The Terrier

File Under Selfish Help

2006-01-31T08:27:00.000-08:00

Working in a bookshop, I often find myself people watching. There are a number of distinct species for the budding literary Attenborough to observe. All have their own little foibles, hopes and fears that have to be indulged for them to leave the store happy.

There are the Literary Trainspotters, who need to be made aware of the latest fiction titles to supplement their fine knowledge of the classics. They tend to ask for the release date of new titles, and look mildly crushed when told their chosen book isn't due out for another four months.

There are the Drifters, who amble around the store, occasionally picking up a book before carefully placing it back on the shelf. Then, there are Tornado Drifters - they also wander around aimlessly and pick up odd titles, but they never put the book back in its rightful place.

Section Dwellers are perhaps the most orthodox group. They invariably gravitate to one part of the shop, and carefully compare and consider the available books on display. This takes time - edition, format, price and dust jacket quotes are pored over in detail before the dweller chooses a book, thins their lips and marches determinedly over to the till. They usually pay cash.

Of these Section Dwellers, one needs to be treated with the utmost care - the Selves Needing Help. They are the most nervous looking, yet paradoxically the most demanding. They always have a specific title in mind, usually written on a piece of paper. Sample conversation:

Section Dweller Needing Self-Help (barging into queue): "Hi, I'm looking for a book."

Bookseller: "Right, ok. Do you have the title?"

Section Dweller Needing Self-Help: "Yeah. It's called 'Nurture Your Inner Plant'."

Bookseller (tapping into computer): "Ok... yep. We have it, but there's only one copy left. Sometimes it's tricky when there's only one in the shop. Let's take a look. (Looking along shelves) Er, no...it's not looking good, I'm afraid. Maybe someone else got to it first."

Section Dweller Needing Self-Help: "They can't have! Your computer says there is one left!"

Bookseller (sensing mild indignation): "I do apologise. As I said, either a customer in the store now has it in their hand, or it's been moved. It does happen, I'm afraid."

Section Dweller Needing Self-Help (narowing eyes): "Well, that doesn't help me, does it? Can I order it? This is ridiculous."

Bookseller (resisting temptation to tell customer to read some decent philosophy, rather than the cod-religious babble that is contained in 'Nurture Your Inner Plant'): "Yeah... I'll just finish attending to the gentleman who I was serving first, and I'll sort it for you."

Section Dweller Needing Self-Help (sighing loudly and glaring at bookseller): "Look, I'll just leave it. This is terrible - you're supposed to be a bookstore! Come on Harvey, let's go to Starbucks." (takes young and expensively dressed tot by the hand, and leaves).

At first, one is taken aback by the Selves Needing Help. Their brusque approach to getting their dose of help in book form belies their shiny and preened appearance. After half a dozen of exchanges similar to the example above, the bookseller knows that to cater to every need of the Self Needing Help is fruitless.

The reason it is futile? Because you rarely get a thank you. While the shelves are crammed with books promising increases in qualities such as confidence, assertiveness and libido, it strikes me that titles advocating kindness and respect to others are in small supply. This was ably summed up by a woman who stormed up to the till on a busy Saturday afternoon and barked "How much is THIS?", brandishing 'The Little Book of Karma'. When told its price, she merely grunted, tossed her head and trotted away. Now, that can't good for karma.

The Selves Needing Help are comforted, cossetted and indulged by grinning, supine, permatanned moral pamphleteers. These particular authors are in love with their bank balance as much as their own reflection. It's an odd state of affairs when we decry the excesses of TV evangelists while applauding the wide-brushstroke approach of the self-help book industry.

I flicked through a couple of these books recently. Bearing in mind that the aim of self-help books is to calm, invigorate and reorganise, there is a whole lot of bossing around going on between the pages. Stuff like: "That's right! You have to RELEASE THAT ANGER! Say it - "Now I'm calm! I'm collected! I'm SEXY! EVERYONE WANTS ME!" Now, that feels good, yeah? Great!" I felt tired after two pages of this 'encouragement'.

To this end, it's little wonder the Selves Needing Help need to keep on replenishing their reading pile. If they read a book on stress avoidance, they risk losing their assertiveness and becoming a sap. A title promising a perfect love life must be swiftly followed by a book on not allowing your partner to get one over on you. Once bitten, the Self Needing Help must keep on topping up their level of emotional intelligence (whatever that is). Planting the seeds of doubt whilst professing to renovate the lives of readers is blind self-interest on the part of the self-help industry.

