The Buzz Newsletter 18th February 2009 Coventry University

18 February 2009

Coventry’s latest ‘Bombshell!’ Photos: BBC Coventry

again half of town was evacuated and workers were made to go home early. The bomb disposal unit worked hard into the night last March to disarm the device, but the recent ‘bomb’ that was discovered, has been found to have been an empty shell.

“ ...that looks like a bullet with a

S

”

detonator on the end

tudents and shoppers in Coventry on Wednesday the 11th were evacuated from the centre of town DISPOSING OF DANGER when a WW2 shell was found on the construction Cheney said “it was about 6 or 7 inches long, 8 at the most.” site of what used to be Coventry University’s Frank He seems quite unfazed by the discovery and has said “it Whittle building. was just another day on the job.” At 4.00pm the shell was discovered When he informed the UXO officer by Pete Cheney, a construction worker OUT OF HISTORY they contacted the bomb squad and the The WW2 shell is a remnant of Covwho was digging a hole underneath police who put up a cordon round Cox entry’s famous Blitz, which destroyed Street and Jordon Well at around 4.30pm. the James Starley building, he said “I don’t really know why I looked back at much of the city and the cathedral The 200 metre radius included parts of it; I just looked at it on the surface and (pictured above). Coventry University, the cathedral and Four hundred and forty nine bombers thought hmm that looks familiar. the Coventry Sports Centre. dropped five hundred and three tons “I went back, picked it up, cleaned it of High Explosive and eight hundred Students who were evacuated from off and thought that looks like a bullet and eighty one incendiary canisters in Priory Hall accommodation were offered with a detonator on the end.” one night (the biggest ever and most solace at the Britannia Hotel where they He put the device into a steel lock were given refreshments and possibly concentrated air-raid of the war). and informed an officer from the a place to stay for the night if the bomb The city was a hot target as its car manufacturing industry was thriving Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) team removal took a long time. who happened to be at the site in the and the city’s factories were making At rush hour, traffic on the ring-road afternoon giving a talk on the possibil- airplane engines and munitions. came to a stand-still while motorists were The site where the latest shell was ity of finding war time munitions. diverted out of the city centre by police found was, in 1940, a residential street officers. - although very close to the cathedral. NOT THE FIRST TIME The shell was removed by explosives Across from the site is the university’s The discovery, which was potentially Ellen Terry building. During the war experts at 6.15pm and the cordon was very dangerous, harks back to last years it was known as the Gaumont Cinema lifted by 6.35pm. fiasco when an unexploded bomb was and was blasted by a bomb, killing By Claire Hartry uncovered on the construction site many. of what is now the Belgrade Theatre,

Head of

PR gives thoughtful insights

„„ Peter Barron, the man who gave up the most wanted job in journalism, editor of BBC’s Newsnight, for Google’s public relations spoke at a Coventry Conversation on the 12th of February. He surprised everyone by turning up in person, instead of the video conference that was planned. The topic was ‘the last 10 years’ in journalism, but soon the questions raised by the audience led to subjects including where the media is heading now, how Google is handling their business and a discussion of the best job to do today: Journalism or PR. Peter was patient even with the more uncomfortable questions and answered all of them accordingly. In response to the questions, he argued that over the past 10 years business and the media have merged together creating the “biggest revolution in the history of revolutions”: the New Media. In support of this he presented a few intriguing figures. For example: 90% of the worlds’ population claim they couldn’t live without broadband for a month, 17p in every pound is spent online, 2 million emails are sent every second. When talking about the biggest turn around in his career, Peter said: “I am a big fan of Journalism”, but

Photo: Guadian.co.uk

to Coventry Students

“if you go into journalism to change the world you are misguided. Google literally has changed the world.” He added: “I am very happy to move on to something else”.

By Teodora Beleaga

The changing face of the news their news on their website first then building on it in the paper itself. David Brookes, the editor of the Telegraph, is coming to the university to talk about the future of the paper and his plans for it on March 11th. Will we see newspapers totally replaced by electronic media, or will they compliment each other to give us the best possible news coverage? By Danielle Cox

Are newspapers dying out or just morphing? Bob Satchwell, 26th February 13.00 ETG34

The student and staff newsletter of the Media and Communications department of Coventry School of Art and Design Edited by Danielle Cox Submissions are invited, please send any articles to [email protected] Thanks to John Mair, Teodora Beleaga, Clair Hartry

Pihoto: www.bandeo.com

„„ With online magazines and newspapers becoming ever more popular, 24 hours news updates, the number of printed daily newspapers decreasing and mobile phone technology allowing us to get updates delivered direct to our hands to us on a regular basis, it is hardly surprising that more and more people are turning to an electronic medium for their news. This has led, in part, to increasing redundancies amongst print journalists and a call for multi-skilled, multi-media journalists to be developed. It’s not just newspapers which are feeling the effects of the changes, traditional television news programmes have had to make change too; supplementing their news programmes with websites and blogs. Jon Snow last week described channel 4 as ‘a website with a TV channel’, are newspapers due to become websites with paper supplements? The local Coventry Telegraph - as well as most other local and national papers - has found it necessary to adapt to the new media trend; changing from an evening edition to a morning one and breaking the majority of