The Guardian: Getting My Bearings

It seems a long time ago that I first walked into the Guardian’s offices, slightly overdressed and very much underslept after a heavy weekend in both Manchester and then London.

My first day, Monday, was to be with the Society section. I soon learned that this deals with the public service sector. Not surprised I didn’t know that. I was fortunate, however, to be sat next to a lean Irish reporter called Denis who bore an uncanny resemblance, bar the perpetual swearing, to the character of Malcolm Tucker of In The Loop. (This is a compliment.) On the end of the phone he was fast-talking, smart and wouldn’t let anyone get away with a shoddy fact or deny an apparently reasonable request.

Denis fitted the stereotype of a reporter to a tee. I latched onto him, if only for someone interesting to talk to while I carried out the incredibly mundane and infuriating—as the tiredness kicked in and I would think about the fact that being here was costing me—data entry task which even I could have written a programme to do in a few minutes rather than the expected day it would take me. Thankfully, the guy who’d asked for this task has not come back to me for its completion.

I was ever so slightly underwhelmed by my first day. There had been none of the adrenaline that I had expected to be hanging over the newsroom and none of the chain-smoking, fast-talking, bolshie reporters that are the stereotype of the major papers. I had clearly not known what to expect and should not have been surprised not to get it.

Day two began with the 10am conference, in which a high-ranking editor would discuss the previous and following days’ papers with anyone who cared to join, about forty members of staff. Forced to join were the section editors who would outline their plans for the following day’s paper and analyse current events. It was a pleasure to hear Simon Tisdall explain his thoughts on Obama, Iran and the Clinton trip to North Korea and Julian Glover talk on the need for high-speed rail links across the UK after interviewing Transport Secretary Lord Adonis.

I headed over to help with his three-day rail feature and would source the data for a graph that appeared in today’s paper showing that the UK was the only country to have not a single kilometre of high-speed track planned for 2025 out of a wide selection notably including Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Brazil as well as the more obvious Japan, China and Spain. The desk seemed slightly reluctant to allow me too much input so I headed back to Denis after lunch who asked me to have a thorough look through the wires to check for anything on Swine Flu.

I did this and found a few little things, the most notable being a story about a Bristol teenager who had been misdiagnosed by the out-of-hours GP service Frendoc with Swine Flu, while he instead had a much more serious kidney infection that would put him in hospital for six days. The story was good and Denis was happy for me to write it. Facts are always important but it wasn’t until Denis really pushed me that I realised I was missing some; the story didn’t quite add up so I called up the lady from the Bristol Evening Post who had written it and clarified some points—points that should have been clear from her copy. I thought I was tenacious but Denis’ advice to “shake a fact” as much as possible will stick with me.

Ready to be submitted, with a joint byline, Denis asked that I just have a quick look at the wires to make sure no updates had been put out. They hadn’t, however, GP magazine had published a poll that would reveal that 9/10 GPs thought that the telephone helpline would hinder many people’s health. This would supersede my story and appear in the following day’s paper, with a sole byline of Denis. It was obviously disappointing but a lesson in how things can change very quickly and render something that has had a lot of work put in, worthless—not the first time but much more pronounced than when writing for a student paper.

Today I began on Comment Is Free, the Guardian’s comment section. The news meeting at 10am was not quite as interesting today but I will still make a point of attending every day. Comment, however, turns out to really not to be my thing. Though the people are clearly knowledgable, they seem to have little to do except scour the internet looking for ideas and sources but more importantly, it seems, to update Twitter and reply to comments on the Guardian’s website on their own articles.

Though I do have a timetable, I am going off track a fair bit. I doubt anyone minds as long as the people I'm with are happy to have me. Restless in Comment, I wandered over to the Foreign/News desks and was helped out by a lovely lady called Karen who directed me to Colin who would allow me to work a nighshift with him and the few staff who work during the printing of the five editions of the paper, the first being at 8.30pm and the last at 1.30am. Already knackered, I began to regret me keenness. I quickly interviewed a guy about high-speed rail over the phone and headed away for some food before I’d return to a very different Guardian two hours later.

On my way out, I bumped into Simon Tisdall who, surprisingly given his high-rank, seemed to have time for me. Despite being off for a couple of days, he suggested I see him on Monday. Since covering foreign news is what I want to do, I can’t wait.

On my return at 9pm, Colin was very keen to show me the ropes of the nightshift. The first edition had gone to print and mistakes, new photos and some new news would come in over the next few hours which he and his small team would rewrite and then re-set many pages and of course the online content. The big story was that Rupert Murdoch had announced that his papers—Sunday Times, Times, Sun etc.—would be charging for online content “within this financial year”. This came in fairly late but was important enough to replace the page three story so would take a lot of work. Jeff Jarvis was called to offer an analysis. Driving on a highway in the States, he pulled over and filed from there. I’ve a copy of the first edition, which was handed to me around 11.15pm, which I will compare with tomorrow’s final having borne witness to many of the changes and their reasoning.

Before I left, I would speak to Lee, the lady who works the literal overnight shift after the final edition has gone to print, primarily updating the online edition and collating copy from foreign correspondents. She had a lot of time for me and gave me some great pointers as to who I should speak to and how I should be going about stuff. One big decision I need to make is whether to do a Journalism MA at City (or similar) or just go abroad and file back. She was keen, as I am (and unlike Denis), just to go away and file back and she named a few people who had done just that who I will track down tomorrow.

I left around 12.30am. I will definitely be sitting in on a few more evenings and hopefully a full night where the two of us will be left to our own devices while the country wakes up to read a paper that seems to us to be very much old news.