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Dominoe
4th Aug 2009, 20:19
Sat in the crewroom today and read the RAF News in 30 seconds flat (lots of very big adverts). Then I picked up the monthly Navy News full of glossy photographs and interesting articles. Got me thinking that the RAF News is not a patch on the monthly Navy rag.

Perhaps if the RAF News followed a similar monthly edition, it too could have pages of glossy colour photographs and a greater selection of articles?

I don`t wish to get into a peeing contest between RAF v Navy etc- just wish to ask for peoples thoughts on the RAF news following a similar format to make it a bit more interesting than it is now?

Apologies if this has been done to death - and if it has please delete Mods!

Sierra Hotel
4th Aug 2009, 20:27
Agree with you on that one.

vecvechookattack
4th Aug 2009, 20:27
Who writes the RAF News? Is it a weekly or monthly pub? Navy News is monthly and the contributions are from each units PRO. Anything interestng happens on your unit and the PRO will write a dit and send it off to Navy News (Somtimes called CVS News)

Easy Street
4th Aug 2009, 20:49
RAF News used to be alright. We all used to groan every time the Brize staish was pictured opening yet another building, or whenever yet another double-page spread trumpeted the latest and greatest achievements of Typhoon or Harrier. Despite those gripes, though, it had high production values, featured "serious" news, and had a decent letters section where correspondents stood a fighting chance of getting an answer from somebody at HQ STC (as was) who actually knew what they were talking about.

Now, as Dominoe rightly says, it is a rag. It looks like it would be right at home on white van man's dashboard - where he would have chucked it after reading it cover-to-cover quicker than I could use it to wipe my @rse. Typical of the kind of rubbish stories in there now are things like "lucky husband and wife get to spend 4 weeks of their op dets together" and "local kids play basketball at Linton's PEd flt (again)". There's so much human interest cr@p in there, I'm now surprised when they actually put a picture of an aircraft in!

There was a good old moan on PPRuNe a few months ago about the TV series "Air Force Afghanistan", which all the serving members thought was tosh, but was apparently aimed at the target recruitment audience (who thought it was great). Fair enough. However, please please please can we have RAF News aimed back at us, the serving audience? The paper's only widely distributed around RAF bases so it's not much use for recruitment. I learn more from this site about what's going on around the RAF than I do from the official channels - there's only so many IBNs you can read without looking like a staff officer - so I think it is high time that the "old style" RAF News was reinstated.

I know - fat chance.

althenick
4th Aug 2009, 20:52
Navy News has won the plain english award for journalism 3 times...


...Enough said :ok:

Lord Elpus
4th Aug 2009, 20:55
The RAF News was never a great read to start with, but having picked up a copy in someone else's crewroom this week, it appears to have had yet another re-launch with Sun style headlines.

Its previous content, rather unsurprisingly, gave the party line, however, after a brief read last week, it was plain to see it has the editorial integrity of Pravda!

Too much space it now given over to Air Cadets and those chislers on a career push (charities). Finally, too many adverts.

CheapAsChips
4th Aug 2009, 21:03
RAF News does seem to have had a bumpy ride recently. But my troops seem to like it. Yes, it's more The Sun than The Times but if the majority read The Sun is that wrong? Good point above, though, about Navy News having lots of good articles and stories about what ships/units etc are up to - and as noted, they are submitted by the ship's PRO. Is that our problem? We all expect our CRO (or whatever they are called these days) to send stories into the RAF News and the website. Do we actually do anything to find the stories ourselves and get them started? Perhaps we are missing a trick here by not copying the Navy and having a PRO (good secondary duty for all those career types) on each Sqn. You can see it now - Sqn Boss to keen fg off - "Now then, when we are on exercise/ops/the lash, I want at least 2 stories a month about what a graet bunch we are (that should sort my OBE)". A bit tongue in cheek, but, if we were a bit more proactive and sent the stories in, we might: a. get more coverage; b: get more stories in about ops and kit rather than kids at Linton on Ouse (who just seem to have a very good CRO from what I've heard) and; c: improve RAF News' coverage. On reflection, I think we might be as much to blame for this as anyone - I for one have number thought to submit a story about what I/Sqn/mates have been up to.

Personally, I don't like the Navy News. Too much "stand by" for broadcast. Hate the glossy paper look - looks like something my local Council drops through my draw to remind me that they are spending my Council Tax well!

BEagle
4th Aug 2009, 21:29
If you are lucky enough to get hold of a copy, the truly excellent 'Royal Air Force Flying Review' of the 1950s is quite an eye opener.

