Mindless automotons? Not us!

The modern journalist spends a lot of time staring at their computer screen.

Not stalking the streets for stories, not pressing the flesh of the public hoping to make new contacts, and certainly not propping up the bar like our older (for older read ancient), cardiganned, grumpy sub-editors used to.

No, nowadays it's all about story counts and speed. We don't have a morning conference at the copshop anymore. Instead we stare intensely at the Warwickshire Police website hoping there'll be an update of some kind.

More than 30 minutes of this in one go and the site starts to look like a magic eye creation, all shifting shapes and strange images. I swear I saw Larry Grayson one day, but then I was a little worse for wear.

Once an incident is posted, instead of speaking to a sergeant or inspector, we ring someone in the press office, who then speak to the police for us and come back with information. This sometimes creates more questions than answers and we will have the choice of asking them to go back to the officer, or forget the whole thing because it's going to take too long and it will in no way be as good as speaking to a real person.

There's also the chance, as happened with the brothel story last week, we'll be told no such incident can be found when we ring up an hour after it's happened. The next day, deadline done and dusted, we resume the website-staring only to see the incident we'd asked about sitting there proudly at the top of the list, waiting to be lapped up appreciatively by the dailies, who'll have it to themselves for a whole seven days.

Back in the good old days, when I was a cub reporter, this type of scenario would have involved a complex game of cat and mouse with the rival reporters.

You'd sit through the morning police conference, mentioning not a syllable about your "exclusive". At the end of the chat, during which time you will have either a) had your shorthand skills severely tested or b) had some good-natured banter with a sprinkling of news thrown in depending on which inspector you got, it was time for some play-acting.

The essential first stage of the deceit is to take an absolute aeon to pack up. Oh look I've dropped my pen. Gosh, I just can't seem to cram my notepad into my stylish yet affordable courier bag.

All this is to ensure you are last to leave the room. If you succeeded the next stage was even harder. You would have a split second time frame to allow the last reporter to leave the room in front of you, half leave yourself, then quickly turn back to the inspector and ask, in the sweetest of tones, "could I just check one thing with you?"

Get it right, and the exclusive was in the bag. Get it wrong, and you'd have all the others loitering at the door while you gave away your potential Pulitzer prize-winning tale.

Yes, that really was life on the edge! Nowadays it's all sanitised news releases and virtual people. Spokesman and representatives.

It's the main reason why we are using new media like this blog, Facebook and email to get back to basics - interaction with our readers and their stories. Using the new to go back to the old - pretty nifty, eh?