Person at an event: oh hi, I know you from twitter
Me: ...sorry remind me?
Person: *says his name, full job title, things we talked about*
Me: ...er...?
Person: my profile picture is a banana?
Me: Banana!!! How are you?! So great to meet in real life!
Do you remember when Gordon Brown wrote a handwritten letter to the mother of a dead soldier and his handwriting was bad because he's blind in one eye and it occupied a week's worth of headlines, with The Sun calling it "shameful"? Seems like a different world
I recently learnt a fun fact: the reason the streets on the Monopoly board are a mix of well-known and obscure London locations is because the UK rights were bought by Waddingtons, based in Leeds, and they had no idea about London. They decided it all based on one research trip
Oh hai, it's Camilla, the producer on a TV show. I'm casting a debate about the Premier League. Is there anyone who has never seen a football match, has never played football and who doesn't think football exists? You'll be up against a professional footballer and we need balance
The last 60-year-old ex-miner I met was a Corbynite who cycled round his ex-colliery town because he was passionate about climate change. Working class northerners are not the bigoted people you're looking for
My mum and dad coming back from a weekend away in 2005: "why is the windowsill broken and this picture smashed?"
Me: "I understand and share the anger but I have been assured there was no party and I apologise unreservedly for the impression given"
BBC News seems to be in editorial crisis at the moment. Terrified to hold the government to account, desperately picking on vulnerable communities in an effort to do hard-hitting journalism. Just awful to watch it drag down the reputation of the entire organisation
In my 20s I needed to sign something for the bank but my signature didn't match what they had on file. After a lot of back and forth, I eventually managed to find the original signature. It was from when I was 10 and instead of a dot over the i, I'd drawn a dolphin
Passwords: every password must be completely unique, with fourteen characters all from different languages
Signatures: the one you came up with when you were nine is fine
The BBC seems to have this fabulous social media policy where it swoops in immediately to take control over the content of employees' tweets but appears to leave them completely alone in dealing with abuse and negativity
I've now seen so many well-meaning but patronising responses from London-based people to this now. It's very tedious. If it's a surprise to you that an ordinary northern woman dares lay into the prime minister and is quite articulate, you're part of the problem
"People have died because of austerity, and you’ve got the cheek to come here and tell us austerity's over and it's all good now."
That's what one woman told Boris Johnson during a visit to Doncaster, but he said his government was putting more money into public services.
I think we've got to be honest here - it's not safe for working class women to question police or resist arrest. It's infuriating to hear them advise us to "shout to a passerby or run into a house", as if you wouldn't find yourself with additional charges
I can't help thinking the reason modern private members clubs are broken is because genuinely cool, creative, exciting people have no money and then eventually nobody wants to join a club full of grey-haired suits
I really like Rosamund Pike but my eyes are rolling completely off my face that she (boarding school->Oxford) identifies with the working class character in the film because she didn't know the dress code for the races
Me watching Have I Got News For You with my family: that's my story they're talking about
My family: oh right
Me: yeah I wrote those words there on the screen
Them: oh ok
There is something very worrying happening in journalism. Last year, 80% of journalists came from the top social classes (compared with 75% in 2020). That's an absolutely atrocious figure that we should be completely ashamed of. We simply do not represent the people we serve
Our 2022 Diversity in Journalism report is published today.
Our research programme, including reports like this, is vital to present the facts, highlight the real issues and measure progress. It is also important that we take action.
Read more:
I still cannot get over the fact that Carrie Johnson is only 33. No amount of proximity to power or perception of influence is worth wasting the prime of your life on being married to a gross guy who kind of seems like he doesn't give a shit about you
Something I've noticed that nobody is saying...
Local lockdowns in West Yorkshire have been royally fucked up and it's a sign of fucked up things to come for the rest of the UK.
(A concise thread)
I can't believe it's 2023 and TV channels are still commissioning shows where a privately educated presenter goes to live on a council estate to see what it's like
Every time research is done on this subject, it shows working class people are less homophobic, less racist, less xenophobic etc than the rest of the population. I'm so tired of the narrative that it's the opposite
I spoke to everyone who was involved in reporting the story of the little boy in the hospital, the Tory lies that became top journalists' tweets and the fake Facebook posts that undermined the truth
🎉 Delighted that the Guardian has finally put a ring on it after years of flirtation. I'll be on the northern desk for a year from July (based in Leeds) so if you have any stories or anything you'd like me to poke my nose into while I'm there, DM me (email and Signal to come) 🎉
Hello, I'm not looking for "solutions"!!! I've been doing this for many years and believe it or not I have thought of running clubs, chaperones, running at lunchtime, running along busy roads, etc. I don't want that. I simply want the freedom to do what men do
I know this goes against everything we've been raised to believe but I absolutely love it when people name drop. I wanna know who you know, who you've met
I think what depresses me most about Labour's failure to retain Hartlepool is how much we're going to have to hear about what went wrong from people in London who have no interest in the electorate except as numbers on a screen
I'm watching a man on the train read a story I wrote in the paper right now and he's reading the whole thing! Right to the end! I could not be more delighted
What's the stereotype for your name? On TV shows and in movies, Robyn/Robin is almost always a sexy tomboy. She's scrappy, does a tough job, some kind of hard upbringing or past trauma, etc etc
Never before have I covered a case where I personally have been contacted unsolicited by so many conspiracy theorists, armchair detectives and psychics wanting me to investigate something or pass it to police on their behalf
