It is a subeditor’s truth quite often acknowledged that articles about Greater Manchester, or about bands from the city, must shoe-horn in a song title or lyric from a Mancunian band. That’s fine, but for some reason, that band is almost always the Smiths, which broke up in 1987. This must change. Anyone would assume that all subeditors are miserablists. Continue reading “Subeditor twisting my melon: Manchester headlines, get over the Smiths”
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Police ANPR: Ring of steel for MATTER, sieves of steel for rural cops
MATTER, each issue of which consists of a single long feature article on science and technology, has run some great stories since its launch last autumn (as well as trying to find new ways to make journalism pay).
In my humble and biased opinion, I think it has just published another one: ‘Ring of steel’ by James Bridle, which I co-edited and is based partly on my Freedom of Information-based research into how the police use automatic numberplate recognition. It’s available from MATTER. Continue reading “Police ANPR: Ring of steel for MATTER, sieves of steel for rural cops”
Reporting the local NHS: credit where it’s due
The National Union of Journalists has started a campaign to support reporting of health and the NHS, especially in the local and regional media. It’s a good choice – and there’s a good article about it in the NUJ magazine The Journalist (starts on page 14), with contributions from Shaun Lintern, who covered Mid Staffordshire relentlessly for the Express and Star, and now works for Health Service Journal.
As one of my colleagues at EHI says, the NHS isn’t national. She also says it doesn’t deal with health and doesn’t provide much of a service, but leaving that aside, the point is that the health service is essentially local: you are normally cared for by your local GP, then your local NHS trust (or board, in Scotland and Wales). Trusts and boards vary greatly in quality – some are brilliant, a few are awful, many are somewhere in between. Continue reading “Reporting the local NHS: credit where it’s due”
Hospital charities fight to raise funds as giving slows in austerity Britain
Charities supporting hospitals are finding new ways to reach out to donors as traditional cash cows dry up
In ‘A journey to… let’s not go there’ in his most recent book Holidays in heck
We’re a charitable institution. No one will ever be refused care here. On the other hand, we have to keep the lights on. We do try to find any possible means of payment – government programs, private insurance, et cetera.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock finds that 60% of patients who think they aren’t eligible for assistance are, but offers discounts and payments plans – and gave away $63m of treatment in 2007. Continue reading “Hospital charities fight to raise funds as giving slows in austerity Britain”
Recycling print vs digital and paperlessness into rightpapering
Scene one: an office in the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. Will Smart, the hospital trust’s director of information management and technology, considers whether the NHS should go paperless, the policy of health secretary Jeremy Hunt. His answer: “I think paper is just another device. I don’t think we will ever lose it.”
Scene two: a bar near Tower Bridge. A high-flying digital executive, freshly returned from a foreign trip advising one of his employer’s subsidiaries on optimal social media usage, is introduced to the handsome paperback version of my ID card book Card declined. “Ooh!” he says, lovingly flicking through its pages. (I don’t think Ben was just being polite.) Continue reading “Recycling print vs digital and paperlessness into rightpapering”