Online magazine writing: Adventure Lantern

My first feature over 1000 words has been published in the March 2008 issue of Adventure Lantern.

It's a specialist site catering for fans of adventure games, and as far as I'm aware it's the only games site that edits, designs and e-publishes a print-style magazine on a regular basis. So I'm delighted to be a part of it. There was also the pleasant surprise of receiving my first mention in an editorial, not exactly something I'll be expecting any time soon in real-world publications.

If you're not sure what an adventure game is, don't start thinking about Tomb Raider. They're a niche but persistent group of story-led logic puzzle games that hit the mainstream in the 90s before simmering down to their present level.

My first review, of Valve's Portal, in fact only tenuously fits into the genre (if it does at all), but the way I approached every line in the piece was to focus on the aspects that an adventure player would be most interested in. Actually, despite trying to introduce a little colour and groundedness with some real-world references , I may have been a little too rigid and structured about it. Looking back (I wrote it a couple of months ago now), it seems rather more staid and plodding than it felt at the time. I'll put this one down to the learning curve of writing to fit a specialist publication, with all the extra technical details that its readers will expect compared to the reviews you'd find in the culture section of a newspaper.

This week I've been finishing up my next piece, which will be much closer to what's usually covered in the magazine, but it's been a bigger challenge. It's my first ever preview of an upcoming release, which put bluntly entails finding out things that people don't know yet. I did ‘the journalist thing’ and actually got in touch with writer and company owner Dave Gilbert to gently pester him for scraps of information. What this has taught me is that you can never do enough research before starting out on a write-up. Thankfully Mr Gilbert more than lived up to his reputation for handling press enquiries eagerly and frankly, and kindly helped me out where he could. The preview should be out in May.

●Browse the latest issues of Adventure Lantern.

Within you beats the cold heart of a neutral

Sure to become all-time essential reading for budding or established journalists alike is this month's piece from 2007 US start-up The Politico, ‘Should Journalists Vote?’

I conducted my own little straw poll on that question using the many comments left in response to that article:

Yes: 51%
No: 4%
Doesn't matter: 45%

('Yes' vote includes those who recommended voting in national but not local elections.)
('Doesn't matter' vote includes the large number who thought the media were so biased as to make the issue irrelevant.)

So there you have it. It's okay to vote as long as you have some kind of rigour to your style that keeps hold of the facts. The ‘doesn't matter’ category is well represented by one comment from David Walton which goes, ‘ “fairest of journalists” has as about as much significance as “fairest of pit-vipers.” ’

The Labour reshuffle and the battle for hearts

Yesterday's reshuffle was the 13^th such reassertion of control to take place under Tony Blair's leadership, so will this turn out to be a lucky number for Labour? Of course the Conservatives say no, but it's hard to judge as yet - the extent of the changes is still being taken in. What is certain is that if Labour wants that elusive fourth term in power then it will have to take it rather than be given it - with the local election results placing The Conservatives at 40% to Labour's meagre 26%.

So is the result of the next general election already a forgone conclusion? The answer is not easy. Those results are unlikely to be reflected directly in a general election, in which voters behave rather differently, but the results are still crucial for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Labour has rarely performed so poorly in a local election, and secondly the threat from the Lib Dems is now greater than ever, because the results place them above Labour at 27%. In terms of vote share the Lib Dems are now beginning to consistently achieve high returns at both local and national level, with their average general election performance since 1974 being a respectable 19.3%.

Examining the reasons for their failure to win those all-important seats is a difficult task, but generally winning seats is down to tightly focused campaigns based on issues local to each ward, and so it's about a candidate's ability to engage with the electorate which perhaps is not being cultivated effectively enough by the party as a whole. Alternatively, the reason for the wide rather than focused distribution of support could result from the Liberal Democrats' position as a third party to the unpopular main two - that is to say, their high level of votes attained could be more reactionary than responsive. It could be difficult to increase voting patterns that might be boosted by dissatisfaction with other parties.

