October 11, 2013, by Eve
Get my Editor on the phone!
Wednesday afternoon. I rush into the Impact office clutching a pen and paper, throw my trilby at the strategically placed hat stand (it pops on first time), calling out ‘I’ve got a hot story!’ I sit down at a free typewriter/computer and commence tapping away.
‘What hot story?’ someone asks, uninterested.
‘The Books Are My Bag article,’ I reply. ‘The same story I was doing 5 minutes before I came back in, just now…’ I add, limply.
Being a journalist (and Arts Editor) for Impact Magazine sadly isn’t the same as being in a noir journo-thriller film. This isn’t His Girl Friday nor am I Clark Gable in It Happened One Night –but I do have a theory about doughnuts (I’m sad to say I ate three for breakfast the other day, with coffee – Gilmore Girls are a bad influence plus they never actually eat the food, they hold it and nibble at it!)
But working for Impact is still pretty fantastic. It means you can say things like:
‘Can I quote you on that?’
‘Copy deadline coming up.’
‘Sorry, I’ve got a meeting with the Editor-in-Chiefs. Stat.’
At the moment, I’m working on an article about the Books Are My Bag national campaign, for the next print issue. National or non-knowable? Hardly anyone has heard of the campaign and anyone who’s seen the orange scribed bags is decidedly perplexed. These are some of the responses I imagine the general public to have had when they saw this, rather ambiguous, slogan:
Is my bag made of books?
I use books to carry things, like a bag?
I don’t need a bag – I am beyond bags! – all I need are books! Books are like oxygen, books lift you 
up where you belong. All you need are books! (Sorry, I’ve been watching Moulin Rouge).
Sadly Ewan, you are wrong. Books Are My Bag is a campaign to promote the bookshop – those magical places, safe from the outside traffic and busy shop-shuffling-streets, where you can spend hours lost among the shelves. The campaign is about promoting love for these literary hide-outs. A worthy cause, but one which I am finding little evidence of in and around our University.
To go with my article I needed photos – so today I was off to a photo shoot! Well, it was me, my Books Are My Bag bag and my Master Photographer (yes, I have a photographer) in a poky aisle of books in Hallward library. I had to go through a rigorous dress preparation (I changed my top four times. Went with the one I picked first) and the bag needed a thorough make over.
The pictured turned out alright and should complement the article well.
It’s so difficult to know how to focus the article – I don’t want to appear like a crazy-stupid-loving-bookshop-goer (which is what I am) but at the same time I’m worried it’ll sound too negative.
Well – enough blogging – I must get on and write that article! Stat! ‘Stat’ is something medics say, not journalists, isn’t it? …
Scratch ‘stat’, final paragraph, first line, and get my editor on the phone!
CLICK HERE to see a typical day in the life of an Impact journalist http://youtu.be/rC1NDJEYaA8
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