You're a tad harsh on the JournoWimps (what does that actually mean?) I think. A significant proportion of journalists, including many regional newspaper hacks, make their living out of reporting on other people's misery.

The principle - people pay to read about others' misfortunes - is the same whether you are being remunerated as freelance or staff!

Sure. And so journalists find ways of living with themselves for that. You harden your heart, say it's a dirty job but someone has to do it, treat it as a joke, or argue some public interest. And probably different things at different times with different amounts of success.

What's sickening about much of the JournoWimps' discussion is that they do not stop to ponder the ethics of profiteering from people's personal tragedies and at the same time claim the moral high ground for not having personal debates or unpleasantness on their forum.

They wouldn't permit a discussion of this on their forum. They are terrified of being challenged. That is why they are known as wimps.

But while looking after each other's sensibilities, they care zilch for those of their "case studies", as they call people who supply the raw material they flog to anyone they can regardless of consequences. Which is why I think it is good and necessary to be hard on them.

Les

Who uses the word 'wimps'? Do you wear sky blue short-sleeved shirts? Perhpas you should grow the backbone and at least plunge the dagger in...

There's a time and a place for 'personal debates and unpleasantness', and it makes sense to dodge any legal repercussions
Also, it's interesting that this website is 'connected' to a very visible competitor to thewebsite you see fit to bitch about.

Really, Les, are you so lacking in things to occupy your mind that you've either bookmarked or trawled for a thread 'a couple of weeks back' to try and prove the point that the 'JournoWimps' are really nasty bastards inside a sugar-coated shell? I can practically hear you splutter and hurrumph as you bash away at your keyboard, what with all these 'girlies' being nice to each other, and a load of effeminate chaps who aren't fit to lace a real old hack's boots.

As for "They wouldn't permit a discussion of this on their forum. They are terrified of being challenged"... I think you'll find there's very little deleted on that forum and that if you went over there and brought it up, you'd likely provoke a very healthy and challenging discussion.

The niceness isn't really a nampy-pamby love-in as you like to think... it's more about not being a twat on a forum when someone - newbie, student, weary old sod like yourself - asks for advice.

Have a nice day. There's a new series of Grumpy Old Men on soon to soothe yoour ire.

It's very difficult to work out, Les, exactly what it is you approve of in your role as the guardian of the free press. You clearly don't like hacks, preferring not to put your sandalled-foot outside the front door of your Hoxton flat (well done Liddle for doing so - extraordinary initiative for a columnist, eh, what?) You also clearly disapprove of using real-life experiences for the basis of magazine stories (sorry all you people who read these mags - Les says you're deriving some form of depraved pleasure and Chat etc should all be closed down). Oh, yes, and you certainly don't approve of using press releases as the basis for a story or, for that matter, journalists having affairs with Boris J. Far better to sit in your flat and bash out a couple of stories for the trade press and worry about whether a forthcoming Bank Holiday might impinge on your autistic schedule. Young journalists take note - journalism isn't about schedules and sitting by your phone worrying about the morals of using information contained in a press release. It's about getting great stories in the papers and magazines, meeting intersting people, going to interesting places, informing people and actually enjoying what you are doing. Ethics come in to everything we do, every day of our lives at work and at home and it's a balance that every individual must make. But, Les, lighten up. If you had your way the only publications that existed would be Light Bulbs Weekly, editor Les Hack. Why use the word Hack as your name. You are so far from being a Hack. Maybe it's ironic...

Quick clarification. A hack, as I mean it, is someone who produces journalistic words, to order, for a living.

It doesn't mean light-headed bozo who rummages through other people's lives, having a laugh, not caring overmuch about the consequences but vaguely conscious that what they are doing is morally dubious and potentially deeply distressing for a lot of people to no purpose. There might be a word for those people, but it's not hack. It could be Piers Morgan.

Les

Keep on writing for the trade press Les Hack. By doing so you'll avoid having any contact whatsoever with 'other people's lives' let alone having to do any rummaging. And, heaven forbid, anyone anywhere should ever be distressed by what is written in the press....Keep it anodyne and don't enjoy yourself in your work, says Les.

Les Hack does not say keep it anodyne. That's why he writes a blog that irritates some people and brings humour and sunshine to others. And enjoys it. Why is it, Jimmy, that you are happy to have a laugh shining a torch into other people's lives. But get seriously edgy when someone does it to journalists. Perhaps a bit overly defensive? A bit conflicted, are we?

Les

Who said 'have a laugh'? I'm talking about enjoying, taking satisfaction from journalistic excellence derived from shining a torch into people's lives. Les clearly cannot quite understand that some people deserve having their lives subjected to public scrutiny, while others profer their lives for said scrutiny. People make news, not light bulbs...

