Monday, August 20, 2007

Newzzz

The local free sheet weekly continues, it seems, its decline from any pretence of conveying anything as sordid as news.This week it splashes on its front page as the most vital news item of the seven days something about the post office in Swanage now being a jolly good place.Well, we know this, surely, we go there, and are aware that it is rather changed from the dark days when it was run by a Conservative town councillor.The secondmost important news of the week is yet more advertising for the Monkey World attraction.When is someone going to produce a local publication which has news?There is, surely, enough of it about.Not least in and around the Town Council.
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46 comments:

Anonymous said...

Absolutely right.The local paper is a waste oftime it contains nothing about swanage folk of happenings WHY NOT?
Dancing Ledge.

20/8/07 11:40 am
Anonymous said...

quote

"swanage folk of happenings"

lost me!

21/8/07 9:44 pm
Anonymous said...

I agree we need a decent NEWS paper, not the present offerings with their moronic "dog saves family" type drivel.
We had a newspaper here when i was a kid, Swanage Times ?

21/8/07 9:49 pm
Anonymous said...

Isn't the Advertiser precisely what it says?
An advertising sheet first and foremost.
Anything other than an advert is a bonus!
You get what you pay for, and the Advertiser is not only free but it's delivered to you!
How much would you be prepared to PAY for a weekly local newspaper?

22/8/07 12:37 am
Anonymous said...

Just try to get something in the Gazette without paying for an advert too.

22/8/07 5:19 pm
Anonymous said...

What events meriting reporting in a newspaper happen in Swanage? The editor of the Advertiser must be banging his head on the wall. Its only a wrapper for the estate agents adverts anyway.

If you want to see a real local newspaper get someone to send you a copy of the Ham and High (Hampstead and Highgate Express) but count the estate agents ads in that.

22/8/07 5:21 pm
Anonymous said...

The front page showed a story about Swanage Post Office. The postmaster is both the Secretary AND the Treasurer of the Chamber of Commerce. He is right hand man to Ian Allen, Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce AND also Manager of the Swanage Advertiser.

22/8/07 5:49 pm
Anonymous said...

Well the post from 5.49 pm explains a lot.
I had heard elsewhere what 5.19 pm has to say about the Gazette and that does help explain why news only gets into its page almost by accident.
I'd like to have the current situation with the Town Council and its caravan site explained.
That really very odd tale does not seem to have troubled the local papers overmuch though the voters, and ratepayers, do deserve rather more of an explanation than can be gleaned from the Town Council minutes, even by attempting to read between the lines.

22/8/07 6:50 pm
Anonymous said...

As everyone seems to accept it's about advertising.
Getting an article in it usually means that it's been in the Echo, but I don't remember the grand reopening of the PO in there.
Still, might be wrong.

22/8/07 7:03 pm
Anonymous said...

The manager of the Advertiser was also responsible for forumulating the 'Town Plan', which of course was tied up with the Town Council, so don't expect too much against the Town Council and the caravan park to appear in the Advertiser.

22/8/07 8:23 pm
Anonymous said...

It's beginning to look like there's more of a story in who controls the news going into the newspaper.

22/8/07 8:25 pm
Anonymous said...

"The manager of the Advertiser was also responsible for forumulating the 'Town Plan',"

I have read some nonsense on here over the years but this takes the biscuit. It is complete nonsense. The town plan was put together by a whole number of people from a variety of organisations. Who dreamed up this fiction?

23/8/07 3:49 pm
Anonymous said...

Complete nonsense and absolute fiction? Perhaps. But there's an entry on the town council's website (reference below) that says:
Swanage Town Council supports "The Swanage Town & Community Partnership, a separately constituted body. This organisation is made up of representatives of the town and its hinterland."
Didn't the chairman - Ann Faulkner - rely heavily on the assistance of Ian Allen, manager of the Swanage Advertiser?
(Reference - you can see more on the town council's website if you put "Swanage Town & Community Partnership Council" into www.google.co.uk)

23/8/07 6:18 pm
Anonymous said...

You're wrong.

A. Faulkner was Vice Chair, I.Allen was just a member of the committee.

And anyway, if you honestly think that the Office Manager of the Advertiser can have any sway over the content of the newspaper, you're sadly mistaken.

