REVIEW: One Direction's Going Our Way documentary

This is a review I wrote for the North Devon Journal:

THE world premiere of One Direction’s movie This Is Us takes place in London’s Leicester Square this evening. Those who can’t wait to see the film might like to get their hands on a recent documentary about the boys called Going Our Way. Chloe Nichols reviews it.

IT’S safe to say that 2013 is the year of One Direction. Going Our Way, a recent documentary about the band, tells the story of their astonishing rise to stardom.

Not to be confused with One Direction: This Is Us (the new film directed by Morgan Spurlock), Going Our Way looks at how five wide-eyed young boys, who took to the X-Factor stage in 2010 as separate acts, found themselves thrust together by judge and former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger to become arguably the world’s biggest boy band of today.

With gossip from music insiders, journalists and celebrity fans, the documentary shows you how One Direction have become a pop phenomenon and taken the world by storm.

It features a tidy mix of both the boys clowning around together and just being One Direction with a range of celebrity know-it-alls discussing their global social media takeover and why they are so popular.

In the documentary, Samia Khan, an American internet personality, describes them as “vocally not the greatest of the boy bands”. However, nobody can argue that a modern version of Beatlemania has swept the music industry.

“First there were the Beatles, then the Rolling Stones and tonight, One Direction” are the words of Australian celebrity journalist Brad Blanks.

One Direction’s twitter account has more than 14 million followers but the boys themselves have millions of fans on their personal accounts.

Jodi Jill, an American celebrity columnist, tells how the boys themselves write their tweets and are not controlled by management so fans feel as if they’re connecting to them.

“I think that’s a really big issue right now. You could be one of the biggest superstars right now but if you aren’t tweeting yourself, no one’s really going to care.”

The film also skims over the short-lived romance between the band’s pretty boy Harry Stylers and singer Taylor Swift, who is also well known for emotive bubble gum pop. The Midas touch of One Direction managed to boost her career too.

Going Our Way tells the band’s story in under an hour, highlighting most of the significant points in their career. It’s suitable for people who have never even heard of them but will also appeal to the hard-core Directioner. The DVD is available on Amazon.

The Leveson Inquiry - Journalist's Kryptonite

After researching the Leveson Inquiry today, I started to think about the impact this will have on my future career.

After the phone hacking scandal, David Cameron insisted on an investigation in to the ethics and practice of the British press. Essentially, News International have given journalists a bad name but I'm guessing a very small minority of journalists would actually engage in such unethical practice.

Should I be worried about political correctness getting in the way of my writing or see this as a chance of clearing our name? No. Politicians and journalists are a melting pot of disaster.



An interesting video to watch is Hugh Grant delivering his speech on the phone hacking scandal during the Inquiry. He described everything wrong with the press to a tee.

The world would be pretty boring without journalism but the nasty pirahnas of the industry need a good hiding. As a journalist, it is very difficult to stay on the fence but in this case, I have to agree with Mr Grant as he makes a very valid point.



Although it is well known journalism is a "struggling" industry, this bad exposure seems to be the shiny glacé cherry on the top. We must win back the public's trust but this could come at a cost.

This was shown on the Leveson Inquiry FAQ on their website: "The Inquiry aims to draw recommendations, if any, for the future, with particular regards to press regulation, governance and other systems of oversight."



Yes. So really, there is a fair chance we will have full blown press regulation in comparison to the good old PCC code.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with how the press is regulated at this moment in time as long as journalists stick to it (which a very small minority don't).

 I don't condone phone hacking and general unethical practice but should genuine and honest journalists really have to be regulated to the point of complete political control?

 I hope the Leveson Inquiry will see offending journalists punished but I do not wish for our writing to be sanitised to the point of lifelessness and pointless journalism.