@ShaunyCustis Ok, assuming that's the case, where does credit for winning with the players end and manager start (in general, not just Eng) 12 mins ago
This morning's work soundtrack has been Otis Redding, Jimmy Cliff and Sam Cooke. 22 mins ago
@sofiejenkinson Hope you feel better soon Sof *hug* 54 mins ago
Last week’s news that Global Radio is to shut half of its local Heart stations is thoroughly depressing, not least if you’re in my old area of Devon, where the five local Heart stations in Barnstaple, Exeter, Torquay, Plymouth and the South Hams will be merged into one Devon-wide station based in Exeter. My thoughts go out to my former colleagues who will face a battle to keep their jobs.
Let’s put the sentimental aspect of a former GCap employee out of the way for a moment. This is a further blow to teenagers and graduates wanting to start a career in broadcasting.
Local radio, especially commercial radio, is an excellent breeding ground for new talent. In part because of the lean operation that most commercial stations run, anybody on work experience can be expected to get a chance to really immerse themselves and get proper practical experience. It’s great for inspiring a passion in broadcasting.
Similarly, for broadcast journalism graduates, local radio is a fantastic place to start your career (and indeed continue it).
Again, due to the lean operation, you get pitched into everything competing against other local media with far greater resources. It’s one of the best ways to learn the craft in a very short space of time.
As you can guess, I’m a huge fan of local radio. It may have plenty of faults and detractors, but when it’s done well it becomes an essential part of community.
Yes, I’m biased have started my career in local commercial radio, but it was one of the most enjoyable parts of the job when people told you how much they enjoyed listening, how much they appreciated the local chatter and the support for events that other media may well ignore.
And what really made it worthwhile were the times such as when a local councillor told me she’d always make a point of speaking to us first as when we covered an issue, she always had a surge of enquiries on the topic. Local radio can make a difference.
Obviously I’m coming at this from a journalism point of view, but everybody – the DJs, marketing team, everybody, played their part in making a station a hub and barometer of the community.
And that hub has gradually been eaten away at over the past few years.
Yes, we know times are tight. Yes, a parent company of a commercial organisation will always want to do what’s best to protect its bottom line. But that has increasingly come at the expense of what makes these stations unique: local content.
Without it, why would a local audience tune in to a station that plays the same pop music they can find elsewhere yet has little-to-no relevance to their area.
A well-run commercial radio sector is good for the industry, but a sector that cuts back and cuts back, takes away the most unique aspect of their offering and then complains that regulation favours their competitors isn’t going to win fans or listeners.
Interestingly, during my time in the South West, we were always told that the Devon stations were profitable and that they had the greatest local reach, especially in the more rural areas.
Quite whether that’s still the case, I have no idea. And commercial radio is always a lean operation that has to fight to make money.
And there are some DJs with a great local touch who, along with the journalists, know and care about their patch and connect with the audience. A ‘personality’ in a studio in London (or even Exeter, if you’re in Plymouth or Barnstaple) doesn’t quite have the same relevance.
Look at the screenshot of The Sun’s World Cup Blogger Sweepstake above. If you were a PR who’s been pitching football bloggers recently you might skim the blogs and think “Wow, that is a pretty impressive line up of bloggers. They’ve even managed to get some notoriously hard-to-reach, popular and high-class well respected blogs on board. I wonder how they managed that?”
Short answer: They didn’t.
Sure, they spoke to some bloggers. And some bloggers said no, and left it at that. And then saw their blog in the pages and on the website of The Sun.
Chris Taylor from It’ll Be Off was one of those bloggers. He’s not best pleased:
“I ignored this email, hoping that if I didn’t respond, I wouldn’t be involved in all this savage wankery. But sadly I am. My blog is now apparently Chile, and The Sun have publicised this site in a YouTube clip and on their website. I received another email from them yesterday asking for a little coverage of all this on my blog. So here you go:
I want to make it abundantly clear to everyone: I have nothing to do with this. I want nothing to do with this. And I am furious that the good(ish) name of my little blog, that ceased to be a concern some six months ago, is being used by the worst of all tabloids as some fucking publicity machine for their horrendous sweepstake generating iPhone app, and their even more horrendous newspaper.”
