Malcolm Bradbrook: Cyberambles

All praise FleetStreetBlues and #savethefieldproducer

2012-02-08T09:00:00.006Z

Sky's decision to clampdown on how its employees used Twitter provoked a strong, if rather predictable response on Twitter yesterday.

Within seconds a hashtag had been launched to #savefieldproducer, in reference to Sky's popular Digital News Editor, Neal Mann (nearly 40,000 followers).

If anyone missed Sky's announcement it is as follows. Employees must not:

- repost information from any Twitter users not employed by Sky

- retweet rival journalists or 'people on Twitter'

- tweet about non-work subjects, or even stray from their own beat

- break news from their own beat on Twitter before passing it to the newsdesk

Thousands of tweets followed on the #savefieldproducer hashtag - @elanazak has helpfully Storified the pick of them.

I even waded in myself:

An incredibly short-sighted decision by Sky. One that seems to have been brought in without thought #savefieldproducer

Then I read a blog post by FleetStreetBlues. It argues, like myself, against Sky's new policy as nonsensical, saying:

At a stroke dozens of active, interesting Twitter accounts are going to become pretty much useless - if all you're going to get is the latest news as reported on Sky News anyway, why not just follow the Sky News Newsdesk account and have done with it

But the post went on to consider the other side, to point out the logic in Sky's decision.

It makes no sense for Sky News to pay journalists to break stories through another medium. It makes no sense for them to pay journalists to amass personal social media followings by promoting rival news outlets.

And they're good points.

Look at the Storified #savefieldproducer hashtag. One Tweet from @PunksatonyPics, in support of Neal Mann, went as follows:

Never noticed @fieldproducer worked with Sky. I know now because Sky is being particularly daft. Leave the man alone. #savefieldproducer

That kind of Tweet will be held aloft in the Sky boardroom as showing they have done the right thing. If Mann's followers don't realise who his employer is, what benefit will it bring Sky - one of the most commercial journalistic outlets in the world.

Consider also, for example the furore when Laura Keunssberg moved from BBC to ITV. In the stroke of key, she went from @BBCLauraK to @ITVLauraK and the audience she had built up utilising the corporation brand unwittingly switched allegiance.

On a personal level I have little problem with this. It is an inevitable consequence of Twitter and to make the most of the medium journalists need to freedom to interact in a more personal than corporate manner.

What I am celebrating is FleetStreetBlues and the desire to look at the other angles. There is too much blind following and assumption on online journalism at the moment and not nearly enough interrogation of the issues.

Twitter was alight with people attacking Sky and this post stood out as a well considered and open-minded beacon. Remember, Twitter isn't always right you know.

So less celebratory slaps on the back for everyone and more consideration to other ways forward please. I might not like the Times behind the paywall or agree with the new Twitter rules but I am glad some people are prepared to break away from the flock.

UPDATE: Just as I hit publish, I saw this blog by Tom Phillips which also takes a view of the Sky rules and suggests how they might 'de-stupid it'. Well worth a read.

Grow up and start charging for online content

2012-02-07T09:54:00.005Z

For the first time in my life I nearly let out a loud, and very public, "Hallelujah, and Amen brother" in full evangelical style.

Where was I? A church in the deep south of America, in front of a gospel choir watching a preacher perform miracles upon a small disabled child? No. I was in a session at the news:rewired conference in London.

What brought about my conversion to gospel-style outbursts? It was listening to Francois Nel tell assembled delegates that anyone who thought that online content should be free needed to "Grow Up".

Ok, so it's not quite the Road to Damascus that you might have expected, but it was for me. I remember suggesting the same at the first news:rewired two years ago and I feared for my life as I was chased from the building by digital journalists carrying flaming torches and pitchforks.

A bit of an exaggeration perhaps but nonetheless, there has long been the assumption that any attempt to charge for online journalism is heinous in the extreme and bad for democracy.

Take the term 'paywall'. It is a loaded term implying secrecy and subterfuge and not a term ever used, for example, to describe the cover price for a newspaper or a subscription to a magazine.

It wasn't helped when the first person to try to charge for general news content in the UK - as opposed to a more niche publication like the Financial Times) was part of Rupert Murdoch's empire. And anyone who is anyone knows that he is the Magneto to liberal journalism's Professor X.

But journalism is an expensive business and it cannot be done with journalists - and lots of them. That's not simply a plea for employment for my students but a plea for the industry as a whole.

Think about the working hours Nick Davies has had to put in to uncover the hacking scandal currently rocking the industry. Think about the massive amount of data crunching the Daily Telegraph's investigative team had to do on the MP's expenses. Think about the undercover work carried out by the News of the World to expose the corruption within the Pakistani cricket team.

It's not cheap and it's not possible if you have cut back your staffing levels to the point where each reporter finds themselves churning out story after story simply to fill the paper. Read Richard Peppiatt's account of working for a Richard Desmond publication if you want first-hand evidence.

The Guardian has been at the forefront of the 'campaign' to keep online content free. I use inverted commas because there is no formal campaign and Alan Rusbridger claims that he is not doing so for societal reasons but because he hasn't yet found a business model to suit.

But since January 2001, the Guardian's circulation has reduced from 400,000 to 230,000, pagination has been substantially reduced and the print 'paywall' has increased to £1.20 a day.

That is all against a backdrop of failing to find a way to monetise online content through advertising or other activities. Last year the group announced losses on £33m and two years ago, GMG had to sell it's regional newspapers to Trinity Mirror to offset such losses.

More power to Trinity Mirror and, in my opinion, bad for plurality in general as the group takes an even firmer grip on all the big publications in the North West.

Finding a successful model for getting readers to pay for online content is not easy - you're pretty much guaranteed to slash your audience by 80 to 90 per cent overnight - but only if the industry 'grows up' works together can it work in the long term.

The Scott Trust, the organisation funding the Guardian Media Group, is a crown jewel among British journalism. It ensures that at least one national daily newspaper is not beholden to shareholders and commercialism in general.

This is how the Scott Trust describes its core purpose:

1) To secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity: as a quality national newspaper without party affiliation; remaining faithful to its liberal tradition; as a profit-seeking enterprise managed in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

2) All other activities should be consistent with the central objective. The Company which the Trust owns should: be managed to ensure profits are available to further the central objective; not invest in activities which conflict with the values and principles of the Trust.

3) The values and principles of the Trust should be upheld throughout the Group. The Trust declares a subsidiary interest in promoting the causes of freedom in the press and liberal journalism, both in Britain and elsewhere.

How possible will that purpose be if the current management fails to find a suitable model for making online pay? Especially as the Guardian is keen to explore all of the new forms of journalism available and, for example, live blog the first appearance of the new presenter of Countdown.

I must admit when I saw that blog I did wonder how it adhered to the second objective - but that's probably a thought for another day.

It may be that they will never find a way of making 'online' pay but that the media audience will naturally migrate to tablets such as the iPad, where most organisations are already erecting 'paywalls' - although they don't seem keen to use the term paywall in this context.

Anyway. It was just joyous for me to hear someone else say out loud what many in the industry have known for a long time.

Francois was not quite as vulgar as I perhaps am and highlighted that it didn't have to come back to cold hard cash. He used the term 'Reciprocity' to underline that he meant that we must ask for something back. He highlighted the Daily Mail as a successful business model as print readership was declining more gradually than other publications and online readership was rocketing.

If I thought it brave to demand paying for online content at a conference like news:rewired, then the chutzpah required to praise the Daily Mail is off the chart.

However, I dislike the Daily Mail's methods here. They separate online and print and seem prepared to shovel any old content online - hence hideous mistakes such as the recent use of a video of an alleged rape. I understand from insiders that such a policy is causing problems as specialist reporters are coming in to find furious messages from contacts who have seen a story posted online, which lacks the kind of contextual information that a more considered form of journalism might bring.

No, for me its about the cold hard cash. I don't want a profit and I don't expect to become rich but I do want my journalism to be well supported financially.

It is great to be part of the digital evolution of journalism, but if we fail to fully interrogate all the issues now, we could fail the industry in the long term.

Newsgaming: Tabloidisation gone digital?

2012-02-06T14:42:00.006Z

One of the more lamentable aspects of my life as a parent is that I no longer have lots of time to play games. There's a whole PS3, X-Box culture out there that is passing me by completely.

I love getting lost in gaming and escorted Lara Croft around the world to kick a little ass, humiliated Tiger Woods (on the course that is - he's more than capable of humiliating himself off it) and killed more worms than a, octogenarian fisherman.

So it was with great interest that I attended a session on Gaming Mechanics in News at the news:rewired conference. I had already heard a presentation from Philip Trippenbach on the subject of gaming/journalism convergence 18 months ago and was looking forward to seeing how things had moved on.

Key to the session was the presentation by Bobby Schweizer from the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-author of Newsgames: Journalism at Play.

Bobby reiterated a similar point to Philip's from 2010 - that games simulate dynamics so are therefore a highly valuable teaching tool, and one that could and should be integrated into digital journalism.

He highlighted a couple of games specifically. In September 12, gamers are invited to bomb terrorists responsible for the 9/11 atrocity. In doing so, of course, civilians are also killed.

The second game to catch my eye was Budget Hero in which gamers are required to balance and control where the US taxpayers dollars will go.

There is no doubt that both games have a worth in modern society. Being able to personally experience the delicate balancing act of organising the budget for one of the world's superpowers is great experience, just as the lesson learned from blowing up innocent people in pursuit of semi-mythological bogeymen half-way round the world is one that all potential US Presidents should take during the primaries.

But, towards the end of the presentation, a colleague in a magnificent tartan suit said: "I agree this is all very exciting and worthwhile. But why is if good journalism?"

And there's the rub. Tools like these have existed for a long time - The Sims is hardly a new concept for example, but why is it such good journalism?

In these convergent times we can present a story in a multitude of ways for a reader/user to get to grips with it. Well-presented data journalism, video journalism, podcasts, blogs etc etc sit side-by-side and invited the reader to choose how to find out about a story.

My worry is that the oversimplification of an issue through the use of gaming in the way outlined above is an inexorable lurch towards tabloidisation. We have seen an increase in tabloidisation in the past 50 years, be it on television, radio or in print and it strikes me that the promotion of newsgaming could be online's major contribution.

If we look at some of the key aspects of tabloidisation, we can see how my fears may be realised:

Privileging the visual over analysis - I think this is obvious where games are concerned. Actual levels of analysis will be minimal compared to the visual elements of the game
Using cultural knowledge over analysis - the game will become a shared experience, just as the BBC's One in 7bn was in October. But how many moved beyond typing in their date of birth to reading the analysis? It drove millions to the BBC site but was it for the acquisition of understanding or something to post on Facebook/Twitter?
Dehistoricised and fragmented versions of events - as above, how much context can you provide in a limited gaming experience?

Of course, newsgamers are not intending this to happen. The intention will be that the game is 'consumed' alongside the more 'traditional' aspects of journalism but will that be the case? I think not, I think that many people will begin to rely on the games but will participate with less thought to the real issue at hand and more to gaining the highest score.

I need to cut £5bn to make my budget fit? Screw my left wing principles, I am chucking the NHS straight in the private sector and hang the consequences. That's pretty much what Blair was planning anyway.

I'll give you a nice tabloidised anecdote to 'prove' my point once and for all. Look at any footpath that goes round the corner of an open space. There will always be a muddy trail through the grass because human nature will cut corners - it doesn't matter how green your ethics or how polished your shoes, the temptation to rip up the grass and splash through the mud is always there.

Other speakers in the session also highlighted the positive use of such interactive technologies such as The Times's Al Trevino demonstration of an app which will allow users to experience all the Olympic sports. As a feature-driven, experiential piece of journalism I can see that this will have value.

Alastair Dant, interactive lead at the Guardian, highlighted another quiz-type game the Guardian used last year in which they highlighted quotes and invited the reader to guess whether they were from Colonel Gadaffi or Charlie Sheen. It's good fun - try it. I love Mock the Week and the News Quiz when they try this sort of thing.

However, it is also a classic way in which we distance ourselves from genuine atrocities (I'm talking about Libya, not Hot Shots Part Deux - see, now I'm doing it.)

Gary Glitter starts a Twitter feed (or doesn't) we all become Frankie Boyle for the afternoon, North Korean leader dies and there is a huge rush to Tweet lines from Team America. Do we need media outlets to start cashing in on it too?

I would say no. Just because we can, it doesn't mean that we should.

I'll leave you with a quote from Jeremy Paxman:

Good journalism is bad business and too often bad journalism is good business … for journalists to function properly, they have to be given freedom and resources. And those will come only from organisations which believe that their first duty is disclosure, not entertainment.

Joey Barton, The Mirror and big glass houses

2012-02-05T07:57:00.005Z

Today The Mirror online has run a nice helpful story about Joey Barton and the comments he made about the John Terry case.

Twitter was alight with speculation about the comments soon after they were posted on Barton's @joey7barton account. Barton-bashing is a favourite pastime these days, although to be fair, he does walk around with kick me sign pinned to his back.

The new theory goes that Barton has breached contempt laws by making statements which indicate guilt on Terry's part. In theory, that does breach the Contempt of Court Act 1981.

In theory. In practice we are unlikely to see a prosecution from the Attorney General because the charge against Terry is a summary offence and will not be tried before a jury. Therefore proving that Barton's ill-advised comments have influenced the court will be difficult in the extreme.

I'm sure the Mirror reporter knew this. Odd it wasn't mentioned in the story.

Still, it puts me in mind of a blogpost I wrote last month. You see, several national papers had 'decided' to allow comments on online reporting of the Terry case, similarly breaching the CoCA.

You could argue their breach was much worse than Barton's as all journalists are trained in media law so should at least have known there was a breach.

Now let's see, which news outlet was the worst? Oh yeah, that's right, the Mirror.

The Daily Mail is now speculating that Barton may well be the first person prosecuted for contempt for comments made on Twitter. Interesting opinion - completely wrong of course - but interesting nonetheless. In recent checks however, I do have to point out that the Daily Mail does at least have a decent record in showing it has a good understanding of the contempt law.

Perhaps the law does need changing for contempt now that social media has enabled everyman to broadcast opinions and that not everyone has a solid understanding of contempt. That is particularly true as most police procedural dramas in this country are American and therefore display a completely different law.

What is true however is that the mainstream media does know our contempt laws and with breaches we have seen in recent weeks, including the allegation that Guardian reporter Jamie Jackson named a juror, perhaps they should stop casting stones from their big glass houses.

Juror-naming journalist facing jail

2012-01-30T09:46:00.006Z

It seems I am starting to get a bit obsessed with this Contempt of Court thing.

My last two blogs have involved contempt of court breaches in the reporting of John Terry trial and the Harry Redknapp trial. My specific point in those two cases was that newspapers were not giving enough thought as to which stories users can comment on online.

Now a Twitter user, and former colleague, has accused me of carrying out a contempt crusade and brought a new case to my attention. It involved an allegation that a Guardian reporter, Jamie Jackson had made two horrific breaches of the contempt of court act in the Harry Redknapp case.

1) He named a juror on Twitter

2) He tweeted details of a legal argument not put before the jury

The case has been referred to the Attorney General by the trial judge, Anthony Leonard QC who has also banned live-blogging and tweeting from court.

My only reaction, and it is currently one free from being contemptuous because Mr Jackson has not been arrested, is to ask: "How the hell can any journalist get something like this wrong?"

In this country the anonymity of the jury is sacrosanct. This is no technical breach, it is a law-smashing sledgehammer of a breach and the consequences could be wide-ranging in the extreme. Any journalist-in-training is told that contempt can carry a jail-term if serious enough and, as much as I wouldn't wish it on any journalist, this is the sort of breach the jail term may be reserved for.

As we all saw recently with The Guardian's live-blog of the new presenter of Countdown. That particular publication wants to get live coverage up on any and all given circumstances. But if you can't get the most basic law right then the chances of the judiciary continuing to give open access is limited to say the least.

We all make mistakes. As a deputy news editor I once let the name of a rape victim get past me on newsdesk - a mistake that still makes me shudder 11 years later - but in the live environs of Twitter with no sub to save you, then you have to step up and be absolutely sure of every word you produce.

The Daily Mail has reported on this fresh breach by The Guardian and you may remember that, much to the chagrin of The Daily Quail, the Daily Mail was on my Goodies list last week. It has adopted a particularly gleeful tone but hey - you give them the ammo and that is what they will do.

You may not agree with the Mail but technically they are often very good at what they do - hence my post last year querying several bad decisions they had made.

A worse contempt of court

2012-01-23T10:41:00.008Z

Last week I blogged about contempt of court and how the principle of it was being ignored by the main daily newspapers in this country in terms of allowing comments on active cases.

A couple of people, including David Banks, the editor of McNae's Essential Law for Journalists, agreed that it was technically a breach of the Contempt of Court Act. However, they added that in practice no prosecution was likely from the Attorney General as the allegation against John Terry was a summary offence which would not be tried by jury.

I agree however, my main point remains that, at a time in which the press is under huge scrutiny, it is advisable to adhere to all laws and, perhaps more relevant here, the spirit of the law.

So here's the thing today.

Four of nine of the main English nationals are allowing comments containing references to Harry's Redknapp's appearance today at Southwark Crown Court in relation to charges of tax evasion.

I spotted it first on the Independent so thought I would check out all. My methodology was to check any stories on today's websites containing references to Redknapp's appearance in court. Some sites had specific stories, some mentioned it in reports of yesterday's match between Spurs and Man City, and some gave no mention at all.

In journalism we like to have goodies and baddies so let me break it down:

Goodies:

* Daily Mail - no comments allowed

* Daily Telegraph - no comments allowed

* The Sun - no story on the tax evasion (surely the fact that Harry's a Sun columnist can have nothing to do with this?)

* The Guardian - no comments allowed

* The Daily Star - no comments allowed

Baddies:

* Daily Mirror - comments allowed, no pre-moderation

* The Times (no link - paywall) - no comments on the main story about the court case but comments allowed on the Balotelli story, which contains a reference to today's court case. Some comments casting doubt on Redknapp's character, despite the fact they are, in theory, pre-moderated

* The Express - comments allowed, no pre-moderation

* The Independent - comments allowed, no pre-moderation and several clear breaches of the CCA.

Let's be clear that this is no summary offence. This is an indictable offence which will be heard before a jury a body of 12 good men (and women) the Attorney General is always keen to protect.

