'Dirty Beast' Defrocked By Sunday Mail's Lavery

Cynical hack that I am, it's rare these days that I will buy a newspaper just because the splash story screams out "read me". But yesterday's Sunday Mail had me shelling out an extra £1.20 on top of my normal news fodder because of Charlie Lavery's exclusive on bonking priest Monsignor Joseph Creggan.
Under the banner headline I Confess, Charlie let rip over five pages with the sexual shennanigins of yet another Catholic hypocrite who has been putting about 'the body of Christ' in a manner which does not adhere to the Holy scriptures.
It turns out the manky Monsignor, from St Peter & St Paul's RC Church in Dundee, has been knocking off a married woman for 18 years, even enjoying foreign holiday with said woman and her husband. The story also caught my eye because the Sunday Mail first raised questions over Creggan on 20 January with their story about how he was "sharing" a home with parishioner Anne Ogden, who he had 'counselled' as her marriage to cancer specialist husband Graham broke up. You just knew there was more to come from this tale and the Sunday Mail got their reward with this superb follow up.
Coming on the back of Angelika Kluk scandal - in which another dirty beast was caught with his robes around his ankles - it hardly reinforces your faith in the Catholic Church.
As a once-a-year-Pape, I join thousands of others at Christmas Mass in making our annual visit to the chipped apple and, no doubt caught up in the goodwill to all men theme, I think about becoming a more regular church goer in the coming year. But when you read about the likes of Creggan and Father Gerry Nugent, and Church perverts who are being outed across the globe, it makes you think: why bother?
Anyway, that's enough of the sermon. Keep up the good work Chas.(and great collect pic of Creggan with his shades).

PR Dollar Beats Pisspoor Press Pounds

When meeting someone for the first time and they ask what I do, I tell them I am a PR consultant. Well, that's what it claims on my website, so I better stick to it. I sometimes add the rider that now and then I write news stories for the national press but it's really just a bonus, an occassional thing that I do when it's a story that interests me or as a diversion or a bit of fun or I want to noise someone up.
Outsiders to journalism invariably think the profession is interesting, sexy, fast moving etc and I agree it can be so they ask why I switched to PR. My answer is well rehearsed but instead of reverting to script one of the main reasons I moved to the dark side is finely presented in Scott Douglas' blog.
People are always keen to find out how much you get paid for an article and they labour under the misconception that you can pull in megabucks for a story. Many are genuinly shocked when you tell them the reality.
Like many freelance hacks I became tired of chasing payments from news organisations which are constantly driving down payment rates and that's if they pay you at all.
Ok, PR will never be as sexy as notching up a splash on the biggest selling nationals but you are working with companies which are happy to agree your fee up front and - get this - they pay you on time. There are no ifs, buts or maybes - revolutionary I know - but that's how most companies outside the newspaper industry treat their suppliers.
Do I miss newspapers - yes. Do I miss chasing multimillion pound media groups for measly payments? Er no. Do I enjoy being paid a fair sum for a good job done and on time? Of course. Now where's that press release I was working on?

Daily Record Stick Their Oar In With Rehab Headline

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Or perhaps this was a story that was just made for this particular headline. I refer to the court case involving heroin addict Adam Nelson who escaped form a drug rehab centre on Papa Stour, across the treacherous Sound of Papa to Shetland, by rowing boat.
Whatever, yesterday's Daily Record followed to the letter the superb example set by Press and Journal subs when the Aberdeen title first reported this story back on 22 December - They Tried To Make Me Go To Rehab - But I Said Row, Row, Row.
NB. Can't find the weblink for the orginal Press and Journal story which is a shame.

Old Pics Are Monstrous

The power of the internet for researching information cannot be undestated and has made the journo's lot so much easier. The ability to find old stories and pictures from years ago is just a keyboard search away.
But the tables can be turned as my former Evening News/Daily Record stable mate Scott Douglas has shown here, digging up some long forgotten pictures. If you haven't come across Scott's blog , Black and White and Read All Over, it's worth a visit - he's ususally got something interesting to say when he isn't noising up former colleagues.

Hebden Bridges Aberdeen To Bradford Gap

Press and Journal news editor Andrew Hebden is flying the coop tomorrow (Fri)after more than two years in the hotseat of the UK's largest regional newspaper. He joined the Aberdeen title as Business Editor from the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, taking over from Joe Watson who moved back to the farming/agriculture beat, but his tenure lasted only a few weeks as the news editor post became vacant and he was asked to step in for a "few weeks".
The business desks' loss was the news team's gain and Andrew has ruled the roost since December 2005, in charge of around 40 editorial staff pumping out seven editions a day.
He's moving from the biggest paper in the north east to the biggest paper in the north east, taking up an assistant editor slot at The Journal in Newcastle with responsibility for their business desk.
And the move is a bit sweeter for two reasons. Andrew is a mad Bradford City supporter and it takes him closer to Valley Parade where he also edits the match day programme. He's spent countless hours and travelled thousands of miles each weekend to follow the Bantams from his Granite City nest and if I recall correctly one weekend he made a return trip from Aberdeen to an away match at Torquay United (930 miles as the bantam would fly if it could).
But the new job should also allow him more time with partner Lindsay McIntosh, a former Press and Journal hack who is now clocking up bylines by the barrowload at The Scotsman. Andrew and Lindsay plan to share the miles between Edinburgh and Northumberland and Lindsay, who also has a Bradford City season ticket, will still be obliged to parade for duty at Valley Parade. Must be love - I convinced my better half to come along to Easter Road once but the only way I would get her back would be kicking and screaming - and who can blame her the way the Cabbage and Ribs have been playing?
Andrew's leaving bash is in an Aberdeen hostelry tomorrow and no doubt sinking some Claret and Amber nectar will dull the pain of missing Newcastle's biggest news and sports story of the year - the Return of the Messiah.