The Ball Is Round and twofootedtackle (the latter of whom I write and podcast for) agreed to enter into a prediction league but not the sweepstake and didn’t give their permission to be included or to use their logos.
There may well be more.
So what, you may say. Surely the bloggers should be happy that The Sun’s giving them free publicity. Surely they’ll gain readers and make more money and the like from this?
Possibly in same cases, but that isn’t really the point.
I’ve got no problem with the blogs that were happy to take part and are publicising it on their blogs. It’s their choice and they’re happy to take part. That’s fine.
But for those who declined or didn’t respond there’s several reasons why they’re well within their rights to be unhappy.
First off, The Sun has used their logo and blogs without permission. There’s a huge irony here given their owner, Rupert Murdoch’s, criticism of Google for stealing content on their news aggregation pages. So it’s not ok for Google but it’s fine for News International.
[EDIT: Sian asks in the comments what the legality of this is. I'm not entirely sure. It may be that The Sun haven't done anything wrong, legally, in using the names of logos. I'd be fascinated to hear from anybody who is a little more clued in than me on this]
Also, it’s then incredibly cheeky to use these logos when permission hasn’t been given and then email said blogger and mind if they’ll give it a bit of publicity on their blogs.
Secondly, the sweepstake isn’t just a bit of fun. It’s being used to promote an iPhone app. The implication here is that these bloggers, by taking part in the feature, endorse the application.
This leads to the third point. Several of the blogs The Sun’s included have built their reputation on independent, thoughtful analysis and have positioned themselves very much as an alternative viewpoint to the tabloid football frenzy, often criticising these writers. They are a world away from The Sun and often don’t take advertising and will very rarely, if ever, accept PR pitches, especially for something like an iPhone application.
In short, it affects their reputation. Especially if, in Chris Taylor’s case, they have serious ideological differences with The Sun and are critical of their coverage.
Finally, aside from the above, the whole thing is massively patronising to the blogs involved, especially those whose analysis and writing regularly outdoes the national press.
The “aren’t you lucky to be taking part” attitude sticks in the craw, the taking logos without permission then expecting an uncritical link back is sheer chutzpah and the prize for winning this sweepstake – an interview with The Sun’s chief sports writer – is a piece of condescending bone-tossing from old media to new media, to remind bloggers of their place in the hierarchy.
It does a disservice: to the bloggers involved who said no to the original request, to the readers who will assume that these blogs endorse The Sun, and to any hardworking PR who has spent ages building relations with these blogs for a very tiny mention, especially PRs from other papers.
(Disclosure: I have, in the past, been one of those PRs. And I worked hard to ensure any pitches were respectful and non-condescending and were more than just “we’re a big company, write nice things about us”. And I know several PRs from other papers and similar companies and they also adhere to the above.)
The sad thing is, there are so many football blogs that with a bit of time and research they could have probably found 32 bloggers willing to take part AND promote it on their sites. And if their initial blogger outreach was better and there was a better incentive at the end of it, they may have even got more bloggers onside.
Hell, it could have actually been fun, if you were one of those who wanted to get involved. (I wouldn’t have been but it’s not my place to tell other bloggers who they can and can’t endorse).
Instead, we’ve got some very unhappy bloggers.
Not, you suspect, that The Sun care much. After all, they’ve got a World Cup Sweepstake app to promote.
“I’m no huge fan of The Sun but it’s not like we’re being hugely exploited here. To be honest, I don’t think anyone who reads the paper gives the slightest shit about any of the blogs and they’re hardly using our logos to make money.”
Which is a fair point and it’s worth putting perspective on this. It isn’t the end of the world. But it’s also very bad practice, not to mention manners and it’s only by pointing this sort of thing out that you might (ha!) get a change of tune. It’s the principal of it all, innit.
He’s probably right that the majority of Sun readers probably don’t really care or read the blogs involved. I’d love to see them tackle one of Brian Phillips’ wonderfully cerebral pieces at The Run Of Play though.
