but - even assuming your schools closure story is true - did it ever occur to you the damage you are doing to the (already rock-bottom) morale of the staff, students & governors allegedly concerned. The LA had micro-managed it to ensure heads of affected schools should tell staff & students before the details hit the press. I don't know how accurate your 'exclusive' is, but I do think your council 'source' should hang his/her head in shame.
A school governor, croydon

This is the kind of message that leaves me banging my head on the desk in frustration.

The author starts off by acknowledging we're in the business of breaking news stories, then berates us for doing just that in case it upsets somebody at the council.

Do people really, really think we're going to sit on a story for a week so it fits in with a stage-managed announcment? My staff would lynch me, and the readers should as well.

As for how accurate it is, well - we'll find out at 11.30 when the plans are officially unveiled. Obviously I'm confident it's entirely accurate or else we would't have printed it, but all editors know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you are waiting for an exclusive story to be offically confirmed.

Finally, a few years ago there were reports in the press about how the growth of text messaging would kill off the English language as we know it. Looking at some of the contributions from pupils, it seems that time is already with us.

Schools

It's fair to say many Croydon secondary school heads aren't very fond of the Advertiser at the moment.

In fact, one person in the know said the general feeling at their recent conference in Brighton was that they wanted to lynch me and the Advertiser reporting team.

The flippant answer would be that if pupils spent more time studying and less time happy-slapping and stabbing each other around the clock then we wouldn't be writing about them in the first place.

The more considered response would be that yes, I do appreciate their concerns over recent coverage - and their fears that their school could be next to receive negative publicity.

But stories don't just fall into our laps by chance.

The recent articles have all been brought to our attention by people closely connected to the schools at all kinds of levels, and it would be a slippery slope if we held back on stories to avoid upsetting people.

Which brings me onto today's splash about the four schools facing closure in the council's long-awaited education review.

At this point the proposals are just that - suggestions put forward for consultation.

But I've been through quite a few 'consultations' myself, and rarely does the outcome differ from the initial suggestion, so I'm pretty confident the schools in question will be shut down.

I should point out the news was supposed to be released in a press briefing next week, in order for parents and staff to receive official notification first, and the review goes much further than just the four potential closures. So far as I can tell, the council is doing all it can to manage a period of great change in the best manner.

So is it the right thing to do? Well, given the stories I've mentioned above, it would be hypocritical for the Advertiser not to give a guarded welcome to the plans.

The education system in Croydon is obviously in need of radical surgery, and there is no point tinkering around the edges in a situation like this.

It will be fasincating to see how it develops, and is likely to be the current administration's definining moment.

Tomorrow's paper

Tomorrow's front page will, as I indicated yesterday, probably cause a bit of a stir.

It's something that I know some people were hoping to announce on their own terms, but I'm afraid that wasn't to be.

I won't shoot myself in the foot by going into further details now, but will expand on the topic tomorrow.

Apologies for the slow start to the week - no excuse apart from the usual Bank Holiday deadline issues.

We were struggling to think what to put on the front page when we had our news meeting earlier today.

(I'm not sure it's a good thing for Croydon that neither a shooting in Norbury nor a schoolgirl stabbing in Thornton Heath are considered natural front page stories any more, but that's another matter.)

Anyway, by the time I emerged from a lengthy meeting at 5pm things had changed completely and we had a story in the bag which is a guaranteed splash and will cause a major stir to boot. I do like it when that happens.

Slap row

We don't often take any particular stance on stories, prefering to report the facts and let people make up their own minds.

But I'm not ashamed to admit we abandoned that policy in the story about teacher Issabelle DuBois, suspended after losing her patience with a kid dubbed the worst pupil in her school (read the story here .

Is it any wonder our schools have discipline problems when any attempt to control unruly pupils can wreck your career?

Questions, questions ...

1) Which high-ranking spin doctor spent two years wondering why the display on their mobile phone was so poor, before somebody pointed out today they were supposed to remove the protective sticker from the screen?

2) Which Advertiser staffer was very unimpressed at being stopped on his way to work and quizzed on suspicion of being a terrorist yesterday? He's recovering from the trauma by flying off to the US on holiday tonight and isn't looking forward to passport control very much.

3) Which of our newspaper offices was at the centre of a drama this afternoon after an enraged reader kicked in the front door and threatened staff with a skateboard? (Disputed paternity row sparked by publication of a baby photo on the Celebrations page apparently - very messy, but hardly the paper's fault).

4) What am I going to put on the front page of our New Addington edition this week? Common sense says go with the best hard news story, so why am I finding it so hard to avoid the temptation to go with the one with the funniest headline?

5) Why oh why oh why do people still persist in writing comments like: "I have no interest in this story' at the end of stories, as per my moan on last week's blog entry?

My favourite one today, at the bottom of the story about the woman selling her fancy dress shop, complains: "What is funny about a dressing up shop? What is funny is that the Advertiser thinks that anyone cares that this old girl can't sell her business (hint - price maybe too high). Why is the Advertiser giving this woman free advertising space with a colour photo included? Vested interest anyone?...
Not Impressed, Croydon

Good lord. It's a short news item, if you don't like it don't read it. We're not like the BBC you know - we bring you this local news service for free out of the kindness of our hearts.

And if anybody can describe the potential vested interest between the Advertiser and the sale of a fancy dress shop I'd be interested to read it!

Answers to question one on a postcard to Taberner House. Others to the usual address.

Patricia

Ah, training courses. You haven't lived until you've witnessed Crawley News content editor Glenn Ebrey role-playing an IT worker called Patricia whilst being mock-appraised by Advertiser sports editor Hassan Hadi.

Sadly I need to return to the real world now, and it's either going to be a really good or really bad news week in Croydon.

By which I mean there are a lot of stories floating around, but too many of them are doing just that - floating.

Until we've got them fully pinned down with pictures and interviews there's always the danger they are going to fall through, leaving you with a string of blank pages to fill. Fingers crossed.

