Why I have banned the word Troll from my newsroom.

Names are funny things.

It has long been recognised that there is power in a name. Some religions believe that simply by naming a creature, the first man claimed dominion over them.

A name gives identity and being to something unsubstantiated. It makes it real.

This “naming” is also where most of the mass media’s power lies.  A random collection of view points, facts, or allegations are formed into a story, but give that story a Name and it grows.

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Dawn French, playing the fat lady in a portrait calls a group of school children “plebs” for not appreciating her singing voice. Recently, it was claimed that a man called some other men plebs in the street.

Who cares? Well we all do because it’s Plebgate!!

Plebgate has an identity, and lets us all know that this story is about the issues involving Cabinet Ministers (allegedly) being a bit too posh, the police being poor victims (depending on our mood that week) and various other ideas and asides. All summed up neatly in one word.

Remember Happy Slapping? That was a couple of kids being nasty to people in the street until it was given a name by the newspapers. Then it was a nationwide phenomenon, crisis etc.

Which brings me to my current conundrum: Trolls. Not the 7 foot Danish variety. Not the Moomins. The type that exists online.

The word Troll was coined several years ago on sites like 4chan, 9gag etc, to describe a trickster. Someone who says something to get a reaction, create annoyance, or fool someone into doing something.

Here is an example:

The expression “Don’t feed the trolls” became common on forums to try and warn people off speaking to known troublemakers.

Of course at the internet grew, and people started putting more and more personal information online, making more and more vulnerable targets, trolling changed, and sometimes got quite nasty.

I would be willing to bet that if you publicised a book of condolence and left it unguarded overnight on a stage in central Birmingham with a pen, you would come back to find people had written some pretty nasty things in there.

People are horrible.

But for some reason, everyone thought that doing exactly what I have described above, but with a Facebook page left open on the internet, it would be fine.

People are horrible.

This is where our trolling story ends.

Unfortunately, this is roughly where the mass media arrives.

The word troll was misappropriated solely to mean people who targeted others to say nasty things. Which is fairly harmless if it was just a misappropriated word. But it’s not. It is a Name.

So when twitter arrives on the scene, and some pretty lowlife people find out that you can set up an anonymous account and say anything you like to people who would never normally hear you… Those lowlifes were given a Name.

You are no longer a sad loser with a laptop and no friends, you are no longer a psychopath hell bent on stalking and threatening to kill someone you disagree with… You are now a member of a special online group, one of many, and when you are one of many, your individual behaviour can be held up to less scrutiny, both by yourself, and by everyone else.

By calling someone a troll, you are giving them an excuse. You are giving them a cause. You are giving them power.

Stop it.

A driver has been hit by a bike.

They always said that if you are getting yelled at by both sides then you are getting it right. I remember my university lecturer was talking about elections at the time, but as a News Editor it’s true of most things.

Today’s topic for people to have a go at me about was the politics of people dying on the roads.

Here is a typical (fictional) press release that we might get from the police:

Police were called to the junction of the High Street and the B9999 at 12.46pm today (Tuesday) after reports of a collision involving a blue Nissan Micra and a pedestrian.
The pedestrian, a 7 year old boy, was taken to Anytown Hospital where his injuries are thought to be serious.
PC John McPoliceman of the Countyshire Roads Policing Unit said: “This was a tragic incident and we would appeal for anyone who saw the incident and either the pedestrian or a blue Nissan Micra in the run up to the crash to contact us on 101.”

Since I live in Anytown, I know that junction well, and I know my listeners will know it as that horrible busy one where all the crashes happen.
So here is the textbook, journalistic write up. You will have seen this in local newspapers and heard it on local radio stations, and will continue to hear it.

A 7 year old boy has been left with serious injuries after being hit by a car this lunchtime in Anytown.
It happened on the busy junction between the High Street and Nexttown Road.
Police are asking for anyone who saw the incident to call them on 101.

Who is at fault here? Who hit who?

Well first of all we need to talk about the Contempt of Court Act. You are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Any person who influences a jury otherwise is committing a criminal offence and will be taken to court and prosecuted. That includes journalists. That includes ME, personally. If I am found to have implicated the driver in my reporting then I get charged with a criminal offence.

And so we write these awkwardly phrased stories.

A grandmother of 5 has been praised by police after fighting off muggers with her handbag and sitting on one of them till police arrived…
A 28 year old man has been arrested in connection with the incident.

But this is where it gets political.

In the example above, the most correct phrasing would be exactly as the police had it:

A 7 year old boy has been left with serious injuries after he collided with a car…

Now I’m sorry but that sounds stupid. More so, you just do not talk like that in real life. “Did you have a good day darling?” “Not really – At lunchtime I saw a child colliding with a car, I had to give the police a statement.” No. Stop it. It’s laughable and this is not a funny subject.