UD 2: Brian’s pointed out that The Sun don’t even do them the courtesy of linking, so none of them have seen ay surge in traffic. It now appears that they do, through clickable images. Although I can’t find this, but I’ll take Brian’s word for it.
And, as Fredorraci points out in the comments below, despite this being billed as the UK’s top 32 blogs, several aren’t based in the UK. Brian’s site, for a start, is an American site.
It also seems that the total amount of traffic blogs have received through this has varied between nothing and not very much at all.
The floods in Peru have long since stopped making the news in the UK, but the relief effort still has a long way to go. Around 30-40 thousand people have been affected by the floods. Many are still living in tents or temporary accommodation. Houses are in a state of near-collapse. Some people have, quite literally, lost everything.
Until this time last week, my knowledge of Peru probably extended as far as Nolberto Solano and Paddington Bear. And that was about it. Yet this last week has meant I’ve been reading more about the South American country than I’d ever have envisaged. And feel I know enough to blog a couple of questions over the natural disaster.
Before I do, I’m well aware that while my focus on here has been spreading the word about my girlfriend, now safely rescued, there is also a big need for aid and a human cost to this all.
While, thankfully, the death toll has been relatively low, the devastation will be felt for months, even years, to come. More than 23,000 people have been left homeless, while over 37,000 people in the country have been affected by the floods. 80% of homes in the area have been destroyed. More than 16,000 hectares of crops have been damaged, many bridges have been destroyed and some areas of Cusco have no received any aid or help whatsoever.
So, what of both the aid effort and the rescue effort itself? Let’s start with the airlift and then move onto aid.
It was clear on Sunday that there would be a major operation needed to rescue all those trapped in and around Machu Picchu. The railway had been washed away and it would take several weeks to repair. With no way in or out of the village, at the very least, supplies would be needed.
It was also clear that, with just a few helicopters seconded to the area – initially two but rising to 11 – not to mention the devastation to the surrounding area, the effort fell some way short of what was required initially. Even if this was a localised problem, it wouldn’t have hurt to request help from neighbouring countries.
Yet we know from S that, despite reports of airlifts as early as Tuesday, the evacuation didn’t properly start until Thursday. Until then, only one American helicopter made an appearance in Machu Picchu.
The Americans did send helicopters to help evacuate their citizens, as is to be expected. Only after then did Peru manage to get use of their helicopters.
Organising an airlift is probably the easiest thing the Peruvian government had to do. Phone reception was still working, they knew where the majority of the tourists were stranded. Yet nothing was properly communicated until late Wednesday / early Thursday.
So, here’s the first question. Why did it take so long to organise the airlift? And why was no help request from other countries or outside agencies?
And now the aid itself. With so much devastation, with or without tourists, it was clear significant aid was needed. The government insisted it could manage, so made no requests to international aid agencies, the local Red Cross, or other countries.
In essence, the government control every aspect of the rescue and aid effort. If they don’t request any help, none can be given. Yet a week later, other than the tourists and the locals in Machu Picchu, the aid effort appears slow in the wider region of Cusco. This is worrying. The foreign press will now have turned their attention away from Cusco.
The area around Cusco has been designated an emergency zone, not a disaster zone. A disaster zone would have been more likely to bring international aid. An emergency zone meant the government could take care of it themselves? Why? It’s clear that foreign aid would have been useful here.
There are a number of theories you could put here, although it’s worth stressing there’s no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of the Peruvian government. But it does raise questions.
One theory (and apologies, as I’m moving of facts here to speculation) concerns the tourist trade. Peru is currently being sold as a booming economy, albeit one that relies heavily on tourism. It would make life uncomfortable for the authorities if a growing country with a strong economy couldn’t quickly look after its own citizens. They may also be worried about the effect abroad – hence the quick(ish) evacuation of the tourists, and the slowdown when it comes to aid for its own citizens.
The second theory is a little more complicated, and requires a little better understanding of Peruvian politics (and Spanish) than I currently have, but roughly concerns to the politicization of aid efforts.
