Section:GDN M1 PaGe:1 Edition Date:050912 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 10/9/2005 0:17 cYanmaGentaYellowblack The danger with 24-hour news is that it becomes a rolling service of rumour and speculation Helen Boaden Page 5 Monday 12.09.2005 Inside Tony Marchant 3 on TV drama Birt was wrong about British PHOTOGRAPH: LARRY W. SMITH W. LARRY PHOTOGRAPH: writers Emily Bell 4 on broadcasting What’s the point of digital switchover Kim Fletcher 7 on the press Newspapers must embrace the internet Peter Wilby 8 on regrets Where I went wrong at the New Statesman Jobs index 11-26 Creative, Media & Sales Covering the scenes of devastation and evacuation has tested local journalists’ skills and resources to the limit 15 Consultancy Directory 25-26 New Media 27-36 Marketing & PR 35-36 Courses The story they always feared 36 Tenders Journalists on the Times-Picayune, the New Orleans city newspaper, have defied On the site today Results from DMGT the destruction to cover the biggest story of their lives. By Duncan Campbell and Ulster TV n a corner of Magazine wide. Remarkably, the paper resurfaced President, and we’ll be angry long after “hurricane edition” is a reminder of that Thursday Culture Street in New Orleans, almost immediately, initially in its online our beloved city and surrounding parishes series in a strapline that reads “Katrina: secretary Tessa amidst the wreckage form, and it now produces a 16-page pub- have been pumped dry. Our people the story we’ve always feared.” and the spray-painted lication. Its presses may have been deserved rescuing. Many who could have It has been a strange time for Jim Jowell gives the warnings to looters, a swamped and its staff of 260 more than been were not. That’s to our government’s Amoss, the editor, who has suddenly lowdown on digital newspaper vending halved to around 120 by displacement shame.” The scathing editorial was found his paper the focus for the atten- Omachine remained in- and evacuation but the Times-Picayune quoted throughout the American media tion of the world’s media. “I’ve been switchover. All the tact. The now out-of- has emerged as one of the great survival as the voice of an angry and dismayed dumbfounded by it,” says Amoss, a news as it happens, date paper it was offering for sale carried stories of the hurricane. New Orleans. The piece was a classic ex- native of the city who has edited the the ominous headline “KATRINA TAKES Last week, the paper made waves itself ample of robust American journalism. paper for 15 years and worked for it for guardian.co.uk live from the RTS AIM.” The subeditor who wrote that head- with an editorial in the form of a personal Earlier, out-of-town reporters covering twice that time. He says that usually convention line for the Times-Picayune was right. Ka- message to President Bush telling him to the story had found the series of prescient when a newspaper attracts the attention trina was indeed taking aim and before that sack the entire leadership of the Federal articles that the Times-Picayune ran three of the rest of the media, it is because it Plus Media Monkey: edition could sell out it had hit the city and Emergency Management Agency (Fema), years ago which predicted that just such has embarked on “some grand journalis- making mischief all left, in its wake, the paper’s printing presses particularly Michael Brown, the man Bush a storm could do the damage it did. Above tic feat but we sort of stumbled under water and its staff scattered far and appointed as its head. “We’re angry, Mr the masthead of their current slimline into this”. The leader article that ≥2 media day, every day Celebrating 50 Years of Entertaining © Aardman Animations Ltd 2003 itv.com/50 Section:GDN M1 PaGe:2 Edition Date:050912 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 10/9/2005 0:19 cYanmaGentaYellowblack 2 The Guardian | Monday September 12 2005 MediaGuardian Dispatches Cinema wise neighbour. “Martin had one skin less than he ought to have done and took immediate offence at everything,” re- members Briers. “He was an extraordi- An unbelievable nary character, and Bob Larbey said I was the only actor charming enough to get Tale of tabloid hell away with it.” The two shows have more in com- mon than the setup suggests. Like Ger- From The Great Escape to Gladiator, vais’s David Brent, Brice was a socially cinema’s relationship with authenticity inept middle manager (Mole Valley is notoriously strained. The first of just Valves to Brent’s Wernham Hogg) out of two remarkable things about Rag Tale, a place with the rigours of the modern new British film set at a fictional London world. But