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THE SPEEDY CHEETER HUHNE RACES OUT THE DOOR

CHRIS Huhne dramatically resigned as an MP yesterday, as claims about his private life have tarnished his reputation. The former Energy Secretary had allegedly flanked a driving ban that he would have received over nine years ago, after asking his Wife, Vicky Pryce to pick up the points.

Huhne was driving through Essex when his car was picked up on camera, and has dodged these claims since March 2003.

Essex police investigated the father of five and love cheat, for eight months, after the Crown Prosecution Service demanded that they investigate Huhne and his Wife.

It surfaced in May 2011, that Ms Pryce had taken the points on her ex husband’s behalf, meaning both her and the love rat could face charges of perverting the court of justice if found guilty.

His love affair with his PR advisor, Carina Triminham, first caused Huhne’s rep to be slated, as it was exposed in June 2010. The Lib Dem MP also caused havoc, when he nicknamed the Deputy PM Nick Clegg, ‘Calamity Clegg,’ whilst running for leader of the party.

The millionaire’s political position was finally placed into jeopardy, as QC Keir Starmer, of the Crown Prosecution Service, made a public statement on the 2^nd of February confirming that there will be possible charges against Huhne. This, only the next day, Huhne spoke to David Cameron, and resigned, only to later plead his innocence to the PM.

The court case is due to take place on 16^th February, and if found guilty, Huhne and his ex could receive a sentence of up to a year.

He had branded the decision to bring him into court ‘regrettable’, and Huhne has insisted that he will return to office, once he has banished the claims. The Deputy PM, Nick Clegg has offered support from the Lib Dem party, and has also urged Huhne to clear his name. 

Storyville: Tabloid, Sex in Chains. 1000 word Broadsheet review

Storyville, Tabloid: Sex in Chains, is a documentary that explores the life of a beauty queen whose life was subjected to sexual objectification, obsession, and an exploitation of her existence, as her devotion to a Mormon man she loved, turned in to a tabloid publicity feature.

It begins by expressing the views of Joyce McKinney, an American woman who became entailed and involved with a lifestyle of a sexual cult. Using several other male personnel in interviews, it begins slowly to unravel how this cult and lifestyle had escalated into something more disturbing.

It uncovers how a mystery of the disappearance of a man called Kirk Anderson, that Joyce was involved with, and the journey that she, and; Keith Joseph (KJ), her bodyguard Gil Parker, and Jackson Shaw went on to try and find Kirk.

The four people involved travelled form the U.S, to England to find Kirk. As they passed through in to England the documentary shows how the world that they had become involved in was becoming more intrinsically connected with something more perverse and unruly.

The documentary unfolds to discover how the man, Kirk, was transformed, and was described by Joyce as having, ‘a personality alteration. There were two Kirks, Kirk number one, the man she fell in love with, and Kirk number two, who was cult Kirk.’

Joyce had a passion to be what was described as ‘inseminated’ by Kirk. The documentary explored further into how she took Kirk away to part in England where she had essentially captured and concealed him in a world that she created to try and rid his Mormonism nature. Joyce described how she took ‘the magic pants’ of Kirk. The interview further describes the emotions that Mormons as a religion where not meant to feel; such as love, sexual feelings, passion, or connections with a woman.

The detail further delved in to was how the Mormon culture interviewed the males, and transferred their beliefs onto their followers.

The Mormon religion had then reported Kirk as disappeared. In Storyville, the interview with Joyce describes how Kirk had found a newspaper that labelled him as disappeared.

The disappearance of Kirk had gripped media, and a television report shown on the documentary told of how Kirk was tied up, and a bag was placed over his head and he was kidnapped.

The full extent of the Mormon religion and the taboo nature was unravelled when Joyce had made a phone call to contact Kirk, and in the place where he was, Joyce explains how the phones were tapped, and recorded all conversation.

The documentary then unfolds into how Joyce became a prisoner, and was arrested for her actions.

Storyville, throughout, lets the interviewees unfold their tales, and give their impressions and account of actions. It transfers from being a story of one factor of beliefs and the interlinking personalities of two people, into a dramatic characterisation of love, entrapment, and religious philosophy, that grips the attention of the viewer as the programing becomes more emotionally personalised and shocking.  

Joyce’s account of the actions took a dramatic twist when she described how she gained the attention of the media, by asking a stranger to mail the pieces of information she had hidden, to alert the press of her bail hearing.