This news report suggests that an official for the National Programme of Food Aid in Peru (PRONAA) used the agency to promote her own candidacy for upcoming elections.
As a quick end tangent to this, try Googling around the Peru earthquake of 2007, particularly around Pisco. And see how much you can find about progress in rebuilding the area after the quake.
At the end of the day, I’m obviously very grateful that the authorities airlifted S and others out of Machu Picchu, and that when help did finally arrive it was efficient. But it would also be terrible if the government left it just at saving foreign tourists.
There are people in Cusco whose livelihoods and homes have been completely destroyed by these floods. These are also the people who need help the most. They’re counting on their government not to let them down. Let’s hope expectation isn’t where their needs finish.
Ben Goldacre has covered the story in his Bad Science column, and it’s quite damning, especially his conversation with the expert, Dr Diane Harper. I’ll repost a paragraph from his article, which speaks for itself.
“…I contacted Professor Harper. For avoidance of doubt, so that there can be no question of me misrepresenting her views, unlike the Express, I will explain Professor Harper’s position on this issue in her own words. They are unambiguous.
“I did not say that Cervarix was as deadly as cervical cancer. I did not say that Cervarix could be riskier or more deadly than cervical cancer. I did not say that Cervarix was controversial, I stated that Cervarix is not a ‘controversial drug’. I did not ‘hit out’ – I was contacted by the press for facts. And this was not an exclusive interview.”
Journalists are fallible. We do make mistakes. Occasionally we get the wrong end of the stick. But there’s getting something wrong that you haven’t understood properly and bending the facts to a state where they can do longer be called facts any longer.
It depressed me, it really does. In an industry that’s going through upheaval and can be subject to greater scrutiny than ever from anybody with a computer – and that has serious trust issues – articles like this just serve to undermine the public’s trust in journalists even further.
As was highlighted in the Royal Institution debate, the Express can produce good, accurate journalism. And it’s always worth asking questions on health issues.
But not like this. This isn’t good journalism. It barely even passes as a form of journalism. It’s irresponsible writing that has the potential to lead to women needlessly developing cervical cancer.
Did the Sunday Express really think this was an acceptable trade-off for a headline-selling front page?
There’s reporting that you disagree with and then there’s an occasional point of journalism that’s just wrong. Not just wrong, but dangerously misleading to a degree that goes beyond scary.
Now, with the death of Natalie Morton, hours after she’d received the cervical cancer vaccine jab [1] was always going to lead to some interesting reporting. Some has been good, some has been bad and some has been scaremongering. Especially after the point where it was established that she died from a tumour and not the jab.
The story itself is largely built around the fears of an expert, Dr Diane Harper. In many respects, this is nothing unusual. Most journalists have built stories around experts. I’ve done it myself, although they’ve usually be economic stories rather than science.
And there’s nothing wrong with this, per se. Often an expert provides a new, different angle and also helps with one of the first rules of good journalism: tell the audience something they don’t already know. I’ve learned a lot from chatting to them and the stories are usually interesting.
But a lot depends on the expert themselves, who they are and what they are saying. And that, rather than the story they’re talking about, is the important part. Because there are a lot of interesting experts out there.
Let’s take AIDS as an example. It’s not stretching things too far to say Africa has a serious problem with the disease, and that antiretroviral drugs stop Aids becoming a death sentence for sufferers. Yet there are people, who have lots of expert-looking expert credentials, who will use arguments such as population growth in South Africa as a reason why the numbers of being dying from Aids is too high. Or that vitamins can cure the disease.
In short, they can sell themselves as experts but their claims aren’t necessarily the kind you’d put on the front page of a newspaper, and strongly suggest this outsider view is worth listening to.
But back to the Express and the cancer jab story, which, by the time the Express ran the interview, was fast becoming old news.
Reporting on just about any kind of issue is always going to ensure somebody shakes their head and disagrees with it. The more high-profile and emotive the story, the more likely this is.
I don’t often agree with the Sun or the Mail’s take on current affairs, but there are plenty of others who’ll be in tune with this line of thinking. There are tabloid scares – some justified, and some not – but usually there’s some basis to start from.
