Looking for people moored near Birmingham to interview them briefly about what it's like to live on a boat

[Federico]

Hi to everyone! It's a real pleasure to be here, even if only as a visitor

 

I'm a journalist and I'm studying for an MA in Data Journalism at Birmingham City University. For the Narrative module I've to tell a story using different tools and I've chosen the world of people living on boats. As a foreigner, it is one of the first things that caught my attention and attracted me when I arrived in the UK. This is a great opportunity to learn more about this lifestyle.

 

I'd like to get in touch with people who have their boats moored in Birmingham or nearby (I can move about 15/20 miles around). They can be either permanently moored or continuous cruisers (it would be interesting to be able to talk to both!).

 

I'll be visiting some of the wharves near me these days to look for testimonials in the old fashion journalistic way, but it would also be great to arrange beforehand with anyone who wants to get involved - I'd love to hear your stories!

 

The idea is to do a short face-to-face interview so that you can tell me a bit about what living on a boat is all about: why you chose it, what are the things you enjoy most and least, any anecdotes, etc. I promise not to take up too much of your time.

Ideally I'd talk both to people who've been living on a boat for quite some time and people who've chosen it recently (months or a few years ago) because I guess they will have different perspectives.

Please contacte me here or privately and we'll get in touch Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks, greetings and good sailing!

 

Federico

[LadyG]

Not much interest, maybe because I for one have no idea what is data journalism, I do know that stats gathered from Birmingham will only be relevant to B'ham, that's the nature of such stats. 

It is understandable if you are conducting face to face interviews, 

The other problem is that every year we are asked to provide info, data, etc, then never hear any more, so the value of information is only of value to the student to get his degree. 

Edited December 1, 2021 by LadyG

[Athy]

20 hours ago, Federico said:

Hi to everyone! It's a real pleasure to be here, even if only as a visitor

 

I'm a journalist and I'm studying for an MA in Data Journalism at Birmingham City University. For the Narrative module I've to tell a story using different tools and I've chosen the world of people living on boats. As a foreigner, it is one of the first things that caught my attention and attracted me when I arrived in the UK. This is a great opportunity to learn more about this lifestyle.

 

I'd like to get in touch with people who have their boats moored in Birmingham or nearby (I can move about 15/20 miles around). They can be either permanently moored or continuous cruisers (it would be interesting to be able to talk to both!).

 

I'll be visiting some of the wharves near me these days to look for testimonials in the old fashion journalistic way, but it would also be great to arrange beforehand with anyone who wants to get involved - I'd love to hear your stories!

 

The idea is to do a short face-to-face interview so that you can tell me a bit about what living on a boat is all about: why you chose it, what are the things you enjoy most and least, any anecdotes, etc. I promise not to take up too much of your time.

Ideally I'd talk both to people who've been living on a boat for quite some time and people who've chosen it recently (months or a few years ago) because I guess they will have different perspectives.

Please contact me here or privately and we'll get in touch Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks, greetings and good sailing!

 

Federico

Welcome to the forum, and thank you for presenting your request so courteously. I hope you find plenty of people to speak to.

I have been involved with journalism for over 40 years but have never heard of "data journalism". What is it?

[matty40s]

49 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Not much interest, maybe because I for one have no idea what is data journalism, I do know that stats gathered from Birmingham will only be relevant to B'ham, that's the nature of such stats. 

It is understandable if you are conducting face to face interviews, 

The other problem is that every year we are asked to provide info, data, etc, then never hear any more, so the value of information is only of value to the student to get his degree. 

Seeing as you dont fit the location bill, you might as well not have posted anything rather than being negative to a polite request.

[Tim Lewis]

21 hours ago, Federico said:

Hi to everyone! It's a real pleasure to be here, even if only as a visitor

 

I'm a journalist and I'm studying for an MA in Data Journalism at Birmingham City University. For the Narrative module I've to tell a story using different tools and I've chosen the world of people living on boats. As a foreigner, it is one of the first things that caught my attention and attracted me when I arrived in the UK. This is a great opportunity to learn more about this lifestyle.

 

I'd like to get in touch with people who have their boats moored in Birmingham or nearby (I can move about 15/20 miles around). They can be either permanently moored or continuous cruisers (it would be interesting to be able to talk to both!).

 

I'll be visiting some of the wharves near me these days to look for testimonials in the old fashion journalistic way, but it would also be great to arrange beforehand with anyone who wants to get involved - I'd love to hear your stories!

 

The idea is to do a short face-to-face interview so that you can tell me a bit about what living on a boat is all about: why you chose it, what are the things you enjoy most and least, any anecdotes, etc. I promise not to take up too much of your time.

Ideally I'd talk both to people who've been living on a boat for quite some time and people who've chosen it recently (months or a few years ago) because I guess they will have different perspectives.

Please contacte me here or privately and we'll get in touch Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks, greetings and good sailing!

