Lacrosse interview – German and US players in Munich

 

In almost two decades of journalism, my writing has taken me on a cruise down the Danube, to Michelin-starred restaurants in London and South Tyrol, Bayern Munich’s training ground to speak to star players, and refugees fleeing from war-torn Syria. This morning, on a particularly chilly autumnal Munich morning, I’d arranged to meet two Munich-based lacrosse players for an article in Spotlight magazine.

Jackie Klaus, outside the HLC Rot-Weiß München club house (© Paul Wheatley)

Jackie Klaus, outside the HLC Rot-Weiß München club house (© Paul Wheatley)

Laura Koroschek (below) came south to Munich from Kiel more than a decade ago, and quickly joined HLC Rot-Weiß München. She has gone on to represent the German national team (German). She was accompanied by Jackie Klaus, (left) originally from the US, who moved to Cologne in search of adventure – and to coach the local lacrosse team. She now coaches and plays for HLC Rot-Weiß München.

Laura Koschorek, outside the HLC Rot-Weiß München club house (© Paul Wheatley)

Laura Koschorek, outside the HLC Rot-Weiß München club house (© Paul Wheatley)

We met for the interview on the edge of the huge Westpark (German), outside the HLC Rot-Weiß München club house, and in total we talked for around an hour, with my kids watching and listening intently in the background (if they found it still fascinating after an hour, that’s good enough for me!). These athletes are increasingly professional in an amateur sport, and such interviews can often prove to be the most interesting and rewarding - this certainly was.

The interview will appear in Spotlight in early 2019. In the meantime, thanks to Laura and Jackie for taking the time to talk about lacrosse, and for providing so much interesting background information on a host of lacrosse-related issues – and thanks for letting me know that today is a bank holiday! Being a freelancer and working ostensibly from home has many positive sides, but one of the things not so great is so often losing track of days.

Thanks very much, ladies! And I hope to see you in action for your final home game before the winter break on 11 November (see map above for location).

Book review: Alan Rusbridger, Breaking News. The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now

Rusbridger.png

‘‘Will the public rediscover their appetite for good, old-fashioned reporting and investigations?’ asks Alan Rusbridger in the final pages of his fascinating Breaking News. ‘Will Facebook and Google sweep all away?’ he continues. ‘Might there, in the end, be no conventional economic model for news? Will the remaking of journalism be far more radical than most people can currently begin to imagine?’[1]

Rusbridger, who for two decades from 1995 led the outstanding Guardian newspaper as its editor, is not ashamed to admit that he still isn’t sure. Indeed, this refreshing readiness to publicly accept that journalists do not have, and have never had, a monopoly on knowledge and good sense is a central theme running right through his book. In an age when newspapers are no longer the main source of ‘news’ for many people, it matters that the newspaper industry recognises that serving information from upon high to a compliant, paying readership will no longer suffice – in fact, it’s no longer possible.

Rusbridger had loosely recognised that the internet would radically transform the news business before he took up the editorship position at the Guardian. But though to a large degree he successfully drove his newspaper through an insanely turbulent 20 years, from conventional news gathering to digitalisation, just as today, he had few notions about exactly where it would all lead.

This book, therefore, is far from the usual journalistic walk down memory lane (compare the fantastic My Paper Chase by former Times editor Harald Evans); in fact, what makes it so interesting is the fact that Rusbridger gives us a revealing behind-the-scenes view of the utter bewilderment across the industry as newspapers struggled for their very existence.

Amidst diminishing paper sales and attempts to come up with a functioning digital strategy as advertisers abandoned print for online, which split old-style believers in print with those (often younger) who saw digital as the future for the newspaper, the Guardian broke some of the most sensational stories of this century so far, such as phone hacking by the tabloid media, Wikileaks and Snowden – not to mention taking on numerous legal fights.

Window of the building housing The Guardian newspaper, London England © Bryantbob~commonswiki

Window of the building housing The Guardian newspaper, London England
© Bryantbob~commonswiki

For years now, such stories have ensured the Guardian could acquire and hold a huge readership in the US, which, of course, is where major revenues lay. It’s interesting to learn how this once unfashionable ‘liberal-lefty’ newspaper from Manchester (which had relocated to London), with its relatively small UK readership (ninth biggest in the UK[2]), transformed itself into an internationally renowned publication with a huge readership reach, including across North America.

No doubt for some, the over-focus on US news can be irritating (and some find it hard to forgive the Americanisms), though it’s difficult to criticise when it also does UK news so well; and its worldwide news, including through various innovations and collaborations (micro-sites, for example), is doing so well. As with everything nowadays, you need to adjust your preferences on the Guardian homepage to focus on the news you want to read.

Thousands of newspapers, many that had been around for many decades, simply couldn’t cope with the digital onslaught, as the likes of tech giants FaceBook and Twitter either took advertisement money (which had always been the basis of newspapers’ viability)[3] or readers’ attention - or both. Many closed, others went exclusively online (the Independent), some are still struggling, newsrooms depleted, ‘journalists’ churning out articles unworthy of their profession.

