Church in a spin

Journalism in decline?

2008-04-18T17:42:00.006+01:00

The decline of journalism is the theme in two very different articles this week in the church press. The Church of England Newspaper carries a piece by Andrew Carey on the discovery that there are more people working in PR than there are journalists. The other, by Andrew Brown in the Church Times, highlights one specific and highly lamentable example of this – the sacking of Jonathan Petre as religious affairs correspondent on the Daily Telegraph.

Andrew Brown, speaks passionately about the main reason for the sacking - the Telegraphs moves to a more ‘tabloid’ approach to newsgathering. The editors will decide on what the stories are and the journalists will provide the words to go with them. It saves money but the casualty – apart from gainful employment for some very good journalists – is truth. It’s sadly ironic that we were given an insight into this change in approach when diocesan communicators visited the swanky new Telegraph offices at Victoria last November. Jonathan was there, giving up his time to get to know us and to explain about his work, little knowing what was to befall him.

In his Church Times article, Andrew speaks about the hole it leaves in religious reporting on national newspapers. In his view Jonathan was the best informed specialist working on the dailies, he was trustworthy, authoritative and respected as an honest broker.

I've known Jonathan for several years and had a good professional relationship, having an odd drink together after a hectic day at General Synod. (See picture with JP just beyond Ruth Gledhill (on the left side of pic about half way up ) at work during a debate). My own experience of Jonathan was certainly that he was indeed “one of the good ones, the unsung professionals like ship’s engineers, who make all the pomp and ceremony possible in the first-class lounge.” After the 7/7 bombers were identified as coming from up here, he was the only religious correspondent to take the train to Leeds and find out what was really going on. During our difficulties at the Cathedral he would regularly call me for long chats to try and get the low-down.

That’s not to say that Jonathan didn’t have his own ‘Daily Telegraph shaped’ agenda. Clearly he wasn’t always interested in the good news stories we churn out – but then what national newspaper is? If he did follow up a press release it was usually to pose a sharp question I’d hoped might be overlooked (eg if the Bishop is moving house from Ripon to Leeds won’t that put the noses of those in the north of the diocese out of joint?) While up in Beeston he seemed keen to focus on whether the local mosques were hotbeds of radicalism, not only a rather dangerous question to be asking anywhere in earshot of LS11 at the time, but at odds with the emphasis we wanted to put on moderate Christians and Muslims working together.

But I am very sad too at the news, and I wish Jonathan and his wife well, hoping he very quickly gets snapped up by a more discerning ‘information centre’ as newspaper offices will soon be called.

There are now 47,800 people employed in public relations - verses 45,000 journalists, according to Andrew Carey (though thanks to the Daily Telegraph, the figure is now presumably 44,998). Andrew is astounded, and laments the effect this will have on the independence of the press and the “blurring of the impartiality of the media”. Do my eyes deceive me!? The words ‘impartiality’ and ‘media’ have never sat well together, and an ‘impartial newspaper’ is an oxymoron. Newspapers were never interested in reporting our good news or our press releases, unless we are talking about the local rag with one cub reporter on a job creation scheme. I can personally count on the fingers of one hand the number of times a TV crew from regional news has turned up at an event I’ve been involved in publicising in the last two years. That’s why organisations have always had to employ PR officers to play the media game, creating statistics, carrying out surveys, paying celebrities, engineering controversy, all to catch the eye of the editor.

Part of the reason for fewer journalists and more PR professionals is the decline of newspapers and the growth in new media. Newspapers themselves tacitly acknowledge this as they downsize their traditional journalism staff while employing more video and web specialists for newly created video departments, websites and ‘information hubs’. The spin off is that well meaning organisations and charities can begin to rely less on the vagaries and mood swings of journalists, newspaper editors and media bosses to transmit their news. After all, why does the audience need to go to a newspaper’s brand new all-singing all-dancing website when they can Google the topic and go direct to horses mouth on an equally well produced web page. The playing field is levelling out. Will there be any place for professional journalists at all in a future of citizen journalism and home grown internet tv?. Perhaps, in the not too distant future, we will laugh at the way we had to rely on BBC Look North to turn up before anyone heard about the new Bishop, chuckle ruefully at the way we had to try and catch the eye of a reporter to get a new campaign into the public eye. In the words of Bob Dylan, The Times (and the Telegraph) they are a changing.

Lottery Balls

2008-03-07T16:15:00.003Z

Saturday's in Richmond, North Yorkshire - always a joy and tomorrow its the Diocesan Synod when top of the agenda is a debate on the National Lottery, and whether the diocese should discourage churches from applying to it for money for their buildings. I have to confess, in preparing the press release and doing the research, Ive changed my mind.

Last month General Synod debated gambling and in particular Casinos… speaker after speaker got up to talk about the harm done by gambling, the disastrous effects for families, marriages, and lives. There was a general feeling that this government with its apparent desire to open up gambling as a normal part of everyday life had got it badly wrong – all the more surprising as this is the Labour party, founded on Methodist principles.

However it it took a fellow Communications Officer, and member of General Syod, Jan McFarlane from Norwich to get to the heart of the problem for our communications.. “The question I most dread the Eastern Daily Press asking me tomorrow” she said to Synod “ is – isn’t it hypocritical of the CofE to take a moral stance against gambling when so many churches and indeed cathedrals have taken advantage of the Heritage Lottery Fund? I for one would like us to be on firmer ground”.

So that's what we'll be debating - the heart of the issue and lottery funding. And if we stick to our present policy couldn’t I be facing questions about hypocricy tomorrow morning if we vote against this motion? Is there any justification?

Well, I think Ive changed my mind - and am coming round to the view that there are good arguments for allowing churches to carry on using 'tainted money' from the Lottery...

Firstly the lottery itself - is it, as a form of gambling, in the same league as the so called hard gambling of Casinos, betting shops, spread betting, gaming machines? – Not according to the Churches Ethical Investment Advisory Group – who in their paper on gambling, describe the lottery as a soft form of gambling along with things like raffles and football pools.

It’s a form of gambling which 73 per cent of the population regularly take part in, but it could be argued that the very fact that after 14 years still only 15 % of the population gamble on horses or greyhounds and only 4 per cent visit casinos shows that it doesn’t and hasn’t led to a huge rise in gambling addiction in the form of hard gambling that many of us feared. In fact in a recent You Gov poll most people, 54% were against the opening of supercasinos, for example. The Salvation Army, who you’d expect to be as opposed to the Lottery as anyone, have actually been working closely with Camelot which runs the lottery, to minimise the negative impact it might have on the most vulnerable in society…The’ve looked at whether increased sales of lottery tickets will lessen a commitment to social responsibility and concludes, on the Camelot website that “It is pleased that Camelot is working with voluntary sector organisations to make sure this does not happen”.

The Salvation Army also recognises that while the National Lottery is the third biggest Lottery in the world in revenue terms, it is only the 47th in the world in terms of amount spent per capita – less than £2.90 per head per week, and that that is spread across all socio economic groups.. It may be described as a tax on the poor to give to the rich , but the statistic show that its actually C1s who spend most money on the lottery .. D’s and E’s spend around £2.32 per head per week.. So the statistics indicate that for the vast majority, when they hear the voice of the balls, Deadly Deddicoate on a Saturday night, there’s a bit of a frisson, its entertainment, it’s a harmless bit of participation in an event which someone is going to win..and it could be them but the vast majority recognise that with odds of 14 million to 1, it probably won’t be.

Perhaps more importantly is the argument about the system. Rightly or wrongly – and wrongly in the view of many – the government has set in place a system by which more or less all of its Heritage Funding for many church buildings can only be paid through the Heritage Lottery Fund. Furthermore, as Jan McFarlane has told me this week in an email, after her words at Synod, she writes: “..I was reliably informed that it is almost impossible to get funding from other sources if you haven't applied to the National Lottery Fund. It's the biggest pot of money so other sources won't let go of their funding unless you've been refused a NLF grant. So we're locked in by "the system" ..Some separate money is available through English Heritage but this is much less and much more restricted.

THAT’S why the United Reformed Church which has been totally opposed to lottery funding for its churches since 1995, had this same debate at its National July assembly a year ago and went the opposite way – it reversed its opposition now allows indeed encourages churches to apply for lottery funding for listed buildings and restoration.

One of its arguments, interestingly, is that Heritage Fund money is effectively the result of a tax like any other – a tax on the lottery - the 25 p of every pound at the newsagents which goes to good causes. … is as much a tax on gambling as other taxes on alcohol and tobacco.

But also both they and the Methodist church argue that if it was hypocritical for Christians to apply for Heritage Lottery funding – it is arguably just as hypocritical to visit a theatre, museum or art gallery or attend the 2012 Olympics. Things have moved on—the Lottery is now a part of national life. And I have changed my mind.,..15 years ago I too was adamantly opposed to it, but the goalposts have been moved, the arguments have changed.

It should be an interesting debate and its as important for those who have applied or think they will but are a bit unsure about the moral justification, as for those who oppose it.

Say Sorry

2008-02-13T17:34:00.006Z

It's always worth coming to General Synod if you want to know what's really going on. So, between debates (Mental Health and Anglican Communion), I have to humbly report an error in my last blog. Revd JJ is still at the Lambeth Palace press office ... which rather undermines my theory about how the Archbishop of Canterbury was allowed to go on World at One and say what he did. It wasn't a depleted staff after all. Ruth Gledhill explores this element of the whole Sharia story in her blog. I'm sorry.

Meanwhile the Press (sitting conspiritorially next door as I write this) and the Church of England are having a stand off. The Press are calling for the Archbishop to apologise - for misleading the public (cf The Mail). The Church of England is increasingly calling for the press to apologise - for misrepresenting the Archbishop. Things are getting heated.

But it's not all about Sharia. In fact, on the floor it's hardly had a mention. Synod has been rebelling against centralisation, stalling a move to collect funeral and wedding fees centrally and throwing out plans for dioceses to take over official ownership of parsonages. There's been a moving and amazing series of stories in the mental health debate while we're now onto the Anglican Communion. And strong attacks on gambling and government plans for regional casinos.

We've also been asked if we can trace a giraffe called Kofi Annan, referred to by John Sentamu when he reported on his trip to Kenya. A woman in the public gallery shouted out her objections to Sharia Law before being hustled out yesterday and an old fella shouted out that Sodomites shouldn't be allowed in the church before being hustled out today. Christopher Herbert, Bishop of St Albans, who was about to speak, thanked the heckler and said he wouldn't take it personally before continuing as if nothing had happened. It's those little moments of theatre that make it worth the trip.

Pancakes and Sharia Law

2008-02-09T07:57:00.000Z

Phone red hot this week— first pancakes then Sharia. The World at One carrying the story – as were newspapers and radio stations throughout the known world – of the abandonment of Pancake Racing in Ripon – the ‘centuries old tradition’ (which started in 1998) - due to 'Health and Safety' and red tape; ‘Political thingummy gone mad’ as one woman put it on Look North. Once the metaphorical dust settled (there was no actual dust to settle as television pictures of empty streets attested) the phones were ringing again, this time with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments on Radio 4 and his speech that night on Sharia Law and its place if any in the British legal system.

Can’t blog for long—only on page 9 of Rowan's dense, 12 page, tightly packed and closely argued speech given at the Temple . Needless to say, it bears no relation to anything he was supposed to have said. But I have found two close connection between both pancakes and sharia -the two news stories of the week.

Connection number one I will encapsulate in a sentence. – Senior clergy should never speak to the press without consulting their press officers first, we are worth our weight in gold, Lambeth palace needs to bolster its Press office (was it a coincidence that all this happened following the departure just a week or two earlier of Jonathan Jennings the senior press officer) and I should be paid a lot more than I am!

Connection number two is a bit more interesting Let me summarise in two sentences:

Pancake racing , as a quasi religious community activity, should be granted freedom from red tape instead of having to apply every year for permission from some jumped up secular council which thinks it has rights over minority communities, in this case the Cathedral community. It should be exempt from stupid ‘vexatious’ claims for compensation if someone trips over on the cobbles of Kirkgate and allowed to operate under its own ancient rules without interference.

