GRRRRRRRRRR Journalists...

[eidsvold]

We had the strangest thing happen today - out of the blue this journalist leaves a message on our phone wanting to speak with us.

He then calls back when dh was home saying he had got our info from the DSA ( fine by us) he then wanted to interview dh then and there ( obviously about our experiences) for an article as he had a deadline. As dh was very busy he asked him to call back tonight when I was home as I was better at putting forward our story than he feels he is..... ( can't help being gobby - me ) The journalist then went on about deadlines etc and Stuart again apologised but he had stuff he had to do.

He called back tonight saying we had missed the deadline - sometime this afternoon - and he did not want us to pass negative feedback to the DSA about him. He did manage to interview another parent for the article - great...

Freelance he is - not on a paper as such (mentioned a national broadsheet) that he was hoping to publish article.

Surely he would have been working on this for a time (or am I just ignorant about the world of journalism ).... not just today to suddenly pressure people to discuss very personal issues and life events then and there after calling out of the blue....

I was pondering what I would say to him anyway, thinking it was an incredible responsibility putting forward our story that could impact so many people in so many ways.....it just seemed a lot of pressure to say to sh he wanted to talk then and there without giving him a chance to even draw breath let alone collect his thoughts.... could just see the potential for misquotes or different inferences being drawn

TC how did you do it ?

what a strange thing .....

I'm the journalist TC talked to but it was for a monthly magazine which is a lot more forgiving in its deadlines than newspapers - newspaper journalists are quite often told by their editors to get a story in the am for a certain time that afternoon which is one of the reasons I've never wanted to work on a newspaper! It's called writing 'on edition' - perhaps there is a topical hook for the the editor didn't want to miss. I agree, it does sound stressful and I don't like to work that way myself. I prefer to explain and let people think a bit first and I let them see what I have written before it is published so they can check it - none of which is usually possible when you are on staff at a newspaper. I hope this helps!

thanks aloha - I hope you did not take it personally He kept stressing the freelance aspect - that he was freelance and so would they have called today and asked him to get the story done today - he implied a weekend paper too.

Yeah and Aloha is fab!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edisvold - I deal with press every day at work and they always ring up saying they need something that second, it' s aways urgent, that's quite often how a lot of them work. Maybe something was dropped and they had the space to fill and so on.

It was a bit odd of him to call you, a parent asking you to discuss a matter so close to your heart and not give you a minute to think about it.

Shame they didn't pass him my number, i've been at home all day today and i'm never short of something to say!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Having said that, I like to think Aloha got an exclusive !!!!!!!!!!!!!! :0

Nice to hear there will be another story in the press soon about DS, just hope it's a positive one.