Adieu colleagues. What can I say to you? Do you know what I respect about you? That whatever we go through – and we have been through one Hell of a lot – still the stories get written, still the deadlines get met, still the newspapers come out. Sometimes I wonder how we do it. We do it because nobody cares about journalism as much as we do. What binds us is our professionalism and our dedication to our trade. By God, I shall miss that camaraderie. Stay in touch.

Farewell to the grubby sensuality of printing

There are other things which ceased to be part of my working life some time ago, but to which I feel the need to say goodbye. Bye bye inky fingers. Ta ra to the increasing clattering of keyboards as the deadlines draw nearer. Adieu to getting on my knees in the library to pull out files of black and white photographs and rub the red crayon marks from them with the sleeve of my jumper. Farewell to the deafening clamour of newspapers rattling along overhead conveyor belts into lorries blocking Printing House Street, so we could not get out of the building. Farewell to the grubby sensuality of printing.

Bye bye, Fort Dunlop. Ta ra M6, or rather the sight of you snaking your way through the estates of Castle Vale. Farewell standing in the bitter-cold opposite Moor Street Station wondering if the Urban Splash shuttle bus will ever turn up. Goodbye ladies loos, the secrets you have heard and the lipstick applications you have witnessed. You never did get those bog brushes did you?

Au revoir journalism

Au revoir journalism. This is the one which brings a tear to my eye as I type. I leave in the hope it is “ta ra a bit” rather than goodbye for good. We will always tell stories. We will always need story-tellers. Bye bye to the traditional ways of doing it – you were great, you really were. Hello wonderfully connected new world.

 

I want to learn digital media

I want to leave so I can become a writer who is as competent in the digital arena as I currently am in print.

I am in a more fortunate position than many of my colleagues in that I have worked for BPM Media, as it is now known, for 21 years and so my pay-off is relatively comfortable. I can buy myself the time to learn.

My plan is to spend the first few months of next year getting to know how websites are made. I want to learn HTML code. I want to understand FTP, SEO and WBMP format. I want to get canny with the back end of the internet so I can be more effective in the way I use it up front.

I love digital

I love the internet for its scope, its flexibility, its speed, its diversity and its potential to create community. I’m excited by the way, in theory at least, it makes it possible for anyone to tell his or her story. I came into journalism because I believe in story-telling. The world wide web has made this possible in ways that were unimaginable just 20 years ago. This is a good thing.

Sadly, it is also bringing about the crisis in the media industries which I and my colleagues are finding so painful at the moment. I have no idea what form the media of the future will take. I don’t know if Murdoch will prove that readers are happy to pay for newspapers online and thereby rescue not only the Times but the whole newspaper industry.

I want to combine story-telling and digital skills

I can’t tell if the Guardian’s response of inviting readers to subscribe to a newspaper-based club will turn out to be the business model that rescues all print from terminal decline. I have a sneaky feeling that Clay Shirky might be right when he says saving newspapers is not the answer and the whole edifice needs to come tumbling down before the new journalism – whatever it is – can emerge.

But I have a hunch that whatever form the media of the future is going to take, whether it will be niche and hyperlocal or multi-tasking in multi-media conglomerates, the people who are going to be really useful are those who combine traditional story-telling skills with both a social and technical understanding of the web.

I want to be one of those people. I’m fortunate in having the opportunity to become one. With moist eyes and tender feelings for the team to which I have belonged for almost all my adult life, I have handed in my form….

*I wrote this post originally for The Birmingham Post.

To be honest, it wasn’t a total revelation. I was told this as a child but I had completely forgotten it as it hadn’t been mentioned since. This is the first time I have seriously tried to take it in.

The news broke on same day that Trinity Mirror announced it was looking to axe between 60 and 80 posts in the Midlands, which means that my job, along with those of my fellow journalists, is seriously under threat.

But did I care? No, not that day because my great great great great grandmother was Elizabeth Fry and if she could reform the prison service, then I was damn sure I could work out how to support my family even if I didn’t have a job in the depth of a recession. You can’t touch me Trinity Mirror, I’m made of noble, worthy, heroic, pioneering, life-transforming stuff!

And then the next day I felt stumped because it was raining and I couldn’t work out how to dry the washing…

At a practical level, knowing I have descended from a long line of do-gooders (we will be revealing more in the Post over the next few weeks) makes no difference at all. The difference is at the level of imagination and identity.

But even there, my relationship to the news is complex.

On the one hand, I am glowing – radiating the light from the halos of my ancestors. On the other, I know that I am who I am, regardless of who has gone before me. When I meet people, I want to know them for who they are, not for who their families might or might not be – and that includes myself.

I am very glad to be getting to know my ancestors but I am also very glad I lived for 45 years before I did. I’m glad I was established as a professional feminist before I knew my great great great great grandmother founded the first national women’s organisation. I’m glad I had inquired about working as a writer in residence in prisons before I was aware I am a direct descendant of a prison reformer.

My first reaction to the news is to tell people – have a good old brag. But once it is integrated into my understanding of myself, I think it is something I will want to keep quiet. I will get photographs of the amazing women who have gone before me. I will keep them at home and when life is challenging, I will sit in their presence and silently draw from their strength.

*I wrote this article originally for the Birmingham Post.