We all know about the Bilderberg Convention, the hotel jaunt where heads of government and big business sit and discuss how the world works. Next time they convene, undercover journalists should look at another hotel along the road. My theory - Raj Persaud, Paul McKenna and Alain De Botton presiding over rows of smiling beautiful people, all working on self-help texts. Their mantra? "I can HELP! AND IT FEELS GOOOOOD!"

Their ideas go on flip charts, the ratio of 'self-help to personal doubt' is plotted, and the revenues from the books roll in. Personally, I'm convinced on the above convention's existence. Trust in meeeee, just in meeee...

Terrorbyte

2006-01-22T11:10:00.000-08:00

A workmate today told me about the damage done to a new book she had bought. As she turned over in bed, her duvet knocked a glass of squash over, onto the book. She was only slightly aggrieved by this. "Thankfully, it didn't get my iPod," she said, breathing a sigh of relief.

I'm not sure why I felt sad about this. Obviously I'd be angry if I tipped a beaker of Robinson's orange onto my mp3 player. The difference is, I'd be perhaps even more annoyed if I waterlogged one of my books. I guess this little story shows just how much importance we now place on digital media.

I've got my little mp3 player in front of me now. It has around 10 albums or so on it. If I pop to the shops, I can easy listen to Sufjan Stevens' Illinoise, or maybe Fugazi's Repeater if I wanted to walk a bit faster. But it has suddenly hit me that the creeping ubiquity of digital media is actually beginning to stop me doing from what I should do, or really want to do.

Late last night was a good example. I recently caved in to my friends' pressure to set up an account on myspace.com. Now, I always thought it was frequented by sleek black-fringed metal kids (and there are quite a lot of them), but in the last two weeks its influence has verged on the narcotic. A quick look at my account (I'm always logged in now) shows I have 27 'friends'. These contacts verge from people I know well, to people I'd have difficulty talking to in the pub. But hey, we're friends. I'm not the only one here, mind. Some people on myspace have preposterously high friend counts... one I saw crowed 'xxxx has 8705 friends!' Er, when does that individual have the time to met them all for coffee, I wonder?

But back to the point. I logged in, checked my messages and responded to them. I then put in some earplugs, clambered into bed and started to read.

Just in case, I had left my computer on. Despite the earplugs, I could hear the fan of the PC whirring. Five minutes passed, and I was still on page 4. It was only when the whirr had burrowed itself into my temples, and taken on the frequency of a grizzly toddler, that I jumped out of bed and logged in again! I had no messages.

From a personal point of view, the lure of high-tech kit is now stopping me from actually engaging with books - and books are objects I adore, perhaps more than albums these days. After shutting down Windows, I actually felt slightly... defeated, to be melodramatic about it. Although Messrs Gates and Jobs talk about the digital revoultion's effect on getting things done, all it seems to make me achieve is procrastination on a Olympic scale.

I know it's not just me. Lots of people have iPods, with a lot more music on them. Some have 60 gigabytes of information nestling next to their arse as they bound down the high street, and there is talk that soon we'll be looking at terabytes. That's 1000 gigabytes! Soon, it will be possible to put every album by The Fall on one little box! Woof! But is that actually useful?

Another example. My housemate James had a DVD Hard Disc Recorder for Christmas (all mod- cons at my house). We already have Sky Plus (a little hard disc box that lets you save your TV programmes without needing tapes), so I set about transferring all of the programmes I had on the Sky Plus box to James' DVD recorder. I was able to edit out all the adverts, thus making it all super professional and slick. After carefully writing on the DVD discs, I popped them into my bespoke storage unit, and marvelled at a job well done. It took me three hours.

The irony? I haven't actually watched any of these programmes yet. Although I know I should watch them, I know I probably will find excuses not to (like logging into myspace). Therein lies the rub - all that effort spent archiving material, only to have a few inert shiny plastic platters afterward. It reminds me somewhat of going on holiday - the journey frequently becomes more important than the destination.