 

Federico

 

There is a Facebook group called 'Love the Birmingham Canal Navigations, clean it and cruise it!!' where you could post for information.   It is at (1) Love the Birmingham Canal Navigations, clean it and cruise it!! | Groups | Facebook

 

Tim

[Federico]

Thank you  @Athy @matty40s and @Tim Lewis for your warm welcome!

 

I have been working for several years as a journalist in an important media outlet in my country (Argentina) and I came here especially to study Data Journalism, because UK is a pioneer in the field. There's no definitive agreement on what DJ is (some call it computational journalism, others precision journalism, etc.), but basically it's about using the increasing amount of public data available (produced by agencies, governments, companies, etc.) and applying your journalistic eye (or instinct, you may say) to find interesting stories.

 

It is closely related to software development and IT tools (to be able to find, process and analyse data) and there is a whole branch specialized in visualization (graphs, diagrams, etc.). During the pandemic there was a surge of data journalism teams everywhere: they are the ones who basically put together the tools to follow in real time statistics and data about the pandemic that we can see in any media website today. Data Journalists also work with in-depth investigations like Panama / Pandora papers.

 

Anyway, the Narrative module has nothing to do with that It's more about traditional journalism, like I've always done (and probably you, Athy): talk to people, listen to their stories, trying to tell them the best way I can. I've always loved outdoors life and for me it's amazing that in the UK there are so many people living in boats (in my country it's not like that, nor do we have a big canal system). I'd like to tell a little bit about what it's all about. And if the piece is good, I'll try to publish it in some British news media.

 

I'll take your advice and post in the Birmingham Facebook group.

 

Thanks again!

[Tony Brooks]

This is not being negative but I would have thought between here, Thunderboat and the Faceache groups there would be more than enough data for you to use. There are few things that are specific to one location. Similar happens elsewhere.

[David Mack]

The problem is that in recent years there have been lots of 'lifestyle' articles in the media about living on canal boats, many of them rather lightweight, presenting idyllic images of cosy instagramable floating homes, and beautiful people sipping wine by the water on summer evenings, and completely glossing over issues like emptying the toilet, queuing for water, being unable to provide enough electricity for home conveniences, the need to keep moving the boat to stay one step ahead of the enforcement officer etc.

And requests from journalists for people to talk to pop up regularly on forums like this one. The journalists seem to think they have hit upon a novel quirky idea for an article, but to those of us here the reaction is largely 'Yawn, not another one!'

[enigmatic]

9 minutes ago, David Mack said:

The problem is that in recent years there have been lots of 'lifestyle' articles in the media about living on canal boats, many of them rather lightweight, presenting idyllic images of cosy instagramable floating homes, and beautiful people sipping wine by the water on summer evenings, and completely glossing over issues like emptying the toilet, queuing for water, being unable to provide enough electricity for home conveniences, the need to keep moving the boat to stay one step ahead of the enforcement officer etc.

And requests from journalists for people to talk to pop up regularly on forums like this one. The journalists seem to think they have hit upon a novel quirky idea for an article, but to those of us here the reaction is largely 'Yawn, not another one!'

Actually, the negative side of boating is a rich, untapped seam from journalists to mine!

 

Although I'm not sure non boaters would want to read an entire article about toilets...

[Federico]

I understand what you are saying @David Mack. As a journalist, I've worked with many different communities and the discomfort you describe is frequent: a journalist asks one or two questions and then tells an overly simplistic story, whether negative or positive.

 

On the one hand, it's a problem intrinsic to the profession, because of the tight deadlines we manage and because it's impossible to tell a world in one article. There is no solution, but I think the most honest thing to do is to give space to different voices/perspectives. That's what I generally try to do, but of course I can't speak for what other colleagues do. On the other hand, everyone has a different point of view. Maybe the same article that someone found very unrepresentative, someone else found that it represented their life story very well.

 

It's very interesting what you say about the more difficult aspects of living on a boat, which are often underrepresented, and will certainly be a question in my interviews. In the end, it's the same with everything, isn't it? Nothing is 100% wonderful or 100% terrible.

 

Thanks for the feedback, it gives me food for thought! I don't think I discovered any original idea, just, as I said before, it caught my attention something that doesn't exist in my home country.

(A small linguistic clarification because I think I expressed myself wrongly: when I said "lifestyle" I was mentally translating the expression "estilo de vida" from Spanish. I didn't mean to express something that is fashionable or cool, etc., as "lifestyle" magazines tend to show, but rather a choice - like any other life choice, for example, living abroad. That's how I wanted to express it, but I don't think I got it right.)

Edited December 1, 2021 by Federico

[LadyG]

Sounds like a good bloke. 

[IanD]

6 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Sounds like a good bloke. 

And one who might actually deserve some support from members of the forum who can help him out; it might actually lead to a balanced and realistic article about canal life, which newbies who join the forum and ask the usual questions can be pointed to as a reference 😉