PRESS ASSOCIATION DIARIES IV: Media Law: At least it's in "Public Interest"

Libel
Defamation by written or printed words, or in any form other than spoken words or gestures.

Slander

CBA - No one sues for slander.

I write this acutely aware of the threat of libel, slander, copyright, contempt, or any other legal action that might see me locked up or penniless before I even qualify as a journalist.

We've spent a welcomed day away from the Press Association revising for our media law mock tomorrow. What this really means is that we've spent the day reminding ourselves of just why we should never write anything again.

Essentially the law is on ever other f*****'s side – except the journalist's.  For a while learning media law felt quite Ally McBeal and kind of cool to know at least some of what keeps us all in line - well most journalists (libel by innuendo? Who knows... sue me.) At least in the likely event that we are sued, we have some kind of knowledge of what might defend us against the oppressive monsters (libel). I guess it's good to know your enemy.

That said, I've been facing a more immediate enemy in the form of subbing (←Probs ungrammatical). Just no. I've thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from the liberalisation of education but they could at least teach you grammar! Any previous PMA-ers will understand the pain endured whilst trying to sub Keith's Wolves masterpiece. God forbid he uses another of my passive sentences from this post as subbing bait.

FYI GIFS ARE A COMPLETE INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT

PRESS ASSOCIATION DIARIES III: Features: Featuring our resident idiots

We're coming to the end of our first week of features training and apparently no-one reads features anymore (or at least we don't - hoes exposed). But eventually we'll write "great" features that people will read and not use to line their cat's litter trays.

Whilst that's been tricky enough for us to get our heads around it appears some of our fellow trainee journalists are still in need of some more basic education.

During another early morning shorthand lesson with the lovely Richard a few unusual questions were raised:

SAM asked what a BANGLE was...

TOM as always asked MANY  things but amongst the most mind-boggling...He had no idea what  "Feng Shuey" was aka  Feng Shui to the rest of us...

But SAM did know and was quick to explain... "It's complete sh!t3"... philistine.

Richard and I also had to explain to TOM what a "Bunga Bunga" party was...

In other news ROSIE is a tarot reading witch...

PRESS ASSOCIATION DIARIES II: PA aka the Photobooth Association

I'm back for my second post and this week we discovered photobooth – SORRY

Nicholas (in green) was particularly happy, Kaltrina and Sam less so.

Feeling left out, I decided to start documenting writing news pieces (see below) and short snappy news has been proving more difficult than any of us anticipated. Those snippets of news you might read half of in the Metro on your way to work are hard to write people (if you want to write them well and Roberta's your editor) 

I find myself sprouting Roberta's journo gospel even when I don't want to hear it. "But how the hell are we moving the story forward guys?" It's starting to feel like we're stuck on a loop and some news just won't "move forward".

That being said today I had my first news story accepted (with minor amendments needed obvs) but still 50 odd words of progress and I didn't even make it to a third attempt. This feels like a milestone but it's becoming apparent that it'll mean nothing in the very near future. 

Talking of the future this week we met chief chimpanzee Darshan Sanghrajka who according to his twitter bio is a "stand up, economist, creative, marketing strategist, social impact person" and sexist (just kidding Darshan - wow women aren't funny). He was great and taught us all about Search Engine Optimisation or SEO as we now call it. Thanks to him we're all pretty fluent in social media. For some of us (Olivia) SEO stands more for Stalking Energy Optimisation and for others (Sam) meeting Darshan meant losing their twitter virginity. Sam's yet to tweet but I heard he's totes getting Instagram ####

Anyway back to the Photobooth Association...

I finally plucked up the courage to ask to borrow Olivia's glasses. As a blind person without glasses this is pretty big.  

Then this guy started paining the computer room door... 

And the fumes got pretty intense.... 

And I started to feel pretty intense. 

He did't seem to care that I had "serious" Photobooth work to do.

I got a little desperate....

Then we become pals! #fumes #friends

PRESS ASSOCIATION DIARIES I: A Journalist not a writer

I've started a post-grad course at the Press Association so I thought I'd share a little of what's been happening on the pma blog. 

DAY 1: SAY HELLO TO THE PRESS ASSOCIATION & GOODBYE TO YOUR LIVES 

In the beginning there were nine and they were fresh faced and hopeful but they weren't journalists. The trainee journalists you'll be hearing from this summer are me (Kasia Hastings), Kaltrina Bylykbashi, Nicholas Dawson, Tom Johnson, Sam Allen, Rudy Katoch, Olivia McCreahedley, Blayne Pereira, and Rosie Clarke - that's if we make it past week one.

There was an exciting nervous energy at the Press Association this morning as lead course tutor Roberta Cohen's lambs came in for the slaughter. But what we didn't know is that Roberta had far greater plans for us than Sunday lunch's lamb chops. FYI the course starts as it means to go on, they mean business and every second I spend here the more of a journalist I feel. 

For our first task we turned our backs on the internet and took to the streets of Victoria to get the story on the local area. Whilst it was important for Blayne to ascertain the whereabouts of the nearest Nandos, what this really taught us is that far better information can be acquired by actually getting out there and speaking to people. (And as we now know this means it's the best way of getting a new angle for your news story too, even if it means actually talking to real people - AH!)

After day one I'm feeling suitably scared and excited but actually far less panicked than I thought I'd be (I expect that'll come later). It's nice to feel fully committed to something that is equally committed to me. And since we've sized each other up and exchanged follows on twitter I'm feeling pretty happy with the comrades I have beside me too. 

(Expect me to be a little more unhinged in my next blog post and naturally more entertaining- we can only hope)