Rosie wins the Mail news quiz

The Daily Mail trainees have finished their two weeks at Derry Street and are now off to placements at the Standard, the Mail in Scotland, Liverpool Echo, Yorkshire Post and Manchester Evening News. This week they had fascinating practical sessions on investigative and foreign reporting by chief reporter David Williams and Christian Gysin, an interesting insight into the celebrity world from Katie Nicholl, a do's and don'ts talk from sub Jayme Bryla and a glimpse of what their first year is likely to hold by one of last year's trainees, Peter Campbell. There was a good night with trainees old and new in the Builders Arms last night. Today we finished again with a quiz of the week (just to get them into the habit of the reading the paper's properly). Congratulations again to Rosie Taylor who got 13.5 points out of 22, once again narrowly beating Adam Shergold, to collect the scratch card and a bottle of wine. Try your hand and see if you can beat Rosie's total. 

Mail trainees with quiz winner Rosie Taylor (with the wine)

There are a possible 22 points this week as questions 4 and 13 have two points each.

1.  Who won Celebrity Big Brother?

2.  A controversial book has claimed that Sarah Palin had an affair and used cocaine. What is the name of the book?

3.  Unison has named which date as a day of action?

4.  The new Westfield shopping complex has been given its own postcode, what is it? And for a bonus where has the code been previously used?

5.  Who has been named as the new captain in England's Twenty20 games?

6.  Sophie Dahl launched an appeal to raise money to renovate her Grandfather's shed where he wrote many of his famous novels.  How old would he have been this week?

7.  David Tebbutt was murdered on holiday in a paradise location on Kenya.  He was a finance director for which company?

8.  Who did Bernard Hogan-Howe replace this week as Metropolitan Police Commissioner?

9. Where is the Greenacres travellers site that police believe men were held as slaves?

10.  According to official figures what is the current number of unemployed in the UK?

11. According to research by Roehampton University what should you do if you want to be happier, healthier and slimmer?

12. Why was Katherine Goldberg in the headlines?

13. Two Tory peers were released from prison this week after serving only a quarter of their sentences for expenses fraud. Name them. (One point for each).

14. Journalist Adam Macqueen has a book published this month celebrating 50 years of which publication?

15. What is the name of the Swansea Valley colliery where four miners are trapped?

16. Kweku Adoboli is accused of losing £1.3bn while rogue trading. Which Swiss bank was he working for?

17. Helle Thorning-Schmidt became Denmark's first female MP. Who is her father-in-law?

18. The film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy opened in UK cinemas this week. Who plays the role of spy George Smiley?

19. Political leadership in Washington and Western Europe has suffered "paralysis" in the face of the financial crisis,  Kenneth Clarke said this week. What is Clarke's Cabinet position?

20. Now that the News of the World has gone, which is Britain's biggest selling Sunday newspaper?

How did you do? The answers are here

Test your news knowledge in this week's quiz

I spent this week in the company of bright trainee journalists on the Mail diploma at Northcliffe House in Kensington. It's been a good week - writing stories, looking at the papers in detail and we have had a stream of doyens including columnist Quentin Letts, head of news Neil Darbyshire, city editor Alex Brummer and managing editor Alex Bannister offering advice. At the same time the Daily Telegraph diploma is being held in Howden, East Yorkshire, and I will be joining them next month. The Mail sub-editing course starts in Howden on September 19, so I will be up there for that too. I have been involved in these courses, run by Press Association Training for eight years. As some of you may remember, at the end of each week we run a newsquiz. I will be posting the questions here each week. It's a bit of fun but the serious side is to ensure the trainees get into the habit of reading the newspapers in detail, rather than just as scanning the headlines. A scratch card went to Rosie Taylor from the Mail who was top this week with 12.5 points out of 20. She narrowly pipped Adam Shergold with 12. But although the Mail had the highest scorer, the Daily Telegraph had the best average. I am expecting improvement all round next week. Try it - no cheating - and see if you can beat Rosie's 12.5.

