October 2008 Archives

It was 'hold the front page' time this afternoon.

The biggest story of the day - the action by BBC chiefs to take Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand off air - came in the nick of time to make the Birmingham Mail's main edition.

This was a great live change decision by deputy editor Carole Cole (I'm off for the rest of this week), with new bills, liaison with newspaper sales, immediate web upload and the rest.

But the main thing for me as editor was walking through town this afternoon watching papers fly off the stands.

A single-deck headline 'OFF AIR' positioned between cut-outs of Ross and Brand dominated page 1, leaving no-one in any doubt about what the story was.

It's going to dominate the news all tonight and throughout tomorrow - probably forming the splash in all the national tabloids.

But our readers will know that their Mail had the story immediately, as any decent metropolitan city evening should.

Very satisfying... and a predicted rise in the day's sales to boot.

One of the biggest changes to the way the Birmingham Mail and its sister newspapers will soon be produced is the 'one newsroom' approach.

And the new editorial space on the 6th floors of Fort Dunlop has been designed specifically with this is mind.

Up to now, the news desks, sports desks, features desks and business desks of the Mail, the Birmingham Post and the Sunday Mercury have been situated all over the editorial floor at the Printing House Street premises. Even when this building was in its original state, with a certain concentration of decision-making desks at the centre, there was no sense of collaboration between titles.

For all the right reasons back then and until now, content creation and decisions on where that content would go was made in separate silos for each paper, and often even the different departments for an individual paper would not be within any proximity.

Those were the days, of course, of print supremacy. In the 1960s, when the current offices were built, there were few radio stations, let alone satellite TV. The internet was not even science fiction.

Today, while print publications are still strong, our audiences demand instant news and information... and if we do not give it to them they will search and take it from the BBC, Google or countless other sources instead.

So the new thinking is to pool our resources and decision-making expertise into a single, multi-media newsroom.

No chance of that in the old building. But in Fort Dunlop we were able to plan the lay-out from scratch with this in mind. And we have.

My desk will be alongside that of the Birmingham Post editor. In front of us will be an oval of desks seating 12 content heads - representing each department serving all newspapers and websites.

All stories will be discussed at this hub and instant decisions made as to where they go first - the web, Mail, Post or Mercury - and in what form. Brand integrity will be a crucial factor - each title must be catered for. But the 'one newsroom' will mean less replication of decision-making, and less duplication of content... unless entirely separate angles are needed.

Above these central desks will be a 'media wall' of three huge screens, allowing the content chiefs to monitor any website or news channel.

We're still finalising the seating plan but, in the next few days, I'll show interested readers what it looks like.

early report from APC colleague after two weeks at Fort Dunlop: "Fantastic environment. Can I have longer for lunch to fully enjoy the canteen? I may end up poorer and fatter, but I'm going to enjoy working here so much more than the old building."

It's feels like a complex move. I'm talking just editorial here, but that's still well over 100 individuals to up and go from an office their papers have been based at since the mid-1960s. The filing cabinets, the drawers, the notebooks, the piles of papers... and that's not even thinking about desks and computers.

The move is likely (final detail still to be confirmed!) to take place mainly over four intensive days, with November 14 strongly pencilled in as the start date. If it goes well, it'll be all but over by Monday November 17 although, of course, a contingency plan exists that can stretch the move until Nov 24 if needed.Even taking the maximum time, it's a mammoth task.

Fortunately, other parts of the Post & Mail (now called BPM Media) have already relocated. An example was Advertising Production Control (APC) which deals with the final output of all newspapers, ensuring adverts are accurately assigned to pre-destined pages in each publication.

No-one's saying it was easy, but scores of people in that department moved within a few days, banks of terminals disappearing from Printing House Street and then reappearing at Fort Dunlop almost overnight. There were IT teething problems and a few stretched deadlines... but not a publication was missed.

It's from this episode of the move that the Fort Dunlop project team have picked up lessons, and now they are readying editorial.

The main constituent part is IT, of course, both physically in terms of equipment and virtually in terms of wiring and connections. That's gone smoothly elsewhere to date and there's no reason why, with the hard work of our IT colleagues, it shouldn't continue with editorial.

That leaves us and our files, debris from years in one place, notebooks and pens, reference material, in and out-trays and pen organisers. But when I think about it, it may be that we just take the minimum that will fit in a box and dump a lot that we rarely use.

