I used to regret fiercely the wasted years of my early 20s, spent
either getting up at 5am (I worked for an afternoon daily) to do the
tides, or getting smashed. I could have been learning something
useful, like reading Joyce or Proust, or hanging about insouciantly
in cafes, or having overseas adventures...
But a decade on I don't think it was _so_ wasted, though I still
regret the waste of not wasting my youth, especially when I see
younger friends doing so so freely (I mean, deciding they're going to
be sculptors, or painters, or writers, or photographers, maybe all at
once on the same day, and then going out and doing it - lucky them! I
was never so free inside myself, but I hated my 20s.)
But I think those skills I learnt were ultimately very useful. I
remember how awed I was when I first saw a reporter phone in his
copy, flipping through his notes from a courtcase and filing a
perfectly structured news story from the top of his head. In six
months I could do it without thinking.
No one will employ me nowadays, I've crossed some kind of invisible
line from "tolerable" to "untouchable". I've only ever worked
casually for the Age, and could never bear it: the Age reporters (not
the subs) always had a very weighty sense of their own importance and
their literary pretensions caused me real problems as a sub editor,
because when I cut their stories to what I thought was good plain
English they got very upset, as if they were writing, well,
literature. Ahem. At least most tabloid journalists know they're
writing tomorrow's toilet paper, apart, I think, from Andrew Bolt.
And interestingly (I've worked as a sub for both the Age and the
Herald Sun) the Herald reporters are still better trained.
It's a very handy skill, to import wow factor into a publication, and
it's not easy to do; what you were doing sounds brilliant. I used
all my tabloid techniques when I was working as a theatre critic for
The Bulletin, which I did for three years from when I was about 25.
I was also the most serious critic around (I can say this without
boasting, it was so long ago and also it wasn't as if there was any
competition). I talked as highmindedly as I could about Art and
aesthetics, I was extremely idealistic, but I hated that thing about
being More Important than the Audience; I thought of a critic as
someone who participated in a dialogue which included the audience
and the theatre. I was roundly hated in some quarters, though not,
to my gratification, by people who were serious theatre artists; but
people took notice of the Bulletin reviews, which maybe they had only
done before with Brian Hoad. When the pay didn't reward the hassle,
and my soul started getting tired of seeing awful plays, I bit the
bullet and resigned to write poetry et al fulltime (such was my wage
that a sole parents pension was a payrise), and started growing up.
But I've never quite lost the streak of the yellow press, as is
probably quite obvious.
And now, for my next life story... maybe other people could volunteer theirs?
Best
Alison
>On Saturday 05 January 2002 10:42, Dave wrote:
>> I think, or rather suspect, that one of
>> the pifalls that language-centred persons, as poets tend to be, is that we
>> instinctively feel that those who use language like a soggy pork pie, circa
>> British Rail 1946 not sold until 199-something, after travelling the
>> lengths and breadths (notice those clever 's's, to avoid the cliché) must
>> therefore be our intellectual inferiors.
>
>I think you'd be surprised how technically difficult journalism news writing
>can be. I have used the short news item (known as the inverted pyramid form)
>as an exercise when teaching precise and clear writing techniques.
>
>For example, take this jumble of information and turn it into a news report:
>
>[Eye witness report, name withheld] I just heard the helicopter flying
>overhead. it was a nice sunny afternoon and I was just going for walk to get
>my mail. Then bang, the helicopter just fell out of the sky onto the car. I
>heard someone inside screaming then a ball of fire. The helicopter was
>smashed by the car and the car was then burnt up by the helicopter. [Police
>report] The driver of the car was a male in his early 20s. The helicopter
>pilot was an experienced pilot in his mid 50s with several years flying
>experience. The Bell King helicopter may have suffered apparent engine
>failure and it is also suspected the rear rotor may have failed before the
>engine causing it to lose control and crash into a blue Mercedes, traveling
>in a westerly direction 23 kilometres from Windy on the Queenly Highway and 4
>kilometres from Barran. The accident happened unexpectably and only a
>helicopter and car were involved with two fatalities on Wednesday, 22nd
>October, 2003. The names of the victims will be released when next of kin are
>notified of their deaths.
>
>The inverted pyramid form is (from memory so I could be wrong)
>When (usually date and time)
>Where (location)
>What (what happened)
>How
>Why (optional depending on space)
>
>The news report is for the Barran Daily times, a regional city daily. Now the
>above information has to be written up into no more then five pars
>(paragraphs) of one sentence per par. Verbs must be active. No passive verbs,
>adjectives, metaphors or similes allowed. (I usually show examples and
>explain them first but from here I go: you have three minutes, beginning
>now!) You'd be surprised how difficult people find this. (I will give more
>time after the three minutes is up to complete it in a more relaxed
>fashion.)
>
>It would probably be an interesting exercise for poets to try who have never
>been trained in or had to write the traditional inverted pyramid form.
>
>best
>
>Chris Jones
--
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
Masthead
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
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