Newsroom detox became refreshing move all round


Because I had only been based back in Preston for a year, my drawers were relatively clear and easy to sort out for the move to our new base across the road
But for those who been based out of the head office for decades, the necessary clearout was as cathartic as it was painful with cabinets full of shorthand notebooks, bookshelves full of research material and press releases, and years full of complete and utter rubbish,all of which we are apparently keeping for legal reasons.
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Hide AdItems uncovered in the newsroom included three Christmas trees, newspapers dates back as far as the 1900s, random items of clothing (not all clean)and promotional items pointlessly sent to the newsroom including a never inflated beachball.
I brought with me the Willing’s Press Guide, 1948, just in case.
Inside it describes how trainee journalists should dress and behave, so it might come in useful for errant trainees.
Journalists are not, by nature, the tidiest of animals, a trait which steams from having to drop everything and move on to something new at a hint of breaking news, the need to store material for genuine legal reasons, and our unfathomable need to write everything in shorthand on tiny bits of paper or post it notes which we keep forever for posterity.
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Hide AdWorryingly,for the digital age, this is now represented in our inboxes and computer filing systems.
We dare not delete anything - which is why I have 61,000 emails in mine...
Despite this each staff member was given one grey box to contain a career’s worth of gubbins - mine wasn’t that full containing the aforementioned Willings guide, some cupasoups, out of date business cards and a fluffy stingray sent to me by the Sealife Centre.
But for others this was major.
However I can report, that like every good detox, we have come out the other side a bit stressed and spotty but lighter nonetheless.