Bird-watching: is it just a cheep thrill?

ALL things to all men - but honestly, what is the big deal with bird-watching?

Hours and hours spent squatting on a hard seat, in a damp viewing box freezing your wotsits, with binoculars trained to catch sight of the latest ornithological must-see.

It reminds me of those I-Spy books we had a kids - trips to Heathrow Airport to tick off sighting the insignia of Lufthansa, Pan Am, Qantas, BEA or TWA - yes, I'm that old! Very soon I grew up realising what a pointless waste of time this was.

The American Birding Association - I'm assuming they must be on Twitter - surveyed nearly 1,000 of its members recently to discover that male twitchers are ostentatious, competitive and willing to travel long distances to seek out a specific bird.

Whereas the ladies are less showy and more sociable, despite being equally committed to the task in hand. You know what they say about a bird in the hand...a hell of a mess afterwards!

As Matthew Merritt, editor of Bird Watching magazine neatly put it: "I don't understand twitchers who drive 300 miles to see a specific bird, then drive straight back."

Nor do I, Matthew, nor do I. What an exhilarating, laugh-a-minute trip home that must be.

Mind you, maybe the same criticism could be made of running as a sad and pitifully pointless pastime, running round in circles when few of us are ever going to become champions.

Well, given the choice, I'll let the bird-watchers have their fun.

This has been my worst running year to date, riddled with injury and an embarrassing non-finish while pace-making the Ealing Half Marathon. The hamstring strain which has dogged my running since July refuses to go away.

But, all things considered, what's the point of complaining? I'm running reasonably regularly, able to enjoy the solitude and spectacular forest which provides a magnificent backdrop to those picturesque outings.

With increasing age, so your priorities change. Form and speed drops, injuries take longer to heal, you seem to become more susceptible to aches and strains, and even the motivation ebbs and flows with the temperature outside! Your goals alter too.

Last month I went back to my old running club after a couple of years away where many friends are still members. I came away vowing never to go back. Things change and people change.

Where once there were 20 to 30 runners meeting on a Monday evening to run freely, now there is up to 100 folk training in a very controlled environment, where groups stop to regather after every mile or so, where everything is pre-ordained and frustratingly contained.

That's not a criticism of those who organise with their England Athletics accreditation. Without those committed volunteers, sport at grass roots level would wither. Sadly it's the no-nonsense health and safety mandarins who govern the way we breathe, the way we walk, the way we talk, and even the way we run. They've taken the fun out of the spontaneous club run.

Now I'm content to run instead with friends in the New Forest. Focusing on races is no longer a priority. Occasionally I'll run with the small running group who gather on a Sunday morning in the village where I live. The sort of small group I began with through my old running club.

Christmas Day run in the New Forest with mates Ian and Paul

A New Year beckons. My goal running-wise is simply to remain fit and healthy. I'll never clock the personal bests, I'll never run blissfully pain-free, but I want to run sensibly with a huge grin on my face.

When I visited my old running club, I caught up with a guy called John who is still running in his late 70s. He's now limited to how frequently he can get out, but he still loves what he is doing and remains as chirpy as ever, I want to be like John when I'm his age.

Sometimes it is a strain to get out of bed first thing in the morning to run, but I've never yet returned from a training jaunt regretting the effort.

It's time to leave the good memories in the box where they can be preserved, and to move forward.

Bath: a perfect Christmas shopping experience

CAN there be a better place to spend the weekend before Christmas than the culturally and historically-rich city of Bath?

With the Roman built spa baths, the classic Georgian architecture and a spectacular setting at the heart of a River Avon valley, Bath is simply spectacular - and, dare I say it, very English.

When Mary Portas, the Queen of Shops, looks to save the High Street from the charmless pot pourri of traditional High Streets names, charity shops, and "anything for a pound" stores, then surely Bath should be the model.

Yes, the Usual High Street Suspects are there, but these powerhouses are hemmed in by a raft of independent outlets serving a range of products. With some of the best street entertainers plying their trade along the wide open thoroughfares, it makes the shopping experience a pleasurable one - even for a bloke!

At Christmas time, especially, it feels as if you are stepping into a Dickensian world, a very traditional English way of life.

And this was something which I came to reflect on during the weekend.

