April 2008 Archives

No media covers local council elections like your regional evening newspaper.

On Friday morning, the first edition will start printing at 9.45am and will contain each and every one of the results from literally hundreds of wards across the Midlands that were counted overnight.

We'll more than likely splash on the result. There will be a run of pages from three to five on the leading stories and pictures from the various areas. Which locally famous councillor lost his seat; how the BNP were ostrichised ostracised (with thanks to David the spellchecker!) by the majority of voters; the scuffle over a recount; and so on.

And then deeper in the paper will be a four page run of the fully detailed counts from each and every ward, each one personally entered by a Birmingham Mail journalist on site.

So I do hope that readers will remember how hard the team will have been working to put all this together. The planning of rotas started weeks ago. The result is a slimmed down shift tomorrow and Friday. Because on Thursday night, the election team won't be in until 10.30pm. They won't go home until 7am. If they're lucky. And the subs who put the pages together will need to come into fairly ready stuff by 6am Friday morning.

Add to that the staff updating the internet in the early hours of the morning; the photographers rushing to get all the main count results and speeches; and our own Colin Whittock drawing the topical sketch live for Friday's publication.

I'll publish some of the emails that have been whizzing back and forth to ensure the process all works in the next day or so, to give Editor's Chair viewers an insight into Election night at the Birmingham Mail.

Here's proof that I got out of my Editor's Chair this weekend!

I was leading from the front (er, well, from near the back, actually) in the Birmingham Mail Fun Run that more than 2,000 runners enjoyed taking part in on Sunday. I managed the 5km in 44 mins (but remember, I was talking to as many runners as poss.... that's my excuse...)

From Villa Park to the Alexander stadium was the route, and it was real joy to join in a mix of enthuiastic Brummies raising money for charity. We're told that around £75k is expected, all helping Macmillan Cancer Care and the Birmingham Mail Charity Trust (the latter an independent community charity).

It was great that we managed to persuade several personalities to run as well, as I'm sure the publicity about their involvement encouraged more runners to turn out.

I was joined by Mrs D (40 mins) and 8-year-old son Dan (30 mins).

If any viewer wants to contribute by sponsoring the Dysons, please send a cheque (£1 a km = £5 x 3 = £15?) made payable to Macmillan Cancer Care to me at the following address and I will make sure this is added to the day's funds raised.

Steve Dyson, Editor, Birmingham Mail, P.O. Box 78, Weaman Street, Birmingham B4 6AY

Meanwhile, who can you spot on the run in the picture below?

A bottle of good wine to the first poster on this blog with BOTH correct names...

Naming a suspect during a police investigation before charges are brought is a fairly unusual move.

The reasons for the Birmingham Mail's action today - see link - are worth airing for chair watchers.

As those who have followed the death of Villa fan Christopher Priest death will know, The Sun on Monday published an incorrect story. Under the headline 'MURDER AT THE MATCH - Villa fan run down by rival' it reported speculation that the car involved was "said to be driven by a Birmingham fan".

This was officially denied by police, who said fan rivalries were not involved. But rumours have persisted, partly as a result of The Sun's reckless report. In some parts of the city, tensions were running high, and so I believed certain facts needed spelling out.

Our full story today tells how Blues fans and a Villa fan were in the same car and had been driving around after the match together. They were driving away from an incident when the collision happened. The collision is not thought to have been intentional. It was certainly nothing to do with football rivalry. Read the full link above for more detail.

Naming the driver and confirming the Blues/Villa fans in the same car came after a full Friday of chats with senior sources and lawyers, but was deemed by me to be sensible in putting rumours to rest.

It also named the driver in an environment of accuracy, with the police warned it was going to happen and therefore able to keep an eye on things. Rather that than hotheads naming people on websites with no warning or, even worse, national red-tops naming people with misleading headlines.

It is these major facts and juxtaposition that are crucial at times like this, and the Birmingham Mail is determined to play its part in helping in any way it can.

(PS: Close chair watchers will note one poster's concern at the Birmingham Mail's Monday report which described fans "pouring" out of the ground after the match when the collision occurred. He even thinks this puts us in the same boat as The Sun's crass reporting.

Hmm. Entitled to his opinion, of course. And as the time of the incident now appears to have been confirmed to be 3pm, it's likely that it was the tail-end of the crowd departing rather than the initial waves of fans pouring. So point made. But a little pedantic, methinks. )

Pretty huge development in this story in tomorrow's (Saturday's) Mail, including specific details of what happened.