However, the glimmer of hope for the Conservatives and Lib Dems lives on for the moment in that this dissatisfaction does not look like ending for some time, with the debacle regarding the departure time of Tony Blair and the arrival of Gordon Brown as party leader set to continue indefinitely. Gordon Brown's reshuffle day Today interview only served to add to the confusion. Although the original New Labour goals and, dare I say it, glamour, may have waned with the departure of key players Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell some time ago, this government's staying power is still a serious proposition with its new and serious adherence to a highly successful centre-left approach it has not used before, and three years is a long time...

●Visit the Labour Party's homepage.

Reshuffle no. 254,643,459,959,758,...

After a strong Conservative performance in yesterday's local elections, the results of which are now all in except for one seat, Tony Blair swung into action with a reshuffle carried out throughout the day and announced on official websites as the changes were called out.

Andrew Marr's Sunday AM programme noted last week a rumour that the reshuffle was planned to take place about now, and it has now gone through, with the Prime Minister making many key changes to the cabinet. The BBC website today prepared a rundown of the reshuffle changes, which is not quite viewable ‘at a glance.’ Here is an alternative version:

Position (With links to departmental sites)	Out! (With links to why they may have gone)	In! (With links to show troubles they've faced)
ODPM -> DCLG	John Prescott	Ruth Kelly
Deputy Prime Minister	‘’	John Prescott Holds
Foreign Secretary	Jack Straw	Margaret Beckett
Home Secretary	Charles Clarke	John Reid
Health Secretary	‘’	Patricia Hewitt Holds
Defence Secretary	John Reid	Des Browne
Education Secretary	Ruth Kelly	Alan Johnson
Trade Secretary	Alan Johnson	Alistair Darling
Transport Secretary	Alistair Darling	Douglas Alexander
Environment Secretary	Margaret Beckett	David Miliband
Chief Secretary to the Treasury	Des Browne	Stephen Timms
Leader of the Commons	Jeff Hoon	Jack Straw
Labour Party Chairman	Ian McCartney	Hazel Blears
Chief Whip	Hilary Armstrong	Jacqui Smith
Europe Minister	Douglas Alexander	Geoff Hoon
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Inc. Minister for the Cabinet Office)	Vacant (“Minister Without Portfolio” Position)	Hilary Armstrong
Foreign Office / DTI Minister of State	N/A: New Position	Ian McCartney

The government has arguably overcome problems with ministers with perhaps greater ease under Tony Blair's leadership than any previous party in office. Nick Robinson has quoted David Cameron expressing his ‘awe’ at the Labour leader's ability to ‘walk away’ unscathed from problems that would have left a lesser politician with a major defeat. It looks like the response to the Tories' victory may be just enough to win another minor battle in the greater war.

●Read the No 10 website's summary of the reshuffle. (Warning: Includes gratuitous gurning.)

●See the BBC's collection of Election 2006 news.

Flatlined: Making a start on the NCTJ modules

I decided after my last entry to cut out all the distractions that were getting in the way of me learning my shorthand properly, and after what was supposed to be two days of quick tying-up, a week and four days later here I am. I've finished working through my first Teeline book! Now that it's time to start working through my file of NCTJ modules (pictured), I'll look back on what I've learned so far.

Towards the end it was getting kind of hard going through the only book I own so far, Teeline For Journalists. It introduces a larger number of outlines in each chapter, so that by the final chapter on medical journalism, the amount being introduced had made the exercises a little tiresome to wade through with all the page-flipping and even Googling necessary to transcribe accurately. But it's done, and I'm pretty pleased about that.

I've made a pretty decent start on shorthand, often noted to be one of the most difficult skills tested in the national journalism exams. The material officially provided by the NCTJ, with whom I registered at the end of last month, only covers the basics and the staff recommend that students take classes to perfect their writing. I'm quite likely do that eventually, but not right from the start which could be more than a little costly and perhaps too slow. I'll try to take some classes when my speed's already reached a reasonable level.