How, in our race to embrace multi-culturalism alongside the profit-at-all-cost mentality of big business, we have lost that rich English identity in the High Street which celebrates the crafts and trades of the wider community - the independent butcher, the cider-maker, the chocolatier, the chilli sauce producer.

Our High Streets are not longer vibrant, they are dull, same-old, same-old sweeps of stores - what you can find in Southampton, you'll find in Scunthorpe or Salford or Sunderland or Swansea.

Towns such as Bath, York, Harrogate, Norwich and Brighton, for example, are places where independent shops thrive and the shopping experience is a rich one.

Spending a couple of days in Bath was like being on shopping detox. You could rid yourself of the High Street poisons and embrace a very English Christmas shopping experience.

Believing in the power of the future

JUGGLING two jobs can, at times, be quite tricky.

On the one hand I am running the NCTJ journalism course at Highbury College in Portsmouth, and I am also involved heavily in work with the body which oversees the training of journalists in the UK as the chief examiner for sports journalism.

Then I'm trying to balance that demanding role by working for the charity Hearing Link, promoting the awareness and use of hearing loops nationwide as part of the campaign, "Let's Loop the UK".

These are two very different subject areas, but I love having that diversity. A friend of mine asked last week if I missed the day-to-day routine of the newsroom, working to deadlines for the web and print. There are times, I'll admit, when I do miss being at the heart of the news agenda.

But I feel now that I have the perfect balance. With the teaching, I am working with the journalists of tomorrow, sett these young students on the path to a future career in media with the right disciplines and structures.

It is incredibly rewarding and I have two excellent groups of students who are fun to work with and who each offer tremendous amount of promise.

And then on the other hand, I have the charity work. Talk about a feeling of self-worth, this job has it in spades.

Last week I made a flying visit to Belfast to speak at a conference organised by Hearing Link at the stunning Titanic Museum. The setting was amazing. Our conference room was a replica of the inside of the Titanic ballroom complete with a tumbling wooden staircase.

Several of the Hearing Link team were there, so it was good to catch up with them. We are looking to establish a loop project in Northern Ireland in 2015 which I am very excited about. Because of the community nature of Northern Ireland, get it right and the project will flourish, deliver it wrong and your name will be mud.

I spoke at this workshop in Belfast about the loop campaign and the impact it has been having already. The progress is immense, with six projects hearing loop projects operating up in the UK, several more in the pipeline, and last week the Government praised the scheme in Swindon as a model of good practice for disability issues.

Back in Belfast, during the session one hearing aid wearer in his thirties spoke movingly about his experience. His sister was sitting alongside on the platform, and his mother was also in the audience where she was moved to tears as this brave soul spoke about the depths of despair he had reached with his hearing loss.

For 10 years he had become isolated, often spending long periods in his bedroom and frequently distant from his family. His was a life being wasted. Then the sudden death of his father changed perspectives. The family came together in grief, and in that coming together this young man came to terms with his hearing loss.

He went on to enrol on one of Hearing Link's self management programmes, understanding how to cope with hearing loss, employing some of the strategies to deal with day-to-day life, and empowering his family to work with him.

This little caterpillar became a butterfly who is now flourishing and to hear this man speak was both inspiring and emotional. He came out with this wonderful line that working with Hearing Link had given him "the power to believe in the future".

I've now signed this chap up to work with me in Northern Ireland next year since he is a technical expert on hearing loops.

It is an unusual marriage of journalism and charity work, but it is a perfect partnership and one I hope will last for a long, long time.

Is it really that important for a journalist to be first with the news?

IT'S that time of year when various regional newspaper groups frantically sell off their silverware, cut resources or announce recruitment freezes. 

If there are more savings to be made to resources already cut to the bone, or any imaginative changes to working practices which can be implemented before the end of the year, then these will be lapped up by head office accountants with all the enthusiasm of a hungry rough sleeper being offered a Christmas Day meal.

Why? Because, the banks are calling the tune to newspaper groups heavily over-borrowed. If they are to avoid penalty charges or suffer crippling rates of interest on their borrowing, then they have to satisfy some rigorous financial fitness tests to their end-of-year accounts.

