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“Ladies, lemme see you” get that job! (You can get down low after)

Getting a decent job in the media industry is about as easy returning stuff you know you shouldn’t have bought in the 1st place. a) It takes a lot of effort…but most of all b) there’s always a queue of people in front of you who ALL want to do the same thing!

If you’re a student or a media hopeful, you will have heard the two golden words uttered to you many a time “Work” and “Experience”. But where should you apply to? And how do you make slaving away making cups of tea for everyone worthwhile?

I spoke to Jenny Wood (Features Editor) and Jo Adnitt (Journalist) both from Look magazine: The Largest selling Fashion Weekly in the UK for advice and pearls of wisdom on work experience in the journo world.

Jenny Wood’s 1st work experience was at a small health and beauty magazine called…. “Real Health and Beauty” (taa-daa). And the 1st words she had commanded at her were “Great, you’re here! There’s a 16 page sport section, GO!”

“Don’t go to big name mags cos there’s less for you to do,” she advises. Many of us, myself included, think that by getting a few weeks at a top glossy magazine will be better than a lame one that no ones heard of as it look’s good on the old CV. Tis true that bigger names are impressive, but they generally don’t have the time to give each successful applicant real journalism experience or an opportunity to contribute in anyway.

So if “you wanna stand out and write some stuff, go to Smiths, look for a mag you’ve never heard of” and apply there for the most worthwhile experience.

“Work hard, work hard work hard,” says Jo, the journo on features. “Be willing to do anything. Literally do anything, no matter how small it is!” The work experience girl/boy is usually associated with serventhood and doing mundane tasks. But this is changing as in April NUJ workers were pushing for a minimum wage in the media industry so that  employers can’t use internships as a way to get work done for free. But until then, if you do get work experience, make the most of the opportunity, listen to what goes on around you, ask questions, “use your initiative and be proactive”.

And if you cock up at some point, don’t feel bad, just pick yourself up, remind yourself that you’re only human, and keep stepping.

“…I forgot to record an interview once, one that I didn’t take any notes for…” confesses Jo.

So tell me something new?..

Recently, Stephen Moss, reported for the Guardian in the article “Defying Darwin”. I find the debates and new evidence in creationism very interesting, but ended up reading page after page of copy, and leaning back from the article very disappointed. Those four pages in G2 contain over 4000 words of quotes from various creationists and other prominent figures in the debate but they all talk “around” the subject. No hard evidence,  then.

You can’t describe the debate on creationism vs evolution as a “hot topic”, linguistically this phrase simply doesn’t award the debate enough fire. I assume that the fire started burning when Darwin first began to publish his ideas on the evolution of species about 200-150 years ago and to begin with he was not taken seriously, was mocked, and disregarded as not having enough evidence to oppose the Biblical view of how the world was made.I t’s interesting, in comparison, that this is the exact way that people who believe in a young earth, “creationists”, are perceived in media today. A total reversal of social attitudes to science.

Firstly, I understand that Moss is writing a feature, so his work here could sit under the umbrella of “infotainment”, which it gives detailed descriptions of the people side of the debate- people’s characters and their appearances etc. But I can’t ignore or step over the gaping hole in the article- there’s little mention of the evidence that creationists fundamentally support. Surely this is the essence of the debate? Maybe it is because Moss prefers evolution, but as a journalist isn’t it his role to remain objective?

In a recent lecture David Leigh, a longstanding Guardian journalist, said that it’s near enough impossible to write objectively or be fair in reporting. ” To be fair,” Leigh explains “writing ‘A plane crashed today’ [in an article],would have to be followed by ‘but 3,700 others landed safely”. Which illustrates how “fairness” can’t be achieved- but Moss could have had a go at it!

For example he could have mentioned the links between Genesis- the 1st book of the Bible and ancient Chinese linguistics. I’m not rewriting Moss’ feature so I’ll just put one example…

Chinese words compose of small pictures that come together to form one word or phrase. Here the word “boat” is studied and broken down into its smaller root meanings, explained the picture.

From donet.com

What creationists are trying to explain is that the “eight” and “people” symbols, represent the eight people in Noah’s family who lived on the ark or “vessel” in the story of Noah and the Ark, so they’re saying that the ancient language, recognises Biblical stories.

Or the article could have mentioned the discoveries over the last 10 years that scientists have found. In 2005, MSNBC aired a story about how scientists discovered, red blood cells, tissues, and even blood vessels in dinosaur bones. This favours creationists as they understand that soft tissues cannot survive for 65 million years underground, they would simply disintegrate, in the same way human bones do. It’s all interesting and debatable information, but information like this failed to make it to the article.

I suppose I’m banging on about the creationist side more a) because I believe in it myself (making me completely biased) but also because b) evolution is taught as fact in school, so we all already know that side of the argument.

Maybe Moss, like all other journo’s, didnt have much time to get the article together, so therefore couldn’t go as deep into debate as he wanted, but with a word count of 4159 words, and the internet at his fingertips, you’d think some of it would get in there.

“Attention Fatties: Come this way and we’ll sort your life out!” Channel 4 says.

IF YOU’RE FAT- WADDLE THIS WAY>>>> and don’t squash the skinny person on the way.

A style of reality TV is popular among us Brits. It’s the type of programme that is meant to make its viewer feel bad for being such unhealthy, TV addicted, smoking, binging slobs. Problem is, by the time most of us have tuned in to these programmes, half of the deep-fried-chocolate-icing-covered doughnut with mars bar on top has already made it to our stomach. Well, that’s the case with me and my friends anyway.