Elsewhere, and I notice Croydon Council leader Mike Fisher is writing about the press in his sort-of blog here.

I say 'sort-of' blog as there's no facility to leave comments, and until you've had the joyful experience of opening up your inbox on a daily basis to find a string of abusive emails you're not really blogging at all. Or maybe that's just me.

The only point I want to respond to from Mike's entry is his surprise that I am happy to describe my job as reporting the news in the manner that will sell the most copies.

I've never had any qualms about saying that, and I'm pretty confident every other newspaper across the country does exactly the same thing.

(With the possible exception of The Independent, which reports in the news in a manner designed to appeal to media degree students and accordingly sells about 17 copies a day.)

Oh, I lied - one more point.

We - and other local papers - are also mildly chastised for not covering the local schools awards, to which I can only say that if you want us to come along it's important to remember to invite us as this was the first I - or the newsdesk - had heard of it.

School reports

No apologies for returning to the subject of readers' online comments - the ability to gather instant feedback on articles has had a huge impact on all media organisations.

As I've said before, we're happy for the Advertiser to be part of the debate, and so we do not remove comments criticising us - it would be pretty hypocritical if we did.

That doesn't mean, however, that I'm happy to allow accusations to go unchecked, and one of the responses to the latest Selsdon High story (Head told: Quit or be sacked) is a case in point.

You can read Andrea Bovell's submission here.

It's clearly a subject she feels strongly about, but to my mind her criticisms are well wide of the mark.

One of the main thrusts of her argument is that we have not identified the sources who provided us with some of the information.

I'm afraid that is one of the fundamentals of journalism - anyone who provides us with information on the understanding they will not be identified will always have their anonymity protected.

Suffice to say, this isn't the kind of article we would run without having a number of very reliable witnesses verifying each and every point.

I'm well aware the Advertiser's coverage of schools in recent months has put a number of noses out of joint, and in a way it becomes self-perpetuating.

Parents, staff and pupils feel more inclined to come foward with stories of their own when they see that we are prepared to tackle some controversial subjects, and the day we start turning these stories away we really will be deserving of criticism.

A few more bits and pieces beore I embark on a traumatic two-day training course:

The Advertiser has been shortlisted in the newspaper of the year category in the annual Press Gazette awards

I doubt any reader gives two hoots about whether or not their local paper wins any industry awards, but I'd still rather be nominated than not. The shortlist is here and the smart money is on the Bath Chronicle to win - it recently made the brave move to convert from a daily title to a weekly one, and created a very impressive product in doing so.

As the web firmly establishes itself as the place to get breaking news, I can see more daily titles following Bath's example. Anyhow, as long as the South London Press doesn't pick up a gong I'll be happy.

Late

There's no point in pretending everything always runs smoothly, and the production of this week's Advertiser was a case in point.

A combination of factors, including other titles in the series running behind schedule, technical glitches and my bad mood at Palace's semi-final exit all conspired to make it a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

I should be grateful it came out at all as we were in severe danger of missing our print slot at one point, but onwards and upwards...

Mistakes

Hmm. It's one thing industry website holdthefrontpage.co.uk lifting bits of this blog and then rewriting them in a rather smutty manner, but it's another thing entirely to get the name of the paper wrong. More here , unless they've corrected it by now.

Talking of mistakes, reporter Brian Haran insists I got myself in a muddle last week when I claimed he shares a birthday with Billy Joel.

Unless he takes his case to the Press Complaints Commission, he won't be getting an apology out of me, and further investigations reveal he was also born in the same year as Confessions of a Windowcleaner star Robin Askwith and Suzi Quatro.

Large parts of this week's paper are on hold until we know the outcome of tonight's Bristol City v Palace play-off.

If Palace turn the deficit around we'll obviously be going to town on their Wembley date, and if they don't...well, we won't. Here's hoping.

Annoying

Things that have annoyed me so far this week, part one.

1) People who add comments to stories saying 'This article is of no interest to anyone. Shame on you, Croydon Advertiser, for running it.'

These are usually - in fact make that always - the stories which have had the most hits and the most responses.

If you don't like it, don't read it - and certainly don't destroy your own argument about how uninteresting it is by commenting on it.

See 'Couple beg council to revitalise their sex life' here for the latest example - ok, it won't win us the Pulitzer Prize, but at least it's entertained a few people.

2) NCP, who are fast becoming my least-favourite car park operators. (A small field, admittedly).

Not content with fleecing me every time I use a car park in Croydon they are now ripping me off in Crawley too.

A FIVE MINUTE stop outside our office in the town centre earlier cost me a ludicrous £2.50. I won't be making that mistake again.

3) News editors who send me pictures under the pretence of wanting to know if they are suitable for publication, but which I know they are only really doing to try to make me feel ill. If we printed some of the more graphic images floating around our photographic system, we'd be on sale on the top shelf.

4) An old favourite - press officers still sending me rubbish.

Today's contributions: "How to wear skyscraper heels" (thank you Zoe from ccdpr). "Cheer up your home with a cherry French bridge" (I have NO idea what that is about, and I am refusing to find out). 'MP releases charity record' (That would be John Hemming, MP for, um, Birmingham Yardley.)"Soggy cereal health scare' (no comment). And so on and on.

Never mind. The sun is shining, the news list is shaping up well and I'm still confident Palace are going to turn over Bristol City tomorrow night.

Janet Packer

Isn't the web great?

OK, it might be playing havoc with the newspaper industry's circulation figures, and giving a platform to all kinds of fruitcakes, but you can't beat the immediacy.

Within five minutes of Ian Austen receiving a tip-off that Selsdon High head Janet Packer was leaving her post, we had the story confirmed, written and online.

Obviously I'd have preferred it if it had happened 24 hours earlier so it went in the paper as well, but you can't have it all.

Differences

You might notice something different about the Advertiser today, and I'm not talking about the splash involving something other than knife crime.