There – simple ain’t it! We solve two problem stories in one go. The papers can stop jumping up and down about both the Archbishop and the Political Correctness Gone Mad by recognising that the red tape they railed against at the beginning of the week (especially the Mail and Express) is the same ‘British Legal system’ they are defending over against the rights of religious minorities at the end of the week. The legal system which allows someone to sue the Cathedral and the Council if they trip over their clerical robes while running up the street tossing their pancake should just butt out, and recognise that Pancake racing is a centuries old tradition and in this case the rights of the religious community should take precedence over the local council, the high court or even the European Court of Human Rights.

This may not be a central plank of my argument on Radio Leeds at 8.05 tomorrow, but I’ll try and winkle it in somehow.

Troubles for the Chaplain

2008-02-03T18:22:00.000Z

First there was the Country Parish, then the Seaside Parish, there was also the Parish in the Sun on ITV and now the Island Parish. The popular format is generally the same. Whether it was the young Jamie Allen, moving from urban to rural ministry and infuriating the country set, the nervy Vicar of Boscastle, Christina Musser who coped with flooding and helicopters but later gave it all up, the charming condescension of Robert Ellis in his ubiquitous shorts as he ministered to the pensioners on Majorca, or now the hapless Father Guy Scott, struggling on the Scillies, we always get a warts ‘n all portrayal of life as a Vicar. Well, with the exception of Robert who, as a former Communications Officer, tried to ‘manage’ his footage with mixed success.

The common theme is of God’s work continuing despite the parish priest rather than because of him or her. I don’t mean this unkindly – well maybe I do. But so often the viewer seems to have a much clearer and broader picture of what’s going on than the Vicar. Father Guy, who I don’t know but who seems a very pleasant fellow, has two problems. First he’s stuck on an island and is therefore feeling isolated. He doesn’t get much support, it seems, from either the Diocese of Truro, other colleagues, islanders themselves, or even from his flock. And that’s probably because, second problem, he’s a man of traditional and somewhat intransigent theological and ecclesiological views, and therefore seems to see himself as a bit apart from that sort of help. If nothing else this series illustrates the shortcomings of more traditional, high church Anglicanism when coupled with a dogmatic and starchy approach to the job. It’s an approach that puts peoples backs up very quickly and certainly fails to deliver when it comes to the rich tapestry of pastoral situations one apparently find on beautiful, idyllic group of islands in the Atlantic.

This week Father Guy blesses a tree (‘I bless this tree’. Er, hang on, isn’t that God’s job?), bans parishioners on another island from holding their own, non-eucharistic service (which means they have to wait for him to get there on a boat before they are allowed to worship), creates anger by refusing to marry a couple because one is divorced and then decides not to go to the local pub, the epicentre of island life, on the grounds that he knows people’s secrets: ‘I cannot go to the Mermaid Inn and say , oh so and so’s been to see me. Guess what he said..’ (possibly the lamest excuse ever heard). No wonder his wardens are wondering if he’s up to it. Whereas Rob Ellis on his island would have stripped even more clothes off to join in on one of the racing gigs, Father Guy stands limp and lettuce like on the shore while our trusty narrator tries to get him more involved. It comes to something when the production crew have a better idea of what’s needed than the Vicar.

Oh Guy, Guy, Guy!…. Would that he was the exception that proves the rule, but when you’re in this job you know that he’s not. I think of my Mother, an active committed churchgoer, bemoaning the clergy for their often insensitive, frequently boorish, generally clumsy, and sometimes unloving attitudes and actions. She could be a hash critic but she was also very forgiving and supportive when it mattered.

I’m guessing Father Guy is not a great fan of TV’s Pub Landlord, but like a few of his colleagues, he could do with a bit of Al Murray’s British Common Sense. And Mr Murray would add, ‘He didn’t Think it Through, did he?!’ Let’s hope he lightens up a little for everyone’s sake.

Epilogue

2008-01-20T21:57:00.000Z

‘They take our stuff and re-use it with a twist’ - so said Pete Ward, theologian and writer at a conference I was on three years ago, speaking about the deep seated spirituality within modern culture. So, TV on a Sunday night. Forget Songs of Praise. Its 9.30pm and of the five terrestrial channels , three of the choices are the following: Messiah (on BBC1), Kingdom (ITV1) or Ransom (sic) (Five). I’ve heard some colleagues say that these are old fashioned terms Christians should no longer use because they don’t mean anything to anyone. Maybe a rethink is called for.

Interfaith relations

2008-01-13T14:11:00.000Z

Last week in the Sunday Telegraph the Bishop of Rochester made his controversial comments about Muslim ‘no-go’ areas which sparked both outcry and some agreement in more or less equal measure. This week Jonathan Wynne-Jones continues the story with an IOC poll which concludes that while most people disagree with Nazir-Ali and think he’s wrong, the majority also think Muslims should do more to integrate. Make of that what you will.

I was asked about it again this morning on Radio Leeds, having tried to steer carefully through the story doing the Paper Review last week on Radio York. Hopefully, I again gave my usual measured response. Hmm. But it’s a tricky one to discuss. The problem is that the accusation may have an element of truth, and if local clergy say it does (as they have been doing this week), then who am I to argue? On the other hand, it won’t make things easier for those trying to build up better interfaith relationships, as in south Leeds, and there are lots of moderate Muslims for whom it clearly doesn’t ring true at all.

And, hang on, aren’t there already hundreds of reasons not to go through certain parts of our inner city areas? Norris Green, where two people were shot to mark the start of Liverpool’s year as Capital of Culture, would be near the top of my list of no go areas. (Though, as I have now been introduced to the Vicar of Norris Green, Helen, who is marrying my former Best Man, I might have need to venture there in the future). Tarring and Feathering is still taking place in the Shankill Road area of Belfast according to this week’s Sunday’s - so possibly somewhere to avoid in September when the Savoyards take their annual tour Gilbert and Sullivan show to the city (with either Patience, Ruddigore or the Pirates of Penzance – decision being taken tomorrow - seats in all parts).

But, re. so-called 'Muslim no-go areas', many Muslims I’ve personally met are looking for better relations with those around them. In the very week of the Nazir Ali story, I have had a very interesting meeting in Leeds with two Muslim guys from the Educational Dialogue Charity of Turkey who are trying to develop better understanding in the West about moderate Islam. Hakan and Hakan, who I met, are both educated and friendly and are organising a third visit to Turkey for westerners, after succesful visits in 2005 and 2006. They were keen to know of the sort of journalists who might benefit from a visit in may to Istanbul and Ankara, meeting government officials and visiting TV and newspaper offices. Five star hotels and all hotel costs, food and trips are paid for by Turkish sponsors, so I’ve offered to help – it’s tough work but someone has to do it! If you’re a journalist reading this and are interested then the website with more details is here. Of course, there will be another agenda too- a better understanding of Turkey itself as it tries to join the European Union, and I’m glad to see there’ll be opportunities on the visit to ask difficult questions – on religious minorities, human rights, democracy etc.. but if influential writers for British media learn more about different forms of Islam then it has to be a good thing.

Past, present and future

2008-01-06T15:42:00.000Z

2008 begins in Scotland. It’s both beautiful and slightly surreal. We have walked up through a Scottish forest and are standing in pouring rain overlooking Loch Fyne with pheasants flying overhead proving their clear superiority to the guns below us. Beaters are walking down the hillside opposite and five wonderful retrievers are waiting behind us, slightly redundant as yet another pheasant makes it to safety across the valley. Far from stepping into the new year, it feels like stepping back into an imagined past and an imaginary world, especially when we return to the castle of our hosts (pictured) for lunch of shepherds pie, wonderful puddings washed down with claret.

But of course it’s nearly 2008, not the 19th century, and I’m brought abruptly back to the present by sad news in a text message of the death of Bishop Ralph Emmerson at the age of 94. I didn’t know Bishop Ralph while he was an active priest in the diocese of Ripon. Hardly surprising – remarkably, his first curacy (in Leeds) began before the outbreak of World War II. His final post before retirement was as Bishop of Knaresborough in the 70’s. But in 2000, aged 86, he made an announcement that was to surprise and delight those who knew him and put him on the front page of nearly all the national newspapers – his marriage to Elizabeth Firth, also widowed, and a long time friend. Remarkably, she had been a member of his youth group in Headingley in the 1950’s and he had conducted her first wedding. Of course, at 86, he wasn’t keen on a ‘lot of fuss’ but we agreed on a one-off photocall/ press opportunity on the lawns between his home and the Cathedral. I recall suggesting that there could be three or four cameras and a couple of reporters, which proved a bit of an underestimate. But it all went well and the reporters got a lovely story. I’m sure Ralph and Elizabeth had a very happy few years together.

So a sad piece of news as the first press release of the year, but one with a level of celebration and thanksgiving too. I was pleased to be able to say something about Bishop Ralph on Radio York this morning, while reviewing the papers for the Sunday breakfast programme. Next Friday’s Requiem Eucharist in the magnificent setting of Ripon Cathedral where Bishop Ralph and Elizabeth were married, should be a memorable occasion. Thoughts and prayers to her and her family.

If it says so in the papers ...

2007-12-29T08:56:00.000Z

With adverts in between every BBC programme it’s hardly gone unannounced, but the introduction by the BBC of the ‘iplayer’ really is one of those technical developments which could mark a sea-change (in PR speak) in the way we use the interweb. I’ve already caught up with several programmes I missed thanks to playing Charades, listening to new CDs, trying on new socks, going to church or otherwise enjoying Christmas in the real world.

Learning Italian last year, I marvelled at the way ‘'Rai Click’ , the website of Rai TV, meant I could keep track of the comings and goings in the Italian soap opera, ‘Capri’ or try get used to verbs by watch Italian kids TV (which is very scary, let me tell you.). ‘Why can’t the BBC do this’, I’d be heard to moan. Well now they have, and , fair play, it’s a lot better than those pixelly Italian images. Its also much better than YouTube which is just a series of grainy ‘You’ve been framed’ style home movies really, and Joost which is very good but doesn’t enough interesting stuff. Hence last night, as baby Eva was being fed and the family were vegging in front of a DVD, I was able to catch up on the complete ‘Extras’ Christmas Special, cringe at Ricky Gervais’s gaffs on my own (much better than cringing with your in-laws) and indeed move from one room to another – pushed out of the kitchen into the dining room (thank goodness for wifi!). I tell you, it’s the future. But is it also an own goal by the Beeb, and another step down the road to the end of conventional TV foretold by the man from Apple (see earlier blogs)? Only time will tell.

TV apart, it’s been quite lively on the church front, it being Christmas ‘n all, and as always people say ‘you must be very busy at this time of the year’. Normally the answer would be no, but its turned out to be ‘more than I expected’. Boxing Day dawned mild and miserable but it didn’t deter hundreds of hardy walkers from taking part in the traditional Boxing Day Pilgrimage from Ripon Cathedral to Fountains Abbey. An interesting lesson in the use of press releases ensued. I had written in my earlier release that the new Dean, leading his first walk, would be accompanied by his wife and dog. Well, that’s what he told me – indeed he’d even told me that his dog was called ‘Sooty’ and was a cross Labrador/collie, and as that’s the kind of detail the papers like, I put it in.

I took lots of pictures, everyone set off, I returned home to send out a few pictures with an updated release, and as I was adding the story to the front page of the diocesan website I realised I’d seen no sign of the dog. So I left that bit out. Well, the dog was there, according to next day’s Yorkshire Post, based on the earlier press release, so I’m not arguing. If it says so in the paper then it must be true. Ooops.

In the Daily Telegraph an even more contentious claim was made by Jonathan Petre - that a fifth of all bishops are facing the axe. So that must be true too. Except that of course it isn’t. If they ever reduce the number of Bishops, and another scenario is to increase them, it would be done through a simple process of ‘natural wastage’. As it is, the article was probably based on some hearsay from the Church Commissioners and lacked the much more exciting possibility, implicit in the headline – that dioceses could be merged (or axed as JP himself wrote back in 2003). That was what Bishop John probably expected to be quizzed on when Radio 4 rang him up in the wake of the Telegraph article, and he was all for discussing the merits of a Diocese of West Yorkshire, but I was able to warn him that he didn’t need to go down that road unless he wanted to. Whether or not he did (and he seemed keen), we will only know on Sunday morning, Radio 4, some unearthly hour, when I’ll be on the road to the in-laws in Scotland for Hogmanay as I think it's still called. Happy New Year!

