There's a hell of a lot of self-preservation among journalists these days, which is entirely understandable given the cut-throat nature of the industry from local to national level. For every one reporter out there, there are a dozen more willing to take their place (off the top of my head, obviously) so reporters have to do all they can to make sure they don't put a foot wrong.
That gives rise to cameraderie where once there was rivalry because everyone recognises the need to pull together and watch out for each other. Don't get me wrong - rivalry still does exist when exclusives come in to the equation, but at a press conference where everyone is faced with the same information? No. It won't happen.
This is especially-so for reporters at local and regional level who feel the heat of job cuts and poor pay more. Why should they put themselves out for a publication that doesn't value the work they do or the efforts they make? The result is that they will make things as easy as possible for themselves and, because many friendships are also formed between rival reporters, they will all club together to sing from the same songsheet in situations such as the one you suggest. It's human nature. It's a pack thing, and I'm as guilty as the next man.

Old school journalism has gone, Les, and reporting works in a different way now. This is where the public is being fooled.
Long gone are the days where every single story is intended to scoop a rival - now it's far less common in comparison. Instead papers will pull together to help each other out and scratch backs - because they know their 'rivals' will one day scratch their back in return. Pictures are swapped, tip-offs given and copy shared between newsdesks and reporters. One paper is generally just as good as another although the public is continually allowed to think differently for the sake of the sales figures. Yes, standards in production, design or basic accuracy may be different but if you strip all of that away you'll find papers of a similar nature and style are generic and samey. This is the result of the focus of the industry changing dramatically during the last 10 years or so, in my experience. It's no longer imperative for publishers to inform the public because it's vastly more important to make money for the shareholders. That mentality is creating a divide between the management and the staff on the ground, and has changed how journalism is practiced completely.

Oh, wow. "Spoonfeeding babies"? Ask some of the harried PRs trying to round up interviewees how spoonfeedy it feels.

There's a divide here, between people who've worked for the news side of a national, and those who haven't. You wouldn't have written this if you were in the former group.

Reason why people share stuff like that - which is in effect public anyway - is twofold: to be sure you all have got the quotes accurate, because bad things happen if one of you gets it wrong; and so that you aren't roused from your dinner/drink/sleep by a furious night editor demanding to know why Paper X has a story/angle about subject Y that you don't, and demanding too that you do a 400-word rewrite RIGHT NOW, for the edition in 20 minutes.

It kind of takes the shine off the evening. It's happened to me at a dinner party, although to be precise that didn't come out of a shared press conference. Because if it had, it wouldn't have happened, if you follow my drift.

The competition between nationals exists, and takes place even at conferences like that, but you don't see it in the public bits like those. It's done in the bar, between press conferences, in corners of rooms, when they get back to the office.

I think you're too ready to see spoonfeeding and laxity; in reality there's no merit in being a lone wolf at such events (though Sunday papers won't play along; they need to find their own tales) because it's exhausting and ultimately pointless.

However your criticism does whet the appetite for pointers to all the exclusive stuff *you* do, Les Hack(s). What exclusive national-worthy stuff did you get out of that conference that the nationals didn't, for example?

The clue to this phenomenon may be the phrase "covered by specialist correspondents". I have seen such cabals in action for more than 30 years. (You know the ones I mean Charles.) It isn't new.

To a certain extent the scribes are covering their rears from ignorant news editors who know nothing about the subject and will scream if offered a different angle. ("But the Daily Bile says...") And if the subject really is specialist, they are comparing notes to see if they understand the, for example, obscure quantum physics.

When the conference is over, one or two members of this same clique of hacks will rush off to find their own exclusive stories. Sadly, most of them will do no such thing. They will return to their desks and will be led by the nose by the e-torrent that comes across their desks.

This is the real reason why there is a sameness in much specialist coverage. No one goes out to talk to people any more. The PRs just feed the internet torrent.

"And if the subject really is specialist, they are comparing notes to see if they understand the, for example, obscure quantum physics."

Precisely. The alternative is everyone trying to do their own interpretation of, for instance, the Riemann Hypothesis, or the Poincare Conjecture. See http://www.claymath.org/millennium/ - the list is on the RHS. They can make fantastic stories: the suspicion that the RH (or maybe PC) had been 'solved' made p3 of the Gdn a few years ago, from the British Association conference. But would you want to be the Press Association reporter, trying to write a version for the Daily Everything?

