Will Buckley performs as the Man Who Wants to be Read in front of an audience of journalism hopefuls at Hepstontall, West Yorkshire. Meanwhile England are beating Croatia 4-1.Will Buckley sits, slouches and slides around in the faded armchair for an
Audience with… in front of a semi-circle of 16 budding journalists. Buckley’s adrenalin-fuelled performance as the self-styled wine swigging, bar-propping journalist coincidentally coincides with England’s resounding victory against Croatia in their World Cup qualifier. It is somewhat ironic that while the Observer’s Senior Sports Writer is given a talk chaired by the Sunday Mirror’s Senior Sports Writer, England are winning their most memorable victory since demolishing Germany 5-1 oh so many years ago. There are a few England fans amongst these wannabe journalists and none of us are able to watch the historic match. At least we start with a match update from Steve, the centre manager. "England are one-nil up." The football fans amongst us are still hankering for the pub at the top of the hill with Setanta Sports. But, alas, the lottery of the journalism course schedule means we are barred from seeing what turns out to be a famous win and another hat trick from a dashing young England forward. Instead, we are face-to-face with Buckley’s dinosaur hack on the edge of an extinction brought on, not by global warming or volcanic eruption, but by the man-made disaster to thoughtful newspaper writing that is the world wide web.
This hyper-active, wiry ‘Charles Hawtrey on speed’ figure of a man with Edward Scissorhand’s haircut reads from his novel The Man Who Hated Football before tackling questions thrown in from the touchline. He stutters, murmurs and shrugs his way through each answer before catching himself digress so far from the subject that he often returns to the same query “what was the question?” He animates anecdotes with an ensemble of comic voices, punctuates points with swirling arms and occasional finger-splayed karate chops to mid air, crosses and uncrosses his legs like a well-dressed Kenny Everett. The only drag is the occasional pull on his plastic Simulated Cigarette nicotine substitute. Buckley’s humour is always to the fore from the journalist who was once, if briefly, a stand-up comic who ended his comedy career in front of a silent audience in Birmingham. The wine goes down and the fevered pitch goes up as he rails against online information overload and instant Internet reporting culled from 24 hour rolling TV news. The only interruption is Steve shouting out the latest score from Croatia. 4-1! But we are so dazzled by Buckley’s performance that the full meaning of what is being played out by England will only sink in with tomorrow's papers.
Buckley freely admits that if he were starting out now he would work on the web though he dislikes the lack of in-depth journalistic writing that it creates. “The web offers great opportunities for new journalists if you are prepared to be dedicated to sending in words, video and photos direct from locations.” He believes that the main thing the journalist should achieve is being challenged by Internet journalism. “The one thing a journalist can do is watch and write about an event and be trusted by the reader to choose what aspects of the event are important. A writer wants to be read, a reader wants to get to the end of the piece. To get the reader to the end means you have succeeded.” He vividly describes the ranks of Guardian web journalists reeling out thousands of words across the globe from the Beijing press office, most typing their copy below TV screens. “One of them wrote as many words in an afternoon as I’ve written in a decade!” The demand from newspaper editors for getting copy onto the Internet instantly is, Buckley argues, devaluing journalism.
Buckley fears for the final extinction of an older, beer-stained, newspaper culture. “The Observer office was a like a dysfunctional club. Nick Cohen could be found asleep under his desk. We used to drink in the Coach and Horses. It was owned by a friend of the Richardsons, not the Krays. No one knew who was inside the dark rooms hidden behind stained-glass windows. You could catch-up with other Observer correspondents returning from assignments in places such as Iraq.” When the traditional pub was converted to a modern café bar and the stained-glass replaced with clear “now everyone can see where we spend our time.”
The days of the drinking hack are clearly marked as the Guardian embraces the immediacy that the Internet offers. Buckley brings back the discussion to the Internet again and again. At one point he questions some of the benefits offered by the web. “Will the Internet undermine celebrity control? Will it really be as democratic as promised?” His own answer on the future of journalism in the digital age is, by necessity, inconclusive but highly pertinent “It’s so fluid now that no one knows what’s going on.”
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