Dame Elizabeth Filkin's report on the ethical relationship between police officers and journalists recommends that we don't flirt with them or drink alcohol with them.
I would personally recommend that journalists don't sleep with policewomen. You could end up with cressida dick.
------------------------------------------------------
However, this does restrict the training of local newspaper journalists in how to build, maintain and use contacts of course.
As a local hack, the police are a good source of stories and the journo, in return, is a useful conduit for the police to appeal for witnesses, to launch crime prevention campaigns and, in general, to promote a better image of the force.
I started off at the Ilford Recorder. It is one of many parts of the country where, quite frankly, the police could use as much help as they can get in improving their image.
I was there a long, long time ago but can remember, with varying degrees of fondness and horror, various ways of bonding with the bill.
The annual Recorder versus Met Police East Traffic Division Indoor Sports Olympics for instance (basically a darts match at the police social club) got everyone together. And very drunk. After which everyone drove home, knowing they wouldn't be stopped as all the traffic cops were drunk too. Perhaps it's a good idea these things don't take place any more. Besides, I'm sure that fat copper with a moustache and 'Crafty Cockney' tattoo was a ringer.
And the local nick's Christmas Party, a more stuffy affair in which the editor, the Mayor and various others would discuss niceties over a glass of sherry.
However this was rounded off with the traditional CID lock in at the Red Lion (everyone gave a fiver to landlord Mick Ryan on the way in) which would end around 5am so we could go home and get changed before police calls the next morning.
The Recorder would do the odd human interest story about the police. The detective who draws caricatures of his colleagues and gets them exhibited, the hidden story behind the signed photo of Jayne Mansfield behind the duty desk (she once broke down in Ilford and the police helped her out, so it wasn't really a mystery but we could resurrect the story every three or four years) and the chief inspector's obsession with Arsenal. It made them more human. Apart from supporting Arsenal of course.
They helped us too. I got an exclusive interview with Adam Woodyatt, aka Ian Beale in the newly launched EastEnders (this was 25 years ago remember) because his dad was the chief copper at Barkingside nick and set up the interview.
Oh, and Adam Woodyatt was a charming young man. He biked round from Elstree to Valentine's Park on a new Yamaha but we couldn't go to the pub as he was underage and that would have been a much better story!
I understand he's still in the soap though I don't watch it any more.
In between we would carry stories about local crimes and help the police find witnesses of course. It was called making contacts and has acted for decades as a central plank in learning to be a journalist.
Now of course, we can't do this any more thanks to the likes of Neil Wallis. Which is something else he's done to ruin journalism.
Instead of being able to mix with real policemen and women so we can understand them and they can understand us, we'll have to deal with jobsworth press officers who give us (and via us, you) only half the information we need. I don't include you, Andy Roberts, of course.
And as for young local journalists, they will have to rely on Wikipedia and Blackberry Messenger for their information and never get to talk to a real human being ever again.
------------------------------------------------------------
An 81-year-old man had a heart attack at Spurs last night and died. I was at the game and it wasn't that exciting. But the conversations I've had with football fans follow the same pattern. As a way to die it's up there with being crushed by a falling piano or being shagged to death, or in a Las Vegas hotel room while snorting cocaine from the naked body of a showgirl. Or is that just me? I've always liked pianos.
At least being 81 means he lived long enough to see Spurs win the league. I have a feeling that even if I live twice as long I won't be that lucky.
So if it's going to be a coronary at the Lane then hopefully it will be at something better than a 1-0 scrappy home win against West Brom.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Things you never thought you'd say. This includes 'I'm warming to Joey Barton', 'Louise Mensch is a bright woman' and 'Well done Daily Mail.'
Well, knock off the last one. After the conviction of David Norris and Gary Dobson there is, at last, a reason to be able to tell people you're a tabloid journalist rather than try and disguise it with 'oh, I'm a content provider for multimedia organisations.'
Of course, the real hero is not Paul Dacre, the reformed police or even Mr and Mrs Lawrence.
No, the real hero is science. It was the advances made by scientists that got the double jeopardy law changed. And without the science all the valiant efforts of the newspaper, the police and the parents themselves may well have been in vain.
Naturally the Daily Mail will bask in the glory and they are entitled to. Even Roy Greenslade has praised them. We can but hope that having discovered the good they can do, they do it more often.
Perhaps they should run a story that doing the right thing cures cancer.
Evening all....Solly
No comments:
Post a Comment