Media Diet Week 42

Press: once again, I've been sampling the joys of our national railway network and unsurprisingly this involved spending at station newsagents. I quite like hoofing down to London for meetings - it's a welcome break from the computer and the opportunity to indulge in print media. Wednesday's trip involved buying The Guardian and a copy of Look (because I love the high st. fashion spreads). I had little chance to read either as I got involved in a lengthy conversation with the traveller opposite, who turned out to be a repo man. He's working in interesting times (and in the field of business equipment repossession) so the insights were fascinating. For once, I didn't mind not reading on the train. On the journey home the next morning, I made an impulse purchase of Mojo, lured by the cover splash of the feuds that led to The Clash splitting and the free CD of rebel songs. Opening Mojo, I was reminded why I gave up buying rock mags a while back, despite my background as a rock hack. Today's crop are full of self-indulgent, rambling nonsense by writers of my generation who can't accept that punk is long gone and keep rehashing their own brand of nostalgia, like picking at scabs on the knee. I haven't tried the CD yet, it better be worth it. Also, Mojo has a truly nasty serif font in a ridiculously small point size that makes reading difficult and means I may never get round to investigating the finer points of the Clash break-up.

Blogs: this week's big theme has been Twitter. Dave Lee blogged first about his thoughts on extracting the best out of it. I also posted some thoughts. The Guardian's Charles Arthur reckons link-sharing is key to Twitter, while Sally Whittle shared the hilarity of TwitterKarma and etiquette. Me, I think Twitter is undoubtedly fantastic for spreading linky love but it is also a jolly useful grease gun for oiling the wheels of social networking - Twitter-natter is good for getting to know people and, this week especially, supporting friends and colleagues through tough times as they cope with dying pets and other stresses. On a technical note, I'm reluctantly contemplating abandoning Bloglines forever. Its RSS feed is still delivering the goods hideously late, unacceptable when you're in the media and need stuff quickly. My back-up is Google Reader and I'm probably going to switch permanently to that, despite my reluctance to succumb to all things G. At least Reader is reliable. And if IT apps don't want to lose market share to the Google monolith they need to ensure they are up to scratch.

TV/radio: the start of the week was full of gems on the small screen. Last Sunday, the ever-delightful and interesting Stephen Fry kicked off his US travelogue on the Beeb - yes, it was cosy and a tad predictable but it was perfect Sunday night viewing, especially as Fry has an unerringly instinctive eye for the quirky. Lulled into warm cuddliness, I flipped over immediately after to watch former Blair spin-doctor Alistair Campbell talk with extraordinary frankness about his breakdown in Cracking Up. This was top-notch telly - uncomfortable to watch at times but also important as TV desperately needs to show more good programmes about mental health, especially as 1 in 5 of us will suffer from depression at some point. I also enjoyed the opener of Wired on Monday, a thriller about bank fraud (great timing!) - it got off to a good start, let's hope it can sustain the pace and deliver a cracking denouement. Charlie Brooks (ex-Janine in EastEnders) was woefully underused, though.

Books: I'm still on The Arsenic Labyrinth! I know, I know, it's been 2 weeks already and I'm still only just over halfway through. I'm determined to finish it this week. Especially as I have some essential reads stacking up in the to-read pile.

Twittering on...

Journalist Dave Lee recently wrote an interesting blog post about using Twitter. As a Twitter user myself, I've found it incredibly useful. I subscribe to a number of useful news feeds from various media organisations and most of my tweep crowd are fellow hacks or flacks - it's good to be able to swap links on interesting new stuff (you never know when that might trigger an idea for a pitch). I've been offered the opportunity to beta-test new tech products and I've chatted to editors about possible topics for features (I once saw a colleague pitch an idea to an ed and secure the deal, all by tweeting!). I also use it as my water-cooler to chat to colleagues and my handful of non-work friends using it.

I had tried Twitter last year but didn't "get" it at the time. This time round, I picked up on its uses right away.

Dave Lee is absolutely right when he points out that news organisations such as the Beeb need to sort out their Twitter feeds and also engage in conversation. I use the BBC Magazine feed - while it follows me back, my attempts to engage in conversation have been met with silence. What's that all about? I'd really like to build a relationship with BBC Magazine via Twitter, as one day I might pluck up the courage to pitch them. Not responding means you might as well just pump out a bog-standard RSS feed if you don't want to converse with your followers.

