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Dear writers that are and writers that hope to be,
I would like to bring a situation to the attention of board members. I don’t know what your local papers are like, but ours are in a sorry state. The journalism is pretty shocking with so called journalists solely interested in printing silly puff pieces about any old rubbish, provided you give them the entire story and let them take a “funny” photograph to go with it.
We used to have a real reporter down here, he upset a lot of people but he got the stories, every day he would be out pounding the pavements. One story took over a year. The local hospital removed the wrong kidney from a patient and he subsequently died. The bland statement put out by the hospital was accepted by everyone until he started digging. It took a long time but eventually the truth came out and was printed. Unfortunately he left the paper and went to work for the Council.
Our paper has recently started a scheme whereby they are inviting members of the public to send in their photographs, their stores and their film and theatre reviews – all for no payment at all. The real outrage is that if you want to buy one of these photographs you are then charged an extortionate amount for something that cost them nothing! Of course the paper also makes money from advertising.
Their latest stunt is to ask for people to contribute to blogs. If you follow this link http://southwales.thisisblogging.co.uk/ and click on “Do you want to write reviews for us?” you will see what I mean. If you read the comments you will see what I have already said about this situation.
The point is that many famous journalists started out on the local rag. It was where you learnt the basics, I believe I am correct in saying that our own Paul Begg started out that way. If however papers are going to go this way then we are going to lose out. We will lose out by not having a professional journalist write the stories and also by not having this spring board into the world of journalism.
I would welcome comments from our writers and aspiring writers on this situation, and please leave your comments on the South Wales board so they might see it’s not just me.
I would like to bring a situation to the attention of board members. I don’t know what your local papers are like, but ours are in a sorry state. The journalism is pretty shocking with so called journalists solely interested in printing silly puff pieces about any old rubbish, provided you give them the entire story and let them take a “funny” photograph to go with it.
We used to have a real reporter down here, he upset a lot of people but he got the stories, every day he would be out pounding the pavements. One story took over a year. The local hospital removed the wrong kidney from a patient and he subsequently died. The bland statement put out by the hospital was accepted by everyone until he started digging. It took a long time but eventually the truth came out and was printed. Unfortunately he left the paper and went to work for the Council.
Our paper has recently started a scheme whereby they are inviting members of the public to send in their photographs, their stores and their film and theatre reviews – all for no payment at all. The real outrage is that if you want to buy one of these photographs you are then charged an extortionate amount for something that cost them nothing! Of course the paper also makes money from advertising.
Their latest stunt is to ask for people to contribute to blogs. If you follow this link http://southwales.thisisblogging.co.uk/ and click on “Do you want to write reviews for us?” you will see what I mean. If you read the comments you will see what I have already said about this situation.
The point is that many famous journalists started out on the local rag. It was where you learnt the basics, I believe I am correct in saying that our own Paul Begg started out that way. If however papers are going to go this way then we are going to lose out. We will lose out by not having a professional journalist write the stories and also by not having this spring board into the world of journalism.
I would welcome comments from our writers and aspiring writers on this situation, and please leave your comments on the South Wales board so they might see it’s not just me.