Who watches the watchers?
UKUncut march _31-1, originally uploaded by nisuspi.
One of my favourite pics from Saturday. There’s a few similar ones on my Tumblr page.
Finding the time to write
It’s not often I read an article online and sit and nod sagely at almost every line. But while Googling for the exact wording of the famous Virginia Woolf quote – “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” – I found this meandering muse on ‘creative time’ from David Boucher.
It’s a light, fun read and well worth it, looking at how different writers throughout history have managed their ‘work time’ – a subject I’m thinking lots about at the moment as I try to juggle an ungodly number of projects at once, very few of which actually pay any money in the short term. Today has been a case in point. I have five or six features all on the precipice of being finished, and yet only managed to actually get one done in between the phone calls, the emails, the essential news catching up, swimming lessons and so on.
I think the only example Boucher misses is the famous one of JG Ballard, who wrote prolifically while a single father of three, and never once neglected his children (read this outstanding obituary by his daughter and try not to feel a bit of shame for ever having felt you couldn’t juggle family and work well).
Community Newswire announcement — Media Trust
Community Newswire, the Press Association backed service that gives charities access to the same press release distribution as commercial clients for free, is suspending its service. I’ve used CN a couple of times as part of my LearnAsOne work, and although I had no idea it was part funded by government money. It’s really sad though – getting a press release out to the national papers and local news organisations is really hard for non-profit groups without the help of CN.
Is Googling a new journalist’s name fair?
Curiously, I’ve read several articles recently by editors looking to employ journalists full time or freelance who’ve said that the first thing they do is search for the applicant’s name and ‘journalist’, and if they aren’t the first link that Google throws up, they’ll delete the application. It came up in the Guardian’s recent web chat about freelance writing, for example. The point is about the importance of SEO in writing today – something I find quite sad but, as an ex-editor, can understand.
I’m not sure there is such a thing as ‘good’ SEO, which is when writing is crafted to maximise search engine visibility without affecting the quality of the work or the message of what you have to say, although I do tend to practice it where nowadays whether a commission for a website specifically asks for it or not. At least I do where it’s relevant – in things like reviews and short news stories, not so much the long form stuff.
It’s just a fact of writing online now.
I find it the editors in question (I won’t link to them here) attitude a bit disheartening though. After all, what if you have a surname like, oh, I don’t know, say… ‘Oxford’. All the SEO skills in the world are going to struggle against the might of the University Press when it comes to getting top links, especially given all the authors in history whose works get listed as “Surname, Adam (Oxford)”. Google doesn’t really recognise brackets you see, but an editor looking to carve through CVs isn’t going to think of that.
It’s only because I have a very large and well established portfolio of writing that I tend to float to the top when googling my name these days. It took years for that to happen.
If I was just starting out my name would, apparently, hamper my ability to get hired. I’d like to think that that would be a bit short sighted of a potential employer.
A day of demos
As part of my ongoing attempt to push myself as a journalist and try new things, yesterday I followed the UK Uncut demonstration with the specific objective of waving my press card around and finding out what photos I could take under pressure. It was interesting, to say the least, and I can see why those who cover these events full time do it, I need to think a bit about what I learned before deciding what to do next time.
I am going to work up a photofilm of the day when I get a moment. In the meantime there’s tons of pics over on Flickr and also Demotix.
I didn’t want to cover the larger TUC march, mainly because I knew there’d be more journalists there (the NUJ had a large presence just as demonstrators). Also, it was clear that Uncut would be taking part in direct action protests, and therefore would be the story most discussed the following day – regardless of who was speaking in Hyde Park. I’ve haven’t been on many marches in the past, and was curious to see with independent eyes what really happened yesterday.
Brighton Uncut, the local chapter of UK Uncut, announced on their website that they’d be meeting up at Brighton Station at 8.30 in the morning, so I figured I’d tag along with them. Come 8.30, though, the only people getting on a London train were a group of students called Climate Carnival, themselves a splinter group from Climate Camp, apparently. It’s all a bit ‘Judean People’s Front’, but they were sort of affiliated with Uncut too, so I followed them to their assembly point outside the National Theatre.
A lovely group of people they were – mostly drama students I think. I caught up with them later outside TopShop (an hour after the paint bombs were thrown) where they were enacting a piece of mask work about the death of social services.
