Steve Bloomer's Great War

Teaser for the video of 'Steve Bloomer's Great War'

Listen to my full interview with author and historian Peter Seddon on soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/adpagey/steve-bloomers-great-war

Peter has written extensively about Derby County and football and you can take a look at some of his other books at: www.amazon.co.uk/Destroying-Angel…ll/dp/1859837778

Derby Pacifist accused of plotting to kill the Prime Minister

As the war raged throughout Europe antiwar sentiment began to worry the authorities back in Britain. Alice Wheeldon was using her shop in Derby to shelter men from conscription but her efforts were halted in the most public way possible. Follow the link to hear the radio package of the story:


https://soundcloud.com/adpagey/derby-pacifist-accused-of-plotting-to-kill-prime-minister



A video of the walk to the places involved in the story with the Derby People's History group will be following soon.

The Armstrong Lie Review

It's the lie that rode over half way around the world before the anti-doping regulators got on their bikes. Cancer survivor, seven times Tour de France winner, father, husband, philanthropist, global inspiration Lance Armstrong denied, concealed and bullied his way into legend in the space of a decade.

The first Tour win after coming back from brink seemed incredible. The six subsequent triumphs seemed impossible. The chance that he may do it again in his 2009 comeback seemed too good to be true. The latest chapter was something documentary-maker Alex Gibney wanted to capture, on-and-off the bike. However the original, triumphant narrative was never edited together due to spectacular revelations that have emerged since. Gibney admits that five years ago he wanted to tell a hero story, supporting Lance throughout the 2009 tour, now he like so many other fans who believed in Lance's legend wanted answers.

Gibney once again shows he is a master film-maker, guiding the viewer through the motions and emotions of Lance's career from a promising youngster to an inspiration to everyone to a fraud who fooled the world. Gibney also takes a look at the culture of the Tour itself and how it change Lance and how Lance changed it. The result is a tale that is shocking, scary, intense, upsetting and farcically funny.

The only criticism I'd have about Gibney's film is it's completely bleak portrayal of the sport, frankly there seems to be little room left for hope for the future. Cycling has earned its reputation as one in which there are two rule-books for principle and actual, something typified by the fact that there was only one clean podium finisher during Armstrong's 7 tours. All the tour racers interviewed were convicted dopers, frankly I'd have found it refreshing to the narrative if we heard from a cyclist who had spoken out against doping due to conscious like Christophe Bassons, his story could have really reinforced mafia sub-narrative running through the film. When it comes to reasons for doping I felt the film put too much emphasis on it being about keeping up with competitors as opposed to the overwhelming physical pressure cycling puts on the body which makes doping hard to resist.

This of course should only be seen as a minor criticism because this film is a character study rather than a documentary about sport which is the reason this film should have a wide appeal for anyone who's interested in the darker side of power and ambition.

Associated Press Success!!!

I've finally been able to break my online silence about my success with the Associated Press's Generational Video Challenge now that it has been publicised on journalism.co.uk. You can follow the link below to see my winning video and an accompanying article by Rachel Bartlett:

bit.ly/1lA6QsG 

The Generational Video challenge was a competition for students in journalism to make a video that would appeal to young people between the ages of 16 and 25 and edited together for an online audience. The AP gave each of us access to their latest video content from across the globe. The breadth and diversity of the material was overwhelming, there are so many stories out there!

I chose to do a video about American schoolchildren being taught to use social media in class primarily because the story was about people who were of a similar age to the target audience. With (a lot of) help from my girlfriend Sally, I chose a backing track that helped underscore the storyline in a way that wasn't too distracting but acted as ear-pleasing filler when there was no interesting audio from the footage itself. I chose to use text rather than my own voice to provide narrative to the story in the manner that can be seen in the successful online video series Alltime10s who give their lists flow by using some atmospheric background music and brief sentences to give viewers the juicy bits of the story. I believe people engage more with information if they read it, the written word only becomes boring if it goes on too long, so brief sentences shouldn't be a problem.

My experience with the AP has put my head above the clouds, now I hope I can pull the rest of me up and get somewhere with this journalism lark!