Despite the demands of the digital age and caution from advertisers whether the web works for them, newspaper groups are making money, but far less of it. Here's what Hold The Front Page published last August:

Regional publisher Johnston Press saw revenues fall by 4.3pc in the first half of 2014 while profits rose by 3.6pc, according to half-yearly results published today. Overall revenues fell to £135.8m in the period January to June compared to £141.9m in the same period in 2013.

And this is what The Guardian wrote about Newsquest in October this year:

Newsquest has reported an 11% slump in adjusted profits to £67.3m last year, as the regional newspaper company’s chief executive took home a £600,000-plus pay packet.

Parent company Gannett UK, the subsidiary of the US media conglomerate that owns Newsquest, also said that revenues across its more than 200 titles dropped 5.4% to £288.6m.

Newsquest, which owns titles including the Herald in Glasgow, the Argus in Brighton and Southampton’s Southern Daily Echo, said that adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell by 11.1% from £75.8m to £67.3m last year.

Operating profits fell from £58.9m to £52.8m. An intergroup loan of £76.7m resulted in a pre-tax loss of £17.7m, flat year-on-year.

These remain tough times for the newspaper industry. In truth you sensed an undercurrent of the tricky waters which the regional press is navigating itself through from editors attending the NCTJ Journalism Skills Conference in Sheffield the other week.

It is a shame that the digital revolution is happening at a time of numbing cost-cutting when newspaper groups should be heaping huge investment on staff and equipment instead. How different the landscape would be with undiluted ambition and investment.

Sadly, the industry is having to embrace this new era by taking creative short cuts and heaping a huge level of expectation on its journalists, having lost many of the more experienced operators from these now traditional end-of-year culls. Hence, the point in my blog last week that quality in the newsroom is being lost at the expense of speed.

When it comes to the regional press, I've never subscribed to the view that being first necessarily makes you best with the news. Will the reader remember you more because you were first with the news, or will you be held with greater respect because of the quality and accuracy of the content?

Let the rolling TV news channels make tits of themselves over every scrap of breaking news, but the regional press doesn't have to go down that road. Why do readers turn to regional platforms? It is because they trust what has been written, and they are looking for the proper authority and context.

I told my reporters to get the story right first time. Get it accurate, deliver the sources, and write it with understanding and gravitas so that it becomes a credible piece of journalism. And that's what I'm telling the journalists of tomorrow.

I subscribe to the view that readers will always turn to a regional newspaper or website, not because it was first, but because of the accuracy with how the news was told.

I remember my primary school teacher regularly berated me in class for trying to complete a task first, simply so I could be noticed and recognised by my peers for what I had done - or not done!


My balloon was rapidly burst by my teacher scrawling her red pen through the an exercise book littered with inaccuracies, pointing out loudly my needless mistakes and telling me to do it again. "Check your work, David and check it again," she would often say. "More haste, less speed" - and this was a mantra which I took with me into professional life.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not describing a model of the regional press being slow and dull with breaking news either in print or through digital.

Twitter, Facebook and websites allow newspaper titles which have long histories and proud reputations to connect with their audience like ever before, with a reach far greater than in the narrow furrow days of print. These are exciting times for the media which have to be embraced fully.

The regional press is at the coalface of news and should be breaking it. However, the media has to get out of the notion that being first with the news is absolutely paramount. Break the news and aim to break it first, but please get it right and don't waste resources and miss the jump with bland and mis-informed speculation.

It is all about trust - a word which crucially sits paramount to the integrity of the regional press.

This is about the need to tell the story accurately, with depth and understanding, but not behaving like a child running home to his mother to tell a half-baked anecdote with very little substance.

Young journalists must not lose their focus on accuracy and quality

IT was little more than a year ago and a beautiful summer's evening in Eastbourne. 

As I stared out from the seafront flat where I was living, the calm was suddenly disturbed by two police cars haring down the road, sirens blazing, screeching to a halt besides the pier.

Moments later, an air ambulance helicopter landed gently on the beach which, moments earlier, had been cleared of visitors.

I did what any journalist does in these circumstances, I chased after the police cars in a somewhat futile gesture on my bike. Fortunately, I didn't have to cycle far. Just around the corner, a car with three people inside had crashed into the wall of a shop.

Fire crews were trying to wrench open the roof of the car to free the occupants inside. A cordon was set back and a crowd had gathered to watch the emergency services in action.

