SHOWREEL

INTERVIEW: Cristina Nicolotti Squires, Editor of Channel 5 News

Photograph source: ITV

“Always believe in yourself, never let anybody tell you that you can’t do something and if they do prove them wrong.” These are the encouraging words of Channel 5 News Editor, Cristina Nicolotti Squires, who is the only female at the top of a network news programme.

Top ten tips for aspiring journalists:

1. To be a successful journalist you just have to be able to get on with people really well, I look for evidence of somebody who has interacted with people from all walks of life.

2. Just being an interesting personality is important. Every newsroom is a team and everybody needs a team player that will be fun to be around as well as very good at their job.

3. People who are going to do well in Journalism are the people who will give things a go, and at the beginning of your career you have more opportunity to take those risks.

4. Get as much experience as you can, when you get your foot in the door just become part of the team as quickly as you can, and make the organisation you are in feel as if they couldn’t possibly live without you.

5. I want to see evidence of what you’ve been involved in to prove you have an interest in journalism before you have even started. Anyone who is a graduate from a degree in journalism is already committed, just show that you are using the skills you’ve got.

6. You can’t do Journalism unless you love it; it’s a job that involves passion and commitment. Work is such a big part of our life if you don’t love it that’s tragic.

7. Pluralism in this business is really important you never want a situation where there is one straight broadcaster. Keeping an eye on your competitors is important but equally knowing your audience or your readership.

8. In my day it really was who you knew that helped you, but most places now have official work experience schemes, which you can apply to, but the whole working for free thing, you have to be careful it’s not abused.

9. As a freelancer, you have to put yourself about, ring news desk and try and get meetings with people. As a freelancer you have the freedom to do a wide variety of stuff, but you have to be organised, with all the paperwork

10. Juggling work and life is exactly that, it’s a juggle, sometimes it tips one way and sometimes it tips the other you just have to try to do the best can.

Traditionally newsrooms are male dominated, but what about Woman in Journalism?

I was at lunch the other day with an outlet called ‘Woman in Journalism’ and we were discussing all this, because it is still quite rare for a woman to be at the top in this business. I am the only woman in charge of network news. It is hard and it is a juggle but you can make it happen. I feel as a woman at the top of the business, I can say to young people, well I’ve managed it so why can’t you? It’s totally possible. The glass ceiling is only in our minds, and it’s up to us as woman to organise our lives accordingly.

How does the Channel 5 Newsroom work?

The main responsibility of the editor is to lead the team to produce the best journalism and news coverage that we can. What’s great about here is that because we have a small team, everyone takes part; we make a collective decision that we all work on.
8:30am - Morning editorial meeting which everyone attends, including the producers, the news desk and whichever reporters are not already out and about. We talk through the stories of the day and we come up with ideas.
10:30am – We meet again to talk about the later programme at 6:30pm to find out what we are going to develop and push on that.
12:00pm - We have a planning meeting for the next day
12:45pm – This is when we go through the run down of the 5 o’clock and 6:30pm bulletin. The producers talk us through how the piece is being put together, what elements its got, what elements we still need to chase.
Then we have a weekly planning meeting once a week on a Wednesday.

What do you find the most challenging about your job?

The difficulty with journalism is that it’s a career that doesn’t always fit into calendars and diaries. When I used to travel around the world I used to go to the toilets and cry, it sounds crazy but I hate having plans and having them ripped up.

What do you love the most about your job?

I just love news. I love things happening. I love the challenge of reporting stories and the teamwork involved in putting television together. I’m just fascinated by people and their stories. Everyone has a story and that’s what makes me so passionate about news. To be in a position where you decide what millions of people get in terms of information everyday is extremely powerful and extremely responsible, we tell people about what is going on in the world, and to be in that position is a remarkable privilege.

I never thought I’d be here, but I love it, I feel like it was something I was born to do. 

Joe Mather: Editor of BBC Crimewatch

Crimewatch Editor, Joe Mather speaks about the production of the Live shows and how their appeals aim to help the police solve unsolved crimes in the UK. As well as discussing his responsibilities as the Editor, he explains what qualities he would look for in someone aspiring to join the Crimewatch team.

Eric Allison: Prisoner to Prison Correspondent

“In prison I used to get put in segregation for saying my piece and yet here I am giving you my comments and my thoughts and getting paid.”

Eric Allison, 71, spent around 16 years behind bars all for theft related offences. In 2003, he applied for the job as the Guardian’s Prison Correspondent with a criminal record for a CV. In the past decade, he transformed his life from a prisoner to a prison reporter.

As a young boy, aged 11, Allison got his first conviction for housebreaking on his criminal record, and three years on, at 14 he was given his first custodial sentence.

I was always pretty anti-authority; if somebody told me to do something I would go out of my way to not do it.  I was very rebellious. I wasn’t very happy as a child. I had quite a bad stammer and a squint in my eye, and I used to get a lot of name calling and I would fight them. I was always fighting as a kid, and I stopped going to secondary school. I was away from school far more then I attended.