“X was hit by a Y” is the standard phrase for people getting hit by vehicles. It’s the one I use because it gets the message across. It tells my listeners what happened without them pausing to say “that’s a funny way of saying it” and then missing my next story. I get 2’30” to tell you as much as I can, I’ve put 57 minutes of work into getting it ready, and I’ll be damned if I lose your attention because of sloppy phrasing.

Although it does lean slightly towards saying the driver is at fault, it’s open enough that you can imagine several scenarios where the child would be at fault. Of course it’s never the child’s fault… but the actions of the child would mean the driver was not at fault. Legally, I am safe from prosecution.

My other options are:

“X was hit WITH a Y” Whether it’s a car or a bat, it implies that it happened deliberately. I would be completely making that up.

“X was hit by the driver of a Y” Well this just says that the driver got out and punched the kid before driving off. Wrong again.

What about if it’s two cars?

Well that’s different.

“A Nissan Micra was hit by a Ford Focus…” When it comes to cars, vans, and lorries, a lot can be inferred from who went into who. So we need to be more careful. But here my job is easy. “This great big lorry full of cheese collided with another one carrying crackers…” is something you can imagine yourself saying (in very bizarre circumstances) and so the news story changes.

A woman has been left with serious injuries after her Nissan collided with a Ford this lunchtime in Anytown.
It happened on the busy junction of the High Street and Nexttown Road.
Police are asking for anyone who saw the incident to call them on 101.

This tells you the story in a simple straight forward way. There is no thinking for you to do about what I just said. It’s also true. He injures would have come (for example) from her brain colliding with the inside of her skull, as her head collided with something on the inside of her car. Or from her neck being jerked so violently that the spinal column was damaged. She was INSIDE her car. The Ford didn’t touch her.

Where it gets difficult is when cyclists become involved. 

EDIT: An important note about road traffic law and the court system.

If the driver is at fault, the pedestrian / cyclist goes to hospital, the driver goes to court.
If the pedestrian / cyclist is at fault, the pedestrian / cyclist goes to hospital. That’s it.
So when avoiding contempt of court, the expectation is ALWAYS that the driver is to blame. I’m not going to bias a jury deciding whether a 7 year old with head injuries is guilty of road traffic law. The injured party is ALWAYS the victim in the mind of the person writing it because they are the poor sod getting their bones reset.

I wonder if this adds unconscious bias in the minds of some journalists? That it’s legally SAFER to imply the victim is to blame, because they obviously CAN’T be to blame, because they are the victim?

So here are my options.

Cyclists are people, balanced on small bits of fast moving metal. Yeah.

First, lets assume we know it’s a male person on a bike.

“A man has been left with serious injuries after his bike collided with a Ford Focus this lunchtime in Anytown.” That sounds a bit unbalanced, like he rode his bike into the car. Implies he’s to blame.

“A man has been left with serious injuries after a Ford Focus collided with his bike this lunchtime in Anytown.” … Luckily he was in the sandwich shop at the time. Unfortunately he was hit by a meteor as he ran out to investigate. It’s better but it doesn’t sound right, because his injuries come from HIM colliding with the car, not his bike.

We can take this confusion out by using another word: A Cyclist (defined in this and many other cases as a person riding a bike) has been in collision with a Ford Focus. This is especially useful as VERY OFTEN the police get on scene and ignore the person on the floor who’s being held down and rolled about by paramedics. The cyclist isn’t going anywhere, but all the witnesses are.The police leave the cyclist in the care of the ambulance crews who strap them firmly to a spinal board and bugger off in an ambulance asap. We hear about the accident and the press office tell us that it’s bike vs car. Is it a man or a woman? No idea.

It’s a person. People get hit by things

“A cyclist has been left with serious injuries after they hit a Ford Focus this lunchtime in Anytown.” Silly Cyclist rode into a car. Wrong.

“A cyclist has been left with serious injuries after they were hit by a Ford Focus this lunchtime in Anytown.” This sounds fine to me. Yet still, people tell me they are not happy with this. It is exactly the same wording as if a child pedestrian had been hit, but I get complaints saying I am placing blame on the cyclist, not the driver. That by referring to the cyclist as a person, and the car as a thing, I am implicating blame on the person. Personally I consider it the same as the above example. I’m leaving it to people’s imaginations meaning I am safe from prosecution.  But I accept I am not all knowing, and am open to opinions.

“Cyclist hit WITH a Ford” … by Superman, he picked it up and smacked the cyclist in the head with it. Definite racist overtones against Kryptonians there.

“Cyclist hit by a driver in a Ford”… who wound down his window and punched him as he drove past at a nice safe distance. Nope.

But although I will continue to use “X hit by a Y” and I stand by my choice to do that, is there ANY other way of doing it?