As with all Johnston Press journalists, I had my trusted HTC phone. I spoke to a couple of policemen manning the cordon to find out broad details, chatted to a few people to see if they had seen what had happened, and then, using my phone, I filmed the scene.

No-one was prepared to be interviewed on camera, so instead I filmed 60 seconds of the fire brigade at work, pictures of the police and onlookers - mindful, of course, of any ethical issues surrounding the intrusion of grief and privacy!

I had earlier Tweeted a photo of the air ambulance on the beach and sent a second Tweet of the crash scene, along with brief details of the accident, all contained within 140 characters.

I then pedaled back to the office, and as video from my phone was being uploaded, I put in a few calls to the police, ambulance, fire and also the council for the basis of an initial 200-word web story. The video needed some editing, a bit of topping and tailing and then, together with the web story, the two pieces of material were uploaded onto the Eastbourne Herald website.

The video was definitely not Oscar-winning material, but within 90 minutes of the crash, a video and a web story had been uploaded, while the weblink had been signposted from both Twitter and Facebook. It was the most read web story that week. It was nice to know that I could still do it!

This is the fast-paced, multi-media world of the modern journalist. No longer are you focused solely on print, instead your target is various media platforms.

All of this was drawn into sharp focus in Sheffield this week for the National Council for the Training of Journalists' Skills Conference. The two-day seminar featured journalists, editors and journalism trainers from across the UK.

One of the more interesting sessions looked at how journalists are coping with the digital age. A sobering insight was captured by a fresh-faced but nonetheless extremely proficient Sheffield Star journalist who told a similar tale to mine at one of the sessions.

He was covering a funeral of young person who had died in a car crash. There, this young journalist was taking photos, tweeting, videoing and doing everything which could easily have been performed by at least two other journalists.

Ironically, the key part of this assignment, actually writing the story to the web, was not done by him, but instead by a colleague back at the Star who was piecing together his Tweets. Not an ideal set-up, if I'm honest.

I, along with everyone else in the room, was full of admiration for the professionalism and dedication of the Sheffield Star reporter. There's no doubt that he is a talent, someone who will go far, but sadly never once was the word quality ever mentioned. Can we really entrust such a huge expectation on young journalists and expect them to delivery the high standards expected? Or is it a case of just chuck it out as quick as we can to be first with the news?

Coming home from the conference and absorbing two days of interesting discussion, it is clear that more demands than ever are being placed on young journalists by management who are cutting costs and jobs.

Convergent journalism is important, but my worry is that quality is in danger of being lost. I think some of the expectations are unreal and these decisions are being made by managers who haven't been in the front line for quite some time, if ever. Decisions are being made by bean counters looking at Excel spreadsheets filled with numbers of FTEs (full-time employees) and editorial costs.

The one thing which stands newspapers apart from bloggers and citizen journalists is the quality of what we provide. MP David Blunkett made this very point at the conference dinner. Lumber young journalists with a workload which is almost untenable, and quality will suffer. Do that, and credibility of the regional press, in particular, will crumble.

Now as someone who is teaching tomorrow's journalists, I know how it is important to equip them with the skills to become an excellent multi-media journalist. No matter what the platform, my mantra has always been accuracy and quality. Being first with the news is irrelevant if you can't get the accuracy and quality.

My fear is that managers, while out of necessity looking at the bottom line of costs, need to be very careful about the weight of expectation they are placing on young journalists, because there is a very real danger that accuracy and quality will suffer. And then what will happen.....?

Regulation of the media - why I like the cut of Sir Alan Moses' jib

THE Society of Editors' conference doesn't sound the most thrilling of gatherings, but in journalism circles it is one of the more interesting of get-togethers.

I found editing a newspaper quite a lonely experience - you work closely with your editorial team and other departments, as well as senior management - but you have to be very careful about who you can trust.

Getting together with fellow editors was always a cathartic experience; fellow peas in the pod who you could share war stories with, discuss important issues of the day and pinch a few ideas from too!

Now no longer part of that hallowed circle, I was pleased to be invited to this week's conference by the president of the Guild of Editors, Ian Murray - my old boss at the Southern Daily Echo. I regard Ian as one of the best in the business, and I learned a lot from him in my time as deputy editor in Southampton.

