arts byMark Fisher


Books > The Newspaper Man


David Belcher Out now Into Books The sometime diarist and cultural correspondent on Glasgow’s Herald turns fiction writer with a yarn about an ex-hack who moves from Scotland to rural Italy but feels the tug of home. https://tinyurl.com/27besdvg


Freedom: Memories 1954–2021 Angela Merkel November 26 Macmillan Germany’s former chancellor reflects


In depth > Eccentric tales and major scoops It seems only


appropriate that Alex Morrison’s book started with a letter to the editor. In 2022, the sometime local newspaper reporter wrote to The Journalist seeking stories from colleagues about their experiences dealing with the public. He was thinking about the unexpected stories that present themselves when word comes down that “there’s someone in reception”. That provides the title


of his anthology of weird and wonderful stories called – what else? – There’s Someone in Reception: Adventures in Local Journalism. Drawing on 70 years’ worth of anecdotes, many of them gathered as a result of his


20 | theJournalist


letter to this magazine, the book is a compilation of eccentric tales and major scoops that have fallen into the lap of unsuspecting journalists. Morrison knows it is


rare for a story that arrives in this way to have much merit. What a reader and a reporter regard as news are frequently at


odds. But when the two coincide, the result can be what makes local journalism special. The author, who has


also reported for the BBC, gives the example of a walk-in he dealt with as a newbie reporter on the Crawley News. He doubted the 78-year-old waiting for him at the front desk would have a breakthrough story, but what the man offered – a theory involving aubergines and climate change – was the perfect combination of the local and the global. “It’s a classic example of


why many people hold two (somewhat contradictory) views about local journalism,” he writes. “It’s ridiculous and it really matters.”


Working his way


through hundreds of responses from fellow journalists, Morrison takes a warm and witty approach to his eccentric material. There is the man who accidentally windsurfs from Swansea to Devon, the reader who brings in a jar of poisonous jam and the rumour of a serial swan killer in Dorking. So far so daft, but


there are also weighty stories – such as a drugs bust on a doctor – that prove you dismiss unexpected visitors at your peril. There’s Someone in


Reception: Adventures in Local Journalism, out now https://tinyurl. com/234u7orp


questions about what people consider to be normal. https://tinyurl.com/2ym88r5h


Exhibitions > David Kronn Collection


on her 35 years in the German Democratic Republic and her subsequent 35 years in a reunited Germany. As well as looking back to the fall of the Berlin Wall, she reflects on her conversations with the world’s most powerful people. https://tinyurl.com/28l9majv


Comedy> Jon Ronson’s Psychopath’s Night


On tour October 13–November 14 The journalist and filmmaker returns to a subject he tackled 15 years ago in The Psychopath Test, with further anecdotes and


WOMEX – Worldwide Music Expo Aviva Studios, Manchester October 23–27 By day, the music industry delegates have a trade fair. By night, the public are welcomed in for an international line-up of 50 acts representing folk, roots, jazz and electronica. https://tinyurl.com/2ythpa5y


Films > No Other Land


General release October 4 Created by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, this documentary is about Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham as they resist Israel’s mass expulsion of Palestinians from Masafer Yatta in the West Bank and record the steady destruction of a community. https://tinyurl.com/28vf6z28


Small Things Like These General release November 1


Killian Murphy and Emma Watson star in this Magdalene laundry drama. Based on Claire Keegan’s novel about a priest who discovers secrets in the town convent, it was acclaimed at the Berlin International Film Festival. https://tinyurl.com/2xl3m9mb


Never Look Away General release November 8 Margaret Moth was a fearless war reporter for CNN whose work took her to trouble spots in Iraq, Georgia and


Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin October 28–January 26 Irish-born, US-based collector David Kronn has given nearly 200 photographs to the IMMA. His fourth donation includes the work of modernist photographers such as André Kertész, Irving Penn and Berenice Abbott, as well as many contemporary works. https://tinyurl.com/24hg9d5o


Festivals > Other Voices


Cardigan October 31–November 2 Streaming for free on YouTube and taking place live in West Wales in its fifth year, the Irish-Welsh festival features Bill Ryder-Jones, Fabiana Palladino and Georgia Ruth, plus 90 more acts. BBC broadcaster Huw Stephens presents. https://tinyurl.com/23ujo4ze


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