Mobile phone? I check it perhaps twenty times a day. "Maybe I didn't hear the ring tone go off," I often tell myself. There is never a message on there I miss. So, I may alter my message alert settings, just to convice myself that I've done something concrete with those 15 seconds. I often dream of lobbing my malevolent Nokia into the Taff, but I know ultimately I couldn't.

All of this technology is now beginning to arrest me rather than enable me to do things of value. In between checking Hotmail, the Apple website, ebay and my recorded items on Sky Plus, I'm getting sod all done. So, an invitation - if anyone sees me leave the library with a pile of books soon, kindly take the heaviest one from my grasp and brain me with it. It may knock some sense into me, at a time when I seem to need it.

Just don't harm my earphones while you do it, mind.

E-Democracy Feature

2005-12-16T11:00:00.000-08:00

Given the emphasis placed on developing journalism for the web, I got to thinking - exactly where is the much trumpeted electronic version of democracy going? While much has been written about the increased transparency of government due to the World Wide Web, it's a fact that some UK government sites have received less than a hundred visits, despite their large set-up costs.

Having worked briefly on New Statesman's blog for its New Media Awards this year, I have decided to write a feature on the challenges that e-democracy currently faces. By talking to a number of different experts on the subject, I aim to give a broad overview of how governments, NGOs and political organisations engage with new media techonologies.

Taking a magazine online

2005-12-16T10:39:00.000-08:00

One of the assessed points of the MA magazine production course is translating a print magazine to online. In the case of Ti, Karen and I, the magazine selected was Zee Magazine. This is a contract magazine distributed free of charge to Zee TV's 100,000 subscribers.

We quickly realised that the online version of Zee Magazine had to be markedly different to the quarterly print edition. The emphasis for the online version was interactivity - we designed the site in Photoshop, and concentrated on making it clean, approachable and navigable. As we went further into the site design, we decided to add a Media Centre to the site. This would enable visitors to preview Zee TV's content.

We aimed to reinforce the brand identity of Zee TV by complementing, not merely copying, the core output of the free magazine. The experience of designing a website was useful in that it made me consider the different approach needed when writing/presenting journalism on the web.

Storytelling goes binary

2005-12-01T07:09:00.000-08:00

While one reads a lot lately about the democratising force of the blogosphere, the traditional broadcast media is still is an arena for the 'professional', where those with the technical savvy and training get prime access to the airwaves. It shouldn't be like that. Daniel Meadows' Capture Wales project, running on BBC2 Wales, aims to give power back to the licence fee payers - citizen media is the buzzword.

'Creativity is there for all for us', Meadows thinks. Through a succession of slides and clips, he showed just how powerful are the stories everyday people tell. The essence of Capture Wales is in its simplicity - no techno wizardry or pompous voiceover, but absorbing stories beautifully told. Capture Wales works by taking on a group of citizens with no previous media training or aptitude, and making a broadcast short in five days. This is what public service broadcasting is all about - the emphasis on ordinary people leading extraordinary lives. It's all so much more absorbing, emotional and timeless than any episode of EastEnders. From watching the clips, I was immediately transported into a utopian vision of a BBC where Alan Bennett, Alan Sillitoe or Barry Hines was Director General.

Meadows then brought this to an abrupt close. He angrily derided the BBC's wishy-washy focus on 'user generated content', which denies the true power that licence fee payers ought to have over their media. He was absolutely right - while the BBC is keen to get mobile phone video clips from audiences when there is a bomb blast, those same people are not able to tell simple stories about their lives to significant audiences (at least, not without a huge documentary budget to cloak the stories with special effects). Digital storytelling has suffered since Greg Dyke left the BBC, he noted. His disdain was palpable.

Meadows said those who recorded work for Capture Wales had found the experience eye-opening, even therapeutic. He railed against the idea that journalists should always write content for the mainstream media - rather, journalists should sometimes know when to sit back and facilitate other people's attempts to tell their story. I agree wholeheartedly with him - journalism is people after all, and people are tired of being patronised by the media.

Meadows is a leading light in digital storytelling and citizen media, and a pioneer of those forms - but one can tell he doesn't applaud himself as such. He just wants to get the stories of ordinary people out there, without apologising for doing it.