while The Office was about, tabloid, is that it leaves Hollywood’s well, the office, Ever Decreasing Circles most heinous historical travesties look- focused on the breakdown of traditional George A Romero’s Land of the Dead ing like masterclasses in verisimilitude. social groups. Like The Office, it was The deputy editor is desperate for funny and sad in equal measure. bylines, when in reality red-top deputies “Martin was like a mild David Brent,” vember, he put together the first issue of rarely write anything. And for some recalls Briers. “We all knew an irritating Little White Lies with Bochenski and reason, “splashes” can appear inside the little man who wanted to manage every- various friends writing about film “in paper as well as on the front page. thing. It was a very recognisable type. But the same way you talk about it in the These, and all the other inaccuracies, we were a cosy, escapist show. Gervais’s pub”. would be forgivable if the film was any stuff is hysterically funny but almost too “If you’re talking about a film you good. Sadly, it is so bad that I am about close for comfort.” don’t endlessly discuss camera angles or to give away the ending. Eddy the editor Gervais has described Briers as “the try to imagine what it would have been is lustily servicing his deputy, who greatest living British sitcom actor”. So like visiting the set,” he argues. “You use happens to be the proprietor’s wife. Journalists on a British tabloid as imagined by actors in new film Rag Tale has he been asked to appear in Extras? the film as a springboard to talk about all What he does not know is that she is af- “My daughter said it would be wonder- sorts of stuff. That’s our philosophy. ter his job. What she does not know is ful,” laughs Briers. “But Madonna is the Each issue of Little White Lies is themed that her husband is actually her father. involved speaking to a genuine journal- last person on their list so I am probably on a film, but then our writers are at lib- At just over two hours long, there is ist was confirmed by the absence of free “Ricky Gervais has quite a long way down it.” Ricky, it’s erty to come up with stuff on whatever rather too much room here. In fact, in booze at the post-premiere party. Need- described Richard over to you. John Plunkett the film inspires in them.” the hands of a half-decent subeditor, the less to say, I made my excuses and left. Thus, the third issue takes George A script would be reduced to about half a James O’Brien, presenter, LBC 97.3 and Briers as ‘the Romero’s Land Of The Dead as a theme page. Indeed, if the director/producer former Daily Express showbusiness editor Publishing to riff on rock stars who should be dead Mary McGuckian had not addressed greatest living British and voodoo practitioners in London, real-life hacks at last week’s London sitcom actor’” while the next issue – on King Kong – launch, the question of how it was made Classic sitcom runs features on great fights in nature would have left me utterly scuppered. A film magazine and the Donkey Kong videogame. Luckily, McGuckian was quick to Since launching the magazine, Miller distance herself from the writer tag that less ordinary has has got his old job at Adrenalin back still appears on the film’s credits, and Ever increasing after a new publisher was found for the stressed that the project had been an title. He’s kept going with Lies, how- “improvisational collaboration” with respect “If you line up most film magazines side ever, and is developing the kind of the actors. Initially, this appeared to be a by side you’ll see that, really, they’re basi- solid, paid-for business plan that recent modest sharing of the credit, but within cally the same magazine – same covers, launches such as Stool Pigeon and Good minutes of the film beginning it looked A 1980s sitcom about a suburban same features, even the same marks for For Nothing have proclaimed impossi- like desperate deflection of blame, for middle-aged couple and their suave each film review,” says Danny Miller, edi- ble. Little White Lies is sold in Borders, the second remarkable thing about Rag hairdresser neighbour sounds like an tor of Little White Lies – a new, under- Virgin and Fopp stores as well as inde- Tale is that it boasts a very impressive cast. unlikely inspiration for Ricky Gervais. ground film quarterly. “When I was grow- pendent clothing and music stores. Rupert Graves, Simon Callowand John The creator of The Office and Extras ing up, I loved magazines so much I’d col- With a cover price of £2.75, it is cur- Sessions are outranked only by Hollywood has described Ever Decreasing Circles as lect them.