The European Commission

Yesterday I went to a talk entitled “Demystifying the EU”, given by Alison Rose who works at the Foreign Office. I know I will have already lost half of you. “European Union? Yawn!” That is what a lot of people think.

That was the problem that we all came up against as soon as questions were opened to the floor. The main consensus was no one in Britain understands the EU, no one likes it and a lot of people will not vote in the European elections because they don’t believe it has any bearing on their lives.

The answer from one of the journalism tutors was that as journalists it is or job to tell people to vote. Well, I don’t think it is. It is the job of the Government, the European Parliament, the Electoral Commission and other such bodies to publicise the elections and the reporters’ job is to report it.

Ms Rose explained that in Spain the state is viewed positively, it protects the

European Parliament

people. Not so here, just look at the expenses debacle. It would take some time to change that view in Britain but what can be done now is to educate people about how decisions made in Brussels affect our daily lives.

There are TV and radio adverts and posters on the tube (and probably elsewhere outside of London). But they only tell you to vote, not why or who is standing, or what the EU is in the first place. In fact the only really convincing arguments I have heard for voting is so that the BNP doesn’t win seats.

I went onto Google yesterday and started searching for information on the elections and who the candidates are. It was only after clicking through several pages that I came across a list. It should not be like this. We are fortunate in this country and in the other EU countries to have a democracy, so why is it so difficult to access information about it? And why is it so difficult to get people active in it?

I now sound like I’m an EU campaigner but it annoys me how complacent we are about voting. What I think we really need is to educate school children about government and politics, I was never taught anything about how the political system works and I wish I had been.

Pictures: European Commission by Stuart Chalmers from Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/gertcha/

European Parliament by Xaf from Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/xaf/

My role for this week was in the features department so on Thursday last week I rolled up for a features meeting to discuss ideas and start things moving.

At first, things didn’t seem to be getting off the ground, a couple of hour’s research on Friday for one feature and an afternoon walking the streets of Hackney on Monday for another bore no fruit.

On Sunday, I spent the morning doing a walking tour of Shoreditch and Hoxton as part of the East Festival. Fascinating stuff but the video was unusable due to traffic noise and it was not possible to take stills from the footage.

The afternoon was more productive, I went to the Geffrye Museum with Ben to film kids in a craft workshop, watch a play and speak to some people.

Tuesday was the most exciting day this week. I went with Beth to get some footage and interviews from the site of the original Shakespeare theatre in Shoreditch for a feature on Shakespeare in the borough.

I returned to university feeling very excited, I was one of just 50 people who got to see the site before it was closed up and the planning permission is finalised. We took video of archaeologist Heather Knight from the Museum of London and did an on location to camera piece. But technical problems hit and the video could not be downloaded.

Wednesday was a frustrating day. I made about 30 calls to academics- I don’t even want to think about my phone bill- all of whom were out/not answering their phone/ unable to help/ on maternity leave. I also tried desperately to find some photos to replace the lost footage from the previous day.

In the evening Ben and I went to a hidden gem in the backstreets of Dalston in Hackney. Passing Clouds is unlike anywhere I have been before, an eclectic mix of decorations, sari fabric hanging from the walls upstairs, Arabic style writing on the walls downstairs and a collection of dolls and puppets dotted around were just some of the things on display.

I learned to play the African drum with Adesose Wallace. It was like going back to school, as I lost the rhythm he would get progressively frustrated but when we all played in time his face lit up with pride. Hopefully the feature and video will go in next week’s edition.

Thursday was deadline day and as expected, things became a bit manic. Arguments were had about page layout, copy which was cut and pictures were changed. But overall we pulled together and are proud of our efforts.

He spoke to us about the use of social networking and how to exploit it for journalistic purposes.

He asked his twitter followers for a brief summary of social media and Howard Rheingold described it as:

 ”Many to many media that gain value as more people participate, and which enabled people to connect with each other.”

I like this definition and it is an interesting idea. However, after the lecture a fellow student asked whether there is a danger that we are making ourselves too open on the internet and our lives are becoming up for grabs for anyone who wishes to follow us. That got me thinking, I am on facebook, twitter, have a blog, to name some of the places where someone can follow my online presence.