Brighton Uncut, though, were supposed to be meeting at Kennington Park at 11am. So I wandered against the flow of people pouring out of TUC-affiliated buses which were dropping off hundreds of workers and families all the way from Waterloo Bridge to Lambeth North.
At Kennington, though, there was no sign of Uncut – instead it turned out to be a confusing mix of slightly further left wing groups like Socialist Worker, headed by the ‘TUC Armed Wing’ and its spokesperson, Chris Knight – he who lost his job as a university professor by (joking) called for bankers to be hung on Twitter.
I think one of the purposes of this feeder march – and almost certainly of the Armed Wing – was to provide as much of a disrtraction as possible and tie up police resources. They started off by marching the wrong way, then diverted from the planned route at Lambeth North to meet the main march at Westminster, confusing the police trying to manage traffic around Westminster Bridge Road.
Later, the Armed Wing would drop its giant sackcloth Trojan Horse outside the gates to Downing Street and several other buildings in Whitehall, drawing in a phalanx of police and photographers before picking it up and moving off.
Next stop was Trafalgar Square, where Knight set off an air raid alarm and promised ‘the revolution would start at eleven minutes past two’. Actually, all that started was a couple of fireworks – which almost set fire to the horse – but given the timing I assume this was planned to try and divert police away from Oxford Street, where Uncut or its anarchist contingent were – apparently – beginning to paint bomb TopShop.
After this I stopped following the Armed Wing, although apparently they did burn the horse later on in Oxford Circus – again, I think this was part of a distraction while Uncut entered Fortnums.
At no point, I should add, throughout the day did I see the Armed Wing actually start real trouble or cause any damage beyond staying in Oxford Circus longer than anyone else. Part of the problem with coverage of yesterday is, to me, the definition of ‘violence’. I saw a few paint bombs thrown and one person get too close to police with a handheld flare, but personally I wouldn’t describe that as violence. Intimidating, maybe, and messy.
//update – What I’ve actually learned from this video is that the group I was following flanked a police line which was holding the main body of the protestors away from the back door of Fortnums. What’s odd is that it does look intimidating on screen, but actually from where I was (I appear around 8 minutes, standing next to the police line) things really didn’t feel out of hand. Yes, there was chanting, and one paint bomb was thrown, but a lot of the people near the police were actually journalists, and as you can see in the first part of the video, there wasn’t actually any fighting between the protesters and police. Just everyone doing their job. //
Certainly at this point the throng of shoppers and tourists didn’t look especially worried (a bit pissed off maybe). I’m not sure I’d consider lighting a fire in Picadilly ‘violence’ either. When I passed through there just before the barricade went up (around 5pm), it was just a throbbing mass of people. You couldn’t tell who were protesters, who were shoppers and even the police just stood in the middle of the mass looking a bit confused.
But I digress. Before this I’d been milling around Oxford Circus, waiting to see what Uncut’s bug 3.30 action would be (this is when I saw the Brighton Climate Carnival actors). The Circus was completely occupied and – I understand – had been for a couple of hours since the main march passed through.
It’s worth mentioning at this point that although the Hyde Park rally had begun, parts of the main march were still passing Trafalgar Square – further confusing some of the news reports about which streets were closed by ‘bands of anarchists’ and which were closed as part of the TUC demo. I saw a lot of people give up and start going home at this point
Back to Oxford Circus, though, and a people seemed to be just standing around not doing much. I wandered down Regent’s Street, which seemed to be the general direction the crowd was moving in, as a line of riot police ran in front of the Apple Store – only to defend it from a group of children dressed as Robin Hood, who apologised profusely for knocking over a shopper’s bike as they danced around the cops.
What strick me as odd here was that there were no problems at the Apple Store until the police arrived – then a few of the ‘black bloc’ protesters – the ones that wear masks – who’d been on the Special Brew started shouting abuse and a single paint bomb. I asked them why, and was told that they were ‘the calm before the storm’, trying to spread police resources as thinly as before the ‘main event’.
This was when the pace picked up a bit. I followed a bike-mounted sound system which seemed to be leading a group of around a hundred or so students mixed with black blockers and black and red flag waving anarchists. What I should make clear here is that, unlike the main march in which groups were clearly delineated by colours and placards, this group could have been anyone. Clearly the police weren’t expecting them – two regular officers and three riot police were running as fast as I was to keep up.