BBC Online - Pete Clifton

2005-11-24T16:20:00.000-08:00

It's become an old chestnut for course tutors to refer to the BBC News website when looking for angles on which to base a story, or to get a well rounded picture of events, whether local, national or international. It thus seemed apposite for Pete Clifton, Head of BBC Interactive, to be the latest guest speaker.

First impressions? He looked slightly overworked, with a cheap coffee in hand, a loose suit and tie and a determined expression. Thankfully, he set about demolishing that first impression by the considered overview he gave of BBC's interactive output. He started out by stating the importance of Ceefax, the interactive service that turned one's TV into a Spectrum 48k running Manic Miner. I could sense nostalgia in the room (page 302 on BBC2 Ceefax was a must for the football, I recall). Clifton quickly wheeled away from that, contrasting the old Ceefax newsroom with the streamlined operation he heads at present - 400 staff (200 of them journalists) producing a variety of content across a number of platforms, from the internet to podcasts. BBC Interactive's budget of £26 million a year equates to 50p of every full licence fee collected.

Over the last few years, the BBC has been in a position of strength. There have been few competitors to its authoritative online presence. However, recently there have been challengers, most notably from The Telegraph and The Guardian. Consequently the BBC has to up the ante. Over a succession of slides, Clifton showed just how that would be done:

* The emphasis on UK and International versions of online content. This is key to the BBC's arguable reputation as the most important broadcaster in the world today.

*A change of discipline across BBC Interactive servies. Rather than keeping Ceefax (which is still popular with many users) and internet services separate, there has been an increased emphasis on streamlining (one could maybe argue homogenising?) the content used by the platforms. So, in effect this means that rather than having separate armies of writers for Ceefax and BBC Online, one team will adapt copy for both platforms. This boiled down to the buzzword - convergence, a familiar refrain in corporate branding.

*The broadband console. This was the biggie, where Clifton looked most enthusiastic. He sees the online video console as being key to increasing the public's understanding news item. He did not talk of it being a panacea, rather a vital accompaniment to copy standards already deployed on the website. He referred to the importance of interactive consoles on digital TV services. In an era where the ability to time-shift one's news consumption is key, the console is the king pin.

*Employment of public spaces. Ever stood at Victoria Station, waiting for a train? I have. BBC News will be running on the announcement screens. It's so slick I hardly notice it, but it does indeed enable me to grab the main news events before I rush awkwardly for the Peckham train. It turns out these screens are everywhere, and they are seen by Clifton as an important part of the BBC's public service obligation. News for the particular area can be localised.

*User generated content. The most contentious area, and the area that seen a big explosion of interest. Clifton used the July 7 bombings as an example - 20,000 emails, 1,000 still images, 3,000 SMS messages and 20 items of video arrived at the BBC Online desk in 24 hours. Citizens are now true providers to the BBC's output on a daily basis. Clifton acknowledged that this material still had to be scrutinised to BBC standards, with more staff to do the sifting. The 'Have Your Say' page, which was popular with the public in terms of the responses received but not in terms of the responses selected to appear on the site, has now been overhauled to reflect the interest in user generated content. Rather than an editor choosing the' best' quotes on the day's events, there is a now a forum-like approach, a la Wikipedia. The emphasis is on community and trust, although Clifton acknowledged that the odd expletive will always wriggle through the automated hub (that said, he cursed like a grizzled old hack rather than employing the smooth patter one would expect from the head of a Beeb department).

With these main approaches in mind, Clifton talked enthusiastically about the re-design of the BBC News website. The emphasis of the redesign is to make video content more accessible to the user, and hence increase the user to time-shift their relationship with news. News tickers are also of importance to Clifton - he referred to 'personalisation', where a user can select what types of news a user will receive through the ticker (Middle East stuff for me, then).

Difficulties? Clifton looked slightly resigned to the fact that the BBC's presence on mobiles at present is only slight. Commercial channels have a larger presence on PDA and mobile phone services, and he acknowledged that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport were largely involved with the present constraints. The DCMS hold that unless the BBC can offer something radically new in these sectors, it risks harming groups that have a foothold there already. It's a delicate time whilst the Royal Charter is up for review.

To wrap up, Clifton talked on the consultative processes towards the BBC's 'creative future'. News must be on-demand, 24/7, relevant, aim to reach hard to reach audiences, share its content and views, make a bigger impact on audiences, have courage and possess a spirit of openness across the organisation.

