The Guardian: Denis-time, Photos and More Hunger-Strikers

As interesting as Monday and Tuesday were with Denis , it’s a shame I can’t really write much about them as the stories we were researching won’t be published for a little while.

On Sunday night I’d gone down to the US embassy in Grosvenor Square again (after visiting an amazing Brick Lane) to get some photos and talk to the hunger-strikers etc. there. Nothing had really changed. Fatemeh had been taken to hospital again after refusing to drink. Again, doctors persuaded her to start drinking. We’re now on day twenty-three with still no sign of US/UK-government intervention or heightened media interest.

I’d gone down there against the advice of Mark Tran (a news reporter who’d initially handed me the story) who I’d called up on the Sunday asking if it was worthwhile. He said no as nothing had really changed. I thought I would anyway, just to keep in touch with them . The BBC had picked up on the story on Saturday night and I had been told by a friend of Fatemeh’s that “a major paper” would be running it on Tuesday. I thought this might spur the Guardian into giving it a bigger profile and I obviously wanted to be part of that, armed with pictures and quotes.

Turns out that Kim Sengupta, a high-ranking foreign reporter for the Independent—which I can imagine liking this sort of story—had been there the day before (the “major paper”), according to the hunger-strikers and their supporters. He may well have been but his story has yet to appear. Maybe he’s doing the same as me, trying to keep in touch with them while trying to persuade his editors that they are worth reporting. Or maybe he thinks they’re not worth reporting.

The protestors told me how they’d liked my guardian.co.uk article except one of the later paragraphs which was put in by a sub about the Camp Ashraf massacre. Just to clarify, I have learnt a few times before that being told by protestors that they are pleased with your report generally is not something to be proud of. It shows that you probably didn’t take both sides into account too well. I think this time round it’s okay as I think it did and the Guardian’s subs wouldn’t have let it be too sympathetic. I can already see that at least one of them has little respect for the MEK. I won’t name him, lest he gets hounded by the group!

The following day (Monday) I spoke to said editor and he explained his reasoning for not going any further with the story unless there was an interesting and newsworthy new line. His reasoning seemed sound so I was not too disappointed in not being allowed to follow-up. I will keep in touch with them. Indeed I got a text today offering an “exclusive” from them: a letter from a senior American government representative, on behalf of Obama, to a lord here, which stated a guarantee to protect citizens of Camp Ashraf, dated mid-July—two weeks before the massacre. I called up aforementioned editor just to make sure it wasn’t important. It wasn’t, he said. Again, he went into detail. But it highlights my reasons for staying in touch with them, being offered what they think is a great exclusive. I suggested they try the Independent so I wonder if Sengupta will be writing about the letter tomorrow.



I worked on Monday with Denis doing lots of research on the internet looking for documents relating to the vaccination of certain groups to swine flu. I later called up a few Primary Care Trusts and tried to elicit the information without letting them know the reasons for the request. This proved difficult as most of them couldn’t work out what we were asking or, as we suspect, are covering things up a bit. It taught me that I do need to be slightly more diplomatic at times and more importantly, rarely show my full hand to press officers.

The following day, I worked on a much more exciting story calling up many local councils to ask how they were combating the rise of a certain illegal trade. Many weren’t doing a lot, notably Birmingham which confirmed that there were no incidences in the city which is clearly untrue. However, Liverpool has a team set up to deal with the problem so I later spoke to its leaders about their methods, what they’ve found, how, who they’ve raided etc. Denis is on holiday for a couple of weeks from today but when he returns we’ll carry on with it and hopefully go over to Liverpool together and take part in a police raid. Exciting stuff.



I have to say Denis has been amazing to work with. He’s taught me a lot ever since that first piece with him about the swine flu misdiagnosis and obviously through the bigger piece we did together. Among other things, he’s highlighted that as tenacious as I think I am, I can be a lot better. Watching him think through ideas and the means of getting stories together has taught me so much more than a year of Student Direct or, I imagine, an MA Journalism or NTCJ course. However, he’s still keen I do one. We’ll see.



Not wanting to sound idolising but I’ll carry on in saying that he gave me a lot of advice about how to go about getting where I want to be. It’s not necessarily what I want to hear—I don’t want to do a postgrad course or spend much time working for a local paper—but I have much more respect for it than the tips I’ve been offered by many other journalists over the years. It’s nice that we’re working on these on-going couple of stories too. He really did seem to appreciate the help I gave him last week on the Republican ‘facts’ piece, describing my work as “outstanding” when he introduced me to other writers adding that he couldn’t have done it without me, which is very nice to hear. He’ll be writing me a reference when he gets back.



Today I was out on a photography mission which was not as exciting as I’d hoped. Partly because I was on my own rather than shadowing a photographer and partly as it was the hottest day of the year yet and I was traipsing around London in jeans and a black tshirt. My task was to photograph people having fun in the sun—the sort of photos that fill up half the pages of free papers whenever the sun comes out. I found it very difficult! I thought it’d be easy and it’s really not so I have a newfound respect for photographers. I don’t think I could be one. Saying that, I don’t think my mind was on it today as I spent half the time wandering into shops just because they were air-conditioned. Was a nice day out in London, waking through Regent’s Park, down to Whitehall and Westminster, Horseguards’ Parade, up to Oxford Street, Soho Square, Trafalgar Square and back home. South Bank would have been nice but Sarah, the other photographer on the same mission, was covering that. A couple of photos of hers appeared on guardian.co.uk this evening. I didn’t even bother filing mine. Sarah gave good advice throughout the day on the phone but I failed to do anything with it really. She hated this sort of job so I wasn’t alone in finding it hard.

On Tuesday, I asked Paul Lewis if I could shadow him for my last couple of days (tomorrow and Friday). He’s very keen to help me out but was honest in saying that he wouldn’t be doing anything exciting and I was better off speaking to one of the news editors who would put me in touch with reporters going out and about. So I did that and hopefully they’ll have something lined up for me tomorrow. If not, I’ll find something to do as I’ve been so proactive in doing over the last week especially, since I’ve ignored the timetable they lined up for me. I need to tie up loose ends such as my leishmaniasis article, saying thanks and bye to certain people and going into the editor’s office on my knees and begging deputy editor Paul Johnson for a job. I really have settled in there and it’ll be sad to leave.



Incidentally, I seem to be the only work experience person who’s taken the paper up on their offer of paying travel expenses as no one seems to know how to do it. It’s not the same route as normal expenses for their own staff apparently. I’m not letting it go. £128 is a lot of money, even if I am claiming for enough to make an MP blush.