Now we are in the digital age, is there any need for the requirement that broadcasters in the UK must be impartial?

Digital technology has transformed the way broadcasting has been produced and viewed over the last two decades, less equipment and technical expertise is required for broadcasters to impart information to the audience who have more discretion about when, where and how to consume their output. Traditionally broadcasters worked under stricter regulations than print media which was self-evident in an analogue world, but now digital technology on the internet and a multi-channel set-up is leading to a convergence of the mediums and more exposure for non-British media. Richard Tait (2008 p.118) believes that this is making it ‘increasingly difficult to distinguish between’ regulated and unregulated media.  

The impartiality requirements placed on licenced broadcasters by the Office of Communications (Ofcom) in the UK is contested. Broadcasters and journalists have criticised impartiality as; a limit to freedom of expression (Murdoch, 2009), a misleading claim to audiences (Harcup, 2009 p.83), disengaging to sections of society (Petley, 2010 p.603) and an impossible thing for subjective beings to achieve (Moore, 2013). Ofcom (2007 p.71) also fears that ‘universal impartiality may become less enforceable in a digital environment, where regulated and unregulated services exist side by side on the same platform.

Principled and practical challenges to impartiality mean that its place in future British broadcasting must be reconsidered. In this discussion I will consider arguments made for relaxing impartiality, primarily based on Lara Felden’s proposal for tiered regulation, while also considering arguments for its maintenance.

The Communications Act of 2003 gives Ofcom statutory authority to regulate broadcasters in the UK.  Ofcom regulates by responding to people’s complaints about programmes that have been broadcast. Ofcom then assesses the complaint with the standards it has laid down and decides whether to punish the offending programmes. Punishments can range from a reprimand to a removal of licence to broadcast in the UK (Hanna and Dodd, 2012 pp.22-3). Section 5 of the Ofcom Code (2013) requires broadcasters to show ‘due impartiality’ and ‘due accuracy’ when presenting the news, it defines this as:

‘“Due” means adequate or appropriate to the subject and nature of the programme ... . The approach to due impartiality may vary according to the nature of the subject, the type of programme and channel, the likely expectation of the audience as to content, and the extent to which the content and approach is signalled to the audience.’

The code stipulates with regards to programmes concerning a major political or industrial controversy and major matters of current public policy: ‘an appropriately wide range of significant views must be included and given due weight in each programme or in clearly linked and timely programmes.’

The BBC (2013a) meanwhile adheres to its own Editorial Guidelines: ‘impartiality involves a mixture of accuracy, balance, context, distance, even-handedness, fairness, objectivity, open-mindedness, rigour, self-awareness, transparency and truth. But it is also about breadth of view and completeness. Impartiality in programme-making is often achieved by bringing extra perspectives to bear, rather than limiting horizons or censoring opinion.’ Felden (2011 p.41) spots inconsistencies between both codes, which could lead to confusion for consumers. For example the BBC Trust (2011) says that a “false balance” should not be given between well-established fact and opinion regarding science. Hypothetically this would mean that it unlike Ofcom it would have deemed Channel 4’s The Great Global Warming Swindle to have breached their code regarding a partial presentation of science because it did not present the view of the majority of the scientific community.

Statutory regulation in broadcasting has traditionally been seen as necessary due to the impact broadcasting has on the public, meaning anyone with access to the scarce analogue technology was obliged to rules of quality and diversity if they wished to broadcast. There is the view that the consequential impartiality requirements have had a positive impact on the British media as a whole because it counterbalances the more partisan press. (Hanna and Dodd, 2012 p.22-3)

This is supported by journalists like Michael Buerk who believe it’s a journalist’s job to inform via impartial reports of the world:

“It is not our purpose to solve the world’s problems but to so inform a working democracy that those people will come to their own conclusions about what is right and wrong... If that line is crossed… then people will detect that agenda and not believe you in the same way as they would beforehand.” (Franks and Seaton, 2009 p.13)

Tony Harcup (2009 pp.83-90) says one of the virtues of a professional journalist is checking to see if a story stands up. Attempts to report and verify information in an objective or impartial way help you aim for the truth because it leads you to assessing conflicting claims and evidence. Such an approach can help prevent a journalist falling into error, for instance before the 2005 general election Bloomberg Television was required to broadcast a summary of an adjudication from Ofcom (2005) for unintentionally giving the Labour Party partial coverage compared to the other parties. The station clearly did not show ‘due impartiality’ in a time of ‘political controversy’ meaning viewers would have less of an idea of alternative party pledges.

