Critical Reflection - People at the Pool

At the end of last year I was extremely excited to be told that I would be a feature writer because ideally that is the area of journalism I want to have a career in. Unfortunately at the start of this academic year I was disappointed to learn that I would also be producing feature video packages as well as writing; and video is not something that interests me at the moment. 

After speaking to Chris he explained that the good thing about the journalism course here is that I am able to adapt it to suit my needs so that I am able to get the most out of my time here. I explained that I wanted to be producing purely written features, and after some discussion with Chris it was decided that I would have a column called 'Diary of a Winchester Lady.'

I am absolutely thrilled about this because a weekly column of social observational journalism is ideal for me. I decided to write my first column about my experience of going to the public swimming pool here in Winchester. I thought it would be a good topic because a swimming pool is always host to a wide variety of people.

After writing my first draft, I had a feedback session with Chris. He explained that my piece was too much "telling" and not enough "seeing" , in the sense that all I had really done was describe what had happened without giving any real detail that would be interesting to the reader.

I learned that feature writing has to be sensory - everything I talk about should be described through the five senses so that anyone reading it is able to accurately imagine what I am talking about. The importance of how my piece would be interpreted by the reader had not really occurred to me when I wrote the first draft, so when I came to write the final copy I made sure that I kept the reader in my mind the whole time. This led to a much more descriptive piece, which hopefully has led to a more interesting piece to read.  

One way I described the pool through the senses was:

'...you will also hear a blend of incredibly annoying sounds including children squealing, agitated parents screaming at them, and an intermittent shrill whistle that will echo around the room and make you feel as though someone is piercing through your eardrum with a rusty needle.'

Something else I had not considered before my feedback session was my use of the word 'oddity'. Chris explained that it is not up to me to tell the reader whether something is odd, it is up to the reader to decide that for themselves. This is something that I will remember when writing my column in the future, because everyone has differing opinions about any given situation, and it is not my place to tell the reader how they should feel about anything.

I had a similar problem when writing my first draft because I had also not considered what effect the use of punctuation would have. For example, I used exclamation marks throughout my first draft when I thought I had written something amusing. Chris explained that there is no place for exclamation marks, or as he called the 'screamers', unless I am quoting someone who was actually screaming at the time. Again, I was telling the reader that I was making a joke, where as it is up to the reader to decide whether something is funny or not.

With my final version of this piece I tried to give it more of a recognisable form. Instead of just describing my trip I decided to start by making the people in the swimming pool sound like ingredients in a recipe. I did this because I thought that it would be humorous to the reader, as well as being a style that most people will recognise. I feel that it also made the piece more interesting because it allowed the reader to understand the form of a recipe, but took this form out of context which is not something you would expect.


I took the content from the first draft and expanded on the things which I had been "telling" the reader and instead took the things further so that the audience could "see" what I was talking about and possibly even relate to. For example, in my first draft I simply told the reader that there was a life guard there and in my final piece I described the lifeguard with his 'yellow t-shirt and red shorts...like some kind of colour blind superhero.' I think that was an improvement because the reader can relate to the recognisable colours of a lifeguard's uniform, and I hoped to bring some humour to the piece with my description.

Ultimately I am extremely happy with how the piece turned out, and am grateful that I made errors in my first draft because now I have learnt lessons that I will remember in all future pieces that I write. I am thoroughly looking forward to continuing with my column and hope that it will be something that readers will enjoy and be able to relate to.

Tabloid Nation - a very brief summary!

The reading for the first seminar this year was parts one and two of Chris Horrie's Book 'Tabloid Nation'. Below are a very brief set of notes from the book:

Northcliffe (Alfred Harmsworth/'The Chief')

• Born in Dublin in 1865
• Educated at minor public school - St John's Wood
• Major success - Answers to Correspondents On Every Subject Under The Sun
• Owned Daily Mail - introduced women's section
• Created Daily Mirror - a magazine by women for women

Launch of The Mirror

• Written by women
• Production by men
• Edited by Kennedy 'KJ' Jones
• KJ said that 'the women fainted under the strain of meeting deadlines'
• Appealed to 'suburban snobbery'
• Front cover like The Times and covered in adverts
• Lost £3000 a week
• Northcliffe hired Hamilton Fyfe to take over/transform the Mirror
• Over a weekend Fyfe fired all the women which he likened to 'drowning kittens'

Hannen Swaffer

• Art editor of The Mirror
• Rescued The Mirror
• Transformed it into 'Britain's first 'picture paper' '
• Revolutionary approach to photography
• Willing to pay huge sums of money for the 'right sort of pictures' - accidents/disasters/crime/royalty/sporting heroes
• Mirror photographers were the first to photograph inside Mount Vesuvius - revolutionary
• Fyfe: "Mirror was calculated to be easy absorption by the more ordinary intelligence' - pictures easier than words