In a milieu where the rolling news channels are fast acquiring a bad name for recycling the same old content, Clifton's vision makes more sense. The ability for individual users to be selective about the news they receive, whilst commenting directly on it, seems a more utopian vision for the organisation's output. This is particularly apposite when considering its public service remit. I was immediately put in mind of the Mirror newspaper of the 1960s, which had a famous reputation for putting its readers first. It looks like this idea may swing back into fashion.

PR, the future, and a whole pessimistic outlook for journalism

2005-11-17T22:17:00.000-08:00

Today I attended a lecture concerning PR and the Internet, and how the two inform each other. Normally, I run screaming from the mere mention of the words 'public' and 'relations' when they are in close proximity to each other, but in this instance I was intrigued to see what the common enemy of journalism (my highly personal view, which again I reserve the right to hold) is currently plotting. My rationale for checking out the latest PR fad is similar to finding out what an ex-girlfriend is up to. I am curious orange.

Quentin Langley has a wealth of experience in several areas of PR, and has worked for oil companies and property servies, among others. He began by explaining what PR is - 'the sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics', apparently. I would counter that mutual 'misunderstanding' is closer to the rule, personally - a bit like that old chestnut of a tree making no noise if it falls when no-one is around. Nothing personal on Quentin - I guess I just need to keep reminding myself not to get drawn into the 'PR has a legitimate, truthful basis' thing. There are plenty of journalists out there turning press releases into news already, and I refuse to swell the ranks further.

Quentin said that PR is not 'spin, lying or distortion'. Again, much respect to Quentin, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Distortion and subterfuge is the watchword of PR, and the enemy of good journalism. Quentin referred to the fact that companies have a number of 'publics' to contend with - from consumers to staff, from regulators to investors. Indeed, modern companies need able PR teams to fight their battles on a number of fronts. For example, in a company such as Shell, morale is everything. Hence the PR focus on keeping the staff happy (with a stream of incentives and feel-good news to disguise the bad news, I would contend, but that's me being cynical again. Or even correct).

The rise of the internet has resulted in further opportunities for PR to manage and circumvent truth seeking journalism. The attitude in PR (at least, from what I deduced from Quentin) was that truth seeking journalists are always going to be sniffing around. Hence the internet is a gift for Public Relations - highly selective, personalised PR strategies can be authored in relation to feedback from online warranty registrations, for exmaple. The internet cookie is PR's best friend in the process of 'disintermediation'. I found it quite chilling that a negative term ('DISintermediation') is seen as a real coup in PR. The logical extension of this is the highly personlised Reason magazine, which offered a magazine tailored to each individual reader. So much for community, I thought. Where does one draw the line between choice and being a blank slate for advertising and PR to work their deviance?

That said, I must admit that PR is taking advantage of the technologies available in the most obvious and sensible way for them. The problem, in my view, is less PR than supine journalists. Let's face it - if a PR worker targets a wide number of 'publics' with highly selected information that is beneficial to the client, they are doing their job. All a journalist has to do is dig for the truth whilst burning the press releases. Far few are doing that. Rant over.

Kim Hollamby

2005-11-16T19:05:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this after consulting several other blogs made by JOMEC students at Cardiff Uni, as I was waiting at Bristol aiport for my plane to Berlin (again, I curse EasyJet).

Kim Hollamby is the Head of Electronic Media at IPC, and his lecture concerned the explosion of magazine websites. He stated that after a slow start, magazines now find numerous benefits in running an online version. Advertising, subscription and newsagent revenues can be generated, for example. The key benefit of running an online version is that potential readers can pore over the magazine's output and approach. Gone are the days where one would have to stand in the corner shop surreptitiously reading magazines before deciding whether to purchase. I'm sure I'm not the only one who got yelled at by Mr Newsagent for treating the shop like a library...

Furthermore, online versions can offer a deeper sense of history to the magazine's position, identity and output. Online archives provide readers with a deeper understanding of how the mag works, and indeed if it is for them.

That said, a balance needs to be struck. Hollamby stressed that online versions should not merely mirror what sits on the shelf. To my mind, this seems obvious - it would be commercial suicide to put the entire content of the print version on a freely accessed website. It is however, a question of balance - the online version should not give nuggets of what is in the print version, but withhold the finer detail for the printed version.