No, I'm talking about the shape - it's an inch or so longer and wider than it used to be, thanks to our move to a new printer this week.

It may seem a minor cosmetic change, but it does actually make quite a lot of difference to the legibility and layout.

Another thing we've been doing differently for the past couple of weeks is the letters page.

It's no secret that the number of people emailing or writing to newspapers has dropped and the number of people leaving comments on their websites instead has soared.

Rather than fill the letters page with political point-scoring or charity appeals, we've started to take the best of the web comments and run those in-paper instead.

Believe you me, you don't want to wade through all the contributions we receive on thisiscroydontoday, but there are some intelligent posts buried amongst the insults and in-fighting and it makes sense to highlight those.

Talking of which, we've had some fun and games with the web comments this week.

Although it's not particuarly good business practice to criticise your readers, nobody pays to look at our website so I don't feel the same obligation to be polite -and we've got some right oddballs contributing at the moment.

I can't believe that, in this day and age, people still think you can bash out comments anonymously.

People's IP addresses allow us to see exactly which computer they are using to post from, and this week we had one chap conducting a conversation with himself using three different names. Yes, I mean you 'Angry, Purley.'

Finally for now, Caterham reporter Brian Haran is buying everyone drinks tonight to celebrate his 50th birthday (readers included.)

In an attempt to sugarcoat this unwelcome milestone, he's pointed out that he shares his birthday with Modfather Paul Weller. However, a quick Google check turns out he actually shares it with soft rocker Billy Joel. An easy mistake to make.

Video nasty

The other week I was at a meeting attended by various retailers and business people, and one of the main themes was how to improve the image Croydon projects to the rest of the country.

Some of our biggest employers - and I'm mentioning no names here - admitted they feel embarrassed when important clients visit from central London and have to walk through the town to get to their offices.

A lot of people are putting a great deal of time and effort into thinking of ways to put some more personality into the town centre, and to get rid of the slightly menacing air it can have sometimes.

But having seen the video that sparked this week's front page lead it's clear they've got a massive task on their hands.

We'll have the story - and hopefully the video - up online later, but for those of you who haven't seen it, it features CCTV footage shot by a firm of solicitors from their offices in Croydon High Street.

Over the course of a couple of weeks it captured some shocking scenes of violence and wanton vandalism.

Without wanting to lower the tone, it's going to be hard for Croydon to improve its image when some people think it's perfectly acceptable to drop their trousers and go to the toilet in the middle of the street in broad daylight.

And don't get me started on the random bottlings, vomiting and window-smashing.

Max Menon from Allders, who talks a lot of sense, points out in the article that every town centre has problems, and he's right.

But given that out-of-town retail parks like Bluewater and Lakeside present are the real competition for Croydon shoppers, it's clear something needs to be done to keep people visiting the town.

More outdoor events in North End, such as continental markets, may help, and taking a zero-tolerance approach to the alcohol-free drinking zones certainly will, but it's going to be a long fight.

Front page

It will be hard hat time tomorrow, as the Advertiser front page is precisely the kind of thing that sends some people into a rage.

It's unfortunate, but as I've said many times before it's not our job to present a nicely-polished version of Croydon - we have to face the facts, no matter how unsavoury they might be sometimes.

Having said that, there is also a double-page spread featuring reporter Neil Millard, some cash machines and a load of £10 notes that shows the vast majority of people in Croydon are decent types.

We're also going big on Crystal Palace ahead of Sunday's do-or-die Burnley clash - the way they've turned their season around under Neil Warnock has been pretty remarkable, and a day out at Wembley would be a fantastic way to round it off.

In other news, yesterday's post about expenses claims led to various reporters trying to cover their own backs by dropping their colleagues in it instead.

It was an even bigger display of backstabbing than an Apprentice boardroom bust-up, and one reporter in particular has been named and shamed for trying to get a claim for a Kinder Egg past the accounts department.

Stuff

Some random bits and bobs before I get stuck into this week's paper.

* Which Advertiser reporter had their expenses claim bounced back when, upon closer examination of the receipt, it showed their expenditure included one packet of Galaxy Minstrels, 2 x Sweet Tooth GG Tag (whatever they are) and a copy of Vogue.

* It seems somebody IS missing MP Andrew Pelling after all, according to the author of the Fairfield Life blog, who is less than impressed with his stand-in Gavin Barwel. More here.

* An idiotic Russian student claims to have taken a picture of a UFO in Croydon, although it's possibly the most unrealistic spotting I've ever seen. More here.


That's it for now. Should be a good paper this week, although the front page may look a touch unusual.

Squid

I've just been on a mini-tour of the office in the hunt for a CD, which may or may not contain some images destined for Friday's front page.

I didn't find it, but I did make the following discoveries instead:

1) Reporter Lizzie Smith has a picture of content editor Andy Worden taped to her terminal.

2) An obviously over-worked Anna Edwards has been reading a story on BBC Online about scientists defrosting a giant squid. (To be fair, it's quite interesting. See for yourself here. )

3) Neil Warnock, not content with turning Palace's season around with a push for the play-offs, has come up with his own idea for our back page ahead of Sunday's vital game against Burnley. (More on that later).

4) Brian Haran has received an email from a Russian advertising manager called Nadya who is offering to become his wife. ("I wish to create strong family. I do not search on beautiful to the man. I search on clever and fair to the man," points out Nadya, allegedly pictured below.)

Content

'User generated content' has been a buzz phrase in the media industry for the past couple of years.

What it boils down to is a desire to increase the amount of interaction between our titles and readers by publishing people's comments, blogs and pictures online and in print. (Or, put another way, we'd like you to do some of our work for us please).

The only problem comes when some of the 'content' your 'users' are 'generating' turns out to be a load of immature tripe.

Yes I'm talking about our online messages, which were getting reduced to playground level at some points this week until we had to ban a load more users.

As a general rule, people can have their say on anything they like as long as they don't abuse other users or land me in the libel courts.

Unfortunately some of them have been doing just that, and have been booted off as a result.