I don't agree about the squashing of specialist coverage completely, though. It's not that the journalists aren't interested in finding interesting, challenging, important stories. It's that the newsdesks don't want to run them; they prefer something with a celeb.

Though not here at the Gdn, thankfully.

However your criticism does whet the appetite for pointers to all the exclusive stuff *you* do, Les Hack(s). What exclusive national-worthy stuff did you get out of that conference that the nationals didn't, for example? - Charles Arthur wrote.

My god, Arthur, you are one of the most insufferable, complacent, self-satisfied, petty-minded, whinging, creepy little prigs I have ever heard.

The dullness of your responses is breathtaking. Of course, we all know why it happens, you dinner-partying prat. The point is to discuss whether it is a good thing. Who is well served by it? Is the kind of journalism we want?

Les raises this. Nice one. It's worth saying and not often said in public. But to issue cheap & infantile challenges - as if that had any bearing on the discussion - reveals you as part of the problem.

PJ

There is definitely a 'hive mind' effect among mainstream media, where they all report more or less the same thing.

But it's not collusion amongst specialists that causes it. It's a result of the fact that so much news copy comes directly or indirectly from the press association.

But does it matter? Not really. Not every story has to be an exclusive, and there's still plenty of appetite for finding original stories.

In fact, it's probably a good thing. The more real, properly sourced news the papers get spoonfed, the less sexed-up garage they have to run.

Just look at the Sundays for a taste of what happens if every story has to be 'exclusive'.

"My god, Arthur, you are one of the most insufferable, complacent, self-satisfied, petty-minded, whinging, creepy little prigs I have ever heard."

Well, I'm glad that we're not resorting to ad-hominem attacks, nor hiding behind anonymity, and bringing our own experiences to bear on this topic, and contributing to the discussion.

Oh no wait...

I did point out - as did Michael - where the exclusive journalism really happens at conferences like those, when the less experienced might only see lots of people apparently doing the same thing. I'm still interested to know what Les got. There might be a story in it.

And before I was on a national, my impression (when I went to pressers or conferences that they were at too) was that the national writers were a collusive bunch. It's true - but they're also very competitive. It's not like football teams, where the portrayal is that you hate your opponent. Perhaps more like lawyers, who try their best to do down their rivals in the courts, but can be friends outside. Does that mean we don't get the "law we want", just because barristers don't growl at each other?

Who is well served by journalists who go to a press conference, at which someone speaks, afterwards checking their quotes, and discussing precisely what's new and what's known about what's been said? The reader, that's who. Striving after nonexistent angles is what leads to the Daily Express's ridiculous front pages about Diana and immigrants and asylum seekers.

Charles

You think all the Les Hack posts are directed at you personally, don't you? Well, if the shoe fits...

I am not going to tell you what I got out of the conference because it's irrelevant. Fact is, if one of those lazy bums had got off their arses and actually spoke to some real people they would easily have got good stories and provided some real diversity in coverage of the event.

Striving after nonexistent angles? Every decent journalist knows the real stories at conferences are to be found off piste. As it happens, a couple of the broadcast journalists at this particular conference did exactly that - the national newspaper journalists preferred to spend their time grazing on the free buffet.

Les
Tip here for you. Press conferences aren't great places to go for exclusives. There are too many other nosey journalists there, listening in. Do you really expect anything else? Of course journalists discuss the line they are going to take and accuracy of quotes. Press conferences, by definition, are set up to spood-feed information. If you don't like it don't go, you know what you're going to get. Do readers expect anything else from a press conference? I can't beleive they do.
I don't know if you've been to court, Les, but you'd be shocked to find out what goes on there too. Again, it's a forum set up to impart information.
Evidence is read out, notes are taken. Outside court quotes are checked for accuracy and discussion takes place about the line you are going to take. You then write the story, happy that you've not missed anything etc etc and you're not going to get a bollocking from the desk later that night.
I don't see anything wrong with that. It's horses for courses. The exclusives and competitiveness happen elsewhere. What do you want hacks to do at press conferences, steal the press releases so they can keep 'the line' for themeselves??

Jimmy

Thank you for your comment. In this case the conference was not specifically for the press, it was a conference for the members of a trade organisation.

Yes, there were press conferences arranged within it, and yes, some of the main debates were stage managed for the purposes of grabbing media attention.

But there were plenty of other good stories to be had and I think that the readers deserved to hear them too.

