GETTING THE BEST FROM YOUR LOCAL MEDIA

A free media guide recommended for charities and community groups wishing to promote their work, written by Ian D. Richardson...

Building up a rapport with the news media can take time.  This is especially so if you have been getting what is considered “a bad press” in the past.

I will not attempt to defend the less reputable activities of some journalists or newspaper proprietors, but on the whole, most wish to produce accurate, perceptive accounts of events.  That they fail sometimes should not be seized upon as an excuse for refusing to talk to the media. It may even be that the fault lies with you for not explaining yourself properly.

In my 40 years or so as a professional journalist, I would go so far as to say that at least 80% of cases in which individuals or organisations have unproductive relations with the news media, the prime cause rests with those individuals or organisations.  Sometimes the situation arises from the simple fact that someone is attempting to hide information of legitimate public interest, but more likely the problem lies with the inability of the individual to understand the motivations and limitations of a free press.

Even the best newspaper and broadcasting stations have their faults, and while you may wish to rectify these, your immediate concern ought to be the understanding of their limitations.  Indeed, if you understand what these limitations are, you may be able to turn some of them to your advantage.

What I am saying, in short, is that your best approach is to learn to live with what you have in the way of news opportunities.

Read the full article here.

A thrilling thriller review

BOOK REVIEW by Colin Emmins

The Mortal Maze

    A new novel from Ian D. Richardson, a former radio and television editor (and a member of Ealing U3A), is a thriller dealing with broadcasting and terrorism in the Middle East. The central figure and anti-hero is a gifted and eager television reporter posted by the BBC to Armibar, capital of the fictional country of Central Arabia. There two acquaintances from the past catch up with him: one now working for western intelligence, the other who has become a committed ‘freedom fighter’. Each of them manages to use him for their own widely different purposes in a series of unexpected events with ultimately disastrous results. All three characters are convincingly drawn, as indeed are the other characters supporting the story.

     The most exciting and realistic plot conveys not only the drama of a reporter’s life but also the routine of the job without ever slackening the pace of the narrative. Neither the plot nor the dialogue is for the faint-hearted and whatever reservations there may be about the use of the historic present throughout, it certainly adds to the dramatic tension and makes the possibility of a screen version easy to envisage.

     The author’s knowledge of broadcasting and of the Middle East sets the novel against a colourful and authentic background, making the startling twists and turns of the plot all the more believable. His view of management at the BBC and in the intelligence services is all too believable.

     The moral and ultimately mortal implications of the story provide a compelling theme running through the whole work. They are strikingly illustrated by the book’s cover where its title The Mortal Maze has the ‘t’ of mortal picked out in red against the otherwise white lettering to dramatic effect.

The Mortal Maze is published by Preddon Lee Ltd of London, and is available online from Amazon.

The battle for the BBC's independence

A former BBC colleague of mine, Phil Harding, has written a first class explanation of why everyone should be concerned about the way the British Government is trying to undermine the authority and independence of the corporation:

This white paper threatens the BBC’s independence. It must be opposed

     The government has announced that it will be publishing its white paper on the future of the BBC next month. It’s a white paper that needs to be scrutinised very carefully: for what it will say about the future size and scope of the BBC, and above all for how it proposes to protect the editorial independence of the corporation.
     Over the years I’ve watched a lot of BBC licence fee and charter negotiations – both from inside the BBC, often at pretty close quarters, and these days from the outside. My conclusion is that in the end it comes down to two things – money and politics. That is still the case today. What is different about this round of negotiations is that so far we have had a consultation process that has been heavily skewed and one which has raised serious concerns about the BBC’s future independence.

Go here for the full article.

Unwitting revelations about an author

My true story God's Triangle attracted many uplifting and supportive reviews and reader comments. But not everyone was pleased. One woman denounced it as rubbish without having read it. Another, a member of my extended family, hated it because she thought it revealed too much private information about my great aunt Florence "Florrie" Cox. She made it clear that God's Triangle told her more about my character than I had intended.

She was quite entitled to her view and despite her upset, we remain good friends.

Her comments were interesting. I would have said that the book revealed to the reader little more than the impression that I was like a dog with a bone when it came to researching something that caught my interest. But obviously, my family member saw much more than that and didn't like what she saw.

I knew from the moment I began writing my novel The Mortal Maze I would might reveal all sorts of things about my character. I accepted that.

Inevitably, I was asked if I had based the main character, Jackson Dunbar, on myself. I replied with honesty "not in any way". Then a friend and former BBC colleague who had worked for me on a big international story said the bureau chief Mack Galbraith was me. Eh? How could  that be? Mack was Scottish (I'm not), he was a chain smoker (I haven't smoked since I left high school), he drank copious amounts of whisky (I prefer beer), and he was incredibly untidy (well, I'm just a little untidy).

"Yes, I know you're not a smoker and I never suspected you kept bottles of whisky under your coat (or even in your office)," responded my friend, "but these are mere superficialities compared to the similarities between the way you and Mack each acted as a certain kind of non-nonsense hack-cum-office manager in the field, somehow being both protective shield and connecting bridge between highly strung, overwrought correspondents and the corporation stuffed shirts back home."

On reflection, my friend is right. Although I believed I had created a character who was nothing to do with me -- I thought I was basing it on a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, untidy, and entertaining former colleague -- the reality was that I had unwittingly modelled the essentials of his personality on how I ran a team -- or tried to anyway -- when covering a big story.

I can be most grateful that my friend didn't think that the character Dick 'Psycho' Passick was me. Now that would have been very, very upsetting!

A selection of comments/reviews of The Mortal Maze can be seen HERE.

A Q&A about my books and why I wrote them

My two books, God's Triangle and The Mortal Maze, are now available in epub format for those who prefer this to Kindle or paperbacks. The epub versions can be dowloaded here through Smashwords and will soon be offered by other major distributors and publishers. As part of the sign-up, I have done this Q&A:

After many years in broadcast and print journalism, you have switched to other forms of writing. What are they?

I now mainly write books and screenplays. I have two books published -- God's Triangle, the true story about my investigation into what happened to a missionary great aunt in Bengal (now Bangladesh) and The Mortal Maze, a fictional thriller about the corruption of a television foreign correspondent by the intelligence services. A third book, Seeds of Revenge, another thriller, will be published later this year. I also have four screenplays, one of which is in pre-filming development in Australia.

What attracts you to a story?

First of all I need to be intrigued. With my non-fiction book, God's Triangle, my journalistic instincts told me that there was a story that should be investigated and might provide some enlightenment, if told sensitively. As for The Mortal Maze, I wanted to use fiction to explore moral challenges that inevitably arise for journalists when working in a foreign, often dangerous, environment.

For the full interview, go here.

Which tense should be used for a novel?

My thriller, The Mortal Maze, is written in the present tense. It never occurred to me that I should write it any other way because it wanted to give the story some added pace, but some of the feedback has surprised me. Although I have been getting many very good reviews, a friend told me that she wouldn't read the book if it were in the present tense. Another friend told me how much he ended up enjoying the book, but admitted that if it hadn't been written by me, he wouldn't have gone past the first chapter because he disliked the present tense. A couple of reviewers praised the book but said they had to adjust to the tense. Most others either didn't notice the tense or thought it was just right for the story.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has written a novel in the present tense and what reaction they received. Meantime, here's the early feedback to my thriller.

The Mortal Maze -- some thriller publicity in my former hometown

A welcome article in a newspaper covering the Australian town where I grew up. Read The Mortal Maze reviews here.