Hollamby also stated that a 'little and often' approach is preferable to big updates every now and then. I find this a little ironic in the case of NME's website, which updates far less than the wonderful drownedinsound.com. I'm not alone in saying this - in fact, Drowned In Sound is regularly puffed by the major broadsheets as the finest online stop for indie music journalism.

Hollamby acknowledged the respective strenghts of printed and online mediums. Print is tangible, seductive and authoritative, making it ideal for pictures and graphics and in-depth features. Conversely, online offers the advantage of searchable archives, free and even access and a faster turnaround of news items.

From the background reading I made on this lecture, it appears that online publishing is now being taken a lot more seriously than in the past, when magazine websites were poorly designed, not easily navigable and stylistically detached from their print sibling. With the fashionable emphasis on corporate branding and synergy, I believe that the king pins of the magazine world are keen to avoid making the same mistake twice in their race to the top.

In ein Tagebuch eintragen (or something)

2005-11-15T20:33:00.000-08:00

This post is being typed whilst struggling to keep one's eyes open, having burnt the candle at both ends whilst in Berlin, where I have just spent four evenings.

Ostensibly, the trip was organised by Cardiff Uni in order for the journalism school to forge links with the Forum for European Journalism Students (FEJS). Last Thursday Jon Martin (from my course), Jennifer, Joanna (both on the Diploma course) and myself flew from Bristol to Berlin - arriving there ONLY 3 HOURS LATE! That, if you can spot it, is sarcasm, and the name EasyJet was imbued with a poisonous current of irony. But we managed. Joanna can speak fluent German, which made navigating the city far easier at 11pm. We arrived at the hostel, said hi to the FEJS party (who were most welcoming), and headed straight for bed, in order to be fighting fit the following day.

After negotiating the swarming traffic at Schoneberg and the Berlin S-ring, we arrived at the EU Commission building at Unter den Linden, a stone's throw from the Brandenburg Gate. My first exciting observation was the rather dandy uniform of the German Polizei - a lot more... green than what I'm used to, I must admit. We were held back for around five minutes as the Chinese President was in the 'hood, and was due to leave the Reichstag (only a few hundred metres away) at any time. It appears that everyone stops for Mr Hu - Brandenburg was sealed off, and serious credentials had to be waived in order for us to gain entry to the EU building.

We crowded into the second floor room, which was encouragingly laid out like a press conference. Tourist heads were exchanged for pitbull journalist ones. The German amabassador to the EU introduced himself to us and spoke about the role of the EU itself. Unbelievably, he calmly admitted that it was in a state of 'crisis' that cut across 'social, economic and cultural' barriers, to the extent that citizens in the EU were sure to lose faith in the EU apparatus. Although the assembled throng were calmly listening without much emotion or consternation, I kept thinking 'this is pretty uncompromising stuff here - glad I'm taping it, there's a wee feature in the offing here'. Then he left. Quick as that.

My colleagues from Cardiff were similarly unprepared for the swift exit, and we wondered what would follow next. Well, it was now the turn of the FEJS secretariat to stand up and say what the forum stood for. They did that for about 20 minutes. Then resigned.

Cries rang out, angry recriminations were aired, and I exchanged nervous/incredulous glances with Joanna, Jennifer and Jon Martin. We had no idea what on earth was going on. I think the Supervisory Board members (Neal and Carla) were also stunned, so they hastily agreed a tea break. Ten minutes after that tea break, they also resigned. We had travelled to Berlin expecting 3 days of journalism workshops, but instead found ourselves embroiled in the minutiae of personal politics, uneasily drinking at the altar of a rudderless organisation!

That said, the FEJS still is an encouraging idea. Several members have organised field trips and work experience placements abroad and a new secretariat is to be elected. A group of four from Turkey is keen to assume the mantle, and has already set up 5 work experience placements at Turkey's leading newspaper, Hurriyet. Bearing in mind my wish to work in the Middle East, I may apply for a placement myself...

The four of us spent a great deal of time together in Berlin. We took in the museums, did the city tour and drank at some of Berlin's finest bars (in fact, the beer is reason enough to move there). Whilst we met some great characters at the FEJS meetings, we also bonded as a Cardiff group. It was the first time I had met Jennifer and Joanna, and they were both proper characters - Jennifer thought everything was 'AMAAAZING!' whilst Joanna helped us around with her incredible German and showed us around Reuters' German bureau, where she had worked until a couple of months ago.