Because as long as the computer side goes well, that's all that really is needed to start afresh in a new building. Imagine a paperless (or paper-minimised) office. The new chairs and desks are already in situ. We're finalising seating plans which are bound to be tweaked for weeks after the move. But as long as we turn up, it should all be ready to roll.

So all we really need to do personally is to re-organise our own office paraphenalia into a box or two (or in a few cases an extra drawer or so in filing cabinets).

Yes, the hardest physical part of the move for us is to finally bring ourselves to leave and bin most of the residue we haven't looked at or needed for years.

Perhaps it won't be so complex after all.

So what will be missed?

To be fair, our end of town has become very quiet in recent years as the city centre has slowly moved its concentration up Colmore Row.

But our proximity to the Queen's Head will be missed by those who frequent the Brew XI stalwart premises. Personally, on the rare days I get a chance, I'll be missing the short walk under the underpass to The Bull on the corner of Loveday Street in the old Gun Quarter.

A pint of the latest guest (Hook Norton a recent star), real Black Country scratchings and the friendly smile of long-standing landlady Rose won't easily be on the cards anymore. The chance of the odd long lunch with a hot home-made curry in the company of the likes of Chinny or Tom W will seem even more remote.

Courts, council, business meetings, live news and endless event launches in the city centre will come across many reporters'/photographers'/readers' minds as well. How can we be an active Birmingham paper based in out-of-town premises?

Well, respite is at hand. Last week we opened a new branch office in the Great Western Arcade. It's compact, but will soon have half-a-dozen or so 'hot-desks' available for staff needing to be in town on different days. It's a much better presence for shoppers and workers to visit as well, hopefully bringing a better readers' footfall that we ended up with at the back entrance of Weaman Street in recent years.

I'll certainly be using it myself on the occasions I've got business in town, phone-conferencing with the main desk at Fort Dunlop from the back office if need be.

(And maybe, just maybe, if my visits coincide with thirst, hunger or a contact in need of a quiet corner, I'll have the occasional nostalgic pint in one of the hostelries listed above, or the Old Joint Stock, The Old Contemptibles or The Wellington...)

Yep, we're moving.

After 40-odd years based between Printing House Street, Steelhouse Lane, Weaman Street and Colmore Circus, the Birmingham Mail and its sister titles are upping roots.

In 21 days, at the end of Friday November 14, I'll pick up the last of the files I need to take and, with a nostalgic glance around the dusty, cramped floor-space, a final look out the window at the Dental Hospital behind the office and a dramatic flick of the light switch, I'll be gone.

With my colleagues I'll then drive up the Aston Expressway to Fort Dunlop. This iconic building is our new home in-waiting, the entire 6th floor to be precise.

Brand new furniture, ready to house our brand new ContentWatch production system, a carefully designed central hub (backbench to many of us), tightly gathered around a media wall (giant TVs/screens to monitor the internet).

The entire floor is ours and floor to high ceiling windows will mean daylight for all, views of the motorway, Jaguar, city centre, Castle Vale and Erdington depending which way you face.

There's even a subsidised canteen on the same floor producing real coffee.

After five years in the back end of a dark crumbling building in town, with low ceilings, failing loos, few windows and dire air conditioning, I don't think we'll know what has hit us.

Time to move on.

What I like about this job is how it can always distract you, even in the toughest times.

OK - everyone's a little scared by the credit crunch, and in personal lives and jobs we need to consider all sorts of actions to prepare for the worst recession since 1929 (so we're told).

But while the great and good are (self) importantly rushing around freezing Icelandic assets, announcing £400 billion bank rescues, repossessing homes and grounding bankrupt airlines, others are simply getting on with what they do best. Helping other people.

I'm talking, of course, about this week's Birmingham Mail Local Heroes Awards, when we hosted 14 readers and their families and friends to a posh nosh-up at the Botanical Gardens to celebrate their selflessness and courage.

The full stories can be read here

In summary, they ranged from a quick-thinking eight-year-old who saved his collapsed dad's life to a shopkeeper who broke his broom hitting an armed robber.

From a carer who'd looked after other people's children for 20 years, on top of being a grandmother of nine, to the off-duty nurse who used her skills to resuscitate a man stabbed outside a pub.

Ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Stories that made us feel proud, happy and very humble to be Birmingham newspaper men.

In and amidst the final stages of our restructure and my own personal angst this week, I was a proud editor of the Birmingham Mail becoming the latest evening newspaper in Britain.