23/8/07 6:27 pm
The Postman said...

and anyone's welcome to get involved with the Town Partnership. You could even volunteer to be chairman if you want..

23/8/07 6:39 pm
Anonymous said...

Dancing Ledge, George Willey's half page is all about Swanage every week, isn't it?
On the other hand, there's not a lot that happens here to report, is there?
All this nonsense about the manager of the Advertiser... storm in a tea cup, as usual!
We all know there is no corruption or abuse of power by those who run the town.
When has there ever been any?

23/8/07 7:59 pm
Anonymous said...

You've got to be joking!

23/8/07 8:47 pm
Anonymous said...

Well said, you're so right.

Now please as you're so knowledgeable, give us the evidemce.

23/8/07 9:38 pm
Anonymous said...

Well said! That will shut them up!

23/8/07 9:52 pm
Anonymous said...

Abuse of power. Well that was the very thing thing for which, in the limited terms of bullying staff, that Julia Wheeldon was banned for a year from being a councillor.
And that reminds me, where is Keith Marlow these days? His days as Mayor of Swanage and Chairman of PDC's Planning Committee have not been forgotten by all and cannot be forgotten.

23/8/07 11:32 pm
Anonymous said...

Yes, but the local paper used to report those goings on in full all the time, didn't it?

24/8/07 3:17 am
Anonymous said...

No, it did not

24/8/07 9:29 am
Anonymous said...

Without targeting individuals, talking generally, isn't there a conflict of interest between being manager of a local newspaper and chairman of the local chamber of commerce?

24/8/07 9:41 am
Anonymous said...

all credit to anyone who can do anything to promote either

24/8/07 9:44 am
Anonymous said...

The local paper appears not to have had any reporter based in the town for some years. I am told Swanage is reported on from by someone in the Bournemouth head office of the paper. Maybe they come over to pick up the mail once a week. In those circumstances the reporting staff might rely rather more on what they might be told by the office manager than is usual, or indeed, prudent.

24/8/07 6:00 pm
Anonymous said...

We are all so used to distortion of the truth by public figures that we tend to accept it nowadays.
We've also been brainwashed into not criticising individuals.
We deserve what we get. Unless we stand up for what we believe is right.

25/8/07 10:12 am
Anonymous said...

Its obvious that none of the "critics" have gone to the trouble of reading the town plan. It is the most anodyne of documents saying little more than this is a nice place and it would be good to make it nicer still,. Believe me, I sat through many of the meetings. Its veryhard to see how the involvement of a local office manager can have had a harmful effect, in fact its stark raving bonkers.

25/8/07 5:24 pm
Anonymous said...

It's also ridiculous to think that the local newspaper's office manager can influence the content to the extent of having anti-establishment matters censored.
He might be able to pull off a favour for a friend, as was previously alleged about the post office renovations being on the front page, but isn't that what friends are for?

25/8/07 6:07 pm
Anonymous said...

Time to move on now, I think.
There is a Chinese insult that goes: "May you live in interesting times."
Just be glad that so little happens in Swanage, it's a lovely place to be - get a daily newspaper and ask yourself if you really want news like that here.
As for any allegations of impropriety, there are channels if you have any evidence, otherwise follow that other advice and shut up unless it's (1) true; (2) good; and (3) useful.

25/8/07 6:33 pm
Anonymous said...

if it is indeed the case that the clerk who runs the office of the local paper has managed to swing what is in effect a free front page advertisment pssibly for a chum doubtless he will now have all those adverisers who spend large amounts regularly like the estate agents and car sales firms queuing up and asking why their bsuiesses do not get a similar deal.

26/8/07 2:27 pm
Anonymous said...

Swanage News = SNews = SNOOZE PAPER

27/8/07 10:11 am
Anonymous said...

The original poster wrote:

"The local free sheet weekly continues, it seems, its decline from any pretence of conveying anything as sordid as news... When is someone going to produce a local publication which has news?There is, surely, enough of it about."
Newspapers get their stories through press releases from companies, organisations and ordinary people telling them things.
Why not use this Blog to do just that? Create our own Swanage News here online!

