The techniques employed by journalists to be the first to the story are in the spotlight at the moment more than ever due to the allegations of phone hacking by News of the World journalists.

Phone hacking, the old-fashioned way

Leaving that specific case behind, as I can’t afford to fight any possible legal battles, it has made me think about the kind of things that my former colleagues, and myself, would get up to in order to get that all-important exclusive.

Stories about phone hacking have been around since Alexander Graham Bell wondered why details of his private life were the talk of Victorian London, possibly.

Some of the older members of the noble profession will tell you about being able to bung a few quid to the old-fashioned telephone operators to be able to listen in on the line to certain conversations.

I have heard of newsrooms where a police radio scanner was used to listen out for incidents, with the result that every now and again a journalist or photographer would turn up moments before the police or ambulance, which is potentially awkward.

You might also occasionally ‘forget to mention’ you work for the press if you turn up at a crime scene and start idly chatting with the copper on the line in the hope he might let something slip, which you would of course then have to verify with the corporate communications officer.

To be honest I was never very good at subterfuge and was once sent to a pub in a rough part of Bristol to attempt to infiltrate a gang of racists who were allegedly using the pub as a recruiting ground for their vile neo-Nazi ideals.

Somehow my well-fed frame and slightly plumby middle class accent didn’t help to back up the cover story that I was a hard-bitten racist from the streets. For that same reason I was never sent out to infiltrate drug gangs or the criminal underworld in some of the more dangerous public houses in the city, for fear I would get to the bar and ask for a glass of Chablis, slightly chilled and an amuse bouche, preferably something with oysters.

I think the closest I ever got to the dark arts was sitting on the loo and overhearing a conversation between two city councillors which made a mildly interesting ‘news in brief’ story for page 28 one slow news day at the Evening Post.

But it always makes me laugh when people talk about journalists working in PR as moving ‘to the dark side’, as I have never seen anybody in PR paying a policeman or criminal for information, walking round the office drunk at midday, tapping into a celebrity’s voicemail or sticking cameras up pop star’s skirts as they get out of taxis. Perhaps they should?

simonp Uncategorized journalism, news of the world, phone hacking, PR, the dark arts

Not long after I arrived in Bristol I found myself bleary eyed one Sunday morning watching the Bristol Half Marathon on TV, live. It was 2001 I believe, and the race had some kind of world status for that year which meant it attracted enough attention from national BBC to put it on the box.

I was also looking out for one of my new colleagues who had volunteered to run in the event and chronicle her training travails for a regular feature in the paper.

Being still fairly new to the city I was really impressed that this was going and I felt like I had arrived in a really exciting city.

Down the years the Bristol Half has grown massively and I have run it a number of times, to a greater or lesser degree of success. But even if I’m not running it I love the atmosphere and great sense of occasion that it creates.

There are some great stories this year as ever, particulary my friend Emily Koch who suffered terrible injuries in 2008 after being hit by a car.

She has fought her way back to fitness and completed her first half marathon in two hours five minutes today, which is a great time and an inspiring achievement.

You can read all about it on her blog.

It makes me feel slightly ashamed that I have not bothered to put in the hours of training this year, despite having a place in the event. I just haven’t found the drive to get off my backside this summer, but hope to remedy that very soon as I’d love to do one more Bristol Half and get a personal best.

In the meantime I hope Emily and everybody else enjoys their achievements today.

simonp Uncategorized

If there was such a thing as bad PR, it would definitely be centred around claims of racism, the likes of which have finished political and pop music careers alike down the years.
But Morrissey seems to pop  up with what could be construed as racist comments every few years and appears to be the backbone of his PR strategy.
Taking nothing away from the man as a musician, I’m a big fan, but the famously reclusive patron saint of angst-ridden teens does seem to make far more headlines for the wrong reasons of late.
The most recent story is an apparent race row or storm over comments he made in an interview with The Guardian, branding the Chinese a ‘subspecies’ because of animal welfare issues.
I doubt whether he thought it would be a strategically significant thing to do in order to create more publicity around the interview, but I suspect it got more attention than it would otherwise have done.
Readers may remember that Morrissey was accused of racism during the 1980s and much of the 1990s, which in part was due to the ambiguous lyrics in songs such as “Bengali in Platforms,” “Asian Rut” and “The National Front Disco,” the latter containing the lyric “England for the English”.
And in a biography of the singer he apparently admitted that in his late teens, the singer wrote “I don’t hate Pakistanis, but I dislike them immensely.”
So, it does prompt the question, is Morrissey simply a daft racist, or is this some kind of highly explosive strategy to create masses of negative PR around making ludicrous and offensively racist comments in the media?
I would never recommend such a strategy and I would have thought Morrissey had more brains in his head, but whatever your opinion he has achieved a lot of coverage in the past couple of days.
Maybe that was the aim, but at what price?

simonp Uncategorized

I can’t believe the nonsense surrounding the William Hague story at the moment and feel quite sick that he felt the only thing that might silence the braying voices is an insight into the tragic family life of the Hagues.
Perhaps he should have just ignored these rumours and they might have gone away. But what exactly is being hinted at? At worst he had a relationship with a 25-year-old aide, but the fact they are both male once again points to the mad obsession the media seem to have with homosexuality in the mainstream.
Who knows why he shared a room, a twin room by the way, maybe Tory party coffers aren’t what they were.
From a PR point of view though, it doesn’t look good simply because it seems we can’t be grown up about these things.
Now, to the ‘heartfelt’ statement as it is now known, it seems to have done more harm than good in one sense as the story is continuing to feed off itself and so everybody is seeking out comments from Tory MPs who are dutifully supplying useful sound bites for the World At One, and all the rest.
It’s a shame that he had to play that card, or felt that he did, and it seems even the revelation that he and his wife are grieving over their latest miscarriage isn’t enough to put a stop to the story.
But what amazes me most is that all the mainstream media are running a story based on rumours, nothing more, which as a journalist I was taught on day one to either prove it, or bin it.
If there is any evidence, let’s hear it, if not, do we want a media that is happy to circulate rumours as legitimate stories in the mainstream press?
I should say I’m neither a Tory, nor gay, but I am left with an overwhelming sense of ’so what’, when I hear that a Tory MP may have had a gay affair.
Although, I can see that that picture of Mr Hague in the skinny white top and wrap around shades probably got the gaydar bleeping for somebody.

simonp Uncategorized