How Not To Impress The Press
Now I know what it feels like to be a stall-holder at the Barras. Today I had to stand up and tell the Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press about all the exciting things we have planned for Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Radio Scotland in the next six months. Trouble was, I was competing with every other department head at Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Scotland and they were also trying to translate their spiel into column inches. They had video clips. I had yoghurt stains on my jacket. Luckily these were spotted by eagle-eyed producer Janie Murphy just minutes before I entered the Viewing Theatre at Pacific Quay.
I was given two minutes to talk about the 9,000 hours of programmes we broadcast every year. I had to be selective, so I told them about our plans to record every piece of work by Robert Burns, about our new Friday night rugby programme, the new drama written by Alexander McCall Smith, a new panel game hosted by Gail Porter and, as the market-stall fantasy began to overtake me, I thought about giving away a free set of tea-towels with every press release. But I didn't.
My main problem when talking to reporters is that I'm always more curious about them than they are about me. Kirtseen Paterson, for example, told me she was a reporter from The Metro and I immediately started quizzing her about the free newspaper market and heard how First Scotrail tend to be over-zealous with their clean-up policies so that train commuters don't get the chance to read the newspapers scattered around the carriages.
Another reporter was describing the perils of going freelance without "the cushion of a nice Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú pension" and said he felt he only had ten years of a career left before his brain cells gave out. What could I say? I suggested he turn to a life of crime.
Anyway, we got good coverage for the Burns project in and the Metro, and Gail Porter's show got a mention in the Express. No one mentioned the yoghurt.
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