Posts by Felix Marwick
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Back in the days when I lived in that part of the world I remember being slightly gobsmacked upon finding sheep at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo.
As I recall they had quite an audience.
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I'm with you on the death knocks Damian. They are quite simply the worst thing I've ever had to do as a journalist and I simply dread them. Unfortunately there are times when they do have a certain necessity.
In my previous incarnation as a general news reporter I've covered a few murder cases and I've always been of the opinion that victims deserve to be remembered as more than just a statistic. To their families they were an important and vibrant part of their lives and it seems tawdry that their name be permanently associated with the manner of the death. If you can leave people with some sort of feel for who that person was and what they meant to friends and family then I think it is worthwhile to try.
Those who take the "so how do you feel?" approach should be taken out and quietly drowned.
On the plus side I'm in politics now so death knocks are not something I have to worry about anymore. I'm truly grateful for that.
Now for the point raised about use of footage. How much should people see? Well having seen some frankly awful things in my time I'd suggest there are a number of things that should never be aired. A good cameraman will always find a to convey the emotion of an incident without having to resort to gore.
A point to bear in mind, especially in breaking news involving industrial or car accidents, is the relatives of the victims will likely not know it is their loved one involved. There's always the chance the footage you broadcast could be the moment they learn what's happened. That dictates there should be some sensitivity in how you portray the event.
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I wasjust recalling what the PM said about Guy Fawkes sounding like a Kandahar warzone in her electorate.
Well I spent New Years in Istanbul, here it sounded like WW3.
Great stuff!! Lots of explosions and nobody got too badly hurt (apart from via tequila)
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Myself and a group of colleagues were having a bit of a combined newsroom debrief/dinner/cocktails at the Matterhorn last night when it struck. A couple of us felt a gentle shaking of the table but really didn't pay much attention to it
I've noticed that unless the it jars the fillings from their teeth Wellingtonians seem pretty blase about earthquakes.
However it did have repercussions about half an hour later as the cellphones started ringing with a chief reporter trying to find staff to send up to Gisborne ASAP
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Note to self. Must remember not to use double* twice in a post
Could be worse. Here's a wonderful twist on handy grammatical advice.
Don't never not use a triple negative
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The best Christmas I ever had was in Aegean Turkey (yes Turkey for Xmas - groan) at a place called Fethiye.
Myself and a few other itinerant travellers had managed to hire one of the local gulets (a type of yacht) for a week and the skipper took us cruising around all the local islands. Gin was about $2 a bottle and the tonic was dirt cheap too. Life consisted of lying lazily on the deck G&T in hand watching the world slip by.
Christmas Eve was spent anchored of St Nicholas Island somewhere near Cleopatra's Baths. For Xmas lunch the skipper had laid in roast turkey and the works. He even dressed as Santa and handed out presents. It was awesome.
Mind you there was a lot of drinking later on and things did degenerate a little and I think there may have been photos that really should never see the light of day
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Cheers for the beer Russell.
In fact I think it'll be exactly what I need after the fun and games that are coming in the House tomorrow.
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"Mallardorous"
- to be acting with either verbal or physical aggression
- normally restricted to the species politicus ridiculous -
demagogracy.
It sort of sums up all the yelling and screaming over the Electoral Finance Bill
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I'd respectfully suggest if you smuggled a camera into the Press Gallery Christmas party you could paint a vastly entertaining, but ever so slightly misleading, picture of the media as a pack of drunken, bitchy priapic lunatics. Whether or not that's a bad thing, I'm not so sure. :)
Craig,
were you at our party last year???
Spooky ;-)