Press Darlings

My costume choice for this year - 'flyboy' from the
original Dawn of the Dead. If I'm lucky, one person will
know who I'm going as 

You may be a Christian, a Buddhist, a Sikh, or a Rangers supporter. But even if you don't believe in something, there always seems to be the nagging feeling that there are forces at work. The bus always seems to be pulling away from the stop, the one day it rains is the one day that you put a great deal of effort into some zombie make-up, and the day you suddenly decide your lifelong ambition is to bring back 'Jim'll Fix It', you click on the BBC news page and bawl your little eyes out. For me it's a case of everything being pushed into next week. Two friends are celebrating their birthdays, my second news day (complete with an 8 o' clock start) is on, it's Halloween, where I want to take another stab at a decent costume, I'm request collecting for the hospital radio, I have an interview with a local paper regarding a 6 week placement, and I have another early start in the form of advanced media law, which also requires a fair amount of preparation. I'm not complaining though. It's better to have too much on your plate than to be clawing at scraps and procrastinating.

I'm not going to claim to be a full blown journalist. That's why I'm eager to get out on placement - I want to be under proper pressure in a news room, I want to find people's stories, I want to see some of my words printed out and sold to hundreds. But my course really has allowed me to dip my toe into the whole thing. I've not just been sitting in a darkened room typing up essays on the theory of journalism. Dealing with real people and real problems is excellent. I've had a problem in the past, being sensitive to anything people say. But when I had a councillor flaring up and shouting about how only junkies visited the local park, I smiled inside, thinking about how great the footage was. I have political opinions, but these days it's harder for me to reach a conclusion. There are very few cases where we have the hero on one hand, and the classic villain stroking his cat and flexing his scar on the other. When you properly listen to everyone's opinions it's hard not to repeatedly fall off the fence onto one side, get back on, fall on to the other side and repeat. But that's the beauty of it - letting people decide for themselves.

Paperboy got points and bonuses, I got a roll and
square sausage and £30 a week

I can't remember the exact moment where I said to myself  "I want to be a journalist" but it was probably when I was doing my paper round at half past 7 in the morning. It wasn't a particularly fun or eventful job, but it meant that by the time I dragged myself into school at 9 o' clock I was well versed on the day's headlines. People say print journalism is dying, and people also say there will be those who want the day's news in their ink-stained hands. It doesn't make much of a difference to me either way, it will all simply move online. I will be slightly sad to see newspapers go, I think. If an average joe makes the paper, they may proudly stick the newsprint page onto the wall where it will remain for years. Clicking your way through an online archive is arguably not as satisfying. It'll be the end of an icon. But I don't even know if I'm going to go into newspapers. Radio and TV journalism is also on the table (and I might not be employed at all). But regardless of the format, the honest and slightly cheesy desire to get out a story and uncover the truth, educate, or warm people's hearts will remain. Twitter is never going to take over from journalists, thank god.

50 posts, 70 followers, which is some sort of an achievement. Don't know why y'all keep coming back, but you do so...

[What I'm currently listening to > \Talking Heads - Fear of Music/]

...thanks for reading!

Au McDo

So I've got two days at university a week. I can hardly complain, even if I have to get up at 7 on said days and run four miles. Today we were being told about our upcoming 'newsdays'. We have three of these, and on each day we have to produce three stories. One day is for TV, one day is for online, one day is for the radio. Three days doesn't sound too taxing. But in our groups we  have to find three good stories, interview relevant people, film/record them, edit the stories and generally make them fit to view by the end of the day. I'm not very good with equipment, but I've volunteered for sound on the TV day, which I excelled at last time (I crouch below the camera like a buffoon holding a microphone), a newsreader for the Radio day, and I'll probably be everything on the online day from writing stories to running about getting everybody's sandwiches and tea. I'm really looking forward to it.

At least it wasn't diet Pepsi

However, we weren't doing any of that today. We were more or less getting run downs on good practices and techniques. Nevertheless I decided to reward myself with some food, saying as how I'd got up okay for the past couple of days. Now I think McDonalds is a horrible organisation that serves absolute shit only good for fucking up your body. So I asked for an extra large meal. Upon sitting down to eat, I realised something was wrong. My coke tasted like half of it had been emptied and topped up with urine. Then I remembered I'd ordered diet coke for the sake of my teeth. But it reminded me how stupid people were that were rude to food service folk. Forget Generals and Presidents, food handlers have the most power out of anyone in the world. Being a student, I have many student friends that have worked in such a profession. I've yet to meet one that hasn't spat in somebody's food for one reason or another. But that's nothing compared to a particular passage in Trainspotting, where a waitress is verbally harassed by customers. She proceeds to dip her soaked tampon into the Tomato soup, and mixes her runny excrement in with the chocolate sauce for the Profiteroles. Inventive. But perhaps not particularly appetizing. Don't be an idiot.

Speaking of the food service industry, it reminds me that have to gain employment. I enquired at a few places today. I haven't done that for a while. I'm assuming that the prospect of having no money to buy drink has motivated me. Couldn't let that happen. Thanks for reading!