hackbash

On one of the sites for which Charlie and I write, we also moderate reader comments. Aside from the genuine responses and the occasional shameless plug for people’s own projects, there’s an increasing influx of spam. Now, I consider myself fairly liberal when it comes to smut, but some of the links in our moderation [...]

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Dear God I’m addicted to Scrabulous. For anyone who hasn’t been playing (or reading Charlie Brooker), it’s a Scrabble plugin for Facebook. Except, inasmuch as I can be bothered to find out, it started out as a turn-based email game. Whatever, our Charlie’s “no Facebook till lunch” note to self is still as apt as [...]

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Anyone would think the gentlemen of the press wanted Northern Rock to go tits-up. At the very least there’s been some incautious language going around these last few days. You can understand a bit of hysteria from people whose life-savings might be on the line, but isn’t it our job as journalists to get a [...]

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Attempting to extract information from a press office yesterday, it occurred to me that press officers need to get with the programme, or social media is going to whup their sorry asses. My request wasn’t a toughie. I’d seen a story on BBC News that I wanted to cover for a client. The source was [...]

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Now I wasn’t going to go on about the BBC again for a while, but this is interesting so bear with me. Last week I happened upon this BBC story, which informed this piece for Living. You’ll notice that in the Living story I refer to “the BBC’s enthusiasm” which, to put it mildly, was [...]

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As if things haven’t been busy enough in the three months or so since Charlie and I joined Spannerworks, we’re now involved in interviews for a third journalist. Some might see interviews as a curse, but it’s all pretty new to us. We’ve been amazed by the experience and qualifications of the people who want [...]

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The quip in Simon’s recent post* that journalists on proper magazines enjoy perks like, um, a readership has been playing on my mind. One of our most promising projects is very much, let’s say, under-read at the moment, despite some rather splendid content. I guess the concept of building a readership comes more easily to [...]

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Right blogging powerhouse I’m turning out to be. What’s this, five posts in a month? Anyway, I’ve opened this up to my colleague Charlie, aka the Bird Man of Firle. I hope he’ll offer something more insightful than my usual carping about BBC News. I’d invite other journalists I’ve worked with, but they all work [...]

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I’ve been writing a fair bit about flooding lately. It’s a serious subject; Winter 2006/7 saw the five wettest months since 1914, and the floods this summer are said to be the worst since 1947. Insurance claims alone are expected to total £2.5 to £3 billion, while Evan Davis estimates the total cost to be [...]

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