Animal magic

A sniffer dog saved a man in the first minute of its first mission yesterday after a gas blast destroyed a Victorian house in Clacton that had been converted  into  flats.  
Kersley Vythilingum, 30, was trapped for two hours in the top-floor rubble  before being found by Kirby, a springer spaniel that completed its training on Thursday. 
Andree Massey, 80, was rescued from the ground floor and taken to hospital with severe burns.
Clarel Sainte-Marie, 37,  led his pregnant wife and two children from the first floor to safety on the roof. Their hamster Lilly was found safe 12 hours later.


Just wanted to check I could tell the whole story in 100 words, and - at the risk of being accused of Brick-like conceit  -  I think the end result passes muster. 
If I'd allowed myself more words I could have added  that  Ms Massey lived on the ground floor,  that Mr Vythilingum was a care worker and that  Mrs Sainte-Marie is seven months pregnant. I could have included the names and ages of her children, and quotes from her husband -  who woke 'without a ceiling' -  or Kirby's handler, Graham Currie, who hailed the dog a hero.
When space is a constraint, it is the sub's job to make decisions on what to tell the reader and what to leave out. If you take the view that no one will have heard of these people so their names don't matter in a short, you end up with an anonymous piece that is meaningless. But while the identities of all the characters in this little drama were available, it wasn't essential to include every name. I'd have liked to have known the ages of the dog and the hamster.
This story was given big play across the papers yesterday and the different treatments are intriguing. I was particularly interested to see which facts made which paper - and in what order. 
No one died - although Ms Massey was critically ill - so it wasn't a particular tragedy. Houses do blow up thanks to leaky gas pipes, so generally the availability of pictures will determine the newsworthiness of an explosion.
In this instance there was an abundance of pictures. There was a 'before' photograph of the house with a red car outside and an 'after' with the building reduced to rubble with a different red car buried in the detritus. There were pictures of Mr Sainte-Marie, of Kirby and his handler, of Lilly in her cage. There was even an aerial shot. Picture desks must have been beside themselves with joy: all praise to the agency that was on the case.
No matter how much space they devoted to the story, no newspaper included every fact that appears in my opening paragraph. Some sacrificed snippets of detail for writing style  - a legitimate choice - while others left out the basics.

To my mind, the following were essential:
1: the event and where it happened
2: the human cost, including at least one name
3: the dog's actions, including its name
4: the hamster, including its name
After that, it would be good to see other names, detail, background, quotes as space allows.

Even though I've placed it at no 3,  the key element of this story has to be the dog. It is the USP, if you like, the factor that lifts this from any old 'gas blast in essex, nobody killed' filler. All stories must tell us what happened, where and to whom, so the event and the people had to head the list of priorities - but that doesn't mean they have to be at the top of the story. 


Pictorially, I'd want
1: the destroyed building
2; the dog
3: the hamster
4; anything else available


So here's a random survey of some of the coverage with a SubScribe rating. Marks are given up to a maximum of 5*  for the heading and use of pictures, while stars for content are awarded arbitrarily for extra detail and deducted if essential facts are missing.


Mail:

Six people (and a hamster) survive gas blast

Three-col photograph of wreckage with hamster inset, single column pix of house before blast, Mr and Mrs Sainte-Marie and aerial shot of rubble
12-par delayed drop story:

When the firemen arrived, they must have feared the worst. 
An explosion tore this three-storey Victorian property apart at 2.30am yesterday - but incredibly nobody was killed.
The seven survivors even include a nine-year-old's pet hamster, which was plucked from the wreckage alive in its cage....

Does mention all names and ages of the human cast and quotes several. Gives detail of timing and the scale of the ensuing fire. Fire brigade praise for Mr Sainte-Marie for rescuing his family and condition reports on the injured. The dog merits only a passing mention in the middle, so there's a big black mark for failing to recognise its importance or to publish its name or picture. 

SubScribe rating Heading **** Pictures *** Content ******* Total 14

Times:

Dog is hero - and hamster rescued - after explosion at house

Three-col photograph of dog and handler with wreckage in background; singles of hamster in cage and 'before' shot of house

110-word 'summary' story:

Clacton A sniffer dog that qualified only five days ago found a man who was trapped after a gas explosion ripped through a house early yesterday morning. A hamster, still in its cage was also rescued alive. Kirby, a Springer spaniel, found the man on the top floor of the three-storey building. Graham Currie, her handler, said: "It is incredible to think those skills have already potentially saved a life."
The man was among six people, including a woman who is seven months pregnant and two children, who survived. A woman in her late seventies suffered serious burns after the blast in the ground-floor flat at Clacton, Essex.