With the Conservative Party Conference held in the city on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we went to press in what seemed to many old-timers to be a long-lost 1970s practice of 5pm. Stop-press? We were even later than that.

Yep. Our '5pm Conference Edition' went on sale just before dusk to delegates in and around the city's International Convention Centre and in other areas of the town.

The latest pm speeches, news from fringe meetings and the final peeks into the reactions of the day made the up-to-the-minute paper a must-buy for thousands of politicos in the city.

Latest headlines included the first, full print report of Tory leader David Cameron's keynote speech on Wednesday afternoon just a couple of hours after it was uttered, as well as his emergency conference intervention to speak about the US credit-crunch debacle earlier in the week.

Now this sort of practice is not necessarily popular in our industry - (and certainly wouldn't have been a year ago when 'overnight' editions were all the rage... sshh!).

But we're not Luddites. As well as print, we also joined forces with colleagues at The Birmingham Post to create constant video streams, live blogging and instant pictures via flickr, (I know, I know...).

That's the future, I'm sure, (although it must be said that it was the latest print editions that recouped 40 pence a time for all the effort involved, plus all the FREE TV footage on evening bulletins of delegates leaving the ICC carrying OUR brand.)

Strange days. Strange days indeed. But we're (getting) ready for it. In print and online. That's the mantra. Surely?

Not a good week. And I'm not talking about the job.

There are always management projects to run and huge local events like the Tory Conference to report. Meat and drink stuff.

But when you receive news that a close school friend has died at the tender age of 40 it's enough to stop anyone in their tracks. Even thick-skinned, brand-obsessed automatons like me.

The news is on page 14 of the Birmingham Mail today, or via this link

I met Carl Thomas when we both started at what was then Primrose Hill Comprehensive School in Kings Norton in 1979. The days of lanky body, NHS specs, big ears and ill-fitting trousers (well, me, at least.)

But Carl was different. He was calm, a great sportsman, a hard worker and - unlike most 12/13-year-old boys - was most careful and gentle about other people.

I was lucky to become his good friend. While at that school, I'd like to think we became best friends. His classwork, personal life and emerging social ethics at such a young age challenged my own views of the world.

Politics became interesting (we argued until the small hours about events like the miners' strike).

Music was suddenly more than 'TV theme tunes by James Last' (our discovery through long afternoons at his house of The Beatles' White Album from his dad's collection was a joyful revelation, Blackbirds Singing at the Break of Dawn and all that).

The company of girls became more than an awkward teenage giggle (Carl had a sister around the same age and she and her friends became our wider group of youngsters growing up).

Competitive sport became a possibility (tennis in particular - he whipped me but it was strenuous, stretching stuff on sunny weekends at the municipal courts in Cotteridge Park).

Confidence quickly came more easily (together we auditioned and won roles in school musicals Tin Pan Ali - Carl playing Ali, me Grandpa - and My Fair Lady - Carl in Colonel Pickering's role, me acting up as Henry Higgins... and Zoe Tyler of TV fame was our Eliza Doolittle!)

Cycling became an eye-opener to the wider world (together we cycled the Cotswolds, Cornwall and Wales, staying at Youth Hostels, making many other friends and at 15/16 discovering the true joys of cider, real ale and what at times we imagined and forlornly chased as love).

Sadly, after A-Levels, we grew apart when Carl fell victim to serious depression and consequent bouts of mental illness. No more detail necessary, but our friendship changed from the joys of youth to the occasional awkward walk around Cannon Hill Park, sharing a curry and lending him a little cash.

As the report says, he was regularly spotted busking in Kings Heath and Moseley and, during lucid periods in his life, recorded amateur albums and sang his own great songs for anyone who cared to listen.

But our lives parted. I'm where I am, with a job I enjoy and a wife and three boys I love dearly. The lad I always felt was my better, Carl, had bad times and was never in a state to marry or anything like it. Though slowly recovering in his late 30s, he had given his body such a battering with smoking and strong prescription drugs that, days before his 41st birthday, it just couldn't take any more.

So why have I made him the subject of today's Editor's Chair blog? Well, I'm the editor and the above has shrouded my week, and I feel my blog should reflect that: I'm unashamedly grieving in the chair where I sit. I've also had my quiet moments filled with special memories from those teenage years... and as a tribute to Carl I wanted to share a peek at those.

RIP Carl. If there's anything in all that religious stuff we used to debate, I dearly hope that one day in a few decades time I can share the odd tennis match and Beatles' song in the clouds with you somewhere.