Birmingham Press Club Blog

COMPTON 'MAC' IFILL

noreply@blogger.com (Birmingham Press Club Blogger) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:47:00 +0000

by Philip Parkin, Operations Director, Birmingham Press Club

2010 has started on a sombre note with the news that much respected former ‘Birmingham Post’ journalist Compton ‘Mac’ Ifill had sadly passed away in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Long time ‘Post’ co-worker Steve Pain has put together an obituary, which you can find here, but this is my own tribute to someone who I knew as a friend and colleague for many years.

I first came across Mac when he joined the ‘Post’ at the beginning of the 1990s.

Mac was supplements editor, and had the unenviable task of basically starting all over again with this important department.

He had to work with limited resources and as supplements took off, he often recruited freelance help, which is where I first came to work with him.

As Steve remarks elsewhere, Mac was hard but fair – but he certainly didn’t suffer fools gladly. But if you weren’t a fool, you were OK!

Mac was proud of the fact that, under his leadership, supplements helped bring in a significant sum of money for the ‘Post’, achieved against a backdrop of falling circulation in the 1990s.

Some of those supplements, which included the monthly ‘Commercial Property Review’ and the annual ‘Corporate Finance’ features, were incredibly popular with the business community.

When Mac left the ‘Post’, it was with much sadness. He didn’t want to go, in reality, and I think he found it rather hard to adjust to retirement.

He still had his hobbies, which included Apple Mac computers, on which he was something of an expert (particularly ‘comms’, as he put it), and he also enjoyed socialising, often being found holding court at his local hostelry, the Lord Leycester.

He loved to relate a story about a heated argument he had with someone in the Lord Leycester, which resulted in him getting a pint tipped over his head – it was a story he told with much laughter, as Mac was not in any way egotistical.

However, he was someone who commanded respect. As Steve Pain says, he was a product of the old school – you never saw him without a jacket and tie, and a handkerchief neatly folded into his breast pocket.

He did not look his age, which tended to hide the fact that he suffered many bouts of serious illness, including gout and heart problems. But he never complained, and soldiered on regardless.

I hadn’t seen him for a while, but we remained in touch via email (he was always keen to find out about the latest goings-on at the ‘Post’).

I’ll miss him – and I know that there will be plenty of other people, colleagues and friends, who will feel the same way.

A CHRISTMAS STORY: HOW BRITAIN'S CROOKED MPS WERE UNMASKED

noreply@blogger.com (Birmingham Press Club Blogger) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:16:00 +0000

by Philip Parkin, Operations Director, Birmingham Press Club

And so to the finale of the year, as far as Press Club activities go. The event in question was the annual Christmas lunch at the Radisson, which this year was immensely livened up by the presence of Andrew Pierce, assistant editor of the ‘Telegraph.’

Pierce was there to entertain us all with revelations about how the ‘Telegraph’ beat its rivals to the scoop of the decade, namely the MPs’ expenses scandal.

The scandal had its origins in some poky office somewhere in London, where a group of squaddies were supplementing their meagre pay by being put to work on censoring MPs’ expenses claims forms, which were going to be made public due to Freedom of Information regulations.

The squaddies were incensed at seeing the extent to which the Westminster troughers were ripping off the taxpayer – whilst they had been risking life and limb in some hellhole like Afghanistan, the Right Honourable gentlemen had been busy claiming for moats, duck houses and £9,000 televisions.

Anyway, it was decided to ‘out’ the MPs, and the uncensored details were offered to a number of newspapers, including the ‘Express’ and the ‘Sun’, who obviously failed to spot their potential.

Pierce revealed that Rebekah Wade, editor of the ‘Sun’, said if there was no bonking involved, or it wasn’t going to bring down a Cabinet minister, then she wasn’t interested. Wonder what Rupert Murdoch thinks of such an enlightened approach to news gathering?

Mind you, it’s highly unlikely the scandal would have got as good an airing in the ‘Sun’ as it did in the ‘Telegraph’.

Encouraged by the success of their expenses coverage, the ‘Telegraph’ is now apparently going to turn it into a series of sorts – they’re going after MEPs next, who, said Pierce, can claim a whopping £360,000 a year without having to produce a single receipt.