The story of Joyce’s kidnap of Kirk was released to the press as she had appeared in court. As this came to print, it was described by Keith Joseph in the documentary as ‘the perfect tabloid story.’

The Daily Express and Daily Mirror where described as being locked (in battle).

Joyce describes how the phenomenon that was her story, had transformed her in to celebrity. That celebrity status transformed Joyce’s life around the court case in to something that she described as having a ‘life of its own.’ 

From this point the interviewing picks up pace in the documentary as it flits between the interviewees and the cuts to the newspapers it is referring to.

Joyce sold her story to the Daily Express for £40,000, as she had fled to Canada with thirteen suitcases, whilst pretending to be deaf.

The Daily Mirror was then introduced as investigating Joyce. This lead to photographer’s trying to capture Joyce, and more information including phone calls and contacts.

The Daily Mirror photographer, Kent Gavin, discusses how he identified one of Joyce’s friends, Steve, and used him to find new photographs of Joyce. Some of these where described as un-publishable.

The Daily Mirror then run the pictures in a weekly feature story, depicting Joyce as ‘a temptress in the garden of evil.’ Alternatively, the Daily Express run photographs of Joyce as a nun; a victim of cruel circumstances.

The Sun newspaper had used some photographs, of which they had later admitted that they had used and cropped photographs of another female’s body, and placed Joyce’s head on to this.

The Daily Mirror photographer, Kent, described how the dossier of up to 1000 pictures of Joyce, none of which he had taken, but had instead gleaned from other people associated with Joyce, went missing when the newspaper changed ownership.

The documentary ruins through the process of how Joyce’s life had become a tabloid sensation. Joyce recollects how the tabloid press had begun to ruin her life, and how this had affected her as a person.

Storyville views the interviewees face on in the studio, cutting from past to present and each interviewee. This maximises the potential of the expressions that the interviewees show, and their emotions on camera.

The documentary profiles the full story in exemplary style, showing true detail of the occurrences, and how Joyce’s story became a factor of obsession for tabloid newspapers.

The proliferation of Joyce was fully explored and comprehensively protracted onto the viewer through a mass of evidential documentation, a mixture of interviews, and an orbit of questions that raised the topical and biographical profile of Joyce and her remarkably gripping story.

Storyville - Tabloid: Sex in Chains was aired on the BBC in March 2012. It can be viewed on the BBC I player at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01f13f6/Storyville_20112012_Tabloid_Sex_in_Chains/

Written Interview Article of Matt Dean

The BBC Sports desk in Hull can be a busy and hectic place to be involved in. With major sporting events and games each week, there is a mass of organisation, preparation, and dedicated work ethic that needs to be employed to keep a Sports Desk’s heartbeat running.

At BBC Humberside, that job is down to Radio Presenter, and current Sports Editor, Matt Dean. But what does it take to be in charge of such an important role, and, more importantly what does that role involve?

“My job is to manage two other Sports Journalists, in Mike White and Gwilym Lloyd. I also look after all of the freelancers on match days.” He said.

“I also look at which games go on which frequencies, which is always a hot topic,” he added.

Being the Sports Editor, Matt also has editorial decisions to make, and a responsibility to ensure the efficiency of the Sport’s desk.

“We have bulletins at breakfast time at lunchtime and in the afternoon. So I have to keep my eye across which stories are out there, and decide editorially which stories lead our bulletins, and what sort of angles we take for all our stories.”

Matt has not always been the Sport’s Editor, and he has recently moved in to that role in taking over from another work colleague.

“It’s a lot more demanding; the team has been reduced in number. When David Burns was the Sports Editor the team was four in number but now it’s been reduced to three,” he said.

“Because we’re still having to service the same amount of output the same amount of hours, we’re still dong all the same things that we did before. So it’s still very demanding, and there sometimes doesn’t feel like there’s enough hours in the day to do it all.”

For some people, getting in to journalism is hard, and for some it has always been a lifelong ambition. However the circumstance, radio is still one of the most popular forms of journalism mediums, and is sought by many aspiring hopefuls. For Matt, radio has always been his focus in journalism.

“I always wanted to work in radio. I got a degree in Broadcast Journalism, at Nottingham Trent University. I came out and did freelance for Sky, on their Soccer Saturday programme; I did that for a year. That was a good experience.

Then I started freelancing for radio Humberside.

I started working on contract at Radio Humberside in ninety nine, and then I became staff the following year,” he said.

Some people become inspired or have someone that they look up to for an aspired job. For Matt, the lure of radio has always been the main focus and aspiration.

