When we were all kids, our parents told us to read more. If you are one of the five people born in the 80s who read enough for your parents never to tell you this, then you have missed out on what must be the most annoying parental trait of all time. More reading means less television to those of us born before the onslaught of gaming consoles, and meant fewer games of marbles/jacks/other things your grandparents recount fondly, to those people growing up without TV. We at Biteback are not going to lie, when we were 6, the fact that our parents had our best interests at heart escaped us. Now, having chosen a career in book publishing, we know they were right.
Before, you couldn’t pay us to read, but now, thanks to monthly instalments, we can tell you it’s awesome (we put this more down to maturing intellectually with age than the money coercing us into believing that we like books). The only other group of people who can claim that they get paid to read are newsreaders and, even though they don’t get to read books, they probably get paid more than us.
However, we have thankfully come out of the dark ages in which newsreaders were just actors who could be seen on Sesame Street the next morning. Today they can’t get to such a privileged position by just reading (although I’m sure there’s a sizeable amount of it still); they are informed journalists at the top of their game having reported expertly and professionally from all around the world. Maybe they do deserve to get paid more than us.
With all these first-hand fascinating experiences and unique, astounding stories, as well as informed insider knowledge on key events, some of these newsreaders decide that sometimes people don’t want to be read to, but quite like reading themselves (the dream of every parent). So they write a book.
What’s that? Peter Sissons is coming into the Biteback offices next week? That’s a crazy coincidence, I was just writing a blog about how much I’d love to read a newsreader’s autobiography.
Watch this space.