Still, that's only the start of my journo journey. Now I know how to write the Teeline alphabet, how to link its letters and the the commmon prefixes and suffixes in English, it's my job get to get quick. At the moment a first year primary school student wouldn't be impressed by my writing speed, let alone an interview subject with better things to do, so my task is to get somewhere near the 100 words per minute that will hopefully one day be useful to me in a Journalistic career. Luckily I have some NCTJ teaching tapes to help me out, although realistically the best way to improve will be the undertaking the slog of getting a set of Teeline dictionaries and learning as much of them as I can. Wish me luck.

Short and curlies

It's Easter Saturday and this interlude in the busy biblical bustle of this long weekend means all you can really do is go for a drive and somehow work through the throng of drivers and shoppers at the nearest big store to escape brandishing sufficient reduced treats wrenched from the aisles to last till Tuesday.

Today's Guardian notes that changes in the law could mean this year might be last which has an Easter Sunday free of trade in the larger shops. It might be a sad loss of a British tradition if the actual process of getting about was not so exhausting due to the rush of people and marketing so that we can accomplish everything today. The good thing about Easter weekend for me is definitely that you can at least sit back and read damn nearly every article in the paper just like in the good old days, if they ever existed.

I'm pleased to see that a high-falutin’ paper like the Guardian hasn't trashed Manchester Passion as I feared it might, having in fact produced a review that reads in its basic appraisal rather like mine, although its fancy use of quotes has my feature over a barrel. It actually ends up by describing the evening's events as ‘truly transcendent’ and ‘really quite beautiful.’

One weakness of my version is that my description of the filming and production comes out more than a little geeky: focusing on the details of presentation and not on very much that would have escaped any viewer's attention. But hey, it's a blog so I can be a little geeky, right?

Once I've finished with my little Easter newspaper and TV rituals it'll be time for me to practice my shorthand again, having let it slide this week. For those of you keeping an eye on me out there (no one really, my visitors chart tells me, mais c'est la vie) I've almost finished Chapter 7 which features a rather fiendish 'translation' from shorthand notes which has sneakily linked up lots of little words together that weren't explained in the lessons. I'll just assume that the entire global community awaits my every word and let you all know how I'm doing over the next day or two.

TV review: Passionate

Despite my disappointment that BBC Three's Manchester Passion musical, aired about four hours ago now, did not in fact feature any George Michael songs which surely would have had the old boy turning in his grave, on the basis of this programme alone I've come away pleased with this year's Easter television.

I was expecting an hour of shakycam footage of hammy street performance, but what I got instead was an hour of sharply produced, eloquently compered, reasonably well sung and excellently shot live television.

It is almost a rule today that outside London, places in Britain simply aren't shown at their best on television. This programme was a showcase for Manchester, reminding us in an unexpected way that big things can happen outside of That City and can gain national attention with national standards of production.

The songs are affecting as you might imagine a collection including proven hits from Joy Division, New Order, Oasis and The Smiths to be. Although these are not A-list actors, the songs never quite descend into pastiche on account of some reasonably effective stage writing and acting relating them to a biblical base, but in any case the songs, I am glad to say, are not really what this production is all about, and therefore that is why it succeeds. It succeeds for the best reason: it simply employs a large number of components that work well on television as a format.

Keith Allen's compering initially seemed a little brusque for the celebratory occasion, but it soon transpired that like so much of the production, as it is best called, this was all part of the plan. Allen's observing of the cast of Passion on a large screen broadcast in front of the Albert Square crowd for whom he acted as announcer was all part of the story - for near the end he leaves the stage to change into a suit so that he can play Pilate on stage.

In an inversion of the audience's expectation, Jesus (Darren Morfitt) is brought onto the stage for the final act, rather than continuing Allen's observation of him via video link, a convention which instils the viewer at home with even more particular expectations of what might happen next. In another twist playing with our technologically informed ideas of what should and should not happen on TV, for the section of the story in which Christ speaks to his disciples of loyalty to God – the first real plot element – we hear a simple, old-stlye bleepy and embarrassing mobile phone ring. There's an awkward pause and the camera is still. But of course, it's Judas’ mobile and not some passer-by’s. He has other people and things to think about than loyalty.