The ongoing furore over dissent on the football pitch has led to the highlighting of a four-year-old Birmingham Mail campaign this week.

'Respect the Ref' was launched in the middle of the 2004 season at a time when Birmingham County FA were concerned about the rising number of red cards and assaults on referees. We had discussions with them about what could be done and the idea of the campaign was born.

The Birmingham Mail has long carried a midweek supplement on junior football and amateur and minority sports, and this seemed the obvious home for such a campaign.

With the launch, 5,000 A2 posters were produced and sent to every club in the county area while Mike Fellows, the county FA discipline manager, and sports writer Roger Clarke, who ran the midweek section, worked together to develop the campaign.

The details of any alleged assaults on referees or trouble at matches involving referees was reported in detail in the midweek section. And when a disciplinary hearing had been held, the names of players banned for assaults or improper behaviour towards match officials were published in a scroll of shame along with their club, league and length of ban and fines.

The message was simple: assault a referee and there would be nowhere to hide.

Recently the FA nationally has been launching schemes for zero tolerance to improve behaviour at football matches amid falling levels of retention of referees and increasing numbers of assaults and crowd problems, particularly at youth and children's matches.

Four years on and without any multi-million pound scheme, the Mail's campaign has helped Birmingham County FA to achieve the highest referee retention rate in the country, with a falling number of assaults and a thriving junior soccer scene.

All we need now is the extension of the scheme into the Premier League to make self-obsessed professionals 'Respect the Ref'.

And perhaps this is not just a dream scenario. On Monday this week Sky News came to the Birmingham Mail offices having heard via the FA the results of the campaign. The result will be a feature piece used on its channels in the next week or so.

Let's hope the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson and Wayne Rooney are watching...

Many thanks to all who engaged my rage on the last post. I'd like to respond in this new post as well as via comments on the last.

Truth and lies: I'm always trying to highlight the disgusting way I feel The Sun can sometimes operate in the regions. Happy to discuss the hooli book story you mention, although it's kind of a completely different topic! But here goes. From memory, the book was published by a mainstream publisher and was being launched at an event at a local bookshop. Er, that's a story.

Anon: If you have any issue with any story we have published, please contact me directly. You can do this via steve.dyson@birminghammail.net
Re. my criticism of The Sun, I will continue with that. While you say they are trying to do a job, I say they are only trying to grab headlines in a way that could very easily have caused violence and misplaced retribution in the city that I serve. For that I will continue to shout about them (and any other national paper with the nerve to misrepresent my city).

Stellachiave and Luke: Thanks for your comments.

Generally: I despise the way newspapers like The Sun sometimes go about their business. They and others were directly criticised by me in Chapter 10 of The Battle For Longbridge (Brewin, 2000), 'The London bias that nearly killed Rover'. They at times show little respect for anywhere north of Watford gap. It is crucial that editors in the regions kick out to show up their occasional (and in some cases frequent) ineptitude and crass handling of facts.

Rebekah Wade: I'd welcome your comments, and look forward to a fulsome apology in tomorrow's The Sun.

Yesterday's excitement in Birmingham over the Villa v Blues derby quickly turned to sadness when news of the fatal traffic collision near the ground came through.

Things got even grimmer when police arrested a man on suspicion of murder. Disturbingly, many websites quickly speculated that the victim was a Villa fan, the driver a Blues fan. Nothing attributed, mostly anonymous 'tips' and therefore, of course, ignored by the Birmingham Mail. Just as well, because it was wrong.

Our report last night on the web and in today's paper was straight: "A man is being questioned on suspicion of murder after a pedestrian was killed in a collision with a car close to Villa Park shortly after the Villa-Blues derby."

Yes, it happened after the Villa v Blues match, and yes, we said that a fan was believed to be the victim.

But we were careful, most properly and responsibly, not to suggest rival fans were involved. Even if it had turned out to be true, no-one knew this to be the case and it would be virtually inciting violence to say so.

Not such care was taken be The Sun today. Their splash today is headlined: 'MURDER AT THE MATCH - Villa fan run down by rival' and directly reports speculation that the car involved was "said to be driven by a Birmingham fan". They wildly used words like 'grudge', and referred to 'bitter rivals' in copy so close to the details of the arrest that the average reader might be forgiven for assuming this was a Blues-Villa incident.

