Asbo fever
Yes folks, you can tell we are in the run-up to an election when the polititians pull out the Asbo promises.
Alan Johnson has announced that Asbo breaches will be prosecuted and taken seriously but I attend enough court hearings to know that is absolute piffle – I regularly hear magistrates make orders “more onerous” by imposing a variety of measures. To translate:
Residency requirement – you really must live at home. Don’t move house or we may be forced to amend the order.
Curfew – Please stay indoors at night. We’ll pretend you haven’t thought of inventive ways of removing the tag – but as we want to re-use them afterwards, we’ll only restrict you for a little while, okay? Just go to the offy and drink at home.
Supervision – can you at least try and turn up for appointments with your probation officer?
Exclusion – we’ll ban you from going anywhere coloured in on this map. But we have no idea how to enforce it. I mean, seriously – there are so many people banned from the city centre now we have problems keeping up! You’d have to be pretty stupid to get caught.
As for these so-called Booze Asbos, they breach the order and all that happens is that they pay a fine – prison isn’t an option. Oops, you haven’t got any money. We’ll take it from your benefits. Already got a fine? No problem! We’ll consolidate it. But is you have a normal Asbo, don’t worry - we can’t send you to prison until you’ve breached it so many times it’s obvious even to us that the order is unworkable. Please don’t think we have breached your human rights by saying that.
As far as treating Asbos seriously is concerned, they already are. So strict are they, in fact, that I’ve seen one defendant pulled into court for talking to a certain person in public. He could have talked to him all night if he had been in his house though. (That’ll be £85 costs for the CPS, and a warrant for his arrest if he can’t be bothered turning up, thanks very much.) Actually one decided to go home half way through the hearing and he had to be resentenced for about nine breaches when they eventually caught up with him for long enough to get him in the dock and another defendant today had to commit 153 offences before being banged up. I can think of countless others.It seems that some people really have to push it before they get packed off to Altcourse and put on a course of methadone.
I think it’s about time someone stood up and questioned whether Asbos (and community orders, for that matter) really work – and if not, what other options do we have?
Technology – friend or foe?
A blog post on the useful tech employed by a freelancer has led me to consider how useful it is for me as a staffer. Is all this tech really helping me to become a better journalist or hindering it?
After a seminar on web-based journalism – taming searches, RSS feeds, SEO etc – I have incorporated a few things into my daily routine. So, along with the google news alerts, I subscribed to Bloglines and spend the first few minutes of my day ploughing through it to find anything of value or items that could have a local angle.
This worked brilliantly last week with a story about Chester going for the UK City of Culture 2013, something which even the council press office knew nothing about until I put the call in.
I go through court registers to dig out important cases – one in particular this week was a corker – so I can pretty much guarantee that we catch 99% of what is happening there.
But the difficulty is that I am beginning to feel that all this help is doing the job for me – giving me stories on a plate, really - and I am becoming detached from the real kind of journalism I signed up for back when I was an enthusiastic and wet behind the ears student on my Journo degree.
Take my patches for example. I have two – Blacon and Tattenhall – and I have been neglecting them of late. I haven’t been out and worked my patches at all in the last six months, and my contacts book is nothing more than a list of phone numbers that I occasionally dip in to where it should be an essential piece of kit in maintaining relationships with the communities I am supposed to serve.
The opinion of the Boss is that if we rely less on tech we will sharpen our news sense and begin to nose out the kind of stories that deserve page leads and bylines. Is it really as simple as that?
Call yourself a writer? A meme
Journalist and blogger Louise Bolotin has tagged me in her meme about writing. Louise is a mentor, all-round journalistic authority, wise-ass, bona fide rock chick and friend so I was flattered to be tagged. Not to mention, the blog needs a kick up the backside.
Which words do you use too much in your writing?
I, me, my… having looked over the blog it seems hopelessly over-indulgent and narcissistic. I’ll have to work on that…
Which words do you consider overused in stuff you read?
Definitely “definately”. Is there anyone left in the world who can spell it? And apostrophes. If in doubt, slap one in there? No, no, no. Don’t. I get really annoyed by sloppy spelling and punctuation.
What’s your favourite piece of writing by you?
Probably the piece I wrote for the Observer. Um, because it was in the Observer.
What blog post do you wish you’d written?
I envy those blogs where the writer uses big words I don’t understand. These are usually technical things so, for examples, see Dave Lee and Andy Dickinson.
Regrets, do you have a few? Is there anything you wish you hadn’t written?
