Lots of site users contact me saying “can you use your media power to….”. The requests are endless… ‘punish Barclays’, ‘have a national nit-check day’, ‘tell everyone about this scam’ (often something I’ve told people about 20 times already).
Yet even if I had time to deal with these things, I’m afraid to say I can’t actually affect change. Getting a story on the news isn’t easy. It isn’t a quick phone call and they say “OK Martin, we’ll get Trevor to interview you”. The only time I have a chance is if it’s on MoneySaving, and even then more often than not, I do interviews when they call me not vice-versa.
This can be quite frustrating at times. The control isn’t there, even on things I’m intimately involved in. Often I’ve written a newspaper or magazine article, only to have the headline detailing something different to what I actually wrote about. Or I’ll do a TV programme and the editing or title goes against what I spend my life talking about.
Now you may be wondering why I’m writing this. A couple of reasons really. The first to vent and say – I really can’t help most of the time, my influence in the world of health warnings for nits is very limited. And secondly to say, don’t assume I’m happy with all aspects of everything that has my name to it. Sometimes one has to compromise. The only thing I genuinely have complete editorial control over…. is this site!
