Let’s get this straight. Blogging isn’t some mystical power, knowledge of which can only be gained through years of immersion in the internet. Anybody can set one up. In the time you’ve just read this, I could have set up a new blog. But blogging well? That’s still a way to go.
It’s not an area where there’s necessarily a right or wrong answer either. Some incredibly – in my view – poor blogs are inexplicably popular, while there’s a handful of blogs in my RSS reader that were put in for content but are strangely hypnotic and compulsive reading, despite being dull as ditchwater. And, naturally, there’s some really good blogs out there that are only known in very small circles, which is a crying shame.
Like blogs, pieces on how to blog are ten a penny and usually come with one or two experts dishing out advice. So Lauren Fisher’s crowdsourced piece on advice to new bloggers at Simply Zesty is refreshingly interesting (despite having my opinion buried in it).
The long line of those queueing up to give advice is a long list of well-known names in blogging circles, all with their own opinions. And what’s fascinating is the theme that emerges in the advice. So much so that it would be easy to condense this into a few bullet points that could be distributed to new bloggers.
Be yourself
Don’t rehash the same stuff everybody else does unless you have something to add
Engage in the community
Enjoy yourself
And there’s really nothing more than that. Seriously, that’s all that’s needed as a basic starting guide.
What’s equally as interesting is where the advice differs in places. Content is key is another undercurrent, but how best that content is delivered is another question. Should you blog regularly, daily even? Yes, no, and it depends are all valid answers.
Similarly, audience is an interesting question. If you’re doing a blog around a specific area or brand, then that’s easy to visualise your audience before you start writing. Something like a general personal blog, or a blog around a somewhat more vague area (how large is media for example) is harder.
I’ve always thought of start a new blog as somewhat akin to Sartre’s artisan creating a knife, and the definition of man, in Existentialism and Humanism. First the blog exists, then it surges forward and defines itself. And then continues to definite itself. Just because the writing has never touched on a certain topic, it does not mean this topic can never be broached.
Certainly this blog has changed drastically since it was first set up, and the early days were also worlds away from the first blog I ever created.
And that’s also the joy of blogging. You’re always learning, always developing, always reacting and always changing. Sure, there’ll be constants over time; the writing style, for one thing, will evolve into something recognisable (but this doesn’t mean it won’t stop evolving).
As such, there’s no such thing as a complete blogger, or anybody who completely knows blogging. It’s always changing. As Heraclitus may have said, if he’d been born thousands of years later and involved in the blogging scene, you cannot read the same blog twice.
What we can do is immerse ourselves in blogs and online culture. But the minute anybody lays down their keyboard and proclaims to be an expert on blogging, for whatever reason, they’re lying.
Essentially, in everything, you can either move forward or fall backwards. Standing still isn’t an option. Which is to say the blogger who knows it all will be tomorrow’s Luddite.
There’s reporting that you disagree with and then there’s an occasional point of journalism that’s just wrong. Not just wrong, but dangerously misleading to a degree that goes beyond scary.
Now, with the death of Natalie Morton, hours after she’d received the cervical cancer vaccine jab [1] was always going to lead to some interesting reporting. Some has been good, some has been bad and some has been scaremongering. Especially after the point where it was established that she died from a tumour and not the jab.
The story itself is largely built around the fears of an expert, Dr Diane Harper. In many respects, this is nothing unusual. Most journalists have built stories around experts. I’ve done it myself, although they’ve usually be economic stories rather than science.
And there’s nothing wrong with this, per se. Often an expert provides a new, different angle and also helps with one of the first rules of good journalism: tell the audience something they don’t already know. I’ve learned a lot from chatting to them and the stories are usually interesting.
But a lot depends on the expert themselves, who they are and what they are saying. And that, rather than the story they’re talking about, is the important part. Because there are a lot of interesting experts out there.
Let’s take AIDS as an example. It’s not stretching things too far to say Africa has a serious problem with the disease, and that antiretroviral drugs stop Aids becoming a death sentence for sufferers. Yet there are people, who have lots of expert-looking expert credentials, who will use arguments such as population growth in South Africa as a reason why the numbers of being dying from Aids is too high. Or that vitamins can cure the disease.
In short, they can sell themselves as experts but their claims aren’t necessarily the kind you’d put on the front page of a newspaper, and strongly suggest this outsider view is worth listening to.
But back to the Express and the cancer jab story, which, by the time the Express ran the interview, was fast becoming old news.
Reporting on just about any kind of issue is always going to ensure somebody shakes their head and disagrees with it. The more high-profile and emotive the story, the more likely this is.
I don’t often agree with the Sun or the Mail’s take on current affairs, but there are plenty of others who’ll be in tune with this line of thinking. There are tabloid scares – some justified, and some not – but usually there’s some basis to start from.
Not here. Virtually every bit of the Express article is just plain wrong. I dislike hyperbole, but there’s a very real chance that parents could read the story, refuse to allow their daughters the jab, only for their daughter to catch the virus, and contract cancer. This isn’t politics, or food scares, or the like, this is the health, life and potentially death of the next generation of the female population. Is it really worth getting blood on the hands to sell a few extra papers in this manner?
I’m not hugely fond of jumping up and down and crying bad journalism at the tabloids (or the broadsheets) – stones and glass houses and all that. There’s a lot of good journalism in all of them, and I’m continually amazed in the best possible way at how good some of the journalists I know one these papers are.
But just because we’re in a profession, doesn’t mean we can’t hold it to account and call it out when publications get it badly, dangerously wrong. There’s a line between reporting potential health problems and dangerous scaremongering that could cost lives. On this occasion, the Express have crossed it [2]. I posted a link to the piece on Twitter earlier. One response from a journalist said: “That makes me want to disown my profession.”
In fact, this story has got me so upset at the reporting that I’m going to do something I’ve never even come remotely close to ever wanting to do before: complain to the Press Complaints Commission.
Frankly, I don’t expect it to have much effect. The organisation is somewhat toothless at the best of time. And writing to it feels like grassing up somebody at school.
But if nobody says anything, it means there will be more bad science, more panic and, potentially, more lives lost. I’m not trying to set myself as an arbiter of what’s good or bad journalism; I’m just beyond appalled at this one article.
If you feel the same, then I’d urge you to also complain.To help, my old colleague Chris White has already written a letter (about 3 minutes after reading the story). He sent me the text of his complaint and I’ve reprinted it below. Feel free to adapt it for your own use:
“The front page of the issue of the Sunday Express published on 4 October 2009 leads with the headline “Jab ‘as deadly as the cancer’.”
The “jab” in question is the Cervarix vaccination against the two strains of human papillomavirus shown to trigger up to 70% of cases of cervical cancer.
The story follows the death of 14-year-old schoolgirl Natalie Morton, who died shortly after receiving the vacciation – but whose postmortem found her cause of death to have been a previously undiagnosed tumour.
The claim that the vaccination is as deadly as the cancer is manifestly untrue. At the time of this solitary death, around 1.5 million girls had received the vaccination. Cervical cancer affects an estimated 16 women per 100,000 per year, and is fatal for around 9 women per 100,000 per year. Even if the vaccination had been responsible for the death of Natalie Morton, then the cancer is clearly almost 150 times more dangerous than the vaccination.
That this is based on the opinion of “expert” Diane Harper is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what her opinion is: it only matters what the data show. (This is why academics are subject to a process of peer review for publishing their work: despite their supposed expertise, papers must be approved of by their peers before publication. The mere opinions even of experts count for little within their own communities and should not carry any greater weight with the public, nor with journalists.) There are no data suggesting that the vaccination is dangerous.
Furthermore, the quote from one Richard Halvorsen questioning the postmortem finding that Natalie Morton died from cancer, “If you have cancer you have symptoms”, is, essentially, a lie. Many cases of cancer can be asymptomatic — including, in a tragic piece of irony, most cases of cervical cancer.
This is little more than ill-founded scaremongering and irresponsible journalism of the worst kind. Its only effect is bound to be — as was the case with the coverage the MMR “controversy” — to reduce take-up of the vaccine, in which case the Sunday Express will share responsibility for further deaths.”
[1] Ok, I’m taking liberties here as well. I know it’s jab about the virus that can lead to cervical cancer rather than the cancer itself.
[2] Ironically, a story from the Express was held us as a good example of science reporting at the debate between Lord Drayson and Ben Goldacre, and I’d go along with the Science Minster to a point when he says that sensationalist reporting can be good for science. The Express’ article goes long beyond that point.
Science reporting is in rude health in Britain, and also in a poor state, often getting basic science wrong and misleading the public. So (roughly) said Lord Paul Drayson, Science Minister for the government, and Dr Ben Goldacre, writer of the Bad Science column in the Guardian in a highly entertaining debate at the Royal Institution last night.
Ok, so I’ve somewhat condensed the argument, but, strangely, they’re probably both right (a reflection, perhaps, of how well they both argued). Lord Drayson made good points as to why science journalism has improved and why we need to celebrate it, and Ben Goldacre was entertaining as ever with his points and examples of very bad science reporting, many of which were still worryingly recent.
The most telling comment, though, came from Michael Hanlon, the Daily Mail’s science editor, who was in the audience. Taking the example of the Mail saying that coffee could both cause and cure cancer, Hanlon pointed out the [1] number of studies done on coffee actually reflected this, with half saying coffee was beneficial and half saying it was harmful.
Now, short of going into the lab and watching each experiment, the only way you’re going to be able to say if this is significant or not is by doing a systematic review of all these papers – one paper alone is not necessarily an indicator in itself one way or the other – and coming up with a conclusion.
But therein lies the problem. Individual papers make good news, and the Mail is not necessarily wrong when it reports that coffee both causes and cures cancer. There’s a good chance both reports are accurate with regards to the source material.
These both make good headlines. A review that concludes that it’s difficult to say whether coffee is indeed good or bad for you doesn’t have quite the same level of attention-grabbing.
What, Hanlon asked, would you have me do?
It’s easy to feel sympathy for both sides here. Goldacre is right to despair at some science reporting. When you read some of his clinical dissections of poor science journalism (for example, ‘Exercise Makes You Fat‘) you shudder and feel ashamed for your profession.
But then, the journalist has space to fill, deadlines to meet, and papers to sell. And science isn’t quite like your political scandals or natural disasters. There’s no clear narrative. One paper may be produced, peer reviewed and shown to be not all that. How does a journalist get something exciting, sexy, reader-grabbing AND accurate out of all this.
A lot of Ben’s suggestions – features, encouraging bloggers, getting the public to be more discerning readers, getting scientists to write columns – are great intentions. Not all of them are without problems, and my worry would be if you did this, you may start to lose science from the news pages, which would not be a good thing.
On a slight tangent, I’d like to bring in my brief experience as one of those arts and humanities graduates, mentioned occasionally in the debate, who’ve ended up in journalism and isn’t overly scientific (which is to say I understand science methodology and the philosophies behind it a hell of a lot better than I do the science itself. Which I often definitely don’t understand).
In my reporting days, I’d tend to shy away from science stories (other than the fact they often weren’t things that our target audience were meant to be interested in) because I didn’t feel confident enough in handling them, or handling them accurately. I struggled with basic GCSE biology. I really wasn’t the best person to critique or summarise an academic’s work.
When I did cover science, the interviewee tended to get a relatively easy ride, again, due to my own lack of knowledge. And, yes, all too often I’d end up relying on a press release, especially if they were well-written and clear. It’s perhaps not something I can say I’m overly proud of, but hopefully you can understand why (especially given how understaffed we were). Give me a football or local government story on the other hand…. No need for press releases there.
[This isn't to do I'd do this for all science or health stories. Lifestyle stuff, like your miracle cancer cures or food x causes y usually tended to get my bullshit alarm ringing].
Again, the question: what would you have me do?
Also, a secondary anecdote from my time editing the student paper.
Coming into the editor’s chair, I was painfully aware how under-represented the science and medicine students were in the paper, especially given their bulk around campus, so we launched science and health pages – the first time, to my knowledge, the paper had ever included such sections.
I put out appeals to all science and medicine students, via email, asking them to get in touch if they were interested in editing or writing. I’ve no idea exactly how many students that went to, but it would have been in its thousands.
I got four responses. One ended up becoming our science editor, the other wrote a brilliantly vivid piece about his time on placement in hospital in Pakistan, and I never heard from him again, despite several emails almost begging for more articles. The other two never followed through. Ok, we got a couple more throughout the year, but that was still less than ten students (roughly).
I’m not quite sure what conclusions you can draw from that.
But back to the debate. It would be hard to say either side won, although that wasn’t really the point. Both are right – it’s good to praise good journalism and encourage it, and Ben Goldacre’s right to bang the drum against poor science reporting which, at best is embarrassing and, at worst, dangerous.
The main thing was the debate was taking place in the first place. Just discussing whether science journalism is done well probably indicates both sides are right in their own way.
There’s a more coherent write-up here and here from people who probably, unlike me, took notes. You can watch the debate here. I’d highly recommend it if you have a spare 90 minutes.
[And if anybody's wondering about the title of this blog post, it's a reference to a particularly demented and brilliant episode of South Park where Cartman freezes himself to get a Nintendo Wii but ends up in the future where Richard Dawkins' teachings reign supreme and there's a war between mankind and otters. It makes sense, honest.]
