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What a Journalist Isn't

I'm sick and tired of the abuse journalists are getting at the moment. They don't deserve it, at least real journalists don't - ...

27 March 2012

A Response To 'Defining Times'

In a recent eRadio bulletin, emailed out to industry types, anoraks and the occasional semi-detached journalism trainer, Stuart Clarkson of Radio Today posted a hard-hitting editorial.

Under the headline 'These are defining times in radio' he questioned 'whether full-service local radio has had its day, and whether it's time to quit the moaning and move on'.

In a forthright piece he takes issue with nostalgics who greet every announcement of a station merger or rebrand by sticking pins in a voodoo doll of Global Radio's Ashley Tabor.

21 March 2012

Free Money for Diversity

Regular readers on here will know I'm a big advocate for diversity in newsrooms, so when there's a chance to help someone from a non-typical background break into journalism I'll do all I can to bang the drum for it.

20 March 2012

What's in a Name?

What do commercial radio managers do all day?

Not the Programme Directors; they're busy massaging egos, kicking butt and desperately trying to find a freelance to cover early breakfast on Easter Monday when 'the talent' is whinging for time off.

Not the harassed Sales Director, anxiously tracking the graph with a week to month-end, sorting out disputes over who gets what new company car and trying to motivate some of the best paid but least-appreciated people in the industry; the execs who have to put on a brave Monday-morning face with the latest RAJAR figures and go knock on another door.

No, I'm talking about the corporate managers. The wheeler-dealers who negotiate mergers and who shape the future of our industry. What they appear to do all day, mainly, is to dream about brands.

02 March 2012

My Take On Myers

As anyone taking the trouble to navigate here will know, John Myers' report into the options for savings in BBC Local Radio is out. The full text is here, and as it's already been summarised to death I won't repeat that process. I would like to pick up, however, on a few themes.