There were quite a few familiar faces to talk to at the conference. It was fascinating to hear they take on where the industry is at, and the pressures which editors are facing today. Talk about journalism sometimes being a circus, editors are now master jugglers.

Sir Alan Moses, a rather stern-looking former Appeal Court judge, delivered a keynote lecture on the opening evening of the conference about his new role as chairman of the Independent Press Standards Organisation.

He had promised the speech wouldn't be a sermon, but it most definitely was as Sir Alan talked about how "a fearless press can be a fair press"and how successful regulation of the media won't be achieved by "the manic firing of a big bazooka!

Despite the sermon, Sir Alan cut a very credible, no-nonsense figure who will do well at the head of IPSO.

He talked a lot of sense about making regulation of the media straightforward and insisted that the new regulator would "come armed with a slim, clear book of rules, and not with an iron fist" when it tackles complaints.

He added: "Mistakes and errors of judgement will always occur. But if you do so deliberately, flagrantly, without caring one jot whether you beak the code or not, Ipso will damn you."

I liked the cut of Sir Alan's jib. His strident tones won't please the critics, yet Ipso will be judged by what it is able to achieve. But I sense, with Sir Alan's hands firmly on the tiller, press regulation might be achieved through less stormy waters.


I LOATHE paperwork, and detest health and safety officialdom. The degree of anal H&S hoops you have to jump through nowadays is simply eye-watering.

Last week, I organised an afternoon out for students to a council meeting last week, and then a day later, I put together a further trip to a Royal Television Society workshop held just 20 miles down the road in Southampton. The paperwork was like preparing for an expedition to Afghanistan.

Yes, health and safety needs to be in place. I don't take my duty looking after the welfare of my students lightly. Far from it. Their safety is paramount.

But health and safety, should be appropriate, it should be measured, but a whole industry had sprung from this tick box culture, an unnecessarily so. Does anyone actually read those forms, what do they mean?

The irony of the occasion was that for the Royal Television Society trip to Southampton, the one health and safety factor I hadn't factored in was the coach failing to turn up! It had been booked, but the coach company had forgotten about us.

So I got two of the students to take their cars, along with mine, which were packed to the gunnels with journos which managed to get to Solent University on time.

I am sure I contravened a whole series of health and safety regulations, but the bottom line is that we got to the media workshop, and the students had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon meeting senior editors and journalists from television and newspapers.


I SHARED this on my Facebook page at the weekend, but I will share this very thought-provoking comment from a colleague, who lost her mother just before Remembrance Sunday.

The 95-year-old mother of one of my shorthand teachers at Highbury College passed away on Friday. Ironically, I only discovered this by reading a posting on Facebook - how life has changed with communicating news!

I was concerned whether she would want to come into college to teach on Monday morning, but my colleague was adamant that she wanted to be in work as didn't want to let down the students.

She then sent a note to all of her students, and here is what she wrote:

It somehow seems appropriate that this is Remembrance Sunday weekend as my mother spent much of her twenties going through the Second World War. 

She had some tales to tell of these times - of the dances, the GIs, how to make-up your legs to simulate stockings ........ Life had to go on despite the bombs and constant worry over loved ones fighting.

So I feel that the best memorial I can achieve at the present time is to continue to do my bit to get you young future guardians of the democratic process into place. 

So I would appreciate it if you will help me do that by making sure it is business as usual tomorrow morning. And keep practising today.

There was nothing Machiavellian about leaving the Swindon Advertiser

SO what really happened at Swindon? It's a question I've been asked a few times since I stepped down as editor of the Swindon Advertiser after four very enjoyable years in the Wiltshire town.

Only last week, I was asked by one friend who surmised there was something deep and devilish about my departure, a resignation which, at the time, featured prominently in the two trade websites - Hold The Front Page and UK Press Gazette.

Had I moved to another editorship or straight into a high profile media role, I guess the issue would have been left alone. The fact that I took time out from journalism, despite publicly stating I was leaving for family reasons, has left the door open to mischievous speculation which has followed me around.

The truth of the matter is that there was absolutely nothing Machiavellian about leaving the Adver.

