Workshop Exercise - Opinion Piece

My second year on BA Journalism has begun, and in the Practical Journalistic Styles we have now begun studying Opinion Pieces rather than pure news writing. The group nominated several topics to try and write an off-the-cuff piece, and I chose the X-Factor's deplorable attitude towards its more...unique competitors.

If there is anyone to blame for the rise of the Mocking Culture on reality shows like X-Factor, it is probably that Grandfather of all Saturday Night entertainment, Bruce Forsyth. The Generation Game was a fantastic chance for Doris and Nigel of Basingstoke to attempt to craft pottery or assemble an artillery gun, and fail miserably for the amusement of couch-bound Britain. Of course, this was all in the seventies and eighties when nobody felt guilty, thanks to grinning and gurning Bruce-y and his “Well Done, Well Done!”
Doris and Nigel had given it a good shot, and although their pots looked like recently-crashed meteorites and their artillery gun blew out the lighting gear, everyone had enjoyed themselves and put on, as the British loved to say, a “Good Show”.

Unfortunately then came the rise of Youtube and Facebook which caused an accompanying plunge in moral values. Trust the Germans to invent the word schadenfreude, taking amusement in the misery of others. Bruce-y ballroom-danced into the latest reality concoctions and left the shepherding of England's interest in, and utter inability to perform at, talent shows to ...the Crown Prince of Evil Simon Cowell, riding the wave of hate-filled humour. He was a record company executive, the embodiment of pure evil that had puppet-managed popular music since Stock Aitken and Waterman first glued together bits of older songs, and now he had a throne and a desk and a voice like a gravel-filled shotgun.

And a brilliant mind, Cowell knew that it would actually be very easy to find legions of identikit stars, all blank personalities and airbrushed good looks. He could end up with a glut of Vickers and Murs and McElderry's, autotuned up and mimed out and overwhelming even the MySpace generation. He needed to ration these Airfix-kit-kids, but give the ravenous immoral channel-surfers of the United Kingdom something to devour mindlessly. Take a lesson from daytime television and the undisputed King of the Underworld, Kyle and his gag-inducing 'chat' show.

Britain's love-affair with its own seedy underbelly was about to get prime-time placement, and the most deranged council-estate sub-evolutionaries were going to get their own piano-solo sob-story, before being thrown to Cowell's grating barrel-blast and your mocking laughter. Not that you're to blame, or Cowell, or the faceless suits at Talkback Thames, or even Prince of Lies Kyle...no, we were lost the day Forsyth took the respectable veneer from normal people playing dress-up and pretend on Saturday night TV.

Stephen Fry on Doctor Who: A Measured Response

Stephen Fry commented on BBC Dramas like Merlin and Doctor Who at the Baftas yesterday, describing them as - in places - suffering from "infantilism".

The doctorwho Livejournal community is predictably going spare and I've not even approached Gallifrey Base, the leading DW forum online...mainly because it's the leading DW forum online and therefore a lightning rod for the insanity of the web coupled with the extremes of fandom DW inspires. I know, because Who makes me a little irrational myself.

The DW community here I watch with a kind of amused acceptance; I can't argue with the enthusiasm, passion, alarming obsession maybe, that these bloggers have for the show. They're predictably railing against Fry's comments - you can see the specific entry here - but I'm finding it so hard to take their furious denials seriously when it's couched amongst fresh-faced American tweens dressing up in the 500-odd Top Shop outfits Amy has worn so far and squeeing over their disturbing fanfic/slash between various characters and declaring their dreamy-eyed adolescent love for the New Series and its dreamboat lead stars...