When the compere takes over with his video screen from the full-screen action of the musical theatre around which this television event is based, the street action cuts out and attention (and video screen) focuses on ex-Primal Scream vocalist Denise Johnson who performs the more ballady songs featured. She sings some of the songs rather well, but she has the less good selection of songs and the acted musical segments are more entertaining, but once again that's not really the point. She's there to keep the crowd who can only see grainy, laggy big-screen footage warmed up - and a lively crowd looks great on TV, even if they can be seen to be given some semi off-screen prodding to cheer up. The pause allows the actors to move between areas of the city which have been selected for their looks, so when we cut back they're in an ideal filming location.

Lighting and camerawork for each seen has in many cases been meticulously arranged, and particularly since we can see everything is happening live, without retakes, the effect is impressive - with fine close-ups, calculated zooms and attractively positioned wide shots and even a camera circling the cast during Jesus’ capture. To complete the attractive look of the setting, Albert Square's buildings are uplit attractively with a bright blue glow and the final appearance of Jesus on the clock balcony of Manchester Town Hall is effective as a dramatic device.

Adding to this an extra section of rapid-fire interviews conducted with roving reporter and camera crew following the procession of a large, radiantly glowing cross apparently weighing half a ton through the streets of Manchester literally on the backs of a crowd was impressive to behold. This simple but stylised gesture remarkably instilled in me something like a sense of national pride, particularly at the evident presence of a more diverse crowd than one might expect – Christians from around England and Scotland, a non-denominational believer, a Muslim marching with the cross out of respect for Jesus the prophet and even a Scotch born-again goth Christian. Part theatre, musical, documentary, outdoor spectacle and special occasion broadcast, it is an experiment which combines genres with good reason and with few seams.

This is good TV, well researched and produced, and much more suitable for the wider (largely irregularly- or non-practicing) population of Britain to enjoy than a mass broadcast or a Heaven and Earth special, though those may have their place. The BBC has made good use of its license fee this Easter by producing, yes, something lowish-brow and fun, but yes, also an appropriate, respectful and educational way of celebrating a British Easter with pride.

●Check out how the Diocese of Manchester went all hip to get locals to take part.

The general election

Going back to the stats, but this time looking at general elections, although the Conservatives have suffered defeats of historical magnitude at the last three, the electoral ‘first past the post’ system is specifically geared towards creating differences in seats.

Whether this a good thing is actually quite hard to tell - more on this later. Let's take the example of last years election results, again using the BBC site figures. In 2005 Labour won 35.3% of the UK vote to the Conservatives’ 32.3%.

So even though the separation of the parties in votes was only 3%, the Labour Party actually won 356 seats out of 646, or 55%. Clearly then, the road to electoral success is defined by a party's ability to gain support where it is needed most - rather than having a large numerical support base confined to a lesser geographical area.

The diagram to the left shows the share of the electorate who actually backed the winning parties over 1951-2005.



The BBC news site also features a prediction system designed for the 2005 election based on the percentage ‘swing’ of votes between the two leading parties. A swing of 6.5% to the Conservatives was predicted by the site in the run up to the 2005 elections to remove labour’s majority, and in the 2005 elections part of that was achieved with an overall 3% swing to the blues. Based on the 2005 vote separation between the leading parties, with just another 3+% by 2009 we could in theory have a new government!

However, the situation is not so simple. A swing to the Conservatives of between 6.5 and 10%, or 3.5% and 7% by the 2009 election, would result in a hung parliament in which the winning party is deemed not to have a sufficient parliamentary majority to govern effectively - leading to a coalition if the parties concerned agree to one, a form of government this country has not experienced since the Second World War, although there was a close call in 1974. As you can see from the chart on the left, the UK Parliament has kept coalition-free while its European counterparts frequently face such alliances.

