NEWSNIGHT CELEBRATES, WITH GIFT FIT FOR CHAVS
Now
then Jeremy, what gift is Newsnight , the programme that prides itself
on presenting an intellectual and analytical take on the day’s events,
offering its readers to mark its 25th anniversary?
Answer the question, Mr Paxman.
It’s a bracelet, isn’t it? And would you like to tell us what it’s made of?
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Come on, come on, we haven’t got all day. It’s plastic, isn’t it?
Paid for with my licence fee.
And
not only are you fobbing them off with this tacky piece of tat, but
you’re also expecting them to come up with the lame slogan that will be
embossed on it, aren’t you?
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Admit it. You can’t come up with one of your own, can you Mr Paxman?
Right,
then let’s have a look at some of the entries from viewers on the BBC
Newsnight website so far: ” Newsnight . It’s the news. At night” – John
Peto, N Ireland.
“I’d rather be watchin’ Newsnight ” – Steve Bernstein, Cambridge.
” Newsnight is 25 and all I got was this lousy bracelet” – Claire Hanna, Belfast.
Very highbrow. You’ll be giving them out at a ceremony from Blackpool Pleasure Beach, presumably.
Any final thoughts, Mr Paxman?
In that case, have a Press Gazette “Trust Me I’m a Journalist” badge, with Dog’s compliments.
Useless email, 37,000 times
As
a busy editor of a group of weekly titles, Slough and Windsor Observer
group editor Sally Stevens is no stranger to poorly targeted email.
So
when she received a press release from a company called Premier
Training International, her irritation was only mild – even though she
happened to notice the address list included no fewer than 295 other
newspapers on it (nothing like a good exclusive, is there?)n But this
was one occasion when a simple click of the delete button failed to do
the trick.
“Owing to a fault, each recipient apparently received
around 37,000 copies of it, paralysing email inboxes,” says Stevens. “I
wouldn’t have minded but the press release is of absolutely no interest
to the Slough and Windsor Observer anyway.
Alert
Dog fans may remember the kennel piece just before Christmas from the
Express & Star in Wolverhampton in which a heavenly byline had
appeared. This is just in from the New Forest Post. The second coming,
perhaps?
Terrific two ton tale
A
Shrewsbury reporter had a strange sense of déjà -vu when she was
proof-reading a 100th birthday story, feeling sure that she had seen
the story somewhere before.
It was for a lady called Edith
Corfield, who lived in a care home in Abbey Foregate in Shrewsbury, and
had just reached the milestone age. Vickie Woodward, 24, remembered
writing the same story almost exactly a year ago for the front page of
the Shrewsbury Chronicle.
On
further investigation, Woodward discovered that they were in fact two
different people. The two Edith Corfields lived opposite each other,
were not related and had never met – until Vickie arranged for them to
have afternoon tea together.
So Edith Corfield travelled the 50 yards across the road to have tea with – Edith Corfield.
Woodward
said: “At first I thought there had been a mistake somewhere along the
line and it was the same person, but when I spoke to both care homes
they confirmed it was definitely two different people. I was amazed.”
Paxoed: DG gets a grilling
SPEAKING
of Paxman, the man himself was chosen to grill director-general Mark
Thompson at the BBC’s internal News Festival, a talking shop for its
journalists which began on Wednesday.
In preparation, Paxo had sent an email to all staff asking them to suggest some tough questions he could pose to the new boss.
Hence
he was able to kick off in his usual soft-soap style with: “A year ago
you said you didn’t want this job. In the words of Gordon Brown
allegedly talking about a close colleague ‘There is nothing you could
say to us now that we could ever believe'”
“Inarticulate,” was how one onlooker described Thompson’s stuttering response.
MEANWHILE,
Dog wonders what reception will be given to another special guest at
the News Festival. On Thursday, Auntie’s assembled hacks are due to be
treated to the thoughts on their political coverage of a certain
Alastair Campbell.
Yes, the very chap whose relentless attacks on
Andrew Gilligan plunged the corporation into crisis, and who
triumphantly welcomed the Hutton report by holding a press conference
to slam its “unforgivable lying”.
The art of sexing up is not dead
Dog
would be the last canine to suggest that Andrew Gilligan’s note-taking
is anything short of immaculate, but a curious piece in last Friday’s
Evening Standard has raised a few kennel eyebrows.
It detailed
the heartwarming tale of the British family, Martin and Vicky Markwell
and their five-year-old son Jai, who were found safe and well after
spending five days in the jungle with no access to a telephone
following the Asian tsunami.
But his inclusion of the amazing
detail that young Jai was on a surfboard when the wave struck, set
bells ringing with staff at PA, who checked their files.
There
had indeed been early reports of a remarkable escape by a Martin
Markwell – but these had quickly been corrected to give his proper name
of Martin Hambrook – who had remarkably surfed the wave inland to
safety. His wife Vicky and son Jai had fled to the hotel balcony where
they watched his miraculous ride.
The story had been reported
widely, with the correct names on 2 January – a mere two weeks prior to
Gilligan’s piece in the Standard . Oh yes, and Jai was seven, not five.
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