I ran away from home and broke into a day nursery to sleep. I was caught and put on probation and when I was 14 years old I breached that probation because I stole a chewing gum machine. I was sentenced at the juvenile court in Manchester and two police officers took me down to Foston Hall detention centre, on the border of Staffordshire and Derbyshire. It was December and it was dark when we got there, it was a big sort of gloomy Victorian building with barbed wire fence round. We went into the reception area and this guy told me to stand on the white line and give my name, I said “Eric Allison” and I was going to say “Sir” but because of the stammer the Sir wouldn’t come out. The guy just walked across me, clenched his fist and punched me really hard across the face. I was so frightened because I thought if he could assault me in front of two police officers, what were they going to do when the police were gone? I was terrified so much that I wet the bed in the cell that night. They put me in a dormitory with other kids who wet the bed and they used to wake us up every hour to go to the toilet whether we wanted to or not. We were knackered because it was run on the military lines. You’d never stop.

“You wouldn’t let the system beat you”

The detention centre was meant to be a short sharp shock. The idea was to frighten the life out of us so we wouldn’t come back, and of course it didn’t work. This comes back to the defiance, you start sticking together and it becomes us against them or them against us and you become determined not to let them win. You wouldn’t let the system beat you.

I’ve been locked up with murderers, terrorists, rapists and psychopaths. You name it, even gangsters. I’ve seen a lot of examples of prisoners behaving badly towards one another, but if I was to list the worst twenty acts in humanity that I have ever seen in prison, not one of them in the top twenty would be carried out by a prisoner. I’ve seen six or seven prison officers beat people to pulp, with sticks, and I have had it, I’ve been beaten and batten myself. There had been times when I thought: “These bastards are going to kill me.” 

 “I got a buzz out of it”

Not many days would go by when I didn’t commit a crime. I loved the excitement; I got a buzz out of it. I miss that excitement even now. It was never about the money, it was actually the taking part. The buzz… I got a buzz from it without a shadow of a doubt.

Around 1968, I was sent to Strangeway’s prison for 4 and a half years, this was the longest time I spent away in one go because I lost all the remission I may have got for good behaviour. In the 60s, it was a stinking place, all the “slopping out” because there was no in-cell sanitation then, everything was lousy, visiting was lousy, the staff were lousy too; there were a lot of bullies, a lot of thugs. I spent a long time in segregation.

On April fool’s day 1990, a time where Allison was at liberty, a riot broke out in Strangeway’s Prison. The protest lasted 25 days, the biggest in British Penal History.

Prisoners protesting on the roof at Strangeways Prison

I was out of prison but I remember it, I had been somewhere Sunday morning and I came back home and my stepson said: “It’s gone off at Strangeways, it’s on the news” and I drove down straight away and I saw them all on the roof and it was quite…quite emotional because I had a very bad relationship with the place. I hated the place and to see these kids on the roof I actually felt quite jealous in a way. I wanted to be there on the roof.

I took a loud-hailer down with me most days, and I was shouting up to them on the roof and I was talking to people, all of the press that were there, I was telling them what was wrong with the place. I just felt quite emotional; they did something that we had never managed to do. I was elated for them, but also concerned because I knew the ring leaders would pay a very heavy price and so they did.

In 1996 Allison was sent back to Strangeway’s prison, he was sentenced to seven years for scamming £1 million from Barclay’s bank. This was the last time he was in jail, serving just over 3 years.

When I went back in the 90s everything had changed, but the biggest change was the attitude of the staff; all the thugs had gone. I had my own moral boundaries that I wouldn’t cross in crime. I thought in a way I’ve always been a good criminal, but when the system is cruel and unjust then the criminal becomes the victim.

Freedom is a funny thing, I came out just at the millennium but even now I get feelings, and I visit prisons quite a lot so it still takes me back. Prison changes you…It’s a bit like, you know, you….you sort of get solitude…

The first time I was in a cell on my own it was very lonely, and I found the loneliness quite difficult. You make a virtue out of a necessity and I began to embrace loneliness then. I find it difficult to live with people. I’m much better off living alone. I think prison has a lot to do with that.

My eldest girl was at University while I was away and she had told me that somebody would say “What does your dad do? – “Oh my dad’s a thief” - but having got the job she says “my dad writes for the Guardian”. That was a good moment in my life.

I always enjoyed writing; it was always the one thing I was good at in school. I like words and I got my education in prison. The Guardian advertised for the position and I applied for the job. They wanted a 500 word essay and a CV, but my CV was all prison and crime. I never thought for one second that I would get the job; I didn’t even think that I wanted it. I just thought I would tell them what was wrong with the prison system.

I couldn’t type; I didn’t know one end of the computer from the other. I had to start absolutely from scratch. When they said the jobs yours I had to go away and think about it. I just knew it would be a massive change. I can’t remember when I didn’t steal… I was five or six when I started nicking stuff, I was quite frightened by the idea of being a straight go-er and even now I feel like a bit of an imposter sometimes.

