Thursday 27 March 2008

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.

Wednesday 26 March 2008

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.

Thursday 20 March 2008

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.

Wednesday 19 March 2008

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.

Monday 17 March 2008

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.

Thursday 13 March 2008

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.

Tuesday 11 March 2008

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.

Friday 7 March 2008

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.

Thursday 6 March 2008

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!

Tuesday 4 March 2008

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.'

Monday 3 March 2008

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.