The Tribune Office

The Tribune Office
...hard at work as always

Thursday 27 March 2008

The People's Tribune

IT'S always nice to have time off, and this Easter we gladly grabbed the chance to have Good Friday and Bank Holiday Monday away from the newsroom.

The down side is that none of our papers get any smaller. In fact, this week's Tribune is one of the biggest in a while - a bumper 144 pages.

So while we've had two days off, we don't have two days less work to do.

The situation was compounded on Tuesday when we came in to find computers dying to the left us, and computers dying to the right of us.

We got it sorted out eventually, but it put us behind even more.

Still, it's an exciting time to be a part of Nuneaton's number one newspaper.

We've been working on our blog to give some added value, and I touched on this in last week's dispatches.
There's now a message board, mailing list, polls, guestbook and, best of all, a community calendar.

Anyone can add information to this, so if you've got anything from a fete to a gig to let people know about, it's the place to go.

We're trying to be as interactive as possible to make sure we're giving you the service you want and deserve.

On the paper front, we've got new business and entertainments sections, and our news service is also expanding.

This paper, in various formats, has been around since 1895. In fact, when it was first launched, it was called The People's Tribune, which shows you what our ethos is.

You don't survive in the newspaper industry for more than 100 years if you can't cut it.

We've been doing that since the 19th century and our paper has always been pushed forward by innovation and a commitment to balance and accuracy.

Over that time we've become part of the fabric of the town. If you need to know something, you turn to the Trib.

We hope you like the new things we've got in store - either way, let us know. We'd love to hear from you.

Thursday 20 March 2008

Idle hands

IT'S been a strange old week at Tribune Towers. For some reason I've actually found I've got a bit of spare time on my hands.

Time to do things like, gasp, forward plan. Work on projects like this blog and how to best utilise the space.

This is a very rare occurrence - normally I'm too busy get the paper out to think beyond the next deadline.

I don't know how I managed it, but on Tuesday afternoon - one of the busiest days of the week - I spent a good couple of hours thinking about new ways to engage you, our readers.

One of the main problems we have as a group - and in that I'm talking about the Tribune, the Bedworth Echo and The Hinckley Times - is our online presence.

We have so many ideas about digital media and the way forward, but we don't necessarily have the facilities to put them into action.

Hopefully that will soon change. Trinity Mirror, the newspaper group to which we belong, is rolling out a new system of websites.

They're all singing, all dancing, and the best thing is they are very community orientated.

But we're pretty ambitious around here, not to mention impatient. Yes, stop shouting all those who know me - I am indeed the most impatient of the lot.

We've led the way with our blogs and Facebook accounts, and now others are following suit.

So we don't want to sit around and wait for them to catch up.

We want to move on again, so over the next few weeks we'll be trying out some new things on here and our sister sites for the Times and Echo.

We'll be trying to maximise what we can do, but it would be great to know what you think.

Whether it's something we can do now, or in the future when we get our swanky new websites, we'd love to hear from you.

Leave a comment on the blog or on the new message forum, or simply fill in our quick survey.

Let the debate begin!

Thursday 13 March 2008

Clark Kent I ain't...

IT'S not unusual for me to be known to shout at the television.

There are a number of things that can make me raise my voice and start gesticulating like a mad woman.

Paula Abdul telling someone on American Idol they look nice, when she should be judging them on their singing ability.

Horatio Caine on CSI:Miami stopping mid-sentence yet again to remove his sunglasses for effect.

Xander getting away with something stupid for the 6,000th time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

But what really stirs the inner lunatic is the fictional portrayal of reporters.

As if we didn't have to put up with enough stereotyping and bad press, excuse the pun.

I remember one particular example that shot my blood pressure to new levels.

Younger readers, bear with me.

Back when Eastenders was required watching, there was a character called Polly Becker, who was, and I use the term loosely, an "investigative reporter".

She's certainly like none I've ever known, seeing as how her big scoop was about one married character having an affair and the subsequent drama around his infidelity.

Woah! Big news - not! In real life, this sort of thing would never get near a newspaper, certainly not a regional one.

If we wrote about all the affairs going on in our towns, we'd have no room left for the real news!

The only film I can remember watching with a positive portrayal of reporters is The Paper, but then the whole thing's set in a newsroom, so it should be pretty accurate.

We're either whiter than white with super powers (Clark Kent) or scurrilous and morally bankrupt.

The only super powers I have are managing to get up to 100wpm shorthand on a regular basis.

It's probably national journalists who give us all a bad name - they have a very different approach to what they do.

It's easy for them to breeze into an area, upset everyone, then disappear back to Canary Wharf.

For us, the reality is very different.

Apart from the fact that we genuinely care about our communities and want to do right by them, it just wouldn't be worth our while upsetting people with sensationalism and untruths.

We have to come back into work the next day and face our contacts again - if we don't deal with them correctly, they just stop talking to us.

In our newsroom we pride ourselves on following the mainstays of good journalism.

We always give both sides of the story, we never print something someone told us off the record and we never break an embargo.

It's why people respect what we do - despite the negative images they've normally been bombarded with.

~ Emma Ray

Thursday 6 March 2008

Women are from Venus - with reporter Sam Thorne

NOW I know that the purpose of this blog is to enlighten you all about the ever-fascinating life of a journalist.

But rather than immersing you in endless details of how we got this story and how we got that story, I thought I'd feed you a titbit of office gossip.

Well, not gossip as such, but hopefully it'll give you some idea of life behind the scenes.

A few weeks back, when I was sitting on the Dark Side (the side of the room where the editor, the subs and our chief reporter sits), we had one of those "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" debates.

Now it would seem that a lot of the men in our office (and probably a lot of men outside our office, too) struggle with interpreting what women mean.

By all accounts, what women say and what women actually mean is something of a minefield.

So, probably rather jokingly, I was challenged to write a blog on the intricacies of the female mind. (Yes, we really do have one.)

And so here it is. Men, sit up and pay attention now - this really could change your life.

Perhaps the biggest mistake guys seem to make is misinterpreting the words "no" and "yes." How hard can it be?

Well, in female terms - especially following an argument or when we flounce out of the room with a quick toss of our hair and our hands on our hips - yes means no and no means yes. Got it?

Next up, and for us girls, "I need (fill in the blank, usually with something shoe-shaped)" invariably translates as "I want."

Similarly, "we need" also means "I want." We ladies can be pretty demanding creatures, you understand.

Now you've got that, here are some other vital lessons for you wannabe lotharios.

"How about a movie tonight?" translates as: "If I spend one more night between these four walls, I will start frothing at the mouth!"

When a woman says, "do what you want," this is generally a sign of great danger - trust me guys, you'll pay for it later.

Similarly, if a woman sniffs, "I'm not upset," it almost always means, "of course I'm upset, you moron."

If a woman asks you how she looks, always ALWAYS reply, "beautiful, but you always do, darling." Tread carerfully here, guys - even the slightest hestitation can get you into big trouble.

Finally, beware the fuming woman who asks (sorry, screams) "Are you listening to me?!" If you've tuned out her rantings for even a nano-second, you will need to do some serious grovelling. Trust me on that.

Sam Thorne