Habit-forming journalism
Okay, I’ll get the apology over with – I’m sorry I haven’t posted in six weeks! The usual excuse – been busy.
I’ll kick off now with, er, kicking off – so my gripe of the day is habits. I quit smoking, it’s been five months since I had my last cigarette. I also quit drinking, and my previously hard and fast rule of drinking wine after work to unwind no longer applies. I’ve become addicted to tea instead.
So, alcohol and nicotine – easy. Other habits are not so simple. Take for instance, my formula for writing 100-word court fillers:
An (insert age) man/woman/teenager/pensioner/motorist/drink driver from Chester was jailed/ordered to pay £x/given a community order for (insert crime here). (Insert name and address) was (insert details of offence) and appeared at (insert court name) where he admitted/pleaded guilty blah blah blah
With 100-word newsfiles that I have to churn out from court registers, I suppose I can be excused for not glamming them up to the max, because the registers contain only basic information. I do at least try to mix them up a bit so they read differently. But when you go into longer stories you really should put some effort in and resist the urge to revert to a formula.
This Daily Express article has me really riled for this very reason. All the usual pick-and-mix phrases are there, plus putting certain facts together in the same sentence to gently hint at some character assassination.
Unemployed Mr White, 26, stood by his outburst yesterday when approached by the Daily Express at his family’s £500,000 detached home outside Romford, east London.
If someone is unemployed, or lives in a £500,000 house, should that mean he is not entitled to an opinion? Both? Oh, he must be sponging off the state or a criminal? Perhaps the house was bought with ill-gotten means? Whatever they are trying to say – whether or not you find his comments distasteful - it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Not just for their pro-royal, partisan reporting techniques, but for the formulaic, lazy journalism that gives us all a bad name.