Most of the hacks I follow tweet a well-balanced mix of links to their articles or blogs, or links to other stuff of interest, chit-chat on newsworthy topics (yes, we're all chucking in our tuppenceworth on the financial crisis right now) and personal stuff. Those I followed who turned out to be only tweeting what they ate for lunch or whatever, I unfollowed fairly quickly. My day is full enough already and there's no space for that kind of pure trivia - it's best left to blogs or chatting to mates on Yahoo Messenger.

I blogged the other day that Stephen Fry has joined Twitter and how rapidly he got followed by thousands (and also very generously began following many of us in return too). I hope Fry's Twitter experience won't be as crippling as his Facebook one - he was obliged to create a fan page on Facebook to manage his massive fanbase and the demands it put on his already limited time. Twitter definitely seems to work best when you exercise some control over who you follow and (occasionally) let follow you back. That said, Fry's already been regaling us with some splendid photos hot from his trip to Kenya (including the notch of a rhino's ear!) and it's fun to have this little peep into his extraordinary life. I enjoy tennis ace Andy Murray's tweets for the same reason.

Twitter is definitely at its best when it combines focus and the personal and is reciprocal.

Media Diet Week 41

Press: the turmoil on the financial markets around the world this week has meant the papers have been out of date even before they rolled off the presses. Fortunately, papers these days are online too and the best ones update hourly or even faster. Print editions are best left for in-depth background features as the headlines change so rapidly. I've been glued to the Guardian this week for financial updates and also Robert Peston's blog on the BBC website, which to my mind has the most incisive analysis and most interesting forecasts. The best other material I've read this week is the Guardian's G2 special today on deafness. It's great to see disability being covered intelligently and with some humour too. More please.

Blogs: there seems to have been a theme this week out there in cyberspace - word lists. First, I stumbled over Difficult Words, which was a fairly comprehensive list of words that are often confused with others (hat-tip to Juliet). I also rather enjoyed BBC Magazine's wordy musings this week - the bizarre story of the dictionary reader, Ammon Shea, who is a tad obsessed with the vast vocabulary of the English language. Following on from that, the Magazine published our 50 favourite words, some of which are splendidly silly. And there's also the Magazine's very handy list of financial jargon, which is pretty useful right now. When editing financial stuff (daily in my case), these are largely familiar to me but I've yet to see my clients using "dead cat bounce". Still, at least I'll know what it means if it does crop up.

TV/radio: a thin week as I was out a lot and, as usual, resorted to BBC iPlayer to stay up to speed with EastEnders and The Archers. I managed to catch all of Place of Execution, which finished this week, a fairly faithful adaptation of Val McDermid's brilliant crime novel. The only other telly of note was Never Mind the Buzzcocks, which I used to watch religiously when Mark Lamarr was in the driving seat. I lost interest when they tinkered with the format (now back to how it was) and I never quite took to Simon Amstell. But Buzzcocks was essential viewing on Thursday as Stephen Fry was guest captain oppposite Phill Jupitus. Needless to say, Fry was his usual brilliant self, but I don't doubt viewing figures were pushed higher after Fry made an appearance on Twitter the same day. Within hours he'd amassed a following of thousands and I was overjoyed when he started following me in return. Whodathunkit?

Books: busy week, so still only a third through The Arsenic Labyrinth. How did I run out of time to read books? Twenty years ago, on a career break to do my degree, I thought nothing of reading 7 or 8 books a week and I went out almost every night back then. These days it seems to take a month to get through just one.

Fry's English too light

The last two Monday mornings I've been tuning into Fry's English Delight. Like its almost-namesake, it's a slice of frothy confectionery - apparently tasty at the time but rather sickly sweet and utterly unmemorable. After this morning's episode, I can barely remember what was discussed apart from the opener about the white-van man offering quotations as he drove around London. This is not my memory failing me, but a programme of little substance. And so very disappointing - Fry is usually not only witty and sharp but also manages to take listeners on an exciting trip with him. Not this time - this was Fry's Quirkless Too Lite. Fry is an official national treasure - was I wrong to expect more of him?

Elsewhere, following up yesterday's Tesco story, I stumbled across a report in today's Daily Mail (normally a paper I avoid) which tells the world that Tesco has still managed to get its grammar wrong, even while cleaning up its act. Complete with pic: