Bob Dow
For the last 30 years, Bob Dow has ‘served in the trenches of Scottish journalism’, first as a news reporter for the Aberdeen Evening Express then as a long-serving, award-winning Daily Record Aberdeen bureau chief. Made redundant by the Record earlier this year, this ‘old dog’ now files to all and sundry and is quickly learning new media tricks.
1. Presumably, you saw your redundancy coming?
I wasn’t really surprised. The Record had cut so much over the last few years there was nothing left to trim. Being based 150 miles from Central Quay made me an easy target.
2. Any advice you wished you had received immediately on being made redundant?
The NUJ were great with support, advice and training courses at the time but it was still difficult coming to terms with an employer who was hell bent on getting you out of the door as quickly, and as cheaply, as possible.
3. Specifically what are you doing and, if it’s PR or media consultancy, how saturated is the market, recently swelled by the dozens of folk recently shed by newspapers?
I call myself a media consultant. I still file copy but with two agencies, along with ex-Herald staffer, Graeme Smith, who was also made redundant shortly before me. There is a lot of competition. In addition, I now do emergency response media work for oil companies, media training, website development and am dipping a toe into PR - although that is also reaching saturation point in Aberdeen.
4. How keen the appetite for stories from the North-east of Scotland from across the media?
Aberdeen always has been - and will be - a great news area that punches well above its weight, compared to others. Some newspapers recognise this while others are blinkered by their ‘Furryboots City’ attitude. Bottom line is a great news story is a great news story, wherever it happens.
5. You feel lonely or liberated?
Both. Lonely in the sense of no longer having the resources of a major media organisation available to me, but liberated by the prospect of learning new skills and creating new opportunities for myself.
6. Declining circulations, advertising revenue down, the rise of alternative sources of news and comment; any way back for newspapers?
It is already too late for some who are obviously in terminal decline. They have all, rightly, invested heavily in new media but at the cost of neglecting the one vital resource that makes them tick - good staff. Cutting jobs is not the answer. The Daily Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scoop proved that great stories will still sell papers. But you need more journalists, not less to make that happen.
7. How would you describe the morale among your friends still working in newspapers, not just the Daily Record? What are they mainly saying?
They are all worried about where the industry goes from here with the prospect of more cuts to come. Newsrooms no longer have enough staff to do the jobs, as it is. Journalists want to do a good job and write great stories but many newsrooms are now driven by a cut and paste rewrite culture instead.
8. When and why were you at your happiest working as a newspaper journalist?
When I first started at the Record almost 20 years ago; okay, there was no competition from the new media then, but newspapers spent money on getting stories and it worked. We had a big staff, a big budget and, surprise-surprise, a big circulation to go with it. Newspapers were fun then.
9. Proudest moment?
Helping get two runaway paedophiles jailed for their sick crimes. One fled to Morocco out of reach of the authorities but when I followed his trail, discovered he was secretly visiting Spain and a few hours later he was in handcuffs. The other had skipped bail to southern Ireland but was easier to catch - I found him in a hospital bed the day after he had been injured in a house fire. Both are still behind bars. Great.
10. Most embarrassing or funniest?
The story of Woofie the collie dog in November 1998, condemned to death by a cat-loving sheriff after barking at a Peterhead postman. The Record and the Mail became embroiled in a classic, farcical tabloid battle over the tale. Both funny and embarrassing.
Bridget Bardot intervened and two Court of Session judges reprieved poor Woofie. What has never been revealed was that certain Record executives and a leading UK dog campaigner drew up a plan for me to kidnap Woofie on the court steps if he lost the appeal, then whisk him away on a waiting fishing boat to start a new secret life in Ireland.
Obviously, I did not relish the prospect of going on the run with a mangy mutt. Luckily, the judges spared me that.