My point from last week doesn't just stand. It stands proud, gleaming smugly in the sunshine.

If newspapers cannot be trusted to get the basics right - how can editors argue long and hard against statutory regulation?

UPDATE: The Daily Mirror removed the comment facility by 11.45am on 23.01.12

UPDATE: The Independent removed all comments referring Redknapp's court appearance by 1.16pm on 23.01.12

Journalism, comments and contempt of court

2012-01-19T09:44:00.009Z

So this is a time when journalism is under massive scrutiny.

The Leveson Inquiry is looking in-depth onto every nook and cranny of the industry and threatening to drag out all of the skeletons and then slap the handcuffs of draconian statutory regulation on us all because a minority of hacks erm, well, they hacked.

So why is it that the some titles cannot follow the basic principles of the law correctly?

Yesterday The Sun ran a story on the on-pitch battle between Anton Ferdinand and John Terry. You may recall that on February 1, Terry is due in court to face an allegation that he racially abused Ferdinand during a game between Chelsea and QPR last year.

The story is perfectly acceptable and written with the boundaries of the law as it stands. However, for 12 hours The Sun allowed people to comment on the story.

Some of those comments, as you might expect of modern day 'passionate' fans, were pretty fruity and several stepped so far over the line to be in clear breach of the Contempt of Court Act 1981.

That Act is intended to allow suspects a fair trail and ensure that juries are not swayed in any way by anything said outside of the court room. All journalists know that to print anything which might suggest the guilt of the accused is a clear breach.

You will have to take my word for it that three comments breach that Act is a very blatant way. I have the screen grabs but do not intend to add to The Sun's indiscretion.

About 12 hours after the story was posted, and after at least 21 comments had been left, The Sun realised their mistake and took the story down.

But today, The Independent, has done the same.

Fortunately, at the time of writing this blog no prejudicial comments have been let but it is easy to do so. I signed in to Disqus with a Google account and left the comment to the left.

My comment is not prejudicial in the slighted, containing only words 'My real time comment'. It was left purely to satisfy myself that no pre-publication moderation of comments was happening at The Independent and sure enough my comment was published immediately.

I did a check round and here's what I found:

* Guardian - no comments allowed

* The Times - comments allowed but they are pre-moderated (no link behind the Paywall) - my real time comment was published but I was unwilling to attempt to post a prejudicial comment so cannot guarantee a result either way.

* The Telegraph - comments allowed - my real time comment was published immediately

* The Mirror - comments allowed and I didn't need to do a test as the top comment was such a clear breach of the 1981 Act it clearly had not been moderated (screen grab taken)

* The Star - no comments allowed

* Daily Mail - comments allowed - but were going through pre-moderation

* Express - no comments allowed

If four out of nine mainstream newspapers are unable even to adhere to a basic law governing journalism - what chance do we have of avoiding statutory regulation?

I know that one of the most exciting aspects of online journalism is the interaction with the readers but you cannot publish and be damned - there is no Reynolds Defence in Contempt.

UPDATE: Following queries from readers about whether the Contempt of Court Act 1981 applies in a magistrate's court and for a summary offence (ie that not before a jury), I sought a definitive answer from the Attorney General's office and was given the following reply:

"The Contempt of Court Act applies to any court and applies from arrest."

So that settles that. That's not to say that the Mirror will be prosecuted but it certainly confirms that it could be if someone were to formally report the breach.

Daily Mail and rape footage

2012-01-17T13:46:00.008Z

I have a history with the Daily Mail.

For starters, I worked there in the 1990s despite being a left-leaning person keen on supporting human rights. Then last year I wrote a blog post about how poor the standards were becoming at the Mail.

The Daily Mail is a favourite of the Twitterati - it's right-wing politics and tub-thumping, link-baiting journalism is guaranteed to get us liberal social media types uptight and sniping.

Even when they recently claimed personal and professional success in the conviction of two men for the murder of Stephen Lawrence they failed to win even a flicker of support from their traditional enemies.

To sum up it's a hate-hate relationship.

Today they have stooped so low that makes me feel physically sick to my stomach. And it's a strong stomach I might add.

Today they carried a report of an alleged rape on Big Brother in Brazil.

No problem there - of course they should report on that. After all, the programme is still huge news around the world and a crime has been alleged.

But the Daily Mail was not content in telling its readers about the allegation, it also deemed it necessary to show them what had taken place in a seven-minute video taken from YouTube.

No I won't link to it because in doing so I would republish this mindless, unethical, immoral 'journalism' and I have no intention of doing that.

No doubt the defence will be that the material is already out there on YouTube so why not? Well, the answer is simple: we are gatekeepers of information. We edit and employ logic and ethics to decision about what and when to publish - that's why experienced people in our trade (or profession if you prefer but you'd be wrong) get more money and the top jobs if they want them.

Snuff movies have been available from dodgy market stalls for years, hard core porn has been available on the top shelves of newsagents or adult shops for decades yet no newspaper editor has felt the need to republish their content.

Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. And in this case that fact is so blindingly obvious to anyone with a brain I can't believe I am even having to write this.

Simply appalling.

UPDATE: The video had been removed from the story by the evening of January 17.

UPDATE: Angry Mob has also blogged to highlight the weirdly spinning moral compass of the Daily Mail

The terror of leaving the iPhone family

2012-01-06T12:31:00.004Z

I was waking up early with palpitations, nibbling my fingernails and was distracted for a month.

The cause of my panic attacks? The contract was up on my iPhone 3Gs and I had a big decision to face. Scratch that – this was a MASSIVE decision.

I loved my iPhone. It did nearly everything I wanted it to: I checked football scores, kept up to date with current affairs via the BBC News app, social networking on Twitter and Facebook, listened to podcasts on my long drive to work.

It was more than a phone – it was a companion and a status symbol. While I held it aloft it screamed – ‘this man is up with the times’, ‘he is an in the know, media savvy dudester’.

But it was expensive. With Vodafone (the only network to get a connection in my small Oxfordshire village), I was paying £36 per month and yet, because the phone connection was so poor, I was using about 10 per cent of the available free calls and a miniscule number of the unlimited texts.

I wanted the iPhone 4s, but at £41 there was no way my Scottish blood would allow me to chuck more money into the Apple black hole.

So I became obsessive. Constantly asking friends, colleagues and students about their phones and surfing the web for advice.

My anxiety wasn't helped when a friend (a tech-savvy friend whose opinion I trust) stated that giving up his iPhone was the worst thing to happen in 2011 and said Android 'suck dogs' balls'

I am sure it was easier naming my three children than coming up with ideas for a new phone. I can only assume that the kind of separation anxiety I was facing is similar to that experience by married people about to leave their partners.

Sony Eriksson looks good. Or does it? Some have, according to Vodafone, just been recalled due to an error.

I hear good things about Blackberry but I can only get the Curve on my budget. That wouldn’t be so bad would it? But what about my massive thumbs (my brother used to tell me I was born without thumbs and they had to graft a dead man’s big toes on to my hands), would they be able to cope with the Blackberry QWERTY keyboard?

Samsung? A lot of people say a lot of nice things about them. But I feel uncomfortable with the level of copying that goes on between the Galaxy and the iPhone and I had a terrible experience with a Samsung Tocco four years ago. Yes it was a 5mp camera but there was a two second delay between pressing the shutter and the picture being taken. I have loads of photos of the back of my daughter’s head from a lovely holiday in Yorkshire.

I was advised to keep the 3Gs and reduce my contract but heck I wanted a new gadget to play with and I wanted to keep the iPhone to use as an iPod touch as well.

As the day approached I got more nervous. It is no exaggeration to confess that more than once I woke up in a panic at 4am thinking about my iPhone’s replacement.

In the end I got a HTC Desire S on £26 per month. I have had it three weeks now and feel comfortable to blog about.

Best to list what I wanted to see how it compares.

1) A phone.

The HTC outstrips the iPhone massively. The reception on the iPhone was so weak that I couldn’t use it as a phone in my home village and to send a text message I had to type it, leave it on an upstairs window sill for a minute and then press send. The HTC gives me at least two bars wherever I am in my house.

iPhone 3Gs: 0, HTC Desire S: 1

2) A camera

The iPhone’s 3mp camera was great and shoved the idea that it was all about the mps straight back down other manufacturer’s throats. The HTC’s 5mp camera is it’s equal in terms of taking quality pics and has the added bonus of a flash so I can take pics at night now as well. A narrow victory for the Desire.

iPhone 3Gs:0, HTC Desire S: 2

3) Web surfing.

Similar, but undoubtedly slicker on the iPhone. The double tap to get columns to fill the screen works more accurately on the SGs and the HTC has an annoying habit of putting the text too close to the edge of the screen.

iPhone 3Gs:1, HTC Desire S: 2

4) Apps

Again the 3Gs takes this because the BBC News app – my most used – is far slicker. It fits the screen more quickly, responds more sensitively and is an all-round better user experience.

iPhone 3Gs:2, HTC Desire S: 2

5) Social networking

A tie. Neither is better or worse. Both do what I wanted them to do (along as I avoid the rubbish HTC Peep app for Twitter) so I can’t choose.

iPhone 3Gs:2.5, HTC Desire S: 2.5

6) Podcasts

Initially this was my biggest disappointment about the HTC. The iPod function of the iPhone was excellent at managing podcasts and there was no inbuilt function on the Desire to manage this. But for £4.95 I have bought the BeyondPod app and all of that functionality has been restored. I had to buy it as an extra but as I am saving £10 per month on the 3Gs, and £15 per month on the 4s, it doesn’t seem so bad. Another tie.

iPhone 3Gs:3, HTC Desire S: 3

So it’s a tie. There are other things to consider such as the fact I can now get a free Tetris app on the HTC (they were paid for only on the iPhone), it is cheaper to buy decent accessories such as case and scratchguards for an Android phone and the Notes app on the Android is rubbish by comparison.

I feel I have made out pretty well. I am better off, have an iPod touch at home with all my music on it and am no longer a slave to iTunes.

If the 4s was the same price? You know what? I would choose the HTC Desire because I can now use it as a phone and, after the two years of the iPhone in my house, the novelty value of that will take a while to wear off.

Since settling in to the HTC, I am now informed on a regular basis how many of my contacts are signed up to HTC Sense so perhaps I am preaching to the choir anyway?

The Times behind the Paywall

2012-01-05T09:57:00.007Z

In the past I have been hovering between coolly-supportive and warmly non-committal when discussing the issue of Paywalls for online newsites.

It's a hugely emotive topic with a large proportion of the London-based media-scene being anti on the basis that content is free and that it is a sign of a burgeoning democracy of information.

The arguments for are, of course, that the media industry is suffering and suffering badly. Would Rupert Murdoch been quite so keen to close the NOTW if the profits had been at pre-Web 2.0 levels? The Guardian - the most fierce critic of paywalls - is in strife and the Guardian Media Group flogged off their regional arm to prop up the huge losses it was making?

I am currently doing a research project into reporting of the transfer window in football and one of the things I was most looking forward to was being 'forced' to subscribe to The Times online and see what all the fuss was about.

What a massive disappointment it has been. I have been looking at the site for almost a month now and I find it littered with poor practice in terms of layout, presentation and navigation.

I'll start with the homepage:

What an unappealing mass of text that is - no sentence breaks, no paragraph breaks just words chucked on a page. Then there's the primary navigation bar. I had to check with a colleague that my eyes weren't going - that it really was that fuzzy and out of focus (trust me, it's not my picture this time).

Then they opt for an extremely clunky hover menu.

I may not have the fastest broadband in the UK but that seems to slow the whole process down and, to my eyes at least, it is not an attractive thing designed to ease your way around their site.

And it does what bad hover menus do - when you drag the mouse from the primary to the top of the secondary (From Sport to Football in this case), you frequently get switched to the Money menu because your cursor is taken over that section of the navigation.

Next we'll go the football section.

More chunky text and this time words are cut off half-way through.

The appearance of that disembodied ",a...." looks incredibly amateur to my eyes.

Moving on through the page and the appearance is decent. The stories are well-ordered according the news-agenda of the day and there is a good amount of white space to make for a pleasant viewing experience.

But there are not many stories on the page and I think I want to find more. I want to read more about the Premier League and I spy that that the titles Premier League and More Premier League are links. But when I click then I am taken back to the top of the page as the link only goes to the main football page. Same with the Columnists link and now I am very disappointed because Matthew Syed is one of my favourite journos.

How about the Championship? My club Derby County are on the up so I'll read about what Clough jnr is up to.

Where, for the love of blood and stomach pills, is the Championship? In the Hover Menu? No. A separate section in the football page? No. A random link in a list? No.

I am sure it is there somewhere but by now I am off to somewhere else. Despite the fact I am paying for the Times, I do not use it for any kind of news information.

The proud claim of the Times was that it was bringing in a paywall to protect and maintain its quality. That has been a mega-fail.

I am disappointed because secretly I had hopes that the paywall would work. Journalism, and particularly investigative journalism (real investigative journalism not donning fancy dress and encouraging people to break the law), is an expensive business.

But you can't ask people to pay and then offer them a significantly reduced service.

My favourite journalism bloopers

2011-12-23T10:24:00.018Z

'Tis the season for giving so, after a serious year in which journalism has taken a heavy battering from all sides, I though it time for a more lighthearted post.

So here we have it: My Top 10 Bloopers.

Before I start I would like to say that I have made some right corkers in my time. For example, on my first intro at the Derby Evening Telegraph I wrote:

Choir Leader Anne Smith is desperate for more male members to add a little cheer to her Christmas celebrations

Fortunately I had a very amused sub to save me from the embarrassment of that going in the paper.

So. Here goes:

1) It's a classic. I thought that by now all subs would be very wary of putting the words 'Blow' and 'Job' in close proximity but that's what happened on the Oxford Mail.

I know, I know. The kicker's in bold and there's a colon in between but still.....

2) The Juxtaposition is a funny beast and tricky to manage when advertising and editorial departments don't talk as much as they should.

But putting the words 'Don't bury your head' next to the picture of a mother describing the horror of hearing that her only son had been decapitated caused the Derby Evening Telegraph red-faces all round. I was on the early shift that day and had 35 complaints in the first 15 minutes!

3) What are Ant and Dec up to?

One from the Express this time. Difficult to see what happened here but a bit of rooting around on Google finds the claim that they changed 'Can Dec finally match Ant?' to 'Can Dec at last match Ant?' but forgot to update the right-hand page before sending to print!

4) I knew she was odd but WTF? Here, in the sadly departed London Lite, we see Amy Winehouse heading out on the town. But what's that she's holding? A severed hand. Eeek. Odd - even for her.

Note to sub - step away from the Photoshop.

5) Mary, Mary quite contrary. If this man is homeless, how was he attacked in his own home? Someone was half-asleep on this one.

6) Quite possibly the best smutty headline of all time. I mean, I know what the Gloucestershire Echo sub is trying to say. But extra services offered by girls at Cheltenham Ladies College caused quite a stir on Twitter last year.

7) This one from the Ludlow Journal only makes sense when you look at the keyboard and realise that I is next to O, and K is next to L but I doubt Tony Fuller was best pleased when he read this caption and saw he had been renamed Tiny Fukker.

8) What year is it again? This piece in the i was a very insightful column about the improvement in the Tour de France this year. Unfortunately the sub appears to be looking to the future.

9) My word that Kendra is dirty. The model and reality TV star released a candid autobiography but the Daily Mail seems to have got confused between its wrestling metaphor (no holds barred) and its pornography metaphor (no holes barred). Still, maybe this wasn't a mistake...

10) Back to Leveson again and if the good Lord (Leveson that is, not the big imaginary fella up in the clouds) isn't careful, this kicker will represent how every feels about the media for all eternity.

I am fairly certain that the Daily Mail was referring to the media scrum at the Amanda Knox trial or perhaps labeling their colleagues media scum was another dig at Desmond?

Hope you've enjoyed - feel free to use the comments to direct us to your own favourites.

I can't claim credit for all the above. Some I have spotted, some were spotted by HoldTheFrontPage and some came to me via Twitter.

Am I poisoning the minds of the young?

2011-11-28T11:35:00.011Z

I had an interesting Twitter exchange with former senior journalist at the News of the World, Jules Stenson, at the weekend.

To be fair, I started it when I tweeted the following:

If you were starting to feel sorry for tabloid journos, listen to ex NOTW hack Jules Stenson on Media Show Pod. What a turd #journalism

Stenson took great exception to this and replied. I have to say I am impressed by his dedication to Twitter – he does not follow me, my tweet was not retweeted and I didn’t tag him directly. One can only assume he regularly searches Twitter – and perhaps the internet at large – to see what people are writing and saying about him.

His reply:

@MBradbrook Your students must be proud to have such an articulate man as a lecturer.

First off I have to say. It’s a fair cop. I was not at my most eloquent when I described Stenson as a ‘turd’ – but then, in my defence, neither was I at my most inaccurate.

I should add that I don’t personally know him so perhaps I should amend my description to ‘professional turd’, because for all I know he might be lovely to kittens and a perfect delight in his home life.

What was it about his interview that irked me so? Well, it was his lack of honesty. By that I don’t mean that he outright lied but, like many tabloid journalists, he failed to tell the whole truth.

Two examples:

1) Hugh Grant was a legitimate target for press intrusion because he supported greater regulation of the press.

2) Steve Coogan was a legitimate target for press intrusion as he gave Piers Morgan a ‘laddish interview’ in which he talked about his private life.

What is the dishonesty here? Well how about:

1) Hugh Grant has had his private life ‘investigated’ by the tabloids for far longer than he has supported press regulation. It’s not a chicken and egg situation here people – he has been a topic of fascination for 15 years plus.

2) Likewise, Coogan has also been on the receiving end so often before the interview with Piers Morgan that it renders Stenson’s argument disingenuous in the extreme.

To be honest I was a little embarrassed at being caught descending to the level of name-calling but replied to Stenson as follows:

@julesstenson sometimes it's just best to tell it as it is. There are worse crimes in #journalism than a lack of articulation

He was on no mood to debate journalistic crimes however and went on the offensive:

@MBradbrook Staggered they let you teach journalism.

Presuming ‘they’ to be the University of Gloucestershire (my employer) it seems an incredible statement to make on the basis of a 140 character tweet. But then again, doesn’t that just sum up the issues with tabloid journalism? No research, no analysis just a snap judgement.