Impartiality is especially useful for public service broadcasting (PSB) in order to achieve their aim of universal appeal and avoiding ‘vested interests’ which thereby justifies any public funding or support they receive. (Frost, 2011, p.207) According to a BBC report (2007 pp.19-21)  impartiality is something audiences want with 84% agreeing that while impartiality was difficult to achieve broadcasters must try very hard to do so. Other BBC (2013b) research suggests PSBs are perceived to be the most accurate, impartial and trustworthy media ahead of broadsheets and commercial broadcasters.

However aiming for objectivity and/or impartiality is difficult because you will inevitably have to select what to investigate and publish. (Harcup, 2009 p.88) This means you can overlook certain ground that will give viewers only a partial look at the world. For instance the BBC (2007 p.3) said in business stories they put too much emphasis on the consumer, whereas views on the workplace and international context went under-reported.  There are also times when overall reporting is not perceived to be representative leading to disengagement with the media and politics due to it seeming irrelevant or unfair; this was something an Ofcom report spotted in young viewers and black and minority ethnic communities. (Tait, 2008 p.111) Impartial presentation can be misleading if “due weight” is not applied, this was something Richard Sambrook acknowledged in the BBC’s coverage of the MMR vaccine where they got the balance wrong between a ‘maverick’ view and the rest of the scientific community, leading to a health scare. (YouTube, 2012b)

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky (2002 pp.293-303) also noted the influence of hegemony in defining the outlook of journalists, saying objectivity was possible but within ‘acceptable premises,’ thereby severely limiting alternative views. People have decried the tax-payer funded BBC as an organisation for not being impartial despite contrary claims. Melanie Phillips (2009) says it has an ‘inherent liberal bias’ when selecting stories and has the arrogance to deny it, while Cushion and Lewis (2009 p.149) and Berry (2013) believe that it’s overall selection of sources leads to it presenting a more conservative, Establishment view of the world. With regards to individual journalists Peter Horrocks (2006) believes the initial motive of most broadcasters was the desire “to tell people what to think.”

Impartiality is hard to achieve due to these ideological pressures, but the fact it is required and expected facilitates good quality journalism as well as public trust and debate.

The digital age is also known as the information age due to the way it has made knowledge and data more accessible for everyone.  In 2010 Ofcom Media Tracker found that after television, the internet was the second most trusted source for unbiased information, this was most noticeable amongst young respondents with 13% of 15 to 24 year olds saying they trusted it most, presumably indicating its influence is likely to grow (Felden, 2011 p.97). Broadcasters have responded by being active on the digital sphere with Channel 4 being the first of more than 80 broadcasters worldwide to make their catch-up content available on YouTube (Felden, 2008 pp.77-80), while the BBC has become a pioneer with regards to its extensive online services (Chapman, 2008 p.11). There is a desire amongst broadcasters to build popular digital spaces in order to spread their journalism and make it more informative, for instance the BBC (2012 p.8) wants to encourage its television broadcasters to refer viewers to the website so they could understand more and engage younger viewers.

This new environment they operate in is largely unregulated; easier access to a public space and broadcasting technology means people can publish partial and even distorted versions of the news (Harcup, 2008 p.253), for whatever reason they choose (YouTube, 2012a). This probably explains why a BBC report (2013b) found that online news and social media ranked lowest in people’s perception of trustworthiness, accuracy and impartiality. Yet Jeff Jarvis (2006) sees the digital space as a reason to be confident that debate will no longer be dominated by public and private media but the public themselves. Sambrook (2012 p.16) observes that the digital space has witnessed a proliferation of unverified journalism and that within this space that it is consumers rather than journalists that are choosing which regulated and unregulated, partial and impartial stories to consume. The internet is completely open to freedom of expression and consequently the spread of misinformation, meaning that users have to be more wary of a sources’ trustworthiness to avoid being misled.

