Keeping up with Strine, the language of Australia

Language difficulties: I scored just 6/10 with this test of Australian slang. No wonder there are people out there who think my Australian passport should be cancelled! http://nyti.ms/2bijoqw

See also my earlier posting on this challenging subject: http://bit.ly/1XaBX17

The morality of fictional journalists

Sarah Lonsdale's The Journalist in British Fiction book launch and symposium, City University, London, July 7 2016.

Why did Edwardian novelists portray journalists as swashbuckling, truth-seeking super-heroes whereas post-WW2 depictions present the journalist as alienated outsider? Why are contemporary fictional journalists often deranged, murderous or intensely vulnerable? As newspaper journalism faces the double crisis of a lack of trust post-Leveson, and a lack of influence in the fragmented internet age, how do cultural producers view journalists and their role in society today?

My contribution... 

My screenplay and book have undergone a name change since I first started work on them a few years ago. Originally, the title was The Moral Maze. I knew about the BBC radio programme of the same name, but did not feel that would be a problem until I realised that it would be a disaster when promoting the book on the internet. Do a Google or Yahoo search on The Moral Maze and up comes hundreds of thousands of references to the radio programme. Any reference to my book and my film would have been buried.

My wife, Rosemary, then came up with the suggestion that the letter T in red be inserted in the title, so that it became The Mortal Maze. This meant that a Google or Yahoo search would take potential readers straight to my book, always a great marketing plus, although I am still waiting to be made rich by being the author of a rocketing global best seller.

The change of name effectively gives the book two titles – both of which reflect how television journalists now face not just the moral challenges that have always been there, but nowadays much greater physical dangers.

Having settled the most-important matter of the title, I was then faced with a dilemma: should I set the story in the BBC or in some fictional broadcasting organisation. My concern was that I didn’t want to do anything to damage the BBC’s hard-earned reputation as the world’s foremost and most trusted broadcasting news organisation. As you will have detected from my accent, I’m originally from Australia. I grew up as a boy in the bush, working on small weekly newspapers owned by my family.  I loved listening to BBC news programmes, such as Radio Newsreel, relayed by the ABC, never for a nanosecond thinking that one day I would be editing some of them.

Although the BBC had – and still has – its faults, I remain immensely proud of having worked for it for more than two decades. There can hardly have been a day when I didn’t walk through the entrance doors of Bush House or Television Centre and be excited by what might lie ahead that day.

 After much thought and after consulting some journalist friends, I decided to go with The Mortal Maze being set in the BBC. As much as anything, this was because it would be widely known that I had been a BBC news editor and the story would really be about the BBC regardless of what I called the organisation. My friends assured me that the BBC was big enough to cope with any critical aspects of my story. They also reminded me that it would hardly be more damaging than the comedy series W1A, which the BBC had made about itself.

I knew that it would be implausible and extremely dull if the main character in The Mortal Maze, Jackson Dunbar, was a goody-two-shoes without flaws. So, I gave him a gambling problem that provided me with a vehicle for some of the ethical issues that journalists often face. In particular, I wanted to explore the often-grey question of when a journalist is spying or merely reporting. And how much pressure would be required to force a journalist to put to one side deeply-held principles?

I began taking a particular interest in this area of journalism while working abroad as a field editor for the BBC, then as head of newsgathering for BBC World Service in charge of around 200 staff correspondents and stringers.

BBC correspondents overwhelmingly are immensely proud of their journalism and would do nothing to discredit their work, but there were a few who I felt had two masters – the BBC and the intelligence services. One of these would spy for the money – because money was what mattered to him most – and another would do it for patriotic reasons. If I had taken that second person aside and accused him of spying he would have been genuinely aghast. For him, he was not spying. He was simply passing on information out of a civic duty.

And in fairness to the reporters in these two examples, the accuracy of their stories was never in question. There was, however, one BBC stringer who I and others were convinced was a spy for South African intelligence. He was not very clever with it and cast serious suspicion on himself by being able to get to places no-one else could with no visible means of support. I fired him -- not because I was able to prove he was a spy, but because he rarely delivered his promised stories. 

As most of you will know, one of the Cambridge Five Espionage Ring, Guy Burgess, spied for the Soviet Union while working for the BBC. And the author Frederick Forsythe, another former BBC correspondent, confirmed last year that he worked for British intelligence for 20 years.