Christmas Fun

2007-12-23T11:32:00.000Z

Happy Christmas, traditionally a time for giving, festive fun and the best seasonal/religious headline of Christmas competition. First prize in this year’s headline competition looks like going to the Yorkshire Evening Press for ‘Bus crash shame of ‘knicker vicar’’, the sorry story of a former vicar who lost his job, became a bus driver and then allegedly knocked a boy off a bicycle while swearing. Technically this is not a Christmas story, so may be disqualified, whereas this startling headline, ‘Jesus born in manger to Virgin Mary, affirms Archbishop of Canterbury’ is clearly seasonal - and wins the ‘dog bites man’ category.

Actually, I suspect it is also a contender for the ‘man bites dog’ prize because in the rest of the BBC Five Live interview, the Archbishop casts doubt on everything else including the wandering star, the date of Christmas, snow lying on the ground, donkeys and even oxen! Is nothing sacred!? It is this aspect of the interview on the Simon Mayo programme that is picked up in the Times headline, ‘It’s all a Christmas tall story’. However, winning the prize for the-most-oddly-written-final-sentence, Ruth Gledhill's piece concludes, “Dr Williams’s views are strictly in line with orthodox Christian teaching. The Archbishop is sticking to what the Bible actually says”.

News that the new Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg ‘does not believe in God’ made lots of headlines and vied for the prize of most-anti-Christian-headline-in-the-week-before-Christmas with news that Richard Dawkins is going to go on a speaking tour of the Bible belt. The Clegg story could I fear spell doom for Claire Kelly, the very nice (churchgoing) governor of St Aidan’s school in Harrogate who is also the Lib Dem candidate for Harrogate at the next General Election. Harrogate is, of course, a high churchgoing area and atheist politicians don’t go down well in these parts.

Midnight Mass, or Midnight Communion as we call it at St Mark’s Harrogate, was the subject of a Jonathan Petre piece in the Telegraph, 'Midnight mass at 8pm to fool drunks'. He rang up during the week to see if I could find any Anglican churches which were doing the same as some Catholic churches and making their midnight services earlier in the day to avoid drunken rowdy behaviour. I was about to say that we’d only had one or two cases of clergy who’d been drunk and disorderly during midnight mass, when I realised the gist of his question. Here, we have something called ‘Journey to Bethlehem’ earlier in the afternoon for families, but we also have the ubiquitous midnight service which caters for both party-goers and shy people. Both groups, for different reasons, want to avoid coming to church on Christmas morning, and as Christmas is a time for coming together and burying differences it seems an ideal mix. Being neither, I won’t be there at all.

Finally, the Churches Advertising Network is going all cyber this year with an island on second Life and the following little cartoon..So until 2008, Happy Christmas again.

That was the week that was

2007-12-15T17:34:00.000Z

This may not be the best blog posting I’ve ever done.. a tiring day after a tiring week so a few random and unconnected observations, though all germaine, one hopes, to the overall raison d’etre of this electronic diary..

1) Last Sunday, the Archbishop of York’s Press Officer’s phone suddenly started ringing as journalists called asking for more details about the boss's dramatic TV coup. Arun Arora told me in church that evening that the phone hadn’t stopped since John Sentamu had cut up his dog collar on the Andrew Marr show. Not only was this piece of television drama covered on bulletins and in every major newspaper throughout the following week, but clearly has caught the popular imagination too, if the conversations I’ve been having since are any indication. Apparently the Archbishop had been having trouble sleeping the night before the programme and felt God prompting him to think about the people of Zimbabwe, suffering under the Mugabe regime. He hadn’t actually warned Arun before the broadcast that he was carrying a pair of scissors in his pocket, but when he pulled them out and decimated his collar there was cheering in the Gallery, and not surprising. It was both dramatic and heartfelt and reminded me of the sort of spontaneous acts of the Old testament Prophets. He’s promised not to put the collar back on until Mugabe is deposed. Let’s hope it’s not too long.

2) So do we need press officers at all? It’s a question asked this week on Radio 4’s The Message (listen again) which wondered why politicians, for example needed spin doctors and couldn’t speak (Sentamu style) direct to the public. It was a question which was raised by Tim Livesey, the Lambeth Palace head of external communications as he told us about changes to the Press Office in the New Year, last week. A more accessible Archbishop of Canterbury, and more emphasis on direct communication with the public using new technology, less of the ‘old fashioned’ communication mediated by the middle men and women called journalists. And one less press officer! Well, let’s watch this space. My own feeling is that we need and will continue to need a mixed economy of communication methods. Just as announcements of the death of popular television could be premature (see previous posting) so too the view that press releases and press officers are ‘old fashioned’. After all, it was precisely the direct approach of the Archbishop which ruined m’ colleagues day off as he answered the phone and put out statements.

3) However…. The issue of more direct communication with the public, via new technology and the internet is something I recognise I need to spend more time on , especially as we start work on a new Ripon and Leeds website and look at the potential for generating video news, podcasts, and effectively TV and Radio on the web. Are we starting our own Christian broadcasting? Across the CofE communicators network, it has long been the strategy not to try and develop religious tv and radio but get the message across through the existing secular channels. But as the communications landscape rapidly shifts, that position is looking increasingly anachronistic – and when is a Christian video podcast not a broadcast? It’s an attractive thought to believe that we no longer need to rely on the hit and miss approach of relying on the vagaries of the newsroom to mediate our message – but is it realistic? Lots of questions and plenty to think about..

4) I managed to get together a programme of Communications training for Spring of 2008 at last – phew! Working with Bradford and Wakefield dioceses we’ll be making use of Trinity and All Saints College as well as an evening session with TV producer Andrew Graystone who is also Director of the Churches’ Media Council. Senior clergy will hopefully be learning how to handle television interviews, using the excellent facilities at the Horsforth college, as well as Geoff Druett, the genial Yorkshire TV presenter. So, hopefully if we do need to continue relying on journalists (of the TV variety), at least we’ll hopefully not make too much of a mess of it. (Geoff Druett pictured right)

What's all the fuss about?

2007-12-09T10:48:00.000Z

It was a spur of the moment decision to go and see the Golden Compass last night. Well, Saturday evening TV is hardly gripping and it had been one of those frustrating days of nearly but not quite doing things – almost finding a Christmas tree, almost addressing the Christmas cards, almost going for a walk, etc. At least I could find out what all the fuss was about, the Catholic League calling for the film to be banned an' all.

Much ado about nothing is my verdict. It’s an enjoyable enough evening’s entertainment, the visuals are great, the plot moves along apace, but emotionally it falls flat. Everything seems underdone. The characters, the plot, the science fiction. The Parallel Universe idea had the potential for excitement but no progress was made in proving it or experiencing it in this film (whereas we know that the crew of Star trek and also Dr Who had it sorted years ago). Lord Asriel (James Bond) sort of fizzles out of the plot after escaping a rather rushed and underdone arctic ambush. Then there’s this 'dust' which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on whether you’re a goody or a baddy. (Didn't Sooty use 'oofle dust' for his magic back in the days of Harry Corbett?). Since none of our main characters experience it we are left nonplussed.

The other central concept is the Magesterium, the cause of all the bother. To me it seemed closest to a Stalinist atheistic politburo, in its desire to cut people off from their souls, or daemons and in wanting to prevent people experiencing other worlds or higher thoughts – probably rather the opposite of Pullman’s original intention. There are some very nice visual effects, with strange gyroscope driven carriages, sailing ships and flying machines, all quaintly Heath Robinson - except for a train which inexplicably rushes like the Eurostar over a bridge in a London city-scape. That train bothered me long after I’d forgotton the names of any characters.

The central character, the child Lyra, is a rather emotionless and hard edged little girl who doesn’t evoke enough sympathy to keep us on her side - while her cute little CGI ‘daemon’ gets all the best lines. I know the good bits will probably be in the sequels, but it still felt a prologue for the main action. Pullman has compared his work to CS Lewis’s Narnia Chronicle, but with the intention of dispelling the ‘God myth’. Both allegories suffer from a need to twist the plot to fit the allegorical requirements, but with God taken out of the Golden Compass it lacks the drama of Lord of the Rings or even Harry Potter where there is no need to make any moral or allegorical points.

So what about the church and these boycott calls? When the Da Vinci Code was being made into a film it too had its critics who wanted to see it boycotted. The books were flying off the shelves and apparently readers were being convinced by Dan Brown’s ‘facts’. In the event the central message of the book was diluted, the film wasn’t very good, and the whole Da Vinci thing collapsed. Will the same happen with the Dark Materials trilogy? With three goes at the story, the films are bound to have more impact, but at the same time, just like any other film in the science fiction/ fantasy genre, cinema audiences will leave entertained but untroubled by any deep theological or philosophical musings. The film stands or falls on its own, the daemon of atheism has been cut away from the story by Chris Weitz and New Line productions and I’d be happy to take my children along to see it, even though they are 26, 25 and 20 years old.

Insider or Outsider?

2007-12-07T11:02:00.000Z

I think I’m one of life’s outsiders. If I was walking past Broadcasting House today, I’d have to carry on walking. Once upon a time I was an insider, I would have walked through the cluster of people standing in the cold for a celebrity autograph, secretly enjoying the envious glances as I entered the hallowed portals into the magic world of the wireless. Sadly today I'm an outsider, stripped of my BBC Club card, but thankfully not (yet) my modest BBC Pension.

The world is divided into outsiders and insiders, and, going off the subject slightly, the sad thing is that most people think, when it comes to the church, they are outsiders. Walking past a church is for many, just like walking past the gates of Downing Street the Foreign Office or the Houses of Parliament.

But back to this week, when I became an insider – for just a few exciting hours. Instead of walking past the Houses of Parliament in the driving rain, I had in my pocket a pass from Black Rod not only go in, but take pictures. (Google Black Rod- I don’t have time to explain). The House of Lords, the second chamber, still has 26 bishops and mine is one of them, so I was there to chat, interview him take pictures and then hear the opening Questions where he had tabled one about payments to farmers. Not only that, but having expected to see the debate from the balcony or ‘strangers gallery’ I ended up , thanks to another red bordered invitation card handed to me by a man in a morning suit, ‘Below the Bar’ (no, its not what you think) and actually in the Chamber itself, alongside people like Nigel Lawson, Betty Boothroyd and the nice Muslim peer who's just back from the Sudan rescuing the Teddy Bear One.

It was a full house but only the bishops had bothered to dress up and the debate was much livelier than I’d expected. The whole issue of the church and state, faith representation in the Lords, and the impression that gives to the rest of the country about the Church of England is an interesting one… Bishop John Packer’s view is, I think, that while we have this system its important that a Christian voice is heard, though he’d like to see other denominations in the house – not just the C of E.

I was to remain an insider for the rest of the day – next stop Lambeth Palace, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury for our Diocesan Communicators Network Day. We talked about professional development, we heard from Tim Livesey about Lambeth and the Lambeth conference plans, and I have a 30 minute Power Point presentation on The Sabbatical, or as I called it ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. I majored on the emphasis from the top in Rome on communications and communications training. Rather rashly, and encouraged by the small representative DC Panel, I was also bring to the meeting the offer to lead an annual conference to Rome in 2009. I was anticipating some questions and objections. Instead I almost had my hand bitten off. Everyone wants to come. Oh dear. Now its phone calls to Rome, pathfinding visits to test hotels, research on the best restaurants and bars. Its tough but someone has to do it.

For some reason I headed home when I should have been making my way past the Norwegian Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square to St Bride’s Church in Fleet Street (do I sound like Samuel Pepys yet?) where the Bishop of London was speaking in a debate organised by the think-tank Theos on the relationship between the Church and the Media.

Pure gold (especially reflecting on on the subject earlier in the day of the contrast between the Gregorian University in Rome and what our trainee priests are offered here at home). This is a snippet:

“Too much of the education of ministers of religion is dominated by learning the communications techniques of the day before yesterday in yesterday’s world. We may be able to write treatises to confute Cardinal Bellarmine but the ability to put a message on a blackberry; to enter the nous-sphere of 18-30 year olds; to produce a two minute video artfully shot with consummate professionalism to simulate the naivety and the believability of a home movie; to deliver a “mighty atom,” a message or a story which gets under the radar and reverberates in the inner spaces of people who are programmed to turn off as soon as you say “I take my text from the Prophet Haggai”; to develop the capacity to interpret the signs of the times through art – all these things should be part of the formation of Christian communicators today.”

