The Firefly mobile and other nightmares

Image (c) dailymail.co.uk

“Would YOU buy these items for your children?” bellowed the Daily Mail last week, referring to mobile phones, crop-tops and perfume – following the sale of mobile phones for four-year-olds.

While you mulled over this “cynical marketing blitz”, you could peruse the box-out (pictured left) which featured other “inappropriate” items for children – all complete with prices, age-ranges and stockists

“We are teaching them that what matters is what you buy for them, not what you do for them,” laments Daisy Goodwin. But if you did want to splash out…

Rebekah Brooks nee Wade changes surname

"Now I'm married, will I change my name?" Image (c) Ryan Benazir www.flickr.com

Sun editor and soon-to-be News International CEO, Rebekah Wade Brooks has reignited the debate in feminist (and journalism) circles over whether one should change one’s name when one gets ‘itched.

This reminds me of an earlier blog posting, where one of my colleagues vowed never to change her name.

I’m inclined to offer a compromised agreement – but only when it applies to my life as a journalist.

It’s as Becky Sheeves says in the Guardian about her dilemna:

I had built up a career – a brand even, if that doesn’t sound too grand – as the journalist Becky Morris.

This seems to be the key issue. As a journalist, your trading power lies in your name; and you are most certainly building a “brand”.

In some way it’s like you’re handing over all your successes as an individual to someone who wasn’t involved in what you created. It’s inconvenient. And heaven forbid, what happens if you get divorced – do you go back to your maiden name and just review the parts of your portfolio which exist in your married name as a brief period of insanity?

I can see the value in changing your name in your personal life if you want to put an outward “stamp” on your family as a unit. It’s like being part of a club for two. When you have children, it seems to become even more convenient – one more for your club and no fannying around with the bureaucracy of three differenct names (yours, his, and perhaps some hybrid for the kids).

But it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman to leave her status (and title) as Mrs at home when she leaves for work. After all, being married makes not difference to the work you do. I would rather be an individual and myself  at work, rather than just a “wife of –”.

In fact, I think keeping your name professionally is a rather nifty way of separating the work/home aspects of your life.

Streaming + Vodafone = sad, broke journalist

Vodafone dongle: Plug it in and break my heart

The personal costs involved in keeping up with multimedia journalism (consuming and creating it) have been brought sharply into relief after I experienced a nasty shock this month.

Some background: I have a £15 per month Vodafone contract. According to Vodafone’s online calculator, this package (at three gigabytes) is enough to keep me happy as a clam – providing I don’t download movies, music or photos. No problem there; I don’t.

So why have I been hit (eye-wateringly hard) with a bill for £170?

This sucker-punch, I’ve recently discovered, is related to the amount of streaming one does. And it turns out, streaming is pretty much unavoidable. You do it when you watch any of the following:

• Embedded video reports on the BBC website
• Embedded videos anywhere
• Newsnight/PMQ/Panorama on the iPlayer (Apparently, there’s been 100 per cent growth in the number of customers using over 1GB of streaming in a month since December)
• Dispatches on Channel 4 Catch-Up
• Guardian virals (via YouTube)
• Anything on YouTube

Add to this the streaming which takes place when you use “of-the-moment” programs like Spotify, or listen to a Radio4 podcast, and you’re looking at a huge leap over that 3gig package.

This isn’t the end of the costs, of course.* It  goes without saying that internet usage levels also go up the longer you stay connected. (Keeping journalists’-favourite Twitter open all day makes a significant contribution to the overall bill, for example).

For a journalist-in-training, using these things is a weekly, if not daily requisite. And with no immediate prospect of a job, this ongoing investment in journalism seems very rich indeed.

* Now if you want to create stuff for the web, you’re going to need the USB-compatible voice recorder, microphone and flipcam, not to mention Adobe Audition and other editing software. But that’s a whole ‘nother post.

The identity of The Stig revealed… Again

The papers have all gone loopy over the recent “unveiling” of Top Gear’s The Stig, demonstrating an amazing example of collective amnesia.

Sadly, this week’s shock revelation turned out to be a prank, as the white-suited gent removed his helmet to show that he was Formula 1 driver, Michael Schumacher.

After a wry chuckle, The Mail ended its article: “Despite the big unmasking motoring fans are sure to still be wondering just who  the real Stig is.”

The odd thing is, the paper has already revealed The Stig’s identity… six months ago.

An article of 27 January 2009, ran under the headline:

Exclusive: The eight drivers behind Top Gear stunt

driver The Stig’s famous racing whites

The story reported how eight men took it in turns to act as the show’s test driver, and included Lewis Hamilton’s driving partner, Heikki Kovalainen; former GT world championship racing driver, Chris Goodwin; and former F1 driver Julian Bailey.

So that’s names, photos and a reasonable amount of trivia  about The Stig, all published this year and conveniently forgotten about now that a new series of Top Gear is airing.

The Mail also seemed to forget the comment given to them by a source for their story in January which said:

“We love to have the mystery around who he is. I just wish people would give it a rest, it’s like telling people there is no Father Christmas.”

Journalism needs innovation to survive

Image (c) initially-tag www.deviantart.com

“Injo” is so hot right now. No, it’s not a new flavour of Shoreditch tw*t or the name of Brangelina’s next baby, but the portmanteau of “innovation” and “journalism”. And it’s going to save the industry.

Looking on the bright side of the current clime, the recession has done for the media what needed doing a long time ago. It’s revealed the costly parts of the system and forced organisations to refine and refocus on the way news is produced.

Swine flu symptoms treated with hysteria in the press

Ah swine flu. Just when everyone had calmed down and forgotten about the almost-but-never-quite-apocalyptic bird flu of 2005, you come along with your similar sounding symptoms and catchy monniker and get the papers all worked up again.

In journalistic terms, the press has gone “mental”.

Clockwise from top left: Images from the BBC, The Daily Mail, and The Daily Telegraph

For all those concerned, help is at hand, reports the BBC:

Harry Hill wins Bafta: A tribute

Harry Hill is front page news today on Media Guardian following his Bafta win. In honour of him being named the UK’s best entertainment performer for “TV Burp” here’s a small visual tribute.*

Television kneeds more people like Harry  Hill:

Harry Hill pictured with Bafta

Boylewatch: BBC’s Have Your Say salutes Susan Boyle

A strangely moving post from Have Your Say-er Phil Weatherley in Bournemouth on “Hairy Angel” Susan Boyle:

I cried tears of shame for damning this poor woman for her lumpen looks. Her voice showed the beauty her soul so clearly – a golden bird, trapped in a cage, dreaming of open skies. A much-needed salutary kick in the pants for my cruelty and arrogance.

I’m not sure what’s better; the phrase “lumpen looks”, or the image of Phil listening to the Les Miserables soundtrack, cursing his arrogance and weeping into his keyboard.

The most shocking thing about “McPoison” Damien McBride

The most shocking thing about the Damien McBride scandal?

Apparently the disgraced civil servant at the centre of a Labour Smear campaign is a mere 35 years old.

Image (c) www.news.sky.com

35 years old? You have to be kidding.

In case you’ve forgotten what 35 year-old British man looks like, here are some examples:

Guardian Student Media Awards 2009: do you look like a “journalist”?

The Guardian has announced its 2009 Student Media Awards with a stunningly inappropriate ad campaign.

What would you do to get it all? The Guardian asks. Does “playing the game” mean putting on your high heels and treading on the toes of anyone in your way?