Newsflash

I once heard that the difference between a journalist and a writer can be explained in terms of nudity: the journalist is a flasher, totally naked under their coat and will attempt to show you everything at once in a rather shocking manner. The writer is a stripper, a tease, who takes off clothing one item at a time, hoping that each inch of skin makes you hungry for more. I hope I am a writer (even if I started in the wrong clothes or played the wrong music). I’d like to try to flashing, but I don’t own a trench coat.

I met a man from a newspaper. He sat back in his chair and spoke quietly, so that to hear him I had to lean forward across the table. Between each thread of conversation he would roll a cigarette with tobacco from a zip-lock bag and as he smoked little pieces of the leaves would dislodge themselves from the paper onto his tongue, until he would push them to his lips and find them with his fingers.

He talked about things I didn’t understand and probably wouldnt remember, but I was too keen to impress to take a pen and paper.

He sent me to his skateboarding photographer and onto the streets to try to write a story. ‘Story’ is completely the wrong word for what journalists write. It implies make-believe, or artistry, or long sentences that are heavy with words. But you don’t have the space or time to do that in a newspaper, and it should be other people’s voices coming through not yours. I have never handled facts and quotes – information that burns your palms like hot potatoes and you have to throw them quickly at the page. The things I write are closer to blood temperature. But I would like to learn a new trade, and a different way of communicating.