Amen to that. My only regret was that I wasn’t there to hear it and now feel like an outsider again. Poor me. Thank goodness for the internet.

It's all go

2007-12-05T07:09:00.000Z

It’s all go here, as it is in Cranford where the body count mounts. Poor Matty. Last week her sister, and now her on-off gentleman friend. Who said TV was dead? Well, the chappy from Apple who was at our DC Conference for one. Good article on the subject in last week’s Media Guardian. Has the death of mainstream TV been exaggerated? http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/nov/26/mondaymediasection.television1 1

Big news of the week – I’ve joined Facebook! It had to happen. I resisted My Space, I’ve got an Avatar on Second Life who is in hibernation – if you’re ever there say hello. (His name is Carter Thursday). But Facebook was the one area I’d not got into, partly because all three of my grown up children have been on it for ages and will probably be a bit cross/embarrassed/ or worried that I am now their ‘friends’ and can check up on them. Amazed and mortified to discover that four diocesan colleagues are already there ahead of me. Ah well. Can’t always be cutting edge.

Last week, the big event was the bishop’s Advent Address, a now traditional feature in the Ripon and Leeds calendar. When he gave me a preview I was quite excited. Topical – bishop speaks out about the Lambeth conference; Controversial – bishop says those who refuse to come are misguided; Popular, as it turned out – everyone I’ve subsequently met has said wasn’t it a good, could we have a copy. Well the answer is yes. Its at http://www.riponleeds.anglican.org/documentstore/ADVENTLECTURE2007.pdf.

But if you don’t want to read it here’s my synopsis:

We will be at Lambeth, declare bishops

Bishop John Packer has criticised Anglican bishops who are threatening to withdraw from next year’s Lambeth Conference. In his annual Advent Address at Ripon Cathedral, Bishop John has said that those who are thinking of absenting themselves on issues of principle are “misguided and missing the point”, saying that the purpose of the ten yearly gathering of Anglican bishops from around the world has always been to discuss divisions and differences since it was begun by his predecessor, 140 years ago.

Bishop John told clergy and lay leaders from throughout the diocese that it was precisely the need to air disagreements that led to his predecessor, Charles Longley, the first Bishop of Ripon (who went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury), to call the first Lambeth Conference in 1867. In his Address, Bishop Packer states unequivocally that both he and the suffragan (or deputy) Bishop of Knaresborough, James Bell, will be attending the Lambeth Conference - where he said it was important that divergent views were listened to.

Good stuff. Hope it’s read by my colleague Tina Evangelides Donavan in New York. Mark Sisk, her bishop, would I think approve and be encouraged.

This week it’s still all go. Ripon Cathedral have just been awarded more than half a million pounds by the Heritage Lottery Fund. A bit much for changing a light bulb you might think, but I understand the new lighting scheme is a bit bigger than that. Then I’m in London, doing a presentation on my study leave in Rome and New York to the quarterly DC Network Day and possibly eliciting support for a Conference in Rome in 2009. We’ll see. I’ve been doing my research though and it all looks feasible. I will report back!

On Unity

2007-12-02T14:31:00.000Z

It’s been a busy week.. so one or two things I’ve been writing. In this post an article for Unity Post which is a newspaper for West Yorkshire which goes out, as its name suggests, during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Rome, City of Surprises

John Carter, Press and Communications Officer for the Diocese of Ripon and Leeds, found his assumptions challenged and ecumenical barriers broken down when he spent six weeks in Rome on study leave.

Let me put my cards on the table immediately. I’ve always been an Anglican, and although the family lapsed a bit and I ran away from Sunday School, never to return, I ended up as a teenager at an evangelical C of E church on the Wirral, where the Pope and Roman Catholicism in general were treated with deep suspicion. Membership of a university Christian Union probably didn’t help and even though I later worked closely with a genial Irish Catholic priest on Radio Merseyside, and was glad to be a reporter when Pope John Paul II came to Liverpool in the early 80’s, I still retained a suspicion for all things Roman well into my time as an Anglican ‘minister’ (definitely not a ‘priest’!).

Thankfully, twenty years on, and with ten years as the Press and Communications Officer at Ripon and Leeds Diocese, I’d mellowed a wee bit. Just as well, since I was planning to spend six weeks of my long-awaited sabbatical break last summer in Rome, meeting with Roman Catholic communications professionals, seeing how the Italian church was using the latest technology, and studying at the renowned and unique Centre for Social Communication at the Pontifical Gregorian University. I’d even prepared by learning ‘un poco italiano’.

Even so, I carried in my suitcase plenty of stereotypes, myths and suspicions - which began to take a knock within a few hours of arriving, on a sweltering Sunday in May, at my destination. First surprise was my hotel, Domus Aurelia, a little Catholic hostel near the Vatican with both a chapel and a bar boasting free Wi-Fi which seemed to welcome a continuous stream of visitors from every destination and every denomination. As I arrived, the hotel was organising and hosting a course for young Roman Catholics on evangelisation, with practical sessions sharing their faith on the city streets. Street evangelism? Whatever next? Next, in fact, was my meeting at the Gregorian University with Jacob Srampickal, the genial, lively Indian priest in charge of the Media and Communications Centre who’s first language was English and who wasn’t afraid to offer both praise and criticism of the way the church in Italy did things. Widely read and widely travelled he reeled off a list of friends and colleagues in Leeds where he’d studied, while typing out a list of classes I could attend and introducing me to passing lecturers. They couldn’t have been more welcoming - despite being an Anglican I was given all the help I wanted and even invited to contribute to one or two seminars. More than that, I was discovering committed communication professionals who were keen to use the latest technology to share their faith in Christ. Another misconception bit the dust.

Then there was the Anglican Centre in Rome – a haven from all this ecumenism, or so I thought. How wrong I was. We stood in a semi-circle to receive the bread and wine in a light, airy and simple chapel - four Anglicans, three Roman Catholics, two Lutherans and a Presbyterian. In fact, the centre wasn’t just a world meeting point for Anglicans from around the globe, but a place of welcome for people of all denominations staying in the city. Based on the third floor of the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, a beautiful palace right in the city centre, the Centre was the gift of a family which has, as its goal, better ecumenical relations. So it seemed appropriate and very natural that over lunch I met Tony, Benjamin, Daniel, Sarah and several others, all hailing from different countries and different denominations.

Back at the University the same afternoon I meet Professor Andreu Scarpetta, leading a two hour class on Media and Ecumenism. It was a fascinating seminar using the latest Power Point technology to trace the development of Protestantism. Despite the lecture being in Italian, I learned more about my own background in those two hours than I’d ever learned back home. Yet Andreu’s treatment was surprisingly sympathetic and later he told me that he worried most when ‘fundamentalists’ from his own church refuse to entertain ecumenism.

The same evening I’m invited by some of those I’d met to a prayer service in the Trastevere region of Rome. The St. Egidio community has a worldwide reputation for peace making and, here was another surprise: the service at their home in the Basilica of Santa Maria is almost entirely led by lay people. It’s very unliturgical, very inclusive and the readings have a simultaneous translation into half a dozen languages using little portable headsets. Afterwards, over a beer and pizza, I meet Leonardo, a member of the community, who chats in a mix of Italian and English about the work of the community before giving me a lift back to my hotel on his Vespa. I hang on for grim death as we wind through the narrow streets at top speed and my life flashes before me.

But perhaps the biggest myth that’s blown away is that somehow the Roman Catholic church is a bit traditional and behind the times. At the Gregorian University students are learning to build websites, make radio and TV programmes, write press releases and apply rigorously apply theology to media and communications. I meet with professionals working on Catholic newspapers, Catholic websites, I visit Catholic press agencies and most interesting of the lot, SAT 2000. This is a satellite television station started ten years ago by the Italian bishops, which now broadcasts everyday from big studios in Milan and Rome, is always in the top ten of Italian TV stations and includes drama, documentaries, news on the hour, chat shows, debates, comedy and satire, and is creating something new and fresh. It was another eye-opener.

Rome is unique – not just a city but the cradle of the church. So you’ll still see nuns and priests everywhere, there’s lots of Catholic tradition, and, of course, the tacky trinkets and religious knick- knacks being sold on every street corner. But dig a bit deeper and you find a church which is pushing back technological boundaries, members who are reaching out in evangelism, and many who want to break down the denominational barriers. If sabbaticals are designed to refresh and challenge, then Rome was an excellent choice. I’ve made friends there ranging from Roman Catholic priests to Lutheran academics, and discovered in Rome a worldwide church of many denominations which is varied, diverse, global, and exciting.

What the papers didn't say.

2007-11-26T08:41:00.000Z

I see Stephen Bates is still at it …the now non-religious correspondent is on page 2 of today’s Grauniad sounding off about the Archbishop of Canterbury and claiming he has been thrown into a political controversy thanks to his remarks in a Muslim magazine. You have to get three quarters of the way through the piece to discover that this political controversy amounts to a blogger in America called Katherine who didn't like what he reportedly said. Gosh. Rowan must be worried.

Guardian editors were, of course, probably a bit piqued to see the story on the Sunday Times’ front page when it had been totally missed on Saturday’s Guardian or in Sunday’s Observer, its sister paper. We know SB doesn’t think much of the ABC but the worst he does here is accuse the ST of selective reporting. Gosh again. The Grauniad would never do that. (I like it really.)

I was doing the Sunday Paper review on the newly crowned local radio station of the year yesterday. Yes BBC Radio Leeds has won the award again for its lively and informative approach. Whether the slot from 8am to 8.30am was lively and informative I leave the listeners to judge but we certainly romped through seven or eight stories including both of the main religious stories – the Archbishop of Canterbury, and more interestingly the one on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph about Tony Blair and his decision not to go pubic on his faith because people would think he was a ‘nutter’.

Richard Staples was also keen to talk about Borders and their ‘O Come All Ye Faithless’ cards (see previous blog), and I found I had revised my views a bit. As an ironic commentary on Richard Dawkins and his dismal faithlessness, the cards have grown on me a bit. I’m seeing them now as a bit of a send-up, knowingly and humorously shooting themselves in the foot – though that’s after I’ve had time to think about them and discuss them on the radio. Maybe I’m being a bit too sophisticated.

Still trying to get my Power Point presentation together for the gathering of DC’s (Diocesan Commmunicators) in London on December 6th. I’ve been searching the interweb for hours in an attempt to get hold of the excellently produced Caritas TV adverts to download, but so far nothing. I did however manage to download, edit and embed an interview with the head of the Vatican website, a Sister Judith Zoebelein. Remarkable woman - she has been in that post since 1995. Ive had to keep it to a minute or so, but if you watch the whole thing (see it here) its quite funny when they get onto the subject of Second Life – clearly some confusion, not helped by the French student who is asking the question but quite enlightening.

The website itself still looks like it did ten years ago and appears to have been created in the dark ages, and with a staff of 17 (‘not enough’ according to Sister Judith) you’d think they’d have done something about the design. Several people I met in Rome were a bit despairing of the site, but although it's a bit dull on the outside, it's quite sophisticated once you get into it. Sort of like the Da Vinci Code in reverse.

Oh Come all ye Faithless

2007-11-21T09:14:00.000Z

The Churches Advertising Network (CAN) will be bringing out its posters and radio ads very soon, celebrating Christmas and getting people to think about the Christian faith. But in a reversal of the old Salvation Army motto, ‘why should the Devil have all the good tunes?’, they’ve been pipped by the opposition this year. The anti-Christ, Richard Dawkins himself, author of ‘The God Delusion’ along with his devilish hordes, the Borders book chain, have cleverly scooped this year’s award for the best Christmas campaign, or rather, anti-Christmas campaign.

Of course it’s wrong, wrong, wrong on so many levels! ‘Faithless’? … Militant, fundamentalist atheism is a faith like any other, dependent on a belief that the human race with all its wonders, it’s incredible sense of self- understanding, love, poetry and music, is as much a cosmic accident as a chunk of rock circling Saturn. The adherents of this faith are completely confident that death is the end, that life has no meaning, that matter came about by chance.