I certainly wasn't pushed and, in fact, on my departure I received a very nice lettter from the then managing director, Shamus Donald, thanking me for what I had done. I had established the Swindon Advertiser as one of the top performing Newsquest titles in terms of newspaper circulation and web traffic, and the Adver's reputation in the community was at an all-time high.

However, there is not denying it was a difficult time as an editor - and still is. Shortly before I left Swindon, six members of staff were made redundant as part of another cost-cutting exercise.

In three hours, I culled 67 years of experience somewhat needlessly because, when you looked at the books, Newsquest in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire had made a very tidy first quarter profit - but clearly not enough profit for the paymasters in Weybridge and back at Gannett in Virginia.

These redundancies came just months after centralising the Newsquest subbing operations in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire into one unit based in Oxford. Once again, jobs were lost since many of the Wiltshire staff had understandably said they would not relocate to Oxfordshire.

Honestly, I didn't think the strategy was right, and I expressed this fact to the management team. But as an editor you are a professional, and my role was to deliver what was asked of me. I had made my point, now I wanted to make sure I acted in the most empathetic way with the staff who I was letting go.

However, this was not the editor throwing his toys out of the pram in a fit of pique. I left the newspaper with my head held high and the blessing of the company. And I believe I left the Swindon Advertiser in good shape.

It was also a good opportunity to take some time out before embarking on my next venture - which, in fact, took me to Eastbourne later that autumn to work with a long-time friend, Keith Ridley, editor-in-chief of Sussex Newspapers in East Sussex.

Why am I writing this now? Well, partly because I've been asked the question quite a lot lately, especially since beginning teaching journalism. The answer is exactly as it was reported three years' ago:
www.swindonlink.com/news/swindon-advertiser-editor-leaves-after-4-years

And also, because I noted with interest this week how that subbing hub which I helped to set up in Oxford is now under threat, with Newsquest looking to creating a super subbing hub in Newport:
www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2014/news/jobs-could-be-axed-in-latest-newsquest-subbing-relocation-plans/

The news is no surprise. The Newport operation is already taking on subbing from Newsquest's north-west and north-east titles, and I know my former colleagues at the Southern Daily Echo in Southampton are looking with interest at what is happening in South Wales.

Subbing is becoming a dying art. Some newspaper groups have gone down the route of asking its journalists to write copy into templated shapes, along with fact files, headlines, straps, sub-heads and calling in pictures.

As someone now training the next generation of journalists, I can tell you that the raw material currently coming through is top drawer. We've got some excellent, news aware and social media savvy trainees coming through the ranks, who are desperately hungry to make a career as a journalist. I have high hopes for their future.

However, the weight of expectation that trainees should also be expected to sub their stories on their first day at work is madness.

I have to say whoever came up with this short-sighted strategy has either never subbed in their life, or worse, never worked in a newsroom. I can understand the financial expediency by cutting out this layer of editorial, but I am surprised at some editors and senior managers who have clearly served their newsroom apprenticeships who have nodded this through.

Sub-editors have traditionally been experienced and seasoned journalists who know their art. They've gone through the reporting ranks for several years before stepping up to the subs' desk. Subbing is a skill. It is a pedantic skill. Writing a four deck single column headline about a on-going court case in an accurate, balanced and legally-assured way is a supreme journalism test.

Proof readers? Forget it! They died with typewriters and the hot metal presses. A lot of proof-reading is done in-house by the reporters or the newsdesk, if there is time. The current financially-expedient route means the potential for needless mistakes and major legals is huge.

At least there is a semblance of subbing at Newsquest, but this hardly ideal an ideal arrangement - how is someone is Newport going to recognise the proper spelling of a place name or leading figure in Darlington or Darwin? Are they honestly going to go to the nth degree to rigorously check and re-check the facts to a story with an inquiring mind?

I'm not questioning the professionalism or dedication of those subs working in Newport, but is the same degree of care going to be taken to eradicate mistakes, to check with reporters, to ensure the pages sparkle on what is a relentless production line of subbing?

Maybe it is going to take a few major legal pay-outs for the big bosses to realise that cutting back on quality subbing is a false economy.

I have always believed that what makes local newspapers relevant is that they sit at the heart of the communities they serve. Journalists know their readers who will tell them when they get something wrong. I hope that philosophy is never lost.