Making the break

Switching off is easier said than done – as an extended break such as Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year can prove. Even when you are on an over-packed and over-heated train to the West Country, bemoaning over-priced, under-seasoned egg sandwiches, taking your first holiday breaths of relaxation, an email from a journalist about a breaking story can cause major disruption.

Your initial thought: ‘I’m on holiday, this is not my problem, they can wait’. Then about a second later, your thoughts turn: ‘What if the story spirals? What will happen if I ignore it and don’t come back to it for ten days?’

Solution: nip it in the bud before it gets worse. Action: speak to the journalist, apologise for the dodgy mobile reception, graciously accept their (often insincere) apologies for disturbing your holiday, promise to email over quotes/images/contacts. Job done. Holiday recommences. That is until the next email from an eager journalist…

But wait – what if I didn’t have a smartphone? I wouldn’t have received the email, the journalist would have got my ‘Out of Office’ and it would all have had to wait until I got back and I could totally focus my (angry) thoughts on said over-priced train meal. Maybe in the nineties, but this is the iPhone generation and, for my sins, I’m a fully signed up member.

The ever-assiduous press officer’s ability to switch off is hindered, more often than not, by two things: firstly, their thirst to secure that all-important, once-in-a-lifetime piece of coverage – “What, a spread in the Guardian but all facts, images and quotes need to be with the journalist twenty minutes before the initial email came through? Well of course!” And secondly, the power struggle and political manoeuvring that often ensues when a press officer is trying to quash or control a potentially bad story. As I mentioned before, neither of these scenarios cares about when the press officer is on leave.

The thing is, whilst we all need to switch off and re-charge our batteries, there is always that feeling that we are missing something; that we could be doing more. We are always on the punt for coverage. The iPhone generation was preceded by the 24-hour-news generation. So for a press officer, when a news story breaks, it breaks. It doesn’t care if you’re taking a long weekend or on a trip to the dentist. Sure, the press office can deal with it, but when the press office consists of one person, as is the case in so many small and medium-sized arts organisations, the onus is very much on that one person.

This isn’t a veiled request directed toward my superiors for a new member of staff. All I have to do is read a paper to see the economic situation the arts industry is in and realise that additional staff on the team is a luxury we simply cannot afford at the moment. But I do think that we must all strike a balance between entering into a long-term, potentially abusive relationship with our iPhones and a healthy level of dedication to our jobs and that A* piece of coverage. Short of insisting journalists stick to 9-5 queries, I don’t yet know what the solution is. If I knew, I would share it with you, but rest assured, I intend to investigate in 2012.