George Osborne (Question 7) with Christine Lagarde (Question 13)

1. What will not restart as soon as it has finished?

2.  Rebecca Leighton was released without charge after six weeks in custody.  At which hospital does she work?

3.  P J Harvey won this week's Mercury Award - what do the initial stand for? (Half point for each correct name).

4. How many Free Schools are opening this year?

5.  Who came face to face with a toad?

6.  Who is the oldest contestant in this year's Strictly Come Dancing line-up?

7.  George Osborne used which inappropriate word in a joke he told at the GQ awards?

8.  A vet is someone who looks after your pet - but spell the word that it is short for.

9.  The Rugby World Cup starts this weekend. Who are are the overwhelming favourites to win it?

10.  Which will be the first place where you will have to include the area dialing code instead of just the six digit number when making a local call?

11. Who is the editor of The Times? (Half point if you only get the surname; nothing if you get only the first name)

12. Name the Red or Black winner who caused a stir when it was revealed that he beat up his lover.

13. What does Christine Lagarde head up?

14. Which council paid £2,475 to hire security guards to protect members at a town hall - but only ten protestors turned up?

15. The Attorney General said there was a big question mark over allowing cameras into court. Who is the Attorney General?

16. Who are Lokomotiv Yaroslavl and what happened to them this week (Half point for each answer).

17. Why did Rowan Atkinson say he would probably never play the part of Mr Bean again?

18. Stuart Bell was branded Britain's laziest MP after not holding a surgery for 14 years. What is his constituency?

19. Who was laid low with Thames Tummy?

20. What happened to 23-year-old Jeni Anderson this week?

How did you do? The answers are here

Where's the meat?

Thanks to Mike Lowe for this addition to the ever-growing list of non-stories in regional newspapers. It has the added bonus of being the splash, which makes it a bit special. I use a copytasting yardstick for trainees which is "if someone told you the story in the pub would your ears prick up or would you move to another table". A 22-year-old woman moaning about a cheap pasty that was three days out of date might have me looking for a new pub. I wonder if the Folkestone Herald hasn't missed an angle or two here eg what modern mothers think is a suitable diet for their two-year-olds. Or maybe they should use a bit of shoe-leather investigating what these 'sell by' and 'use by' labels really mean. 

John North goes South

So the enigmatic columnist John North has finally shuffled off his mortal coil. Today his last column appears in The Northern Echo. Writer Mike Amos (above) is retiring JN before his own retirement in October. The column, described as "a quirky view of the region's people and places", has had many guises. When I joined the Echo in 1979 it was written by John Simkins who went off to the FT. He was replaced by Bill Hearld, later deputy editor of the Yorkshire Evening Press. Others included Stephen Brenkley, the Independent's cricket correspondent, and Terry Ramsey who became TV editor of the Standard. When John North was on holiday there was an occasional woman's perspective by Jane North. But the column mainly belonged to Mike, who celebrates 46 years at the paper this year. He relinquished it while he was the Echo's news-editor but came back to it as a weekly column years later. In its heyday the column was daily. It was a full-time job and the brief was to be out there picking up the interesting snippets, the oddities, the grassroots stories that were peculiar to the North-East. The JN chair in the office was always empty. It was also one of the most high pressure jobs in the business. Every day JN had to find fresh, compelling material and, unlike the national columnists, he was on his own. There was no team of researchers, no juniors or back-up staff. And Mike, who doesn't even drive, delivered day in day out. In these austere times there are few regional papers who can afford a full-time, off-diary writer. But there was no doubt JN brought in readers, gave the paper an essence and a unique voice. There are many reasons why regional newspapers are in decline but I am certain that one of them was the whole 'value for money', high story count policy peddled by the beancounters. Legs of briefs on car boot sales and choir rehearsals may be easy pickings but they are of no interest whatsoever to the general reader. What JN offered, and what all newspapers need, was a reason to buy the paper every day. So RIP JN, he will be missed. But I wouldn't be surprised if, somewhere down the line, he doesn't make a comeback.
Hat-tip to Neil Hacking
Mike Amos picture http://theshrineofstbruno.yolasite.com
        