Anyhow, back to the print product and it's a cracking paper this week. One of the basic rules of journalism is the more people connect with a story, the more paper's you'll sell.

It might sound brutal, but you've got less chance of getting on the front page if you are stabbed in a back alley in Thornton Heath at 3am than you have if you are stabbed in the Whitgift Centre at 6pm. Everyone goes shopping, not everyone's hanging around in the early hours.

This week's splash comes into the latter camp - it will interest, and horrify, a big chunk of our readership. More tomorrow.

Most read

Here's a quick update on the most-read stories on our website.

Of course you can see the daily top five on the homepage, but it's interesting to see how it pans out over a longer period sometimes.

So, without further ado, these are the most popular stories on thisiscroydontoday.co.uk since the start of the year:

1) Teen stabbed in Whitgift Centre
2) Freedman set for Leeds switch
3) Boy, 14, had sex with member of his own family
4) The Warnock curse strikes Liverpool again
5) Is this Croydon's worst home?
6) Notorious Croydon gangster deported
7) Passengers cheat death in bus crash
8) Football thugs jailed for nightclub brawl
9) Club blames smoking ban for closure
10) Victim of fatal crash named.

Conclusions: Anything with sex in the headline will do well, no matter how grubby the tale; Palace stories will always score highly, particularly if they involve Neil Warnock have a pop at over-sentimental Scousers; crime is as popular online as in print.

On the subject of Palace, things were looking so bleak earlier in the year that our sports editor booked a holiday timed to coincide with the play-offs, confident there was more chance of Peter Taylor sprouting a second head than guiding the Eagles into the top six.

Now, though, it looks like he'll be heading overseas at the same time Palace are - hopefully - heading to Wembley. How things change.

And another thing...

Other random things I meant to comment on last week during my enforced blogging absence:

First, I'm finding it interesting that people now seem to be backtracking a bit on Croydon's arena plans.

Labour leader Tony Newman, who has previously been firmly in favour, said in last week's Advertiser that he now had 'some concerns' about its viability.

I'm not quite clear what has changed to put doubts in his mind (apart from Ken Livingstone coming out so strongly against the plans, of course).

I've said from the outset that a 12,500 seat venue is approximately 9,000 seats too many for Croydon and I stand by that.

It's unfortunate for developer Arrowcroft that their push for a Croydon arena has coincided with a spate of articles in the national press singing the praises of the
o2 venue in Greenwich, which seems to be growing in popularity all the time. (Not with me though, it's like watching a gig in a giant teacup.)

Moving on, and we're having all kinds of fun and games on the subs desk at the moment.

Sub-editors, who design the pages and write the headlines, are the backbone of any newspaper and at the moment a) We haven't got quite enough of them and b) They are still learning a completely new computer system.

All told, it's made for some fairly horrific deadline days - and it's to their great credit the Advertiser has been coming out at all.

That said, I was a bit taken about when, four hours into Thursday's deadline day, one sub (who shall remain nameless) suddenly announced he'd picked up the wrong glasses that morning and couldn't see a thing he was doing.

I hadn't noticed any difference in the pages he had produced, and have since been wondering whether that was a good or bad thing.

More BNP

A couple of weeks ago I attracted the ire of the British National Party after revealing we'd turned down their adverts.

I said at the time it was a difficult decision - it could be argued that all political parties are entitled to the oxygen of publicity, no matter how offensive you find their views.

But we came down on the side of rejecting their material on the grounds I didn't think it was right to take their money.

It prompted a flurry of letters from BNP sympathisers that is only now starting to die down.

Another paper in the capital, the Hampstead and Highgate Express, took the opposite decision and decided to run the adverts, and it's caused a bit of a stink - partly thanks to George Galloway highlighting the issue on Radio 4.

The paper's parent company has now announced all the profits will go to charity - you can read more here

I'm no keener to allay myself with George Galloway than I am with the BNP to be honest, and I think the Ham and High - which is a very well-respected title - took the decision it did for the right reasons, even if I still believe it was the wrong outcome.

There are some situations where whatever you decide to do will attract criticism, and this was one of them.

In other news, the Advertiser (as the Palace paper) has just been challenged to a football match against the Brighton Argus, which we are now in the process of setting up (ie trying to sort out some ringers to complement our otherwise slighly lightweigh side.)

Argus reporter Jonathan Stayton is probably unaware I have a long-standing grudge with his paper, and I can't wait to get stuck in.

Ready, steady, cook

I'll interupt my blog embargo to point out that if you turn on your TV right NOW you can see reporters Aline Nassif, Lizzie Smith, Anna Edwards and Chris Johnson in the audience of Ready, Steady, Cook.

Chris in particular is doing a good job of clapping like a big girl, and Aline apparently is about to ask a question about what makes a good meal for both cats and people.

Enjoy.

One of those weeks

Sometimes you have the kind of week where you spend so long dealing with distractions and side-issues that it's easy to forget you're a newspaper editor.

This has been just one of those weeks, hence the dismal lacl of entries on my blog.

My apologies - normal service will be resumed on Monday.

Ken again

One blog entry all week - how slack. My apologies - I've been at a succession of meetings with the venues ranging from our Kensington mothership to the back room of our Dorking office.

As intimated earlier in the week I've been completely out of the loop as far as the Advertiser goes and handed control to the newsdesk, who have done a fine job.

Not such a smooth job, though, from reporter Anna Edwards when she went to interview Ken Livingstone on one of his rare forays south of the river today.

Anna apparently 'got in a bit of a tizzy' when she tried to get a notebook out of her handbag, and accidentally unearthed a plastic bow and arrow instead, and then proceeded to conduct the interview unaware she had a Bob the Builder sticker on her coat.

Shannon

Some stories just keep on giving.

The Shannon Matthews tale is rapidly evolving into one of the most fascinating rolling news stories for years, and tonight's announcement that her mum has been charged with perverting the course of justice and child neglect means there's plenty more to come.