I don’t openly share details of my private life- not that I think anyone would be that interested- but I have been thinking about where we draw the line, how much social networking is too much? If  journalists (and other professionals) are making their lives open and available, does this add or subtract to what we have to say when reporting? On one hand, it dispells the image of the hardened hack but on the other, if people read what we ate for breakfast or what film we watched last night does it challenge our authority on the real subjects? Do people become so bored of hearing our opinions that they switch off when we actually have something of value to impart to them?

I like social media, I want to see it grow and I think it has great potential to be used as a tool for journalism but I do think we should address the questions I have posed.

The first part of this was a news conference with an animal technician and a scientist, fine. The second part was visiting an animal testing facility, not so fine. I decided to go because I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone. Plus how can I write a balanced piece if I have not witnessed it for myself?

The facilities were clean, clinical. The animals seemed happy enough, they had reasonably big cages, were given plenty to eat and were petted and looked after by the technicians. But then I had a closer look, the marmosets were trembling, their movements slightly jerky. Not surprising really, they had been given a dose of Parkinson’s disease.

I came out of the labs feeling a sense of guilt that I was walking out of there, while the animals would not. Is this fair? That is the long running debate which has occupied both sides of the argument for years.

While animal testing does go on in the UK I am glad it is heavily regulated and the animals are cared for by the technicians. Or so I thought. Then we had a presentation from the other side of the argument and saw what we had not seen at the facilities, the experiments being carried out. I watched with some degree of discomfort.

I cannot make out which parts of this are reality and which are carefully considered ploys to get us to believe one side of the argument or the other. Images such as the one I have used here are designed to pull at our consciences. But is it reality?

So now I have to write a news feature and I’m struggling to write with the images of the animals in my head. But I guess this is what I signed up to, unlike the animals.

Neil, who is Head of Editorial Development at the Guardian, spoke to City University students in a lecture today about innovation online, what the Guardian has done and what its future is.

As students we are told that journalism is becoming increasingly digital and we need to keep ahead of the game to succeed in our chosen field. This can be difficult, it means keeping your finger firmly on the pulse when new technologies are developing all the time.

Interestingly though, Neil said that straight forward reporting of stories on the Guardian’s website still receive more unique visitors than Twitter updates or live blogging from events. This suggests that although news websites are catching on to the fact that they need to transform themselves, users still prefer good, old fashioned news information. This is heartening for us student journalists, it shows that there is a valuable place for us in this new world as people who are trained to write well and also have a good understanding of new technologies.

Neil also said that when the last printing press was bought by the Guardian, its editor, Alan Rusbridger said  that it would be the last one the paper buys. Neil said that printing presses last 20-25 years and then the paper may share one with another title. This indicates that print is not dead. Neil said that it still has a market as long as it is prepared to change. I believe this is true, it will still be read on the commute to and from work and by people who want to consume news in bigger chunks and reflect on the days events. This is what newspapers need to adapt to and I think they are starting to do that, the morning’s papers often develop last night’s story in a way which websites do not cater for.

To my mind this can only be a good thing. No, they do not provide quality reporting, and I can’t say I enjoy reading them, but they get people reading the news and talking about it. Surely that is the role of newspapers?

I was therefore surprised by the scathing attack on them by Roy Greenslade. He said that thelondonpaper was only ever about Murdoch having his share of the market to stop the Daily Mail and General Trust which publishes London Lite, the Metro and the Evening Standard:

“Publishing thelondonpaper is simply a blunt instrument to wreck a rival company’s business. It is about destroying profit rather than making it.”

It seems fair enough that there is some healthy competition in the market and as the paper is not making a profit it would suggest that the public have made up their own minds about it (or at least the advertisers have) and that is what they should be allowed to do.

I do agree with Greenslade that it is a shame that the Evening Standard is suffering but the Dail Mail group is killing its own title off with the popularity of its London Lite paper.

If the recession combined with the growth of new media is as bad for newspapers as media commentators make out then the freesheets may become the staple of London news. Although I hope it will never come to that, at least people who would not otherwise read the news are being kept in touch with what goes on in the world.

However, I do agree with Greenslade that perhaps media organisations need to spend more time and energy preserving their quality titles rather than fighting over the circulation of freesheets.

It has therefore surprised me to learn that the News of the World actively discourages the use of shorthand. The use of shorthand was also discussed in this Press Gazette blog and some working journalists do not advocate the use of shorthand. The majority of comments do uphold it as a very useful skill, something I must remember as I sit through my 9am shorthand classes working up to that 100 wpm goal.