And after that we can look forward to reading some revelations about expenses claimed by people at the BBC – bet that one will run and run.

After listening to Andrew Pierce, there seems little doubt that most people in Westminster had their noses in the trough – unfortunately, only a handful face the prospect of going to prison for their fraudulent claims, which he said was certainly not enough. Hear hear!

However, on a more positive note he did reveal that not quite everyone in the Houses of Parliament is a thief – step forward Ann Widdecombe (who, incidentally, read Latin at Birmingham University). Unfortunately, she is retiring at the next election. We can only hope that a few more honest people are elected next May.

THE RETURN OF THE KING OF GOSSIP

noreply@blogger.com (Birmingham Press Club Blogger) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:33:00 +0000

by Philip Parkin, Operations Director, Birmingham Press Club

Birmingham’s king of gossip is dead – long live the king! Yes, the legendary John Bright, formerly of the ‘Birmingham Post’, has been reincarnated, thanks to Birmingham Press Club.

For those baffled already, John Bright was the name given to a long running gossip column in the ‘Post’, which lifted the lid on the more interesting goings-on among Birmingham’s business community.

The Bright column was, for those who made an appearance in it, often highly embarrassing. Despite that, there were very few people on Birmingham’s business scene who didn’t relish being in it.

In fact, many of the city’s suits openly courted the main author of the column, the former business editor of the ‘Post’, the venerable John Duckers.

However, all good things come to an end, and when the ‘Post’ went weekly last month, Bright was abruptly dropped, no doubt much to the dismay of some of its regular contributors (what did Birmingham’s self-styled ‘favourite lawyer’ Adrian Hindmarsh make of it, for instance? Or ‘super-networker’ and otherwise humble accountant Tony Taylor?)

So, the ebullient Duckers decided to relaunch Bright as an online entity – with the backing of Birmingham Press Club, who are sponsoring the site (see story here).

There’s just one problem – the new website can’t be called John Bright, and that’s because the ‘Post’ is intending to re-introduce a Bright column in the New Year (although one imagines that may well turn out to be a pale imitation of what went before).

So, what to call the revelations of the guru of gossip, the titan of tittle-tattle, the wizard of whisper, the master of muckraking?

Well, he’s gone for ‘Duckers and Diving’ – and just in case anyone doesn’t see the connection, the website also goes under the slogan of ‘Birmingham’s brightest business gossip column’. Take a look here.

We all no doubt look forward to visiting the site and reading the latest revelations emerging from Birmingham’s business community – and if you’ve got any tittle-tattle to reveal, please let Duckers know about it via email (johnduckers@live.com), or else all we will read about are the latest events in the lives of Hindmarsh and Taylor. You can have too much of a good thing, you know!

IS IT TOO LATE FOR THE LOCAL PRESS?

noreply@blogger.com (Birmingham Press Club Blogger) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:05:00 +0000

by Philip Parkin, Operations Director, Birmingham Press Club

An item in one of the national newspapers caught my eye this morning, under the headline ‘Beware of town hall spin, says top judge.’

For those who haven’t seen the article, it is a warning from Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge (wow, what a name – that must knock Lord Mandelson’s pompous job title into a cocked hat, and some).

Anyway, Lord Judge, who is the heard of the judiciary, said that there was a danger that the public these days is getting information about what local councils are up to from the councils themselves, rather than ‘independent sources’.

Well, obviously ‘independent sources’ can be taken largely as the local press – but, as the article states, local papers’ reporting of the councils on their patch is just not what it used to be.

Lord Judge summed it up by saying that some local newspapers are ‘relying on council press officers’ for the information they print.

So how have we come to this? In my days on the local weekly, we covered, to some extent or another, the county council, the district council and around half a dozen parish councils.

And we did this by going along to their meetings – well, we only did the full meeting of the county council, but we faithfully attended all the committee meetings of the district council.

Often, we used to print stories that got right up the nose of the council – at the time, the top local official was a boring jobsworth who hated the local press. Ask him for clarification of some matter, and he would do so, but ever so reluctantly. And he would never be more helpful than he had to be.

