It’s possible that you’ve noticed a love/hate relationship between newspapers and radio stations. At the papers, many believe radio newscasters merely rip off their work and put it on air. (There is basis in fact for this, which I’ll get to later.) At radio stations, there’s a belief that papers will go out of their way to overlook the whole medium and not name a specific station if they can help it. This is also sometimes true.
The funniest example of this came last weekend when our local daily printed one of my recent House Proud columns. They’re a Sun Media paper and can choose to run all sorts of content if they wish. My byline in most Sun papers reads in part, “the morning newscaster at 98.1 Free-FM in London”. But here in my city it read, “the morning newscaster in London”. I had to giggle at the unintentional promotion! Suddenly I’m THE morning newscaster! And it’s all because they don’t want to name the radio station.
The disdain for radio comes somewhat honestly. It used to be routine that newscasters would take information from the newspaper and pass it off as their own. The theft wasn’t intentional, I hope, but we are now much more aware of intellectual property and I know, for example, that a reporter has put in a ton of time to gather details on a story. I wouldn’t dream of mentioning those details without giving credit to the paper. Many colleagues at other radio stations have the same standards. But not all of my peers feel the same way and so, the perception remains.
And when a detail has been unearthed by a radio station, that’s likely what you will read in the paper. Credit will go to “a radio station”. Isn’t it silly?
Anyway, I’m enjoying my new status as the morning newscaster for London. Obviously my powerful position was overlooked in the latest ratings but we can assume that everyone who wants morning news stops whatever they are doing at the top and bottom of the hour, and tunes to 98.1 to hear me. It’s a lot of responsibility but, hey, I’m up for it.
I look forward to your coronation as Queen of All Media. Finally the world is catching on to what we already knew! xox