But no problem , I thought. I’m better than this so I invited Stenson to debate the issue at the University of Gloucestershire – I’m sure that while he was here he could probably even find a couple of students willing to describe me ‘a turd’ just to add balance.

But no. Debate was not high on Stenson’s agenda:

@MBradbrook You just carry on filling young minds at the University of Gloucs with poison and feel very proud of yourself.

Poison! Many of my students will be willing to testify that I fill their minds with boredom but poison seems a bit strong. Perhaps he thinks that Grant, Coogan and myself are to form a lunatic fringe of the Leveson Inquiry and start firebombing the temples of St Rupert?

Not a bad idea. Perhaps then we’ll get the journalism we deserve rather than the patronising, celebrity-filled, dishonest tat that gets served up right now.

What’s Stenson up to now? Well he’s tweeting about Christopher Jefferies of course. He’s tweeting about the most undeserving victim of press intrusion and monstering in history.

What a nice man.

Mind you. I am smiling because I have written the name Stenson so often now that all I can think of is Fenton, the deer-herding labrador.

Is it a good thing to give a platform to racists?

2011-11-17T11:10:00.011Z

Interesting article about Twitter on the BBC website today by pundit and former striker Mark Bright providing a platform for racists.

The article has been inspired by high profile investigations into allegations of racism made against England captain John Terry and Liverpool striker Lois Suarez and offensive yet completely unsurprising comments by Sepp Blatter who suggested that racism should be dealt with by a handshake and then forgotten about.

It's a strong article written from a position of knowledge and experience and makes a compelling read.

Mark Bright is 100 per cent correct that social media in being used as a platform for racists. It's not just Twitter, the worst by a long way is YouTube - I have stopped looking at the comments section of the video sharing site because of the vile racist nature of many of them.

Liberal society in general has for a long time held on to a 'no platform' policy in relation to racism. The basic theory is don't let racists have a voice as that voice is oxygen which will fuel the fire of their hatred and perhaps ignite it in others.

But now, as Bright has identified, that fire is far from extinguished. In this country many have believed it has been and we have been full of criticism of other countries which we perceive to have lower standards than us.

Incidents of racism in UK football grounds have been identified as a one-off. But that is as true as the News International's claim that phone hacking was perpetrated by a 'rogue reporter'.

Social media is open source. There are legal constraints of course but the judiciary has not yet come to terms with how to implement the law to a platform with millions of characters of information being uploads every day.

So 'no platform' is not working in social media - it promotes freedom of speech and those opposed to 'no platform' have long said that breaching the principle of freedom of speech is a price not worth paying.

Racists were ignored for so long that many thought they had gone away or at least that their number has diminished to an insignificant level. Yet social media is showing the pure folly of that thinking - just read some of the abuse that Bright has received during his time on Twitter.

"When James Vaughan joined Norwich from Everton, I tweeted to say, 'Good luck to James Vaughan with his move to Norwich'. Someone replied to say, 'I don't want any more blacks at Norwich. We've got enough, if you want to watch blacks and foreigners, go to see Arsenal'."

That's a horrible thing for him to have to read yet as a result of a simple retweet, the perpetrator was banned for life from Norwich City Football Club.

The issue is back out in the open and can be dealt with rather than denied.

Perhaps we have to accept that 'no platform' is unworkable now that social media is coming to the fore and embrace that element as an opportunity to more accurately assess society.

Five things sports journos should stop saying

2011-11-02T14:35:00.007Z

Sports reporting is a funny old thing.

Loads of pages to fill / dead air to talk over / blog posts to write and a fairly limited number of new things happening at any one time.

But it must also be the form of journalism which most churns out the same old tired cliches and phrases. Here are my top five:

1. 110 per cent

It's impossible unless your figure is comparative so leave it alone. I will accept "Newcastle United have increased their number of wins by 110 per cent". I will not accept "David Silva has given 110 per cent today". Go to the back of the class.

2. Unsung hero

Occasionally this is used correctly. For example, you might say that Attilio Lombardo is the unsung hero of Manchester City. Very few people know what he does, or that he is even at Eastlands, but as the team is currently very successful, he seems to be doing it well.

However, I will not be happy if I again see Scott Parker described as an unsung hero at Spurs. He is currently Football Writers' Player of the Year, Tottenham's fans sing his name louder than all others and the Match of the Day team go all misty-eyed at the mere mention of his name. Leave it out. Right out.

3. Referee

OK so this is not a cliche but, for the love of Le Tissier, please stop talking about the whistlers all the time. Yes. They make mistakes. Yes. We can see the errors after we have watched an incident 12 times from four different angles and at super slo-mo but come now do we need to pull every decision apart every game?

4. Good touch for a big fella

Footballing folklore goes that if you're tall you have limited skill because you always have a cold head up there in the clouds. So every time Crouch attempts a back heel or Carroll beats his man we have to hear about how unusual it is. Get over it. We rarely hear the phrase 'terrible touch for a tiddler' despite its obvious application in connection with Theo Walcott or Sean Wright-Phillips.

5. Literally

Do you know what literally means? It literally means that something is exactly like something else. So, catching myself in my fly when I zipped up after a loo break is literally the most painfully embarrassing experience I have ever had. Robin Van Persie is not literally a thoroughbred racehorse. Messi did not literally leave the defender for dead. And yes Jamie Redknapp I'm talking to you.

Mind you when you see what happens if people in football try out some new terminology, perhaps it's better they do stick to cliches.

Death Porn and Gadaffi

2011-10-21T12:42:00.017+01:00

Death Porn as defined by Urban Dictionary:

Death porn is a slang term for the material found on the internet that is intended to gross out its viewers. All pictures/videos of dead bodies, horrible accidents, or blood and guts can all be classified as death porn

It is a phenomenon surfacing on the internet - as most modern phenomenon are. I read Jack of Kent's posting on this subject and had to ask: why are we seeing Death Porn in the mass media?

Take this for example. The front of the Sun's homepage:

Perhaps not a surprise when you consider The Sun's previous form with such classics as 'Gotcha' during the Falklands War. But have I missed something here?

When did it become OK to show death so graphically - and in such a celebratory fashion on the front page of a newspaper?

The Sun was by no means only outlet to use Death Porn on its front page.

This is The Mirror:

Pretty awful. Not quite as crowing as The Sun but clearly a celebration of the death.

Then there's this in the Mail:

Let us not forget that the Mail is classically one of those papers quick to point the finger at violent TV or video games for escalating violence in society's young.

It seems to me that the mass media is simply unable to resist. They can see material being published on the net and want 'some of the action'. It is a rationale used to defend the monstering in the coverage of Christopher Jefferies in the Joanne Yeates murder investigation.

But news media is read in a different way to social media such as Twitter, Youtube and Faceboook - there is an impression of authority from a conventional media outlet and that authority gives the words and images power.

Just as Peter Parker was told by his Uncle Ben 'With great power comes great responsibility' - the gratuitous use of these images is not serving any purpose other than to celebrate death. And is that a purpose the mass media in this country should be pursuing?

If we desensitise ourselves to death and violent in such an accepting and mainstream way, where does it lead? I'll leave you with this story that has brought tears to the eyes of this hardened hack.

Tweeting from court

2011-10-20T11:57:00.009+01:00

Court is one of the places where journalists are most restricted in what they can write, photograph, record or film.

That is why I am so staggered that Twitter seems to have been welcomed with open arms by some parts of the judiciary. It's less than a year since journalists were given permission to Tweet live from court.

The live Tweeting from ITV's Rupert Evelyn during the trial of Vincent Tabak is a superb example of why Twitter can be such a compelling tool in the hands of a court reporter.

Rupert kept up an incredible flow of Tweets from the trial and during the moments of Tabak's evidence it was a staggeringly compelling read.

I even almost forgave the lack of capital letters throughout. I still think journalists must maintain high standards of SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) even if it's 'just social media'.

Longer term, I have concerns about the ‘thirst to be first’ and the prospect that promoting immediacy in news reporting may damage the traditional role of contextualising and analysing. But what is clear is that, used well, Twitter can be of huge benefit to a journalist and their readers.

And immediacy can only supplant contextual and analytical news if we let it.

So. All power to Twitter and the journalists taking advantage of a superb platform.

Perhaps it’s time to open the doors more completely – what about recording devices and cameras in court? These times are a changing and courts should be keeping up.

Rugby World Cup coverage: the thin end of the wedge

2011-10-13T12:37:00.015+01:00

OK so rugby is a passion of mine but bear with me - this post is still about the media.

I have become increasingly frustrated by the coverage of the England team in the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. Not the match coverage - that seems accurate and fair: England are poor, limited, shapeless and seemingly clueless about how to change.

What has frustrated me is the pious finger-pointing within the press that seems determined to label the team as alcoholic, arrogant thugs who've let their country and the sport down.

There are key incidents that have been cited as evidence:

The squad's attendance at a Queenstown bar holding a 'dwarf racing' evening
Mike Tindall with his arm around a 'mystery woman' shortly after marrying the Queen's granddaughter.
Chris Ashton, James Haskell and Dylan Hartley being offensive to a hotel worker
Manu Tuilagi jumping from a ferry into the sea at Auckland

You can make up your own mind about how you feel about those incidents when you read about them. Some will find them deeply offensive, some will find them not worth mentioning and some will see somewhere in between.

My point is more to do with the lack of honesty in how the media has covered these incidents.

Take the Guardian's rugby correspondent, Robert Kitson. He wrote a very derogatory piece about the players following the night out in the bar.

Fair enough - he's entitled to his opinion. But then we get to the paragraph about this not happening with New Zealand or Australia - and he specifically cites The All Blacks coach Graham Henry as the kind of manager who would not tolerate this behaviour.

But then what was a this story tucked away a couple of weeks later? New Zealand stars caught drinking heavily and smoking in public.

Right. So the 'Henry The Disciplinarian' that Kitson described will take action for sure? No. Cory Jane played a couple of days later in his usual starting berth.

Then we get repeated articles about Warren Gatland and how his success is down to the tight ship he is running and the fact there are alcohol bans in place.

This is the same Warren Gatland desperate to recall Gavin Henson and willing to recall Andy Powell after their numerous previous incidents?

I highlight these not to demand action against these players but rather to highlight the media hypocrisy. They know what they are printing is not true. Gatland has been so embarrassed he has been forced to make a statement denying the drinking ban and admitting that his players have been socialising in bars until 1.30am.

Even David Campese - the self-confessed king of all England haters - has come out to defend England against the media in a podcast for The Times (no link - that's a paywall for you). So you know you're doing something wrong even Campo won't stick the boot in.

I have friends in New Zealand who have reported to me that they had a great night in Queenstown drinking with the players of another Six Nations teams. The boys from that team got a bit squiffy and decided to go diving off the pier into the lake. I don't remember seeing that one reported although there were journalists on that night out as well.

So in light of what has been happening within the media this year, it seems relatively unimportant. But for me this kind of stuff is the thin end of the wedge.

The danger with inaccurate reporting is that it becomes cultural knowledge - assumed behaviour because as we all know, 'there is no smoke without fire'. And as we have seen with Theresa May's cat, even politicans fall for that sometimes. And lo and behold here's Fran Cotton slating Mike Tindall for being 'absolutely hammered' - when there appears to be little evidence that was the case.

I met Richard Peppiat recently and he believes that journalists draw a clear distinction between lying and not telling the truth. So not giving the complete picture about rugby players' behaviour isn't lying but we haven't been told the truth and that annoys me.

If the media really is offended by this behaviour then fair enough report it. But report it evenly or not at all.

Ethical Journalism

2011-10-13T09:00:00.005+01:00

I have spent a large part of the last four weeks welcoming trainee journalists to both the profession (or should that be trade? One for a another day perhaps) and to the University of Gloucestershire.

In one on my first lectures I always point to the Ethics Handbook for Journalists produced by the Thomson Reuter Foundation and the list of 10 Ethical Absolutes that handbook contains.

1. Always hold accuracy sacrosanct

2. Always correct an error openly

3. Always strive for balance and freedom from bias

4. Always reveal a conflict of interest to a manager/senior editor

5. Always respect privileged information

6. Always protect their sources from the authorities

7. Always guard against putting their opinion in a story or editorialising

8. Never fabricate or plagiarise

9. Never alter a still of moving image beyond the requirements of normal image enhancement

10. Never pay a source for a story and never accept a bribe

Of course, with the Leveson inquiry under way, this is highly topical. So lets throw the question out there: Of these 10 absolutes, how many are adhered to on a daily basis by the mass media in the UK?

* Update: You have to read this view of Dacre's evidence by News Thump.

Hari's hairy moment

2011-06-28T14:18:00.010+01:00

Well Twitter is quite a-flutter at the moment with the news that Johann Hari is evil - the epitome of a charlatan journalist destroying a noble profession with his corner-cutting ways.

What was his crime? Well he admitted to swapping quotes from interviews he had carried out for quotes from his interviewee's own writings if they covered the same topic but were 'more coherent'.

Cue huge wailing and gnashing of teeth followed by thousands (possibly even millions now) of tweets under the tag #interviewsbyhari. For a more detailed look at the issue, the whole thing has been Storified by the consistently excellent @newsmary.

From my somewhat sarcastic tone thus, far you might think that I am about to spring to his defense.

But no. Alas Johann cannot come to me for support for I am disappointed by this. I am, as ever, frustrated by the way Twitter leaps from moral outrage to moral outrage. And I know that a huge per centage of journos jumping on the Johann-bashing wagon have committed far worse sins, but I am nevertheless disappointed.

You see, Hari has risen to the top of his profession in my eyes. He has carte blanche to interview policy makers, entertainment goliaths, literary legends et al and to do so at his leisure.

I use his articles as examples of exemplary practice when teaching my students. I marvel at his incisive interview technique and the skillful way he weaves the narrative into his work.

But now I know that the narrative and the quoted word are not woven. They are cut out and stuck together.

It reminds me of when I was a teenager and I desperately wanted that Nike sweatshirt but couldn't afford it. So I bought a pair of sweatbands, unpicked the logo and glued it on a sweatshirt from the market. It fooled everyone for a day, maybe even a week but then the glue started to fail and looked a bit naff. Once everyone knew what I had done of course I wasn't the cool kid with the Nike gear or even this kid with the plain sweatshirt. No, I was the sad case deserving of pity.

Hari has fooled us into believing he is an interviewer extraordinaire. But now we know that he has not coaxed those opinions, that explanation or those illustrations. He has just glued them on and now it's starting to peel.

Jon Ronson - he of superb journalism - has come in to defend Hari, saying:

I've no idea what Johann Hari has been accused of. Just that he's been
accused of something. In general, he's stunningly brilliant.

And I agree but now the Nike logo has lifted and the glue is flaking down his chest he is in danger of becoming a figure of fun. I'll leave the last word to @alexwalters who wrote the most incisive Tweet about the whole thing:

Hari stared at me, a tired look in his eye. "None of my interviewees have ever said they had been misquoted," he sighed.

What's wrong at the Daily Mail?

2011-01-18T12:00:00.014Z

The Daily Mail is one of the most successful newspaper in the United Kingdom - that much is beyond doubt.

The ABC figures released this month show that, in terms of circulation alone, it is second only to the The Sun with 2,030,968 copies sold daily in December compared to the Sun's 2,717,013.

The future looks bright too as the Mail's rate of year-on-year sales decline seems less than most other nationals at -3.89% compared to The Sun's -5.10%, The Guardian's 11.89% and The Times's -14.01%.

Online the Mail is leading the way (despite its shockingly late entry into the fray in 2004) and now gathers about 35% of the online UK newspaper traffic - an incredible stat when you think of the plurality within the field.

Of course, the Daily Mail has long had its detractors. It is frequently reactionary, displays homophobic and xenophobic tendencies both in the written word and news values and frequently scare-mongers to an extent that would make Freddie Krueger proud.

Websites are set up to oppose the views taken by the Mail, it is constantly mocked on Twitter and one of the best songs of 2010 was written 'in its honour' by Dan and Dan and has had almost 1,000,000 views in 9 months (below).

But let's put that to one side. It's in a box marked 'Reasons why I don't buy the Daily Mail'.

In the interests of transparency at this juncture, I must point out that I worked at the Daily Mail in the 90s. I was going to add 'for my sins' or 'to my shame' to that sentence but that would be the easy option and an unfair reflection on the professional relationship I had with the paper.

So lets open a new box called 'Why did I choose the Mail?'

First out of the box: It was the first national to have me. Other work followed but at that time the Mail was taking all the hard-working and enthusiastic reporters from the regions it could get its hands on.

My first choice would have been the Guardian but I didn't have a public school or Oxbridge education so didn't even get a courtesy letter in response (there's still time to atone for this error Mr Rusbridger).

That sounds bitter but it isn't really - or at least it's not meant to. It was just a fact at the time that the left-leaning papers seemed to recruit in this way (and pay peanuts). At the Daily Mail, I worked with mainly left-leaning journos eager to both make a splash in the industry and pay the electricity bill.

Anyway, I was pleased to be going to the Mail and the main reason was that it was respected within the industry. Its reporters were hard working and versatile - that middle-ground target audience meant you could be doorstepping celebs one day and uncovering the NHS postcode lottery the next.

Stories were stood up, copper-bottomed, topped and tailed and all the other euphemisms for thoroughly researched you can think of. I remember once being given a photograph of a restaurant in the Caribbean which had a poster outside proclaiming that critic Michael Winner was banned for lewd behaviour.

I did everything I could to stand up the story but couldn't get confirmation from the man himself. So the news editor (Tony Gallagher - now editor of the Daily Telegraph) told me to spike it.

A fortnight later one of the Mail's restaurant critics discovered that it had been a hoax and the restaurant was just seeking a bit of publicity. Great call from Tony and I have no doubt that it will be a surprise to many to hear that we didn't just 'publish and be damned'.

So, while I have shame that I worked for a paper with such a record of right wing views (I later volunteered for Asylum Welcome in Oxford in a futile attempt to shed my guilt), professionally it was the right decision.

That is why I am so surprised by what I see as falling standards at the Mail.

Take three recent examples:

1. Merry Christmas? Along with millions of other middle class mothers, I can't afford one.

Charlotte Metcalf penned this piece and it covered what she called the 'Nouveau Pauvre'. Initially I thought it was something to do with pepper, but discovered that it was a first-person feature explaining that the author was poverty stricken.