The best thing about programmes like Super Skinny V.s Super Fat, and You Are What You Eat, is that they either make you feel better about yourself if you are not an extreme of 25 St or 6st, or they are simply comical as the Guardian’s Sam Wollaston commented, “Come on, this is just an excuse to show a really, really fat person standing next to a really, really thin person, in their underwear. So we sit on the sofa at home going: “Euuurggh!” Funny-body porn”.

In Super Skinny vs Super Fat, the two extreme’s swap diets, but I can’t think how that would help the other to gain a better relationship with food. For instance, I love cheesecake, it someone made me swap that for one cracker a month, it would only show me how much I love cheesecake! Duh! I haven’t had a TV for over 9 months now, but with shizzle like this on screen BBC iPlayer and 4od is becoming ever more unappealing.

It’s not news!

A passerby: “Alicia, why do you look so annoyed?”

Alicia: “Big’orse it’s not news”

(Geddit? If not, read below, hopefully the cheesy joke will make sense)

I tried to catch up on news two days ago by tuning into BBC News 24- I chose it because it’s free from the website and that suits my student budget. However, my eyes glazed over as soon as I figured out what the “news” story was. Picture this…. one bored looking middle aged man (the journalist) and another man that looked far too excited to be standing in a field of grass on a cold day. Turns out a larger than life sculpture of a giant white horse has been chosen to represent the east of England, costing not a pound short of £2 million.

The excited man is Mark Wallinger, the designer of the project who was short listed by the EbbsFleet Landmarks Project. It’s supposed to be symbol of the London’s growth and expansion towards the east… but I can’t help but think about how mush this story annoys me.

Firstly, £2 million is a lot for a horse. ’nuff said.

Secondly, the thing with 24 hour relevant news doesnt just appear every 30 seconds. Day to day life is fairly dry, with breaking news only happening at odd parts of the day. But because of 24 hour news they have to talk about something to pass the time.

24 hour news has its benefits, for example, when a disaster has just happened and you cannot wait till 6pm or 10pm to find out what’s going on. But on this particular story about the horse, even the reporter, David Stillito looked passive.

I use the linguistic term “filler” to describe these stories. Just like in conversation, when you cannot think of the right word to say, so instead you say “erm”,”uh” or “err”. In the same way I view these stories as fillers because they act like gaps and pauses until the programme reaches the real news.

Just this week in a talk by Sergeant Stoddart at the University of Westminster, it was mentioned how the pressure that journalists have on them to constantly construct the news for 24 hour agencies means that the press are constantly doorstepping and pressing for information from the organization in question.

For example during the Buncefield fire, Corporate Communications (CC) (the police department who answer to the press) had no idea what had started the fire. In the end it turned out to be an accident but at the time 24 hour news stations had terrorism “experts” discussing their views on this possible attack.

It’s clear that this was due to the pressure on journalists and reporters to put some kind of information on the broadcasts, but wouldn’t you rather have a factual, well researched presentation of information that took longer to compose and get together, than on-the-hour speculation and confusion? This started off as a rant about bored looking men on screen talking about horses but I suppose there are further problems with 24 hour news.

Go fug yourself

Today I’m going start with my conclusion. All in all, journalism is always changing. Every time new technology comes in, so does a new style of communication. There was a time when people no longer relied on newspapers for their daily source of news because television was new. Newsreels were shown in cinema’s during the 20′s but the same feeling of mistrust towards new technology has always been felt. Blogs are the new kid on the block and Brits love them like the fat kid loves cake.

Are they real news though? Well, what is real news? We often distinguish between “hard” and “soft” news, casting off the latter to be a bit of a joke. But even someone who is engrossed in the world of celebrity and its softness, and reads bubblegum magazines like “Hello!” “More” or “Cosmo”, considers Paris Hiltons new jail sentence as news. SO maybe news is whatever is important to its reader- therefore making it more personal. For me there doesn’t seem to be one definition of what is news and what isn’t, as long as its new information and is meaningful to a sizable gruop out there.

So when looking at blogs such as go fug yourself- a celebrity blog about fashion faux pars I think it does serve some credit. The writers have even released their own book, “The Fug Book”. It serves a niche market- people who love to hate celebrities, and to them the lastest bing bag of a dress at the Oscars is news for them.

Boycott!

Holocaust reflections dawn in January, but due to the Israeli attack this year, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) decided to boycott it by not sending representatives to participate in the day.

It’s brave, its eye-catching, it might even get the attention of some politicians who don’t care. But essentially it’s unhelpful.  What has happened in Gaza is horrific and one sided, over a thousand have died, leaving behind thousands more deal with the aftermath of it. But I don’t think boycotting the Memorial Day will help the people who are suffering the most. Or avenge them in anyway.  Does it open the eyes of Israeli officials the crimes commited? Or does  it give more ammo to the Israeli’s to justify the bloodshed?

I am not saying that MCB are completely ineffective in this latest action.

One of their main points according to Iqbal Sacranie secretary-general of the MBC, is how other genocides in history are not given the same recognition such as the genocide in Rwanda and “ethnic cleansing” practices through out the world. Any one in earshot of me in a café would have heard me rant about how the enslaving and trade of West Africans for four hundred years doesn’t have a period of memorial each year. I agree with Sacranie here, but as people are still suffering from the impact of the attack I do not feel that this is where the focus should be.

History has always depended on “who’s-story” (geddit?) it is- who is telling it. And I suppose by not involving themselves in the ceremony they are standing up for something instead of nothing. And in years to come history books might even cover this (although probably not). But I cannot help the humanitarian in me who would rather prioritise strengths. The images of the attack will last far longer in my mind than the Holocaust Memorial Day duties, I can’t even think how much those images will burn into the people who were actually there in the middle of it.

Shouldn’t all efforts and energy be focused on sorting out the immediate problem of resoting peoples lives first?

Maybe I’m being ignorant, after all I’ve only read 20 lines of this story from the PA…. :-/