So a story from my little provincial newspaper has blown up and gone national, being aired on tv stations, radio broadcasts and making the biggest selling daily paper in the country. This is how.
On Tuesday I received a phone call from Susan Henshall.
She is a lady from Dovercourt with only ten per cent vision in her left eye and uses guide dogs to get around.
She informed me that she had just been evicted from the White Coffee House in Kingsway, Dovercourt, for trying to take her latest guide dog, two-year-old Usef, in there.
She was offered a seat outside and refused, opting instead to report the cafe to the Guide Dog association and to call me.
Refusing to speak over the phone, Miss Henshall invited me to her bungalow where we discussed the details, I met Usef and invited a photographer along to grab a snap of them together.
I put the story together, spoke to the cafe regarding their side of events, stood it up with legislation from the Guide Dogs association and told my newsdesk I thought it was a strong contender for our front page that week.
It ran as a page three lead for the Daily Gazette and, sure enough, was promoted to a front page splash for the weekly Harwich Standard.
The following day I was in court covering District Judge day, when I got a call from my news editor, James Wills, informing me the Daily Mail wanted to buy the story.
And so it began to run nationally.
The next day I received a call from the Jeremy Vine show asking if they could use the story and asking me to contribute on air.
I handed the honour to my editor, Brendan Hanrahan, who took the interview in our office while we listened to the live broadcast through headphones.
(37 mins in).
It has now been on Daybreak, Anglia TV and Miss Henshall contacted me the day after to thank me for the piece and offered me an exclusive follow up for breaking the story.
I fielded a call from the son of the cafe owners who was unhappy at the level of the coverage but we came to an agreement that the article was only representing the truth of the matter and represented his parents comments to me well.
As well as being hugely self congratulatory, this post is more about the way a good story can be universal.
I've been reading, with amusement, the vitriolic comments under the Daily Mail story. People from all across the country commenting on my little story with such passion.
Miss Henshall herself has told me it will help raise awareness to cafe owners and guide dog users so they can discuss this grey area of the law more openly.
Incidentally, the photographs, which made the story, were taken by our Newsquest 'snapper' Seana Hughes. In many ways the photograph enhances the story.
(And it was her idea for a GV of the coffee shop).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment