Baffling local news stories

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Pete
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Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 13.36
Location: Dundee

Image

Noticed today in the news of the world, or one of the other rags.

This lady's son was murdered. So naturally she had a cushion of his face made.

How touching.
"He has to be larger than bacon"
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nidave
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Joined: Wed 19 May, 2004 14.39
Location: Manchester

Pete wrote:Image

Noticed today in the news of the world, or one of the other rags.

This lady's son was murdered. So naturally she had a cushion of his face made.

How touching.
its like those people you see on LA Ink etc getting Tattoos of their loved ones (including pets).
there is a guy in our office who has a nude tattoo of what is supposed to be his wife, I think he drew it himself in crayon.
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Sput
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Joined: Wed 20 Aug, 2003 19.57

I love australians.

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2010/0 ... tnews.html
Naked protest shocks cafe patrons

A WOMAN has stripped off naked in front of dozens of people having breakfast at a popular Darwin restaurant.

Witnesses said the woman took off all her clothes after she and another woman had a full-on fist fight over a man yesterday.

"That was just a shocker," eyewitness Fernando Dentes, 34, said. "People were trying to eat."

Police said a 39-year-old woman had to be picked up from the median strip on Dick Ward Drive after she bared all in front of the Cool Spot Cafe in Fannie Bay.

The patrons were reportedly unimpressed. Children were rushed inside the venue and police were called to escort the naked woman away.

The woman was lying naked on the ground smoking a cigarette in full view of customers at the restaurant.

Three uniformed officers, in a paddy wagon and a sedan, arrived at the scene before giving the woman an on-the-spot fine and taking her to her home to Moulden, in Palmerston.

It is unclear whether she was drunk.
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Jovis
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The patrons were reportedly unimpressed.
Brilliant.
Chie
Posts: 979
Joined: Fri 31 Aug, 2007 05.03

This headline is quite baffling: http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/u ... ed/3720717

The article itself isn't much better really - where did the government launch this 'body' -
Cape Canaveral? How do you 'deliver' savings? And am I just meant to assume that 'Firebuy' was the organisation being referred to in the opening paragraph, which should say: 'An official report has found that Firebuy, a public body set up by the Labour Government to facilitate the procurement of fire engines and other equipment, cost almost twice as much to set up and run as the savings it claims to have made.'

But the most baffling thing of all is how the person who wrote this lexically and grammatically incorrect piece of crap managed to get and retain a job in reporting when little old me, who actually knows how to communicate properly despite never having been to university, can't get one for shit.
James H
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Location: In your endo

I have a suggestion. It'll be the university thing, you know. They'll have done a little degree in - I dunno - journalism, or something, and be on about £3.10 an hour with fags as a bonus. It might well be that that story was whopped up quickly while they were in the middle of five other lines with a fucking editor or sub screaming down their neck for an hour. I don't know.

Also - have you applied? I regularly see BJ posts and just regular J posts going at various places.

The only problem with the headline is the word 'slammed' - 'criticised' might be better since 'body slammed' is actually in use today. As for the article, I think the operative is that it does assume previous knowledge. Mind, if you're that slow on the uptake no wonder you can't get a job - note the date. Are you applying for jobs that are already closed?
Chie
Posts: 979
Joined: Fri 31 Aug, 2007 05.03

Yes, they sacrificed three or four years of their young life, indebting themselves with over £20,000 they'll still have to pay back even if they end up as a barista in Café Nero, for a one in who knows what chance of becoming a journalist. Good for them.

I value my time, I don't think spending that much money for an opportunity to enter the graduate sector lottery is a good bet and besides, I don't need a degree to prove I'm capable of mediating information in a way that can be understood by the target audience anyway. A record producer wouldn't listen to an auditionee who clearly has a natural talent for singing and say, 'yeah, that was amazing, but where's your degree in singing?'

In the last 10 years, journalism has somehow turned into a graduate profession. Even graduates are struggling to compete for jobs in an industry where the output is no longer valued by the consumer (who's prepared to spend £2 on a cup of coffee but will pay £2 for a week's subscription to an online newspaper the day they die (even though it's cheaper than buying seven newspapers)) like it used to be. So there is absolutely no hope for non-graduates. To keep seeing articles written by dunces who probably have degrees, as I often do, really rubs salt into the wound.

Maybe I should write about this.

I disagree with you regarding the headline, by the way. 'Fire engines purchase body criticised' doesn't work. 'Fire engine purchasing body criticised' would be acceptable. Ugh. You wouldn't believe the fury that was evoked in me by that fucking headline. It's just atrocious. Similar nonsense headlines appear on BBC News with almost daily regularity.
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Sput
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Chie wrote:Yes, they sacrificed three or four years of their young life, indebting themselves with over £20,000 they'll still have to pay back even if they end up as a barista in Café Nero, for a one in who knows what chance of becoming a journalist. Good for them.

I value my time, I don't think spending that much money for an opportunity to enter the graduate sector lottery is a good bet and besides, I don't need a degree to prove I'm capable of mediating information in a way that can be understood by the target audience anyway. A record producer wouldn't listen to an auditionee who clearly has a natural talent for singing and say, 'yeah, that was amazing, but where's your degree in singing?'

In the last 10 years, journalism has somehow turned into a graduate profession. Even graduates are struggling to compete for jobs in an industry where the output is no longer valued by the consumer (who's prepared to spend £2 on a cup of coffee but will pay £2 for a week's subscription to an online newspaper the day they die (even though it's cheaper than buying seven newspapers)) like it used to be. So there is absolutely no hope for non-graduates. To keep seeing articles written by dunces who probably have degrees, as I often do, really rubs salt into the wound..
Yes we ALL know you can write, but maybe this has more to do with the fact that newspapers don't like getting sued, and most journalism degrees have a component looking at law and aren't just about English.