That said, I am not so condescending as to ignore reality; DW is in reality a family show, and has been - more or less - since the beginning. The maturity has pitched up and down, often wildly crossing the path of Acceptable Taste (Mary Whitehouse's crusade, anyone?) but its main focus has been entertaining children, teenagers and young adults. I would argue that it still does that, remarkably effectively.
What has happened is the BBC and whoever is really pulling the strings, probably higher than Moffat, has begun to intentionally pitch the show in terms of writing and characterisation at a particular audience segment. Unfortunately, this is the segment of our population that still enjoys happy-slapping pensioners and has spent the past few years being criticised by business leaders for coming out of secondary education with precious few skills.
Conversely, I would argue that the popularity and influence of such characters as...Stephen Fry are leading a massive renaissance in overall intelligence and awareness of the young professional and older demographic. Turnout was up to 65% in the last election indicating a widespread resurgance of interest in the running of our country, and the debates people were having over the key issues were heartening.

So, there is a wide perception gap between the older and younger members of society; and for all the enthusiasm of mature collectors the real spending money on merchandising and the real viewing figures on RAJAR (the BBC's viewer-rating body) that make the target-chasing bureacratic Corporation so happy are coming from the youth. So the BBC will lean on Moffat, and he will lean on his script editors, who will slice and dice the fundamentally good scripts for Who into bitesize unchallening morsels for the thirteen-year-old viewer with the thirty-minute attention span and the disposable income that keeps the whole cycle turning.

Like one of the Doctor's plans, everyone has come out right. Stephen Fry is right, and Who scripts are shallower than they have been for decades. New Who diehards are right and it's an enjoyable family show beloved by millions. The BBC are right and their puppetmaster creative directions are paying bountiful dividends. Even I'm right, by thinking an old, hackeneyed, surreal British serial has been modernised to such an extent that I no longer recognise or like it. I just wish I could be wrong.

Barefoot in the Park 2010

It's almost a stereotype of summer. I'm sat in a tent under a grey, raining sky, surrounded by threadbare students. But it's not a music festival in some muddy field this time. I'm at Barefoot in the Park Poetry Festival 2010. Co-ordinated and indeed founded by Victoria Ellis, a student of Masters in English at Leeds University, the event has been Vicky's wish to “pull together all the different types of poetry I've seen in Leeds” and has run successfully since 2007. She told me she finds the stigma of poetry annoying, this boring, mundane, GCSE-style requirement of English that comes across as “too highbrow.”

Running from 12pm to 9pm, this marathon creative event has unfortunately missed the heatwave by a single day. Vicky's optimism is steadfast, and she gestures to the imposingly large marquee behind us, saying “The weather's not been as bad as it could have been. We put the provision in place, and we needed it.” Indeed, the broad tent is more than half full, all colourful dresses and drainpipe jeans, sprawled on rugs and cushions.

Shoes are indeed off, but sat on the edge of proceedings, I am still safely booted. The organisers have a broad menu of entertainment on offer. The braver warrior poets can join the open mic sessions. Established creative types have booked slots to play music with bands, and lone wolves will recite monologues. There is a small tent boasting a wide range of artwork, from sketches to powerful watercolours. Tea, coffee and buns are available from a nearby pavilion staffed by earnest young volunteers.

Back in the marquee, the focus of attention is a wave-fringed nervous young man enunciating into the PA. His sometimes amusing, sometimes saddening work comes across as Viz on opium, all toilet humour and introspection on deceased Eastern European poets.

Next up, local band The Lovebirds are phenomenally young, but rousing and popular with sixties-inspired tunes under 21st-century dry, adolescent humour.

Adam Strickson and Avtar Lota supplied poetry and Indian music, either soloing or melding both forms. The sound of the dilruba and tabla is uniquely foreign, and is a beautiful counterpoint to the pop-rock of The Lovebirds. Adam writes biting social commentary and recalls foreign myths in a challenging mix.

We stayed to watch Carole Bromley, who reads out searing work, and her vivid creations held the crowd spellbound. A dignified and mature lady, she writes of youthful passion that borders on the uncomfortable in its burning honesty and innocence. This is I suspect what Vicky Ellis is aiming for when she tells me she wants to showcase poetry as “ beautiful and lively and glorious”, and she adds “glorious is my buzzword for everything.”