A Christmas PR campaign for a book that would like to see the end of Christmas? I’m sure it’s done with a touch of irony (though possibly, I fear, an irony lost on the staff at Borders.) However, if Christmas is a delusion, then linking a campaign with this worldwide festival is also dishonest. Those of us with doubts, those who are agnostic, even the less militant branch of the atheistic persuasion, would all probably admit that the world would be a duller place without festivals like Christmas, and Borders certainly know they would be out of business without their Christmas stocking fillers and the season of goodwill to all.

Wrong, too, from a PR point of view. As CAN has discovered in the past PR campaigns that miss the mark can backfire dangerously. Would Borders have dared bring out this campaign poking fun at Divali, or Ramadan? Hardly. Dawkins is against those too, of course, as he is against anything which cannot be proved by science. Watch out for the backlash.

Meanwhile, in the provinces ...

2007-11-16T20:12:00.000Z

If it had been in London it could have been a national news story. As it was, inviting Lord Adonis the schools minister to the beautiful, but 'north of watford' Rudding Park in North Yorkshire (where?) to deliver his important message, and on the day the BBC turns everything over to Children in Need, was probably a tactical mistake from a press point of view. He might sound like a Greek god (apparently his dad was Greek) but he might as well have been delivering a postcard.

Never mind, the local press would be on hand to cover it. Ah yes, the local press, with their unerring nose for news, their teams of reporters ready to move out at a moment’s notice. Is that Porky the pig flying overhead?

To be fair it wasn’t all plain sailing at our end. The Education Team were unwilling to let reporters cover the event, and then Andrew Adonis did a runner back to the metropolis and civilisation after coffee even though it had been fixed up for him to be at a lunchtime photocall. Ever felt like your pushing treacle up hill?. Mind you, had a nice chat with Ashley Peatfield, head of religion and ethics for BBC regions who recorded a few other people and got a free lunch as compensation for the early departure of the Lord and the late arrival of the MP (Phil Willis).

BBC Radio York couldn’t spare anyone to cover the event and had lost the press release I’d sent not 16 hours earlier. Brilliant. The cuts are already biting it seems.

**************************************************************

The Church Times continues to disappoint. Three stories sent to them last week. Bishop out on the streets with clubbers should have been of interest. Read all about it at http://www.riponleeds.anglican.org/. But not in the Church Times. Problem is the events were all in Leeds or North Yorkshire. Silly me. Not London you see. (At the Daily Telegraph meeting in London I keep harking back to, one journalist (who shall remain nameless) kept calling the rest of the country the Shires. The Shires!!!???? I ask you!)

Anyway, in the 'consistently disappointing Church Times', an interesting article by former religious producer Ted Harrison talking about the end of the BBC Empire as we know it and life without the license fee. Totally agree with his opening analyses. I’d only been talking at lunchtime with Ashley Peatfield about the way Manchester’s religious department was badly hit by these latest cuts, how it was losing its skilled TV producers and how religion was still being pushed to the edge of the schedules.

Not entirely sure though about Ted Harrison's suggested solutions. He recommends that when the BBC inevitably loses the license fee it should stagger on with pay-to-view programmes - like pay-to view choral evensong (really?) as a way of avoiding nasty religious tv programmes from the States. Well yes, but instead of looking at the worst of religious TV, how about looking for a change at some of the excellent stuff being produced by all digital stations like SAT2000 in Italy. Kick started by the Italian bishops conference ten years ago, it’s now consistently in the top ten TV stations in a country of digital TV and scantily clad, dumbed down wall-to-wall entertainment programmes. It produces hourly news, documentaries, debates, discussion, entertainment comedy, satire, youth and religious programmes with an underlying ethical stance, family values and a generally Christian viewpoint, but with slick professional high production values and without shoving doctrine down its viewers throats. It's not pay-to view. It carries (steady lads) adverts. Yes commercials. Ok, SAT 20000 is so popular that they can afford to be picky and have ethically vetted adverts. As someone asked, only a few weeks ago at the annual church communicators conference, what price CofE TV? The answer: - probably not as much as we think.

Its the future!

2007-11-14T09:35:00.000Z

At the recent Church Communicators conference in Ipswich we had a spellbinding presentation from Alan Rosenfeld, Apple’s UK and Europe Head of Design and Print. I’m still reeling, as I think all of us were, from the information and predictions of the future. Not least, in relation to my sabbatical study in the summer, is the way in which the Internet is becoming more and more important, as older forms of media like newspapers have to completely reassess the ways they go about their core business: news. Graphs and video clips assail us during the hour long presentation. We watch journalists on the Washington Post using Apple’s Final Cut software (other brands are available) as they decide which form of media suits a particular story… some appearing in newsprint, some as video reports on their website. Video journalists voice up films taken by Washington Post camera operators. ‘Your story through any medium’ is the watchword. Lots of useful stuff too about packaging stories to be more suitable for different media – iPods, phones, laptop computer, high definition TV, etc.. Mr Rosenfeld draws some handy analogies with the Church, and illustrates how the basic news has to be repackaged to suit the new media. Fascinating.

A few weeks later and two things have happened back in the real world. The iphone has arrived and I feel like I’ve travelled back in time. It was July 1st in New York that I first had a go of an iphone (show off), and yes, it’s quite impressive, but very fiddly for things like text messages. Plus you have to pay extra for the SatNav software and, of course downloads from iTunes. The only thing I wanted from the Apple Store that evening was a pair of Bose noise cancelling headphones. Unfortunately, I don’t think at £285 a pair they’ll even make my Christmas wish list!

The other thing that linked to the Apple talk, was the visit some of us made to the new Daily Telegraph newsroom and offices off Victoria which I refered to in the last posting. It’s claimed that the Telegraph newsfloor is now the largest in London and it’s impressive. All the different sections fan out like spokes on a wheel from a central hub where editorial meetings can take place. Flat screen computers everywhere, giant screens hanging from the ceiling, and everyone, even feature writers in the Sunday telegraph supplements, somewhere to be found in the vast space. And yes, there in the corner, almost an afterthought, and clearly not fully understood by the hardened newsmen who are rather disparaging, are a couple of little video studios. Despite the Telegraphs undoubted good sales, those little studios could have taken over the whole of the Victoria building in twenty years time –certainly if Alan Rosenfeld is anywhere near right.

One more idea from the Daily Telegraph for the Lambeth Conference planners. How about having the Archbishops around a central table, with the bishops on tables according to the various provinces fanning out along long tables like spokes of a wheel? Well, it works at the county's biggest selling broadsheet.

Religious journalists

2007-11-10T08:32:00.000Z

Journalists are funny people. Stephen Bates of the Guardian keeps writing to me. Generally along the lines of ‘I’m no longer the Guardian’s Religious correspondent -please don’t send me any more of your religious press releases’ and then ‘As requested earlier, please remove me from your distribution list - send it to Riazat Butt instead’, followed by ‘Look I asked you before, I won't ask you again. I don't want any more religious stuff - I've had it up to here with religion’. Well, along those lines.

So yesterday I duly got round to amending my distribution list and sent Stephen an apologetic note. Imagine my surprise then, not ten minutes later, when I turned to page 3 of the said organ to read 'Former PM to be accepted into the Roman Catholic Church' by Stephen Bates. Call me old fashioned .....

To be honest I don’t know why I ever bothered in the first place. As far as I could make out the Guardian only ever had about four stories which it repeated every week. Obviously Tony Blair becoming a Catholic which has now been happening for at least eight years, yawn. Then there’s Gay clergy, women bishops and most important the Imminent Break up of The Worldwide Anglican Communion – a body which most of our parishioners don’t even know existed in the first place. The Guardian generally takes the stance that God doesn’t exist and the church is an irrelevant minority occupation by a few harmless old folk and the Anglican church a minority of a minority. Despite this Stephen somehow managed to convince his editors that this Imminent Break Up of the Worldwide Anglican Communion story was so important that they should let him end his religious tenure on a high note, paying for him to go to New Orleans and watch the US bishops eat the Archbishop of Canterbury for breakfast, carry out a few gay blessings and then split from the rest of the ‘stick in the mud’ Anglican communion for good. As it happens, none of the above took place. It must have been a terrible disappointment.

Oddly, if you asked him as we once did, why his stories where always so negative, his defence was that actually his wife was an evangelical Christian and he only had the good of the church in mind. Ho hmmm. You could imagine the conversations at home,‘Darling I’m back from my bible study at Doreen’s house’. SB,‘Any arguments? – any dissenting views?’ Mrs B ‘ No Doreen led a very good Bible study – and we all seemed to agree.’ SB ‘A woman leading a Bible study?! Do my ears deceive me?!! There must have been a few rumbles of discontent about that. Did anyone walk out? I need to phone the Vicar’ and so on…

But that’s journalists for you, and who can blame them. I took part in a visit to the new, and breathtaking, Daily Telegraph offices in Victoria last week with a group of church communicators and it was a superb day. Well organised and a chance to hear from some religious journalists including Jonathan Petre of the Daily and Jonathan Wynne-Jones of the Sunday Telegraph. I almost felt sorry for them. The way they have to convince their editors that they have a story so important and sensational that its got to be included, that if you include it newspapers will be flying out of the shops… and then spend hours working on it while watching it drop down the batting order until its finally kicked into touch. It’s no wonder that at every stage of this process the original story gets a little bit sexed up, a bit more sensationalised until black is white, day is night, the Worldwide Anglican Communion has become a huge and important and real er thing which is about to explode causing global warming and the end of the civilised world as we know it. Keep at it guys – it might still happen.

The Missing Year

2007-11-09T10:55:00.000Z

OK I'm back.. sorry for the one year gap. At a seminar recently I learned that a year is a bit too long between entries. Two or three days is better.

So I promise to be a bit better at blogging from now on.

In mitigaion m'lud, I have been doing a blog over the summer of 07 which is on http://www.johncarter.moonfruit.com/

It's great and amazing! And apparently several hundred people read it.. or may one person read it several hundred times. I could cheat and put it all on here, but instead here are some of my favourite bits..

Extracts from my Blog - Study Leave May 13- August 13 2007

... May 16 - Il meo compleanno (My birthday) Rome :

I stroll through the crowds to the Gregorian University and Jacob introduces me to Prof. Andreu Rocha Scarpetta who is leading the seminar on media and ecumenism. Having started to see the way different churches and traditions come together in Rome, this proves to be a fascinating, slightly mind-blowing seminar. Andreu is extremely helpful, discussing with me in English what he will be talking about in the seminar (which is of course in Italian), then in a break after an hour coming over to see if I was keeping up! Which I was, thanks to the power point presentation, and the subject – a detailed and fascinating study of the different strands and development in Protestantism, given to an entirely Catholic audience. Students again from many different countries where relations with protestants can be lukewarm at best, and sometimes antagonistic. But Andrew’s approach, using a model developed by Rodney Stark, is to develop understanding and empathy for different approaches. He confides that he is most worried when Catholic ‘fundamentalists’ refuse to entertain the subject and consider all protestants beyond the pail. By the end my brain is hurting from learning more about my own background than I had heard in years of experience and theological study – better still I can read more at my own pace because Professor Rocha Scarpetta has given me the password to all the course notes.

I come reeling out into the daylight and wander around Rome before ending up at Travestere. Its here on a Tuesday night that the St Egidio community meet (http://www.santegidio.org/en/index.html) and I catch the second half of the Tuesday night prayer and singing in the beautiful setting of the Basilica of Santa Maria. After I discover Tony and Benjamin from earlier in the day, along with some guys who have just flown in and Leonardo a member of the community for the past ten years who is showing them around. They invite me to join them for pizza at a nearbye trattoria, where in a mix of Italian and English Lonardo tells us about the St Egidio community and his love of baseball in equal measure. It seems only civil to offer to buy a round to celebrate my forthcoming Complianno (birthday) – see picture gallery!

To top off the day Leonardo offers to take me back to my hotel on his scooter – the ultimate Rome experience. There are moments as we weave through the traffic when I wonder if I will reach my next birthday, but it’s a great way to see the city. Even with your eyes closed.

May 21

Saturday is a day off so when in Rome do what the Romans do—head out of town to the Lido, buy a towel and a beach bag, hire a sun lounger on a suitably fashionable section of beach - surrounded by a lot of flesh - fall asleep, get burned, eat cannelloni, drink un birra, back to Trastevere for the evening, eat ice cream catch the 8pm St Egidio communion service, a pizza, and finally collapse into bed for a solid 8 hours sleep before Sunday.