Digital technology has increased the amount of broadcasters in the UK with Ofcom licencing around 750 channels, some of which target specific ethnic groups or non-UK audiences (Suter, 2008 p.117). Jackie Harrison (2008, p.65)  notes that the sheer volume and diversity of news outlets and their views on impartiality means: ‘that any evaluation of the news values of a particular news organisation needs to take into account the cultural, political and economic setting of the news organisation itself.’  Tim Suter (2008 p.117) feels this may make it difficult for impartiality requirements to be upheld due to the severe scale and limits affecting the regulator’s ability to monitor output.

Ofcom (2007 pp.2-10) has considered whether impartiality is worth enforcing on anything but PSBs, noting that a diverse voices maybe being excluded by the centrist news culture, mainstream news agenda and traditional ‘both-sides-of-the-argument’ approach: ‘It is possible that universal requirements for due impartiality may actually impeded the expression of genuine diversity of views, and that a less rigid approach might in future encourage greater engagement among those not currently inspired by mainstream sources.’

Myra MacDonald (Keeble, 2009 pp.17-19), notes that while subjective reporters are more susceptible to egotistical presentation their reports can help viewers understand the stories they are telling better. Hargreaves and Thomas (2002 pp.105-6) expressed the view that in the case of minority interest channels Ofcom could afford to be more flexible with ‘due impartiality,’ allowing such channels to depart from standard impartiality rules: ‘so long as consumers know what they are getting and which services conform to impartiality rules and which do not.’

While he was still Director General to the BBC, Mark Thompson stated that with the collapse of distinction between digital and broadcast spaces there were valid arguments for non-PSB channels dropping impartiality:

“Why shouldn't the public be able to see and hear, as well as read, a range of opinionated journalism and then make up their own mind what they think about it?  The BBC and Channel 4 have a history of clearly labelled polemical programmes. But why not entire polemical channels which have got stronger opinions?” (Sherwin, 2010)

Ofcom has in the past fined special interest non-PSB channels such as Press TV, an Iranian international television network, for not presenting alternative views in a programme about the Israeli-Palestine conflict, thus breaching Section 5 of Ofcom’s Code. In a news release Press TV were evidentially incredulous about being fined for being bias in this non-news program:

‘How could it help but be biased?... Remember, we are talking about a program showcasing Palestinian and pro-Palestinian views on various events. This particular episode was about the flotilla incident, so it should come as no surprise that the

guests would express pro-Palestinian views. In fact, the program makes no bones about the views expressed on it. To start out with, there’s the title, Remembering Palestine. That, in itself, is a dead giveaway.’(Felden, 2011 pp.29-31)

Press TV’s argument that it had an obvious agenda supports the argument put forward by Suter (2008 pp.118-9) that future regulations should only rarely take decisions away from consumers and instead help the audience make their own informed decisions. He states that while impartiality is important and could never conceivably be taken away from public broadcasters its primary purpose was to create and ensure trust.

The expansion of broadcast on regulated and unregulated digital technologies has led to something of a crisis of trust as increasingly consumers make choices to watch and listen to things where impartiality may not be assured, while websites like the BBC take an impartial line a great deal of other online broadcasters don’t. Lara Felden (2011 pp.117-26) suggests that the main way to ensure people can trust sources or make informed decisions about perceived bias is to distinguish between broadcasts. This would be achieved via a tiered regulation system to be applied across platforms where the level of quality would be determined by a kitemark:

• ·         Tier1 : All public service content has a compulsory requirement for impartiality whether it be broadcast, on-demand or online. Non-PSBs can opt in as a mark of quality and excellence.
•        Tier2: Accuracy in news is still essential with voluntary, incentivised, transparent, ethical media standards encouraged in a framework with fewer rules. It would apply to private media, print and online, non-PSBs video and audio on-demand providers and independent bloggers. It would still be liable to statutory requirements which could lead to sanctions and investigations. Also as well as being a mark of a certain quality to be viewed by consumers, joining will also reap benefits like accredited court reported and greater favour with advertisers.
•              Tier 3: Minimum statutory requirements agreed for TV and video on-demand on a European level in relation to child protection and hate speech. Unregulated content includes print and online and would receive no standards kitemark.