This will be my eleventh year at the Guardian now, sometimes it seems as if I have been here all my life and other times it feels like I’ve just arrived. Occasionally I do stuff for ‘Comment is Free’ and they’re always very apologetic it’s only 90 quid, but I say, “Are you kidding?” In prison I used to get put in segregation for saying my piece and yet here I am giving you my comments and my thoughts and getting paid…it’s odd.

If it hadn’t have been for the job, I would still be at it without a shadow of a doubt, because that would be the only thing I knew. 

A version of this article has been published on The Justice Gap, a trade magazine on the law and justice. Click here.

Justice must not only be done; it must be seen to be done

Court reporters are usually huddled in the press box, with their notebooks in hand and 100wpm shorthand under their belt, but now with the exception of certain cases, they can rely on one video-journalist to capture the proceedings live from inside the courtroom. 

Since 1925, cameras have been banned in courtrooms in England and Wales, and journalists have lived by their mantra of being ‘the eyes and ears for the public’. This ban was lifted at the end of last year when cameras were installed at the Court of Appeal meaning access would no longer stop at the door.

The courtroom has always been a rich source of stories for journalists. The gripping and gruesome quotes in the judges’ summing up - captivates readers, leaving them hooked and astonished by some of the most horrendous acts committed by humans. However, some may find that they do not have the time to grab the daily newspaper and that watching a visually powerful image, on the go, is far more engaging, accessible and efficient.

Anyone interested in the legal system can choose to switch on and follow the chosen televised case. The idea here is that justice will not only be done, but will also be seen to be done, targeting a larger audience by providing transparency and open access to justice for all. We should consider that this may come at a cost for the reputation of journalists, as the public may lose trust in editors who risk sensationalising content that may be perceived as entertainment rather than for the purpose of reporting news. Particularly if the defendant has previously been in the media spotlight, it may feel as though journalists are glorifying their trial as it’s aired or splashed across front pages. 

The principle of televising proceedings will be applauded by many in the legal profession, with the general thought that it was long overdue. Although many may gain an educational insight in watching it, it is easy to fall into the trap of watching for the sheer pleasure of seeing the most recently publically ‘hated’ figure, ridiculed in the hot seat. However, doesn’t this tarnish the philosophy that justice should be a serious matter?

What’s to say that people won’t play up to the cameras? 

We have to consider the behaviour of the judges and the lawyers here. They know they are being watched. Take for instance the current case of Oscar Pistorius in South Africa. He is a public figure that has been in the media for over a year now since it was reported that he shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013. Although we cannot see Pistorius when he is in the witness dock, we can hear all of his answers and emotional sobs. This really dramatises the case, bringing the trial to life, as viewers are hooked as it unfolds by the day.

We have seen the prosecutor laugh in response to Pistorius’ answer, and the judge demand for the public gallery to stop their careless whispers, and to reiterate that this is not an entertaining matter. It can be argued that a high profile case such as this, with a vast amount of public attention on their every move, heightens the tension and pressure for those involved. We cannot ignore the fear and anguish that the defendant may feel, and more importantly the victims who may be put off the idea of coming forward. After all anyone can tune in and watch their personal and private ‘business’. This is potentially fatal, leading to a new generation of silent victims who have been deterred from coming forward.

Taking these new advances into factor, rumour has it that television companies don’t want it to stop there. We may be able to hear them, but what they really want is to be able to see the ‘celebrity’ figure in the dock framed for shameful charges. They may argue that it would make good TV, but it could be deemed to be a mockery to the criminal justice system.

Going to court is not on an average person’s daily agenda, but many more are likely to turn on the TV in the comfort of their own home. When people watch the news they are usually faced with a journalist speaking outside the usual bland court building, with the occasional glance to their notebooks in hand. Often when producing a video report it lacks visuals, with merely a mug shot, or the rushes of the accused walking in and out of the court. With the luxury of gaining access in to the courts, we can avoid the robotic and structured reports that usually involve a verbal reel of facts. Crime and the courts may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and therefore those without an interest will find listening to legal argument and court jargon pretty dull, repetitive and dreary. 

With the murder trial of Pistorius, we have seen him in the dock for days on end for hours at a time. Broadcasters, in particular Sky News, produce a special programme to repeatedly play the highlights of the day.

Social media has also played a significant role in reaching a larger audience, with journalists tweeting live from inside the courtroom. This live feed recaps what is being heard in court. 

Other features include subtitles on the screen when the defendant’s mutterings are not audible, and as a viewer we can see photographs and exhibits, within reason, when the legal teams refer to them.

Reporting on criminal proceedings demonstrates responsible journalism as it requires ethical judgement and a strong knowledge of what is safe to report when trespassing on legal ground. Audience trust is vitally important, and the reputation of a court reporter boils down to whether it is legally sound, abiding by the law of contempt of court.

Proceedings in the country’s highest court in the UK, The Supreme Court were already streamed Live on the internet, but now with access into the Court of Appeal the next step is awaiting the approval for the Government to consider filming inside the Crown Court.

This has been a landmark moment for Justice and Journalism, but it raises the question of whether it will end here, or if broadcasters will demand to see more.