Leyton Orient vs. Tottenham XI, Wednesday 28th July 2010. Replica reports.
Ilford Recorder link: http://www.ilfordrecorder.co.uk/content/LeytonOrient/story.aspx?brand=RECOnline&category=spLeytonOrientFC&tBrand=reconline&tCategory=spLeytonOrientFC&itemid=WeED29%20Jul%202010%2010:19:27:580
Leyton Orient FC link: http://www.leytonorient.com/page/NewsFeatures/0,,10439~2105767,00.html
Thursday 29 July 2010
Journalism V-plates lost with ELEVEN published articles!
Today's the day I've stamped by name down on the journalism industry, and how good it felt.
I've been undertaking work experience at my local(ish) Ilford Recorder, a weekly local newspaper that has a circulation of just under 100,000. In other words, it doesn't do too badly on the market, and for 55p who can complain.
I started last Monday, and got about as excited as a 5-year-old on Christmas Day when Thursday came along. Thursday, for those unaware, is the day a new issue is released. Going to work on a Thursday, I see tons of A-boards outside newsagents, with the title "In this weeks Recorder..." followed by one of the stories the news team has covered.
On a Thursday, this is different, and last week - my first week on the job - I was convinced one, maybe two, articles would be published in the paper. I got into work, flicked hurridly through the paper, and saw nothing off my own back. I leafed through it again, thinking the first time I must have skipped past something at the speed I was going - still nothing.
The next day, my editor had a brief word and said to leaf through the paper (bit late for that) and check what's mine that's been printed, since most articles were unnamed and so it's pretty hard to know who's is what. I replied down-trodden, and revealed none of my words made it to press. Even he was shocked.
This week however - Oh, this week has been good to me. Not only did I get something in the paper, but at last count I had managed eleven articles. ELEVEN.
For a regular journalist, this may not seem a big deal. However, for a journalism student that has just been given his NCTJ portfolio guidelines, including at least ten submissions to a professional newspaper by the end of our second year (next June), this is a huge deal.
Most of my uni crowd managed an article, some made two, others - the lucky ones - managed three or foud articles last time I asked. So to get 11, I couldn't quite believe my eyes. Sure, they're pretty whipper-snappery, but I don't care that much. They're all around 200 words, a few 150s, and together this makes up an easy 2,000 words in one of the most popular newspapers in Redbridge.
Not only this, but I attended a football match last night and this too made it onto the newspaper's website. Originally, the experience was purely personal - any matchday experience I can get at football matches I cherish, since this is probably what I'll fork off into in the coming years with any luck. Plus, I'm a Spurs fan, and purely concedentally of course, Spurs were the opposition for the night.
Last night I bashed out a 300 word report, and after a quick word earlier in the office with the sports editor for the Recorder, emailed it hoping way more than I was expecting to both him and the Leyton Orient press officer. Within a few hours, both had not only acknowledged it had been received but had also published it onto their websites.
So, long story short, this week I've managed 11 printed articles and another on the Ilford Recorder website, alongside an article on the Leyton Orient FC website.
Whilst interviewing someone for next week's front cover of the entertainment supplement (which I should also grab as my own), he said to me: "Work hard, because you'll only get back what you put in".
He was more than right.
I've been undertaking work experience at my local(ish) Ilford Recorder, a weekly local newspaper that has a circulation of just under 100,000. In other words, it doesn't do too badly on the market, and for 55p who can complain.
I started last Monday, and got about as excited as a 5-year-old on Christmas Day when Thursday came along. Thursday, for those unaware, is the day a new issue is released. Going to work on a Thursday, I see tons of A-boards outside newsagents, with the title "In this weeks Recorder..." followed by one of the stories the news team has covered.On a Thursday, this is different, and last week - my first week on the job - I was convinced one, maybe two, articles would be published in the paper. I got into work, flicked hurridly through the paper, and saw nothing off my own back. I leafed through it again, thinking the first time I must have skipped past something at the speed I was going - still nothing.
The next day, my editor had a brief word and said to leaf through the paper (bit late for that) and check what's mine that's been printed, since most articles were unnamed and so it's pretty hard to know who's is what. I replied down-trodden, and revealed none of my words made it to press. Even he was shocked.