In 1914 Northcliffe sold Mirror to younger brother Harold Harmsworth

Other brother, Rothermer Harmsworth, was in charge of finances - not a journalist

Rothermer Harmsworth

• Fascist
• Anti-Semitic
• Wrote that Britain could learn a lot from the Nazis

Harry Guy Bartholomew (Bart)

• Born 1878
• Joined Mirror in 1904 as photographic technician
• Became the editorial director
• Admired the New York Daily News - particularly after the case of Ruth Snyder when the Daily News front page was a photograph of her in the electric chair with the headline 'DEAD!'
• Wanted the Mirror to mimic the style of the Daily News

Cecil Harmsworth King

• Nephew of Northcliffe and Rothemere
• Mirror's advertising director at the age of 33
• Warned it was impossible to sell advertising in the Mirror because there was no audience
• Wanted a complete re-launch of The Mirror
• Hired American advertising agency: J Walter Thompson

Basil D Nicholson

• Features editor of Mirror
• Obsessed with market research
• Introduced the cartoon strip to the newspaper = hugely successful
• Philosophy = a) Think of a headline b) Write some "tosh" to go with it
• Bart hated him
• Eventually placed an advertisement in The Telegraph for a deputy feature's editor with the certainty of becoming editor - this was his was of telling Nicholson he was going to fire him

Hugh Cudlipp

• Responded to the advert Bart placed in The Telegraph and got the job aged 22
• Born in Cardiff in 1913
• Family of journalists
• Wanted to reinvent The Mirror with human interest stories
• Hired freelance women's magazine writer Godfrey Winn = sex sells
• First topless image of women on the front of the Mirror showing the native life of African women
• Cudlipp recognised that the sex content was the most important change in The Mirror's success
• Cudlipp was recruited to the army in the Second World War - but under law his position and salary would remain the same upon his return
• Editor of The Express, Arthur Christiansen

During the Second World War Bart wanted The Mirror to be 'the soldier's paper'

• Always sided with the soldiers
• Hired Tom Winteringham to write about war tactics

Silvester Bolam

• Hired at editor of The Mirror by Bart
• Somewhat of a yes man
• Imprisoned for 6 months for contempt of court after The Mirror published a picture of John Haign and labelled him as the 'Vampire Murderer' before his trial.
• Although Bolam had not been involved in the publication of the story in any way, as editor of The Mirror it was ultimately he was responsible for what was printed.

Bart had employed Bolam as the editor instead of Cudlipp because Cudlipp had previously accepted a job as editor of The Pictorial, a failing paper which he transformed into a complete success.

Bart wanted Cudlipp out for this betrayal, and fired him at the Christmas party on Christmas Eve 1948.

In December 1951 Kind decided that Bart needed to go - he was getting too old, drunk and incompetent.

He attained a unanimous vote from the board of directors, including the once faithful Bolam, and Bart was told to leave. King offered £20,000 to Bart if he left quietly. Bart left The Mirror empty handed and 'drank himself to death within a few months.'

What's the point?

This post is largely inspired by a comment made by Chris Horrie yesterday. He said 'the outcome of education is enlightenment.' This comment has being going round in my mind because until yesterday everyone I have ever been taught by has instilled in me the belief that the outcome of education is knowledge and success.

As we move through the motions of the education system, being rewarded with what can be simply explained as pieces of paper with various letters of the alphabet on to reflect our achievements we are taught that by ticking all the right educational boxes we will grow up to have successful lives; the closer to the top of the alphabet your letters are, the better you will do in life.

Of course as soon as we learn of the success of people such as Richard Branson, with no qualifications to their name, the theory that top grades lead to success flies out the window, onto the street below and gets run over by a Lamborghini driven by someone who dropped out of school at 14!

If you were to look at my GCSE and A-level results you might assume that I have worked incredibly hard at my education my whole life. The truth is I have spent the majority of my educational life being certain that I would drop out after taking my GCSEs, then decided I would drop out after my A-levels, and then thought I would drop out of University after my first year; but each time something stops me. Until Chris' comment yesterday, the thing which has stopped me dropping out at various points of my life has been the belief that by staying in education I would have a successful life.

The idea that the outcome of education is enlightenment is not something I had ever really considered. I completed coursework and exams purely based on the belief that they were building blocks to a more successful life.

Since yesterday I have been considering why we are not taught that education is valuable for more than being vocationally successful. Had I spent my time in education being given the encouragement that I was moving towards some form of enlightenment I am quite certain that I would not have considered quitting at so many points!

I believe that no one should be forced to be educated in something which does not interest them, or causes stress, confusion and unhappiness. While vocational or monetary success do have a places in society, if they do not have a value in your life then don't worry if you are not moving towards them! I would urge those of you reading this, whether you are in education or not, to educate yourselves with things which are going to bring you happiness and enlightenment.