I'm a bit jealous of the journalists in West Yorkshire who have such a great story on their doorstep, but at the same time I'm glad I don't have to wrestle with the problem of editing a weekly paper with a story that changes every day.

Anyhow, you may wonder why I'm writing about that rather than my working week. The simple answer is I'm having the kind of spell at work that would make for an even more boring blog entry than the time - amid a bout of writer's block - I listed the entire contents of my desk drawers.

Suffice to say, I'm wrapped up in the kind of time-consuming legal issues, IT headaches and strategy meetings that leave me precious little time to look at the content of the paper.

In fact, I'm handing full control of this week's Advertiser to content editor Andy Worden so if you don't like it, blame him. (Or take a leaf out of Shirley High pupils' book and have a pop at us online instead!)

Rod

There was much excitement in our Crawley office last night when two reporters insisted they had seen Rod Stewart walking into a bar across the road.

They went down to investigate and dragged him into the office for a photo and interview, but on closer inspection it seems their excitement may have got the better of them.

I guess it says something for their initiative, but it says even more about their eyesight. Here's their exclusive 'Rod' photo.



Other things that have caught my attention this week: Croydon Voluntary Action have produced what sounds like a rather libellous feature in their latest publication accusing the Advertiser of inciting racial hatred.

It follows a story a good few months ago about an illegal immigrant, Mokhta Tabet, who demanded to be flown home because he thought Croydon residents were 'rude and unhelpful.'

As I mentioned last week, this comes at a time when I'm still receiving a steady stream of hate mail from people angy we turned down BNP advertising.

Much as I might disagree with the BNP's policies, I'll also gladly publicise people who attempt to abuse the immigration system - changing our website means I can't link to the original story, but here's the Evening Standard version.

April 1

I've not had the chance to write anything all week, which means I missed out on April Fool's Day on Tuesday.

I'm no fan of April 1 because I'm a bit of a misery, but I let the news team go ahead with the 'Taberner House to be painted pink' tale anyway.

I didn't expect it to fool anybody, so I was surprised to hear that one reporter on another paper not a million miles away had phoned the Croydon Council press office attempting to follow the story up.

Nothing funny about this week's news list though - the stabbing at the Whitgift Centre has quickly become the most read story on this site since it launched, and it's generating an awful lot of interest.

Some of the comments make interesting - if unpleasant - reading in the light of recent debates about Croydon's image, and people would do well to take note.

Complaints

Great. I've been receiving anonymous hate mail from BNP-sympathisers all week accusing me of being a lefty liberal, and now we've had a complaint from the organisers of a Muslim march held in Redhill on Sunday making the exact opposite accusation.

Just to reiterate: we turned away BNP adverts in the Croydon Advertiser and other titles as I felt uncomfortable with their material.

We covered the controversy surrounding a Muslim march in Redhill on Easter Sunday in the Surrey Mirror because we're a newspaper and that's what we're supposed to do.

And it's not just racial issues which are sparking the complaints. There's a bizarre email flying around which is going on - in a rather odd fashion - about reporting of crime in the local media. Again.

The email itself was strange enough, but the sender's decision to copy in 28 additional people - including Labour leader Tony Newman, the BBC and various others -was even stranger. I bet they were delighted to have that land in their inbox.

And when I made the mistake of replying to it, THAT was copied in to all and sundry too.

In a final email, the sender warned: "Can you not hear the sound of an army? Can you not see the flag flying in the distance and can you not feel a stirring in the air!!! What I hear you ask is this army called ? It's called commonsense and its on the march!" I'll keep an eye out.

Turning away from the kind of complaints that cast a cloud over my working day, and last week I was saying how we decided against holding certain stories back from our Good Friday edition.

Well, more fool us because this week was a real struggle, particularly when we found we had four empty pages to fill half an hour past deadline owing to a cock-up somewhere in the system.

Crimewatch

Police forces across the country are becoming ever more reluctant to tell the press about incidents that have taken place on their patch. (It's that pesky fear of crime again - if nobody knows about it, there's nothing to worry about.)

Reluctant, that is, until you offer them a slot on Crimewatch, at which point you'll get a stampede of officers happy to put their faces in front of the cameras on prime-time BBC1.

The latest example unfolded today when we were told about a rather scary sounding burglary down the road in Banstead. The victims were tied up in their own home, threatened with shotguns and robbed of goods worth £200,000.

Quite a newsworthy incident, but it took Surrey Police an astonishing TEN WEEKS to get round to telling anyone about it.

And what finally prodded them into action? The chance to share some screentime with Kirsty Young, of course.

This is a scenario I've seen many times before, although rarely with such a major crime and rarely with such a ridiculous delay in bringing it to our attention.

Laughably, the belated press release comes complete with an appeal for anybody who may have witnessed the incident to come forward. Strikes me they might have had a much better chance of success if they'd asked when it was slightly fresher in people's minds.

I don't expect the police to do reporters' jobs for them, but I DO find it astonishing incidents like this can go unmentioned until the BBC decides it is of sufficient interest.

Good Friday

The paper's out on Good Friday this week, which means we'll sell far fewer copies than a normal week.

We could have 'done a Bolton' and put out a weakened paper with all the good stories saved up for the following week, but we haven't.

Pupils behaving badly take centre spot again, and although nobody's been stabbed in the head with a pair of scissors this week it's still an intriguing story.

On the subject of stabbings, it's fair to say the 'Another week of blood and violence' headline from a couple weeks ago - following the Shirley stabbings - prompted a succession of complaints from the great and the good of Croydon.

Too much negativity, does nothing for the borough's image etc etc. We've just had the sales figures through and, no surprise, it was the biggest selling edition of the year by some margin.

That's not to say I don't take those kind of complaints on board, but I do know what stories are likely to sell newspapers in this particular market.

Eggs

I was going to write a long post moaning about the amount of press releases I've received hilariously headed "Egg-citing news" or "Egg-stra special announcement" (it's Easter, see?) but I just can't summon up the necessary energy. Suffice to say, it's quite a lot.

