Woo! Home before 8pm! A rare treat…

Over the past 24 hours I have been pondering the best way to blog about the fact that yesterday the sale of my paper was unannounced.

As a journalist interested in the media landscape of the West Midlands, it would feel ludicrous not to mention that it happened… particularly as the story involves my employer.

But, then again, I think it would probably be wise to avoid any personal analysis… particularly as the story involves my employer.

Suffice to say, the times they are a’changing. I’d be interested in your views on the subject (including the move to Fort Dunlop) and am happy to put straight any misconceptions where I think I can.

But there are also other changes afoot that are closer to home and that I feel a little more comfortable talking about.

As of Monday my role at the paper is changing. Up until now I have been a full-time business reporter covering general news and managing the media & marketing and enterprise pages.

My new position will span both news and business and my mission (which I have chosen to accept) is to focus on stories related to the creative industries and sustainability. A strange mix, you may think. But there are many things that link the topics, including the fact the both are big interests of mine.

It’s a new role and I’m determined to do it justice. So if there’s anyone that feels there’s a gap in what we’re doing with these sectors, then let me know – I’ll be trying my best to fill it.

In the meantime, I’m off to make the most of a quiet night in with a long soak in the tub!

Ok, I’m not sure how logical or readable this post will be as my brain has been pretty fried this week. (I must remember to go home early once in a while) But it’s important, so I want to give it a go:

I have had a conversation with someone tonight that pretty much follows a pattern of numerous conversations I have had in the past. It is almost formulaic and ends up with me feeling helpless and sad.

The conversation pattern is as follows:

Person A is pouring their heart and soul into project/business/event B. Person A is being supported in this endevour by one or more of the bodies in the city that are responsible for delivering funding/support.

However, during this process person A discovers something they believe is a flaw in the system. It may be something political, or something about the way the thing is structured that means it’s making it difficult to achieve goal B.

Now, person A wants to do something about removing that barrier, but knows that confronting the organisation directly will, in all likelihood, not only jeopardise funding/help from that organisation but potentially blacklist them with the others as well. This is because, in this city, there seems to be a dislike of those that speak out in opposition to the way things are run and an unspoken code that these bodies will ALWAYS publicly support each other (even if if privately they have difficulties working together).

So, as is always the case, person A keeps quiet, doesn’t criticise and they compromise and jump the hoops that the funders/enablers want them to. Or, alternatively, B sinks without a trace.

This makes me cross, because I love Birmingham. I’m very proud of the city that has been my home for the past seven years and I want it to do well. But, that doesn’t mean that I’m not prepared to hear criticism of its institutions (mine included). By having those that use them voice their concerns , we have a chance to make what we offer stronger and make the city a better place. That is what we all want, right?

But it seems that in so many “higher” circles of the city there is a mentality that would prefer that healthy, intelligent criticism disappeared. Apparently, for some institituions we should just leave them alone because their intentions are good. It’s like they all want us to say: “Birmingham is great, we’re very happy thank you” and then shut up and let them get on with running things.

I don’t like this because, actually, I want us to be free to debate how to improve things. Yes, I understand some sections of the mainstream press can seem as if they are consistently searching for dead dogs to kick, but speaking for myself, that’s not why I signed up to this job.

For me, the whole point of taking on a career which I knew would forever destine me to be the pariah of social events (“oooh I can’t talk to you ‘cos you’re a journalist and you might put what I say in the paper”) was because I take the idea of being a citizen seriously and I want to be part of a debate that improves things. A newspaper is just one forum where that can happen. 

That’s why I love doing work on both sustainability and the creative industries because both areas are about working towards creating a healthier, egalitarian and culturally rich society.

But it just makes me so sad when I have these reptitive conversations. All of them are part of bigger debates that are being stifled. Yes, there are things that are going right in the city, but it is obvious that there are also things going wrong. However, we can’t make them better because those that hold the purse strings/regulatory approval wish such criticism to be silenced. This means that those that feel there are ways to improve things are too afraid to rock the boat and will keep their criticisms to themselves. 

Unable to get someone to speak openly about these problems for the paper, I know I’m not the person who can start the debate.  Thus, I am left feeling helpless and sad that we’ve missed another opportunity to do things better.

Has anyone listened to Radio 4 of late? Well, over the last weekend – during the aforementioned DIY marathon – I pretty much listened to it for 15 hours a day straight.

I caught up on all the Archers shennanigans (poor old Kathy) and listened to the same edition of Moneybox twice (I thought Roger Bootle was very engaging, although I am concerned about his theory that Mervyn King knows a terrible secret about the economy that is yet to be revealed).

Anyway, I digress. The point of this post was that, on the whole, I quite enjoyed the experience. It felt quite 20th century to be presented with a banquet of diverse and sometimes baffling programmes on which to feast. None of which, if I had been on the Internet, I would have chosen to indulge in by myself. Force feeding, in this sense, appears to have its place.

However, the one time that I did consider turning the radio off (and frankly throwing the thing out of the window) was during Saturday’s Any Answers. Here I came face-to-face (or ear-to-voice?) with what I supposed was a representive slice of Radio 4’s audience.

I’m afraid the only way to describe it was cringeworthy. In my mind I had imagined the programme would attract hoardes of erudite intellectuals with concise views, willing to challenge the arguments of the Any Questions panel.

Instead it was a horrifying mix of parochial middle England attitudes and blundering baffoonery. I think, at one point, one old chap was arguing (via a debate about Blue Peter‘s cat) that Radio 4 must use canned laughter because anything other than Humphrey Lyttelton simply wasn’t funny!

Of course, as it was pointed out to me later, Any Answers doesn’t represent Radio 4 listeners, it represents those listeners willing to interact with the programme.

Which leads me to the question, why? Why doesn’t the show encourage a wider demographic to respond? What is it not doing? I think this is a fundamentally important question, not just for Radio 4 but for anyone in the media that wants to interact with their full range of audience.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but perhaps it’s something to do with the medium of communication. Perhaps you have to be parochial in your views or, indeed, a bit batty to air them live on radio…