Again, I’m sure the purpose of this group was distraction. They headed out to Hannover Square, passed through the main march on Maddox Street (or it might have been Conduit Street) then broke off south again, before doubling back to Fortnums. As we arrived at Fortnums, protesters were already inside and riot police were running to block off the back door.
A black and red flag came out of a first floor window, and a cheer went up.
Now, the reason I’m going into this detail is because – as I mentioned – it was impossible to identify which group was which during the whole movement towards Fortnums. UK Uncut has said it is only interested in peaceful protest, and the media blame anarchists for starting the violence. Two things are apparent: masked protesters and people with anarchist flags were among the first to get to Fortnums, and were helping to distract the police. This may have been unplanned, I don’t know. Secondly – I really didn’t see any ‘violence’. From what I understand little damage was done inside Fortnums, and many of the ‘occupiers’ were genial retirees. The problems such as they were came later, and judging by the state of the crowd as I left around 6pm were more to do with daytime drinking than anything political motive.
Plus, it’s worth mentioning that some people on Twitter claim to have evidence that Sky News were offering bribes to protesters who’d throw rocks.
I left Fortnum’s earlier than I should have done I think, passing through Picadilly then onto Trafalgar Square, before I left to catch the train home (hey, I’ve got a four year old I had to get up with this morning).
Three things strike me though. First off, the police that I saw – with the exception of one officer outside Fortnums – behaved impeccably, and were very hands off for most of the day. Second, there was little or no organisation of what happened after Fortnums. Those that were left really seemed quite aimless. Third, ‘violence’ really is the wrong term to describe most of what happened yesterday. With the exception of what happened in Trafalgar Square in the evening – which I wasn’t there for – I saw literally less than a dozen people acting aggressively, and nothing which couldn’t equally be described as ‘peaceful protest’, albeit one whose tactics not everyone will agree with.
The only personal opinion I’d add is that in hindsight, I’m not so sure UK Uncut should have organised their event on the same day the TUC’s march was happening. Even though it’s arguable scenes like these would have had no effect on their own:
The half a million people involved deserved a chance to try.
Other things I learned:
- Getting a good shot requires fast equipment and reflexes, but press photographers are a bit of a joke. At events like this there are too many – they become part of the story, rather than observers, often outnumbering actual protesters at flashpoints.
- The iPhone’s battery really is crap.
- Don’t shoot in JPG to speed up your camera if you want the shots to be really stunning afterwards.
- If you think you should hang around a bit longer, do. I was in the proverbial right place with a good enough hit ratio to make me happy yesterday, but I did overshoot some of the more talked about moments towards the end. I don’t believe much of the reporting about them has been independent.
- The most important story from yesterday was that half a million people turned up and stopped London on a busy Saturday. The vast, vast majority of these were people like the doctors and teachers I met protesting against loss of services. Families upset their libraries or museums are closing. Students demanding art education for the masses.
- However well intentioned you are it’s easy to fall into the trap of uploading the most evocative images first, in the hope they’ll sell.
- Always carry a packet of disposable tissues. Because there are few things more embarrasing than running alongside a march with a large pile of bird poo on your shoulder and camera strap.
The power of protest… but
What's wrong with this picture? The photographers
The various protests today were all passionate and, at times, poignant. Most of all, if you were trying to follow the UKUncut feeder marches, they were chaotic. Whatever the BBC is reporting about what happened, though, every incident I saw quickly turned into more of a press pack than a protest. Like the picture above. Indeed, several potential flashpoints became considerably calmer when protesters realised they couldn’t get near the action.
The TUC Armed Wing Trojan Horse tries to ride down Downing Street
Like the one above, when the TUC Armed Wing Trojan horse pitched up outside Downing Street. Police moved in to create a line, only to realise there was a thicker line of photographers between them and the horse.
Not that I can talk, of course. But it makes you think.
Riot police protect Apple Store
A picture Jobs won't like
There’s a longer post with more detail and pics coming about the marches today, but in the meantime here’s one of my favourite pics from a few hours of good shooting. Riot police protecting the Apple Store, which wasn’t attacked by protesters.