I'm having one of those weeks that involves a lot of quite important meetings, but makes for an even more boring blog than normal, and it's left me quite drained.

As threatened earlier in the week, we've been banning undesirables from posting messages on the website left, right and centre. (Take note, Cro Bar!)

It's not an exact science - the people we ban tend to find a way of creeping back on a few days later - but we're keeping the worst of them at bay.

However, to the lady who left a message saying 'Shame on the editor for allowing people to say these kind of things' after some particularly disparaging comments about New Addington, can I point out the following:

1) Although I've tried physically attaching myself to a terminal 24/7 it makes it quite hard to eat or drive, so there may be times when I'm not constantly monitoring thisiscroydontoday.co.uk

2) Although I'm quite prepared to take responsibility for anything my staff or I write, I'm not prepared to extend this to the general public at large. We've given people an open forum to comment on the things we publish, and it's not really my fault if so many of them are choosing to stage on online version of Lord of the Flies.

Thank you.

Roaring drunk

A member of staff has just threatened to resign on the spot if I make any mention of their behaviour at a leaving do in Tiger Tiger on Friday.

Much as it pains me, I'll have to let this sorry tale of text message abuse pass without mention and focus on other matters instead.

An interesting response over the weekend to the story about the police and council criticising local newspapers for focussing on crime. I can honestly say that the only people who make these allegations are the ones with a vested interest.

And an even more interesting response to the story about the woman living in 'Croydon's worst home'.

I wasn't expecting the story to generate this level of interest, but I guess it justifies our decision to put it on page three this week.

For the first time - and as predicted last week - we had to start banning some of the more offensive contributors to the messageboard, and some of the ones we left up are teetering on the brink.

Moving on and it's Easter this week, which I hate almost as much as Christmas due to the havoc it causes with deadlines. It's going to be all hands to the pump - and next week will be even worse.

BNP

The British National Party want to take adverts out in next week's paper, and we've had to think hard about the right course of action.

We do accept political adverts, hence Steve O'Connell and Boris Johnson appearing on the back page of last week's paper.

The BNP are a legitimate political party and will no doubt argue they should have the same right as the others.

But we've turned them away on the basis I'd feel deeply uncomfortable with any of their material appearing in our publications.

The Advertiser is strictly non-political - all parties seem to hate us equally - but I'm happy to make an exception in the case of the BNP.

There are many legitimate issues and concerns surrounding immigration, and we're not afraid to address these.

But whatever questions there are about asylum, I doubt the BNP's policies are the answer.

In-fighting

My favourite message on the website yesterday was posted in response to a complaint about the level of in-fighting amongst readers from different parts of the borough.

It read simply: "Why don't people use the comments space to write something more constructive rather than argue amongst themselves?" Because we are the Jeremy Kyle generation."

They were spot on as well. Last week I was talking about how I was pleasantly surprised by the contributions we were receiving, but this week it's all gone a bit school playground.

Much as we like to keep the messageboard unmoderated, I fear we'll have to start banning people if they can't play nicely.

My second favourite message came from somebody who advocated putting our teenage yobs in stocks outside East Croydon station and throwing vegetables at them, but since crime in the borough is apparently all a figment of my imagination there's clearly no need for such drastic measures.

On that note, I've just spotted a letter in this week's paper from council leader Mike Fisher having a joint pop at the Advertiser and Labour leader Tony Newman over last week's story about Allders.

It's a cheap shot to be honest - it's a bit rich to blame the media for fear of crime in Croydon whilst using the same topic to score political points at the same time.

Moving on, it's been a busy week and should be a very strong paper.

We had a Carry On-style misunderstanding between reporter Aline Nassif and the picture desk about a court case involving a prominent pianist, but apart from that it's looking good.

Groundblog Day

I've had two conversations with people in recent days, and the thrust of both was that the Advertiser is at fault for people's negative perceptions of Croydon. (Their view, not mine, I hasten to add).

I won't go into details as they were off-the record-conversations, the second of which might lead to an interesting project in the near future, and because I've written about it many times before.

I tried not to let either wind me up, but they still did.

There are a surprising amount of people in Croydon paid some eye-watering salaries to work solely on promoting the borough, and they seem to think they can use the Advertiser as an extension of their PR operation and berate us when we write things they don't like.

Our job, when you strip it down, is quite simple - report on things that have happened in Croydon, and present them in a manner which we think will sell the most copies. No more, no less.

Yes, we try to do it in a responsible manner but there's a small army of people earning far more than me or any of my staff charged with improving Croydon's reputation, and if it's not working then maybe they should ask questions closer to home.

Ahem. I wasn't even going to get started on that topic until I read the story on the website about Ken's secret congestion charge for Croydon - and his alleged instructions not to mention it until after the mayoral election.

I'm not sure whether it's true or not, but if it is then it's a disgrace.

Regional news journalists are never going to top any popularity charts, but unlike politicians the majority of us are at least honest about what we're doing.

Law

We've had a series of law refreshers for staff today, which were in no way connected to a recent costly legal battle over a story in one of the Advertiser's sister titles. Honest.

The upshot is, after a morning listening to various libel horror stories from regional papers across the country, I've decided against making my feelings known on the subject of clairvoyants.

Guide editor Katie Archer interviewed medium Colin Fry today ahead of his show at the Fairfield.

I'd asked Katie to see if he could contact my cat Lottie, who died the other month at the age of 17, but apparently he refused to play ball, and was none to keen on conducting any other psychic readings over the phone either.

Anyhow, if mediums and clairvoyants are your bag - and I know it's one of the occasions Fairfield can usually guarantee a full house - then fine, but I won't be in attendance.

Apart from my cat failing to contact me from the other side, additional things that have annoyed me today include:

1) Epsom Post editor Patsy Payne spreading wildly inaccurate rumours about how old I will be on my birthday next week.