So over the next few years the age-old debate about the implementation of Proportional Representation (PR) is likely to rage on. Now that the proportions of the British public voting are likely to be so close, weak coalition governments (which are of course more likely to be plagued by in-fighting than individual ones) will surely arise with or without PR. On the other hand we have the compelling statistic that in 2005 only 22% of the electorate voted for the winning party, a proportion which has been shown to be falling since the 50's (see BBC chart above).

Figures such as those produced by ukelect.co.uk confirm my prediction of an unusually closely fought future election based on today’s political situation, placing support for the two lead parties for 2005-2009 squarely at a figure of 36%, when a hung parliament is likely to be achieved when support for the two lead parties is in the 34-37% range.

The parties themselves are no strangers to most of these issues. If you read a bit further down in the DCA UK electoral system summary above, you'll see that since their first term in power Labour have established two independent commissions tasked with analysing the electoral system: The Independent Commission on the Voting System and the Independent Commission on Proportional Representation. The latter, carried out between 2002 and 2004 was inconclusive, stating that if the switch were made, there culd be ‘some increase in the range of small parties represented in the Commons, as well as, a greater chance of coalition or minority governement.’

It would be interesting to see the logic upon which report decided the chance of a coalition would be greater. Labour has been hinted to have one rather strong supporter of PR, and placed in a rather strong position too. Paddy Ashdown has asserted he is ‘absolutely convinced’ that none other than the Rt Hon Tony Blair was at least at one time eager for a coalition with the Lib Dems even without the potential stalemate now faced.

●Download the DCA summary of UK voting systems as a PDF.
●Visit the website of the Electoral Reform Society, the oldest pro-PR body.

Love of Labour lost? The local elections

Local election campaigns are once again lurching into action in preparation for May 4th, and NHS woes would seem to indicate labour has even more to fear than usual.

I should be whipped for it, but I didn't know until yesterday after some stats research that local councils in the UK are dominated by the Conservatives. According to the Beeb website, out of 2392 councillors and 37 councils in the UK, the Cons hold 65% and 50% respectively. The Lib Dem figures are 21% and 8%.

A few of these stats are interesting. The Lib Dem 21% figure is rather close to the circa 20% support the party finds itself with in the general elections, but the Cons enjoy almost exactly double the 32% support they fought for in the 2005 general election.

Clearly Labour are going to have to watch things now that they've been forced to acknowledge a failure every day since the resignation/sacking of Sir Nigel Crisp from the positions of Permanent Secretary and Chief Executive of the DOH on March 31st.

Patricia Hewitt appeared yesterday on the Today programme’s 0810 interview to defend the huge staff cuts occurring across the country. The Health Secretary sounded eloquent as ever, but in this case her comments were rendered redundant by the figures which showed the hospitals in worst financial condition were suffering cuts of between 200 and 1000 staff each. Regardless of the repeated mentions in the Chancellor’s budget over the last few years of the billions of pounds being poured into the system. So where's the leak?

This came in the same week when the blame about the conditions of loans and donations to political parties was neatly deflected onto the Tories, nevertheless revealing the increasing pressure on the party in power – a pressure that the Conservatives will have to maintain to remain with a chance in what promises to be a closely fought election.

The former red sea of supporters looks increasingly sparse and unlikely to be able to keep a timid kitten from the banks of victory, let alone the crowd of eager Cameronites poised in their company yacht.

Words now terror offence

As of today the glorification of terrorism is officially an offence under the rules set in the 2005 Terrorism Bill, which was given Royal assent on March 30th of this year.

The bill covers many ways of protecting against terrorist activity, but its most controversial aspect is the relative harshness with which statements interpreted as glorification are to be punished.

A summary conviction on this offence, which so far applies to published rather than spoken statements, could lead to a fine or twelve months imprisonment, while conviction on an indictment could lead to a much longer term of up to seven years.
This is only three years short of the sentence applied to those who give training in terrorist activities.