She explained that she was lucky if she earned £500 per week and was no longer able to shop for Christmas presents at Harrods. One of her friends, sob, was struggling to find the £400 to buy an iPad for her 15-year-old daughter.

She seemed completely unaware that a minimum of £500 per week (that's £26,000 per year) actually represents a salary that many people would be pleased with. Yes it is a climb down from the £1,200 per week (62,400 per year) she previously earned but still not a salary one can use to claim destitution.

The feature alienated a lot of people. Working class people were angry that such a self-centred article could be published, while middle class guilt meant that she won few sympathisers from her own section of society.

One of, if not the, main strength of the Mail in increasing its market share in the past 25 years, has been successfully targetting its core demographic: middle class, middle-aged, aspirational and intelligent women.

Yet in one foul swoop this article undermined that - it is a rare mistake for the Mail to make. Even worse when we realise it is a follow-up to a previous Nouveau Pauvre article by Ms Metcalf which elicited a hugely negative response.

The second article then has a feel of a wind up - the kind of feature written purely to get a response using the principle that no publicity is bad publicity. That is true if you publish an article your core readership can attack without guilt but hold up a mirror to them and you alienate them.

2. Is lovely Jo becoming just another thumbnail on the police website?

This was published yesterday and was written by Liz Jones - a controversial journalist who has annoyed people a lot in the past for what they see as a patronising and superficial style in article such as 'how to live on benefits'.

If you look at the comments at the bottom of the story you can see that the word patronising prominently. But that is not my issue with this work - it is just that it is such poor journalism.

Poorly researched, badly written and full of cliches from intro to contrived and all-too-probably made up pay-off.

I am not the best writer - my journalistic strengths lay more in news gathering and news sense - so criticising other writers does not come naturally to me. But if one of my level one students wrote that feature they would scrape a pass with a very low third and a kick up the backside.

In fact, I would put money on any one of my level one students coming with something considerably better than that rambling load of vomit-inducing, eyeball-piercing piffle.

That's not intended to prove just how bad this is. Quite the contrary, my level one students are proving themselves to be a very strong bunch of journalists.

But the Mail has long been known for employing good writers. We might hate what Jan Moir writes (remember her homophobic rant following the death of Stephen Gately?) but her columns are well structured and she is capable of creating images in your mind and encouraging you to read on.

A large proportion of Daily Mail readers buy the paper simply because of its columnists - but how long will that continue if they are forced to read third-rate material?

3. Pregnant schoolgirl, 15, and unborn baby die after 'she suffered heart attack'

A tragic but strong news story. Quite lazily put together using few facts but plenty of Facebook tributes but ultimately I am not criticising them for this as when working under deadlines we have to make the best of poor material at times.

Not it was a last par that grabbed my attention last night. It has now been removed and I didn't get a screenshot but from memory it said:

"A friend of Leah's sister said that Leah had recently had a flu jab."

And that was it. Nothing else just that - draw your own conclusions: 'Did the flu jab cause the heart attack? It must have done otherwise why would the reporter bring it up? Oh my God - my nan had a flu jab' etc etc and so it goes.

As I mentioned before, the Mail is well known for its scare-mongering - a point well picked up but Dan and Dan towards the end of their song.

But usually there will be something. Some grain of 'truth' among the fear: a piece of peer-reviewed scientific research or out-of-date Government figures - not 'just a friend of a sister said'.
This third blatant example of poor journalism made a little blog come out and that little blog grew like the Blob that chased Steve McQueen to almost unmanageable size and now I have rambled enough.

I will end now but only after after saying that it is hard to see the Mail's success continuing if they don't return to stronger journalistic standards.

* UPDATE 31.01.11: I would suggest you read this superb account from the other side of a Daily Mail story written by Juliet Shaw on the nosleeptilbrooklands blog

* UPDATE: 17.01.12: The most shocking yet. Today the Daily Mail has posted a story about an alleged rape on Big Brother in Brazil. For your pleasure you can also view a seven minute video of the alleged rape taking place. Words cannot describe how immoral and unethical this is - truly a new low for the Daily Mail.

Clegg , Vader and Snape: A discussion

2010-12-10T14:21:00.003Z

After reading the excellent blog post "David Cameron is Voldemort. No seriously" by Mary Hamilton the other day, I mused in her comments section that Nick Clegg may in fact be Anakin Skywalker.

She had cast him as Professor Quirrell or Professor Snape but I wasn't quite convinced so leapt from one successful franchise to another.

Having thought long and hard about it, I am convinced I am right - particularly in the light of last night's vote.

You see, Snape was always a baddie - until it became very obvious at the bitter end he was a goodie. And Quirrell? Well Quirrell was just Quirrell until it was revealed that in fact he was a Quirrell/Voldemort hybrid hellbent on facilitating the murder of an 11-year-old orphan.

I never had great hope that Quirrell was one thing or another - I simply didn't care - whereas Clegg was full of Golden Boy potential in April. The mainstream media was full of the fact that the Lib Dem leader was changing the election dynamic who was taking support away from the Tories by the fistful.

A sneaky peaky into his background shows that he certainly had the potential to be the chosen one.

Yes he comes from a privileged background, yet his family has suffered at the hands of persecution. Everything he does, he does extremely well, which hints to me at a very high midi-chlorian count and he spent a brief period getting his hands dirty (although to be fair, working for the Financial Times, doesn't quite equate to being Watto's slave on Tattoine) before being tipped for greatness and apprenticed by a Master in the form of Paddy Ashdown who must, therefore, be Qui-Gon Jinn.

But of course, his political training went astray following the demise of Master Paddy, and the tutelage of the well-meaning but inexperienced Charles Kennedy was not enough to guide this volatile character away from the Dark Side just as Obi Wan Kenobi could not prevent Anakin's conversion to the Sith.

Just as it seemed that padawan Clegg would fulfill his destiny he was dealt a bitter blow and actually saw the Lib Dems lose ground in the May elections, which parallels The Jedi Council's refusal to grant Anakin Jedi Master status and so he wreaked a terrible revenge.

In last night's vote Clegg urged all of his MPs to break a pledge to scrap tuition fees and instead vote to treble them.

Such is the despicable nature of this deceit and treachery, I can only draw a parallel with Anakin's willingness to murder the Jedi younglings (below).

He is now firmly ensconced in the Dark Side alongside Cameron (didn't Palpatine seem sincere and thoroughly decent during his rise to power?)

Of course, if my Anakin analogy is correct, we are likely to suffer decades more injustice at the hands of this tyrant until eventually he repents having saved the next chosen one, before dying on a distant planet covered in Ewoks; furry, tree-loving and largely peaceful creatures who could certainly be members of the Green Party.

Of course, I could be attaching too much significance to Clegg. In the grand scheme of Star Wars he may actually be Jar Jar Binks - a chirping, ineffectual, grating twat who'll gradually fade into the background under a torrent of negative publicity.

Wikileaks: Can you have too much of a good thing?

2010-12-06T19:54:00.000Z

Journalism is about information.

Specifically, journalism is about revealing information.

More specifically still, journalism should be about revealing information which otherwise may not be revealed.

So Wikileaks is A Good Thing. Right?

Certainly it would seem so. The revelations following the publication of war logs were superb and shone megawatt spotlights into murky corners of world politics that Tony Blair and George W Bush had sought to keep in the shadows for eternity.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is to be praised for his all-consuming effort to bring hidden information out into the open to bear the full brunt of public scrutiny. For too long, the 'War on Terror' has been used as an excuse to 'classify' information and stop us from worrying our pretty little heads about it.

Now we have a third major installment as the US Embassy Cables are being picked over across the globe. But it doesn't feel like a satisfying part of the trilogy. In fact I feel very similar emotions to those experienced when watching X-Men 3 or Spiderman 3 - I had high hopes, some of the old excitement is still there but it has lost its sparkle and originality.

Perhaps it is because much of what is now being revealed is so banal, perhaps even downmarket. Much of it is not what anyone would label primary evidence but more gossip and intrigue - the kind of circumstantial evidence which would have little credence in a court of law.

What do we really know? Well here's three examples:

Prince Andrew is cocky and rude.
Hilary Clinton thinks rich Saudis are bankrolling terrorism.
That the US fears that Qatar has undue influence over al-Jazeera

And here's my reaction to hearing all three bits of info

Well he's an old school royal so it's no surprise.
Considering the US have pointed hundreds of times that Osama Bin Laden is of Saudi descent that is not ground breaking.
The US, and other western powers, actually fear that countries like Qatar have a global media brand as it means they no longer have to confirm to standards of journalism set in the US and other Western powers

There is still great information in the latest data dump. Take the highlighting of America's attempts to control the International Panel on Climate Change.

But it's still ultimately gossip. We are hearing one side of a conversation without context of what questions were being asked, what scenarios were being set. It is akin to judging a Twitter debate by looking not at a hashtag to get all views but only at one user's feed.

I want transparency but we all must recognise that at times, a conversation between two people can be private, otherwise nothing in life would ever be planned for fear that the planning process would be leaked to undermine the outcome. Judging which of those moments should be private is tricky but it seems at the moment that no-one is even attempting to make that call.

The World Wide Web is becoming a place where journalists can investigate and publish in a way that seeks to circumvent the wall of PR and legislation that aims to prevent some truths being uncovered. openDemocracy and HelpMeInvestigate are two great examples of that.

Such is the success of sites like these that the winner of this year's Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism was Clare Sambrook - a journalist who had the bulk of her investigative work published on openDemocracy.

But the standard response to all allegations in the Cables is denial and there is little proof one way or another to currently force a change in that stance. Perhaps they should be run through helpmeinvestigate before publication to stiffen them up a bit?

I labelled the cables potentially downmarket as it shares some characteristics with classic tabloid tales. Take the Lord Triesman sting: Get a pretty young woman to tape him making outrageous claims and print them. Whether or not he believed them or simply grandstanding in front of an audience was irrelevant to the Mail on Sunday.

To go further back, look at the News of the World's treatment of England rugby union captain Lawrence Dallaglio. They put him a room with a bevy of beauties and encouraged him to tell tales of drug taking. Of course he didn't have to do it but what did the story achieve? We didn't discover that the England captain had taken drugs - in fact he was exonerated of all charges - just that he might lie about when seeking to impress young ladies while pursuing a sponsorship deal.

And that is the difficulty with the kind of journalism Wikileaks is currently producing. It's not 'copper-bottomed', 'stood up' or 'evened-out' in a way that journalism usually would be.

So can we have too much of a good thing? Certainly, taking my examples of Hollywood's superhero films, the answer is yes, but what about Wikileaks.

What good is being served by having this kind of information released?

Very little that I can see and I am not alone. Blogger and lawyer David Allen Green has blogged along similar lines. He argues, and persuasively in my view, that transparency as a liberal ideal must be weighed against legitimacy, legality and privacy.

It is interesting to note that in the comments section of Green's blog, there are some fairly frothy postings, just as there have been on Twitter and again I am left ruing this desire of the modern world to see everything in black and white.

For example, it seems from the above that I am not supportive of the Cable leaks. But then I see an article like the one in the Washington Times, which called for the assassination of Julian Assange and I feel the need to point out that I am in no way in that camp. Neither am I with Sarah Palin, who called for Assange to be tried for treason against the US, neatly forgetting he is an Australian who until recently was based in Sweden. (seriously, if she is ever elected president the pictures

No. I'm a shade of grey. I applaud Assange for the work he did on the war logs as it poured bleach on the bacteria that Bush and Blair had cultivated around the War On Terror, but I'm not swayed by anything in this current glut of data until it has been through the journalistic process a few more times.

Press reaction to 2018 failure

2010-12-03T11:49:00.000Z

So. The World Cup will not be coming to England in 2018. It seemed almost inevitable yet the shock and outrage that greeted the decision indicates that some quarters thought we had it in the bag.

On Monday evening Panorama aired its 'investigation' into allegations of FIFA corruption and I blogged to say I was disappointed by the poor standards of investigative journalism exercised by Panorama but ultimately backed their decision to run the programme.

But today, many of the papers are full of bile and anger about the decision and many are indicating it was a fix.

The Daily Mirror is convinced that money must have changed hands to secure the World Cup for Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022
The Sun's homepage (right) called for a corruption probe (sounds painfully like something the Spanish Inquisition would use), claiming that Russia has been 'bunged' the World Cup.
The Daily Telegraph thundered that it was A Disgrace, adding the England had been lied to
Even The Independent got in on the act, claiming that England feared foul play

Most seem to have forgotten the spurious allegation that the BBC had cost us the World Cup. It was an allegation that had featured prominently and amusingly in The Sun on Tuesday. It is an allegation repeated by England bid chairman Andy Anson today, alongside a claim that we probably should take our toys home and never bid for the World Cup again.

The Sun's response to Panorama wasn't truly surprising - after all there is no hypocrisy like red top hypocrisy as I discussed in an earlier blog about the excellent film Starsuckers. Surely The Sun must appreciate that reporting on corruption is pretty well timeless, unlike labelling a mentally ill boxing star Bonkers Bruno or running a picture of a topless Royal bride-to-be taken a decade earlier. However, Sun readers seem to have believed the article as Josh Halliday of the Guardian reported that the Beeb had been inundated with complaints since Russia got the nod.

But back to today's coverage. What is obvious from all the coverage is that the media agrees on one thing: it is beyond comprehension that Russia got the bid over England.

The Daily Mirror states:

Russia is a country where, as Wikileaks showed, it's difficult to tell politicians and the Mafia apart because corruption is so rife.
Black and Asian footballers suffer abuse from racist supporters. The new Tsar, Vladimir Putin, threatens the fledgling democracy. Neighbouring countries are warned that gas pipelines will be shut if they refuse to bow to Moscow.

It is a classic myth of British media. It is othering. It is the 'factory setting' of the British media standing up and shouting from the rooftops: "But we are the best. No-one can do it like us and just look at those other countries. They have horrific problems."

No mention that our Lord Triesman was caught (admittedly in a pretty shabby sting) spouting apparently groundless allegations that Spain was prepared to bribe referees or that recent hooliganism is threatening to undermine the sheen of respectability applied to English football after the shame of Heysel in 1985.

No mention of the fact that racism has still not been kicked out of English football or that our leading players seem incapable of behaving in a way that represents the game well.

No. If England lost, it must be down to skulduggery, underhand tactics and outright corruption because that his how the 'other' behaves

Of course, the Daily Mail has another view. According to the Daily Mail, we lost the bid because we had too many foreigners in our own bid video. Images of the Premier League's popularity in places like Africa and Asia must be to blame. If only we had a couple of pictures of bobbies-on-the-beat, paintings from Constable and, dare we suggest, some choice words from Enoch Powell, all would have been different.

To be surprised by Xenophobia in the Daily Mail is akin to being surprised by David Cameron's failure to grasp the economic plight of the lower classes. Still, it was shocking even by their standards.

I for one will look forward to the World Cup in Russia.

Yes I am frequently appalled by the lack of democracy in that country and yes, it has problems with corruption. But when we see our own policemen 'getting away with murder', our own politicians backtracking on promises for a sniff of power and attempts to stifle legitimate protest, are we sure that we can say that it is just them 'others'.

Panorama and FIFA

2010-11-30T09:42:00.000Z

Interesting - at least from a journalistic point of view - that investigative reporting has been a topic of huge debate in recent weeks. Last night it finally came to a head with the broadcasting of Panorama's investigation into allegations of corruption at the FIFA.

The argument has raged back and forth with accusations that the BBC is unpatriotic for scheduling the programme days before the winner to host the 2018 World Cup is to be announced being countered by the assertion that investigative journalism cannot be silenced for commercial or nationalistic considerations.

But the bid team and our Prime Minister have said they have no intention of silencing free speech but have criticised the timing of the programme and questioned why it could not have been aired some time ago.

As a journalist clearly I want to see investigations come to the fore - I tire of the churnalism that we see day-after-day in the media and of the constant use of celebrity to justify the news values of a story (why do we need Bob Geldof and Bono to convince us that Africa needs our help?).

But what did last night bring to the table? It was difficult to see much new information.

Panorama has given some truly superb examples of investigation but last night was little more than a 'cuttings job' - a story which has been formed entirely from repackaged existing news.

We had a summation of Panorama's previous, and entirely justified, attack on FIFA vice-president Jack Warner four-years ago. The top line to come out is that three senior officials took bribes in the 1990s, and a large part of the reporting was based upon investigative work by the Danish newspaper Tipsbladet.

The most interesting aspect to me was the fact that FIFA insisted that Government change their laws to protect the commercial rights of the tournament's official sponsors. The goes a long way to explaining how a group of women was arrested for wearing orange dresses during the world cup in South Africa this summer. It was seen as ambush marketing by brewer Bavaria which undermined the official sponsor Budweiser - but making wearing a colour of clothing illegal is a shocking victory for commercialism.

However, even that 'revelation' was actually the work of the Dutch Government and not Panorama. It also transpires that similar agreements have already been reached regarding the London Olympics next year and yet that does not seem to interest the BBC.

The Daily Telegraph's eminent sports writer Henry Winter had the following observation on Twitter immediately after the broadcast:

Watched Panorama with eminent sports news hacks here. They shrugged. Btw
David Mellor hardly added to substance.

But Paul Hayward in The Guardian offers a different view. He states:

Three days before the 2018 World Cup vote, the English bid is starting to feel like complicity in the supreme authority's slavering pursuit of the game's
astronomical wealth

And there's the rub. Whatever we think of the BBC's timing, it is FIFA that has failed to tackle corruption within its ranks and it is FIFA that puts the needs of sponsors before that of a democratic judiciary.

Whether or not the BBC should be rating chasing by sensationally timing its broadcasting of such a programme is a side issue - it is FIFA that has done wrong and it is our job as journalists to uncover it.

The Sunday Times' sting operation was hugely criticised by FIFA yet what the organisation failed to deal with was that the newspaper has uncovered yet more corruption.

I love sport and, barring the idiotic minority of football fans, still love the game of football but if we lose the 2018 World Cup because we have journalists willing to challenge corruption when they see it then that is a price I am prepared to pay.

I'm a failed Twitolutionary

2010-11-26T19:46:00.000Z

It always looks so easy.