“I always listened to radio Humberside sport, and I always respected what we did here. As a listener I think you kind of want to get a bit more involved. You want to know how it all works, and you have a genuine passion and enthusiasm for it.

I always felt that that helped me.

I just think that the immediacy in radio is what’s so appealing for me really. I always had that vision, so that always was the thing that drove me really.”

That vision and drive is what has led to Matt being successful in the industry, but he also feels that he has more to give as a professional.

“I still have ambition, and I’d still like to work higher and do more. But I think that we’re very lucky to do what we do here, because we can commentate, we can present, we interview, we do a bit of everything really.

We’re all very fortunate that we get on air all the time, and we’re able to do games, and see a lot of action and its good really.

We’ve got quite a small team, it’s quite a tight close knit team, and they tend to leave you to it, trust your judgement on things.”

The job roles that Matt has held in his time with the BBC have adapted with the current climate of the media, and Matt has seen this change first hand in the work place.

“It’s changed a lot. I mean when I first started working for the BBC in nineteen ninety nine, online was in its infancy really. There wasn’t things like Twitter, or anything like that. That’s very much changed how we work.”

The impact of social media such as Twitter, has prompted journalists to know and be capable of working with these new mediums as well as the old ones.

“All of us have been trained to put stories up on the BBC Sport website. We always have to think across online as well as just on the radio,” he said.

“I think that in the course of the last sort of couple of years Twitter’s sort of taken off. And there’s quite a lot of stories that could come through Twitter now, and you always have to be reactive to that.

New technologies have definitely impacted on the way we work,” he added.

These new mediums of technology are changing the broadcast industry through new methods of breaking stories, this can be challenging for non-online mediums to compete with.

“When I started, the clubs weren’t that fussed about what they had on their websites. Now all the clubs tend to prioritize their own websites. Whenever we deal with a lot of the clubs, they give us limited access to certain players, because they want the player interviewed first.

So that’s what you’re up against really.

And it’s become harder I think to break stories as well, because clubs are more determined to break stories on their website. When I first started it wasn’t like that,” said Matt.

“Now it’s more difficult, they only take phone calls from you on a very special occasion, and in the week you can’t just pick up the phone and ring the manager any more. You have to ring the head of media at any respective clubs now.”

The whole interface and personality of the broadcast and media industry has gone through many changes, non-more so than becoming familiar with social and interactive media.

“Radio audience figures are as high I think as they’ve ever been. More people are listening to radio now than probably ever before. Because they can listen through online, you can listen on your laptop, you can listen through your mobile phone.

So there are more ways to listen to the radio.

I think we need to be on the ball when it comes to Twitter, and I think we need to be fully switched on to it.  And we do try and do a bit of Tweeting. Nobody is solely brought in to look after Twitter or anything like that.”

Matt speculated on the future of Twitter and social media’s involvement with the broadcast and media industry, as it has already impacted to such an extent that it is an everyday necessity for a journalist.

“We’ll just have to be box clever with the way we work in the future and with the staff that we’ve got, and prioritize; see where things go with it in terms of the new media.

I don’t feel a major threat from Twitter and things like that. Although having said that, it’s just another means to monitor. I think that we just have to be aware of it.”

It seems as though the working day of old has evolved, and a journalist can no longer expect to be a master of one thing, but instead, a tool that can be used and adapted in all circumstances and situations.

The impact of new media has changed the job roles within journalism, particularly broadcasting, and it seems that this may only seek to increase, as time, and technology, develops.

Transcribe of Interview with BBC Humberside's Matt Dean

Transcribe of Interview with Matt Dean

Interviewer: Jason Russell

Interviewee: Matt Dean

Transcriber: Jason Russell

Date and Location of Interview: 04/04/2012, BBC Humberside studio, Radio Broadcasting room, Hull.

Jason Russell:  So Matt what is actually your job role and job title at the BBC.

