and finally...


Will today ever be one of the good old days?


Chris Proctor fears for the future of newsroom nostalgia T


o start a career in journalism these days, it’s advisable to have a degree, enough money to support yourself


while you make nothing on an internship as well as the luck of the Irish. Not so long ago, you needed a pen, curiosity and enthusiasm. The route into the trade was often through the locals. You turned up at the local rag wearing your smart clothes and a polite smile and, if they liked the look of you, you got a start. Gradually, you picked up the tricks of the trade. This was your calling card for regional papers and the golden goal of the nationals. The worse thing about being the junior reporter was that you got the worse jobs, the lowliest and most difficult being interviewing the relations of someone who had just died, vox pops and weddings. Barely out of short pants, you stood


outside a house where someone had died. Your hand trembled as you watched a finger stretched towards the bell. You desperately hoped everyone would be out. Just before you felt you could make a bolt for it, the door slowly opened. “Yes?” The two questions you had been sent to ask were “Did the deceased ever do anything even slightly interesting before yesterday?” and “Have you got a picture handy that I could borrow?” There were various ways in which the enquiries could be made but these contained the essence. If you were lucky, you got a “Not now” and your nose missed being caught by the closing portal. Almost as bad was being despatched to pick up a few vox pops to fill up a


space. It was when you realise how unobliging the human race can be, how determinedly they can avoid eye contact and how blind can be those who do not wish to see. Worse were the ones who did stop – the neighbourhood windbags. Reporting on a wedding was a rite to


be avoided as it was fraught with difficulties. The details you might notice, like the rat-eyed uncle and the nephew with the enormous ears, were of no interest: what the bosses required in the paper was a pristine list of guests (presented in an order acceptable to the in-laws) and a description of the bridal attire that was ingratiating rather than accurate. You knew you were going to fail. My colleagues mused for a moment on these desperate episodes from their past, bemoaned the fact that they were paid a sub-pittance for their efforts, flinched at the razor tongue of the editor who would examine their copy, and cried out at the unfairness and lack of sympathy of everyone else who worked there.


Then, they raise a glass to the mouth, sip, nod sagely, sigh – and slowly smile. “They were great days,” one


concludes. The mumbled agreement is universal. It’s the bizarre thing about nostalgia: it is the art of amassing facts and drawing irrational conclusions. Or just generally feeling miserable for the loss of something you never had. Mention any date more than a couple of decades ago and people recall it as a golden age of copper-bottomed, chrome-plated diamond geezers in a land of silver linings. We were all in our element. We weren’t. Somewhere, deep down,


we know this.


“ ”


It’s like the Americans and their awful


MAGAs. They burst with pride when they hear someone banging on about the days of their pomp. When was that exactly? All I can say is – don’t ask one of the Native American Pequot tribe. And I wouldn’t mention US greatness to the Vietnamese until they’ve forgotten living in tunnels for years to avoid the bombing. Mind you, a lot of them have probably grown nostalgic about subterranean dwelling by now and are positively thankful for B-52s. It makes me wonder what today’s


NUJ members will find to be sentimental about in a few years. “Great days. Do you know we were


allowed to edit the pages that AI had written? Not all pages, of course, but some. We didn’t even have to ask AI’s permission to make alterations in those days. I don’t know who Riley was, but we were living his life. ‘Then, some days, you’d sit there


Back in the day, we were all in our element. We weren’t. Somewhere, deep down, we know this


wondering how the clicks were going and thinking, ‘Only another thousand and we’ll be able to lash out on a tin of sardines!’ “Or when you’d get a call to do a story and, if you didn’t charge, they’d give you a byline. You didn’t even have to pay for it.” We’ll all chuckle about those simpler


days when the living was easy: “We had no money, but we were happy.” Well, nobody’s going to convince me in


30 years’ time that these are prime days for our trade. For one thing, I’ll be dead and, for another, readers and viewers are losing their trust in the national media and watching local outlets disappear. To lose these two things isn’t going


to make me nostalgic. It’s going to make me mad – and make me wonder if I did all I could to save them.


theJournalist |27


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