This week however - Oh, this week has been good to me. Not only did I get something in the paper, but at last count I had managed eleven articles. ELEVEN.
For a regular journalist, this may not seem a big deal. However, for a journalism student that has just been given his NCTJ portfolio guidelines, including at least ten submissions to a professional newspaper by the end of our second year (next June), this is a huge deal.
Most of my uni crowd managed an article, some made two, others - the lucky ones - managed three or foud articles last time I asked. So to get 11, I couldn't quite believe my eyes. Sure, they're pretty whipper-snappery, but I don't care that much. They're all around 200 words, a few 150s, and together this makes up an easy 2,000 words in one of the most popular newspapers in Redbridge.
Not only this, but I attended a football match last night and this too made it onto the newspaper's website. Originally, the experience was purely personal - any matchday experience I can get at football matches I cherish, since this is probably what I'll fork off into in the coming years with any luck. Plus, I'm a Spurs fan, and purely concedentally of course, Spurs were the opposition for the night.
Last night I bashed out a 300 word report, and after a quick word earlier in the office with the sports editor for the Recorder, emailed it hoping way more than I was expecting to both him and the Leyton Orient press officer. Within a few hours, both had not only acknowledged it had been received but had also published it onto their websites.
So, long story short, this week I've managed 11 printed articles and another on the Ilford Recorder website, alongside an article on the Leyton Orient FC website.
Whilst interviewing someone for next week's front cover of the entertainment supplement (which I should also grab as my own), he said to me: "Work hard, because you'll only get back what you put in".
He was more than right.
Thursday 22 July 2010
When I grow up, I want to be a hitman.
The life of a hitman hasn't really attracted me before today, but - half on account of after watching Inception I have a slight urge to want to jump into people's dreams, knowing that the only way to wake them up is to kill them (thus, murder isn't committed for my supposed crime since I'm doing the exact opposite, theoretically saving their life - we wouldn't want them drowning or suffocating in their sleep now would we, so really I'd be a proper life-saver, as long as my methods of slaughter didn't involve water or lack of air) and half on account that one moment during my work experience today a co-worker went "on a job" - it does sound rather enthralling.However, and this is only a huntch, I'm guessing it's pretty tricky getting a job in this particular line of work, not to mention that thing they call "the Law" and how this job may well go against it. I can't really imagine popping into the local job centre, filling in that piece of paper saying something along the lines of "What area of work are you looking for?" and writing down "Assassination" would get me very far at all. Besides maybe a prison cell for the night, week, next few years in fact.
When I returned from hunting down a hopeless lead on a story another co-worker of mine was doing (and by hunting, I mean shadowing the woman and virtually muting myself for the whole hour or so I was there to stand in awe of this woman's instinctive replies to this lead's helpess answers) I got back to the office to find my seat had been taken by what I could only assume as one of the editors, who was having a meeting with my mentor - who also doubles up as the news editor - and a few other big guys in the company.
Although it may have crossed my mind* to yank the chair from beneath her and walking off heroically back to my desk to sit down, I instead chose to find another empty seat a few desks away. The woman who usually sat their wasn't there, so I lent across to the guy next to me and asked where she was.
"She's... she's probably on a job". Five (technically six) little words that suddenly made the life of a journalist sound like something out of the Bourne movies. The sudden urge to just whip out some kind of deadly weapon and go on a rampage didn't seem too probable as a scenario upon which this woman found herself in at that time, but it sure as hell made it sound like it.
Now this whole barrage of thoughts may have only lasted seconds but, as Inception taught me tonight (which is probably a load of old codswallop), in a dream-state your brain works at 20x its usual speed, meaning that a second would feel like 20 and so on. Therefore, this moment of time felt like it had occupied a good few minutes of my life when really, it didn't.
It may be against the law and all, but I think as a future journalist of tomorrow I would do anything for a random work experience newbie to be in a similar scenario as I was, only to hear upon asked the reply from that of a colleague that I'm "on a job". It may well be simply visiting a shop to enquiry about the rising prices of Mars Bars, but in my mind, guns and gadgets will definitely be involved. Would make for one hell of a newspaper too.