Matt Dean: I am Sports Editor; I took over from David Burns last June. So my job is to look manage two other people full time members of staff; two other Sports Journalist’s in Mike White and Gwilym Lloyd. It is also to look after freelancers as well for all our games on a match day basis. So we’re looking at all our rugby league commentators, people like Craig Murdoch, Chris Park, then summarisers as well for all our respective commentary games as well, so they all need booking in, in advance. I also look at which games go on which frequencies, which is always [pause] a hot topic really, we do spend quite a lot of time debating what games go on which frequencies, and basically help the running of the sports team on a day to day basis. It’s my sort of role to look after SportsTalk as well, who comes in to do the programme, whose rota’d to do it. Editorially, we have bulletins at breakfast time at lunchtime and in the afternoon. So I have to keep my eye across which stories are out there, and decide editorially which stories lead our bulletins, and what sort of angles we take for all our stories. And it’s about generating ideas for programmes as well, for Saturday, and Sunday, the Rugby League programme, and the Football programme. We have an hour and a half’s build up on a Saturday; I present the Saturday programme, so it’s sort of down to me really to generate some ideas for that, and how it all shapes up really for the weekend. So there’s quite a lot going on really,

J.R: Yeah

M.D:  Also the replying to listeners as well, if anybody’s got a query or if anybody wants to complain about anything then I have to generally reply to that as well.

J.R: So how have you found that change from…[interjection]?

M.D: It’s a lot more demanding; the team has been reduced in number. When David Burns was the Sports Editor the team was four in number but now it’s sort of been reduced to three, because he now presents the morning programme, so that’s sort of put a lot more pressure on us really in some respects. Because we’re still having to service the same amount of output the same amount of hours, we’re still doing SportsTalk we’re still dong all the same things that we did before; bulletins in the morning at lunchtime, in the afternoon, and also Saturday sport goes on air at half past one, we’ve still got the Rugby league to look after as well. So it’s still [pause] very demanding, and there sometimes doesn’t feel like there’s enough hours in the day to do it all. You get there in the end.

J.R: Would you say that in the time that you have worked for the BBC, your job roles, whatever part you’ve worked in, have they adapted and changed a lot?

M.D: It’s changed a lot. I mean when I first started working for the BBC in nineteen ninety nine, online was in its infancy really. And there wasn’t things like Twitter, or anything like that. That’s very much changed how we work, in quite a lot of ways really I think. And we do now service online as well so any stories that you sort of hear on the radio you should be reading about them on the BBC Sport website as well. And we’ve been trained; all of us have been trained to put stories up on the BBC Sport website. So that’s affected obviously how much we can devote to putting stuff into radio production, how much time we have to put in to radio production, and it affects our, daily working routine really. We always have to think across online as well as just on the radio as well, so that’s definitely affected it, and I think that in the course of the last sort of couple of years Twitter’s sort of taken off. And there’s quite a lot of stories that could come through Twitter now, and you always have to be reactive to that, and that’s all around the clock, I mean I can get home at ten o’clock at night and I can check Twitter and I can see one of the clubs has Tweeted, and they’ve tweeted an update to a story which we obviously have to reflect. So it’s changed it very much, and I think that ya know when I first started working here definitely, you could sort of go home at night there wasn’t really [sentence change], and the stories wouldn’t develop a lot more than probably what you’d left for the bulletin order for the morning. But now you can get home having put the morning’s bulletin running order together, for the next day, and things can change. So you have to then be quite adaptable to that and change whatever you put in if the story has moved on.

J.R: So like, would you say that…[interjection]

M.D: So new technologies have definitely impacted on the way we work.

J.R: So, since you’ve first come in then in nineteen ninety nine, would you say that the actual broadcast and media industry is what you expected it to be?

M.D: It’s hard to say. I think it’s probably, it’s probably [pause] it’s expanded at a rate that I thought it wouldn’t do, I didn’t really [mumble] not that I necessarily thought, had any sort of set plans or thoughts as to how it would unfold, but I do think that, ya know, all the clubs now as well, they’ve all got their own websites. Whereas when I started, the clubs weren’t that fussed about what they had on their websites. They weren’t, [change sentence] Now all the clubs tend to prioritize their own websites, so whenever we deal with a lot of the clubs, then they probably give us limited access to certain players, because they want the player interviewed first, with the, say if they’ve got a new signing, they’ll want him on their website first rather than giving it to, to the local media, us and the daily mail. So that’s what you’re up against really, that’s something else. And it’s become harder I think to break stories as well, because clubs are more determined to break stories on their website, rather than see their managers give us a story. When I first started it wasn’t, it wasn’t like that, and access to players has become more restricted, as a consequence I think. In the old days when I first started you could sort of ring up any manager locally, now it’s more difficult, because you, they only take phone calls from you in a very sort of, on a very special occasion, and in the week you can’t just pick up the phone and ring the manager any more. You have to ring the media, the head of media at any respective clubs now. It’s not as easy to get stories I don’t think now.

J.R: Was it always Sports Broadcasting that you wanted?