Critics say that defining precisely which comments might break the new law will prove difficult, and also that the Bill contains several defences that might be applied too easily. These are some of the reasons that many people perceive the new law to be an unnecessary incursion upon free speech. In February Sir Menzies Campbell was one of the high profile figures who noted that ‘the measure could threaten civil liberties.’ Other notable opposers of the bill include the popular free speech website netfreedom.org.

Other changes brought about in the Terrorism Bill include an increased 15 year maximum period for the possession of materials which could be used for terrorist purposes, and for offences committed using radioactive materials life sentences are now applicable.

●View a transcript of Charles Clarke's Terrorism Bill speech.
●View the completed bill at the official Parliamentary Publications site.
●Read Charles Clarke's rebuttal of The Independent's entry into the debate.

Shorthanded

I'm currently learning to use Teeline shorthand for an NCTJ distance learning journalism course that I intend to complete June/July-ish. I'm just working on my own and it's not exactly riveting but there is definitely something generally uplifting about learning a new written language, if you can call it that. It looks kind of nice when you get used to drawing those curly shapes in gentle soothing motions. Another plus is that hardly anyone will be able to read any non-existent love notes I forget to tidy away.

I'm learning as much as I can on my own before attempting the collection of tapes and ring-bound information that the NCTJ have sent me. The great thing is that you don't even have to send of for anything at all to learn shorthand as long as you have the internet to hand. I was looking around at 43things.com and someone was asking about online versions of shorthand manuals. The reply listed a site with some Gregg Shorthand manuals which is well designed but these are only online by virtue of being past their copyrights and, more importantly for us UK journos, the UK standard systems are now Teeline and Pitman.

Luckily for me a quick Google resulted in another complete book online - Teeline for Journalists by Vivien Saunders. She's a lecturer at Harrow College, part of the University of Westminster and she's written a book, I believe as yet unpublished, which is the only guide ‘specially adapted [...] to the needs of journalists.’ So far I've found the book to be a very good way of learning - for every two or three symbols you are given to learn, an exercise is set, so you learn nice and gradually even though you're writing in shorthand right from the first chapter. The book is current and therefore has lots of nice journalistic vocab that you're likely to find yourself using today, and the exercises are written as parts of amusingly hammy news stories.

●Download Teeline for Journalists as a Word document.

Welcome to my world

I'm an ‘aspiring’ journalist. That means I haven't got a job as a hack yet and need to get better at doing the kinds of things a journo might need to do. I've heard that I'm not exactly alone in this, so here's my diary of doing all the things that are supposed to be good if you want to work somewhere in the industry.

Why do this? Well, for starters one of the things on my rather lengthy to do list is to start a blog as a way of practicing writing. Also, some of the things I've learnt so far took a surprisingly long time to find out about, and I could have used a site like this to help me out. On top of that, I just don't have a decent way of recording what I'm up to at the moment and this is a neat way of proving to myself I'm actually achieving something...

Those glossy industry-produced but uninformative ‘getting into journalism’-type guides are initially interesting, but I wanted something to take me through step-by-step instead of just saying ‘immerse yourself in newspapers’, ‘get industry knowledge’ or something similar. The internet's a great resource for this, since it's the only thing quicker than the printed press. But it takes some time to look through everything, so I'll be hunting down things that interest me for posting on this site, sometimes in a pseudo-story kind of way if the subject is recent enough as opposed to general industry goop. Hopefully one or two things here will interest someone else.

Today I've actually been geeky enough to write up a little guide for myself on the things I ought to be doing over the next few months, again done to cover another of my to do list points - getting to know QuarkXPress. In my first stab at journalistic integrity I should point out It's largely a condensed version of what I thought were some of the most important tips on getting into journalism from the 2005 edition of Chris Alden's In Print, published by MediaGuardian, and all credit goes to that little book for making things clear for once. My version has made most of the tips a little more practically accessible with the addition of key web addresses as starting points.

●Download ‘Starting Out In Journalism’ as a PDF file.