27/8/07 10:16 am
The Postman said...

That's exactly why I set up this blog :because I felt it might provide a way of spreading news and information that we couldn't get elsewhere. Seems to be working: spread the word.

27/8/07 11:42 am
Anonymous said...

Wouldn't it be nice if someone, on behalf of this blog, could ask the local newspaper editor for a comment?

28/8/07 7:53 am
Anonymous said...

What an excellent idea! But wait, wouldn't that mean this particular subject might reach a conclusion?!
That's the difference between this blog and a newspaper. With a newspaper, a journalist could ask for a comment, whereas with this blog nobody is prepared to do it.

28/8/07 2:23 pm
Anonymous said...

But anyone could, if they wanted

28/8/07 3:12 pm
Anonymous said...

If the editor of the local snoozepaper was alert to what is going on, and being talked about, within the community, he, or she, or it, would have been able to blog a comment, just like the rest of us. The absence of anything like that says it all really.

29/8/07 9:44 pm
Anonymous said...

It's so easy nowadays too. You don't need teams of people to let you know what's going on. A simple free request to Google and you will receive email alerts about your chosen subject.
I have 'Swanage' as one of my alerts and it's fascinating to read the blog entries of people from all round the country who have visited here, quirky little news items you wouldn't know about otherwise, and even mentions in official documents.
But then again, I'm actually interested.
So, Mr Swanage Advertiser Editor, it's not difficult - surely you have a few people in Swanage who can feed you stories too?
As for the Entertainment section this week being devoted to the Christmas pantomime at the Lighthouse, Poole... well, that's Poole, it's only August still, and aren't you and your staff aware of the huge Swanage Folk Festival next week?
If you are planning to write something about the Folk Festival in next week's Advertiser, many people won't have their papers delivered till it's half over!

31/8/07 6:18 am
Anonymous said...

As Editor of the Doorstep Echo, sorry the Swanage Advertiser, (though it is delivered to your doorstep and it does echo what's old news over here in the real world),
where was I? oh yes...
You lot over there should be pleased to get anything at all. I mean, you don't exactly contribute to the news I can print in my paper over here, do you?
Swanage isn't exactly known for earth-shattering news of cataclysmic proportions, is it?
Although I do recall a spate of leaving-the-railway-gate-open stories a few years ago that made page 17... veritable crime wave for Swanage, as I recall.
No, when you start creating some news, then I might deign to print it.
In the meantime, the most exciting bit of news from Toytown this week is that the Wool Shop has been wound up, sorry, is still going strong after 100 years.
Not exactly something I can sell to the tabloids, is it?
Stability, that's your trouble!

31/8/07 8:15 pm
Anonymous said...

No news is good news

2/9/07 6:28 am
Anonymous said...

Do you mean that there is not such a thing as good news? as in: all news is bad news?

2/9/07 12:53 pm
Anonymous said...

Ahah! The Wool Shop is NOT a member of the Chamber of Commerce!
Some woolly thinking there... you (k)nit!

3/9/07 8:05 am
Anonymous said...

Steve Darrington writes:

Over the years the Swanage Advertiser has thankfully given me a great deal of publicity for the Blues Festival and my campaign to improve Swanage pavements for the elderly and disabled.
Yes, I am a member of the Chamber of Commerce, but only joined two months ago, so my success has nothing to do with it.
In my experience, frustration and blame usually emanates from lack of communication. Let me explain.

Many years ago I worked as an Assistant Proof Reader for the Westminster Press and saw thousands of successful Press Releases that had escaped the waste paper basket and been accepted, albeit edited, for publication.
So my advice is to put yourself in the Editor’s chair and answer these questions:

Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?

Six paragraphs, double-spaced, with full contact details of phone, mobile, email and an address, sent by email to a journalist you’ve already spoken to – that should do the trick.

As for council business not being reported in the paper, to do so would require one of their reporters being present at the meetings in the interests of accuracy. The Editor obviously doesn’t regard that as a priority, but someone could offer to write pieces for the paper and submit them to establish a relationship over time and prove their accuracy of reporting. That might work.

3/9/07 8:57 am
The Postman said...