I inherited a couple of copies dated around 1953 - fascinating to see how things were back then. Including the poverty in which many servicemen existed.

Not for nothing was 'RAF News' often referred to as 'King and Country' - as Blackadder aficionados will undoubtedly agree.

My main gripe was the plethora of 'grip and grin' photos of Air Marshal Whathisname presenting some trophy or other to yet another bunch of muddy oafs.

I was once the editor of the station rag at Brize. For my 'you can do better than this' motivation, I had a photo out of an old copy of 'Air Clues' - it was captioned 'The Air Marshal looks at the impressive array of storage racks'...:rolleyes: and came from a stunningly blunt article about some stackers empire in some god-forsakenly remote part of the Empire. Perhaps even less interesting than the turgid 'Air Power' articles which conspired to destroy the reputation of 'Air Clues'.....

Flt Lt Mac
4th Aug 2009, 21:30
I love it when people deliberately misspell words when they are criticising grammar and other such stuff.

RAF News is a god-awful, gramatically (and sometimes factually) incorrect pile of dross

but to who, exactly ?

since it's makeover anyway

Do you write a column for the RAF news?:ok:

Easy Street
4th Aug 2009, 21:36
Cheap as Chips,

I don't think you can lay the blame at the feet of individual units. My own unit submitted fortnightly items through our EAW's PRO during our op det last year; the most we got in RAF News was a couple of paragraphs, with no picture, buried somewhere in the middle. One article in a 3-month period! So I must admit to being slightly bemused when the same old stories (charity this, air cadets that) feature time and again, with only slight variations in location to tell one issue from the next.

Some (unclass!) operational updates, along the lines of those on the RAF's own website, would be appropriate. Not just a map, with a Typhoon next to Kandahar representing all our helicopters! Yes, I know current ops get a bit monotonous when translated to paper, but I'd rather read about operational sameyness than another identikit article about an air cadet of the month. The various elements of the RAF (especially lower down the rank structure) lack understanding of each other's fundamental roles - witness the FJ vs AT vs SH vs blunty sniping that rapidly emerges on most threads in here - so an occasional feature showing what we all get up to would be most welcome.

The internal comms machine seems to have moved completely online. I'm sure the intent is for the chain of command to pass down relevant information for onwards briefing. However, this approach cuts out all the interesting "background" stuff you might read whilst leafing through a decent newspaper. With some higher-quality articles, RAF News could and should be broadening the general service knowledge of all ranks.

scarecrow450
4th Aug 2009, 21:39
RAF News (http://www.rafnews.co.uk/)

If you can't get hold of a copy ! :}

FJJP
4th Aug 2009, 22:03
The RN are ALWAYS streets ahead of the RAF in publicity terms. If a local rag or TV station rings the Navy, locally the stops are pulled out and before you know it the Navy is splashed all over the media AGAIN.

Then the RAF had this dumb idea that if a unit/station/etc was approached by the media, you had to info HQSTC who would take over and treat the whole thing like a top class production, assigning a Cmd PRO to the station to supervise the whole deal. One Staish I served with told STC where to stick it and gave a local TV station access and a flight, which he personally authorised. Got good publicity. He was called down to see the CinC for a no-coffee chat.

It makes you want to tear your hair out...

But I have to agree that the Navy News beats the RAF news hands down. And the unforgivable mistakes that that paper makes, makes you want to spit.

It really needs to get its act together and at least have it proof-read by someone in light blue.

:{:{

Jumping_Jack
4th Aug 2009, 23:50
Seeing as the Air Cadet organisation is some 10,000 people larger than the RAF maybe it should be called Air Cadet News and have a small section for the RAF....:}

PPRuNeUser0139
5th Aug 2009, 05:53
Thanks to Scarecrow450 I had a look at RAF News and on page 1 we have:

a. the Chinnok..
b. 43(F) Sqn take last flight
c. A hero RAF Police officer

This week's correct answers are:

a. Chinook
b. takes
c. heroic

Dominoe
5th Aug 2009, 06:25
Pleased to see that this thread has some interesting debate and hasn`t been seen off by the Mods. No black cars seen on the horizon either.

Apologies I didn`t mention Soldier magazine in my post. I no longer see it around these parts so am not able to comment. I do remember it being an interesting read with many articles and areas of interest. If I remember it`s more a magazine than a newspaper. Soldier magazine appears much closer in format to Navy News and the RAF News is just a thin flyer.