Reuters was a highlight of the trip - I expected overworked minions dashing around, bumping each other (and I guess that is what it can be like at key moments), but when we arrived we witnessed the calmest staff team ever. They were forthcoming with information on how it all worked at Reuters, and kindly remembered to ask lots of questions about how our courses were going and what our plans were for the future.

I loved Berlin. Wide streets, great sausages, top notch chocolate and friendly people. The place had real character, particularly as one went further from the centre. The breakfast we had on in a cafe at Kreuzberg (Berlin's 'Little Turkey') set the tone for the most idyllic Sunday I've had in years. Made a nice change from selling Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket in Waterstone's, I can tell you.

The biggest downer of the entire experience was when I eagerly pressed 'play' on my dictaphone. Rather than hearing the German ambassador to the EU elucidate about the state of the EU, all I could make out was a whoosing noise with occasional words in the mix. Curse Sanyo for ruining a possible tilt at a New Statesman piece!

Sea, sand and study (grr)

2005-11-05T19:16:00.000-08:00

When one studies on a course named 'International Journalism', the mind tends to feel satiated by the kaleidoscopic history of the art (which is precisely what journalism is, 'an art' - and I say that with righteousness and without apology). William Russell in the Crimea, Martha Gellhorn during World War 2, John Pilger taking a US representative apart through careful research and stern questioning - it's what one aspires to.

I always had an idea that many young journalists possess a bulletproof self-satisfaction about their own abilities that borders on the arrogant. I am happy to put on record here that my worldview has been tested and proved wrong following two very fulfilling days in West Wales with colleagues on my degree. Organised by Cardiff University's Journalism School, 75 of us converged on the coastal village of Broadhaven to take in the sea air and consider what subject to study for our upcoming dissertation.

The guys on my course are from all over the world. It must have come as quite a shock to the locals, who found themselves waiting 25 minutes for a pint at the local bar behind a mix of Asian, Scandinavian and Meditteranean student journalists. In this quaint setting, I mixed with a few colleagues who I had yet to say hi to.

The key lesson to test my assumption about student journalists - everyone on this course actually has ideas with substance. No Heat or Nuts celebrity/boytoy bullshit here. A Chinese girl ran up to me at one point clutching her dissertation notes, and urged me to assess her idea. I'm not sure whether I actually read more than 3 lines of her paperwork, as my blood ran cold when I reached the word 'ontological' in her abstract. Serious stuff indeed. But the interest and care that she had invested into her work was unbelievably inspiring. Over the next couple of days, those who I had only previously had pub conversations with were discussing topics such as the Bali Bombings, links between the Welsh language and Brittany and the brain drain in the Phillipines. To like a colleague is one thing - to respect them is quite another.

And what better way to cement that new found respect than to sit among the group while Peter Wilby (former New Statesman editor) took us through his experiences as an editor? A true lefty, he spoke with authority, clarity and perhaps most importantly, humour. I say that because it is so easy to adopt a condescending tone when addressing a group that is hanging on your every word. But Wilby was a more complex beast, going from polite career advice to wicked satirical humour in half a sentence. 'No wonder he became an editor', I thought. Very sharp, and extremely respectful of his audience, he went half an hour over his allotted time and still made time for individual chats afterwards. The lecturers looked pretty rapt, too -which says it all really.

First ever brew

2005-10-31T07:41:00.000-08:00

Ok, first ever blog. I must admit, it's tricky to just launch into this... so level with me, yep?

Think of this site as a repository of the thoughts of a Welsh 26-year-old (going on 70) , called Andy. I'm aiming at a 'career' in journalism. This blog will provide incisive, cutting edge commentary and journalism, more hard-hitting than Mike Tyson in a prison canteen.

Yeah, right. It's actually more likely that this blog will feature rants about losing my house keys or pratfalling into plates of sausage and mash (which has happened before), rather than Angela Merkel's neoliberal plans for Germany. Whilst I like thinking I'm close to Pilger or Fisk in spirit, I'm more like Chevy Chase in terms of execution.

Hope you enjoy the blog - pop in again, and bring tea. Or coffee.