Thursday, September 16, 2010

The NIB*

Maybe you will have guessed from my tone that Tuesday was a slow news day at the British Science Festival. But we dutifully wrote and filed our copy. Two full pieces – one from science editor, one from science correspondent and media fellow combined. As we weren’t in the office on Wednesday morning with a big stack of papers to browse through, there was no opportunity to determine how successful we’d been.

“Have you seen the paper this morning?” asked science correspondent.

“There were a few things on the web” responded media fellow, optimistically.

“That doesn’t mean anything” said science editor, “I think your piece on alcohol got in as a NIB.”

“A NIB!” exclaim science correspondent and media fellow in unison, “we came all this way for a NIB?”

“Well, did you think there was anything worth more than a NIB yesterday?” asked science editor with sagacity and wisdom, “it’s not like there were any stories or anything.”

At least our piece got in as a NIB. Science editor’s piece didn’t even make it to the paper.


*News in brief. A hacking job done by someone who doesn’t get to work before noon that involves removing the majority of your words as well as your byline.

No comments:

Post a Comment