Data, technology and the internet has helped destroy many newspapers. Others have - eventually - made it work for them, by allowing newspapers to know their readers better than ever before, and tailor ‘news’ accordingly. The Guardian knows that in 2016 in the UK, ‘the average income of a reader … was GBP24,000 – or GBP20,412 online,’ – the medium household disposable income in the same year was GBP26,300.[4] It confirms that a small readership and paywall model would never work.

Though far from smooth, and with still uncertainty of how the next digital innovation will batter it, the Guardian is now flourishing. Underpinned by a GBP1 billion endowment, which is meant to ensure its long-term survival, by 2011 it was the second-most read English-language newspaper in the world, behind the New York Times.[5] So far, its determination to a reject a paywall, its turn to the US[6] (there ‘was no such thing as “abroad” any more’, he writes on page 169) and its digital-first strategy, complemented by setting up an office in Australia (that is now making money) is working. In October 2015, the Guardian became overtook the New York Times (though the click-bait happy Mail Online was by then number one in English).[7]

‘The weakness of the press,’ writes Rusbridger, ‘was slowly eroding its watchdog functions, enabling the rise of fake news.’[8] And in a period of populism, Trumpism, racism, and antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and countless other challenges to the tolerant, fact-checked world we thought might be possible, newspapers who can be relied upon to tell the truth are invaluable.

The Guardian and other reputable sources of information and opinion certainly do not get everything right, and they should also be challenged and fact-checked. But proper journalism is expensive: the cost of a Washington correspondent, says Rusbridger, can cost GBP500,000 and Baghdad close to a million.[9]

Nevertheless, journalists holding the powerful to account, producing articles that seek truth not hyperbole, in which readers can place a high degree of trust, no matter their imperfection, are vital for a functioning democracy.

On his website, Rusbridger has a link for an extract for the book.

[1] Alan Rusbridger, Breaking News, p. 379

[2] Rusbridger, Breaking News, p. 336

[3] Rusbridger says that a GBP5,000 newspaper ad would cost GBP400 online (this seems to be around 2006)

[4] Rusbridger, Breaking News, p. 211

[5] Rusbridger, Breaking News, p. 275

[6] See pp. 133 for conclusion about paywall and the US; on a trip to the US in 2007, ‘people wanted to know when we would do more in America …’ – just one of many indicators of the reorientation towards the US, p. 137

[7] Rusbridger, Breaking News, p. 336

[8] Rusbridger, Breaking News, p. 176

[9] Rusbridger, Breaking News, p. 209

Food: Sababa, Munich's best falafal restaurant

Sababa, Munich’s king of falafel

Sababa, Munich’s king of falafel

What? Falafal and other Middle East food
Where? Viktualienmarkt: Westenriederstr. 9, 80331 München
When? Every day except Sundays

Open for more than a decade, from the outside, Sababa seems an unpropitious place to earn the label as one of the best spots in Munich for Middle Eastern-style food. But don’t be put off by the rudimentary set-up here. The food is simple, and it’s delicious.

 

Located in the city’s Viktualientmarkt, an historic open-air market just off central Marienplatz, it sits in one of the many small series of ‘houses’ that typify this popular shopping area of Munich. Next door on one side is the very good fish restaurant (and ‘wet fish shop’), Fisch Witte; the other side is a typical Turkish-style kebab shop - I’ve never been in, but if it’s tasty falafals you’re after, don’t make the mistake of entering next door (the doors are metres from one another and it might appear to be one shop).

Once inside, staff invariably meet visitors with a warm smile, already a contrast to that found in most Munich restaurants - so often, there is a disarming coolness in cafés and restaurants across the city. (This is not a criticism - Munich in general sets a pretty high bar for cafés and restaurants regarding quality, but there is no point pretending that as a rule service comes with warmth – maybe what you lose in service you gain in quality and professionalism?). And they all originate from various Middle Eastern countries, including Palestine, and most speak German, English and Arabic,

Sababa does pretty much straight up and down Middle Eastern food that nowadays you can find in many cities - they just do it better than most. It’s predominantly meat-free, and the most popular orders are the home-made deep-fried falafal in home-made pitta bread laced with home-made hummus. You can then add lettuce, red onions, red and white cabbage, peppers, a spicy sauce and so on. My children love this, and it’s a healthy, filing and tasty meal.

Alternatively, there’s pitta bread with halloumi, or an assorted selection of plates packed with falafal and/or halloumi, salad, tabula, bulgur, stuffed grape leaves and whatever else you prefer. There is a small seating area under the temporary cover, plus a few tables and seats outside – and all meals can be taken away.

Prices
4 falafals in pitta with salad: €4.90
Halloumi in pitta with salad: €5.50
Falafal plate with salad, tabula, hummus, pitta and so on: €8.60
Halloumi plate with salad, tabula, hummus, pitta and so on: €9.40