Few would defend the traitorous spying activities of Guy Burgess, but was it okay for Frederick Forsythe to spy, as he was doing it for our benefit, or so he believed anyway? I don’t think so. In my view, journalism and espionage are totally incompatible. Journalists should always aim to be detached observers. Putting aside any moral questions, once journalists cross the line into spying, they put themselves and others in their profession at great physical risk. Already journalists find themselves increasingly targeted in the world’s hot spots and we should do nothing to make that bad situation worse.

As I checked a draft of this speech I realised there was a danger that The Mortal Maze might be seen as a rather pompous, self-righteous moral lecture – hectoring even. There are, of course, several ethical messages in the story, but I also wanted it to be exciting with lots of unexpected developments, amusing revelations about how television journalism achieves its aims – and, above all, a memorable surprise ending. I hope I have succeeded, but that’s for others to decide.

Here’s an extract from The Mortal Maze. It follows on from when the television reporter, Jackson Dunbar was given a tip-off by his one-time friend Thomas Fulham who blackmailed him into become a spy. The tip-off provided Jackson with a spectacular scoop when he witnessed a government minister’s convoy being blown up in the middle of a busy shopping centre. But Jackson is so appalled by what he witnessed that he told his cameraman Pete Fox to get lots of close-ups in an attempt to let the world know the full horror of what has taken place...

That evening, as arranged, Thomas Fulham turns up at the BBC bureau. He is in a hurry and has no time for pleasantries. “So what do you want to show me?”

Jackson goes to the video machine. “I take it that you saw my reports on the assassination?” he asks.

"Not an assassination, Jacko, a neutralisation, if you don’t mind. But, yes, of course I saw your reports and I was impressed, as always.”

“Right, Thomas, I now want you to see some of the scenes that my bosses felt were too dreadful to show.”

Jackson pushes the ‘play’ button and immediately the monitor shows a series of graphic close-ups of wounds and body parts. He winds up the volume, filling the room with piercing blood-curdling screams. Thomas flinches.

Jackson spools through to another section of the video. It shows wounded and terrified children howling at the top of their voices. Thomas angrily hits the ‘stop’ button, unwittingly causing the video to freeze on a close-up of the little boy trying to shake his dead mother alive.

Thomas is furious. “What the fuck is this all about?” he shouts.

“I thought it was just possible that you might feel some shame. I wanted to show you the full, brutal, unadorned result of the actions of you and your ilk. What would you say if those kids had been your children, Sophie and Sam?”

Thomas’s fury now has no limits. “We’re at war. The death of a few innocent women and children is the price that sometimes has to be paid for the higher good of democracy.”

It is now Jackson’s turn to lose control. “I’m out of this, Thomas. No more of your dirty games.”

“Sorry, Jacko, that’s not an option for you – at least not yet.”

Thomas leaves, slamming the door behind him. Jackson switches off the video editor and slumps into a chair behind his desk. He takes several large breaths to try to calm himself. After a few minutes, he hunts through the cupboards until he finds a half-empty bottle of whisky. He flops into a chair and drinks straight from the bottle.

The Mortal Maze as a paperback or Kindle ebook is available through Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com or Smashwords.ePub.  And The Journalist in British Fiction & Film, written by Sarah Lonsdale, is available HERE

AUSTRALIA: GODZONE COUNTRY? OR MUCH THE SAME AS ELSEWHERE?

I was recently asked by a builder doing some work for me in London why I chose to live in the UK, rather than in Australia, the land of my birth. "I'd move to Australia in a flash if I could," he enthused. "I'm sick of all the crime and other stuff in Britain, and the weather is so much better in Australia."

Tourism Australia is not going to thank me for my response, but much as I enjoy going back to Australia for visits to see family and friends, I don't expect to live there again.

There are many enjoyable aspects of life in Australia, not least the sense of space and the easygoing nature of much of the population. And there are the spectacular and varied landscapes. But don't kid yourself that it is Paradise. For starters, the weather is often terrible. Too hot in summer and too cold in winter, too wet or too dry. Where I grew up in the bush in the State of Victoria, we often had extended periods of drought, usually accompanied by wildfires and sometimes followed by devastating floods.