You probably realised that the comment above [At 8:15 PM, Anonymous said... As Editor of the Doorstep Echo, sorry the Swanage Advertiser, (though it is delivered to your doorstep and it does echo what's old news over here in the real world),where was I? oh yes...You lot over there should be pleased to get anything at all etc etc ] was not from the person it claimed to be.
Please avoid this sort of thing. It's not only unhelpful and immoral, it's also illegal to make false representations. Don't forget that the technology does exist to track down the computers fromn which posts are sent. It also raise s again the whole issue of censorship and whether anonymous posts should be allowed.
So,please, let's keep this site open and honest,or it will lose any
value it may have.
Your Postman.

4/9/07 10:11 am
Anonymous said...

I apologise unreservedly to the real Editor of the Swanage Advertiser and Bournemouth Echo, The Postman, and anybody who did not realise my comment was meant entirely in a spirit of satirical enlightenment.
Truth to tell, I really thought that everybody would find it as funny to read as I did to write.
I'm still reeling from the suggestion that anybody could take it seriously or believe that the real Editor would comment in this way.
Any future comments will be unequivocally unambiguous.

4/9/07 3:14 pm
Anonymous said...

I have been fascinated to see how this particular story unfolded and I now feel it is time to put some of the record straight. I apologise for this somewhat long reply

The Swanage and Wareham Advertiser

1. The Swanage and Wareham Advertiser is free and delivered free to over 12,550 home throughout the Purbecks.

2. The Swanage Times was a paid for weekly, sold around 3,00O copies, and contained less "local news" than the current Advertiser. At today’s prices it would cost around £2. I have archive copies available in the Office if you want to check.

3. George Willey has over 50 years of experience writing about this area and his 1/2 page every week is a unique record of the people and events in this area.

4. The Neighbourhood news with its free listings helps a wide range of local organisations. Very few free papers do this.

5. Strict control of what can go into a paper that is put though peoples doors rather than bought is reflected in all free papers.

6. Editorial content is produced entirely independently of our business operation and is the responsibility of our Chief Reporter for Poole and the Purbecks, then with our Editor Neil Butterworth,

7. I cannot and do not say what editorial is used.

8. Yours paid for newspaper for this area is the Daily Echo.
Just 35p and “Daily Newspaper of the Year”- for London and the South.
(Sorry about the plug – -- No I’m not!). The Echo publishes a page every day devoted to Purbeck News and many other stories relating to this area.
It also has a very popular web site www.bournmeouthech.co.uk with a Purbeck section and hundreds of archived stories on this area.


Me – Ian Allen

1, I am Branch Offices Manager for the Daily Echo/Advertiser Offices in Swanage, Poole, and Blandford. As such I am responsible for the commercial operations and personnel in these offices.

2. Chairman of the Chamber of Trade – a voluntary position unpaid and elected by its members.

3. Swanage Town and Community Partnership – Vice Chairman a voluntary position unpaid and elected by its directors. Independent of the Town Council and with no political affiliations.

4. I am a member of the working party that produced the Swanage Strategic Plan.
The working group is responsible to the Swanage Town and Community Partnership and worked with the Market and Coastal Towns Initiative.
Dorset County Council, Purbeck District Council and the Swanage town Council a statutory obligation to take our Town Plan into account in all their planning. The group worked entirely independently from the Town Council.
Copies of the Plan are available from the Town Hall. A voluntary position unpaid and elected by its members.

5. I have no political affiliation but also work with a number of groups and Charitable organisations in this area. I could not do this without the full help and support on my company. Rather than any conflict of interest these group could not be maintained without the support of local businesses.

The Swanage Chamber of Trade

1. There are many challenges for small local business and the Chamber id there to support them.
2. The first Chamber to adopt a “Sustainability Policy”
3. Working to launch a Swanage and Purbeck Food Festival in June 2008.
4. Responsible for this Years Retails Awards – Presentation later in the year.

And much more.

I would love to go on but I am short of time as a believe that actually improving things is better than complaining about than. After all I am ready to discuss any issues with any one who would wish to contact me at he Advertiser Office 01929 427428

4/9/07 5:01 pm

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