2) My old primary school doing even more damage to Essex's reputation with its ridiculous decision to replace children's faces with drawings of smiley heads on its website. Story here if you missed it yesterday. Honestly, we face enough curbs on press freedom without going down this route, thank you very much.

3) The Surrey Mirror reader who sent me a letter stating simply: "I dislike your paper intensely", along with a cheque renewing their subscription for 12 months.

Still, it's almost the weekend.

Schools

It was inevitable the schools crisis in Croydon would claim a high-profile casualty sooner rather than later.

I had expected one of the head teachers at the schools involved in the recent controversies to act as sacrificial lamb, so I was quite surprised to learn it was the council's education director Peter Wylie who would be leaving his post.

Officially, of course, he is retiring but you don't need an advanced degree in management double speak to read between the lines.

Of course, Mr Wylie is no more personally responsible for the latest round of school stabbings and sex videos than you or I - the blame for those lies, as always, with some of our oiky pupils.

But the education service clearly has deep-rooted problems, and it can only be right that the council is seen to take decisive action.

Education features heavily in this week's Advertiser, as does - inevitably - crime.

The Shrublands stabbing - along with various other incidents this week - has led me to write what could potentially be seen as the world's laziest headline, but it was the only way I could think of to sum things up.

Still, it's not all misery for me today. I'm about to head into a meeting about Croydon in Bloom. Lovely!

Question of taste

A sports journalist a few miles up the A23 found himself in hot water the other week after a slightly off-colour intro to a Millwall report, which compared watching the Lions to living in Bridgend.

We've all been there - write a tasteless joke in haste, repent at leisure.

It's a fine line between creating an attention-grabbing headline and causing mass offence to your entire readership, and this week is a case in point.

One of our titles has a story about a woman who has been taken to court after refusing to pay for a bikini wax. It's one of those stories you just can't put a sensible headline on if you tried.

We've already rejected a couple of good efforts - 'Caught by the Fuzz' and 'Rip Off' - and have now settled on the hopefully not-too-crude 'Smooth Criminal.'

Paddick

An interesting email arrives in my inbox titled: "ANOTHER CLUELESS POLICY FROM THE CAPITAL’S CLUELESS CANDIDATE - PADDICK."

For a moment I thought Brian Paddick had livened up the tedious London Mayoral election with an unusually honest campaign slogan.

But no, it turns out it was just an unfortunately-phrased press release waffling on about Boris Johnson and buses. Shame.

Comments

I quite enjoy reading the readers' comments at the end of our online stories, even the ones that either moan about the Advertiser or make me a bit twitchy libel-wise.

If you're unlucky, messageboards can attract some fairly unsavoury types from both ends of the political spectrum, but many of the contributions on thisiscroydontoday.co.uk are extremely well thought out, intelligent offerings that can make me think twice about how we play certain stories.

That said, there some that I completely disagree with like the one here .

It criticises today's (print edition) headline, 'Scissors in head horror at school', which apparently 'does nothing to help the pupil, the school, staff or parents.'

Well, sorry but as much as we like to take a responsible approach, it's not our job to do to any of the above.

It's our job to report the news, and if somebody sticks a pair of scissors into somebody else's head at school, then that's exactly what we're going to write.

Edenham High

Who'd be a headteacher?

As I said when all the Selsdon High stories kicked off earlier this year, it's easy to pin all the blame on the school and overlook a) parental responsibility and b) problems in society as a whole.

With regards to the latest incident at Edenham High (see the story on the home page), I've got no idea about Jacey Downes' abilities as a head teacher. However, I don't see how anybody could have stopped an incident like Wednesday's in advance.

It's abundantly clear there are huge problems in schools across Croydon, and it's likely to become a vicious circle.

Schools will struggle to attract the calibre of staff they need if teachers think they'll be walking into a war zone every day, and discipline will deteriorate even further if they are forced to employ weaker candidates as a result.

Talking of war zones - and that's one hell of a clumsy link - I find myself in the unusual position of being a bit uneasy about the Drudge Report's decision to break the Prince Harry embargo.

Most of the time, embargos are placed at the top of useless press releases by PR plonkers because it makes them feel like they're 'managing the news'.

They usually say something like: 'Survey reveals Stilton is now the UK's favourite cheese. STRICTLY EMBARGOED until noon on February 16.'

But in Harry's case, when you are talking about putting people's lives in danger, I don't feel particularly comfortable with it.

Finally, I'm glad to see the supplement with 651 pictures of Croydon mums seems to have come out as intended - believe me, there were many things which could have gone wrong - but less pleased with a typo in a prominent picture caption which has ruined my mood.

(Incidentally, if there ARE any mistakes in the supplement , don't call me, call promotions executive Kim Fyfe on extension 6655 instead.)

Lord

We're spending the day playing host to Lord Rothermere - head of our parent company's parent company - which means I'm feeling a bit out of the loop about anything going on outside the office.

So instead I'll leave it to Croydon Council leader Mike Fisher to entertain you as he has (sort of) launched his own blog.

I say 'sort of' because you can't actually post any comments on there, which is a bit of a shame but here it is.

'Shrine to a chicken'

Friday was the busiest day we've had on the website, but not for the reasons you might think.

Although the Sally Anne verdict had a lot of hits, it was overshadowed by the reaction to Palace manager Neil Warnock's column, in which he had a mild dig at Liverpool.

Within hours of going live the article had generated a furious response from people living in Liverpool, along with the city's well-known suburbs of, erm, Brighton and Oxon. It went on to become our most-read story and you can read the fall-out: here

I made an inappropriate Boris Johnson-esque comment about Scousers in a previous job, and I'm not making that mistake again.

However, this Liverpool Echo story remains my favourite example of the city's ability to spot tragedy in the most unlikely of scenarios: http://tinyurl.com/dlaps

Another story that generated a huge amount of interest - again, even more so than Sally Anne - was the yobs going on the rampage at Vue cinema.

It's clear from the comments on this story - and many others like it - that people are sick to the back teeth of Croydon's chav culture.