Not here. Virtually every bit of the Express article is just plain wrong. I dislike hyperbole, but there’s a very real chance that parents could read the story, refuse to allow their daughters the jab, only for their daughter to catch the virus, and contract cancer. This isn’t politics, or food scares, or the like, this is the health, life and potentially death of the next generation of the female population. Is it really worth getting blood on the hands to sell a few extra papers in this manner?
I’m not hugely fond of jumping up and down and crying bad journalism at the tabloids (or the broadsheets) – stones and glass houses and all that. There’s a lot of good journalism in all of them, and I’m continually amazed in the best possible way at how good some of the journalists I know one these papers are.
But just because we’re in a profession, doesn’t mean we can’t hold it to account and call it out when publications get it badly, dangerously wrong. There’s a line between reporting potential health problems and dangerous scaremongering that could cost lives. On this occasion, the Express have crossed it [2]. I posted a link to the piece on Twitter earlier. One response from a journalist said: “That makes me want to disown my profession.”
In fact, this story has got me so upset at the reporting that I’m going to do something I’ve never even come remotely close to ever wanting to do before: complain to the Press Complaints Commission.
Frankly, I don’t expect it to have much effect. The organisation is somewhat toothless at the best of time. And writing to it feels like grassing up somebody at school.
But if nobody says anything, it means there will be more bad science, more panic and, potentially, more lives lost. I’m not trying to set myself as an arbiter of what’s good or bad journalism; I’m just beyond appalled at this one article.
If you feel the same, then I’d urge you to also complain.To help, my old colleague Chris White has already written a letter (about 3 minutes after reading the story). He sent me the text of his complaint and I’ve reprinted it below. Feel free to adapt it for your own use:
“The front page of the issue of the Sunday Express published on 4 October 2009 leads with the headline “Jab ‘as deadly as the cancer’.”
The “jab” in question is the Cervarix vaccination against the two strains of human papillomavirus shown to trigger up to 70% of cases of cervical cancer.
The story follows the death of 14-year-old schoolgirl Natalie Morton, who died shortly after receiving the vacciation – but whose postmortem found her cause of death to have been a previously undiagnosed tumour.
The claim that the vaccination is as deadly as the cancer is manifestly untrue. At the time of this solitary death, around 1.5 million girls had received the vaccination. Cervical cancer affects an estimated 16 women per 100,000 per year, and is fatal for around 9 women per 100,000 per year. Even if the vaccination had been responsible for the death of Natalie Morton, then the cancer is clearly almost 150 times more dangerous than the vaccination.
That this is based on the opinion of “expert” Diane Harper is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what her opinion is: it only matters what the data show. (This is why academics are subject to a process of peer review for publishing their work: despite their supposed expertise, papers must be approved of by their peers before publication. The mere opinions even of experts count for little within their own communities and should not carry any greater weight with the public, nor with journalists.) There are no data suggesting that the vaccination is dangerous.
Furthermore, the quote from one Richard Halvorsen questioning the postmortem finding that Natalie Morton died from cancer, “If you have cancer you have symptoms”, is, essentially, a lie. Many cases of cancer can be asymptomatic — including, in a tragic piece of irony, most cases of cervical cancer.
This is little more than ill-founded scaremongering and irresponsible journalism of the worst kind. Its only effect is bound to be — as was the case with the coverage the MMR “controversy” — to reduce take-up of the vaccine, in which case the Sunday Express will share responsibility for further deaths.”
[1] Ok, I’m taking liberties here as well. I know it’s jab about the virus that can lead to cervical cancer rather than the cancer itself.
[2] Ironically, a story from the Express was held us as a good example of science reporting at the debate between Lord Drayson and Ben Goldacre, and I’d go along with the Science Minster to a point when he says that sensationalist reporting can be good for science. The Express’ article goes long beyond that point.
Earlier today, Mr Justice Eady [1] ruled that the author of the NightJack blog could not stay anonymous. This will probably mean nothing to most people, but could be a significant case law ruling when it coming to blogging and, potentially, whistleblowing.