Point taken. In a large conference like that the difficulty is that you can't physically cover every speaker, every debate. Therefore, you are going to be directed to some extent by the PRs. The danger, if you go 'off piste', is that you will miss the best line - irrespective as to whether the PRs have chosen it or not. I would say that nine times out of ten that would turn out to be the case. So your off piste story is filed to the newsdesk and is so weak it doesn't get in the paper. Who benefits from that? Not the readers, surely?

***My god, Arthur, you are one of the most insufferable, complacent, self-satisfied, petty-minded, whinging, creepy little prigs I have ever heard.

Pot. Kettle. Black.
Or should that be 'White', PJ...?

You think all the Les Hack posts are directed at you personally, don't you? Well, if the shoe fits...

No, I don't; but I've got experience of what you're writing about here both as a non-national and a national hack. Hence my comments.

I am not going to tell you what I got out of the conference because it's irrelevant. Fact is, if one of those lazy bums had got off their arses and actually spoke to some real people they would easily have got good stories and provided some real diversity in coverage of the event.

I really think you're going to *have* to tell us what this event was, and what the nationals got, and what you got, and what the nationals "should" have got, because otherwise it's turning into "I shall write stories that shall be the terror of the earth, though none shall know what they will be." In other words, grandiloquent grandstanding that isn't supported by any facts, which gets a bit trite after a while.

You might be completely justified in what you say. You might say "It was conference X, look at the speaker list on the web there (link), look what got written (Y), look what they should have written (Z)." And perhaps I'd say "Wow, you're completely right." You don't know until you try.

Trouble is that you're not giving us any objective way of evaluating it. Come on! Tell us what the conference was! Else you're going to look like a complete wafflebag.

Nice try, Chas.

Nice try, Chas.

Gee, that's not even cowardice in the face of the enemy. It's cowardice in the face of the prepared-to-give-a-sympathetic-listening. Win the argument about the particular, and you could start to win the argument about the general.

Without some more facts from your side, it's legitimate to ask whether any of what you claim to have seen actually happened. Journalism is about facts. Sometimes, so is blogging. I contend that this is one of those times.

Tell us about the conference. Go on go on go on go on go on..

Yeah Les, tell us. Go on. There's a good chap.

Charles wrote: "Without some more facts from your side, it's legitimate to ask whether any of what you claim to have seen actually happened. Journalism is about facts. Sometimes, so is blogging. I contend that this is one of those times.

Tell us about the conference. Go on go on go on go on go on.."

This is silly rubbish. There is no factual dispute. You are happy for journalists on national papers to attend a conference, be spoon-food a line, collude on the story, offer to write each other's pieces...all to make working life easier for themselves and ensure a trouble-free social life.

Others disagree.

That's all.

PJ

Sorry Chas, sorry Monkeyman, prudence does not permit. And prudence is not a lady to be messed with.

Besides, you have all pretty much agreed that this sort of behaviour is standard practice. The only thing that some of you can't believe is that there are journalists out there with the guts to go out and find a story for themselves, or even that those stories are there to be found.

Journalism students spend a good deal of time at college learning the answers to the question "What is News?"
The sad fact is, however, that rates for writers are so poor that it is only staffers that can afford to go to venues, for days, to get leads for a conference report and a couple of follow up columns; and without any "independents", what is published from the learned experts delivering the speeches, in the form of extracts from their academic published papers, and what is 'reported' by the journalists is unlikely to differ much. We live in a "cut 'n' paste" world!

It might look like the correspondents from the nationals are not getting out of the press room to get their own stories at some events, but that's not always the case. And there are good reasons for going with the PR-organised meetings.

I've been to a number of conferences (either science or technology) where most of the national coverage comes from press-room sessions rather than the conference floor itself. And plenty more where no national journalists make it. The reason for the difference? The ability of the PRs to deliver speakers with potential stories. If you talk to the correspondents doing these conferences you quickly find out that the reason for them going to the conference at all is because the PRs are good are making sure that meetings happen and that the speakers they line up have worthwhile information. Without that, conferences quickly lose their ability to pay for the time spent in stories. With the press-room system, you can easily turn in three stories in a day; without it, you might not be able to complete even one.