Creating a meme or an online campaign. We saw it last year when Killing In The Name Of beat X Factor at number one for Christmas. I've seen Stephen Fry, Clare Balding and JackofKent whip up a wonderful frenzy of outrage or glee.

So, having been delighted with the wonder of Brett Domino's Gillian McKeith song (below), I felt it was time to step up (to use the parlance of the day). I want to see Domino at number one for Christmas.

It's got everything. It would stick it to The Man, jam a stick through spokes of the wheels of commerce, promote a genius 'amateur' comedian, poke even more fun at the awfulpoolady and, above all, amuse the hell out of me.

It had the added bonus of promoting an act rejected by Simon Cowell on Britain's Got Talent (below). It seemed the concept of parody was beyond the comprehension of the mighty Kingmaker of pop.

But, and here's the rub, it turns out I have little to no influence. I thought my compact but respectable 211 followers (as of 26/11/10) would be enough to get something going.

I thought a few well phrased retweet requests to some influential Tweeps would get the ball rolling and I could sit back and enjoy with revolution from the comfort of my newly acquired Powerbook.

Except my retweet request fell on deaf Twears (sorry, I'll stop doing that now - it's starting to annoy me a little).

No word from Sunday morning Absolute podmaster Dave Gorman or Chris Moyles. @DavidAllenGreen (formerly known as JackofKent) - someone who I regarded as a banker due to his previous with the Emperor Palpatine-like McKeith - politely declined with the following Tweet:

@MBradbrook Sorry - have moved on from dealing with her ;-)

Disappointing, but not a fatal blow. But the minutes turned to hours and still no retweet. I checked my hashtag #dominoforxmas1 just in case it had been retweeted without my name attached. But one result popped up. My own tweet looked back at me in a mocking way.

Maybe Cheggers would back me I thought. But it turned out he's on a Tweetbattical (dammit that's a bad habit) after coming in for a bit of stick.

Maybe I shouldn't give up. I'm sure Che Guavara wouldn't have surrendered so easily. But Che wasn't operating on the information superhighway (old school).

I can't blame the holders of big Twitter accounts for not complying with every request that comes there way. Dave Gorman in particular is right to be suspicious after his recent brush with a fake account claiming to be raising money for charity.

They have the potential to reach hundreds of thousands of people and, as Uncle Ben told Peter Parker: With great power, comes great responsibility.

We'll see.

Maybe this whining, plaintive blog post might stir some support. The thing with social media is that every Tweet or status is a stone at the top of a hill - it just needs a good push to gather some speed.

If you're reading this and feeling the revolution, go on - give it a go and RT or repost to your status:

Twitcampaign to get @BrettDomino to Xmas no1? Would annoy awfulpoolady and Cowell (rejected him on BGT) #dominoforxmas1 http://bit.ly/aJMoZC

Delicious irony on the Media Show

2010-10-28T09:18:00.001+01:00

Just caught up with last week's podcast from the excellent BBC Media Show.

Interesting interview with Sir Michael Lyons (rather bland, political and evasive) with Media Show host Steve Hewlett (informed yet overly forceful and opinionated on this occasion) regarding the deal with the Government to take a £340m cut by paying for the World Service and S4C among other things.

However the thing that made me chuckle the most was the final interview of the pod. It was with Clothilde Le Coz of Reporters Without Borders regarding their Press Freedom Index 2010

But just as Clothilde got to the issue of a lack of press freedom in the UK, Steve cut her off and said they had no more time.

Of course, it was true. But they only ran out of time because they gave so much time so their own Chairman could explain why he had cut a deal with the Government which in a small way compromised the independence of the BBC.

It was all done in a very deadpan way but surely the irony cannot have been lost on the staff of the Media Show.

Anyway, I would suggest you follow the link above and give the press freedom index a good read - it is well worth it.

The Wire and journalism

2010-10-27T15:18:00.001+01:00

SPOILER ALERT - contains information regarding The Wire (all seasons)

I have finally caught up with Season Five of The Wire entitled Read Between The Lines.

I was looking forward to it as it involved journalism and I was interested to see how realistic the portrayal was from the excellent David Simon after four superb seasons.

In all honesty it was somewhat difficult to judge as the US style of journalism differs from our own and the newspaper model - few nationals with each city supporting at least one multi-edition daily - is so different from what we have here.

But the themes I saw in the newsroom were familiar from my time in regional papers in the UK and the frustration that city editor Gus Haynes felt when faced by bewildering decisions from above and lack of journalistic effort from below.

Don't get me wrong, I worked with some superb editors in my time and was honoured to work with some of the reporters that I had in my team during my five years on newsdesk.

However, seeing Gus struggle to get genuine journalism - ie articles of depth and insight - into the paper and hold on to journalistic standards resonated with me as it must have done with many news editors across the world.

Seeing the Baltimore Sun chief editor constantly praise a reporter whose sincere pledges of hard work were never backed up as he constantly churned out poorly researched pieces was hard to watch.

It can be difficult to spot when a reporter is pulling the wool over your eyes as we've seen with cases like Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair. But this fictional character Scott Templeton's actions, which ultimately led him to make up news and get away with it, did resonate. It is the danger of the personality in journalism - he was being judged by what he said he was doing rather than what he was doing and, for me, that is wrong.

When I was recruiting reporters I was most interested in their cuttings file and their ability to explain the process they went through when newsgathering. Unfortunately I have heard colleagues say they are looking for an extrovert who'll represent the paper well. Of course, all newsrooms have those larger-than-life characters, but it only works if backed up journalistic ability and endeavour.

For a good example of how to build a feature watch Scott's colleague Mike Fletcher build a rapport with Bubbles. For a good example of how to build an amazing story read or watch All The President's Men and if that doesn't spur you on to become a better reporter you might in the wrong job!

News sense

2010-09-24T19:14:00.000+01:00

Good start to the new academic year here at the University of Gloucestershire.

Our new Journalism degree recruited very well and we have 37 strong students raring to go at the start of the year.

Today marks the end of Induction Week for the Freshers and, while most have looked a little bleary-eyed at times in the morning, we did manage to conduct a good experiment on news sense and news values.

On day one we set the students the task of coming back to use with two photographs taken on their mobile phones. One which they regarded as newsworthy and one they regarded personally interesting to them.

We got some good results on the newsworthy. The expected shots of students drinking (bound to be a good few stories in papers across the country on that), a cracking snap of a smashed up learner driver's car and one group talked their way into Cheltenham Town FC to take a pic of their new stand (good work team).

But it was the interesting pictures that yielded the most, well, interesting results.

The two that stood out the most were a shot of a beautifully carved topiary hedge, to which someone has added a smiley face, and a shot of the bubble-blowing fish in Regents Arcade (below).

The Gloucestershire Echo is now following up the hedge story (won't say too much as it would be a shame to ruin the students' exclusive) and of course, the fish clock was designed by Kit Williams who remains a fascinating character to this day and the scandal and intrigue around his treasure hunt book Masquerade makes great copy.

What fascinates me with many journalism trainees is that they don't often link what interests them with what will make news. To me it stands to reason that if they are interested then someone else will be.

If we all just stick to norm and continually regurgitate the same old news then who will read it in the end?

Ray Gosling and a waste of time

2010-08-24T10:05:00.000+01:00

I have been following with interest the case of former BBC journalist Ray Gosling.

Gosling was arrested in a blaze of publicity after admitting (twice) that he had killed a former lover who was dying of Aids in order to end his suffering.

It reignited the debate about 'mercy killing', which hasn't been far from the headlines since the Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas opened its doors.

But last week came the announcement that Gosling had been charged not with murder or manslaughter, but with wasting police time.

The statement from the CPS reported that in the initial murder investigation - something that was inevitable once he has confessed to millions of people that he had killed someone - he had been interviewed by police several times and that 'detectives conducted an extensive investigation into the allegation'.

It is clear that the police now believe that the confession was false and that Gosling must now face charges as officers spent so much time investigating the allegation. Under British law, Gosling is currently innocent of any crime and the purpose of this blog is not to decide upon his guilt but to react to some of the coverage the fresh charge has inspired.

Jack of Kent - a superb campaigning lawyer who is on the the right side of nearly all debates (stupid scientology, Gillian McKeith, Singh v the chiropractors etc) - is clear in his stance. In his blog, he believes that the time wasters are clearly the police.

In Jack of Kent's blog, he highlights four areas of concern about the decision to prosecute:

First, a piece to camera which is subsequently broadcast does not seem to me to be a "report" within the meaning of the offence.

Although the 1967 Act does not require the report to be to a police officer, for the word "report" to be extended to include such a broadcast piece seems to stretch the word to the point of meaninglessness.

Second, it is not clear that the content of what Mr Gosling said was sufficiently precise for it to be a statement "tending to show that an offence has been committed".

In fact, it seems too vague to be a report of an offence, if it is even a report in the first place.

Third, the offence requires mens rea (a guilty intention) the time the "report" is made; there is no evidence available that such an intention was present at the time of the actus reus (culpable act).

And fourth, apart from all the above, one cannot easily see the public interest in prosecuting Mr Gosling.

But I take a different view. If Gosling did indeed falsely confess to the crime then the charge is inevitable. Who he confessed to is irrelevant as any one of the viewers of the original programme or the ensuing coverage could have reported to the police that they had evidence that a murder had been committed.

I am not going to debate mercy killings and whether it is right or wrong (mainly because I cannot make up my own mind) but under British law, the deliberate taking of someone's life is murder and the police have a duty to investigate.

I feel uneasy with the principle of the CPS or police interpreting the law as they go along. I am delighted when courts and juries challenge bad law but from my statutory bodies I want implementation not interpretation.

My main concern with the above four points is in point four however. "One cannot easily see the public interest in prosecuting Mr Gosling".

From a journalistic perspective I can see few greater wrongs than falsification and the police and CPS have alleged that Gosling has falsified a confession to a murder.

I abhor the kneejerk 'role model' accusation that is slung around these days to all and sundry when wrong doing occurs, whether it is England captain, Hollywood actors or top golfers.

But surely a respected, campaigning journalist presenting a 'factual' piece about such a deeply sensitive matter is indeed a role model. His word and his actions could have direct influence on the actions of others.

I will continue to follow this with interest but I have a feeling it could be a significant case for journalism and journalists.

I only wish, like Jack of Kent, that the CPS had applied the same strident approach to the decision on whether or not to prosecute PC Simon Harwood.

A journalist's smoking gun

2010-08-18T19:14:00.000+01:00

A comment piece byPhilip Johnson in The Telegraph caught my eye today.

OK, first of all I am aware it is a comment piece and therefore made up of opinion. However, there is a lot of material being given as fact which I take issue with.

In a nutshell, Mr Johnson said that a trendy nightclub in London (Tramp - although I am not au fait with it)is installing an area for smokers to "help stem the loss of business caused by the ban on smoking in public places".

He described the ban as draconian and directly blamed it for the closure of pubs, citing a statistic that there are 6,000 fewer pubs than in 2005.

But it's a poorly researched and presented piece of journalism. For a start, it is guilty of the assumption that opinion does not need to be based in well researched fact.

If we assume (and yes I can hear my students chant about what happens when we assume), that the stat is correct, it seems stark and persuasive. But how many trendy new chain restaurants have opened?

It put me in mind of a former assistant editor I worked with. She was a committed smoker and was convinced that the smoking ban would destroy the pub industry so insisted that our regional newspaper carry stories to that effect.

We found seven city centre pubs that were closing. "Ah ha", said she. "Proof positive."

The fact that further research showed that three pubs had opened in the last six months as well as a host of chain restaurants in a new city centre development, could not deter her from wielding her sword of truth to highlight the undemocratic and economically unviable ban.

The smoking ban has been an emotive subject for people from both sides. I smoked when it came in and maintain that without it I would not have been able to give up.

I love taking my kids to smoke free pubs and restaurants and I am pleased that we do not face the ridiculous situation proposed by The Telegraph's Mr Johnson in which we would have smoking pubs and non-smoking pubs giving choice.

Not really a choice for the staff though is it and if you're in a group of friends who smoke then you either need new friends or can suffer the effects of second-hand smoke.

Are we really to believe that the type of people who previously enjoyed all that Tramp has to offer now sit at home and watch Casualty on a Saturday night because they can still enjoy the odd Woodbine inside?

Many of the regulars in my village pub said they would not drink in the pub when the ban came in and gloomily predicted the closure of Appleton's hostelry, The Plough. But really what were hey going to do? Turn their back on their social lives and site at home alone contented in a fug created by 20 Superkings?

In fact the pub has gone from strength to strength. "Proof positive that the ban works", say I. But you know what, I am not going down that route. Since the ban came in the pub has a new landlord and landlady and they serve food and provide entertainment, which has far more to do with it.

And that's my point. Look past the dangerous, knee-jerk assumptions and dig deeper or, as a journalist you are not even doing half your job - even if you're 'only doing comment'.

From the mouth of a babe

2010-08-09T10:36:00.000+01:00

The other day Molly, my four-year-old daughter, was asking me about Oxford and I was telling her as much as I could remember about the city.

She then said: "But Daddy, how do you know this?"

Me: "Well, as a journalist I often have to find a lot of things out so I can let everyone know and then I just remember them."

Molly: "But how do you find things out?"

Me: "I ask people and they tell me."

Molly: "But why don't they just tell everyone."

Me: "Well people have always come to journalists to find things out because there was no other easy way of doing it. Now though we have the internet [a concept she is familiar with through the CBeebies website] so anyone can tell everyone everything."

Molly: "Oh..... So we don't just need people like you any more then?"
I thought it was amazing. She succinctly summed up what is happening in our industry with one short conversation.

Of course, 'people like me' are quite useful for bundling all this information together but we're not needed to the same extent.

If she can get it why do so many journalists fail to?

The joy of 100 Followers

2010-08-04T11:04:00.000+01:00

The Big Day came, and when it arrived, it was not with a whimper but a bang and subsequent glittery shower of excitement.

Fatherhood? No.

Wedding Day? No.

Significant sporting achievement? No.

I’ll put you out of your misery, it was the arrival of my 100th follower on Twitter. ‘Not a big deal’, you cry? It is to me as I have become enchanted and engrossed in the social media site in the past few months.

Initially I had some reservations - Facebook without the good bits was a frequent complaint about Twitter but it is so much more than you can put into 140 characters.

I came to it late because despite being involved in online journalism for five years, we in the regions viewed anything external - ie not explicitly carrying the corporate brand - as being a trendy waste of time. One of the joys of jumping ship to higher education has been cutting myself free of that kind of thinking and throwing myself into all social media has to offer.

I use Twitter mainly as a way of networking with journalists, students, PR professionals and in that sense it is completely separate to my Facebook page, which I use mainly for keeping up with old friends and family. To me Twitter is a way to make new friends and contacts.

I have also watched some groundbreaking stuff happen on Twitter in the guise of the Trafigura scandal in which a hugely powerful international company and very slick legal firm in Carter Ruck were brought to their knees by the power of the Titterverse.

I also enjoy follow the little spats that get going. Ben Goldacre and Jack of Kent's haranguing of the awful poo lady (Gillian McKeith) and Jack of Kent's later goading of stupid Scientologists have been a joy to watch.

The attacks on Keith Chegwin as a plagiarist by Ed Byrne and David Baddiel have been more confusing as I enjoyed Keith's tweets (such as: Channel 4 dropped Wife Swap & How Clean is your House. Good time to pitch How Dirty is your Wife, Want to Swap) but as a fan of comedy imagine that Byrne and Baddiel will become close friends once my screenplays and novels are finally recognised for the genius they undoubtedly are.

I also felt very much part of a movement who objected to Jan Moir's homophobic opinions on the death of Stephen Gately and are still objecting to AA Gill's homophobic taunting of Clare Balding.

Twitter is a place where secrets can't be kept as Carter Ruck and PC Simon Harwood(the police officer who hit and violently pushed Ian Tomlinson to the ground during the G20 protests, yet miraculously escaped prosecution when the innocent Tomlinson died) found out.

But as professional as I try to be when I use it, the lore of the playground still holds true in that you want as many friends as you can get. I was determined that I wouldn't just seek out our my Facebook friends and add them to Twitter as that would sort of defeat the point but I was positively embarrased when I remained stuck on 24 followers in the first month. 50 felt like a milestone but my envious glances at other people's profiles confirmed that I was still a bit of a social media pariah (Twitteriah?).

But I got a big rush of followers following an off-the-cuff Tweet about David Cameron during the general election:

"In Radio Times Cameron says he doesn't get social media. Good thing he's not from a PR background or trying to run the country then."

It seemed to resonate and it was retweeted several times and all of a sudden I bagged another 25 followers.

I've tried to analyse what made it successful and recreate the core parts with tweets like:

"Looks like Richard Desmond is bidding to be the Lidl to Rupert Murdoch's Waitrose in the evil empire stakes."

and even the more blatant recreation

"So Cameron wants to close Raoul Moat Fb page. Nowt like censorship to create martyrdom. Cam spot on when he said he didn't get social media."

But alas there was to be no new flood of followers, so I thought I would ask some of my existing followers why they followed me and this is what I found:

Only One Ports: "I think I saw a RT of yours during the leaders debate which made me chuckle. Sent a response and you replied. I follow people who chat.....have opinions/are interesting and make me chuckle. Besides ur sporty like me too."

Sarabedford: "As local politician & a user of social media, was amused by tweet @10.49 Saturday re Cameron. I thought I'd give you a go."

niklasf: "actually I don't remember how I started following you. Probably through an interesting retweet."

pinotblush: "Am following because I like hearing/sharing thoughts and ideas with other media people and my hometown is Oxford."

So it appears there's no secret formula. My Cameron tweet drew a few people in and I treat Twitter as a conversation rather than a series of statements (take heed politicians). I might have to try a few more PM-bashing tweets but I'm worried I risk becoming a Twitter version of 1980s Ben Elton.

I was hoping for a reponse from some of my more 'colourful' followers such as Shitlog who posts pictoral updates of his daily bowel movements or some of the ladies who appear to be offering naughty delights of the virtual kind, but sadly they remained silent.

I should really remove people like these from my list but then I might go back to being in the 90s and I can't have that now can I?

I've also faced the quandry of whether I should automtically follow anyone who follows me. But I have decided against it for the following reasons:

1) I don't want to see pictures of someone's daily number twos. I get a enough of that through having two young sons in nappies.