Steven Barnett (2010) is critical of the arguments against impartiality, that it discourages; choice, innovation, engagement, diversity and appeal in the media. He states there is no evidence to show that moving away from it would improve any of these things. He also states that even in a digital realm Ofcom wouldn’t be overstretched because they operate depending on complaints rather than monitoring round-the-clock. Many of the problems noted above are largely down to a lack of representation rather than impartiality, Horrocks (2006) argues that a wider net needs to be cast by broadcasters to achieve ‘radical impartiality’ which will enable a  wide range of views from all sides to be heard regularly and honestly by the bulk of the population.

Without impartiality a competitive media market can become a prejudiced media market, as Harvard  economists Sendhil Mullainathan and Andrei Shleifer (2005 p.1041)  concluded in their research into the newspaper market, ‘competition forces newspapers to cater to the prejudices of their readers, and greater competition typically results in more aggressive catering to such prejudices as competitors strive to divide the market.’ In their study of Fox News Joseph Amann and Tom Breuer (2007 pp.8-11) noted that even when a study by the University of Maryland showed Fox News’ viewers were ‘morons’ as a result of how much they had been misled by the channel with regards to the Iraq War, the channel made no effort to rectify this. They say Fox’s personality- and opinion-based infotainment is a great seller of right-wing pandering and/or propaganda. Washington Post journalist William Raspberry said in 2005 that public confidence in news was threatened by Fox News because its popularity was leading to its competitors mimicking its reporting style leading to a decline in quality. Felden (2011 p.34) contests that slack accuracy requirements have caused the most damage rather than the relaxing of impartiality requirements, with reprimands for distortion of news only being given out when there is provable intent. Whatever the reason surveys show that TV is trusted by 85% of the British public compared to a third in the United States (Cushion and Lewis, 2009 p.149). Murdoch’s desire to turn Sky News more into Fox News certainly has journalists and regulators worried about the consequences. (Petley, 2010 pp.610-1) Richard Sambrook (Youtube, 2012b) laments that impartial broadcast voices in the USA are lost amongst the competition and that regulation is unlikely to return there, which offers validity to Suzanne Franks (2009 p.14) assertion that ‘impartiality is rather like virginity, it cannot be recovered.’

The overreaching regulatory framework is still supported my many. Cushion and Lewis (2009 p.150) say it helps maintain journalistic standards even on non-PSB channels like Sky News. Channel 4 (Ofcom, 2007) argues that Sky News is the only major non-PSB news-provider and that if impartiality rules were relaxed it could become the partial news supplier; giving it the power to choose a political agenda could lead to other political parties being without any voice in the TV news market leading to unrepresentative public influence.  Channel 4 also contends that any limits to expression have been virtually removed by the unregulated internet which means there isn’t a pressing need to deregulate TV news as well.

Sambrook (2012 p.21) notes while it may be easy to express yourself online it’s distinctly harder to be influential. Tait (2008 p.111)  observes that in this online environment, ‘there is scarcely a shortage of opinionated, targeted news and comment for those who do not want their existing view of the world challenged.’ Sunstein (2007) believes that such a trend, ‘works against the chance of any kind of shared public forum that signifies a democratic environment.’ David Cox feels a solution to social polarisation could be impartial broadcasters:

‘Arguably, the forces threatening broadcasting impartiality make it all the more necessary. The more society atomises, the more important a common thread of meaning becomes. The limitations inherent in the quest for impartiality need not be decisive. Complaints about the bias and perspective can be acknowledged, debated and accommodated. In the process, they can themselves help reshape, enhance and enlarge the area of potential agreement.’ (Sambrook, 2012 pp.31-2)

