Meet Me At The Met
Election Day - and that’s what I’d been asked to talk about when journalism lecturer John Clark invited me to the Metropolitan College in Glasgow this afternoon. I was able to fit it in before catching the train back to Inverness, especially since the college is a two minute walk from Queen Street Station.
John led me upstairs to a traditional lecture theatre where, much to my horror, a slide show was already running featuring about a dozen photographs from this blog. John’s introduction felt like a edition of This Is Your Life, as he touched on everything from my upbringing in Easterhouse , my brief foray into stand-up comedy and even last Sunday’s trip to the Falls of Shin.
As I got to my feet I wasn’t sure I had anything left to say, but, as diary readers will be all too aware, having nothing to say has never prevented me from talking. So I described ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ’s Scotland cross-media approach to the election and our plans for covering the counts across Scotland.
When I invited questions I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the range and quality of the subsequent grilling. I was asked about the future of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ in an independent Scotland (if any), plans for new radio services, the reason for our new H.Q at Pacific Quay and whether or not academic courses in media studies were valued within the industry.
Having earlier explained that I had to catch a train so that I could be home in time to vote, one student asked me which party I’d be voting for. I dodged that one.
I did lapse into my usual rant about the difference between journalism and information-processing and talked about the importance of basic story-finding, building contacts and telling people things they don’t already know. I reaslied I was coming across as a bit of an old misery on that subject so I tried to counter that my explaining that jobs in the media can be fantastic fun, but that you really ought to quit before you get jaded and cynical.
And I left them with a challenge. Having shared two pieces of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ gossip, I wondered if anyone thought they were the basis of a story and, if so, could they sell it to a newspaper.
One concerned complaints of sea-sickness from staff working near the Clyde-facing windows at Pacific Quay…the other was about our jazz team’s encounter with Moira Stuart at the Sony Awards.
Let me know if you see any of these in the newspapers. I’m due a tip-off fee.