M.D: I always wanted to work in radio. I got a degree in Broadcast Journalism, at Nottingham Trent at University. And I came out of Nottingham having got my degree, and I started to freelance. And I came out and did, freelance for Sky, on their Soccer Saturday programme; I did that for a year. And that meant just reporting from local games, whenever they needed a reporter. I did games for them on a Saturday, into ya know Geoff Stelling’s programme. That was a good experience. Then I started freelancing for radio Humberside. I did a few other little bits and pieces, but they were the main things really. And then I started working on contract at Radio Humberside in ninety nine, and then I became staff the following year.

J.R: In that time then that you were freelancing did you ever have an inspiration, somebody that you looked up to and thought; I want their job?

M.D: I always had a, [sentence change] I always had, [sentence change], I always listened to radio Humberside sport actually. And I always sort of respected what we did here, and I always, as a listener I think you kind of want to get a bit more involved don’t you sometimes, if you are listening to the programme, you want to know how it all works, and you have a genuine passion and enthusiasm for it so, I always felt that that helped me. And I, ever since I was young though I wanted to work in to radio, radio was always sort of the best medium for me. I didn’t really; I still don’t feel television quite has the lure that I think radio has for me. Radio has just; I just think that the immediacy in radio is what’s so appealing for me really. And that’s why I really wanted to work in, in this industry. So yeah, that’s sort of, I always had that vision, so that always was the thing that drove me really.

J.R: Would you say that your career in radio has taken you in the direction that you first intended?

M.D: Yeah I think so yeah. I still have ambition, and I’d still like to work higher and do more. But I think that we’re very luck to do what we do here, because we can commentate, we can present, we interview, we do a bit of everything really. Whereas I think if you go to somewhere like five live, you don’t necessarily get such a variety of your working day, you might be just researching stories for other people, and writing for other people, and producing other people. And I quite like doing what I do really, I mean, we’re all very fortunate that we get on air all the time, and we’re able to do games, and see a lot of action and its good really. But I still am ambitious and I’d still like to do more, I don’t see being at radio Humberside, I don’t  necessarily see myself being here for the rest of my life, but it’s a good place to work, because basically the bosses tend to let you get on with what you wanna do. They trust what you do, and, even though we’ve got quite a small team, it’s quite a tight close knit team, and they tend to leave you to it, trust your judgement on things.

J.R: Would you say in the time that you have been here, because of the impact of social media, Twitter and such, can you see in maybe the next ten years that developing even further and changing your job role?

M.D: [raised voice] Oh without a doubt, yeah without doubt. I think it will change the industry more for people who work in newspapers, because newspaper sales are [prolonged] declining. Whereas radio audience figures are as high I think as they’ve ever been. In the last sort of, If you look at Rajar figures from the last sort of year or two, more people are listening to radio now than probably ever before, because they can listen through online, you can listen on your laptop, you can listen through your mobile phone. So there are more ways to listen to the radio. So I think that the industry in itself is quite vibrant really. And I don’t think that, I don’t feel a major threat from Twitter and things like that. Although having said that it’s, it’s just another story, sorry it’s just another means to monitor, I think that we just have to be aware of it. I think we need to be on the ball when it comes to Twitter, and I think we need to be fully switched on to it, ya know. And we do try and do a bit of Tweeting ourselves, ya know, it’s difficult on the resources that we’ve got, but we do try to on a weekend now, Tweet stuff. Ya know, team news as a soon as it comes through, ya know, whenever there’s a goal on a Saturday, or a tri on a Sunday, we try and Tweet that. We just try and keep across it that way. And we also let people know what frequencies their team will be on that day. Ya know, in terms of commentaries, so yeah, we try and use it as much as we can, but it’s trying to keep, you’re spreading yourselves quite thinly across radio and everything else ya know. It’s just, it’s, if you haven’t got the resources necessarily to, nobody is solely brought in to look after Twitter or anything like that, ya know what I mean.

J.R: Could you see that happening in the future, possibly?

M.D: No, I probably can’t. Because I think that resources are so tight. That, I mean the license fees have been frozen for a few years yet, but that means that we are having to make, as a consequence, cutbacks. And, or be very careful as to how we spend money. And if anything there’s probably less money gonna be around to bring people in to do that sort of thing. We’ll just have to be box clever with the way we work in the future and with the staff that we’ve got, and prioritize, and see what, see where things go with it in terms of the new media.

J.R: That’s great thanks

M.D: No bother

Podcast of Interview with BBC Humberside's Matt Dean

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