God help us all the nutters are sometimes right!

By Robert Weatherall on Dec 8, 07 11:22 AM in

One of the worst parts of being a reporter is having to deal with people who are politely described in newsrooms as ‘nutters’. Every newsroom in the UK will have a steady stream of nutters who either phone up on a regular basis or call into reception and demand to see a reporter.

These nutters usually come in with stories about UFOs, claiming to be the illegitimate daughter of the Queen, say they have sat on an airplane next to Elvis or any other variety of bizarre and wonderful tales.....

There are the regular nutters who turn up on a weekly basis and the reporters argue among themselves about who should go down and waste 15 minutes listening to their latest ranting and there are the one off nutters who will come into reception and ask to see a reporter for a story.

These are the worst as you don’t know these are nutters until you start to deal with them.
The art of dealing with the nutter is something I learned at my first newspaper the Hartlepool Mail.

The drill involved taking people from the reception area and pretending to interview them. You make scrawlings on your notepad in shorthand, nod earnestly before either explaining to them they don’t have story or lying to them saying you will look into it before showing them the door and filing your notes in the bin.

How foolish do I feel now? I recall one such nutter during my time in Hartlepool. He came into reception and I drew the short straw. He was raving on about how he had “seen that bloke who went missing in his canoe walking along Seaton Carew.��?

I took down my notes, showed the man the door, went back upstairs to the newsroom and told everyone before we had a big laugh at the nutters expense - whose laughing now eh? It's about time reporters across the land started listening to the nutters.

I don’t see what all the fuss is about the John Darwin case? Okay so the man has faked his death, disappeared for 11 months and turned up on the doorstep of his wife Anne. The two have then continued to fool the world into thinking he was dead while they collected a hefty life insurance payout. He then appears in public for the first time in five and a half years and within days is under arrest.

But do you remember when Harold Bishop in Neighbours fell off that rock at the seaside leaving Madge a widow? I don’t remember the Aussie police giving him the third degree when he was discovered working for the Salvation Army in Erinsborough and I don’t remember Madge having to pay back the life insurance.