Glorious doesn't have to mean the weather, it can describe running the whole range of human experience and feeling. These creators and writers and artists and performers tell their audience of every facet of experience in a glorious procession of spectacles. What plans then, for the future of Barefoot? “Maybe Barefoot in Berlin?” she says with a chuckle, as she aspires to move to the German capital. She hopes other students will rise to take charge of the popular festival after she graduates, and considering the attendance in spite of the weather, there will be no doubt about next year's instalment. Make sure you are part of it as well!

Exercise is Bad for the Soul

We concluded our Television Exercise on Friday with a surprisingly professional performance. I must immediately credit such leading lights as Jake, our 'Guest Wrangler' who deposited a solid-gold lead story into our laps, Tom our charismatic and improv-expert presenter who span up interview questions on the cuff when we began to underrun the timings, and Andy my production assistant who covered his desk in stopwatches and ensured the broadcast ran to within a few seconds of perfection.
This does not mention the rest of the group who pitched in on their roles with a maturity and dedication I was entirely unready for. They honestly made me very proud and a little ashamed, after my grim forebodings at the beginning of this task - I ultimately sat back in the Gallery and just let it run. Well done Group Three.

I'm on campus tomorrow, so I'll copy the VHS of the broadcast onto DVD and pop it on youtube and facebook and all the sundry websites we use - I'll link to it here so my readers can appreciate their hard work.
I'm also attending the first official meeting of the Trinity University magazine society. I don't even think they have a name yet! Our editor is a 'canny wee lass' called Amie-Leigh who has asked us to bring both ideas for stories, as well as a 500-word article on...ourselves! It's a prickly topic for many people, so I'm very impressed at her choice!
That'll be my task for today. That, as well as a meeting with my artist to work on beginning our webcomic strip, and then catching Going Postal on Sky this afternoon.

Enjoy your bank-holiday!

The Student Take on the Professional Act

Our News Production 'exercise' continues apace, with today featuring an in-depth news 'quiz', a favoured task of several lecturers. Twenty questions were fired at the combined Journalism, Journalism & PR, and Sports Journalist student body, with seven taken from the BBC Website here and the remaining thirteen devised by Senior Lecturer Dean Naidoo.

I spent most of the morning poring over The Times in greater detail than usual, as well as skimming the BBC site - although not the quiz unfortunately - and running twitter in the background, following up links like a bloodhound on a scent.
However, I did quite poorly in the quiz - a measly seven and a half overall. Post-match analysis indicated this was seemingly par the course, and the poor girl whose answers I marked scored somewhere between a one and a three!

It led me to wonder about the efficacy of a broad quiz on all news stories - we covered everything from the new Transport Minister and the Emergency Budget, to the Gloucestershire mountaineer who conquered Everest for the eighth time, and Mr. Walliams' new partner. My concern was that, as a selective news reader, I would probably omit to even consume the latter two stories as entirely outside my interests.

The tutors argue that as proto-Journalists, embryonic hacks still blinking our rosy, optimistic eyes, we should attempt to consume as wide a range of news topics as possible. My counter is that journalists don't multi-skill in their fields of expertise, so why should we as readers? I'll follow up on a sports story, such as Lord Triesman's resignation, because of the relevance to moral reporting and undercover 'snooping', but without the details of the sting operation, this would have been just another football official leaving a job, in a sport I tolerate at best.

At times, the faculty's exhortations seem almost desperate - I refer you again to that academic wanderer of bizarre relevance, the Sports Journalism BA - when urging us to expand our curiosities beyond the narrow interests we have as mere humans. I cannot help but feel that breadth rather than depth is the current yardstick of Journalism study.

Perhaps my cynicism is blinding me to the real truth; I am between five and seven years older than all of my contemporaries, and both my media tastes and journalistic styles are already established. For the Sixth Formers joking on the back row of the auditorium, perhaps this will be the time when they decide just what they want to read...?