Siding with him were those members of the council who would rather a lot of things went unreported. But they didn’t – we saw to that.

However, before I left, the paper was taken over by the local freesheet – and that was the beginning of the end for reporting on the council.

The newspaper stopped attending council meetings, as its policy switched from reporting local news to filling in the gaps around the adverts, which is pretty much what most of today’s local papers do.

It’s all about resources, of course – plus the fact that most local newspapers (particularly the weeklies) have dispensed with their (more expensive) experienced hacks, thus relying on young (but green) journalists to deliver the goods.

Also, local newspapers in recent times have had to battle against increasing competition from the internet, and have been further weakened by the loss of advertising revenue during the recession.

Even worse, some areas have lost their local newspapers altogether – so what chance do the people living there stand when it comes to finding out what their council is up to? Are they supposed to go along to the council meetings themselves?

No, the magnificently named Lord Judge is right to warn us about the dangers of a lack of proper independent reporting of council activities.

However, I fear he is too late, which should give us all cause for concern.

BIRMINGHAM POST'S "BRIGHT" LIGHT TO BE EXTINGUISHED

noreply@blogger.com (Birmingham Press Club Blogger) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:20:00 +0000

by Fred Bromwich
Vice-Chairman
Birmingham Press Club

So it looks like The Birmingham Post, in its new weekly (or should that be weakly) format is still going to give the business world a fair crack of the whip. Forty-odd pages or so of business content. But one much-loved institution is destined for the axe.

The John Bright Column, an incestuous weekly digest of gossip devoured by the Colmore Row brigade, will be no more. It'll be as dead as John Cleese's Norwegian Blue parrot.

Bright's Vicar on Earth, ex-Post business editor John Duckers, who compiles the column, was told the news in a call from God himself, Post Editor Marc Reeves - a man destined for reincarnation as he has also revealed that he will be heading for pastures new.

But love it or hate it, the Bright column was compulsive reading. Many people breathed a sigh of relief when certain indiscretions went unreported - but for the most part everyone was delighted to see their name in print, even when it was an embarrassment. A snippet in Bright was the oxygen they craved.

Will the devotees now start a petition to save Bright? Maybe. Would it achieve anything? Maybe not. The clamourings of some outraged readers and old hacks certainly couldn't dissuade Trinity Mirror from chopping the five-days-a-week Post from its diminishing stable of titles.

But as the Post plumps for an on-line future, then maybe even old-timers like Bright can change the habits of a lifetime.

Technology-embracing Duckers, a Luddite-reborn who can now talk twitter, blog, web, iPhone and iPod with the best of them, is seeking salvation for Bright in the world of new media.

The desire is to relaunch Bright on the web. But sponsorship is needed before that becomes a reality.

Will Bright's "victims" rally round to give him a new life?

Time will tell. So watch this space.

WILL POST AND MAIL JOURNALISTS HAVE A BALL?

noreply@blogger.com (Birmingham Press Club Blogger) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:26:00 +0000

by Philip Parkin, Operations Director, Birmingham Press Club

It’s the Press Club’s annual ball this evening, and no doubt a hot topic of conversation will be the changes to the ‘Post’ and ‘Mail’ revealed a few days ago by the owner of the titles, Trinity Mirror.

There will certainly be plenty of ‘Post’ and ‘Mail’ employees at the Ball – not least because our chairman, John Lamb, came up with the idea of donating tickets to the event to those at Fort Dunlop (or Funlop, as we hear it is called).

It will be interesting to hear what the ‘Post’ and ‘Mail’ staffers think of this week’s events, but I can’t believe many of them will be overjoyed at what’s happened, least of all the sub-editors, many of whom will be in line for the tap on the shoulder.

That’s because the ‘Post’ and ‘Mail’ are set to adopt a system called ‘smart templating’, where the reporters flow their own copy into a page template, thus eliminating the role of the down table sub.

It’s not clear to me who then puts the headline on – if that is to become the reporter’s job as well, then you don’t really need any subs at all.