This was irresponsibility in its most repugnant form. The Sun has a record of stating 'facts' before they are confirmed. And on this occasion, they have really let themselves - the the profession of journalism - down.

This morning, at 10am, West Midlands Police confirmed that the victim and the driver arrested on suspicion of murder were BOTH Villa fans. No Blues fans were involved.

The Sun should be ashamed of itself.

So Mrs D wins her bet... and now we'll find out how easy it is to claim the winnings... or is it a cumbersome amount of form-filling and then a barrage of texts?

On the game: well-deserved win. But I reckon Blues are still safe. A win and a draw is possible in the next three games, and I think Bolton will only get one win. That keeps Blues up on goal difference.

Let's hope so, anyway. It will be great for the city and for the Birmingham Mail to have all three big local sides in the Premiership.

Placing £5 on Blues to win in today's derby versus Villa may seem a very odd thing for me to have done this morning. But I can assure you that at the same time, Mrs D placed £5 on Villa to win. Why?

Well, on Friday, a new promotions partner called betNOW offered every reader a FREE £5 bet to place on the derby. All it would cost readers was the price of two text messages at standard rates. In return, readers were offered odds on the game.

As always, I'm keen to make sure these things work for our loyal readers, all 200,000+ of them. If these don't work, we stand the chance of hacking off the audience that keeps us in business.

Two texts later, I'm told that if Blues do win I will pick up £18.55 in winnings. If Villa win, Mrs D gets £6.43. Whoever wins, the winnings will go to the Birmingham Mail Charity Trust. But, more importantly, I'll find out whether this offer worked properly for readers... and I'll let you in on my findings tomorrow.

Good luck Villa and Blues in five mins time... for different reasons you both need to win.

One of the roles of local newspapers is to look after readers' concerns.

This was the reason behind the Birmingham Mail's 'No more Chinese whispers' campaign two years ago when the new owners of Longbridge, Nanjing, refused to state what they had bought the bankrupt company for.

Was it simply a 'Chinese takeaway', with the former MG Rover plant machinery packed off to the Far East for cheaper car production to a country desperate for a volume car blueprint?

Or was there any serious intent to restore car-making of some form to the historic Austin plant?

At the time, Nanjing refused to say. There were hints through sources here, and alleged plans through contacts there, but nothing concrete. Hence the Mail's 'No more Chinese whispers' campaign which asked the same ten questions every day - in English and in Chinese - until they were answered.

We even printed the paper's first Mandarin headline stating the campaign name. And, eventually, we were introduced to the Chinese bosses. It was explained to us that their culture could not understand our approach, and that they were struggling, basically, to comprehend how a newspaper could be so 'disprespectful' to a large, state-run company.

But, at the time, through interpreters and go-between senior contacts, Nanjing eventually said they now understood, and they started to talk. They dismissed 'takeaway' rumours and pledged their desire to restart Longbridge production, to establish a research centre for Europe in Birmingham and to employ local skills. Smiling faces, council leaders driving prototypes out of Q Gate, and all other sorts of positive signs and sounds were made.

But now, in April 2008, several production dealines have passed and still not a single Longbridge-made MG has come out of the factory. And the Chinese are steadfastly refusing to talk to the same Birmingham Mail editor and business editor (myself and Jon Griffin) who two years ago they had started to speak to.

Does the change of ownership of Nanjing mean production plans have altered? Are there any real strategies to use Longbridge in the way they appeared to promise in 2006? Or is this now the culmination of what in effect was a long-term 'Chinese takeaway' plan?

We do not currently know, because Nanjing are refusing to answer any questions.

They had better not spend too long in silence, because we are not in China here in Brum, and the Birmingham Mail is not some state-sponsored press that is not allowed to be defiant to arrogant businesses.

If by Monday Nanjing still shows no sign of answering the Mail's questions, then we will sit down as a senior editorial team to plan 'No more Chinese whispers - phase 2'. They have no right to be silent over the future of one of our historic centres. They cannot seriously believe they can promise new jobs then change their minds without comment or criticism. Hearsay and rumours and sources will not suffice... we want no more Chinese Whispers.

Watch this space... and the Birmingham Mail by Tuesday or Wednesday next week if Nanjing's tight lips persist.