Impartiality requirements are likely to remain in place across all television and radio in the UK. Demands on deregulation lack substantial support amongst politicians, the public or broadcast journalists. The American experience of news deregulation is not appealing to many here because it isn’t seen as beneficial to public debate or awareness. Impartiality requirements are a limit to prejudice and a facilitator for diversity due a broadcaster’s obligation to be representative. People can find and express partial information and misinformation on the unregulated internet without it having much of an adverse effect on the standards of professional broadcast journalism and the majority of the population. Felden’s proposal for tiered regulation could be a useful feature for consumers of online media whether it is for broadcasters or print. In cyberspace anyone can hear you scream and it’s hard to be heard amongst the billions of voices, but with a widely recognised kitemark it can help show you have something trustworthy to share and if you’re not a widely recognised brand like the BBC this could be invaluable.

Bibliography

Secondary Sources: Books

Amann, Joseph Minton and Breuer, Tom (2007) Fair and Balanced, My Ass!: An Unbridled Look at the Bizarre Reality of Fox News, New York: Nation Books.

Chapman, Jane and Kinsey, Marie (eds.) (2008) Broadcast Journalism: a critical introduction, London: Routledge.

Chomsky, Noam and Herman, Edward S.(2002) Manufacturing consent : the political economy of the mass media, New York : Pantheon Books.

Frost, Chris (2011) Journalism Ethics and Regulation, Harlow: Longman.

Hanna, Mark and Dodd, Mike (2012) McNae’s Essential Law for journalists, 21^st edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Youtube, 2012b, Richard Sambrook on the BBC & impartiality. [online] Available at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCFljlXxvQ4  [Accessed 23 January 2014]

Youtube, 2013, Archive: BBC values – impartiality. [online] Available at:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugaKVhqrcvc [Accessed 8 January 2014]

Link to my radio work

Here is a link to some of the radio work I have produced either as part of my course or in my radio show with the student run Forge Radio.

https://soundcloud.com/adpagey/sets/news-stuff

Sheffield's Great War

Weston Park Museum exhibits Sheffield's experience of the Great War. From the rats in the trenches to an elephant in a factory there is plenty to delight and surprise the whole family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0NFLew9Rh4

Filmed by Ellie Mumford-Mears

Kieron Bryan talk at the University of Sheffield

Journalist Kieron Bryan talking at Sheffield University on 11th February 2014 talking about his coverage of the Arctic 30.

Here he talks about his arrest and imprisonment. Cuts off before the end I'm afraid.

Links to articles and videos I made

My YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpK9TvnJ6lAN1ro7WA1Os_A/videos

My Format 13 blog
http://format13adpagey.blogspot.co.uk/

My AIESEC KNUST blog in Ghana
http://aiesec-knustwithadpagey.blogspot.co.uk/

'Feature: Best of 2011', Forge Today, 20 February 2012,
http://forgetoday.com/games/feature-best-of-2011/

'Retro Corner: Hitman: Blood Money', Forge Today. 18th May 2012, http://forgetoday.com/games/retro-corner-hitman-blood-money/

'Step into revealing world of emerging artists at show in gallery',  Derby Telegraph, 24th May 2013
http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Step-revealing-world-emerging-artists-gallery/story-19078093-detail/story.html

'5 Lies About the Vietnam War You Probably Believe', Cracked.com, 9th June 2013
http://www.cracked.com/article_20461_5-lies-about-vietnam-war-you-probably-believe.html

'Street trail shows that home is where the art is', Derby Telegraph, 21st June 2013
http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Street-trail-shows-home-art/story-19350751-detail/story.html

Do you know who owns this library?

Do you know who owns this library?

Campaigners trying to save a Sheffield library face more uncertainty due to its lack of owner.

Stannington Library is easy for rural and disabled people to access.

The Save Stannington Library group were surprised to be told by Sheffield City Council that they had no record of who owned the library. The group are trying to run it independent from the Council but will not be able to until they have an owner to take it from.

The Library will close unless campaigners can show they have a workable plan for running it by the 10^th January 2014.

Campaigner Jenny Van Tinteren has asked for more information about the library to support their bid but it has not been provided.

“That’s been a bit of an obstacle for us because we did want our outline bid to be as accurate as possible,” said Ms Van Tinteren.