If you’ve never heard of NightJack, he’s a policeman who blogged anonymously and candidly about his job. It was an eye-opener and a great read that made you emphasise with hiss job. The blog won an Orwell Award for the quality of it’s writing.
That blog is no more and the author has been disciplined after The Times ‘outed’ NightJack. One of their reporters worked out the bloggers identity, the blogger took out an injunction, the Times challenged that injunction and today’s ruling is the end result. Bloggers cannot expect anonymity.
The Times says of the ruling: “Today newspaper lawyers were celebrating one of the rarer Eady rulings in their favour.” I’d beg to differ. It leaves me with a slightly sick feeling in my stomach and a slightly bitter taste in the mouth.
Let’s go, if I may, on a slight tangent before getting back to the case in hand. Generally speaking, for both blogging an the internet, I think moving away from anonymity is a good thing. We’re moving to an era, especially with social media, where identity is more open and the internet is all the better for it. It cuts down on trolling for a start.
I’m also a big fan of openness and accountability. If somebody asked me about starting a blog, I’d suggest they do it under their own name, or at least made it clear who they were. It clears up any misunderstandings from the off – setting out your stall so people know who you are.
Let’s also be clear, when we’re talking about anonymity, we’re not talking about identities created around blogging here. NightJack was very different to the likes of Devil’s Kitchen, Chicken Yoghurt, Doctor Vee, Bloggerheads or many of the other well-known bloggers. They have their online identity which sites alongside their real name. Anybody can find out who they are in a matter of seconds – their pen names are their blogging personas.
Moving onto the judgement, I can see why Mr Justice Eady came to his eventual judgement. It’s still a bit of a mess but can be fitted into the letter of the law, by and large (although, and this is one of the wonders of the vagueries of the English legal system, you could easily have seen him ruling the other way).
But the judgement: the reasoning, the logic and the whole lead-up to this just doesn’t feel right. As Paul Bradshaw says:
“… this is a ruling that has enormous implications for whistleblowers and people blogging ‘on the ground’. That’s someone else’s ‘public interest’.
And that last element is the saddest for me.”
Let’s leave aside the judgement itself for a minute (the judge can only really rule what’s in front of him) and look to The Times and their role in unmasking NightJack. This is the part that leaves me uneasiest of all.
Their journalist pieced together who NightJack was and then went to publish. And the question I have is why? [2]
NightJack is a public servant, true, but in the grand scheme of things he really isn’t that important. Certainly, going to all this effort to unmask him seems a little, well, excessive.
He’s a blogger. A well-read blogger, yes, and an award-winning one. But is it really in the public’s interest, as opposed to being merely interesting to the public, to know who he is? If he were a Chief Constable, a high-ranking BBC employee, an MP or a civil servant, I could understand this. But a Detective Constable in Lancashire? It’s hardly a high-level scoop is it? Or, indeed, a high-profile and significant victory for openness, as they portray the judgement.
[The other thing that sits uneasy with me here is The Times have previous in this area when they unmasked Girl With A One Track Mind for no other reason, seemingly, than they could. That, more than NightJack, seemed like a particularly pointless act for the sake of a story].
Justin McKeating makes a very good point with regard to The Times’ victory today: that of anonymous sources for journalists. They may not be bloggers, but you can see where Justin’s coming from – the principle is very similar (and apologies for copying a large chunk of his text here, but it helps place his argument in context:
Would I be wrong in thinking that anonymous sources, insiders and friends are conducting the business of democracy in the media with the willing collusion of journalists? If nothing else, it’s in direct contravention of the ‘different type of politics’ promised to us by Gordon Brown – a politics promising a ‘more open and honest dialogue‘.
It would seem to me that some kind of public interest challenge in the courts is in order. Imagine the story in The Times…
Thousands of ’sources’, ‘insiders’ and ‘friends’ churn out opinions daily — secure in the protection afforded to them by the cloak of anonymity lent to them by obsequious journalists.
