Tuesday 7 August 2007

What passes for journalism

I am still waiting to see if The Messenger interview happens. I suppose something is likely to happen since they came and took my photograph.
All this begs the question about what passes for journalism. I was rung up for probably less than five minutes about decline in church attendances. Poorly formed questions, and even more poorly formed (very off the cuff) answers.
While the electric telephone is a great blessing it is also a liability. Once upon a time a reporter would actually have physically fronted you and would have had to spend 10 or 15 minutes engaging you in some face to face struggle. Now they can(and obviously do) sit at their desk and wonder who they can ring up.
I was interested because I was at a seminar yesterday when someone else referred to having been rung up for the same interview though for a different Messenger region. And I had been at something else a few days ago when a similar thing happened.
I had qualms at the time about what I was saying and what was being heard. They spent more time taking my photograph (what does that mean?) than getting my interview straight.

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