[1] It’s late at night and I’m going by memory here.
It’s been a few months later than it should, but it looks like UK television will finally get the nod for product placement. There’s still a while to go yet before it finally gets approval, but if it does finally happen, it’ll be a long-needed change to the rules.
When then culture secretary Andy Burnham said there were “serious concerns” about product placement, he was doing the British public a disservice. It’s not as if product placement is a new concept that audiences may find it hard to understand.
And, to me, a good indication of how well something is understood is if the audience can understand a simple joke around it, and judging by the amount of films with product placement related jokes in, they understand it pretty well.
Back in 1992, Mike Myers inserted a wonderfully simple – and still very funny – product placement gag into Wayne’s World.
Without wanting to analyze the joke to death, the product placement joke worked on several levels and required a degree of understanding from the audience. Myers has a good grasp of product placement jokes, especially around Starbucks in the Austin Powers movies.
Obviously the entertainment industry isn’t likely to bite the hand that feeds it, but there have been other examples, heading way back. The Truman Show has Truman’s wife desperately trying to shoehorn a product placement into a domestic argument, while Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol 1 makes its own point about product placement by prominently featuring a raft of hyper-real fictional products. Latterly, the Orange adverts have also got in on the fun.
But, you may say, these are films and not TV. True, but then audiences have been watching films full of product placement for years now and, to date, nobody’s seen a significant breakdown in society.
Take the James Bond franchise. A new Bond film, an event in itself, will typically have around 20 brand partners with products in the film. Die Another Day raked in somewhere around $100m through placement. Yet, despite the odd clunky moment (”Is that a Rolex?” “Omega”) the films are often none the worse for being littered with brands; fitting given the style and endless brand namechecking in Fleming’s books.
Viewers are also familiar with US TV and, even though imports are censored for placement where possible (think blurred out tumblers on American Idol), viewers are savvy enough to know when they’re being marketed to. The ham-fisted attempt at censorship just draws more attention to the placement.
Then there’s the added level of realism that product placement brings. We use brands on a daily basis. Some have even entered our lexicon. Yet characters still head into a pub and ask for a pint of beer, or use non-branded or fictional products to a frustrating level (although, in a weird full circle, so fictional products become so successful they cross the line into real life).
I take the point about exchange quality for more adverts. I take the point we’re bombarded with adverts on a daily basis elsewhere, and can do without it ruining our favourite TV programmes. I especially take the point that product placement shouldn’t be inserted into children’s programmes, and the government if right to keep this as an exception.
But there are balances that need to be struck. If we want commercial broadcasting to keep producing high quality dramas, original comedies, or watercooler-worthy entertainment shows, we have to accept they need to be funded somehow, which means advertising.
It’s never been easier to skip through adverts and, like adverts in print newspapers, you can’t be sure anybody’s actually watching – a nation can quite easily use an ad break for a mass cuppa or loo break.
So that makes product placement a lot more attractive to a brand, and easier to sell for the broadcaster. Does a company want a 30 second spot that some people may see or a placement in the programme that everybody will see.
At a time when commercial broadcasting is in need of a cash boost, it has made no sense to continue to ban product placement. It won’t be the panacea to all woes, but it will help.
And, for once, I agree with Steve Hewlett when he says that badly-done product placement will see viewers turning off.
Sure, there will be some shows that take the money and produce an unwatchable advert, just as cinema has produced some clunkers where brands take centre-stage – Daredevil and Castaway are two that spring to mind.
But there’s no reason why the two can’t co-exist and produce something that everybody is happy with. Proof can be found in Shane Meadows’ Somers Town, originally intended to be a short film funded by Eurostar, but one that ended up turning into a rather delightful feature film.
The two can co-exist and we, as audiences, are mature enough to understand when we’re being sold something, without the need to be told we’re being sold a product (a plan to come out of government, which was, frankly, patronising).
By all means have a framework or code of conduct (and I’d support this idea), but in this day and age, there’s no good reason why our favourite TV stars can’t refresh themselves with a Bud after a long day’s work, before doing the weekly shop at Sainsbury’s before curling up on the sofa with a tub of Ben and Jerry’s.
Ok, so that may sound like a lot of brands just in one sentence, but think how, well, ordinary that is. If I told you that’s how I spent my evening, you wouldn’t bat and eyelid, and nor should we when our fictional counterparts do the same.
[Disclosure: I work for ITV in a communities/PR capacity, but these views are entirely my own. Plus, my university dissertation, many moons ago, was on the subject of product placement, so it's a subject I've always retained an interest in, and would do regardless of where I worked.]
