The pen is mightier than the computer

9:30am Monday 16th July 2007

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I'M OFTEN asked to name my favourite journalist of all time. Who do I model myself on? Who would I like to imitate?

The answer's easy. No, it's not Piers Morgan, nor is it those American chappies who cracked Watergate.

Instead, it's the one and only Charles Dickens, the 19th century author who penned classics such as Great Expectations and Bleak House.

Before he rose to fame and fortune, he was an accomplished reporter in the courts and Parliament.

I was enthralled to read how Dickens would race to get his copy published ahead of his rivals.

In those days, they didn't have the benefit of telephones, computers and cars. Instead, they had to write the stuff on the go.

I recall a brilliant description of him scribbling furiously by candelight inside a moving stagecoach with mud splashing in through the window.

It sounded like the most successful journalist in that era was the first one with his story off the press.

So it strikes me things have moved full circle these days with the introduction of newspaper websites.

When I first began in newspapers 25 years ago, the trick was to keep your story exclusive until your paper came out. So if you picked up a story on Monday but had a Friday deadline, you had to keep quiet for four days for fear of the opposition nicking it.

I once had a great exclusive about one of the Queen's paintings being damaged. I kept it to myself for about two days. But before I could go to press, a freelance got hold of the tale and the national papers scooped me.

These days, this just doesn't need to happen anymore. As soon as a big story breaks, we whack it on our website - www.bucksfreepress.co.uk Journalists now compete to see who can get their report to go live first. Okay, we have laptops and the world wide web instead of muddy stagecoaches and candles, but the principle is the same.

Last week, there was a volatile public meeting in Gerrards Cross to discuss the Tesco development. I sat by the phone waiting for the meeting to end and for my reporter to ring over his story.

We had a full-blown article, complete with quotes, on our site before some of the audience at the meeting had even got home.

But this is fairly standard now and is only just the start of what's possible. I paid a visit this week to a school where I demonstrated to Year 7 pupils the power of net publishing.

First I loaded a story written by the school onto our newspaper website, from their computer. Then I got someone to take a picture of me with the class on my mobile phone.

I immediately sent this image back to the office and we watched how it was magically loaded onto the website page for the world to see.

It was pretty impressive stuff. Instantaneous publishing to the entire globe.

However, this is child's play. Fast forward ten years into the future and the technology will be beyond anything any of us can imagine.

But strip away all the bells and whistles, you'll find the most important ingredient is still the story. We must never lose sight of that.

We mustn't forget how to write. The best technology in the world is useless without this, and yet a generation of teenagers is growing up in the belief that only text language matters.

Computers are a great gift, but this country is teetering on the edge of mass illiteracy as a result of their widespread use. It's so easy to communicate quickly that people forget how to spell and how to string sentences together.

We should embrace the internet as the magical tool it is and try to use it to its full extent.

But remember, Dickens used a quill instead of a laptop and it didn't stop him from being a publishing phenomenon. If he was around today, he'd use a computer, but it wouldn't matter because his storytelling ability would have shone out of any medium available.

The pen is mightier than the PC and don't you forget it.