To my mind: Only if Cyclists stop being people. We may need to write about them as if they were soft squishy vehicles. This would take us back to using collision, and the ONLY option left available:

A cyclist has been left with serious injuries after a collision involving a Ford Focus this lunchtime in Anytown.
It happened on the busy junction at the High Street and Nexttown Road.
Police are asking for anyone who saw the incident to call them on 101.

Does this work? To me it sounds clunky, vague. But the thing is… language evolves. That’s one of the many reasons I love it. Maybe, just as we got used to saying “The Information Super Highway, or Internet…” we need to stop thinking of people on bikes as people, and see them as vehicles on the road like any other.

Maybe if drivers stopped seeing cyclists as people and started treating them like drivers of person shaped vehicles then we wouldn’t get so many collisions in the first place? Who knows.

How to get into Commercial Radio Journalism…

These days any idiot with a blog can call themselves a journalist. But just because you write in a public place it doesn’t mean you’re qualified, or even any good.

Radio Journalism is different so you’ll need a few things to get into it. I’ve been through the application process, seen it happen, and looked for journalists myself.

I thought it might be helpful to let people looking for their first job to know how the system works and what you should be doing to maximise your chances of getting that interview.

A note on the BBC:
[I will try and do a post on this at some point.] The BBC has a complicated set of questions and answers for their online applications. Your best way in is to work for the BBC and get someone internally to read over your answers. Even the Beeb though, are now looking for decent voices so be aware of this too. They also mark you down if you don’t cheat… ahem, sorry research, and ring up to talk to as many senior staff at the station as possible. Ask what they are looking for and how to prepare for the interview (they call them boards) and what it will entail. Most BBC stations will have a number of freelancers and people on short contracts, so when a longer term contract comes up, all of those people will be going for it. It is very hard for an outsider to get in. If you want to get into the BBC then you need to do work experience, freelance work, and general hanging around. This is unfair to those who have jobs already, or who can’t afford to work for free, but that is unfortunately the way it works.

Here is what News Editors in Commercial Radio Stations look for when deciding who gets through to the interview stage:

Voice Voice Voice Voice Voice.

All adverts will ask for a CV and Demo. A demo is a recording of you, reading the news. If you have not worked before then get in a studio on work experience, borrow a bulletin and record yourself.
The first thing I do when an application comes in is double click the demo. I don’t care if you’ve just come from CNN, I don’t care if you’ve won a Pulitzer, I don’t care what your name is, I just want to know if you can read news.

Do not send me a presenter demo. This tells me you don’t care about news, you just want in so you can spend your time chatting up the programme controller. Not going to happen.
Reading news is an art. I will blog about voice training and presenting a bulletin at some point but for now I will just say to practice and get as much feedback as you can.

The sad truth is that in the end it’s just like modelling. I usually reject within the first 20” of hearing you if I’m going to. You can’t take this personally. I’ve got jobs on the basis of my voice, I’ve also been rejected because I wasn’t the sound they were looking for. That didn’t mean I wasn’t good enough, it just meant I wasn’t right.

Do you know your Law?

If you’re working in a newspaper, there are subs and editors looking over your shoulder to make sure that you are not committing libel, contempt of court, or anything else you shouldn’t be. In radio, there is quite often no one else. You need to be able to write up breaking news about crime, politics, and do it RIGHT, first time and under pressure at 10 to the hour with the phone ringing.
If I like your demo (and only IF) then I will open your CV and what I will be looking for is a recognisable qualification.

These usually come from the NCTJ. Many people, like me, did the law exams as part of their University course. But you can do them as a Masters course, or on their own directly.

Experience.

Where have you worked before? Relevance is the name of the game here. I want to see that you have spent time in a commercial radio newsroom. You need to tell me you know how a shift works, how to find the news, how to write it up, how to do interviews and edit audio.
Ideas are also gold. What have you come up with that’s made it to air? How did you find it?
Work experience is key. It doesn’t have to be a 6 month internship at LBC. A few days over the holidays at your local radio station can be enough if you have worked hard, asked lots of questions, and learned a lot.

I don’t really care if you did admin work to pay your way through uni. However, I do like to know you have been out in the real world and you understand how our listeners think. Connecting with our target audience is a big part of what we do, so be proud of your stint in Tesco, and write about it in a way that tells me what you learned as a journalist, not your ability to scan 28 items a minute.

If you’ve got all of the above then you’ve got a good chance of getting to interview. All interviews are different so I’m not even going to try and tell you what to do there. Research the company, and its values, and be yourself!

A final note on finding work.

Freelancing is a great way to get paid work, and more importantly great stuff to put on your CV. Some stations will advertise, but there’s no need to wait for that to happen. If you are ready, if your Demo is great, and you are prepared then call up your local station and say hi. Send the news editor an email. Apply! What’s the worst that can happen?

Good Luck!