Probably the piece in last week’s Chron celebrating a 27p drop in the price of an off-peak return ticket to London, thanks to the RPI. A shameful reproduction of a pointless press release.
How has your writing made a difference? What do you consider your most important piece of writing?
On more than one occasion I gave someone a voice who otherwise wouldn’t have been heard. The father who lost his baby to abuse and wanted the truth about what happened to her; the elderly couple who were attacked in their own home and wanted to move to a safer area; the market trader who fought the council for his rights. I’m most proud of the David v Goliath, Fourth Estate stuff.
Name three favourite words
Maybe. Obsequious. Seriously.
…And three words you’re not so keen on
Residents. Councillor. Normal.
Do you have a writing mentor, role model or inspiration?
Louise Bolotin, Kelly Rose Bradford, Christina McDermott off the top of my head. All are excellently observant and witty. I also have a soft spot for Toby Young, though I know I’ll get stick from some people for that admission.
What’s your writing ambition?
To earn a bloody good living as a freelance and still have enough time to enjoy life. Even better, to be paid lots to enjoy life and write about it, or to spout my opinion. Aside from just not having to struggle financially, I think it would be beyond cool to write something that people have heard of, something that has changed minds and improved lives.
Plug alert! List any work you would like to tell your readers about:
I work for the Chester Chronicle, so I suppose I could show you my page on the website…
Tag time. Some colleagues I hope will also do the meme:
The rules:If you havetime to do this meme, then please link to the original, then link to three to five other bloggersand pass it on, asking them to answer your questions and link to you. You can add, remove or change one question as you go. You absolutely do not have to be what you may think of as a “published” or “successful” writer to respond to this meme, I hope people can take the time to reflect on what their blogging has brought them and how it has been useful to others.
The first success
My first freelance piece was published in The Observer today.
Though shorter than the piece I submitted (a case study, a quote from money saving expert Martin Lewis and a naming and shaming of one of the companies involved were taken out) the article is basically unchanged. I’m particularly thrilled that they kept my intro (the hacks among you will understand that).
As I have said, the difference was that I phoned in the pitch so that will be my method of choice from now on – but dark clouds are looming. The latest rumour circulating on Journobiz is that some editors are being forced to take on less freelance pieces in order to cut spending.
I am really thrilled at my first success – but getting into The Observer with my first ever pitch is going to be a tough act to follow, especially now there could be less work available for all of us.
I’m sorry, Piers
I’m a huge fan of Piers Morgan. But didn’t anyone proof read his new book?
On page 66 he wrote:
I watched The Bodyguard movie again last night, featuring Whitney Houston, Kevin Kostner an our very own Gary Kemp as the slippery amoral PR man. That bloody Bryan Adams song drives me bonkers, but it’s a great no-brainer film for a drizzly Wednesday night, with heavy emphasis on the no-brain.
Now, I’m as ready as anyone to criticise Bryan Adams (I have huge problems with him, long story) but I have to point out the obvious here, Piers. That bloody song was on the soundtrack to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, not The Bodyguard.
He goes on later to say that Britain’s Got Talent contestant Paul Potts walked on stage with “a dodgy suit, crooked teeth and a terrible suit”. Two suits?
I’m not even half way through the book yet and already I’ve identified three goofs. Tut-tut, Piers!
Edit: On page 221, he quotes Gene Simmons as saying, “It’s a roll I was born for”. Seriously.
Didn’t you used to be a journalist?
It’s been a funny week. Not that I’m tooting my own horn (toot-toot!) but I put together a very fine portfolio this week in preparation for my TM certificate in May. If When I pass, I’ll be a qualified senior, so it’s all very exciting.
In other news, my pitches have – yet again – been met with a wall of silence. Either I’m doing it wrong or there is a distinct lack of work out there… but I am not in any hurry to get my hopes up again so I have decided to go back to the drawing board. I have an appointment on Friday with an enterprise coach and I have just taken delivery of the 2010 Writer’s Market, which might help. It has some good articles as well as a comprehensive list of contacts in newspapers and magazines.
The thing is, my appetite is waning and I’m sat here wondering what I am doing wrong. Do I really have to send out this many pitches to get one commissioned? But then I realised – I have actually pitched four articles to a handful of publications. So perhaps the problem is not that no-one is listening, but that I’m not talking enough - or to the right people.
What made me feel better today was God Bless America by Piers Morgan. When I started to read, I noticed that the second sentence of the acknowledgments has a space between the last word and the point. Er, Piers, didn’t you used to be a journalist?