S managed to get a few picture of the amazing dishes at Pearl before I gobbled them down. We didn’t get any pictures of the interior. We were too busy eating.
This was the duck breast with watermelon feta, peanuts and satay sauce. The flavour combinations were perfect and the watermelon refreshed the palate while letting the duck do its work on the tastebuds.
The duck was a nice warm up for the best course – roast monkfish with caramelised chicken wings, artichoke gnocchi, girolles and baby artichokes. I may have already got to work on this by the time the picture was taken.
It may not look much, but boy did it pack a flavour punch. The chicken wing was a playful addition and added even more depth to the monkfish, not that any was needed. If I could only ever eat one dish in my life again, this would be a serious contender.
The lamb course was largely demolished before we thought to take a photo. And the hazlenut chocolate parfait certainly didn’t hang around long enough for the thought of a photo to even enter our minds. Both of these courses melted into the mouth and produced satisfied groans of pleasure.
I’m drooling just thinking of them now. Good job I’m not hungry, otherwise I’d be raiding the pantry instead of writing this.
Another day, another year older. Despite my protestations, I’m actually less bothered about turning 28 than I am turning 29. At least 28 is the peak age for a top-class football. Once you reach 29, where can you go from there? 30? Whatever.
And despite other protestations that I really don’t like doing anything special, this is the third birthday in a row that’s turned pretty memorable. This year was in no small part due to the fact my lovely girlfriend whisked me off to Jun Tanaka’s Pearl for the tasting menu.
Oh. My. God. That’s all you can say, really. This may well rank as one of the best birthday experiences ever.
It came as a complete surprise. I’d just been told to turn up in Central London looking reasonably smart and that was it. I’d no idea about the sensual treats on offer.
The tasting menu wasn’t just about food. Every course came with a specially selected beer to complement the flavours.This is A Good Thing and can only be encouraged. I know a little about wines. I know a lot more about ales, and these were good ales.
Innis and Gunn I’d heard of, and had been keen to try for a while. The deep, malty toffee flavour was a perfect accompaniment to the lamb. The rest were equally delicious. The Spanish Alhambra Reserve that accompanied the monkfish stood out as a wonderfully rich-yet-balanced beer.
From start to finish the whole thing was magnificent. The pea, feta and mint foam palate cleanser to start through to the chocolate parfait, which lasted all of about 2 minutes, if that.
Inbetween came scallops, duck and watermelon, amazing monkfish, lamb so tender it melted in your mouth and a plum soup. Plus canapes.
I would attempt detailed description, but the different beers take their toll. Suffice to say, everything – from the perfectly cooked monkfish to the beer cocktails to finish – was unbelievable. I’ve eaten at decent restaurants. Nothing quite comes close to what I experienced at Pearl.
I would also provide pictures, but none of the courses hung around on our plates for detailed snaps. Especially not the chocolate parfait.
The only downside… I could easily get a taste for this kind of thing. One day, Fat Duck, I will have donated enough of my body to medical science to be able to afford your tasting menu. By that time, you may just have a table free.
[Although I seem to be making a habit of good food on my birthday. Two years ago, we wound up at The Cricket Inn at Beesands, which served up some of the most delicious, freshest seafood dishes I've ever tasted. Last year I was eating paella in Barcelona. To make up for the awfulness of turning 29 next year, perhaps I should insist on El Bulli and nothing less]
Never meet your heroes, They say, you’ll only end up disappointed.
Well, I’ve never been one of pay that much attention to Them, and anyway, They are wrong. Last Thursday I found myself in a recording studio talking all things football with Tim Vickery for the twofootedtackle podcast.
Proving if you don’t ask you don’t get, Chris dropped him an email inviting him to come on the show as he was in London and a couple of week later he was in our studio.
Footballers, I can do. Celebrities, I can do. One of my favourite football writers? Just a tad nervous. It also doesn’t help that Brazil is one of the few leagues I know next to nothing about (I’m a lot more aufaitwith Argentina).
But it was great fun, Tim Vickery is a great guy and the podcast, sounds, er, great. Great. It’s certainly inspired me to push the pod onto greater things.
Although talking football on a podcast with Tim Vickery wasn’t ever on my list of things to do before I die, I’ve decide to add it on there now. It’s my life and I can change the rules, thank you very much.
In one of those weird quirks of fate, I had my hair cut yesterday by a Brazilian hairdresser. I think he was somewhat suprised by my (newly-cribbed) knowledge of Brazilian football.
What you’ve been saying