Lynne Richardson, Project Manager for Library Reviews, said despite its lack of records: “The council is 99% sure that it owns Stannington Library.”

A non-civil service

The Council is trying to save nearly £1.7 million by cutting library budgets. A Council report said Stannington Library did not warrant further Council funding due to lack of use.

However Lib Dem Stannington Councillor David Baker said: “This rural area has no other way of accessing a library. Hillsborough library is difficult to park at and when you do park it’s a long way to walk if you’re disabled.”

The Save Stannington Library group has been given a guidance pack by the Council and is seeking advice from other libraries.

Ms Van Tinteren said: “We’re hoping we can introduce new services but we have got to be sustainable and viable. So there are likely to be services that would generate funding.”

Descending the Ivory Tower

I have been meaning to start this blog for ages; there’s just been one snag which I was warned about by my master’s tutor before I even started the course…

It may just be an excuse for being lazy but I do feel this new chosen path of mine is one that doesn’t leave a lot of free time. Even before my course began I felt overstretched; twelve hours of meeting-and-greeting the dozens of other journos I felt socially exhausted, I was on the verge of quoting John McClane from Die Hard 2 albeit without kicking someone in the face. 

The constant updates of people and information in my life has left little room for habit and old ways. Video games are now an occasional hobby, I’ve accepted the likelihood that a great many people are out of my life for good now and I doubt I’ll be emerging from a library droopy-eyed at 3am again. I’ve always believed you need balance in life but now it’s hard to place the pivot, how can I lift the work side of the seesaw when it is being weighed down by the whole world? I chose History and journalism as degrees because they cut no area of study off, everything is interesting but now I can understand why people narrow/focus their view of the world, we are human.

The infallibility of humanity had been a lesson repeated repeatedly in all the books I’d read before the course, this influenced my decision to go on a broadcast journalism course. Opportunities in the media are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain and you have to make use of them when you have your chance, so it’s best to make those initial mistakes in a situation that’s not going to cost you your dream job. 

Sheffield is a brilliant place to begin my journalism career, with a diverse, riveting city and course to explore for stories. All of my tutors know their stuff and know how to teach it; even the media law classes are interesting. I’ve refined aspects of my speech, writing and filming and absorbed anecdotes galore. Getting rid of the ‘extra detail’ (referred to as  ‘waffle’ by my old History teacher ) that has been a feature of my academic work has not been a painless experience, choosing the facts and the words to describe them in an accessible way can be surprisingly tricky, especially when you’re against the clock.

Radio newsdays have been very stimulating on the mind even if all the hair surrounding it is falling out. Everyone’s getting an idea of what’s expected of them; find a story, confirm a story, get more information on a story, write up a story all in the space of an hour, including a bit of spare time to allow the bulletin reader a chance to rehearse names like Yanukovych and Rajapaksa (for when there’s not enough going on in South Yorkshire). I’ve carved out a niche as biscuit supplier but I’m looking forward to being an editor, hopefully by that time we’ll all be comfortable enough to be short (i.e. rude) with one-another.

Going out on the patch has been good fun too; I was allocated to cover stories between the villages of Loxley and Bradfield at the edge of the Peak District National Park. At first I felt apprehensive, I joked with other rural-based journalists that we’d have to hope for a hidden corruption story akin to Hot Fuzz but when I visited each village I realised it wasn’t so bad.

I was confident that I had the most beautiful patch of anyone so I set about looking for stuff to film, I soon struck gold when I realised the Sheffield Canoe Club did something called a Candle Light Paddle in Oughtibridge…



I had a massive apprehension dream before filming caused by the fact someone else booked out the low-light DLSR camera before me, this meant my footage with a standard DSLR wasn’t as vivid as it could have been. I had to make sure I edited it in such a way that viewers would know that they were watching kayakers. I also had to beg my girlfriend to join me filming because the paddle was a one-off event, at least she got to see countryside again after being in London for a month even if that meant being bit my midges (sorry again Sally).

Stories for radio and for a web article were decent adventures too. In my first radio piece I got to gallivant around the Peak roads in an army truck with John Gill from the Bradfield Brewery.

