Local no-ws

Just a brief one about the local rag.

Whilst I was off I got doorstepped into taking a subscription to the local newspaper at a heavily subsidised rate. In fairness, the main pursuasion was  that they had jobs pages twice a week.

The local paper ran front page today with a story about how an ambulance took 55 minutes to attend a person having an asthma attack. Having myself waited 2 hours for a 999 ambulance to turn up for me at the GP surgery, I can understand all sides. Yes, it's rather annoying just sitting there, knowing that the ambulance may turn up at any minute. For a hundred and twenty minutes. But the calls are prioritised. Head and heart come first, other things come after. Yes, it's unfortunate, but had the urgency of the situation been made clear, a higher priority may have been given. But even then, we don't know what other crews were doing. Resources may well already have been stretched or fully exhausted - there may have been a major accident involving many ambulances. And if not, what should have happened? The ambulance start to treat a low priority patient, and then abandon them? The alternative is to suggest the paramedics are lazy, which is far, far from the truth.

But the second lead was about a woman who had been asked to stop breast-feeding in the local library. And the post was up in arms about it. There was a huge picture, a double page spread, a vox-pop, an opinion piece and everything.

Is this a news story? Is this really the second most important thing to happen in my city?

Presumably this was a decent, unbiased piece of reporting? No. The opinion piece was from a maternity group spokesperson. She started off her very blatantly biased diatribe with a "There is nothing more natural than feeding a child when it's hungry" rant. There was a very brief, token inclusion of an apology from the council, but the only 'balance' view was from a single vox-pop participant (outweighed by a couple of other pro-boobers; though we have no idea how many people the post actually asked, or how they selected and edited anyone).

Now, I am absolutely, whole-heartedly in favour of breast-feeding children. It is by far and away the healthiest thing to do. It is the single most nutritious feed a baby can have, combining all the energy and minerals the body needs with essential antibodies from the mother. I would much rather see a mother wop her boob out than grab a bottle.

But there is a time and a place for everything.

So, the woman from that maternity group starts with "there is nothing more natural..." Well, quite. But then there is nothing more natural than me needing to eat. I wouldn't be able to do that in a library. And yes, I may be able to exercise more control over myself than the baby can; but the mother can exercise more control over herself than just flopping it out - she can get somewhere more appropriate. There may be nothing more natural than being hungry and wanting to be fed; but again there is nothing more natural than needing the toilet. If I were to go to the toilet just anywhere I wanted in the library, people would have problems. And this is why society has made adjustments - yes the baby may go to the toilet whenever it wants; but we don't have to watch it be changed - there is a disabled toilet with baby-changing unit for that.

And those rooms are absolutely perfect for feeding baby too. Not only do they prevent everyone else having to look at a woman's breast which would - but for the baby - ordinarily get them classed as a pervert or the woman as grossly indecent; but - moreover and mostly - they provide a nice, calm, quiet place where mum can spend as long as she needs to with baby; where they won't be disturbed and where baby can just drop off to sleep whenever.Yes it may be the best solution for me and it saves embarrassment for the staff, but it is by far and away the best solution for both mother and baby.

But the main problem I have is the weight and the bias that the local newspaper has given it. In other (tiny) news was a student found with serious head injuries; people being charged with firebombing a police station; a masked raid on a pub along with a few good news stories. Yes, it may have been a slow news day, but was this really story number two?

The local newspaper has an agenda. You can tell with every single story which way they (personally, the reporters and editor) lean with regard to the new tram extention; the shopping centre planning applications and such like. Someone else said it about the Independent: it isn't a newspaper; it's a viewspaper.

And the 'jobs' pages yesterday? The Post proudly splashed across its masthead that it had 8 pages of jobs yesterday. The jobs pages were an 8 page pull-out. Now, credit where it's due, the 8 pages were actually 8 sheets - 16 pages - though quite how they managed to cock-up their own page numbering I will never know. But, half of the front page was lost to the mast-head, banner and other 'self-promo' stuff. Then within around 2 pages were lost to promotion of the Post's own job fair.Yes there were a lot of other big job adverts, but I have no problem with half-page adverts for jobs because the advertisers are paying for them - if you want your job to stand out, you pay for it to happen. But there were around a further two pages of 'advice' on how to jazz up your c.v., prepare for interview etc. Advice which presumably they print in every job suppliment because it is still relevant? And then lots and lots of little patchwork adverts for their job service, presumable just to fill space in the pages that still hadn't been bought. There was around 50% of the space actually dedicated to external jobs.

It's no surprise that local newspapers are struggling if this is the type of thing that they produce. I probably took a hell of a lot more interest in the local entertainment guide in the paper than I did in any 'news'. But then Nottingham has it's own fantastically amazing local culture guide in the Left Lion such that I wouldn't need to rely on the local rag. And I think that's a shame.