One other potential problem with this system – as everyone in the media knows, it is not a good idea to proof your own work, as it is very easy to miss things you have just written and got wrong.

So, for journalists, subs were always a good fall-back, not just for checking the facts were right, but also for making sure spelling and grammar were correct.

My question is: who’s going to do that now? If anyone knows the answer, or has a view, post a comment below.

Now, turning to the major measures announced by Trinity Mirror, namely the ‘Post’ going weekly and the ‘Mail’ going overnight.

I said in my previous post that I would not give the weekly ‘Post’ much hope of a long and happy existence. Frankly, I would have thought the alternative that Trinity Mirror apparently considered, namely reducing the pagination, was a much better idea.

But then of course, the ‘Post’ would still have been a daily morning paper – the slot that Trinity Mirror wants the ‘Mail’ to occupy.

Of course, when you compare the circulations of the two newspapers, it’s pretty obvious that Trinity Mirror is going to focus most of its efforts on the ‘Mail’.

And, with the Coventry ‘Telegraph’ having already established a precedent for this, the writing has probably been on the wall for the ‘Post’ for some time.

As I have said, I don’t believe the ‘Post’ going weekly is good news at all, and I can’t believe any of those working on it can be happy about it being downgraded in this way.

Well, maybe there is one person – I quote you Marc Reeves, the editor: “I’m delighted to be able to leave the ‘Post’ on a high as it takes a really ambitious and brave step and one that puts it in an even better position to meet the challenges of the economy and the changing media environment.”

Do you really, honestly believe that Marc?

BIRMINGHAM POST: DAY OF RECKONING IMMINENT?

noreply@blogger.com (Birmingham Press Club Blogger) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:38:00 +0000

by Philip Parkin, Operations Director, Birmingham Press Club

This coming week promises to be a significant one for ‘The Birmingham Post’, the city’s long running daily morning newspaper.

As media watchers in the Midlands will know, the ‘Post’ has been under threat for some time now, a situation brought on by falling sales and increased competition from other forms of media, including the web.

The circulation of the ‘Post’ has now slumped to an all time low of 6,000 – well, that’s 6,000 paid for copies, they give away a similar number, so the total circulation depends on whether you add those together or not.

Either way, about a year ago the newspaper was in dire straits. At the time it was a broadsheet, and in what was viewed by most people as giving it a final chance, it was revamped into tabloid format.

At the same time, its staff were integrated with other titles produced in Birmingham by owner Trinity Mirror, the ‘Sunday Mercury’ and the ‘Birmingham Mail’.

This was an attempt to cut costs, a move which has unfortunately failed to secure the future of the 152 year old ‘Post’, as Trinity Mirror have admitted.

We have known for some time now the owners of the newspaper have been pondering its future, with the choice seemingly between slashing its pagination or turning it into a weekly.

It would appear that the latter is the favourite, a move which I think will probably seal its fate, unfortunately.

You see, going weekly is likely to fatally damage the paper’s prestige and standing in the city, in my view. It may also further deter advertisers.

Certainly, there are those in the business community who are waking up to the fact that a weekly paper may not be in their best interest, not least because they won’t get the acres of coverage that they have enjoyed in the past.

Anyway, my spies tell me that this is the week that the announcement about the newspaper’s future is due to be made, with the switch to weekly happening sometime in late November.

As part of this, it is also likely that the ‘Mail’ will follow in the footsteps of stablemate the ‘Coventry Telegraph’, and move to being a morning newspaper.

I’m told this will bring huge cost savings – for example, around £1m will be saved by not having to use vans to distribute the ‘Mail’ to newsagents.

And that will be that – the journalists on the ‘Post’ and ‘Mail’ will no doubt find themselves working primarily for the latter, for obvious reasons, which will be another nail in the coffin of the ‘Post’.

Will it work? Well, Trinity Mirror will undoubtedly cut costs, but I fear that the ‘Post’ will continue to lose readership.

However, the main loss will be to its prestige and standing, as I said earlier. And that’s why I fear for its future. If the ‘Post’ is still with us in 18 months time, I will happily eat my words.