 I had arranged to get my second radio piece that same day; I had cycled to my patch on a fine clear day which was without difficulty until I had to cycle down the steep road from High Bradfield to Low Bradfield. I started descending the hill and started to pick up speed pretty quickly, my cautious side kicked in too late, possibly due to the adrenaline rush I was still feeling from the truck, I started braking when I was going 20mph downhill on what turned out to be a slippery road, I didn’t slow down which made me panic, pressing down hard on the brakes which locked. I knew I was going to crash, I had three seconds to think: ‘fall on your left side you don’t need it as much.’ I fell to the tarmac bashing my left knee and wrist, my water bottle sprang from my bike and started rolling down the hill, I chased it as fast as I could with a big rucksack on my back. When I eventually collected everything together I headed down to Low Bradfield where I was able to fix the chain on my bike thanks to the staff at the post office.

I limped to my next story, Bogfest, an open mic night trying to raise funds for Bradfield’s public toilets.

While I was there I got chatting to several locals, many of which immediately said to me “Are you the chap who fell off his bike earlier?” Word travels fast. It turns out a further two accidents occurred on the same bit of road later that day, including one car that ended up on its roof, lucky nobody was hurt. May have made a decent story but it may have been awkward to interview myself! So I ended up with three stories out of five quite quickly, even if I did now have a slightly bust wrist that excused me from going in goal on cold winter nights, what a pity.

I attended several City and Bradfield Parish Council meetings where my shorthand struggled to keep up but gave me some interesting leads, namely the proposals to put up two wind turbines in Deepcar. The eventual planning meeting was a certainly a revelation in how long administrative stuff goes on for and how furious elderly people can be in public. The turbines were rejected so I had the story but it missed one big element, the farmer who was going to put them up, which made it difficult to be impartial when it seemed like I had the opinion of a whole City against nobody!

This was going to be my web story but it was shunted from my portfolio by the revelation that a local library in Stannington had no owner, which was a problem for a group looking to take over the running of the library from the council. I rang numerous people involved and got my story, I just needed a picture to go with it. I therefore decided to take pictures of the front of the library of people coming in and out. Partly to avoid looking like the nerdiest paparazzo ever I spoke to a few library users about what they thought about the library’s future.

Getting a three minute radio interview was very frustrating, I tried a charity worker, an old school friend and a nun but none were available to talk. I eventually found a local Historian who was working on the commemorations for the Great Sheffield Flood which made for a decent feature.

However this interview also nearly got trumped by the Twitter revelation that there had been an armed robbery at the Oughtibridge Post Office where the owner had been hit on the head with a gun.

This caused a minor panic attack; this was a story too ‘good’ to miss but which I didn’t have time to do, not-to-mention the difficulty of handling such a traumatic situation. I tried ringing the police but the officer handling the case wasn’t on duty, so I had to sink my anxieties and call the Post Office itself. I first got hold of the victim’s daughter, the shakes in her voice made me feel like putting the phone down immediately but I persisted and asked whether he was available to talk, she told me he would in five hours. The screws in my chest rotated with the clock five times as I waited. I finally rang back with one thought in my mind, be sensitive, I can’t understand what this person has gone through so be gentle. When he picked up I spoke a bit too softly and he asked me to speak up, I apologised and said I was sorry to hear what had happened to him and would be available to talk about what had happened. He said the police had told him not to speak to anyone about the incident, I said I respected that and said I hoped whoever did it would be caught soon, he thanked me for calling and we hung up. Although I had no story I can say I’m glad I spoke to him, it made me realise that such things are only as awkward as you make them and that strangers aren't always hostile when you take interest in their well-being so you might as well ask.

The return to academia has not been a return to footnotes and books; it has been a lesson about how to apply oneself to real world situations, situations with normal people. I’m not excluding my study or communication to academics; I’m descending the ivory tower into the real world. Just like a tower my task seems constraining, steep and dizzying but this is the price I’m prepared to pay for what I want to do with my life.

Marie has not been wrong so far about the intensity of the course, which is why this overseen tweet makes me wary of whether I will be able to keep this blog fresh…