{"id":169,"date":"2004-10-28T07:29:06","date_gmt":"2004-10-28T07:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/?p=169"},"modified":"2021-04-26T11:47:39","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T11:47:39","slug":"media-industry-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/2004\/10\/28\/media-industry-tales\/","title":{"rendered":"Terrifying tales from the media industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

#1 Robbed of reward<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roughly 10 years ago, I was a freelance writer for the Metro newspaper. I wrote more than 30 features over a period of about three years and I had hoped to one day secure a staff position. Naturally I jumped at any opportunity they threw at me and they would frequently ask me to travel at extremely short notice, often making it very difficult to navigate around other work commitments.<\/p>\n

One Autumn many years ago, I was asked \u2013 at the last minute \u2013 to join the Metro team for the Annual Lonely Planet Travel Quiz. Naturally I jumped at the chance despite only being given a few hours notice. Hmmmm. I wondered who had pulled out.<\/p>\n

We are pitted against teams from The Independent, The Guardian, Wanderlust, The Sunday Times and so on. The cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me<\/em> of the UK travel press. Holy cow\u2026what a networking opportunity.<\/p>\n

The Metro travel editor was there and so was the features editor, both of whom I knew, plus one or two others who I had not met before. The Independent had won this coveted trophy for the last three years in row, so they were the team to beat. The event was held in a gorgeous old pub in Angel and the whole venue had been booked out, it had drawn quite a crowd as well.<\/p>\n

Over the course of an hour, with the occasional break to get drinks in, we were asked difficult questions on subjects including foreign culture, history, general travel knowledge and recent news. This preceded smart phones by about four years, so everyone was equally matched. The competition was tight and the atmosphere was tense, but we held our own.<\/p>\n

Eventually, after more nail-biting rounds than I can remember, we are informed by the judges that there was a tie-break situation for first place \u2013 with just one question remaining \u2013 but we’re not told who it\u2019s a tie between.<\/p>\n

The final question was explained. Recently, someone successfully undertook that whole challenge where you have to stop off at every single tube station in London during the time it\u2019s operating, breaking the previous record. The question was how long did it take him. Points would be awarded in order to whoever is closest.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d read about this only a few days ago.<\/p>\n

Without a moment\u2019s hesitation, I stepped in and took charge of our team. Beginning with the deduction that the London Underground doesn’t run for 24 hours. Right. So it\u2019s very roughly from say, 6am to 12:30am. I remember reading he had time to spare. Not much, but a lot more than he thought he’d have, thus shattering the previous record.<\/p>\n

No one else seemed to really remember the story and looked on dumbfounded, but that didn’t matter. Under my supervision, we agree on estimating a time of 17 hours and 15 minutes. Or something. We felt confident as the papers were handed in and we just had time to nervously finish our pints.<\/p>\n

The judges read the results in reverse order and they get to second place. Neither The Independent or the Metro had been named yet.<\/p>\n

The silence is unbearable. \u201cAnd\u2026in second place\u2026\u201d They announce, \u201c…is The Independent\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Our table erupted. We were jubilant. We’d done it and beaten the winning run of The Independent \u2013 lets face it, a team you\u2019d think would squash the lessor minds from London’s free morning lobotomy.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s get champagne!\u201d I shouted.<\/p>\n

And as I went to the bar to order a bottle of not-cheap champagne, with my money (what the hell, damnitt), I glanced back to re-count how many glasses we needed\u2026and saw them all posing for the team photograph.<\/p>\n

No one, not one<\/em> of them thought to come and get me. Or even wait for just a minute.\u00a0 And there at the front was the features editor and the travel editor proudly holding the trophy aloft.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

#1 Robbed of reward Roughly 10 years ago, I was a freelance writer for the Metro newspaper. I wrote more than 30 features over a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2001,"href":"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/2001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}