I vividly remember the summers where the temperatures frequently reached more than 40 degrees celsuis (100 Farenheit) and the many winter mornings that began with severe frosts. Severe and spectacular storms are also common across much of the country. A relative who lives in Queensland reported her house having been struck by lightning twice in as many weeks. A friend in Brisbane spent several days stranded on the roof of his house during a flood.

But let's leave the weather and move onto my builder's assertion that there was less crime and social disruption in Australia. If anything, it is worse in Australia than in Britain. Out of curiosity I scanned the website pages of the Melbourne Herald-Sun, the Melbourne Age and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Here is a selection of the headline stories I found in a 24-hour period:

• A WEB of closed-circuit television cameras will be spread across Melbourne to crack down on the violent Apex gang, which has been terrorising the city.
• THE week-long homeless camp in Melbourne’s CBD is degenerating, as street beggars and protesters clash.
• EMBATTLED Labor MP is facing questions over a multimillion-dollar property portfolio, amid revelations he charges taxpayers $271 a night while living in an apartment owned by his wife’s trust.
• METRO and V/Line trains could simultaneously grind to a halt causing transport chaos in Melbourne as a pay-and-conditions fight escalates.
• A BENDIGO man fought off at least six crocodiles with nothing but spanners, spark plugs and his fists as he desperately tried to save his mate’s life.
• MOTHER of four may have stabbed herself to death in front of dozens of oblivious witnesses, her killer has claimed.
• A GROUP of students have been kicked out of Deakin University for cheating after paying people to write assignments for them.
• YOUTH gangs competing to steal the most cars are helping power an unprecedented surge in Victoria’s car theft rate.
• VICTORIAN prisons are bursting as taxpayers are forced to fork out tens of million of dollars more for security, almost a year after remand centre riots — blamed on overcrowding.
• A HABITUAL pedophile who has abused children most of his life has had just four months added to an existing jail sentence for an offence he committed at the beginning of his adult life.
• A VIOLENT sexual predator who preyed on small orphan boys then beat them when they complained will spend 12 years and nine months behind bars.
• EXCLUSIVE: Border security officials allegedly working for organised criminals.
• Teenager scoped out government buildings but was moving towards one likely target when police intervened.
• Five men who allegedly planned to travel by boat to Indonesia so they could join Islamic State in Syria are due to be extradited under tight security from Cairns to Victoria this morning.
• Sworn statements show senior staff at Sydney's high-profile Northside Clinic were warned about the "inappropriate" and "dangerous" behaviour of its star psychiatrist years before he was stood aside.
• A SOUTH Australian woman has been charged over the bludgeoning death of a pensioner in his Kew East, Melbourne, home more than a decade ago.
• TEENAGE criminals in a tense standoff with police at the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre were promised KFC to come down from the roof, a court has heard.
• A Victorian man who paid an overseas surrogate to give birth to twin daughters, brought the girls to Australia where he filmed himself sexually abusing them and shared the footage with other paedophiles, a court hears.
•  A LIGHT plane, almost 300kg of drugs and $3.6 million in cash have been seized from members of Australia’s outlaw bikie gangs in just one year.
•  KITTENS strip club in South Melbourne has been sprayed with bullets for the third time in six months – this time in broad daylight.
• A CAR smash racket is running rampant, leaving thousands of Victorians with huge repair bills and without their cars. This is how they do it.
•  THIEVES used sledgehammers to smash into Collins Street Gucci and Prada stores and steal thousands of dollars worth of handbags.
•  CLUMSY cyclists are crashing into each other, stationary objects, and even a train, with thousands also playing red-light roulette, not wearing helmets, and ignoring fines.

All seems rather familiar, eh!

If you are, justifiably, fed up with politics in the UK, it will seem to be a model of propriety and maturity when compared with the turmoil of the infantile, bigoted and often corrupt Australian political community. Oh, and I haven't mentioned the flies, mosquitoes, spiders and occasional snakes. Or that there is no National Health Service. Or that public transport is often non-existent. Or that the mainstream media is terrible. And I nearly forgot to mention that you won't enjoy driving on Australian roads because there is zero tolerance with speeding (a couple of kilometres an hour over the limit can get you booked). Speed limits keep changing and most speed cameras are hidden. On top of this, there is random breath and drug testing.

So, if you still fancy moving to The Lucky Country, I wish you the best. But first a further reality check with this sobering item from BBC News.

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.