Names the dog, the breed, and its handler - and quotes him -  but identifies none of the blast survivors or name the hamster. Does say that Mrs Sainte-Marie (although without her name) is seven months pregnant and suggests where the blast originated. Has Kirby as 'her'; other papers say 'him'. 

SubScribe rating Heading **** Pictures ***** Content ****** Total 15


Mirror:

A house..or flat?

Four-col photograph of the rubble with 'before' picture of house in inset circle

100-word caption story:

Trapped and forgotten in the rubble as this collapsed block of flats burnt, Kersey Vythilingum was only saved when a rescue dog sniffed him out.
Neighbours were lifted free after a gas explosion tore through the three-story building yesterday but thought Mr Vythilingum, 30, was at work.
Instead he was several feet under, bashing debris to alert firefighters. It was not until the springer spaniel Kirby came to the scene at Clacton, Essex, he was found and taken to hospital.
Neighbour Clarel Sainte-Marie, 37, said: "He owes his life to that dog."

In this case, there is too much emphasis on the rescue, to the detriment of the whole story. Fails to tell us how many people survived - or indeed that the neighbour quoted was among those who escaped the wreckage. Contradictory in that Mr Vythilingum was apparently both  "forgotten" and "thought to have been elsewhere". Given the focus on the hero dog, might have found room to mention that it had found the man within a minute (which we learn from the Guardian, below).No picture of dog or any human being. Headline is flippant.

SubScribe rating Heading * Pictures * Content ** Total 4

Guardian:

Dog rescues man from gas blast house

Six-par single-col story with picture of dog inset, byline credits PA.

An elderly man was rescued yesterday from the rubble of his house, which had been destroyed in a suspected gas explosion, by a sniffer dog which had only finished its training last Thursday....

The rescued man was 30; hardly elderly. Clumsy subordinate clause in the intro, misplacement of the word "only"  (the Mirror made the same error). Names the dog and handler, but none of the occupants of the house. Does tell us that the dog had special shoes to protect its paws and that it found Mr Vythilingum in less than a minute. Also says  that 60 people had to leave their homes as a result of the blast, but misuses the word 'evacuated' to impart the information. Plenty of quotes, but no mention of the critically ill old lady, the Sainte-Marie family's escape to the roof - or the hamster. 
A lost opportunity for pictures - it's not a page lead story for a quality paper, but a home could have been found for the pictures somewhere. Extra points for the shoes, the timing and the byline counter some of the missing elements

SubScribe rating Heading *** Picture ** Content ***** Total 10

Telegraph:

House blast Dog saves man trapped in rubble...and hamster has lucky escape too

Three-col aerial shot of wreckage, single col pix of hamster and of his cage in the debris
160-word caption story

A man who was trapped under rubble after an explosion caused a house to collapse was freed yesterday with the help of a novice rescue dog.
The dog, Kirby, which qualified last Thursday, was called into action with firemen and police after a suspected gas explosion at a house, divided into three flats, in Clacton, Essex.
a family of four was rescued from the roof and firemen saved a woman and the man under the rubble.
A hamster was also rescued 12 hours after the explosion and is reported to be well with no ill effects. It was taken to Haven Veterinary Practice for a check and a clean-up. 
About 60 people were evacuated from nearby homes.
Assistant divisional officer Neil Holloway said the house was "almost totally collapsed" and added: "It is extremely lucky that no one died."
Graham Currie, Kirby's handler, said: "It took him less than a minute to locate the man in the rubble."

Clumsy intro, I paused and thought the trapped man had caused the house to collapse, then had to re-read. Interesting to learn that the hamster was found 12 hours after the event - no one else had this - but with  this sort of space perhaps we could have had a bit more about the people and the fact that an old woman is in hospital with serious burns rather than details of the hamster's medical treatment. Misuse of the word 'evacuated' again and some rather pointless quotes. There is a huge picture; we don't need to be told the house is "almost totally collapsed", we can see for ourselves. The hamster cage lodged in the wreckage was interesting, but there should have been a picture of Kirby.