Do people in the south know we can read up here? I only ask because everything I've read from a national newspaper about the north in the last few weeks has had very glaring factual errors and/or treated us as if we're some kind of untouched Amazonian tribe they've discovered
Not only is it cruel to moralise about people whose habits are often a coping mechanism for an otherwise quite shitty life but it's actually wrong to say they cost the NHS more. Those who die young cost a hell of a lot less over their lifetimes than those who live into old age :/
Clearly I've managed to offend people by calling Boris Johnson gross. Just to be clear, if I was referring solely to his looks, I would have called him a minger. This is about the whole package. There's literally nothing redeeming about him. He's horrible in every possible way
The venn diagram of people who think media studies isn't a real subject and who share those "the mainstream media isn't covering this" posts is a circle
This is a remarkable chart from the Times. I haven't been following the property market closely enough but I had no idea house prices haven't gone up across the board (when accounting for inflation)
It's very interesting that a lot of Tory MPs today seem genuinely surprised that a man who has consistently treated politics as nothing more than his personal game is treating politics as nothing more than his personal game
It's irritating that London people are saying "Leeds Hospital" today, when there are multiple hospitals in Leeds and the LGI isn't even the biggest one. You'd never get someone saying "London Hospital" about St Thomas's. It's not exactly a big deal but like... pls try harder
Disingenuous considering private healthcare does not reduce waiting lists, it increases them. The NHS and private sector draw on the same pool of medics, which are in short supply, causing delays. Private patients are paying to skip the queue, not removing themselves
A couple of years ago Nadhim Zahawi tried to bully me on twitter to take down a story I had written that he didn't like. The story was 100% accurate and fair and he couldn't point to a bit of the story that was wrong but he did his best to try to discredit it and me anyway
I don't know if this decision was taken by a man, though it seems likely because it was almost certainly someone who has not suffered online abuse (or spent time consoling a friend). The Beeb should have reporting guidelines for producers with no experience of abuse imo
Dear
@bbc
, I hope your daughter/wife/sister/female employees never have to deal with this. Because here's the thing. It's not very nice. I don't know whose idea it was to broadcast this to your global audience without talking to me or seeking comment but I really wish you hadn't
A rare foray into opinion again for me, in which I lament how working class people (especially women) so rarely get to tell stories from our own communities on TV
I promised concise, so here's the summary:
The West Yorkshire fuck-up is solid proof that we can't put the economy first and withstand the pandemic. It's painful but we have no choice other than to take an economic hit. The government is ignoring this and it will kill people
Apologies to any Camillas offended, there are just so many Camillas in TV. It's a very "TV" name. Also I acknowledge the people who ring you up are rarely the ones who actually make the decision to pit someone with lifelong experience of racism against a clueless racism-denier
*whispers*
Chuffed to find out today that I've been shortlisted for the AOP Publishing Awards in the Local Hero category for the reporting I've done during the pandemic. It's been an emotionally draining few months speaking to people who are hurting, so this is a nice surprise
What happened to Nick Watt is far from an isolated incident, as many news reporters will confirm. I was at a job only a few weeks ago where broadcasters were harassed by aggressive anti-lockdowners (though on a smaller scale). BBC journalists kindly shared their security with me
In sad news, I wanted to let everyone know that we've closed The Overtake. I've written a little thing about it here which hopefully sums everything up
I know people don't want this link shared but it's important that people see this response. I've had a lot of conversations with people who are new to trans rights, who don't understand what's wrong with what Rowling has been saying and are taking her comments at face value
A guy in front of me has fallen asleep on the train and I usually wake people up to make sure they don't miss their stop but he made a really loud annoying phone call without earphones earlier sooo
I can't remember a time when I've seen so many working-class women and girls on TV, thanks to the Euros. We're a demographic that's virtually invisible usually, especially when that platform is about success and ambition, which people don't associate with working-class women
This is so shortsighted. Even if the BBC did believe Labour is the wrong choice for Britain, it's going to take decades to undo how much its reporting has undermined trust. Even I (someone who was defending the BBC last week) am struggling to explain this headline
I nearly forgot to mention that today is my last day at The Yorkshire Post!
I handed in my notice last month to focus on freelance work and take a step back from v intense pandemic reporting. I've got some work lined up but would be grateful for any contacts/commissions/shifts!
Rarely tweet my Yorkshire Post stories but this one is a national one and an exclusive - "All the poor souls who have done walks and baked cakes think we've had the money but we haven't"
Absolutely nothing personal at all but that is the problem with the arts in the country being so overloaded with privileged people. Nobody has any sense of perspective whatsoever
🎉Some personal news🎉 I'm v excited to join the brilliant
@yorkshirepost
team later this month as social affairs correspondent. It's part-time (keeping
@LindsayPantryYP
's seat warm for a bit), so
@theovertake
will continue as normal. Please DM with anything I should cover :)
Well
@TheGreenParty
have played a blinder. So many gains and lots of seats where they were a very close second. I suspect a lot of people who have felt politically homeless over the last couple of years have made their home with them
A lot of people have checked on me after Tory MPs tried to discredit a story last night. I suspect they were trying to instigate a pile-on but sadly for them I had about five notifications from people who went away when they actually read the story. So needless to say I'm fine!
Something that makes journalists' jobs difficult is the hostility towards "the media" from members of the public, which comes from a perception that we're all the same. Even during basic reporting people can be incredibly mistrustful and accuse you of trying to stir up trouble