The media - my nightmare experience

My last blog entry about the way the media manipulates the news stories on any given day to make them more "interesting," "shocking" or down right frightening lead to a lot of comments here and on Facebook. I feel it is only fair to state my interest in this area.

About 14 years ago I experienced first hand the duplicit, manipulative and destructive nature of how news is produced in this country. I got cought up in one of those all too common media frenzies or cricuses. I'd love to say I was some minor celeb or one hit wonder pop sensation. But no, at age of 22 I just happened to be teaching English and Drama at a school in Halifax which the Sun in it's own inevitable style dubbed "The School from Hell." The school in fact was like many other failing comprehensive schools in England at the time, except at this school the media got involved.

Anyone too young, or had a life back in 1996 and so missed the Ridings "scandal" here is a link to a bbc news piece which touches on it.

Yes the school had problems, it was a newly merged school in an incredibly deprived part of the country. I went there as a newly qualified teacher wanting to make a real difference for the children. What I experienced there was life changing but it wasn't the children's behaviour or the reaction of my colleagues around me who were breaking down in various ways. It was the media intrusion which has caused me the most problems over the years.

Forget the underhand shenanigans of tabloid journos paying kids a fiver or a tenner or a packet of ciggies, to tell them exsagerated tales of debauchery and thuggery - that was bad but I wasn't naive enough not to know that kind of thing went on. It wasn't being chased down the street by cameras being asked for comments or being phoned at the weekend by journalists. I was a rare commodity, a young female teacher at the school, and blond to boot. Nor was it when every front page in the country ran with the story that a young female teacher, me, at the school had had her "bottom pinched" by a student. I knew the union were likely to leak that to the press, I'd said," ok whatever needs to be done" to it.

No, all of that I was prepared for the minute the media got involved. No for me the part I still can't quite come to terms with was the utter contempt for me and the children I taught, that the BBC showed when they filmed me in secret, teaching and then broadcast it on the news as well as Panorama.

They got access to my classroom by paying an elderly gentleman to use his flat because his living room had a perfect view into my classroom, the only class room in the whole school that had not got any proper curtains or blinds. I taught drama in my classroom as well as English and the day they filmed I was teaching, drama, English and also looking after my form group during break and lunch time because we weren't letting the kids out to play because of the worlds press camped on our doorstep (My great aunt in Perth Australia got to follow the story too.)

The BBC then edited the filming of drama lessons, lunch and break time socialising and one English lesson into one short piece that made it look as if all this "mayhem" was going on all at once. It looked like I let children eat at their desks during lessons, jump around and pull faces at one another. Not good in lessons but fine at lunch time! No faces were pixelated out to protect the children or me. I was warned that the filming had happened on the Monday morning that Panorama was due to go out and advised by the union not to talk to anyone in the media.

Seeing myself on Panorama was bad enough, after showing the edited hatchet job on me they cut to Chris Woodhead then Ofsted chief who said "There is clearly some poor teaching going on at the school." Clearly inferring that I was delivering some of this poor teaching.

Then to my shock my image was brandished across the 6 O'clock and 9 O'clock news. Again as evidence of poor teaching!

I felt humiliated, violated and utterly defenseless. I also felt such shame I felt as though I had let everyone down, even though I was helpless in the situation. Some of the children shown in the footage lost their Saturday jobs for being associated with the school and the filming. Another lad received a beating from his Dad just for getting on the telly, even though he wasn't doing anything bad at all in the footage. I didn't need to have anyone give me a beating, the BBC has done that and I just added to it myself with feelings of worthlessness I had evidence now in film.

My confidence and self esteem plummeted and the aftermath of the media interest in the school lead to things getting worse before they got better. Local trouble makers and bored ex-pupils were attracted to the place once the media left, and targeted the Ridings. A lot of local anger was aimed at the school.

So I had to deal with more challenging situations because of the media legacy whilst having lost just about all of my sanity because of the way the media had exploited me to gain some good footage for a short slot on their TV schedule.

So I have an interest in the way the news is made and reported and I never believe what I see or hear. Nothing is ever as it seems.