May 24

Courses at the Greg (Gregorian University Faculty of Social Communications ) cover media and theology with a scope and depth that is the envy of the world – the small world of media theology practitioners anyway.

What’s unique here in Rome, is that the students being trained are either priests or lay people who have a clear intention to become Communications officers/directors of one sort or another back where they were sent from. Between classes today I meet an Indian priest, sponsored by his diocese to take a three year course enabling him to join an already established communications team on his return. Three years?! Three days would be our limit in England, I suspect. It’s the same with all the students, and today is for me an object lesson in how Roman Catholic Communications policy is developed and put into contexts in different cultures throughout the world.. yes, its Pastoral Communications Day. (Da,Dah!)

After another Guinness based lunch at the Trinity College Bar (where I note they will be screening tonight’s Champions League final), and a stroll through the Villa Borghese gardens where I read a book in the shade of the pine trees, its back for another Pastoral Communications class, this one led by Jacob Srampickal himself.

It’s clear I should have been to more of Jacob’s classes. He leads them with a relaxed jocular style, leading the discussions with humour but sharp and insightful comments, and the third year students, many about to return home, are open and friendly. This time its about parish strategies and Luis from Brazil presents his ideas – in Portuguese, of course. But although there’s lots of good stuff, Jacob picks him up for looking at wider issues of small groups and internal communication, with not enough emphasis on external and media strategies.

Well - loads more of course but its back to the present next time.

On crosses

2006-10-26T10:03:00.000+01:00

It's the Archbishop of Canterbury who is taking the rap for the British Airways/Cross wearing dispute. He's not been speaking up about it enough for the media apparently, though if JJ, his press officer, had a pound for every time he'd heard that accusation, I'm sure they could take on an extra assistant in the hard pressed bowels of Lambeth Palace.

But in any case, let's just step back a minute. The cross on which Jesus died is the supreme act and sign of God's love to each person, the sacrifice he made to break through death and bring us eternal life. But does that make it the Christian symbol? Is it, as the papers seem to assume, obligatory for Christians to wear a cross? The answer, of course, is no to both. The earliest symbols of Jesus were either the star, or the fish, icthus, found painted on the walls of early Christian churches. And while the cross was and is commonplace, you'll find more and varied examples of it in high street jewellers than you will on church bookstalls. It's worn today by anyone and everyone, and many who wear it don't even realise its religious significance. The sign of the cross, used in baptism on the forehead of the person being baptised is usually accompanied, not by the gift of a silver necklace but by perhaps a candle, or a Bible.

There is a strong slab of the Christian world which is actually ambivalent about wearing of crosses. Here is Charles Spurgeon's advice to preachers on the subject:

"I would say, if I might, to young ministers, do not preach in gloves, for cats in mittens catch no mice; don't curl and oil your hair like dandies, for nobody cares to hear a peacock's voice; don't have your own pretty self in your mind at all, or nobody else will mind you. Away with gold rings, and chains, and jewelry; why should the pulpit become a goldsmith's shop? Forever away with surplices and gowns and all those nursery doll dresses men should put away childish things. A cross on the back is the sign of a devil in the heart; those who do as Rome does should go to Rome and show heir colors." Hmm that's telling you!

His view, whether we agree or not, is that jewellery is generally a bad thing, and a silver cross is an oxymoron. Should then the head of the C of E, a church founded during the protestant reformation by a king determined to sever ties with Rome, be standing up and making a fuss about a perfectly reasonable policy that jewellery - of whatever religion - should be kept hidden beneath uniforms?

2006-09-16T08:25:00.000+01:00

The poster created by Radioville, which has attracted worldwide coverage. The Washington Post Blog has this article :

"With attendance dwindling, Britain's interdenominational "Churches Advertising Network" (or CAN), announced Thursday that it plans to launch a campaign featuring heady images of Jesus in an almost empty beer glass. The ads will run during the Christmas season and are aimed at luring youngsters out of public houses and into houses of God. CAN's hip re-branding of Christ doesn't stop there, though. They've also given him a totally awesome Myspace page to foster debate on whether Christmas should be about more than booze and parties.According to chairman Francis Goodwin, "the message is subtle but simple," and let's hope so because being a British commercial the message doesn't appear to offer any disclaimers. Who knows, despite his good intentions, Goodwin could be opening a Pandora's Box of liability. What happens when a bunch of misinterpretation-prone American kids stumble onto CAN's Myspace page and end up spending their holidays downing pint after pint in a drunken search for Foamy Jesus? If they do find God, their parents will sue for contributing to the delinquency of minors, and if they don't find God they'll sue for false advertising. It's enough to make you drink!"

But do they sell bitter in the States? Its a thought isn't it - ooer.

Storm in a beerglass

2006-09-16T07:10:00.000+01:00

Sorry about the long gap in posting. I've been shamed into picking up the virtual pen again by a Mrs Ferguson of Shepherd's Bush and by her colleagues who are linking their up-to-the minute blogs to mine.

What can I say about the last 48 hours? Since we launched this year's Churches' Advertising Network (CAN) campaign at 12.30pm on Thursday the emails and phone calls haven't stopped. I think we expected a bit of controversy and the Times gets the prize for most antagonistic coverage of the new campaign. Ruth Gledhill's Times blog collates much of the venom (well, tut tutting anyway) of 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells', though to be fair she did let me have my say.

But most people seem to get it. Reading myspace.com/isthisjesus gladdens the heart. Young people are already becoming 'friends' with the site and posting their, generally positive views about the campaign.

I loved this one: "wow! i am sooo very happy to see something like this, even if it is in London and not here in the states! i'm not exactly a christian myself, but i have grown up in very christian surroundings. i've always been turned off by how some christians can seem so closed minded about so many things, especially when it comes to their religion. i know it's something very precious, but if the goal is to get the message out there, connect with people, and bring them to God, then you have to be willing to do what it takes. it's absolutely fantastic to see something so modern and so open, and i think that it will succeed. it's a more comfortable, friendly approach. people are going to start talking about Jesus, and most likely their curiosity will lead them closer and closer to God. for that matter, even if they don't become christians, they'll at least have the knowledge and an experience that will help them to grow in a positive way"

We wanted to get people talking, and thinking about faith and belief and its already happening two months before the campaign starts! So far not a penny spent on either posters or the excellent radio ads but people seem to know about the campaign in most major cities of the world. I've just done an interview with a Spanish speaking television station, part of NBC, based in Miami, and before that picked up comments from Australia and USA. AFS the French newsagency were one of the first to get in touch asking for the pictures and there's an interview I did for BBC regional radio going out on their Sunday morning networks tomorrow.

What about the beer glass though? Doesn't it promote beer drinking and the expectation that we might find Jesus in the froth, a bit like a plastic car at the bottom of a box of Cornflakes? I guess that this literalist interpretation must lie at the heart of the controversy, (and I quote the Washington Post above which caricatures the criticism) but young people around the world who look at ads are a little more sophisticated - even in America. Only in a few interviews or email replies have I had to explain that we are just as sceptical as anyone about so called images of Jesus, and more worried than most about binge drinking at Christmas time. The message is subtle, but simple - where is God in all the booze and the partying which for most young people is what Christmas 2006 will be about?

I hope Christians out there will want to see these ads up in their area, and I hope even more that they'll want to buy airtime on their local commercial station in December to run the radio ads. That's what we need now - support from local Christians to get people talking.

"Relevant, Contemporary, Ingenious!"

2006-06-16T15:09:00.000+01:00

We did it!! The Churches’ Advertising Network (CAN) has ‘scooped’ a top award for last year’s Christmas Questions radio campaign . The campaign was described as “ingenious” by the judges who said the production was “relevant, contemporary and interactive”. We – or rather top agency, Radioville, had made a series of seven, 20 second, adverts posing questions about the meaning of Christmas and they were broadcast during December 2005. The judges praised the advert’s “good, clear and simple style”.

So thanks to everyone involved: colleagues, Adrian Reith and the Radioville team, Simon Mayo who voiced the adverts, Melissa Hawker who worked with the creatives, Jerusalem Productions for supporting us financially, Jeff Bonser and Chistian Enquiry Agency and Simon Jenkins of the Rejesus website…. And of course all the groups and supporters around the country who got begind the campaign. The 2005 adverts, aimed at the 18-25 age group, were played a total of 2039 times on 37 ILR stations including Kiss 100 FM, the Galaxy network, Kerrang, Hallam FM, and Radio City in Liverpool.

It was an honour meeting Prunella Scales (Fawlty Towers, A Question of Attribution etc) who presented the Churches Media Conference and , yes, it was a night of celebration- lots of free champagne, and I was woken up by the cleaner the next morning, looked at my watch and realised I was supposed to have vacated my room an hour earlier! Also came down to earth as realised that we need to get to work very quickly if we are to have a campaign for Christmas 2006. Watch this space!

Ads, images and soundbites

2006-06-06T19:55:00.000+01:00

There could be a gong coming our way next week – I refer to the Churches’ Advertising Network (CAN) which I do a bit for in my 'spare time'. Last year’s Christmas campaign on commercial radio has been shortlisted for an award at this year’s Churches’ Media Council annual conference! (http://www.churchesmediacouncil.org.uk)

… Partly we are in the running because hardly anyone else makes Christian adverts, and in fact in some quarters they are still frowned upon. The jury is still out, quite literally, with an advertising forum chaired by the Bishop of Manchester still not much nearer reaching a conclusion than it was three years ago when it first met. Anyway, despite the limited amount of competition next Tuesday night I’m not writing my winner’s speech just yet. But if you want to hear what was broadcast on 38 commercial stations nearly 3000 times last December go to the CAN website (http://www.churchads.org.uk/Christmasradio2005.htm).

CAN is also in the news because we’re part of a brand new exhibition at the V&A museum in London which opened this week. It’s all about Che Guevara and his iconic status http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1541_che/.. Back in 1999 we had a hugely controversial poster advert for Easter which depicted Christ in a semi revolutionary pose. The fact that the original iconic picture owed much to an even earlier picture of Christ was slightly overlooked in the ensuing hoo hah and as a result people are still talking about it, and the V&A still displaying it, seven years later.

Meanwhile, one of the things about the Churches’ Media Council conference is the way each presentation is done like a Question Time broadcast with a presenter and a producer, and a panel of experts. The theme next week is Peace and Reconciliation, and there are some big names this year – Time Editor, Robert Thomson, the thinking woman’s foreign correspondent Rageh Omaar (the ‘scud stud’)(being interviewed by the thinking bishops’ communications officer, Liz Jepson), BBC correspondents Mike Wooldridge, John Simpson, entertainment from Faith Brown and Prunella Scales presenting the aforementioned awards – not to mention Janey Lee Grace, and Diana Louise Jordan! Time was when if you wanted someone famous at the conference you had to get Liz Jepson to do an impression. Who will forget her Joanna Lumley in ‘Ab Fab’ opposite Sandra Herbert?!

Anyway, getting beyond the celebrity, the subjects are pretty meaty and I was particularly attracted by Tuesday’s plenary, ‘Does size matter?’ which promises: “In a media where the ‘soundbite’ reigns, can the media be accused of stoking conflict by simplifying messages and opportunities for explanation? This session will also allow some exploration of the different worlds in which commercial radio, advertisers and web designers work. Is there time for faith, balance and ‘big subjects’ in this environment?"

On the panel will be Steve Goddard, of the Ship of Fools website (and one time communications Officer for Manchester Diocese) , ‘our’ Chas Bayfield, Arkwright Advertising and the Churches’ Advertising Network, Andrew Fewster, Leicester Sound and AudioPot who has mixed the latest CAN promo CD, and all chaired by Steve Wright in the Afternoon’s very own Janey Lee Grace.

I guess the debate will only scratch the surface, but with advertising I am amazed how a well timed pithy phrase can capture the imagination and say more than the most polished 20 minute sermon .. which reminds me – back to work..!

