18 February 2009

Coventry’s latest
‘Bombshell!’ again half of town was evacuated and workers were made to
go home early.
Photos: BBC Coventry

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
who was digging a hole underneath The WW2 shell is a remnant of Cov- police who put up a cordon round Cox
the James Starley building, he said “I entry’s famous Blitz, which destroyed Street and Jordon Well at around 4.30pm.
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 concentrated air-raid of the war). were given refreshments and possibly
and informed an officer from the The city was a hot target as its car a place to stay for the night if the bomb
Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) team manufacturing industry was thriving 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
ity of finding war time munitions. The site where the latest shell was 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
uncovered on the construction site many. By Claire Hartry
of what is now the Belgrade Theatre,
Head of PR gives thoughtful insights
to Coventry Students
„„ 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 sub-
jects including where the media is heading now, how

Photo: Guadian.co.uk
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 “if you go into journalism to change the world you are
the worlds’ population claim they couldn’t live without misguided. Google literally has changed the world.” He
broadband for a month, 17p in every pound is spent added: “I am very happy to move on to something else”.
online, 2 million emails are sent every second.
When talking about the biggest turn around in his By Teodora Beleaga
career, Peter said: “I am a big fan of Journalism”, but

The changing face of the news

„„ 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
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
Pihoto: www.bandeo.com

week described channel 4 as ‘a website with a TV chan-

nel’, are newspapers due to become websites with paper
supplements? Are newspapers dying out or just
The local Coventry Telegraph - as well as most other morphing?
local and national papers - has found it necessary to
adapt to the new media trend; changing from an evening Bob Satchwell, 26th February
edition to a morning one and breaking the majority of 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
thebuzz@fsmail.net
Thanks to John Mair, Teodora Beleaga, Clair Hartry