Sally Anne

So Mark Dixie is guilty of the Sally Anne murder, and that's no surprise.

He couldn't have looked any more guilty if he'd stood in the witness box with 'murderer' tattooed on his forehead.

Sometimes a defendant's evidence can leave you incredulous - Ian Huntley springs to mind, but I think Dixie's explanation was even more ludicrous.

Hopefully this will at least give Sally Anne's family some closure.

Deadlines

I've got a bad feeling about this week's paper.

In fact, I've had a bad feeling about this week full-stop ever since I was pulled over by some chump of a police officer on my way to a wedding reception, and subjected to a random roadside spotcheck that only just stopped short of the rubber glove treatment.

Honestly, you'd have thought he was starring in The Wire rather than hassling motorists on a cold night in Crawley town centre.

Anyway, I digress. The reason I've got a bad feeling about this week's paper is because of the ongoing Sally Anne Bowman trial.

For obvious legal reasons I can't say much about the trial, apart from that the judge is expected to begin his summing up today, after which the jury will retire to consider its verdict.

Given the timing (and our early afternoon deadline) this obviously presents us with all sorts of difficulties in ensuring our coverage is as up to date as possible.

Bad news

I'm a bit too busy to write much this week, so in the spirit of of 'citizen journalism' I'm going to let a reader do it instead.

The email below covers similar ground to others I receive fairly frequently, but is argued with rather more style than most.

In defence, I have to point the 'most read' section on the home page, which is the most accurate reflection you can get of what people really do want to read about.

Dear Sir,

"I have read your paper for many years and over the recent past the content becomes ever more sensational and depressing. Take last week's publication , these were some of the headlines:
BODY LAY IN FLAT SIX MONTHS
SHOPPERS STUNNED AS GANG BATTER MAN IN STREET
POLICE PROTECTION FOR SCHOOL
HILDREN ATTACKED AND ROOFING STOLEN
OFFICER TO PATROL SCHOOL TO TACKLE LOITERERS
MAN INJURED IN GANG ATTACK
POLICE RAID SUSPECTED DRUGS DEN AFTER ANTI SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
MAN FACES NEW STABBING TRIAL
I MAY HAVE TO SLEEP ON THE STREET WITH MY BABY
FRAUD CHECK
FINE FOR BUGS
BARRED FROM PUB FOR GETTING STABBED
FRIENDS PUNCHED AND KICKED ME PUBLICAN
LOVE TRIANGLE LIAR JAILED OVER HIS MURDER CASE LIES
FIVE ARRESTS IN BROTHEL RAID
TRIO OF DRUGS DENS SHUT DOWM AFTER DAWN RAIDS
EIGHT YEARS FOR TRYING TO RAPE GIRL 11
FOUR OFFICERS INJURED AS FANS CLASH AT PALACE
JAIL FOR BURGLAR CAUGHT REDHANDED.
BEAUTY PARLOUR WAS DRUG DEN
UNDERCOVER POLICE SNARE DRUG DEALER
SOCCER YOB KICKED PC IN FACE
SEX DISEASES NO BED OF ROSES

These are only some of the depressing headlines in the paper. Couple this with stories about puppies, gas cylinder blasts, creating a town for the rich, tax rise agreed, explosion averted, climate change fear for home flooding,and you can see there is not much left for good news.

Come on Advertiser this is just driving people away from the town otherwise i can see the next headline "Freddy Starr ate my hamster!!!!"

Oh dear

This is what can happen when a blog goes wrong.

Who would have thought an account of a posh student's gap year travels would generate such bile from the Guardian's normally placid readership? Mind you, it's hard to disagree with any of the comments at the end of his post.


http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/travelog/2008/02/skins_blog.html

Comps

When you launch a competition or promotion you can never tell how many people are going to enter.

Once - and I think I've mentioned this before - we decided to give away £1,000 a week over the course of a month.

It bombed. On one of the weeks we hardly got a single entry, and the first person who phoned up ended up pocketing the money.

It was only the fear of getting arrested for breaching the Gaming Act that stopped me phoning up friends and family and urging them to cash in quick.

Looking back, the fact readers had to dial a premium rate number didn't help, nor did people's natural cynicism of free money give-aways.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago we launched a competition asking kids to draw a picture of their mum. The winning entry gets £1,500 of Allders vouchers.

It was a slow start, and I thought 'here we go again'. But things went a bit nutty this week, and there are now hundreds upon hundreds of entries sitting on promotions manager Kim Fyfe's desk.

It's good news for me in terms of sales, but not such good news for the people who have to scan the photos in and lay them out in the special supplement I've now decided we need to do in time for Mother's Day.

I haven't broken the delightful news to the production editor yet, but he's had quite an easy week so I'm sure he'll react with grace and good humour.

I hate typos in newspapers - they drive me potty.

Despite the various emails and letters I get on a regular basis, I DO actually read the Advertiser before it goes to print, thank you very much, and try to ensure it is error-free.

Mistakes do occasionally creep in, but we're not as bad as some. (If you want to see missing punctuation marks or sentences petering out midway through, have a look at the Daily Mirror's sports section for a few days in a row).

This is a bit of a self-serving blog entry, because I'm just trying to get my defence in early in case of mistakes in tomorrow's paper. Thanks to the new editorial system holding things up, I had to push pages through far quicker than normal, and we were still two hours late.

Still, good paper - I think. Nobody else seemed to want to splash the story that I led with, which is a bit worrying as my brain is a bit over-tired this week, but we'll see.

Despite my worries yesterday, nobody's phoned up to give me an earful for turning the Surrey Mirror tabloid yet - in fact everyone's been very positive.

There were only a handful of minor teething issues, and one headline I regretted re-writing when I saw it in print.

Without wanting to lower the tone, I'm not sure the words 'flappy' and 'cock' ever sit very comfortably together in a headline, even if you are writing about the first birthday of the Dorking Cockerel (don't ask).