it is fair to assume that not all of them would have been rooting for me. It was while I was flying from London to Perth that another of those fortuitous events occurred. Christopher Martin-Jenkins, who apart from a five-year break in the early 1980s had been the BBC cricket correspondent since Johnners retired in 1972, announced back in London that this tour would be his last for the BBC. He had decided to follow the path of his great mentor, E. W. Swanton, and join the Daily Telegraph the following summer. This made little or no impact on me at the time, because I did not know Chris very well, and besides, I was entirely focused on my new career at Today. After all, the newspaper had taken quite a gamble in taking me on, and, comfortably settled in my business-class seat, I felt very grateful for the opportunity of a new and exciting career in cricket journalism.
Working for a national tabloid was a challenge, and there was fierce competition amongst the pack of journalists I met on this first tour. Although the broadsheets have changed their approach in the last ten years, and their writers are now expected to report more of what happens off the field than they used to, there is still not the same pressure in that world as there is among the tabloid corres -pondents. Lurid headlines, which are written in the offices in London rather than by the journalist on the tour, are often very damaging indeed, and can seriously affect relations between the players and the media. It soon became clear to me that a tabloid journalist needs a thick skin to survive. The press conferences on that tour were not as controlled as they are today, and it was interesting to see how the same quote from a player or coach would be interpreted differently by the various correspondents. They were brilliant at gently nudging their interviewee in a certain direction by pre-planned questioning, and this often resulted in a response that had not been thought through properly, and gave us a story to write about. These days the England team’s media relations officer thoroughly briefs his players before they appear in front of the press, and sits at their side throughout the press conference.
Today was very patient with me, and I suspect quite a lot of my early reports were largely rewritten in London. The evenings on tour were interesting, if often rather nerve-racking, because that was when you put your notebook away and did your best to have an enjoyable dinner with your fellow hacks, despite being in fierce competition with one another. Inevitably the talk would get round to what we had written that day, as if we were all gingerly testing each other out. As an apprentice newshound, it was always a relief to have it confirmed that I had accurately assessed what the story of the day was.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