Farewell to the Irish Post

It may have slipped the radar in the current newspaper turmoil but the London-based Irish Post closed yesterday. It is always sad to see a newspaper go under, especially when you have a personal association with it, but I can't say I am really surprised. The Irish Post had been losing money and, with its parent company TCH facing its own economic challenges over the water in Cork, its closure has looked inevitable for some time. Perhaps the short life of the Post is an illustration of what is happening to many, longer-established titles. It started in 1970 as a voice for the Irish in Britain when emigration was at its height. It was the brainchild of journalist Brendán Mac Lua and for years provided the Irish communities, particularly in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, with news from back home and in the UK. Its mission statement was 'If it's Irish in Britain, we've got it covered.' For years it ran the prestigious Irish Post Awards. But as the second and third generation Irish became absorbed and as the internet allowed instant access to news from home, it became less relevant. Distribution was also enormously difficult. In 2003 the paper was selling almost 32,000. When it closed yesterday it was about half that. 
In 40 years the paper's raison d'etre simply disappeared. Its audience changed and technology made it surplus to requirements. Sound familiar?  
It was a great institution though, a place full of characters. I first redesigned it in 1996, when Doug Baxter (now married to the actress Victoria Smurfit) was the chief executive and the late Donal Mooney was the editor. I then put in a consultant editor, Brian Page, while we helped to recruit a new full-time editor Norah Casey. In 2005 we redesigned it again. Last year I met the editor Mal Rogers, an award-winning travel writer, on the editor's chair course that I run for PA Training. We discussed the paper's strategy, its long term ambitions and the size of the task became clear. He was passionate about the Post and it is a real shame its closure came on his watch. I wish him and his team well.

The way all newspapers could be produced ...

Here is the cover and my Newcastle United preview from the Irish Examiner's 40-page pre-season football supplement. It was published last Friday and includes a page on each club, predictions, betting, analysis and some great writing from the likes of Ben Lyttleton, Adrian Clarke and Iain Spragg. I produced it while sunning myself on the family summer holiday on the Med. I was aided by Paul Wick and Mike Brough who are based in Darlington. It was printed and published in Cork. We have done this for years. We receive a flatplan from the Examiner, they provide some of the material and we commission and write the rest. We then edit the copy, write the headlines, select the pictures, layout the pages, proof-read them and send them to Ireland. They email any changes, we carry them out and send them hi-res PDFs to put directly on their system. It works and it's cost effective. Three people producing a 40-page paper at a rate per page. In May the Full Time supplement we did in the same way was 56 pages. I have long advocated that this is how newspapers should be produced. Subs can work from anywhere - in their bedrooms or in the South of France (indeed, the Evening Herald in Dublin is produced entirely at Castres in the South of France). Subs don't all have to be in the same room, the same building, the same town or even the same country ... which is why all the fuss in regional newspapers about moving production sites from one city to another struck me as nonsense. In future I reckon all newspapers will be produced this way. Who needs complicated management systems? Bedroom subs armed with a computer, a set of stylesheets, the right fonts, broadband, a piece of software (doesn't matter if it's Quark or InDesign) and Distiller will be contracted to do so many pages per day to deadline. And where would you rather work ... in a pokey office in an industrial estate or in your own back garden or, perhaps, in the South of France.


      

Is the 'hat up a tree' story real?

This story has been doing the rounds on Twitter ... and looks like a very good addition to the growing collection of non-stories. But I have doubts whether or not it is real. First, nobody has said which paper it is from; second, why has it appeared now when the month mentioned in the story is April and third, not even the hardest pressed newsroom could really believe this is a story. I reckon it's probably a Framley Examiner-type spoof. Even if it is, 'the woollen head garment which is red and has a bobble' is just genius. If anyone knows anything more, please tell.
Update: @helenlewis has just Tweeted to say it's an April Fool. Makes sense (although not a very good one). And @Findus_Dinner has pointed me in the direction of another lost hat story, this one is real and it's from the Norwich Evening News. He also draws attention to the slightly less wholesome 'man defecated on hedgeghog in street' story. Bizarre .. but doesn't really fit in the non-story category. Keep them coming.




  

A step back to the newsrooms of old

A question for all of you who, like me, remember pre-computerised newsrooms: Would you go back? Would you swap the ease of on screen make-up for the glue-pot, the casting off, the picture wheel and the terrific rows with the stonehands. Probably not. But this fascinating exercise by Journoterrorist might just tempt you. It involves making trainees produce a newspaper using typewriters and paste-up. Should stir up some ghosts ...
Hat-tip to @NoelRock