Roy Greenslade visits the Birmingham Mail
I RANT often enough on here, in the Birmingham Mail print editions and, when they allow me, in national newspapers about the annoying London-centric attitude of this country.
And, in the main, my knocks include 'meejah' commentators.
But fair is fair, and today, after many invites, the acerbic Roy Greenslade turned up at our new premises to see the Birmingham restructure. (For those that don't know him, check out his regular, much-watched blog here.)
God knows what his verdict will be. And to be fair, I really don't mind now, because he came, he spoke, he toured and he listened, which is far more than any other critics!
In the five hours here, RG talked to many hacks, attended the joint 12.30pm news conference, listened to digital strategy and... I loved this bit... took a trip across the road with me to tour our printing press.
And here he is, at 1.55pm on Friday January 23, picking the first of the Birmingham Mail's late night finals off the presses, this one splashing on the eight-year sentence doled out 90 minutes earlier to Karen Matthews.
What was interesting was listening to RG reminisce on the Fleet Street days of print once he had the smell of ink in his nostrils and the rumble of presses reverberating through his toes.
As the UK and world enters a deep recession, he genuinely came across as a real champion of newspapers - in print and online.
Let's see how he reflects this passion and anything he picked up from his visit on his blog next week...
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Steve Dyson - Blog from the Editor on recent issues and events.
Ha! And from the look of this shot, you had a photographer with you as well!! So much for your silly N-95 antics!!!!
I have to disagree. From the look of the poor composition, bad exposure and the obvious lightening/dodging of the subjects face I would say this was an N95 picture.
After just examining the EXIF data, I can confirm that it is indeed an N95 picture...
Surely you should be giving readers, what they want, not turning the Mail into your own personnel crib sheet! You really need to sort out the Mail's printing time too, nearly all of your stories are yesterdays news. The Express & Star is much more up to date and beats the Mail hands down, Give us News, Exclusives, Investigation not boring campaigns and re-cycled stories.
Please, Please, Please, we may then start buying it again, thank you for listening, just make sure you do something before it's too late !!!!!!!!!
Thanks for the compliment, 'fromthedarkroom'... this was actually me snapping Mr Greenslade. Well spotted, 'former snapper'... I'm impressed with your evidence (lightening, etc). Shows what can be done, though, on the N-95 for simple headshots, stills, etc, don't you think? Thanks for your message too, JL. If you read the Birmingham Mail, you'll see campaigns are but a sliver of content, focusing the subject on one or two issues a day. As for E&S comparisons... we'll have to agree to disagree! Print times in the modern world have changed, but you'll find the Birmingham Mail's one of the latest in the industry.
Quote: "but you'll find the Birmingham Mail's one of the latest in the industry."
Yea late with the news that is!!
It's hissing Sid! My favourite fan. ;-)
That's odd, Steve says he took the photo of greenslade but on roy's guardian blog the caption carries the credit "Photograph: Roy Greenslade". Curious!
I just think it is a shame that insiders felt the need to air their dirty laundry in public on this and Roy's blog. What BPM and TM need is positive news and people pulling together, almost however hard it seems to be - and Roy's blog made a welcome change, even if certain people disagree. Difficult decisions have been and will continue to be made. Those remaining have a duty to get on with it or go and earn their living elsewhere.