SubScribe rating Heading *** Pictures ** Content ******* Total 12

Independent

Accident Gas blast demolishes house

Double col pic of collapsed house with Mr Sainte-Marie in the foreground, halfstick of Kirby and handler

One par caption
Clarel Sainte Marie, above, walked away unharmed from his flat after a suspected gas explosion in the early hours of the morning demolished a house in Clacton, Essex. The sniffer dog Kirby, right, discovered an injured resident buried in the rubble and a family of four were rescued from the roof. PA

The sub here had the least space to work in, but squandered some of it with words such as 'of the morning'. Has failed to realise that Mr Sainte Marie (the papers are divided about whether the name is hyphenated)  is one of the family of four saved from the roof. It is also not entirely clear that his flat was in the demolished house. The copy says he is unharmed, but the picture has him with a huge plaster under his lip. Not a life-threatening injury, perhaps, but it means the word could have been deleted to make space for something that worked harder. No mention of the old lady.

SubScribe rating Heading * Pictures * Content * Total 3

The Sun

You little bootie
Sniffer dog saves man buried in gas explosion

Four-col pic of wreckage, overlaid with pix of Clarel and Laura Sainte-Marie, firemen with the rescued hamster in its cage, 'before' pic of house; big cutout pic of Kirby, halfstick of Kersley

A spaniel saved a man buried under rubble after a three-storey house was demolished in a gas blast yesterday.
Clever Kirby, wearing special boots to protect his paws, sniffed out care worker Kersley Vythinlingum, 30, as he lay in a daze....


This story has almost  everything in 250 words; not only just about every fact in every other paper, but also Mrs Sainte-Marie's first name and her occupation plus her account of what happened and how her husband had taken them to safety - meaningful description,  not 'it's a miracle' banalities. It also quotes the dog handler and  tells us that Kirby is four. The discovery of the hamster is the payoff and the only fault (apart from a repetition of Mr Vythinlingum's age)  is the failure to tell us its name.

SubScribe rating Heading ***** Pictures ***** Content ********** Total 20

None of this really matters a jot, of course, but it was a fascinating exercise. My one golden rule is that if you have a story that includes an animal ALWAYS NAME IT!


Thank you for sticking with it to the end. Please do share your thoughts below. And please take a look at the other posts. They are all media related.

Sold down the river the Beeb's flotilla and fireworks fiasco - and a feeble fightback. Why didn't the top man have his hand on the tiller?

Hello and goodbye to Wapping a personal diary of life inside the fortress in the days before the strike that changed newspapers forever

Out of print a love letter to newspapers in this digital age. Why they don't have to die if we have the will to let them live and thrive

Why local newspapers matter Why we should care about the revolution in the regional press

Missing: an opportunity How the hunt for Madeleine McCann could be turned into a force for good instead of just a festival of mawkish sentimentality

Riding for a fall Does buying a ticket for a jolly day out at the races mean you are fair game for the snobs who sneer and snipe?

Just a pretty face Illustrating the business pages isn't the easiest job in the world, but spare us the celebs who aren't even mentioned in the story

Food for thought a case study in why we should take health advice with a pinch of salt (and a glass of red wine and a helping of roast beef) 

The world's gone mad Don Draper returns and  the drooling thirtysomethings go into overdrive But does anybody watch the show? (But there is more Whipple in this post!)

