“Walking with Dinosaurs”

I thought I was witnessing the start of the original Willy Wonka when an old man hobbled through the Cinema doors holding onto Julie Bradford. As soon as Martin Bell started to give his talk, he seemed to spring to life, walking perfectly across the front of the room. He said: “This is the closest you will get to walking with Dinosaurs.”

The ex-BBC war correspondent donned his trademark whitish suit and came up to Sunderland to give us aspiring Journalists an interesting talk. I wasn’t overwhelmed with excitement about his visit. I actually had forgotten he was coming that day. However, when he opened with that joke he had me listening. I suppose he knows how to get people listening, he is a reporter, how would he make money otherwise.

Martin expressed his concern on the future of British broadcasting. He said: “I’m worried we might go down the Fox News way, though Fox News has lost its way.” This was after discussing how speculation has come to be news telling. He said: “Now I know some people, and I love her to bits, Christiane Amanpour, CNN, when the less she knows about something, the more convincing she gets. These are the people that really thrive, I’m being unfair to Christiane she’s a really good reporter.”

Bell discussed how the coverage of the war is censored. He said: “I want to show more not less, they said the images were upsetting.”

Martin then gave hope to the whole room. He said: “Let me tell you, if you want to be a journalist, I think it’s still the best profession, it really is.” When everyone around us is telling us how journalism is struggling and how we are going into this profession at a very hard time, this is a refreshing statement. He then advised: “If you are not willing to take no for an answer, if you are willing to persist, if you will please retain a sense of right and wrong, if you will be conscious of the effect of what you write - especially in broadcasting - can have on people in highly fraught situations, and you've got to be willing to know that you're trying to be manipulated.”