*It didn't. Probably not the best idea on the second day of a new "job" if you can classify work experience as that to push a senior editor off a piece of furniture.
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Let's hope the drone of the vuvuzela stops before it starts this season...
Boooooooooo!
No, not the chants of an unimpressed crowd, but in fact the harmonic sound of the ever-popular vuvuzela. Since its arrival this summer during the World Cup, the African musical instrument has caught on in numerous countries where a ball can be kicked and a television turned on. However, its arrival for many people has been far from welcoming, including an always-increasing list of English football clubs.
The vuvuzela is part of South Africa, and went some way into making the recent World Cup into the atmospheric spectacle that it was. In fact, taking it away is arguably like taking the Mexican wave away from the ’86 tournament. However, on a worldwide scale, the instrument is being pushed into extinction, and fast.
FIFA have repeatedly rejected calls of a global ban on the trumpet however many clubs – both from inland and abroad – are taking heavier action on the case. Back in October last year, the Japanese Football Association tried to ban the instruments from their World Cup qualifiers, yet their words fell on deaf ears. Now however, the voice of the nation seems to be getting more luck. With support coming from all angles of the globe, the instrument is to be given the red card when the World Cup 2014 kicks off in Brazil for a start.
Closer to home, the growing list of football clubs banning the horn from the stands reads more like a shopping list these days. In fact, the odds that the musical nuisance will be banned from all Premier League grounds this season were a whoppingly-low 7/4 as far back as June.
The ban won’t be easily adhered to though, for over 100,000 Britons reportedly own a vuvuzela. Although most will, quite plainly, end up in a landfill, there’s sure to be one or two that make their way into a stadium somewhere nearby, causing havoc to any unlucky (or Blackpool) fans.
Many football teams both home and abroad speedily enforced the ban, including local clubs Bournemouth and Southampton as well as Premier League starlets Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal. Borussia Dortmund became the first German club to oppose the horn back in July, alongside London rugby outfit Harlequins whilst the trumpet was firmly smashed out of the recent Wimbledon Tennis Championships.
Talks are also well under way regarding a ban on them for the Rugby World Cup next year, and with the horns already being banned from previous Tri-Nations matches, the future of the musical instrument remains very much uncertain indeed…
No, not the chants of an unimpressed crowd, but in fact the harmonic sound of the ever-popular vuvuzela. Since its arrival this summer during the World Cup, the African musical instrument has caught on in numerous countries where a ball can be kicked and a television turned on. However, its arrival for many people has been far from welcoming, including an always-increasing list of English football clubs.
The vuvuzela is part of South Africa, and went some way into making the recent World Cup into the atmospheric spectacle that it was. In fact, taking it away is arguably like taking the Mexican wave away from the ’86 tournament. However, on a worldwide scale, the instrument is being pushed into extinction, and fast. FIFA have repeatedly rejected calls of a global ban on the trumpet however many clubs – both from inland and abroad – are taking heavier action on the case. Back in October last year, the Japanese Football Association tried to ban the instruments from their World Cup qualifiers, yet their words fell on deaf ears. Now however, the voice of the nation seems to be getting more luck. With support coming from all angles of the globe, the instrument is to be given the red card when the World Cup 2014 kicks off in Brazil for a start.
Closer to home, the growing list of football clubs banning the horn from the stands reads more like a shopping list these days. In fact, the odds that the musical nuisance will be banned from all Premier League grounds this season were a whoppingly-low 7/4 as far back as June.
The ban won’t be easily adhered to though, for over 100,000 Britons reportedly own a vuvuzela. Although most will, quite plainly, end up in a landfill, there’s sure to be one or two that make their way into a stadium somewhere nearby, causing havoc to any unlucky (or Blackpool) fans.
Many football teams both home and abroad speedily enforced the ban, including local clubs Bournemouth and Southampton as well as Premier League starlets Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal. Borussia Dortmund became the first German club to oppose the horn back in July, alongside London rugby outfit Harlequins whilst the trumpet was firmly smashed out of the recent Wimbledon Tennis Championships.
Talks are also well under way regarding a ban on them for the Rugby World Cup next year, and with the horns already being banned from previous Tri-Nations matches, the future of the musical instrument remains very much uncertain indeed…
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