(for the journalism and PR types, the relevancy for them is at the bottom of the post)
Well, boy did I get who’s the new Doctor Who completely wrong then eh? In my defence – as my Tweets show – I still called it before the reveal, but there’s more of a story to it than that.
After I ran my posts on Friday night, a couple of people contact me to say that I was wrong and why hadn’t I considered Matt Smith. Now, I had heard that Peter Davison had told a fan that New Who was an unknown, but for all I knew, that meant he had never heard of Chiwetel Ejiofor, so I stuck by what I had been told.
Then someone else got in touch, pointing out that as I had got it right the last time – and was first to do so – they just wanted to point out that I was wrong this time. And that they would tell me at lunchtime on Saturday who it was on the condition that I never broke it to media or tried to profit from it.
(at this point, someone is going to call bullshit and say a) ‘what’s the point in knowing if you can’t break it to media or profit from it’ and b) ‘call yourself a reporter’ to which I say a) plenty and b) I was a reporter, I’m in PR now. If I was still a reporter for a news outlet they could have had the story six hours early, but I’m not so I didn’t.)
So anyway, this person was an unknown to me – they had good credentials, but still an unknown to me – so I was sceptical.
Anyway, true to their word they got in touch with the name Matt Smith. (and I picked it up a few hours later when I got back into an area with a signal – was out doing personal stuff). And I mulled it over because – nothing against Matt – it seemed incredibly out there as a choice. And I asked a few people, who were sceptical. And I contacted some others… who said it was possible. And I checked the odds on Betfair, which had gone nuts overnut, indicating something was going on.
So I took it to be true with a pinch of salt – but sticking to my word didn’t seek to profit from it – but told a few close friends and journalist chums who I knew wouldn’t be interested in putting it up online for the sake of a few hours of scoop, so that they knew I knew.
So I’m taking it as ‘was the first journalist to reveal to the world David Tennent was Doctor Who, was one of the first media types to know Matt Smith was Doctor Who’ and that’ll do me.
I must confess to being surprised at the choice – I really did think it would be a black actor – and as Iain Hepburn points out, what about the sidekicks?
What I have learned since from people is that the two people I mentioned were on the shortlist and auditioned – as did someone else from Firefly (it’s not my scoop to break so I’ll leave that to the person that told me). And my Beeb contacts are all being very apologetic for not getting it, but it’s not their fault – well done to the BBC for keeping it so secret.
Having said that, was Peter Davison right to leak it to a fan? I think so. Because at least the way it happened gave people a chance to find out about Matt. If he had been broken in without any warning, the online reaction would have been hilarious. (I think also for the hardcore there’s a lesson here: Who isn’t yours anymore. It’s always been an institution in the UK but now it’s up there with Coronation Street in terms of belonging to the mainstream.)
Anyway, good luck to all concerned, I’m sure it will work out for the best. There’s a couple of things from this of relevance to journalism though:
Journalism/PR Bit
1) The person who told me it was Matt Smith got in touch because he was able to see that I had nailed it right the last time and decided to get in touch with me because he could see online who I was and what I was about.
2) That person was only able to get in touch with me thanks to various online mechanisms.
The lesson here for future journalists is that: you have to be where others are and relatively high-profile about your work – ie, have it online and highlight your key strengths – so that people can come to you with stories when they want to. Note: this isn’t a complete advocacy of being online – you also have to do it in the real world. Sitting in a newspaper office all day long won’t bring you stories – and that’s a note for people who think blogging counts as journalism too: Repasting links is not journalism.
Three last thoughts:
1) This has been interesting to watch from a PR point of view. I’d love to chat to the person who devised the strategy for it.
2) If Robert Carlyle had got the gig – along with Stargate: Universe – he would never have had to work again and could have retired on convention appearances.
3) I wonder how many blogs got a spike from this over the last few days. I know I did – was there something here more businesses could have worked in to boost their online presence?