Any peeps in brown care to comment on your magazine compared to Navy News/RAF News?

diginagain
5th Aug 2009, 06:33
RAF News appears to be all that you can ask of it; soft, strong and thoroughly absorbent. Its other advantage over Navy News and Soldier is that you can finish it before losing circulation to your legs.

Matt Skrossa
5th Aug 2009, 07:00
Notwithstanding the merits, or not, of these two papers, neither of them ever have any bad news. The main direction of content appears to come from their single-service PR organisations (most of whom are on a two year posting with no previous experience of PR). If you want to read about a pilot getting 3000 hours on type, or a new ship commissioning then it's perfect, but why for example don't they have news on recent court martials, people getting busted for drugs/drink driving, or boys and girls heading for Colchester. You would expect this balance of news in even the worst local rag, but not in either of these newspapers, more propaganda than proper news. Get the balance right, stop pretending all is well and tell it like it is, your readers are not stupid and they deserve better.

thunderbird7
5th Aug 2009, 07:32
RAF News is about as good as BA News. Navy News is a good read and in all the newsagents down ere in the southwest and well received.

LOTA
5th Aug 2009, 11:20
RAF News used to have plenty of lively and contentious stuff (page after page of JPA moans and loads of stuff on the state of air transport are two examples that come to mind) but seems to have lost its way on the way to High Wycombe!

As for Navy News, very glossy, typical Navy PR (as opposed to news) and two letters pages a month that are full of: "Your article on HMS Doings reminded me of the time in 1954 when......"

By the way, BA News used to the a benchmark for employee publications; must have taken the same avenue as RAF News.

Belle and Sebastian
5th Aug 2009, 11:39
I did a Media Ops job OOA a few years ago and the Journos from the RAF News asked me to send something to them every week for inclusion. I duly did so and all I saw from submitting 12 articles accompanied by lots of photos was a miserly 2 line paragraph buried in the wrong section. I was not happy and told my replacement not to bother to submit anything.

Here at my current section, we get a copy of 'Soldier' every month and I must say that it's very good. Lots of descent articles with good photos and a good selection in the letters page dealing with some real issues. It is a bit pricey at £3.50, though.

RICKIT
5th Aug 2009, 14:33
RAF News = Torpy Times. Torpy in a Typhoon, Torpy firing a pistol, Torpy presenting Air Cadet of the Year...
Does that mean it will become the Dalton Daily?

minigundiplomat
5th Aug 2009, 14:48
Here at my current section, we get a copy of 'Soldier' every month and I must say that it's very good.


Soldier magazine is by far the best Mil publication I have come across, even beating the Aircrew Manual. It has content people actually want to sit down and read, rather than things people want published. That may seem a little subtle, but makes a huge difference.

What happened to 'The Officer'? That had some decent articles and the editorials had no bias, and were often quite critical of the MOD and Government.

....Hmmm, perhaps I've answered my own question there!

Strictly Jungly
5th Aug 2009, 14:55
When I was in LUSTY the skipper's brief to the PRO was he expected to see at least 2 big articles in Navy News every month with several smaller supporting articles.

Didn't do the skipper any harm as he is now 1st Sea Lord!


In direct comparison to Crab News???.................As our colonial cousins say......No Contest!

PICKS135
5th Aug 2009, 16:58
RAF News - 43(F) Sqn take last flight (http://www.rafnews.co.uk/readstory.asp?storyID=221)

Question re the above. Where are the pictures of the disbanment parade which is mentioned ??

Local TV managed to make an appearance. Leuchars photo section were in attendance. Even I was there ! But RAF News doesnt have a single photo.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v379/f4phixeruk/Marchoffthestandard.jpg

They think its all over - it is now

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v379/f4phixeruk/TheEnd.jpg


Gloria Finis

LOTA
7th Aug 2009, 16:36
Good call, Picks135, despite a lengthy feaqture and some historical pix of 43. But I'm not sure any publication in the land would use either of those pictures (unless it were Empty Chair Weekly!):)

rolandpull
7th Aug 2009, 17:54
I thought that they were 'reborn' with a new team recently and relocated to HWC?