Mondays Are Flaming Good In My Book

Not one to take issue with Boomtown Rats but I Do Like Mondays if yesterday was anything to go by. Started off the week and the New Year by securing three new PR clients, one each in Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh. More of them later but looking forward to working with each of them in raising their respective profiles.
I was at lunch with the MD and a director of the new Edinburgh client when I bumped in to an old mate or more accurately he bumped in to me. I moved my chair and said "sorry" and the reply came back: "You will be". It was Charlie McKinlay Esquire, who can safely be described as an Edinburgh character. The long arm of the law had just caught up with Chas, again - he had been stopped for speaking on a mobile phone while driving. He didn't endear himself to the boys in blue when asked if he knew why he had been stopped and replied to the PC: "Because you saw this good looking bloke behind the wheel and you fancied me, so gave me a pull."
Charlie has a bit of a reputation for, shall we say, illuminating the Edinburgh pub scene. Years ago one of his enterprises, Uptowns, went up in flames in a mysterious blaze. But he pointed out the press (me included) always get it wrong and he had sold his East Claremont Street property which housed a gay sauna long before it met a similar fate. Still, he hardly dispels the myth when he introduces himself to strangers as: "Charlies's the name, flames the game".
And then I finished off the evening over a few pints with two hairy arsed ex-detective pals who I hadn't seen for some time. I'm looking forward to the new Life on Mars spin off, Ashes to Ashes, featuring DCI Gene Hunt but to be honest these two guys can recall many Hunt-esque encounters in Edinburgh that are just as funny and unfortunately nowawdays unacceptable in our PC-gone-mad world.
Also much laughter over yesterday's Scotsman splash, which was lying on the bar, reporting how crime in Edinburgh is drastically down after more cops had been put back on the beat. It contained this little gem: "The same officers work the same beats, so they get to know the local business people and residents – as well the main troublemakers." (no shit, Sherlock!)
I've reported often on the shambolic Operation Capital which changed the face of policing in Edinburgh, caused chaos, remomed hundreds of officers from frontline policing and made it nigh impossible to get a police officer to attend a crime scene. And where are the architects of this wonderful new policing strategy which cost Lothian taxpayers millions? Er, former Chief Constable Paddy Tomkins (it was his baby) is now Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland (policing our eight police forces). Meanwhile, former Lothian and Borders Police head of CID, Douglas Watson, who headed up a team of 24 senior officers and spent a year preparing the blueprint for Operation Capital, was last week appointed to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission which has been set up to investigate complaints against laywers. As one of the ex-cops remarked: "I bet Scotland's legal profession are shitting themselves."
I dread to think what DCI Gene Hunt would make of it all.

Whoosh - Airline Boss Crashes and Burns

If there was an Arrogant Tosser of the Month Award the only surefire winner for January 2008 would be airline boss Aden Murcutt. In a textbook case of how not to handle a media crisis Murcutt, chief exec of FlyWhoosh, crashlands in today's Daily Record with a jet engine sized blast at disgruntled customer Liam Sturrock.
Sturrock's "crime" was to track down Murcutt and demand a refund for his parents who were stranded when the airline suspended flights from Dundee Airport.
Veteran Dundee-based Record reporter, Brian McCartney, must have been chortling over his laptop as he noted down the quotes from lost-the-plot Murcutt as he responded to trainee teacher Liam's demand for compensation.
Murcutt said: "Liam Sturrock was getting out of his tree for a sum of money that wouldn't even buy you a decent dinner and a night out. I'm not going to be lectured by someone whose potential earnings will amount to little more than three farthings to buy a Ford Fiesta."
I'm always on the lookout for new PR business and part of my pitch is that as an ex-tabloid hack, if a client is caught in the eye of a media storm I know how to deal with most crisis situations. But rescuing this guy would even be beyond me.
For a full jaw-dropping account of how not to deal with the public or indeed with the media read the Record's story here. And if you are still in any doubt that Murcutt is an A-list plank, have a look at this picture.

Kaye Couldn't Adam and Eve Airport Reception

It seems it wasn't only freed Death Row prisoner Kenny Richey who was stunned by the huge media hack pack awaiting him as he arrived at Edinburgh Airport on a flight from Frankfurt.
Kaye Adams, former anchor of ITV's popular daytime show Loose Women, was also caught up in the glare, arriving with young child in arm, to find herself facing dozens of members of Her Majesty's Press.
My source at the airport said: "She may have been returning from holiday but seemed a bit stunned by a huge media prescence as she came out of international arrivals. She had no make up on, was carrying a toddler and seemed a bit surprised by it all."
So did Kaye get a scoop from Richey as he touched down in his "homeland" for the first time since 1981? Most definitely no, but I know a woman who did. Also seen in the television pictures, keeping a close eye on Richey and making sure he said as little as possible to the waiting pack, was the Scottish Mail on Sunday's Patricia Kane who had accompanied the Scot back to Edinburgh. The MoS and The People are the two newspapers which have bought up his story and Patricia and her team will by now have Richey holed up in some hideaway hotel, wringing every cough and splutter out of him to ensure they get their monies-worth.
I was fortunate never to be involved in the Richey saga during my time at the Daily Record, which blew hot and cold on the story over the years. I say fortunate because of ex-Evening News news editor Simon Bradshaw's advice to me on dealing with questionable stories - "Always go with your gut feeling".
My gut feeling - the US justice system got it right and we will find out soon enough if Mr Death Row Scot is a chancer. I will be surprised if the tabloid pay cheques are not pissed away within a year and Richey has swapped a US jail for HMP Edinburgh.