More Brickbats

The woman in this picture looks delightful. She is sitting happily with her dog in the summer sunshine,  joy and contentment shining from her face. Most people would look at it and think 'she's pretty'.
The photograph appeared at the bottom of a Mail Online article by Samantha Brick on the horrendous 24 hours she had suffered since daring to write that her looks inspired spontaneous acts of kindness and generosity from strangers (men) and  jealousy and backbiting from friends and colleagues (women).
How interesting that this picture was right at the end of the article. The original piece published yesterday was accompanied by seven photographs; today's fightback by five, plus the original from Tuesday's print edition. Eleven of the twelve pictures are unnatural, with forced smiles, ungainly poses. This is the only one in which Ms Brick looks relaxed and is thus the only one in which she looks remotely attractive. So why is it at the bottom? Why was it not the main picture for the original article?
I was not alone yesterday in suggesting that she had been set up, and - like others - I did seriously wonder if 'People hate me because I'm beautiful'  was an April fool's joke that fell off the weekend schedule  and ended up being published a couple of days late.
In today's piece about the backlash, Ms Brick states that she had, indeed, pitched the idea herself and that she had known she risked setting herself up for a fall.
Let's strip away the arrogance and egotism for a moment. Does she have a point? Do women behave badly towards their more attractive friends? Do good looks hold a woman back?
It's a counter-intuitive argument, nicely brought into perspective this morning by that BBC dinosaur Michael Cole (whose opinion we must respect, since he was not only once  a newsreader, but also acted as an apologist for Mohamed al Fayed). He says today that  some women newsreaders are on screen only because they look good, wear nice jackets and can read an autocue. 
Looks matter, he says, under the lights. Middle-aged women should stop carping as though they had a right to a permanent place in front of the camera. And, poor lamb, he tells us that he too suffered for his looks: he "endured five years of rejection because he looked too young".
So Ms Brick isn't appreciated because she's too pretty; Mr Cole wasn't appreciated because he was too boyish. 
It's an old issue - shallow Britain can't see  beyond appearances -  yet it may still be one worth rehearsing on a quiet day. But for goodness' sake, 'I'm so beautiful, everyone hates me' is not the way to go about it.
Where is the editing in all this? Did Ms Brick insist that she wanted to write the piece from this perspective? If so, the editors will have been licking their lips. They may be many things at the Mail, but they're not daft. They let this silly woman witter on, then deliberately illustrated her nonsense with  pictures that invited the response 'Who does she think she is? She's not that special.'  
I'm not defending either article. I think they are both complete tripe. I'm sure Ms Brick had a torrid day yesterday and didn't like 'global condemnation' she provoked. But she might pause to reflect for a moment on the contradictions within and between her two pieces.
She bragged about how people she didn't know would send her champagne, pay her rail fares, rush to thrust flowers upon her in the street like that old Impulse ad. It didn't occur to her that this had as much to do with the men being nice as with her being beautiful;  she just accepted it as her right, the natural order of things, the way it had always been. She has admitted that she flirts to get on; but doesn't see that some of those charming blokes might also be flirts ready to  turn to the next pretty woman once she was off the scene. 
Yesterday it was fine and dandy to accept the compliments and generosity of strangers. Today it is outrageous for people 'who don't even know me' even to express an opinion - if that opinion happens to be 'Actually, girl, you're not as hot as you think you are'.
It's also bad, apparently, for friends to gossip about her. Well,  that's what friends do when one of the group is in the limelight. And true friends will tell you when you're making an ass of yourself. That's the point of them.
However self-inflicted this torrent of digital abuse may have been, you can't help but feel sorry for the woman. She has demonstrated a spectacular lack of self-awareness, but it is a failing that has proved a boon for those Mail executives who chose to run with the original piece and then sat back and smiled as the cash rolled in with every internet hit.
It is the role of columnists to be provocative, and they should be ready to take the consequences of their words. But there also has to be some level of responsibility in the glass offices. The Mail executives let her walk over a bear trap and when she fell into the pit, they threw her not a lifeline, but a spade so that she could carry on digging.
Let's go back to her original pitch: pretty women get a raw deal. Ms Brick refers in her piece to Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Victoria Beckham. There are millions of women out there who are beautiful, not all of them in the public eye. Why didn't those editors say 'Yes, Sam. Great idea. Why don't you go and talk to some good lookers and see what stories they have to tell?'
The result might have been a series of interesting and enlightening anecdotes to prove or disprove the point. The feature could have been illustrated with an assortment of pictures of the women quoted. And they could have used that pretty picture at the top of this blog for the byline: a subtle way of saying 'I know of which I write' without the overt simpering vanity.
But of course, that wouldn't have had Twitter alight all day or brought in more than a million hits, 5,000 online comments, 24 hours of free publicity -  and up to £100,000 in hard cash.
I said yesterday that Ms Brick was either astonishingly vain or a Mail patsy. It turns out she was both.


Thank you for sticking with it to the end. Please do share your thoughts below. And please take a look at the other posts. They are all media related.

Sold down the river the Beeb's flotilla and fireworks fiasco - and a feeble fightback. Why didn't the top man have his hand on the tiller?

Hello and goodbye to Wapping a personal diary of life inside the fortress in the days before the strike that changed newspapers forever

Out of print a love letter to newspapers in this digital age. Why they don't have to die if we have the will to let them live and thrive

Why local newspapers matter Why we should care about the revolution in the regional press

Missing: an opportunity How the hunt for Madeleine McCann could be turned into a force for good instead of just a festival of mawkish sentimentality

Riding for a fall Does buying a ticket for a jolly day out at the races mean you are fair game for the snobs who sneer and snipe?

Just a pretty face Illustrating the business pages isn't the easiest job in the world, but spare us the celebs who aren't even mentioned in the story

Food for thought a case study in why we should take health advice with a pinch of salt (and a glass of red wine and a helping of roast beef) 

The world's gone mad Don Draper returns and  the drooling thirtysomethings go into overdrive But does anybody watch the show? (But there is more Whipple in this post!)

Thick as a Brick

Blogging is, of course, vanity publishing. We toil at our laptops and bash out opinions on whatever takes our fancy. There is no enforced discipline, no editor to please, no deadline. If people like what we write that's great. If not, no matter. We may like to think we're offering insight or whatever, but if we're honest we're probably doing it for ourselves.
Today vanity publishing was taken to a completely new level and the question most of us are asking is Why? 
The 6Music presenter and Twitter queen Lauren Laverne was among the first, with her 7.45am tweet 'Why do people WRITE articles like this? And why am I reading it?'
The link on the tweet took followers to an article on the Daily Mail website that left any sane reader gasping in disbelief. 

There are downsides to looking this pretty: Why people hate me for being beautiful

Samantha Brick's extraordinary catalogue of self-glorification, from airline pilots sending her champagne to strangers buying her rail tickets - all apparently because of her 'pleasing face and pretty smile' -  was accompanied by seven photographs that showed a nice enough looking woman but no Sophia Loren.
The point of the piece was apparently not to tell us how beautiful she was, but to complain that other women couldn't cope with being in the same company as such a goddess. They would put her down, snipe about her, blank her - and all because of the way she looked.
The feature went live at midnight; the first comment, from a reader in America, was posted at 1.49am. By lunchtime she was trending on Twitter, by teatime the Mail website had published more than 4,000 comments.
It is fair to say Ms Brick does not come out of it well. But she predicted that:


If you’re a woman reading this, I’d hazard that you’ve already formed your own opinion about me — and it won’t be very flattering.

Which brings us back to the question: Why? Ms Brick's back catalogue doesn't do her any favours. The headings below are an accurate reflection of the prose that followed:

I use my sex appeal to get ahead at work - and so does ANY woman with any sense

(August 2011)

Catfights over handbags and tears in the toilets. With her women-only TV company this producer thought she'd kissed goodbye to conflict...

(April 2009)

So three years ago, Samantha Brick was writing in the Daily Mail about what a load of bitches other women were. So bitchy and jealous that they destroyed her business.

We know that the Daily Mail likes nothing better than to attack its core readership - women. We know Ms Brick thinks she's pretty (there have been plenty of pieces about her appearance). We know she thinks women are out to get her. She must have realised the response this piece would generate. So why this nauseating drivel today? 

Is she so desperate for the money that she's pitching such features? Or was she asked to write it? And if so, how did that call go? "Oh Sam, you're just so lovely, why don't you do a piece for us on the viperish attitudes of ordinary women are and how difficult it is for glam girls to get on - or in - with the sisterhood?'

I would just love to know how she gets on with whoever was commissioning and editing Femail yesterday.

I think she's been set up.

Thank you for sticking with it to the end. Please do share your thoughts below. And please take a look at the other posts. They are all media related.

Sold down the river the Beeb's flotilla and fireworks fiasco - and a feeble fightback. Why didn't the top man have his hand on the tiller?

Hello and goodbye to Wapping a personal diary of life inside the fortress in the days before the strike that changed newspapers forever

Out of print a love letter to newspapers in this digital age. Why they don't have to die if we have the will to let them live and thrive

Why local newspapers matter Why we should care about the revolution in the regional press

Missing: an opportunity How the hunt for Madeleine McCann could be turned into a force for good instead of just a festival of mawkish sentimentality

Riding for a fall Does buying a ticket for a jolly day out at the races mean you are fair game for the snobs who sneer and snipe?

Just a pretty face Illustrating the business pages isn't the easiest job in the world, but spare us the celebs who aren't even mentioned in the story

Food for thought a case study in why we should take health advice with a pinch of salt (and a glass of red wine and a helping of roast beef) 

The world's gone mad Don Draper returns and  the drooling thirtysomethings go into overdrive But does anybody watch the show? (But there is more Whipple in this post!)