2) I don't want my followers to wonder why I am following ladies of the night

3) Some people are boring. It's harsh but true. One guy I was following just filled his timeline full of bitter and snide comments about any football team that isn't Arsenal. If I want to hear that kind of twaddle, I'll seek out the BBC 606 boards.

But then I also know the pain of rejection when I follow someone who doesn't follow me back. Stephen Fry and Tim Minchin seem unmoved by my 'hey guys I'm funny and technologically savvy too' banter and suddenly I'm back in that school playground again looking at the cool kids and thinking: "if only...."

The Sun and me

2010-08-02T14:40:00.000+01:00

It has recently been pointed out to me that I seem to knock The Sun and, more specifically, Rupert Murdoch on a regular basis.

The observation followed a recent Tweet about Richard Desmond's acquisition of Channel Five in which I wrote:

"Looks like Richard Desmond is bidding to be the Lidl to Rupert Murdoch's Waitrose in the evil media empire stakes"

It was a hilarious and cutting observation which spawned exactly no retweets and, beyond the confines of my own head, very few laughs other than politeness.

I then followed it up with a comment on a former colleague's Facebook page in which I (jokingly) advised him to make up some journalism for The Sun because that is what they all do. So far so cliched and borderline defamatory.

But looking back, I do appear to have a bit of a history in knocking The Sun, which is after all one of British journalism's great institutions. It is the country's most read newspaper and the technical quality of the journalism is superb. I'm not just saying that - it is far harder to write 250 words on politics for The Sun than it is to write 1,000 words for the Guardian.

Also, Murdoch has recently seen a slight upsurge in public opinion. An example of this would be the excellent David Mitchell's article in The Guardian recently in which he says that liberal society's dislike of Murdoch is leading to a blindspot over the paywall he has introduced at The Times.

But I still can't bring myself to like The Sun or prevent myself from making sarky comments about it so I thought it was time I buckled down and examined why that might be.

So here's the case for the defence (it's my opinion I am defending in case you were wondering):

1) Many of The Sun's most celebrated stories are fabrication. Take for example, Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster or Elton John has voice boxes removed from his guard dogs. When people talk about stories like these it is often with a chuckle and a roll of the eyes as if making this kind of stuff up is akin to a cheeky child being caught taking two biscuits when one was on offer. It isn't. It's wrong to make stuff up as I readily admitted recently in my silly season confession post. However, The Sun is so proud of its fabrications that if you like they have given permission for them to be reproduced emblazoned on a T-shirt.

2) The Hillsborough disaster coverage: "Oh no, not that again," I hear you groan. But yes that again. Not only did the paper accuse Liverpool fans of revelling the disaster, pickpocketing victims and urinating on those trapped in the mayhem, but it also took an obscenely long time to properly apologise (15 years since you ask). That apology only came about when it was clear that The Sun's circulation figures in Liverpool were never going to recover unless something was done.

3) The Sun is hideously self-important when it comes to politics. I've blogged about this before. Last week I was having a conversation on Twitter with David Dunkley Gyimah (@viewmagazine), who is a video journalist and lecturer at Westminster University, about the fact that modern journalism is ill-equipped to cope with modern politics. I summed up my views rather glibly with the phrase:

"Modern journalism is over-simplistic and modern politics is over-complicated"

Nowhere is this more obvious than at The Sun, which blatantly tries to sway the views of the electorate at every General Election. From being Maggie's lapdog and Kinnock's vanquisher to the uneasy alliance with the freemarket socialist Blair to backing the man-of-the-people/old Etonian David Cameron, The Sun has advised us who to vote for. But are we best served by having Murdoch's mouthpiece steering our vote? Do people know why the recession hit other than because Brown was grumpy and Alistair Darling's eyebrows are a different colour to his hair? There is a potential for astute political coverage in The Sun but it gets lost in the posturing and celebrity-obssessed diatribe we have to put up with.

4) Its coverage forced 10 seasons of Big Brother onto our screens. Admittedly I have little empirical evidence for this but I am sure that the interesting programme that was BB1 and 2 became the mud-wrestle at Aldi it is now because of the shallowness of The Sun.

I know, I know. That all sounds very po-faced and humourless. Believe it or not, I do like a bit of humour in my papers - I just don't want it to be made up or patronising.

Of course, it has been pointed out that I worked for a worse paper in the Daily Mail and that is undeniable. I would offer a critique of the Mail but Dan and Dan have done it better than I ever could.

When even the power of media isn't enough

2010-07-22T13:47:00.001+01:00

It has been announced today that no criminal charges will be brought against any police officer relating to the death of Ian Tomlinson.

Mr Tomlinson died following the G20 protests on April 1 last year. Although police told his family he had died of a heart attack after getting caught up in the demonstration, a video was later released (below) which clearly showed him being violently shoved to the ground from behind by a police officer.

A second post mortem was carried out at the instigation of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and the second pathologist decided that he had died from internal bleeding. Incidentall, the pathologist who carried out the first examination is currently suspended pending an investigation into matters not related to Ian Tomlinson but which call into doubt his professional ability. A second video was then given to Channel 4 (below) which showed Mr Tomlinson being struck by a police officer before being shoved to the ground. It was then clarified that Mr Tomlinson had no role in the G20 protest and that he was just returning home from his job as a newspaper vendor.

It is clear for all to see and has been in the public domain courtesy of the media and social media - YouTube providing the video and Twitter, Facebook et al linking to it. So how can there be no charges?

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) statement can be read in full here but it boils down to the following paragraphs.

"Having analysed the available evidence very carefully, the CPS concluded that there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of proving that the actions of PC 'A' in striking Mr Tomlinson with his baton and then pushing him over constituted an assault. At the time of those acts, Mr Tomlinson did not pose a threat to PC 'A' or any other police officer. "

It continues:

"A conflict between medical experts inevitably makes a prosecution very difficult.... As a result, the CPS would simply not be able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was a causal link between Mr Tomlinson's death and the alleged assault upon him. That being the case, there is no realistic prospect of a conviction for unlawful act manslaughter."

Common assault does not require proof of injury, but it is subject to a strict six month time limit. That placed the CPS in a very difficult position because enquiries were continuing at the six month point and it would not have been possible to have brought any charge at that stage.

"The Court of Appeal has held that: "The threshold is a high one requiring conduct so far below acceptable standards as to amount to an abuse of the public's trust in the office holder."...As a result, we have concluded that the conduct of PC 'A' did not meet the high threshold required to constitute the offence of misconduct in public office."

So in essence: the videos showed that a police officer assaulted Mr Tomlinson and that, as the victim of that alleged assault, Mr Tomlinson was not threatening the police officers in any way.

However, because two doctors have different opinions, because the CPS dragged its heels during the investigation and because, in the opinion of our judiciary, a police officer striking an innocent man with a baton and forcefully shoving him to the ground is not far below acceptable standards of an office holder, no charges are to be brought.

I am against trial by media in general terms. The principles of our legal system: innocent until proven guilty, tried by a jury of our peers etc are strong indicators of a democratic society.

But this case and way the incident was played out in front of those involved in both the mass media and social media, has shown that the legal system is weighted too strongly in favour of those enforcing it. We can see for ourselves the moment that a police officer crossed the line from being an upholder of law and justice to becoming little more than a thug lashing out at anyone close to him.

Citizen journalism at its finest and at its most powerful has provided the CPS with the evidence it needs to secure a conviction yet it will not even begin a prosecution.

I have no doubt that the officer had no intention of killing or even seriously injuring Mr Tomlinson and I know from my experience as a crime reporter that situations such as these are incredibly difficult for even the most experienced officer.

But can we as a society allow such a thing to happen? Mr Tomlinson appeared to be an innocent man in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was on his way home from his job as a newspaper vendor.

He also appeared to be vulnerable as witnesses report him appearing confused before the incident and the post mortem examination showed that he was suffering the effects of prolonged alcoholism. In short, he was a man the police should have been protecting from the unruly elements of the G20 protests.

We need to wait and see what the IPCC decides will happen to this officer next but, even in the view of the CPS, the assault upon Mr Tomlinson appears to be a criminal act and it deserved a legal response.

If a man who was accidentally caught up in the protest dies in this manner without anyone involved in the circumstances leading up to his death seeing the inside of a criminal court, then the message that has been sent out that this country's legal system actively supports the use of violence in the face of public protest.

This will run and run and I suspect that anniversary protests/memorials will get uglier and uglier and all because justice has not been served.

What next? Will a man be shot dead on the underground for having dusky skin during a time of heightened anti-terrorism awareness. Oh, hang on...

The silly season and a confession

2010-07-20T10:27:00.000+01:00

Well, the silly season is almost upon us once again and I am eagerly anticipating a rush of typical stories to accompany the time of year.

For the uninitiated, the silly season refers to the end of July and August - a time when the schools break up, the courts slow down and parliamentarians take a break. All of this, tradition tells us, leads to a news vacuum where news editors cannot find a story for love nor money and go to increasingly desperate measures to fill pages.

Of course, around the world there is a great deal of news going on but our nationals, particularly those of the tabloid persuasion, do not believe that foreign news is suitable for these shores. In the regions, if the reporters hit the streets, do research and work contacts, there is a wealth of strong news stories to be had but apparantly but there isn't the time for that as storied must be churned out to fill a notional news quota.

So you can anticipate red herrings - wildly exaggerated guesswork on future Government policy for example - and plenty of animal stories. Animal stories always do well in the silly season, whether it's black panthers on the loose, dolphins capable of complex sign language or even this legendary (if somewhat belated) 'Squirrels on crack'.

The squirrel story is a classic of our times and I am only amazed that it didn't contain a quote from Bill Oddie or Kate Humble to add further authority to the shocking revelation.

I have to admit to being sucked in by the silly season myself as a young reporter on the Derby Evening Telegraph.

In desperation I was drawn to a black panther story. With a willing accomplice in the form of a game-for-a-laugh police sergeant, I managed to spin out a 'genuine sighting' into a rolling story worth three page leads, four anchors and countless news-in-briefs. In hindsight I do feel some guilt about the matter as embellishing the truth (alright, telling outrageous porkies) is in reality just making fools of your readers.

A good PR professional can make hay during silly season and, as a former news editor, I can confirm that the press releases I dreaded for 10 months of the year were seized upon with glee during the silly season.

I remember the phone calls well:

"What's that you say about a man from Oxford [insert town of your choice] betting £100 that aliens will land on earth before Swindon [insert rival of your choice] win a major footballing trophy? I'll have it"

"A list of the most amusing (and not at all made-up) insurance claims? Sounds like a double-page feature to me."

Of course, a lot of this is built upon the central premise that breaking news is something which happens - ie a court case finishes, parliament makes an announcement etc etc rather than being something that is uncovered. Journalists today are so used to having their agendas written for them that the idea of breaking free is fading fast.

There is news out there. It's just that the British press has become so fixed in its ways that it is difficult to see the wood for the trees sometime - I should know, I was in that forest a long time and only rarely glimpsed genuine timber.

If only the barriers could be shifted somewhat and we could see some intelligent analysis. Instead we get patronising (but amusing) garbage during the summer months as editors wait for the obligatory 'phew what a scorcher' moment accompanied by pictures of young ladies in bikinis.

Easier said than done of course and news editors frequently rely on the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel to appear to have done some 'investigation'. That means we can expect a good number of stories about, for example, motorists on mobile phones (complete with picture gallery)and cyclists jumping red lights (complete with picture gallery).

A classic in the shooting fish category also occurred in Oxford when a senior newsroom member who shall remain nameless (but has now left) got very excited by bike thefts in the city. He ordered a reporter to leave a bike unlocked and in plain view and 'stake it out' to see how quickly it was stolen. He was a bit excitable and was convinced the headline would read 'Gone in 60 seconds'.

However, a week later the bike was still there; untouched and unloved. For all I know it is still there and the real story is one of the local paper fly-tipping.

Mind you, finding these stories isn't plain sailing and it would be a cop out of me I didn't suggest at least a couple of ideas I might like to pursue. Not complex but better than making stuff up or going for the same old targets.

1) If WiFi is the next big thing (and I assure you it is with the iPhone and Androids becoming increasingly important), why not check out how much of your city/town is covered?

2) We've just come out of recession and are facing 'austerity measures' but how much debt would you be able to get in one day. Send a reporter out to see what they can get in terms of credit and store cards. It won't matter if it is a lot or a little - the story is still there.

Give me shout if you spot any silly season corkers.

WC 2010 and the media

2010-06-29T21:08:00.000+01:00

Well, it's all over for another four years and once again ends in failure. This failure is a little bit special though as we have been tonked by the Germans - our footballing nemesis - rather than surrendering on penalties in the quarters or semis like the plucky top eight team we usually are.

Funny to see the media's reaction in this country and it really has highlighted how poorly served this country is by the sports media at large. We get platitudes and cliches and half-baked guesswork from nearly all quarters as the media lurches from patriotic supporter to uber-critic in the space of a few hours.

Desperation for a scoop is behind some of it. A genuine exclusive is almost impossible to come by during a world cup campaign as the pack is in full attendance and the players are flanked by press officers at all times.

As a result, any kind of controversy is blown up and eagerly seized upon by the rest of media. Anyone reading about John Terry's press conference would have presumed he had suggested chasing Capello back to Italy armed with pitchforks. Anyone watching it would have actually seen a senior and experienced player talking about his disappointment at being so rubbish and how he and other players were going to discuss it frankly with the manager.

It was clear that things were not peaches and cream but neither were they worth the kind of blanket coverage they received. Of course the public is interested but can that kind of coverage be said to be in the public interest?

The second aspect I am unhappy with is the way that an answer to a question is frequently used out of context.

Take today's article in the Telegraph which explains why the team is such a worthless and pampered bunch of overpaid prima donas.

Alright so that is a slight exaggeration but it outlines many of the gripes from the players. One is attributed to Wayne Rooney who "alluded to boredom when he said he did not like being asked to go to bed in the afternoons".

But did he? Or was he asked if he liked going to bed in the afternoons and replied in the negative - an honest and obvious answer to a dull question. How many young men do like being asked to go to bed (alone) in the middle of the afternoon? But now that the campaign has spluttered into failure, the answer has been woven into an article proving that Rooney is not a player struggling for form and fitness butking of the whingers.

Then there was Alan Shearer on the BBC's coverage who snorted with derision at Fabio Capello's assertion that the long Premier League season had left his top players exhausted.

The former England striker said: "He can't claim that now because before the tournament he said that the team were in tip-top condition. Also the Germans played more games than us."

Fortunately it wasn't just British journalists/presenters/experts involved and the Netherlands' Clarence Seedorf stepped in with some common sense. He pointed out that no manager would say his players were knackered before the tournament as it would give opponents a psychological advantage.

He also pointed out that the Germans may have played a couple more games but their season is aided by a winter break which allows them significant recuperation. However, that common sense did not sneak into the English papers this morning which invariably repeated Shearer's claims.

My favourite of all the shoddy journalism also came in the Telegraph this morning when chief sports writer Kevin Garside insisted that Capello should repay all the money he had earned and leave now. That was either a comment of a man pandering to the blame mentality afflicting our society or of someone naive to the extreme.

I want to read detailed and accurate match reports, in-depth interviews conducted in a professional manner and investigative reporting when it comes to finances and structures. The rest of the celebrity-based, sensationalist clap-trap I can leave ta.

Not all sports journalists are bad though. For some proper in depth material check out the work of Matthew Sayed in The Times (if you want to venture past the paywall) or Ed Smith .

Paywalls and News:Rewired

2010-06-28T20:22:00.000+01:00

Great sessions at the news:rewired conference at Microsoft's swanky headquarters in Victoria. Mind you, I did wonder with it being Microsoft if they keep having to move every six months to overcome irritating problems with the structure that were missed at the designing and building stage.

This was journalism.co.uk's second such conference. The first was in January and was interesting without hitting high notes throughout but this second event buzzed along with a great variety of speakers from the old (former Birmingham Post editor Marc Reeves) to the very new (Hannah Waldram, The Guardian's Cardiff Beat Blogger).

There's still a lot of assumption from delegates. Many times I heard people say that online has freed the journalists as no-one sits at their desk and churns copy any more. But I'm afraid that I estimate it is still commonplace in 80 per cent of the industry, although no editor or news editor will ever admit it.

I admire enthusiasm and confidence but we should temper it with some reality along the way!

The one speaker I couldn't work out at all was Philip Trippenbach who repeatedly lambasted journalists for being obsessed with the 'story'. You can read his blog through the link and see if you can make more sense of it.

The gist seemed to be that the obsession with the story led to a narrow presentation of complex issues and that a greater use of interactivity - a 'game' in which a user gets to set the budget in a similar way to the classic game Civilisation for example - is a better way of enabling a user to gain an insight into a subject.

I wholeheartedly agree that we need to make a far better use of such interactive tools but cannot see it is a separation from the story. To me the joy of online is the way in which we can use a huge range of multimedia and pose the question 'how would you like to find out about this subject'. The story is a key part of this as are the comments, blogs, video, podcasts, graphics, games etc.

But he spoke with huge passion and intellect so I'll be tracking him down for further debate in the near future.

The subject of paywalls came up again. At the first conference the mere mention of the subject brought a sneer to most of the delegates faces and my suggestion that paywalls may present a workable future for the industry brought forth snorts of derision.

This time however, the tide seemed to have changed with the majority accepting that some form of paywall was inevitable for most sites. It was interesting to see that this sea change had occurred within five months and that no-one seemed to acknowledge there had been a change.

It was enlightening hearing testimony from the likes of The Times's head of online Tom Whitwell and Karl Schneider, head of editorial development at RBI, about their experiences although Murdoch's man was more guarded than a US President on tour in Iraq when it came to revealing figures.

Whitwell, for example, insisted that the paywall enabled his site to focus on quality rather than quantity and put 'the genuine' reader to the forefront of everything they do. 'Genuine' indicated someone who was interested in reading and interacting with the site as opposed to a 'driveby reader', which is a great, if slightly loaded, term for someone who pops in, reads a sentence and leaves without engaging with the site.

Of course, some publishers will go to extreme lengths avoid using the term paywall but whether your charging an app or for a browser subscription, you're still asking for money to let people see your site.

Interesting times ahead.

Did Twitter lie to us?