From today, however, they can no longer be sure that their identity can be kept secret, after a landmark ruling by Mr Justice Eady.
The judge, who is known for establishing case law with his judgments on privacy, has struck a blow in favour of openness, ruling that democracy is “essentially a public rather than a private activity”.
What could be more in the public interest than that?
Would I be wrong in thinking that anonymous sources, insiders and friends are conducting the business of democracy in the media with the willing collusion of journalists? If nothing else, it’s in direct contravention of the ‘different type of politics’ promised to us by Gordon Brown – a politics promising a ‘more open and honest dialogue‘.
It would seem to me that some kind of public interest challenge in the courts is in order. Imagine the story in The Times…
Thousands of ’sources’, ‘insiders’ and ‘friends’ churn out opinions daily — secure in the protection afforded to them by the cloak of anonymity lent to them by obsequious journalists.
From today, however, they can no longer be sure that their identity can be kept secret, after a landmark ruling by Mr Justice Eady.
The judge, who is known for establishing case law with his judgments on privacy, has struck a blow in favour of openness, ruling that democracy is “essentially a public rather than a private activity”.
What could be more in the public interest than that?
This comes back to Paul Bradshaw’s earlier point about whistleblowers and ‘on the ground’ bloggers.
When it comes to the majority of bloggers, it probably doesn’t matter too much whether they’re anonymous or not. It’d be nice if we knew who they were, as I said earlier, but, at the end of the day, most of the time it’s not really a huge issue.
But those bloggers who write detailed and informative posts about their profession are much rarer and are worth treasuring. Blogs like NightJack, PC Bloggs, Dr Crippen and The Magistrate’s Blogs are essential reads.
They are candid and often eye-opening and enables you to get a better idea of the problems facing our police force, judiciary and NHS. They lift the lid, often a very small lid, on the inner workings of these professions. If anything, they give the public a remarkable insight into the inner workings. And to my mind, this is largely a good thing, as Tom Reynolds points out:
“What bloggers do is humanise and explain their section of the world – public sector bodies do well to have bloggers writing within them, after all these are the people who careabout what they do, about what improvements should be made and about where the faults come from. They highlight these things in the hopes that, in bringing this information into the public consciousness, they can effect a change that they would otherwise be powerless to bring about.
Anonymity provides a protection against vindictiveness from management who would rather do nothing than repeat the party-line, or lie, that everything is perfect, there is no cause for concern. Having seen management do, essentially illegal things, in order to persecute and victimise staff – anonymity is a way of protecting your mortgage payments.”
You can understand why they are anonymous [3]. The blogs probably contravene the terms of their employment. Yet, in their own small ways, they are important for the public to read, more so than the person writing them (in all honesty, the writer of NightJack could have been any Detective Constable). [4]
There are very few bloggers for whom anonymity is a near-necessity, and if it stops others coming forward to give their insights then the internet will be poorer for it. And for what purpose. One article that doesn’t really amount to much.
Not everybody will agree with this. David MacLean makes some very good points as to why NightJack shouldn’t remain anonymous, although even he calls The Times’ decision to publish “a tough one”.
In the grand scheme of things, The Times’ unmasking story by itself really isn’t overly big. The legacy of if could well be.
[1] A name familiar to anybody who’s studied media law.
[3] Not all are. Tom Reynolds from Random Acts of Reality, who has some fairly strong words about this case, and Suzi Brent from Nee Naw are more public examples. But I’d wager they’ve had some awkward conversations with their line managers at some point.
[4] One of The Times’ arguments was NightJack was committing Contempt of Court with his posts, and there is an argument here. Certainly if the blog had collapsed a trial there would be little argument against naming the author. That said, the internet is a hideously grey area when it comes to contempt. A reasonable amount of time on Google would probably produce enough to piece together extra information on any significant trial covered in either the national or local press. You’d probably have to do a fair bit of work to piece together events from a trial and link them back to the blog, and the level of threat the blog posed to a fair trial… possibly minimal. It doesn’t make it right, but I’d be surprised if anything NightJack wrote would have led to a trial being abandoned.
What you’ve been saying