The knock on the door
Several centuries ago now (in the 1970s) – I cannot even recall which time of year it was but it was during a student vacation of some kind – a pal and I, editors of our respective student magazines, pitched up at a convention in Salford on the general topic of student publications, publishing and journalism.
In those days, of course, the vast bulk of student publications – in terms of both presentation and content – were produced by down-and-out-looking, long-haired, alcohol-and-drugs-fuelled lefties who were basically against the current world order on every subject you could think of. They naturally worshipped Che Guevara, Stalin, Castro, iconic hippy ‘alternative culture’ rags such as IT (International Times) and OZ (of Richard Neville and the Oz Trial fame) and Timothy Leary (he the leading promoter of the notion that we’d all be better off if we dropped tabs of LSD in our morning coffees).
In contrast to the above, we were embryo prospective future Fleet Street newspaper magnates harbouring no revolutionary motivations at all – well, beyond seeking to cut our editorial teeth. Or, as one ITV managing director later aptly put it to me in advocating the superior benefits of youngsters ‘getting out and actually doing it’ on a local paper or radio station (over those of taking a media studies course at university): “You have to learn the grammar of your trade”.
Yes, Hugh and I both wore the student uniform of the time – wide-flaired loon pants and long hair (well in my case a Jimi Hendrix look) – but in outlook, to all intents and purposes, we might as well have been sporting short-back-and-sides, suits and ties.
Anyway.
For us, at said conference, the most memorable session – amidst all the endless dross and student politics – was that taken by a senior lecturer at the Cardiff School of Journalism who introduced the only notes of thought-provoking realism, practicality and sound advice to proceedings.
Two themes he expounded upon have remained with me to this day.
He grabbed the auditorium’s attention right at the start by posing the open question “Looking at the mainstream newspapers, which of them routinely contains the best journalistic writing?”
You’re probably ahead of me already here.
From the massed ranks of the students perched in the rows above (including the pair of us) came calls putting forward one or other of the Fleet Street broadsheets – albeit that one or two offered The Economist, New Statesman and The Spectator. The Guardian was a particularly popular choice.
Nope, said our lecturer, “You’re all wrong, especially those of you nominating The Guardian. In terms of pure technical writing, those who write for it aren’t even journalists. They’re just self-indulgent show-offs – anybody could write for that paper. No – the best journalism of all comes from the Daily Mirror …”
[You might imagine the shock-horror, open-mouthed reactions of those present who were still awake (it was an afternoon session after all) – and to whom all this sounded totally counter-intuitive.]
But he went on:
“The key element of good journalism is getting across to the reader the basic details that anyone would need to know in order to understand what you are reporting upon. It begins with “Who, What, Why, When” and then flows from there.
You want to know why the best journalistic writing is in the Mirror? Simply because, in terms of column inches available to each piece, it has less than any other newspaper. Its journalists have to be adept at getting across the essence of an incident or event in the fewest possible words. That’s journalism. Spewing out paragraph after paragraph of suitably inventive/creative prose in the pages of The Guardian maybe a thing to be admired, but it certainly isn’t journalism and wouldn’t qualify any writer to work on the Daily Mirror.”
The second item of advice that said gent put out that day was on the subject of ‘Death Knocks’ (as they are known in the trade) – the difficult duty that all journalists are sometimes given: having to go around and knock on the doors of bereaved members of the public after one of their family has died and try to get details about the deceased.
He told us that it was in principle a thankless task – in prospect, in ‘real life’, nobody would wish to intrude upon any family in its hour (or months) of grief, especially right after someone had died – and, of course, any youngster embarking upon a journalism career naturally dreads having to make that knock on the door.
But – he went on – you’d be surprised.
Yes, a proportion of bereaved individuals, perhaps horrified and offended at the insensitivity and cheek of any journalist pressing their door bell for this purpose, shout “Go away!” (accompanied or not by expletives).
But – just as often – if the ‘dignity’ of the occasion is respected etc., families are more than happy to welcome journalists in.
In the cause of honouring their family member, they want to make sure that the hack has got the departed’s name, age, list of achievements and activities down correctly. And sometimes – as it were because it is going to be for the record – these sessions allow the parent, or brother or sister, to tell the world about the deceased’s character, devotions, hobbies and what a wonderful person he or she was.
He suggested that this was perhaps something to do with needing/wanting to tell a third party outsider about the person, rather than talking always of such things to fellow members of their family (a case of ‘preaching to the converted’?).
I was reminded of the above today when I spotted this article by David Barnett today, on the website of – THE INDEPENDENT