2010-05-10T14:58:00.001+01:00

I tweeted regularly all the way through the General Election campaign and kept an eye on all of the trending topics for most of the day.

For a while - actually all the time after the first Leaders' Debate on April 15 - Twitter gave me hope. It was all about Clegg with a sneaky bit of Gordon thrown in. Cameron was nowhere to be seen unless it was under the hashtag #idontwantdave.

These times, I mused in an unoriginal way, are indeed a-changing. 'Bye bye two party politics' and 'hello three party politics in a new era that has hope for smaller parties everywhere'.

I am not a passionate Lib Dem man. If anything I would love to see the Green Party rise up and take its rightful place at the forefront of British politics. But I was swayed man, really swayed (sorry for the 'man', the Bob Dylan ref in the previous par has overexcited me).

But then the truth came out and it was like cheap, strong cider - so hard to digest that little sicky-burps come out every now and again. The Lib Dems are nowhere. They're worse than nowhere in that they are less supported than they were under Charlie before the genius that is social media really had a chance to develop.

So what happened and what conclusions can be drawn?

I suppose the inevitable conclusion is that as much as Clegg was welcomed as a contender and held aloft as a shining example of a new wave of politics, the elecorate simply did not trust that a vote for Lib Dem was not be a vote for the party they disliked, be it Tory or Labour.

Some of his policies were attacked and then distorted by the frothing right-wing press. His immigration policy, which in fact was a well researched and thought-out plan on how to deal with a genuine issue in society, was summarised in on one word which Cameron repeated ad nauseum: 'amnesty'.

So can it be said that Twitter lied? Of course not. Twitter does not lie as it is representative of the views that are put into its database.

But perhaps the obvious conclusion is that Twitter is a tool most used by Liberal and left-leaning people. This then means that in a situation like the General Election it is not useful as a stand-alone means of assessing the mood of the people.

Of course, the other possibility is that it actually is the perfect stand-alone method of assessing the mood of the people in that actually at least 65 per cent of the population voted for liberal or left leaning parties. That then means that Twitter did not lie but the First Past The Post elecoral system that Big Dave is striving so hard to protect is telling porkies.

And back we come to proportional representation.

Perhaps this election holds hope for us yet. That a fairer voting system which actually represents the people is introduced.

Leaders' debates

2010-04-30T11:03:00.000+01:00

So now they're over. We've had three debates and ITV, Sky and the BBC have been given a crack of the whip at giving the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems a crack of the whip. I think it's fair to say that these US style debates are here to stay but has the experiment been a success?

1) It got people talking: It most certainly did. And not just talking but tweeting and blogging and Booing and Facebooking and YouTubing and all other kinds of social mediaing. There is always a buzz of excitement around a general election but it has been more pronounced this time with water-cooler talk straying from Glee, football and the latest meme to the leaders' debates. And lets face it, after the apathy of 2005 when somewhere between 45 per cent and 60 per cent of the population voted. #success

2) It brought the politicians to the people: Previously to see a leader in action you had to watch carefully edited clips or an interview from a journalist who quite frequently had an agenda be it political or simply the furthering of their own public image (yes that's you Paxman). #success

3) It highlighted the difference between the parties: Certainly each leader was given a soapbox to display their ideologies and opinions. However, they often couldn't agree on what that was. How many times did we hear a leader say 'that is not what our manifesto states' or my personal favourite from Clegg to Cameron: 'Let's assume that every time you talk about our policy, you're going to be wrong'. This did not help with clarifying the parties' stance on issues, if anything is muddied the waters further and identifying exactly what a leader's opinion was became almost impossible. #fail

4) It highlight the opportunity for choice and change: There clearly was choice in that there were three parties represented but two of those parties have swapped power in the UK since 1918 and the third held power before that and has been third ever since. What these debates did was reinforce the prominence of these three parties to the detriment of the wider political democracy and the anger of the SNP, Plaid Cymru, Greens and UKIP. I fear that votes for the minority parties will fall further this year as they struggle to make their voices heard. #fail

So on those four points it would appear to be in the balance but in my opinion, the first two are relatively superficial in that they are involved largely with engaging the electorate with the principle of the election, not with making and informed decision.

As I have already stated, these debates are here to stay - any leader not wanting to talk part would be hideously ridiculed and branded a coward. But perhaps a change to the format would be preferable.

Why wasn't the debate taken to Scotland and Wales with Alec Salmon and Ieuan Wyn Jones given a voice in parts of the UK where they enjoy huge support

Why haven't the Greens and UKIP been given a chance to get themselves heard? Surely that can only add to the opportunity for democratic choice.

Also do we need a referee and not just a facilitator? How many people are going to listen to Clegg and Cameron disagree about what it says in their respective manifestos and then scurry away and see who is right? I would have loved Dimbleby to step in and say "Actually David it does say on page 98 of your manifesto that blah blah blah, are you telling us that is incorrect?" I’m not naïve enough to think there is never any ambiguity in a manifesto but at least it would help us make an informed choice.

Still, it has really livened things up on the comedy front with Twitter abound with cracking jokes and comments. Of course some people tried a little to hard but here's a selection of some of my favourites:

@sugarshamen: "90 billion pounds on Trident missiles? Thats hardly enough for even a small nuclear holocaust! We'll be a laughing stock."

@charltonbrooker: "Bloke sitting to the left of questioner has a beard like one of those iron-filing magnetic novelty face things"

@markclapham: "How did all these people see the version of the #leadersdebate where Cameron was remotely convincing? Special 3D glasses with the Sun?"

And then of course you get this great screen grab (although it as, as far as I am aware, taken and circulated by Conservative campaigner @TimMontgomerie before being picked up and used by virtually all media outlets today)

Picking a new Twitter design

2010-04-28T13:42:00.000+01:00

Just updated my background image in Twitter.

I felt that as I was now a serious member of the Twitterati (ie completely hooked and spending more time tweeting than I do talking to my wife) I should have some form of personalisation.

Difficult to know what to plump for though.

I thought of a pic of the kids but that seemed so Facebook. After all, the primary function of Twitter for myself is networking on the professional sphere.

So perhaps an image of the University of Gloucestershire where I am employed as a senior lecturer in online journalism? Mmmmm a bit too corporate perhaps, especially when you consider that all views expressed are my own and not representative of the uni (happy now, legal people?)

As I love the internet and most of my Tweets involve it then I should show that but then I needed some kind of image?

Something from War Games with Matthew Broderick or even Terminator came to mind but it seemed way to negative (man they were scared of computers in the 80s). But then this Charles Darwin quote came to me:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

I always use it when explaining the print media's relationship with the internet as it exemplifies why some newspapers are struggling to survive as they failed to adapt to change when the wonderful opportunity called the internet came along.

So I found this wonderful picture:

It shows an image Darwin made from plant and animal life.

Stunning picture and it caught my eye immediately.

Makes me feel slightly pretentious but then you don't have to look people in the eye when you're on Twitter do you?

Mind you, I have opted for the tile design and I think it looks a bit busy and might annoy me quite soon.

That's the great thing about the internet - you don't like something then go back and improve it. It's a journey, not a destination.

The Age of Opinion

2010-04-16T11:48:00.001+01:00

One thing the internet has truly enabled people to do is to air an opinion to an audience outside of a (formerly) smoky pub.

Online News is full of opinion - blogs, comments, Tweets, Boos etc etc and most of it is welcome despite the BNP's attempt to ruin it for everyone. This is something I welcome as a vital part of the ongoing democratisation of the media.

But forums are where it starts to fall apart for me. Of course I may still suffer from PTSD from my time managing forums for Newsquest Oxfordshire (hence my hatred of the BNP who repeatedly targeted our boards for spamming/trolling sessions).

Have you ever seen a news or sports forum that doesn't descend into name calling? Have you seen one where people share thoughts and consider others' views?

I'm not sure I have. I have, however, witnessed hundreds of ill-informed, soap-box mounted rants which don't seem to do anyone a favour.

Take the issue of refuse collection in Oxford. Councillor Jean Fooks changed from a weekly collection to an alternate recycling and general waste collection. Some people took umbrage at not being able to create as much waste as they liked and mounted an anti-Fooks campaign.

This focused on the issue of rats in the city and how this new scheme had led to a huge increase. Of course, it hadn't and for those reading the small print on the Oxford Mail (local papers love a protest true or not) would have spotted that the increase was due to Severn Trent ceasing to trap the sewers as they had done for decades.

But on an on this raged on the forums. Any time it was pointed out to the anti-Fooks what Severn Trent had admitted they claimed it was a conspiracy. The whole things became pointless as any discussion was ruled out by the swamping effect of the antis.

I used to be a bit of a 606 addict where I would go to 'discuss' rugby. My suspicions about 606 being, well, crap were first aroused during WC2007 when a sizable number of posters repeatedly called for Matthew Tait to be played at fly half. Matthew Tait had never played fly half at schoolboy level but somehow was expected to do so on the world's biggest stage.

But 606 got worse. It's just a place for whingers and wind-up merchants.

Wales are rubbish - everyone hates England - Martin Johnson was a rubbish player - Chris Robshaw is good enough for the All Blacks etc etc

It's just tirade after tirade. I don't think people even read other posts before wading in which kind of makes the whole things pointless.

Recently I have been seeking out forums about the iPhone thinking they would be more upstanding. But even there we seem to have the Montagues (Jobbites) and Capulets (other smartphones) waging verbal war.

I think there is a book in this: The Forum Effect and the Departure from Reason. Mmmmm I think I'll get on to OUP.

Then of course there is a major issue with defamation on forums. It is almost impossible to proactively monitor these sites and you risk libel and contempt of court every day.

With the Government taking a keener interest in online news every day I am sure some form of over-the-top legislation will be brought in to prevent the open-access to these forums. Attempts have already been made to take action against posters and one failure will not put people off

Anyay, as much as I love Twitter and Facebook and the Internet in general, some of the things I discuss will have to remain in the pub where at least people pretend to listen before ripping me to shreds!

My eyes, my eyes

2010-04-09T10:39:00.000+01:00

God I love the internet.

I went to an optician recently (Vision Express since you ask) just for a wee check up. That in itself has little to do with the internet.

But they did the full on retinal scan/picture of the inside of my eye thing. Which was interesting in itself but then to top it all off, offered me free copies of the pictures if I went on their website.

Of course I did so I did and here they are for you all to enjoy.

Fascinating no?

I panicked slightly when I saw the white cloud on old lefty but nothing to worry about, it's just similar to a birthmark. Phew.

It's only a little thing but I can't help feel that this has made my life richer somehow.

I spend all my time thinking about how news organisations can best use the internet and then something simple comes along and blows me away.

Don't even get me started on my love affair with my iPhone.

Paywalls and me

2010-04-06T14:57:00.000+01:00

So Murdoch is going to charge for the Times and the Sunday Times and now we know how.

Same week we found that out that the Johnston Press experiment had been a spectacular failure - although real figures have not been published.

Of course, it isn't really a surprise that Johnston's experiment failed when you consider the titles they decided to experiment with and the fact that that regional media has already lost so much ground to other (free) outlets such as hyperlocal sites, blogs etc et.

But what about Murdoch's experiment? I think most people expect it to fail and fail in a pretty high-profile way.

But perhaps we first need to define what success would be.

I suspect that Murdoch will not mind losing 90 per cent of his unique users if his profits increase by even just one per cent.

However, to the Guardian it is all about reaching as many people as possible but in 08/09 lost a reported £36.8m and has now had to sell off the Manchester Evening News in a bid to prevent further massive losses to the group.

It's going to be an interesting 12 months - short term I can't see the paywall working because of the number of options we have. And of course, the BBC is, and probably always will be, a free option.

I am glad someone has gone for it though even if has to be Murdoch. There is so much emotion around this - even the term Paywall is highly charged. It's not a term you use for anything else and I have never heard Rusbridger and co demand an end to the news vendor's 'Paywall' as I hand over my £1 for the Guardian.

Longer term, finding a way of getting readers to pay for online news as they have for printed news is a workable way of ensure the industry remains strong and democratic. We might lose a few publications along the way but I the industry is a bit flabby and losing some titles may even help in the long term.

It's a shame that any attempt to discuss the BBC's role in the future of the media and its role in society and democracy is beset with squawks from the left about 'clipping the wings of public service broadcasting' and screams from the right about unfair competition.

The truth is somewhere in between but we need to debate it and debate it like adults at some point rather than sounding like Cameron and Brown on PMQs otherwise I fear for the future of online news.

Questions which need answering:

1) Is the licence fee really paying for online? If so then how so when it is has hardly changed since online and digital tv spread the BBC's resources even more thinly.

2) How much commercial work is the BBC doing abroad and how much is that dictating programme making and web development in the UK?

If the answers are yes and not much then I vote for the BBC to stay as is but I remain a sceptic until these things are proven.

Still, as it happens I don't even read the Times anyway so it won't bother me too much right now but let's see what Lebdev does to the Indie.

Last time I spoke to Simon Kelner he said they were considering introducing an honesty box for online payment. That would be interesting to see in action in the UK but it failed in Miami.

Dan and Dan on The Daily Mail

2010-04-01T09:53:00.000+01:00

Thanks Dan and Dan.
Of course it makes me feel even worse for working for the Daily Mail in the 90s but still worth it.

Estate agents

2010-03-10T09:06:00.000Z

Ok, so people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and I have made my share of mistakes in my time as a journo.

But this example from an estate agent flogging a house in Oxfordshire just cracked me up. And to think these 'professionals' take a pretty sizable fee for this kind of toot (thanks Alan).

Hull Daily Mail and Smeargate

2010-03-05T10:24:00.000Z

Sorry for the use of ....gate in the title - it's the lazy sub in me!

Fascinated to read about the Hull Daily Mail's unique tactic for fighting back against hyperlocal rival www.hu17.net - to smear its creator as a pornographer in chief.

I love the moral outrage in all this and the lazy attitude which typifies regional media these days. Instead of using Northcliffe's enormous resources to take the competition head-on it opts for a Sunday red-top style sting.

I particularly like the repeated mention of the pictures of young people in the town - some of which have been take by web designer Paul Smith!!!! Clearly that's a major issue and we should light torches and carry pitchforks to drive this monster from our town.

Of course, he's doing nothing illegal so maybe we shouldn't. What's that you say? Until recently all regional media knowingly carried adverts from prostitutes? Completely different and unrelated to the matter in hand. Harrumph.

I have some sympathy with the regional media. They (we perhaps - for I was there) were slow to react to the web and constantly five years behind and they battle against unfair competition in the form of the licence-fee supported BBC (as does all media in this country).

But come on. Make an effort. Stop spitting the dummy and get back to creating good content that might encourage people to come to you. Get reporters out of the office, stop relying on press releases and PA and don't forget you are part of a community, not in competition with Heat or NOTW.

The only pleasing aspect has been the way the online community has responded so quickly to put the Mail in its place. Way to go commenters.

Football fans and the breakdown of society

2010-03-04T21:44:00.000Z

Alright so the title is slightly over-the-top but football fans are getting on my nerves.

I used to love football. I was a regular at Pride Park and worked my holidays around major championships that England or, more rarely, Scotland were involved in.

But football fans have ruined it for me. Not all of them, but the snarling, vociforous majority who excuse their shocking behaviour by whimpering 'it's because I'm so passionate'. I'm passionate about plenty of things without turning into a cross between Norman Tebbit and the Kray twins.

And I'm not talking about traditional hooligans here. I'm talking about normal people who turn into Neanderthals when their beloved team in mentioned. People who have nice families, hold down good jobs, are involved in their community and don't hold criminal convictions.

They seem to have seen Green Street,thought 'now that's passion' and hold it aloft as an aspirational standard which their middle-class upbringing will never allow them to achieve.

It's the blinkered view on the world that gets me. Their player commits a foul and it's ok. A foul is committed on their player and you can expect frothing at the mouth and death threats against the ref who failed to spot what they could quite plainly see after 12 different camera angles were played at super slowmo over a period of five minutes.

They must know the truth. Deep down the reality of the situation must flash like a beacon but hypocrisy knows no bounds with football fans.

The truth is that Vidic should have been sent off after five minutes of the Carling Cup final, that Shawcross did not commit a horrific foul and that Wayne Bridge does not deserve to be booed just because his best mate had an affair with his (ex?) partner.

Maybe we in the media are to blame. Certainly some of the responsibility rests with us.

Transferring sport from the back pages to the front has resulted in the minute details being picked over and the elevation of sports stars to A List celebs and cultural prophets.

Muppets like Adrian Durham on Talksport excuse bad behaviour and violence as the understandable result of passion and we attack the perception of failure by managers in the same way we attack politicians.

All I know is that I am glad I have rugby and that so far it hasn't gone so far down the wrong road as wendy ball.

Starsuckers interview

2010-02-23T14:53:00.001Z

I met with Chris Atkins - writer and director of the documentary Starsuckers during his visit to the University of Gloucestershire today.

We were offered a screening of the doc and a lengthy Q&A session with the man himself afterwards.

It was a fascinating piece of film about, in my openly bias view, a fascinating industry but it did not portray the media in a good light at all.

Exploiting the fame-hungry parents of toddlers, running false stories, preventing coverage of humanitarian demonstrations, behaving illegally to expose celebrity gossip - and those were just the bits we did see.

Particularly interesting to me was the furore afterwards when the News of the World attempted to sue over the sting operation carried out by Atkins.

In short the NOTW (remember them from the illegal phone taps during the reign of the now chief Tory spin doctor Andy Coulson?) objected to Atkins' sting. This is despite having perpetrated it for motives less in the public interest hundreds of times.

Shame that Charlie Brooker couldn't find time to put the story into Newswipe but he assures us on Twitter that it wasn't a conspiracy!

The Max Clifford footage was gold dust. Who would of thought that a man who earns millions burying stories could be so indiscreet.

I heartily recommend Starsuckers to anyone with a view on media and journalism - stick with the annoying American drawl in the commentary. But be warned you will feel extreme guilt if you donated to Live8 or LiveAid in the last 25 years!

Afterwards I caught up with Chris Atkins for a brief interview about his project. Forgive the quality, it is recorded on a NokiaN95 and edited in Movie Maker (boo).

Why the BNP gets coverage

2010-02-15T14:27:00.000Z

Great article on the front of The Times illustrated by this superb picture:

It says it all really. Journalist attends press conference and is viciously attacked.

