Bloggin'

There must be a hack-speak word for when your story doesn’t get printed. My piece on worldwide shortages of radio-isotopes for medical imaging didn’t make it to the paper or the web-site. But my blog post on placebos did make it to the blog.

There is something slightly strange about the this. There is more on the Times on-line site than in the paper. You have to pay to view the on-line site. But as a “journalist” it’s easier for me to get my stuff on-line than in the paper. Obviously there are space and lay-out constraints in the paper that don’t apply on-line. But you have to wonder if the paywall is a bit of a swizz, if all you’re getting access to is the detritus that didn’t make it to the paper. Probably if they employed me I would get sacked for saying that. It is totally inappropriate to describe all of their on-line content as “detritus”. I haven’t even looked at most of it.

Today I have to go to a “press briefing” at the Royal Institute. This is sort of exciting – morning out of the office. But also a little scary – I’m representing the Times. Everybody else is too busy. Which is probably a good indication of how important the Times feels the press briefing is. I have never been to a press briefing, press conference, press anything before. When I asked what I was supposed to do it went along the lines of “oh just go and take some notes”. And you thought “see one, do one, teach one” was rushing it. Maybe there genuinely isn’t much to it, and I’ll work it out when I get there.

The briefing is on reducing smoking, drinking and drug-use amongst school children, with a particular focus on some new research on preventing cocaine use. I have done my homework. In 2009, the one-year incidence of cocaine use in 11-15 year olds was 1.2%. I’m not sure this is a serious public health problem. Which is presumably why I’m going.