I can fashion a puppet out of a wooden spoon and napkin, it doesn't automatically make me Jim Fucking Henson does it.
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James H
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Location: In your endo

Chie wrote: I value my time, I don't think spending that much money for an opportunity to enter the graduate sector lottery is a good bet and besides, I don't need a degree to prove I'm capable of mediating information in a way that can be understood by the target audience anyway. A record producer wouldn't listen to an auditionee who clearly has a natural talent for singing and say, 'yeah, that was amazing, but where's your degree in singing?'
YES, you DO need a degree to prove that. The example that you've given is plain wrong because the creative industry is entirely different. Perhaps a better example would, if you're using the creative industry, be that you won't get your foot through the door at most auditions unless you have a good training (often the name of institution is more important than the actual training) and a good agent. Record producers will put any old shit on a record so a degree in singing is bollocks (see Simon Cowell).

So what you're saying basically is: "Going to university is expensive and I'm too special to go to university, since I'm amazing anyway. But journalism only seems to take people who go to university. It really annoys me." What's the fucking answer then, Sherlock?

If the headline pisses you off, fuck off and get your NTCJ training and at least give yourself the weaponry to fight the war for jobs. You wouldn't go into a real war with a penknife and a bag of smarties with a smug look on your face, would you? So don't do the same with work.
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Gavin Scott
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Training (university or otherwise) demonstrates many things to potential employers, not least commitment, drive and discipline.

It figures very highly and positively in the minds of some employers; in the same way that no work history, training or advanced schooling can speak negatively.

I know who's CV I would read first.
Alexia
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Chie wrote:Yes, they sacrificed three or four years of their young life, indebting themselves with over £20,000 they'll still have to pay back even if they end up as a barista in Café Nero, for a one in who knows what chance of becoming a journalist. Good for them. I value my time, I don't think spending that much money for an opportunity to enter the graduate sector lottery is a good bet and besides, I don't need a degree to prove I'm capable of mediating information in a way that can be understood by the target audience anyway. A record producer wouldn't listen to an auditionee who clearly has a natural talent for singing and say, 'yeah, that was amazing, but where's your degree in singing?' In the last 10 years, journalism has somehow turned into a graduate profession. Even graduates are struggling to compete for jobs in an industry where the output is no longer valued by the consumer (who's prepared to spend £2 on a cup of coffee but will pay £2 for a week's subscription to an online newspaper the day they die (even though it's cheaper than buying seven newspapers)) like it used to be. So there is absolutely no hope for non-graduates. To keep seeing articles written by dunces who probably have degrees, as I often do, really rubs salt into the wound.
As you may or may not know, I work as a librarian. Well, library assistant. I can't call myself a librarian until I have a librarian's qualification. It doesn't stop me doing the same job as a librarian, performing the same level of competence in my duties, or having a different level of customer service training to them. I am capable of shelving, cataloguing, processing and discarding books. That's all there is to it really; apart from perhaps making conversation with old people about the weather and telling young kids to sling their hook when they mess about on the computers.

As you may or may not know, I am also a fully qualified journalist, with a degree and the all important letters after my name. I spent three years of my life as you say indebting myself (although with only £3,000 - as I worked in Sainsburys all the way through my degree, negating any excessive student loans and also having a deleterious effect on my social life), and at the end of it I got a piece of paper.

The reason I never got a job as a journalist is twofold. Firstly, I had no long-term experience in a journalistic setting (my work experience was at Nuts) so any jobs that appeared at my local paper which had the proviso "need experience" instantly voided my chances. It didn't stop me going for every single one however. Secondly, I was 21, not 16 or even 18. A lot of local papers take on people fresh out of school so that they can train them up on the in-house training scheme (my local paper is owned by Newsquest; and the Cardiff ones are/were Trinity Mirror) and pay them peanuts while they do it, effectively putting any new employee on probation dependent on the trainee meeting the standards of the company. A confident 21-year-old university-seasoned graduate with knowledge, opinions and a certain amount of independence is less attractive to a media machine than green 16 or 18-year old youngsters who are finding their feet in the world. I'm not saying for a single minute that at 21 I knew everything, but the level of in-house training that would have been provided by the local rag would have been infinitely less involving and engaging than the three years I absorbed anything and everything about journalism at university.

Looking back, with the downturn and the consolidation of the media, the ever growing dominance of the internet, the reliance on reprinting wire stories rather than relying on talented writers etc. - I'm almost glad I didn't get to realise the path that I set out on when I filled in my UCAS form. Learning about something and doing it are completely different things. I don't think I could have survived the high-pace, stressful world of live reportage and deadlines.

But that degree isn't wasted. Within the library organisation, and as part of the council as a whole, we must promote and outreach. So what does that mean? Press releases. Designing posters and flyers. Knowing what an audience wants from its product. All things I learnt while at university. In addition to that, I also learnt radio skills at university, which I am now using in my other "career" as an internet and RSL radio presenter.

So as a result, going to university has given me two more career paths in addition to the one I set out on. At this point in my life, I can honestly say that when I grow up (I'm 26!) I could be a librarian, a journalist or a radio presenter. In fact, given the fact I own a Food H&S certificate, and an NVQ in customer service, I could even move into Hospitality & Leisure. Not that I want to.

Or I could pursue a career that needs no specialist training yet seems to be highly lucrative and well paid. I could be a politician.....
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