Tag: journalism

Apparently, Swindon was under a rather nasty cloud this evening.

THE sky above the town was filled with giant clouds of toxic smoke after a pile of 8,000 tyres caught light.
Twenty-two firemen tackled the giant pyre, which started burning around 7pm tonight at Lower Burytown Farm between Blunsdon and Highworth….
Clouds were visible for miles on the Swindon skyline, prompting onlookers to visit from as far away as Penhill.

News to me. At that time (7.40 pm to 8 pm, to be precise) I was on my way to a town-centre pub, facing towards Blunsdon as I walked, under a clear sky.

Update, 3 May 2007: The Adver has now put ‘dramatic pictures’ on its website. It’s clearly a big fire but does it show ‘the sky above the town was filled with giant clouds’? No. One big black cloud over open fields, that’s all.

Final pop at local journalism for the evening.

YOU cannot be serious! Swindon Council’s chief executive Gavin Jones and his predecessor Sir Mike Pitt are hoping to show off John McEnroe-like skills when they enter the Challenge Swindon sport festival.

I take it that what the journo had in mind was Mr McEnroe’s sporting skills, rather than his language skills as demonstrated in the rest of his ‘You cannot be serious!’ outburst.

The saying the camera never lies may no longer be true, but it certainly seems to be more reliable that the written and spoken word in the hands of local journalists. The headline may say ‘rush hour chaos’, the voice-over may say that traffic was ‘brought to a stand-still’, but the video shows traffic moving freely. I bet the learner driver at the end of the video will be very wary of accident recovery vehicles in future.

The BBC repeated several times today that the government will be providing 1000 extra trains which it will pay for. But read the speech that this is based on and it says no such thing. The exact words are

So in the High Level Output Specification this summer, we will specify that 1,000 new carriages should be targeted at the most congested routes to effectively tackle passenger demand.

In this way, if the price is right, I anticipate that we will significantly increase the number of carriages on the network by 2014.

The High Level Output Specification will be the government’s expectation for what the railway will deliver over the coming years. It does not mean that the government will pay for this. In fact, if you consider that most of the recently let rail franchises require the Train Operating Companies to pay the government a premium within one or two years rather than receive a subsidy, it is the passengers that will be paying for the trains, not the government. Methinks some people in the DfT and the Beeb must be feeling very dizzy at the moment.

I can’t quite believe this article from the local newspaper.

YOUNGSTERS were advised about the dangers of smoking after their school was given an award for banning smoking on its grounds.

Smoking charity Quit spoke to pupils at St Joseph’s Catholic College about the dangers of starting smoking, as the school was given a gold level smoke-free award.

Are they seriously suggesting that there are schools that knowingly permit smoking on their grounds?