Lets face it, the PRs have already been through the programme looking for topics that are most likely to generate national-friendly stories, so as long as they know what they are doing the hit rate on press-room sessions is going to be lot better than trying to do the conference floor. Ive certainly got different stories from these conferences, but rarely has one popped up that was instantly a story without a lot of extra research. Youll often find something that should ultimately make it but it will take longer than the four- to six-hour window that daily reporters will be working to. The PRs who organise these bashes are smart: they make sure most of the good meetings are out of the way by around 11:30am, ready for a call to the newsdesk, and that back-up quotees can be found to meet a mid- to late-afternoon deadline. That's good planning, and worth exploiting if a PR is going to do that much for you. The main conference is rarely organised as conveniently. The system works so well, youd need a good reason not to go for it if you have pretty fixed daily deadlines to hit.

The correspondents run the risk of having the same wrong story Ive seen it happen once. But that was because the academic involved was operating outside his normal field and had missed something that experts in that field (who were not at the conference) spotted almost instantly. And people will step outside the system if it suits them. At the same conference, a government agency had nobbled one of the speakers effectively barring them from talking to journalists. The obvious thing to do was simply to turn up at their session, which I duly did. As did the correspondent from one of the (former) broadsheets, as I found out when I buttonholed the speaker at the end and realised he was right behind me.

Ive not seen anyone finish someone elses story, however. If the co-operation were a lot deeper than just checking quotes and sitting in on the same meetings, the pack would split up and leave just one person in the press office to deal with the PR-organised meetings while the rest went and found some other angles that they could all share later.

There is also an intriguing dynamic between the dailies and agencies like PA. Not so much sharing there.

Carole said: "The sad fact is, however, that rates for writers are so poor that it is only staffers that can afford to go to venues, for days, to get leads for a conference report and a couple of follow up columns."

Really, that's never been my experience as a freelancer. But it may be true for crap freelancers who can't get enought work - or for part-timers.

Of course, there are those journalists who just don't want to go out to make contacts, meet the readers in the flesh, hear what's bugging them, etc. But then why bother getting into journalism?

As someone who began to work in PR for reasons I won't bore you with and now finds herself heading back towards more journalism, I can't believe sometimes how much stuff in all our papers comes from PR. A particular bugbear of mine is when a company commissions a survey that happens to tie in with say the launch of a new TV programme or DVD or even worse, say a new brand of pizza, and we all have to read for the nth time about who our comedy heroes are or God forbid, what our favourite pizza toppings are.
I am also worried when people who are working as freelance journalists say they have been offered some work to 'pitch features mentioning x, y or z'and want to know how to go about this. Two people have asked me this in the last two days. I reply in my usual rambling fashion that this is not advisable - that this is PR work, that they absolutely shouldn't 'pitch a feature' based on a possible client and that they should either take on the work on the clear understanding that their role is to prepare press releases and hope to encourage objective journalists to take an interest, or they leave it alone because they are journalists.

The PRs who organise these bashes are smart: they make sure most of the good meetings are out of the way by around 11:30am, ready for a call to the newsdesk, and that back-up quotees can be found to meet a mid- to late-afternoon deadline.

Indeed. Case in point from my experience writing for a daily: the British Association [of Science]. First presser: 8.30am. Pressers every half hour, each a potential story, until about 1pm. Write up (or at least offer) stories for newsdesk. (They'll want two or three. Which are the best three out of the five, six, seven you went to?) Find stories for tomorrow from list. Repeat for five days.

By the end you're so punch-drunk you're glad if the pressers only come each hour. Finding a different story would be great, but on a broadsheet the PA copy isn't usually sufficient, so the desk wants your style and your byline on it. And those which take PA usually don't send someone to the conf.

As to "what is news" - news is what gets printed in newspapers :-) (This from the dictionary where under "recursive" it says "see recursive".)

Just got back to this discussion. (Is there any way for a technical illiterate like me to feed it into my RSS reader?) And I find that Charles has named the event that I had in mind the "BA".

The best way to cover this annual shindig is to go, as "Le Shack" puts it, right off piste. (I say this as the person who encouraged the BA to emulate its American equivalent and to set up the press briefings.) The last time I went to a BA, a couple of years back, the best stories were not those covered in the "pressies," but were given as talks where journalists were notable for their absence.

Unfortunately, were a newspaper reporter to do that their technically illiterate news editor would go apeshit. ("They had this in the Daily Bile, how come you missed it?") The hacks themselves would also run the risk of sitting through 30 minutes of science that does not add up to a story.

Press conferences are really a way to save time at the expense of getting good copy.

Hello Michael, thanks for the suggestion for a comments feed.

You can try this - http://www.hackles.co.uk/recent_comments.xml

Let me know if you have any problems.