Newsjack - Series 9 Page 31

Sorry for the rambling verbosity...

Quote: steve by any other name @ October 10 2013, 12:12 PM BST

Just out of curiosity, how much time do people generally spend on their submissions?

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I'm late to the party, but I'll answer:

For the past couple of series and up until this past weekend:
Going from Thursday onwards I've kept a text document in which I stick a headline/summary of news items and a link to (usually) BBC News. I'll almost obsessively keep adding to this every hour or so as long as I'm awake and near a computer... I'm obsessive as sometimes an interesting headline/story will pop up for an hour or two then get eaten by a bigger story.

Any ideas/jokes that occur to me in this time get jotted down in the document. And most ideas I go with are (very naughtily) the 1st thing I thought of within seconds of seeing the story...

During this time I also scan newspapers and find an online link for the document if anything catches my eye.

Knowing that the NJ webchats have said that they only really want news from noon Friday or later, I don't yet start writing up any sketches.

Then on Sunday I really go through the papers. And start procrastinating and trying to make 1 or 2 ideas work that I really should let go. I'd like to say that I usually end up on Sunday with 1-3 half written sketches or 1st drafts, though usually it's more like 1.5 half-written drafts.

I then panic on Monday morning as I realise that I've woken up with a couple of brilliant ideas for new sketches that I hadn't been working on,, and so try to quickly get done what I can in the 2-3 hrs before the deadline.

No matter how much I have done/written on the Sunday/Monday morning I always find a new idea that I prefer comes with just enough time left to do a half-assed job on it.

In total it's been frequent news-harvesting from Thursday with about 9-10 hrs of more serious attention on Sun/Mon.

So that was up to this weekend....

This past weekend:
I read how everyone else does it and figured that I shouldn't take the noon Friday start as gospel, since a few people mentioned having ideas/rough drafts by that point.

So I did the harvesting the same then 1-man-brainstormed Saturday morning for sketch ideas. Came out with something like 9 possibles.
I think I had the best part of 3 sketches written by the end of Saturday. Sunday saw several more written, mainly from Saturday morning's ideas, but also a couple on stories that broke on Saturday/Sunday.

Then the usual Monday panic as I realised that I had more ideas and no time to do them justice, but it didn't panic me as much as usual as I had a much better crop from the weekend.

The different working this weekend was interesting. I must have spent about 6 hrs on Saturday and probably 15hrs or more on Sunday, so I was knackered, but feeling quite good about the roll I'm on. So much so that I've been writing more sketches since the deadline ended - topical and non.

I usually take a couple of days off sketch.

Cheers Judgement Dave for saving me an answer. If you want more info on submitting and how we put a show together check it out here:

http://kirrinislandpodcast.com/

I'll be there tonight (in colour) and next week as well. Will keep an eye out for you Viv, was there anyone else around tonight?

Quote: StephenM @ October 16 2013, 5:09 PM BST

Cheers Judgement Dave for saving me an answer. If you want more info on submitting and how we put a show together check it out here:

http://kirrinislandpodcast.com/

I'll be there tonight (in colour) and next week as well. Will keep an eye out for you Viv, was there anyone else around tonight?

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I will look out for you in colour next week!

Listened to this for the first time in a while.

Oh dear. It was quite painful to listen to.

But still, congrats to all who got a credit!!!

Oooh great! Is this a weekly gig - the embittered jacking of the newsjack thread? Love it! Can I do it next week or does one need more experience than 3 weeks of failure?
<starts working on damning prossies with faint (p)raise puns>

A newsjack prostitute walks into a bar... well, it was set very low.

Hi Viv - sorry missed you last night! Did you get in? The queue is getting more ridiculous and I spent 15 minutes behind someone who's bag had to be searched as they tried to bring in 3 pen knifes and a selection of gardening tools! Not quite sure what was weirder the fact someone tried to bring that through security or that security had worked out how to identify banned objects but had no idea what to do with them when they found them.

Anyway hope you had better luck in terms of getting something in the recording than me. On the plus side it's another stress free Thursday!

Quote: StephenM @ October 17 2013, 9:39 AM BST

I spent 15 minutes behind someone who's bag had to be searched as they tried to bring in 3 pen knifes and a selection of gardening tools!

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Maybe this is the person who cuts/weeds all your jokes out before broadcast?

Quote: StephenM @ October 17 2013, 9:39 AM BST

I spent 15 minutes behind someone who's bag had to be searched as they tried to bring in 3 pen knifes and a selection of gardening tools!

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They had that opening joke last week about shuffling the audience with the one for gardeners question time, maybe someone took them literally.

Also I have it on good authority Margaret will be hosting the final show, so we can all improve our chances infinitesimally by submitting sketches where they don't have to change the name on the intro joke.

Quote: StephenM @ October 17 2013, 9:39 AM BST

Hi Viv - sorry missed you last night! Did you get in? The queue is getting more ridiculous and I spent 15 minutes behind someone who's bag had to be searched as they tried to bring in 3 pen knifes and a selection of gardening tools! Not quite sure what was weirder the fact someone tried to bring that through security or that security had worked out how to identify banned objects but had no idea what to do with them when they found them.

Anyway hope you had better luck in terms of getting something in the recording than me. On the plus side it's another stress free Thursday!

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What sort of time do people need to get there?

Cheers Dave, exam went well I think. Though the OU did see fit to sit an extremely attractive young woman in a mini skirt to the immediate right of me, who was also sporting a wonderful thigh tattoo. Fortunately I did manage to maintain composure on my writing regarding the "alleged" unethical activities of Royal Dutch Shell, but it was a close call.

I actually like the idea of a Gardener's Question Time/Newsjack hybrid, similar to 8 Out Of 10 Cats does Countdown. Quite by accident a week last Friday I found myself listening to GQT, and there was a woman asking the panel how she could keep her euphorbia bushy, without a single hint of irony. I was sat at the traffic lights killing myself laughing.

I was in my car, not simply sat in the road. You understand.

Here's a link to the woman asking about her limp euphorbia. Start at 35 minutes in. It's helps if you're childish. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bsb9r

I was childish enough to be tickled by that

Quote: Shandonbelle @ October 17 2013, 1:17 PM BST

I was childish enough to be tickled by that

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With a name like that and that question, she has to be a plant.

She did sound like she was reading from a script...they need to weed people like that out.

They wouldn't lower themselves to setting up their own questions would they?

Surely those daisy gone?

Quote: Bonzo @ October 17 2013, 10:44 AM BST

What sort of time do people need to get there?

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These days 6:30 latest I'd advise getting there by 6:15 to make sure.

And who knew GQT was the radio version of the Great British Bake Off.

Quote: Bonzo @ October 17 2013, 10:44 AM BST

What sort of time do people need to get there?

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These days 6:30 latest I'd advise getting there by 6:15 to make sure.

And who knew GQT was the radio version of the Great British Bake Off.