Lo tech, Hi tech

2006-05-31T20:00:00.000+01:00

First a word of apology to both my readers. Sorry. It’s been a very lo-tech week. I lost my wireless computer connection last Tuesday and with the rigours of performing in a splendid run of the Gilbert and Sullivan masterpiece, Ruddigore, at the Harrogate Theatre every night and twice on Saturday, it’s taken until now to get back on track. Check out the pictures on http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/3073772

Enough about me. I’ve just been checking out the Sandi Thom website. Who? Well, she’s a new singer who has been employing some clever methods to get public attention for her new single ‘I wish I was a punk rocker’. But you need to know more about what’s happened to see that this is clearly the way forward for the Church of England, stuck as we are with out 20th century notions of PR – pamphlets, flower festivals and faxes. Sandi Thom, who looks like my younger daughter, and sings a song which reminds me strangely of the Albanian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, wishes she was still in the lo-tech age, a ‘Punk Rocker with flowers in my hair’. It must be post-modern irony though, because, according to the Guardian, it is computers, high tech websites and up-to-date PR which will make her ‘a self made internet superstar’ with a number one by the weekend.

And this is where the C of E is missing a trick. Instead of relying on her music, nice though it is, its in the use being made of PR. Particularly a new PR tactic, almost, some suggest underhand, a style of PR employed by music PR companies like ‘Quite Great’. Its tactics include, and this is the revolutionary bit, the use of ‘street teams’ to 'spread the word' on the, er, streets, in fact. “‘You can’t just rely on good music’ said Louis Harris, PR manager at ‘Quite Great’ ‘-its really important to have the street teams out there talking about them’”. Apparently the street teams (many unpaid) go out and enthuse people, spreading the word, getting people talking about Ms Thom, mainly in the streets but sometimes, I’m guessing, in Costa Coffee, or Waterstones and create a “buzz” about the artist. The critics say its all a bit unsporting, a bit iffy. Gosh. How awful! Imagine if the church stooped to such tactics!

Need I say more? Not really… Yes, it really isn’t ‘clever PR, unique to the Internet age’. It didn’t even start with Bill Grundy and the Sex Pistols, which is where, according to the Guardian we can trace these tactics back to. I have a feeling that the church invented it. Check out the gospel accounts of the 72 enthusiasts going out as 'street teams' (without scrip or purse) or anything in the Book of Acts starting at Chapter 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc etc, creating there own ‘buzz’. Its devastatingly lo-tech and its the latest 21st century PR weapon.

Problem. We need enthusiasts – not the sort that shout a lot on street corners, but the sort that create, what was it, '48,000 web hits before any press publicity got going'. And of course we need something exciting for them to enthuse about and St Swithun's nativity play may not quite cut the mustard. But, here’s the good thing. The street teams can be unpaid as well as paid.

Da Vinci - the secret is out!

2006-05-20T08:17:00.000+01:00

OK lets get the less important stuff out of the way in a couple of sentences.. is the Da Vinci Code as bad as the critics said? – well no, I actually enjoyed it a bit more than the book. Is this Tom Hanks at his worst? – possibly, but it’s a great performance by Paul Bettany as Silas, Sir Ian McKellen is fun and the others make the best of the wooden script. Is the film too long? – yes, but the scenery of Scotland is stunning, the Rosslyn chapel is gorgeous and worth staying in your seat for even if the film is already running of gas and stuttering to it’s rather lame and slightly surprising conclusion. The main faults of the film already lay in the book – never let a dramatic action scene get in the way of another lecture - an approach which Ron Howard tries to get around with lots of grainy film, cut away shots of spinning letters and plenty of dramatic music, sadly without total success.

So is the film a threat to Christianity and should the church be worried? Should we be writing books, staging demonstrations and panicking? The answer is no—indeed the church militant can reduce its threat from Code Red to Orange, it can stand down from 'Defcon 3', 'shields down', deflectors down - for a new secret has emerged, one which isn’t in the book, and I predict that Ron Howard will be thanked by the Vatican, in the fullness of time, for his adaptation of Dan Brown’s novel. For behold, the certainty of the book is replaced by a questioning, more sceptical approach in the film, the 1st century family man Jesus of the book is restored at the end as (possibly) the divine, prayer answering, miracle working Jesus that we are more familiar with, and those who hold Dan Brown’s conspiracy theory views are shown up to be all as mad as a bag of snakes! Even Opus Dei comes out ok - we have the honest if misguided Opus Dei detective, Bezu Fashe, there's plenty of mention that the movement has lots of ordinary married followers, and it turns out that it’s just the maverick corrupted bishop, Aringarosa, and the Albino monk Silas who have taken the movement off course. Meanwhile Sir Leigh Teibing, representing Grail fanatics everywhere (inc Dan Brown?) , turns out to be cunning, deceitful, murderous and bonkers, his complex and contradictory arguments failing to convince the main protagonists, let alone the audience.

The thing is, it’s a film and we know how to watch films- we suspend our disbelief until we walk back out into the cold night air (or wet afternoon in Harrogate as I did). Even if the film had contended, like the book, that it was Fact with a capital ‘f’, which it doesn’t, we wouldn’t have necessarily been sucked in by it’s conspiracy theories. In the event Ron Howard has watered it down, nothing is fact, everything is up for grabs and it's up to the church to get involved in the debate. “The only thing that matters is what you believe” says Langdon. Audrey Tautou’s Sophie may or may not be the last of the bloodline of Jesus – its up to us. She may look divine, but she can’t walk on water. Hank's Robert Langdon, the sceptical expert, admits he prayed to Jesus at a moment of childhood trauma and felt he 'wasn't alone'. Could the Son of God have sired children? If he married Mary Magdalene did that make him just an ordinay bloke from first century Palestine? Or was this 135 minute treasure hunt a wild goose chase - and the church was right after all? The questions are left hanging, and in any case many in the audience will have lost the plot ages before thanks to its preposterous (and ponderous) twists and turns.

Dan Brown, post the book, pre the film, backtracking rapidly, should have the last word - "Controversy and dialogue are healthy for religion as a whole. Religion has only one true enemy - apathy- and passionate debate is a superb antidote". He's right, but this film probably won't do as much as he hoped to stimulate that debate.

Opinions and columns

2006-05-14T08:41:00.000+01:00

If the England fans in Germany get to sing “One Theo Walcott, there’s only one Theo Walcott…!” (to the tune of Guantanamero for the uninitiated) they will apparently be more accurate than they thought. There is only one Theo Walcott according to my daughter who has been trying to track down anyone else with that name for a PR campaign for a certain online address finder. If you know another one then Suzy Carter would like to hear from you!

Don't speak out
PR, like journalism is a wonderful job because you can be highly creative. But whereas in PR you are generally being positive and creative, quite often journalists can get very negative, writing acres of rubbish and making highly personal and damaging statements from the high moral standpoint of their office desks - using a vehicle which certainly didn’t get to its height of popularity by their efforts. OK, you can tell I’m cross about something in this week’s papers, but rather than go on about it I’ll just give you the link. Thank you to the Yorkshire Evening Post for working me up into a lather! The few times I’ve met him I’ve found John Thorpe to be an affable and friendly chap, so maybe before I write an outraged letter to the editor I should do my homework. (a) Where does he stand on the BNP himself, ‘cos it seems to be arguing that those who voted for them were somehow in the right? (b) Is it really his view that journalists, like the colleague he castigates, as well as bishops have no right to express opinions? –if so, it’s a view that would sideline his own efforts pretty quickly. To be consistent maybe he should put his pen down now anyway! And much as I hate point scoring, I tried out the wonderful 192.com on him (it finds addresses) and I don’t think he lives closer to a sink hole estate than the bishop he has a go at – someone who spent much of his work as a parish priest on housing estates in Sheffield, and now spend much of his time on the ground in many deprived areas listening to the genuine concerns etc etc.. well you can see the gist of my letter to the Editor if I write it!

Da Vinci again?
Sorry, went off on one there.. I’ll try not to do it again. On a lighter note, having thought my musings on the Da Vinci code would be the last word on the subject, it seems some people just will not let it lie! Oh no, bishops calling for people to boycott something again! This time our RC cousins, much more used to the concept – cf abortion, euthanasia, condoms (but strangely not Hitler –maybe they read the YEP too- sorry - cheap shot). Anyway, they don’t seem concerned by the ‘oxygen of publicity’ argument, huh, like the Da Vinci code needs more publicity, yeh right. I don’t care –I’ll be there on opening day anyway, though with the big build up, I suspect we might be in for a bit of a let down.

Keep Up!

2006-05-07T07:36:00.000+01:00

Can you be a techno geek at the age of 50? Or is a geek by definition a spotty youth? If that's ageism, then I'm doing my bit to counter it. This week, as well as eating mainly Special K (don't ask!) I have made great progress in the technological revolution... Firstly I purchased (online of course) a brilliant MP3 digital voice recorder - and yes, IT'S THE FUTURE! This week I did my side of a radio interview on it which I cleverly emailed as an MP3 file to a radio station - but that's just the start. Watch out for a new wave of podcasts - when I've got a few spare hours, ha.

I've also now got something called a Mobizine on my phone. And this is the phone which I thought could already do everything - I already listen to the radio on it while it makes the tea. But the Mobizine is brilliant - ITS THE FUTURE! AT the touch of a button I get a huge welter of headlines which i can dip into and if I'm interested they automatically log on to the internet and go straight to the story in depth on the BBC news website. So you see, I'm also getting more for my license fee. It's my BBC too!

Which is good because I've decided there should be more programmes like The Da Vinci Code, The Greatest Story Ever Sold, on BBC 4 last night. It was, almost, a thorough examination - and demolition - of the 'facts' of the best selling book, and it should be required viewing for anyone who's read the book or will see the film - which is probably everyone, according to the incredible sales figures. I say almost because it missed out my two main gripes about the Da Vinci Code - (a) the book suggests you have to jump on the Underground from the Temple church to Kings College (they are actually a few hundred yards apart and served by the same station- geek fact number one) and (b), slightly more importantly, why would anyone seek the Holy Grail at all if its just the bloodline of an ordinary bloke who married a prostitute and had kids. Ruth Gledhill, the Times journalist (doesn't she look young?) , did alude to this fact when she asked why, if there were people around who are descended from Jesus why aren't they out saving the world? And an old chap who obviously knew a thing or two pointed out that Versailles isnt north of Paris - so we know the book is a bit rubbish on its geography.

Anyway, The Da Vinci Code, the greatest story ever sold, should (apart from that title) have pleased this new Roman Catholic task group which my Mobizine (it's the future) alerted me too while I was rehearsing Ruddigore (May 23rd to 27th, Harrogate Theatre, seats in all parts) the other evening. The Da Vinci Code Response Group includes a Benedictine abbot and two priests who are seeking to counter its damaging effects on the church. It's a tough task but BBC 4's programme went some way to helping them in their , dare I say, quest .

Once upon a time knights in shining armour went seeking a special cup, or was it a plate? Either way, as crockery goes, it was in demand. Perhaps the Da Vinci Code Response Group should do something positive and set about recovering the real Holy Grail. Oh, and allow Roman Catholic women to become priests instead of just housekeepers. That might help.

Dancing round the maypole

2006-05-01T06:59:00.000+01:00

Top Bank Holiday TV programme so far: The Impressionists (BBC something), mainly because it was pure escapism from this wet, cold bank holiday weekend. If you missed it, it was the first part of a series, narrated in the words of Monet, about his life, his friends, and the development of this popular art movement filmed, with little expense spared, on location in Paris, Givernchy etc. Ideal holiday viewing - probably 'cos its full of places we like to go on holiday and the weather in the 1870's was generally good - but why was it holiday viewing. Why are we having another bank holiday two weeks after Easter? This is our newest-I think- introduced by Labour in 1978, and strengthened in its arguments by the lousy weather, the Daily Telegraph is having a predictable go at it today - while conceding that we still are at the bottom of the European league table for bank holidays- Italy has 16, for goodness sake!!

Which brings us to the subject of spin. (It does - just go with me here.) Last Thursday I stood on the south bank of the Thames outside the Ofcom building (its somewhere between London bridge and the Globe Theatre), and, having negotiated security and been asked to avert our eyes while honest workers toiled in front of their TV's perusing controversial episodes of Songs of Praise or Jerry Springer the Opera, we, a party of twenty five church communicators, eventually got down to discussing our trade, for a change from a theogical point of view. And, looking at the question, 'Should the church be involved in spin?' (see last blog) we of course noted that it was the stock in trade of every newspaper and many broadcasters, however much they might fulminate about wicked 'spin doctors' in their columns. Every paper has its worldview, its values, its arguments, and every event, every piece of news is judged and written about from that perspective and for people who share these views and values. It doesn't explain why I get the Guardian, but might explain why others of my family take the Telegraph or indeed the Express. Being shallow, I just enjoy the size and shape and photos in the new Guardian, while not in the least subscribing to its humanistic, utilitarian, new-labourite and God-sceptical viewpoint.