What is particularly strong is the lengths the henchmen are going to to ensure that not only is Dominic Kennedy of The Times ejected but hurt in the process.

The use of the nose grab highlights this perfectly, it being a move favoured more by Daniel Day-Lewis's psychotic character in The Gangs of New York.

Even when people are disaffected with many aspects of this country, you would hope they could not be tempted to vote for this 'party'.

But then who is providing a credible alternative?

The Greens can't be bothered to promote themselves beyond the perception that they are the political wing of Greenpeace , the Lib Dems are suffering from the Kennedy debacle and Campbell experiment and then general impression that it ain't worth the effort.

Why can't we have parties who believe in something and stand up for it?

Instead we get three main parties wooing voters by changing to suit the climate in order to be elected. That's not what I want.

I want people to stand up and say 'This is what I believe' so I can decide if I agree with them. But all I have, which exception of the BNP, is people saying 'What do you believe and we'll agree with you'.

Thing is, I would not vote BNP even if it were to guarantee that the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse could be persuaded to never to return to this mortal realm.

Just a quickie

2010-02-11T10:51:00.000Z

Thanks to one of my students for bringing this to my attention.
It has made me use term ROFL for only the second time:

Google Buzz

2010-02-10T20:34:00.000Z

I could be wrong - I have been frequently - but Google Buzz may be one of the least well-named items around.

I suppose actually that's not true because it is creating a buzz of sorts. It just happens to be a general buzz on Twitter and Facebook that Google Buzz is disappointing.

Google doesn't seem to have understood that there isn't really plurality in the social networking market unless you genuinely offer something unique.

So Twitter exists because of, not despite, its 140 character limit and Facebook exists because where would you be without hours spent flicking through complete stranger's wedding pictures.

But Google Buzz adds little to this - it's just another thing to update when updating brings very little reward in itself.

But then again, as I have said, I could be wrong....

Embedded citizen journalism in Haiti

2010-02-03T15:12:00.000Z

I have finally caught up with the most recent Radio 4 Media Show podcast - always a good listen and it sparked an interesting internal debate for me.

The first part of the show was centre around coverage of the earthquake in Haiti.

There was an interesting interview with Matthew Price from the BBC's New York office on how so many reporters seemed to get to Haiti when aid workers couldn't and how they remain detached when faced with such human misery.

However, it was the second Haiti section which interested me the most. Nancy Snyderman is a paediatrician and professor of surgery who has been reporting for NBC. She was sent out to Haiti so she could fulfil two functions
1) work as a doctor
2) report on the situation and her work as a doctor in the middle of a humanitarian disaster.

Now it is clear she is not a citizen journalist in the strictest sense of the title (and I know the title annoys many people; but just as with joyriding and happy slapping we are stuck with it). She is a medical correspondent for NBC and has been for some time.

However, it does raise some interesting ethical debates.

On the one hand it is great to get doctors on the ground and it is equally valuable for the outside world to be able to see and hear first-hand what is going on in Haiti.

But I have some concerns. Do people know that by being treated by this doctor they are becoming part of a story? Do they have to give consent? If they are unconscious what happens to this consent etc etc etc.

If you look at the excellent Ethics Handbook from the Thomson Reuters Foundation. You can see 100 ways in which Dr Snyderman's role is both supported and another 100 in which is may be dubious practice.

I don't have the answers. As a news editor/web editor of course I would want her out there but I have reservations about her role and how it fits her.

That is no criticism of her as I am sure she is doing an excellent job for both masters. But I suppose my liberal side knows that there was probably a cold-hearted NBC business executive behind the decision to deploy her and it just doesn't feel quite right.

AudioBoo and you

2010-01-25T17:31:00.000Z

I said I would get back to AudioBoo and here it is.

There were a lot of AudioBoo enthusiasts at the news:rewired conference in London on January 15 in the general session on social networking. That I hadn't really looked into it previously gave me a kick up the backside that as a lecturer in online journalism I must be far more on-the-ball when it comes to innovation.

So I checked out AudioBoo, which partially funded by Channel 4, which also supplies us with the excellent Jon Snow among many other things and is therefore OK by me.

What a magnificent application - Twitter for audio was how a colleague put it but I would have to say it is far more than that. Another colleague obsessed by radio has taken more interest in the web since hearing of this than in the last 18 months combined.

Basically you record audio through your computer or iPhone and can attach a picture and it uploads to your account almost instantaneously. Your post will also show where you were when this was done.

If you haven't got an iPhone, and I haven't, then you need to use PhoneBoo to upload. This limits you on the picture and GPS front but you can still do the audio.

I regard this as a huge breakthrough. It is so easy to use from both sides (ie as a 'broadcaster' and as a 'listener'). It has the appeal of Twitter with the added colour that audio and a picture can bring.

Some of the Boos from the G20 already show the appeal of this and I am sure it will have great value on less heavyweight arenas such as Glastonbury, travel etc etc. It is also very easy to embed audio into a site in the manner of YouTube, get an RSS feed and add tags.

I am all for anything which makes the tools of mass media available to everyone - Viva La Revolution.

The only thing now is that it has made me want to 'cheat' on my Nokia n95 for a iPhone and then I'll miss my Carl Zeiss lens and the MoJo appeal.

Where's the Web 2.0 interaction

2010-01-25T13:30:00.001Z

Had a surprising lecture this morning.

In talking to students about citizen journalism - and specifically the self-publishing aspect of citizen journalism and its influence on mass media - it became apparant that very few students use Twitter, write blogs or post to YouTube.

They seemed amazed by the potential of it all and hadn't really thought beyond the social-networking applications of the sources.

I always assume that this sort of thing will be second nature to people in their late teens and early 20s but that was not the case this morning.

Still, I hope I might have changed their view slightly. Especially when I became evangelical about AudioBoo and its potential - more on that later.

Free (Government) Content

2010-01-22T10:06:00.000Z

The Government has launched data.gov.uk and we should all cheer.
As taxpayers we pay for this kind of material to be gathered and many people could make extremely good use of it so having it out there and available is a major boost.
The adviser was even www godhead Tim Berners-Lee who gave a good interview to the Guardian about the development and his involvement in it.
I now intend to trawl through and see how useful it can be but from a cynical hack's point of view, I expect the front page news to be about what isn't there rather than what is.

Immediacy

2010-01-21T20:41:00.000Z

Being a journo and one specifically dedicated to the Internet I am fully aware of how immediate stuff is in the modern age.
David Beckham stubbs a toe and we have a flash, a ticker and a user-generated picture in seconds. A filthy company like Trafigura tries to circumvent democracy and the Twitternety achieves more in five minutes than the fourth estate could in five days.
You get the picture.
But it all came crashing home this week. I check Rightmove every day to see if there is a house for sale in my village. There never is but I am one hopeful bunny so I do it any anyway.
Last week I was at the news:rewired journalism conference in London and, due to technical difficulties, was unable to check Rightmove.
Big mistake and long story short the perfect house came up and the 24 hour delay lost us the home(that and some estate agent issues I won't share due to an inability to control my rage).
Lesson learnt - don't relax for a second.

More evidence in Toryland

2009-10-25T19:12:00.000Z

Seriously - I am worried now. My mind is closing every day - just more evidence I am turning into a Tory.
Took a trip into Oxford today to have a Sunday stroll around Christchurch Meadow with the family (very middle class and very pleasant) and a visit to the vastly underrated Modern Art Oxford.
But there was a problem. The exhibition by Karla Black wasn't my cup of tea.
No problem with that you might think. But it's not just that it wasn't my cup of tea it was the righteous indignation it stirred within my soul.
As I looked at the pile of pink chalk dust on the floor and the scraps of torn and scribbled paper hanging from the ceiling I had a burst of anger. Then a thought seeped into my brain: "How does anyone make money from this crap?"

Why bring it back to money? I've never felt like that before. If I've not liked something before I've thought 'horses for courses' and trudged away thinking about those sad teenage years when I would fail to see the sailing boat in the magic eye pictures.
Suddenly it's all about the bottom line.
I'm frightened to take my pants off at night in case my pubic hair is turning blue.

Am I coming out as a Tory?

2009-10-24T19:53:00.000+01:00

I like telly - it's been the subject of previous blogs. I particularly like sci-fi/fantasy style TV shows in the ilk of BSG, Lost, Harper's Island etc etc. I also have no objection to TV programmes showing the seedier side of life and people making the beast with two backs.
So it seemed only natural to get into True Blood - a series about vampires starring the extremely attractive young lady who played Rogue in the X-Men.

But when I watch it I feel a curious sensation. Is this just too seedy for me?
There is a huge quantity of nooky - most of it rough - but that's ok.
But then there's the misogyny. Women seem to be little more than objects. Not objects of desire even, or even a mark on the bedpost, just something to do - literally most of the time.
I am watching it with unease and sense of moral outrage and it hits me. I am old. I have two children and it has changed my view on life completely.
That the women gain some vengeance by the end and assert their independence meant little to me - I was on a moral crusade by the end.
I am worried I might be coming a Conservative (yes that's right - with a capital C)Worst feeling ever.

Blog Action Day

2009-10-15T10:06:00.000+01:00

I have just registered my support for Blog Action Day.
The power of the net and its potential to do good never ceases to amaze me and the more digging I do the more I am convinced that it could become a great tool for positive change.
Of course, it needs a wee bit of tidying up and snagging but the potential is massive.
Anyway, don't just take my word for it, check this out:

and the follow this link wwww.blogactionday.org

Freedom of speech

2009-10-13T22:10:00.000+01:00

It's such an important concept in the modern world. It protects the have-nots from those who wish to take advantage of a position of authority, be it celebrity, politics and finance.

That a major company (Trafigura) tried to twist our laws to prevent a question asked in the Houses of Parliament sickens me. That they succeeded for almost 24 hours makes it even worse.

Thank god for the power of Twitter http://tiny.cc/ptiOC

One of the foremost Tweeters on this subject was Stephen Fry - yes that Fry. The one from Fry and Laurie, QI, Jeeves and Wooster and Wilde. He has more than 800,000 people following him on Twitter and that is a lot of exposure.

It is a triumph of social networking that a comedian - albeit an extremely erudite and well educated comedian - has the power to overthrow a terrible decision taken to protect a firm that should be open to public scutiny.

Oh Dear George

2009-10-10T16:07:00.000+01:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/09/george-osborne-budget-deficit

Let me get this right. We're in a recession, you're planning our way out and yet think that a £3bn error in a £13bn prediction is "presentational". My maths may not be amazing - similar to yours - but I would say that you were about 23 per cent out there.

I'm not confident. Come on Green Party make a bloody effort.

I love YouTube

2009-10-08T20:08:00.000+01:00

It has to be one of the greatest inventions ever.
I had a shabby day at work today - problems with my hangover management meant it was hard to concentrate on the easiest of tasks and and the moment I don't have any easy tasks anyway.
So onto the world's biggest video-sharing site for a teeny tickle of the humour bones.

A few clips later and the world seemed a much brighter place. Take this for example:

Does it get any better than people who think their 'ard being silly-billies for all to see?

Or how about this?

The genius that is Eddie Izzard combined with lego animation.

Or last but not least, an amazingly gifted editor posted this

Web 2.0 might have given morons and show-offs a stage but there is a wealth of top material out there too.

It was The Sun wot won it...

2009-10-04T13:43:00.001+01:00

..for Labour in 1997. Or at least so they claimed. If I remember rightly the famously Tory paper switched sides just as the election propaganda was drawing to a close and claimed to have been the deciding factor when Blair stormed to Downing Street.

Now they claim to be doing it again for Cameron. But of course, anyone with any brains were putting their money on Labour in '97 - the Tories were tired and on the ropes long before The Sun changed colours. It was a miracle that Major had managed to see off Kinnock four years earlier (apparantly The Sun won that one too) and after four bad years the '97 election was a formality.

The Sun isn't a political leader as it claims, it's a follower but is shameless in its self-promotion. Are the editor deluded or calculated? Difficult to say but I have little doubt that top dog Rebekah Wade is a sharp operator having learned the trade under Piers Morgan and learned from his mistakes.

All I can say is get stuffed Sun. Labour may well not win the next election but that will not be down to your shameless editorials.

Why oh why?

2009-09-29T10:54:00.000+01:00

This story caught my attention today for the sheer horrific brutality of it.

As a journalist I shouldn't use adjectives of course but as a parent and, above, all a human being, this has shocked me.

To my eternal shame, I used to work for the Daily Mail. I say shame because I despise the editorial stance of scaremongering and othering but my reaction to this story and what this family had to suffer is right up there with the Mail.

String 'em up I say. And I find myself calling for heads within the police force that failed the family so badly - and that is from someone who rails against the scapegoat generation we have become.

But sometimes, just sometimes, perhaps a strong response is justified. Maybe I'll write to my MP but I'm sure he's too busy rubbishing the Government to do much about it.

Restoring faith

2009-09-28T21:16:00.000+01:00

A colleague tried to restore my faith in football and football fans today.

I'm not sure it worked but I had to admire his stance. He holds a senior position, involving countless admin-heavy meetings, and relishes the opportunity to do something so different having been in the restraining strait-jacket of management.

It's a good point. Football is a release - the shouting, highs and lows of support and the camaraderie with all around you can be extremely cathartic.

But he is one of the lucky few. His club hasn't been sullied by the money of the Premier League, which attracts trophy chasers and, as he supports Plymouth, away fans have to be into the football and not just the shouting to go there.

He's lucky but I'm not convinced and I'm planning to be at Welford Road for Christmas and not Pride Park.

All hail David Mitchell

2009-09-27T10:07:00.000+01:00

David Mitchell: Pointless studies are the key to evolution | Comment is free | The Observer

This is why David Mitchell is such a welcome addition to our comedy scene.
It is difficult to be on our airwaves every five minutes and remain fresh and, above else else, retain credibility. But our David achieves this and I have the survey results to prove it.

I. SALUTE. YOU

The annoying thing about football . . .

2009-09-26T19:58:00.000+01:00

. . . is the fans. They're supposed to be the best thing about the game in England if you listen to Match of the Day or Talksport or any of the sychophants on our airwaves.

Why oh why won't anyone tell it how it is? OK so Adebayor was not clever sprinting to his former club's fans and sliding to his knees in celebration after scoring a goal but then again they had treated him like a paedophile at a school's PGA meeting for the best part of an hour.

Apparently if a former idol slides to his knees in celebration it is then beyond the ability of any football to show restraint. Oh no, not them. It is perfectly acceptable to respond by trying to inflict serious injury on said striker by lobbing coins, bananas and chairs at his head. For God's sake grow up you muppets.

I haven't been to a football match for 12 months after I watched Derby County v Reading. A trio of my own club's fans (for I support Derby) felt it was OK to stand for 90 minutes with their middle fingers extended towards the Hoops' fans. And these guys were in their 40s.

Not for me. Rugby has its problems at the moment but at least the fans can behave like human beings and not a pack of dogs.

I can't help it.....

2009-09-24T20:36:00.000+01:00

I love TV. I watch so much.

I love it all. I watch quality stuff like The Wire and box sets of Spaced and The Mighty Boosh and I hard drive documentaries like Man on Wire or Folk America (although they currently sit there unwatched).

But then there's the mediocre stuff I watch like Lost, Waking The Dead and Battlestar Galactica

And then there's the stuff which is enjoyable and trashy like Harper's Island, Heroes and Reaper.

And then there's the stuff I'm hooked on like endless repeats of Scrubs and Friends.

Then there's the stuff my wife is hooked on and I pretend not to enjoy but secretly do like Location, Location, Location, Grand Designs and Property Ladder.

And I haven't even mentioned films.

Last week in a joyous moment I spurned TV and read and lo, it was good. I read The Gargoyle and it made me remember why I love to read and why novels like Cloud Atlas, Jane Ayre, Life of Pi, Birdsong and Catch 22 are an important part of my life.

Hey, telly's good too. Don't get me wrong - I think it's an important part of modern culture it's just that now I'm watching a double bill of Friends while working on the laptop and silently loathing myself for it.

Laziness

2009-09-22T20:09:00.000+01:00

OK - here's the thing. All summer I have had time to both exercise my self into heaven and prepare work for the start of the university year.

It's human nature I suppose to postpone things a little but unfortunately I postponed things a lot and I mean A LOT. So know I am working crazy days - the only respite is the commute to and from work - and atrophying from the lack of exercise.

The only thing that is keeping me going is the knowledge that next year it WILL be different and that eventually I will be allowed to go running again.

Still - a student did introduce me to the foul-mouthed delights of Boro Pat today so I'll share that with you as well (not for the faint hearted)

The future of the country

2009-09-21T20:12:00.000+01:00

At last the university is full of students again and it is such a different place already.
Full of hope and fun and enthusiasm. It's great seeing students at this stage and wondering which of them will end up running the country or being the next big tv star.
I had a lecture with some first years today on their first full day and I probably found it more exciting than them. Already it's making the mind-bending trawl through higher eductaion's many layers of beauraucracy seem almost worthwhile. Note the word almost though because I am not sure many things are worth that.

Maybe they weren't excuses

2009-09-20T11:15:00.000+01:00

After blogging last night I felt worse and worse and awoke this morning to feel like I'd been beaten with baseball bats.

Maybe my reasons for a poor showing at Woodstock 12 were just that - reasons. It seems I hadn't got over my cold at all and now have a soaring temperature and stiffness everywhere but my legs.

While I feel rubbish it is good to know I'm not as bad at my hobby and passion as I feared.

Still got a shed load of work to do for tomorrow though so I'd best knuckle down.

Blowing up

2009-09-19T20:31:00.000+01:00

First blog and already a negative one.

Took part in the Woodstock 12 today - a 12 mile run in the grounds of Blenheim Palace and I had high hopes of achieving about 1hr 30mins but due to plenty of extenuating factors ran 1hr 43. The last mile took me 14 minutes which is a shocker.

The extenuating factors - aka excuses - include having a cold all week, the weather being staggeringly hot for the middle of September, losing a toenail halfway round and being generally rubbish.

After 8 miles I was going like a train and planning a smug blog with tips for successful running. After 10 I was being passed to fat blokes who kept patting me and tell me to keep going.

The only good to come out of this is that it was a Saturday run and I have two days to get over it before going back to work to welcome the students back on Monday. Got a feeling I'll still be hobbling but I hope they'll take pity on me anway.