LEE BRITT
7th Aug 2009, 18:10
I manage to purchase said item every 2 weeks from W.H. SMITH no problem. :ok:

PICKS135
7th Aug 2009, 23:32
Sorry LOTA. More pics her, didnt want to tie up bandwidth

Gloria Finis - Final Parade (http://forums.airshows.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12963)

Blanket Stacker
8th Aug 2009, 15:53
RAF News went dramatically down hill when it moved to High Wycombe &, presumably, had a change of staff. From their love of well worn cliche's - 'high flying' appears regularly - they presumably recruited them from the Sun-school of journalism. It is also a shame that they can't even fold it properly, or is that another new marketing technique.

Willard Whyte
8th Aug 2009, 19:21
It's been a good long while since I've read propaganda weekly. Couldn't say what passes for 'news' in there these days.

flying knight
2nd Oct 2009, 13:59
raf news is a newspaper and is produced as such
not enough money is available to produce raf news like navy news. with navy news the production costs are much higher, more designers etc.
i understand the remit is to increase readership so there have been changes accordingly including a new web site. as far as i understand the paper is still available in wh smith

StopStart
2nd Oct 2009, 14:22
First off -

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h64/judgesaw/capitalisation.jpg

Am I to assume, from your style of prose, that you are in fact the lead hack for the RAF News?

The "new style" RAF News is a dreadful rag written by a selection of folk whom I suspect don't even know what "RAF" stands for. At least the old News was written by people who seemed to have a semblance of understanding of what it is the RAF (and the units therein) actually do rather than banging out the "gor-blimey, our lads, innit" articles on the C17 bombers of 43 Sqn based at RAF Brize-Fenton that we have to endure today...

:hmm:

Jumping_Jack
2nd Oct 2009, 14:59
Interesting.....Flying Knight must be using a special filter that removes every appropriate capital letter. How bizzare. :confused:

Easy Street
2nd Oct 2009, 20:44
As if to underline everything bad that myself and others have said about the RAF News in the preceding posts, this fortnight's disaster includes an article about a civvy veterinary nurse who has had an image of the Vulcan tattooed onto her upper arm! I urge you all to go for a look on the website, where you can even see a close-up picture with the caption "This Vulcan means no 'arm"...:rolleyes:

Those that want to read trashy stories are already well-served by such publications as the Daily Star, Heat, Nuts, and countless other publications. Those who want to be kept up-to-date about what's happening in their Service have nowhere to turn. Except here - I've just read about the disbandment of 23 Sqn on another thread. Why is this stuff not being reported to us?

I can suggest a way to increase the readership of the godforsaken rag. GIVE US OUR NEWSPAPER BACK!!! We are not idiots and are sick of being treated as such.

Samuel
3rd Oct 2009, 00:56
Then again...you could compare with a real Air Force News!:ok:

RNZAF - Air Force News - September 2009 Issue 107 (http://www.airforce.mil.nz/operations/airforce-news/107/default.htm)

This really is an excellent publication, and free, in the mail, to anyone who wants one!

MTOW
3rd Oct 2009, 06:29
How curiously Kiwi - they have a great Air Force News, but no Air Force.

Samuel
3rd Oct 2009, 20:27
Factually incorrect; clearly, you can't read!

You still smarting over all those Wallaby losses?:O

Two's in
3rd Oct 2009, 21:32
Check it out - it's online.

Soldier - Magazine of the British army (http://www.soldiermagazine.co.uk/)

flying knight
5th Oct 2009, 13:09
busted....

x213a
5th Oct 2009, 14:31
The navy news is nothing more than an overt advertisement of the Royal Navy's "diversity" mission. I know of several people who have often been cherry-picked to star in photos just because of their colour or foreign sounding name.
Any matelots here know "Junior"?

The Navy News is excellent however in it's role as shin pad, when rolled up and shoved down your pussers tropical stockings for a game of deck hockey:ok:

RumPunch
5th Oct 2009, 18:38
The RAF news should be renamed the RAF Waddington/Brize Norton/Typhoon Times as that appears to be the only 2 Stations and Aircraft we have in the RAF. It just proves they dont bother investigating what the other 3/4 of the RAF does....utter drivel

LOTA
11th Oct 2009, 12:20
I am partly amused, partly appalled by the announcement that Lorraine Kelly, apparently a TV presenter on the independent network, is to become the 'agony aunt' in RAF News.

This, I think, completes the journal's decline since it joined Air Command. Can it get any worse?

Al R
11th Oct 2009, 17:23
The RAF news should be renamed the RAF Waddington/Brize Norton/Typhoon Times as that appears to be the only 2 Stations and Aircraft we have in the RAF. It just proves they dont bother investigating what the other 3/4 of the RAF does....utter drivel


Could it be that these stations employ PROs who have their wits about them?