Anyway, yes, the church and spin - well the six groups we divided into to discuss this and other questions (How do we communicate abstract concepts such as love and forgiveness in the black and white world of media certainty? And I want to be proactive but what am I trying to say?) were difficult to stop once they got into their stride. The feedback could have formed the basis of a useful book on the subject, and if my colleagues remember to return their notes, maybe it just might. And it was recognised that once we start writing press releases, or countering misinformation from the media, we are thrust into this media world of spin and opinion and pretty quickly have to be able to learn and understand its language and rules. Those of us who have been journalists or PR professionals in a former life, shouldn't leave our skills at the door. But we need to be rigorous in applying the highest ethical standards to the decisions we make, the conversations we have, the advice we give. Should that poor vicar have been subject to that fly on the wall documentary? Shouldn't we inform the press about that difficult court case which is taking place tomorrow? Should we insist that the local vicar speaks about their village rather than pandering to the media desire for a man in a purple shirt?

There are lots more issues and debates and discussions to be had as we think through some of these issues together - and I'd like to see journalists getting involved too. But, ah, is that a chink of sunlight shining through the clouds?! Maybe its time to break off and enjoy Mayday.

PR - what's a church to do?

2006-04-24T17:20:00.000+01:00

Church in a spin. Catchy ‘eh, but so far not much about spin, I hear you (both) say. So here are some questions and I need the answers asap. I was asked to come up with a practical theology session for church communication officers to get their teeth into at a meeting next Thursday (27th) in London. So I came up with the following questions (for one section of a much more detailed plan I hasten to add):

Should the church be involved in spin? –Ethical issues for Christians using the tools of PR
- Devising ‘media friendly’ events. Is there a danger of hijacking God’s priorities or riding roughshod over prayerful, quiet witness, for the sake of getting the church in the local paper?
- An advertising campaign for the church. Is there a danger of using inappropriate tools which give the wrong impression – the ‘media is the message’?
- Emphasising the positive and hiding the negative. We all do it but is it ethical?
- The cult of celebrity. Is there a danger in using ‘personalities’ (or even purple shirts with no personality)- to get better coverage?
- Which tools of PR can be tools for God- and which can be ‘tools of the devil’?!

By way of practical examples of PR which could backfire we might discuss David Mellor with his family eating beef burgers, George W Bush landing on an aircraft carrier, or my own Sheep at Ripon Cathedral debacle, which made it onto Have I got News for You. But how about closer to now and the pro’s and con’s of the PR efforts being currently made by Winchester Cathedral - as reported in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph:

Bishop accused of cashing in on the 'Da Vinci heresy'

“ …. The Da Vinci Code has now found sanctuary - glorification even - within the walls of one of England's oldest Anglican cathedrals and today Winchester Cathedral will shun the controversy surrounding the novel and begin a three-month programme of events taking advantage of its huge commercial success. Cracking The Code, The Holy Mystery Beyond The Da Vinci Code will utilise cathedral premises and draw upon the talents of some of the diocese's leading figures, including the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, the Bishop of Winchester. …… One leaflet states: "Visit Winchester Cathedral's Summer exhibition to discover more about Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, part of which was filmed in the cathedral, and about the holy mystery beyond this story for our time.

"We want to offer the opportunity to make your own mind up on The Da Vinci Code, to learn about some of the mistakes in the novel as well as some of the Church's actions down the ages, and to understand more about the great spiritual mystery lying at the heart of Christian belief."
The cathedral, which is using some of the £20,000 earned from the film to pay for the exhibition, hopes to attract tens of thousands of visitors who would not normally enter a church. Visitors who pay the standard £4 admission fee will be able to enjoy a special exhibition, in addition to a selection of themed tours, one of which will highlight symbols and treasures in the cathedral that also appear in the book. The cathedral has also organised a special Da Vinci Code treasure hunt for children.”

It’s either brilliant or brilliantly flawed! Maybe we'll need to wait for the film. Answers on a postcard please.

Keep it in the open

2006-04-17T22:27:00.000+01:00

Quick thoughts on some memorable Easter images ... and some we might want to forget. Radio 4 kicked off with Easter worship from St Michael le Belfrey in York at 8.15am with Archbishop, Dr John Sentamu, baptising a group of new Christians on the forecourt in the shadow of York Minster. Made for great radio- and would have made for even better television. We needn't have worried - what the radio 4 service didn't show were the cameras and reporters who were there in abundance - pictures in most of the Monday dailies, and clips throughout the day on News 24, showed a motley collection of hacks and photographers who had elbowed their way to the front, completely surrounding the heated paddling pool, and blocking the view for families and friends who were there to support the candidates. They should have pushed them in. A colleague once said you need just two things to be a good press photographer - F7 and brass neck. Well, sometimes you can overdo the brass neck, lads.

Italy has better weather than England but that didn't explain the huge disparity between our own Dr Williams's foray into the open air and that of the new Pope. Whilst the latter made his way through the thousands of pilgrims in St Peter's Square, the former was seen on TV standing windswept and alone waiting to enter Canterbury Cathedral, with just the company of our old friend Martin Short, fresh out of Church House and apparently a little uncomfortable with his new royal blue costume which billowed around him as he almost hit the cross he was carrying on the lintel of the west door. Very Anglican and Trollopian. Cut to the sermon in which Rowan apparently talked about conspiracy theories - I say apparently, because the sentence in which he presumably mentioned the Da Vinci code was deemed too long for a soundbite and was rudely cut off in the middle of a compound adjective.

BBC TV's worship came from Spring Harvest at Minehead which had the advantage of Steve Chalke (MBE) but the disadvantage of being indoors - and not looking a bit like a church. Why is it that there's always a high cringe factor when Christian worship takes place in a tent? It could be that some of the worshippers looked like they could do with a wash and a change of clothes. It could be that the lights, and performance element seem to sit uncomfortably with the idea of 'corporate' worship. Or maybe it was the fact that we were forced, well before the 9 o'clock watershed, to watch people engaged in intimate acts which involved their bodies and their passions. Worshipping their maker with body, mind and spirit, seeingly unaware that their every movement wass being scrutinised by the audience in their living rooms. Its the age old conundrum which Colin Morris, a former head of religious broadcasting, tried to dissect in Wrestling with an Angel. For some it might be refreshing and convicting - let's hope. It doesn't work for me, but maybe I'm just an old cynic. Answers on a postcard please!

Passion in Manchester

2006-04-15T07:00:00.000+01:00

Easter weekend TV is always peppered by religious programmes. (The BBC Press Office calls it an Easter parade of programmes - hmmm). Forgot to watch the first Private life of an Easter Masterpiece - on the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci, but the second, on Salvador Dali and his Christ of St John of the Cross was v. interesting (particularly as I'm hoping to drive from here to the tiny seaside town of Portligat where he painted the background this summer.) Interesting how Christians, well everyone really, is divided by this picture. I think its fab, and deserves the title of Masterpiece, but clearly some don't. Can a piece of art - or indeed music - be Christian, if the artist purportedly isn't - as some were keen to claim of Dali?

That's a question that leads to the Manchester Passion. Before the TV critics lay into it, let me say I thought it was a moving programme, part passion play, part rock opera, part community event -with some of the those in the cross clearly Christians, but many others not, by their own admission - a Muslim who was there because Jesus was a great prophet, and a woman who had a Muslim background but 'no religion' were both interviewed. The performers were a mixed bunch too. 'Hardman' Keith Allen, 55 degrees north star, Darren Morfitt who played Jesus, and the Batman Begins star Tim Booth who played a brilliant Judas, I thought. All Christians? It didn't actually matter - well not for the impact of the event, at least. For me, having so many different people with different beliefs and backgrounds added to the sense of an event with global and not just individual importance.

I didn't used to like Manchester. As a child we went there once or twice from the Wirral, and were unimpressed by the drive in through grey depressing housing estates and Victorian slums and the centre wasn't much better. Two visits in twenty years seemed about right!

Then came the IRA bombing and Manchester started again. Two years ago we held our church communications annual conference in the heart of the city, based at the Cathedral, Deansgate and the Urbis centre - and experienced something of the transformation. We, thirty or so of us, were all impressed by the place - and the pride in the city expressed by people like Tony Wilson, one time TV presenter and Hacienda impressario for the Manchester music 'scene'.

He, Anthony Wilson, appeared again in the Manchester Passion. Blink and you missed him - he was leaning against the hotdog stand outside the Cathedral with Peter. A little later, the stallholder was seen reading the Da Vinci Code. Why? We may never know. Surely everyone's read it by now?! (More on this when the film comes out!) More seriously this was a moving piece of TV, first broadcast at 9pm live on BBC 3 - which added to the sense of an event. Some of the Manchester music worked brilliantly, some didn't- Mary singing Oasis's Cast no Shadow didn't work for me either theologically (surely they didn't 'take his soul') or musically - a sixteen piece string orchestra is always going to struggle to make a dirge sound interesting. It's not an anti-Oasis thing -I thought Allen's Pilate singing Wonderwall with Jesus was great, just about avoiding the cringe factor.

Respect to the BBC (their religious department is just down the road so that must have helped) for pulling off a logistical nightmare, and all credit to the security people for managing to keep any drunks and ne'er-do-wells off camera!

And here's a pic I took of Cadaquez, just round the corner from Portligat-see above. HappyEaster!

A hidden message for Easter?

2006-04-14T08:00:00.000+01:00

It's Easter! A time for new things, and prompted by the latest Media Guardian podcast, a time for someone in communications, albeit church communications, to try blogging. Apparently we've all got to do it, otherwise we are being 'lazy'! That's a challenge I simply can't duck.

So here goes. Just a brief biog first ... John Carter, eight years in BBC radio, ten years a parish priest and nine years almost as a fullfime press officer for, of all things, the Church of England, which, let's be honest, get's more than it's fair share of bad press. If you've done the maths let me also say I think I look young for my years.

Church in a spin, is intended to be provocative, and attract people idly searching through google for words like 'church', 'spin' - and, I suppose, 'in a'. I'm going to stray from the party line frequently, get critical and sometimes angry. And I'm going to post about once a week I suppose unless demand increases..

Behind the bishops

Today, Good Friday, I'm feeling a little bit annoyed with some of my fellow church 'spin doctors'. Most dioceses (and the Church of England is divided into 43 of them) have one - a communications officer or press officer. We all get on like a house on fire (erm hem) and have online discussions every day. But this week, we've been having an online spat about Bishop's easter sermons of all things. Would you like to know what the Bishop of - lets say Riponshire- is going to say this Sunday? Would you be interested if he was going to support Dan Brown, or proclaim the Gospel of Judas as a new revelation, or defect to Rome? I know I would-- though of course they won't say any of these things and will stick to the core two thousand year old message of resurrection hope and new life. Despite this, the Sunday Times among other organs, is still interested, and seeking to get a clue about what some of our bishops will say - and then make it sound interesting. Yet, suddenly there's the sound of drawbridges being raised, phones left off the hook and evasive humming and harring.

Now call me naive and old fashioned, but we have a gospel to proclaim, don't we? I wish Christopher Morgan would ring me. I mean, I don't actually know what my own diocesan bishop will be preaching - and he will be doing it thousands of miles away in Sri Lanka - but you'd have thought if the Sunday Times really was looking for something controversial, it would come to the bishop who is allegedly one of the more liberal in the CofE. And I could make something up. (No, you didn't hear me say that). Yet, as I sit here, the phone steadfastly refuses to ring. I'm very disappointed.

I did get a call from the Sunday programme on radio 4, earlier this week, but that was it. Maybe there's a religious journalist's email list where they say things like, 'don't bother with that one, its just the usual 'easter is more than just bunnies and eggs' children's talk - nothing there on the Da Vinci Code, or even Judas.' Come to think of it, there probably is. But more than that, I'm a bit disappointed that, when you've got a chance to talk to a wider audience about the most important day in the Christian calendar, you get all coy about it. Has the church lost the plot? Have we taken our eye off the ball? Answers on a postcard please!