Without going into the whole reporting "other people's misery" debate, Les, I think you are overlooking the sheer usefulness of Journobiz. It's not just a place where journalists go to be nice to each other.

Where else, for instance, could I go to find out information on the type of pitch a particular editor prefers, his/her response time, general treatment of freelancers, and all the other information that simply can't be easily obtained by picking up the phone or emailing? I am on several other journo forums, and yes, perhaps there are better debates on "serious" issues elsewhere. But, if I were to ask for any useful inside information ( and I am NOT talking about information I might obtain myself by basic research) I would very likely be shot down in flames by miserable old hacks who came up the hard way, as they never tire of telling me.

I don't believe those of us at Journobiz shy away from challenge or serious debate. What I have seen on the other forums, though, is that journalists seem utterly incapable of debating anything without flinging invective and flouncing off in a huff. And frankly, it's a bloody waste of time.

Without going into the whole reporting "other people's misery" debate, Les, I think you are overlooking the sheer usefulness of Journobiz

Sorry to labour this, but this is about reporting other people's misery, and making money from it, and how people handle that. You say that JournoBiz doesn't shy away from debate. But it does - emphatically. It turned this debate into one of almost entirely personal invective, and when one person tentatively raised the issue of obtaining real life stories, became utterly silent.

You're welcome, btw, to the extended free advert for JournoBiz forum - which I hope puts an end to the notion that because journalism.co.uk kindly hosts this site and does the techno stuff it somehow has editorial control or approval. It doesn't. And I'm a bit disappointed at professional hacks who can't recognise editorial independence when they see it.

So perhaps you might tell those nice people at JB who are thinking of a flame war between the operations that their belligerence is misplaced.

Les

You're welcome, btw, to the extended free advert for JournoBiz forum - which I hope puts an end to the notion that because journalism.co.uk kindly hosts this site and does the techno stuff it somehow has editorial control or approval. It doesn't. And I'm a bit disappointed at professional hacks who can't recognise editorial independence when they see it.

"There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail..."

So we should not cover stories like the Tsunami. Other people's misery - and we make money from it.

So we should not cover stories like the Tsunami. Other people's misery - and we make money from it. - Jimmy

Don't you think you might be taking reductio ad absurdum a bit far, Jimmy?

I point to someone who herself has had ethical problems with the work she did. And someone else chasing a bereaved mother so he can go on holiday. And you think I'm questioning covering the tsunami. I'm not. Glad to clear that up.

Les

"I'm a bit disappointed at professional hacks who can't recognise editorial independence when they see it."

Ohoh. So prima facie evidence of conflict of interest is not admissible [?sp], here?

m

[quote] It turned this debate into one of almost entirely personal invective [quote]

Without stooping so low as to say 'You started it...' oh, all right then, you started it!

If you're going to get on your high horse about personal invective, should you really start your argument off with a bastardisation of their site name, JournoWimps? I could as easily call this Les Cack's blog, but it renders it a bit personal and immature. Should you really tar all the members with the one brush? If you're going to go for the jugular and stoke a debate (and that's fine if you are), can you really moan about personal invective?

I would imagine Hack Less resorted to personal invective in a bid to stir some interest in this blog (see the vacuums surrounding his previous posts). And, I suppose, it's worked. But, surely, someone of such moral probity as Lack Lustre wouldn't be so 'tabloid' as to purposefully court controversy....??

Ohoh. So prima facie evidence of conflict of interest is not admissible [?sp], here?

Sure it's admissible. Just makes me slightly disappointed. The cynicism of some journalists. Tcha!

If you're going to go for the jugular and stoke a debate (and that's fine if you are), can you really moan about personal invective?

I don't moan about personal invective. I like it. It needs to be balanced - on its own, it's poor. But combined with argument, analysis and evidence, it is fine & healthy. I do moan about people who moan about personal invective (I've even been so moany as to call them wimps) because I worry that it masks a failure to confront important issues. They risk tolerating what ought not to be tolerated, for fear of giving offence.

Les

So "what ought not to be tolerated"? The 'skullduggery and unethical posting' of the two examples from 45,000 you've selected, which with a better choice of words by one poster, and maybe a little less wide-eyed naivety by the other, would likely not have raised an eyebrow?

Foot-in-the-door unethical journalism is hardly rampant on there, is it? And if you think it is, what would you have done with it? Who should be confronting it?

And you did rather label the entire forum rather than just the individual posters.

I can see your point Les. I did join the forum you term journowimps about a year ago. But after a month or so I stopped bothering with it. No offence to the folk on the list, but it came to the point where I was expecting the next thread to be about favourite knitting patterns and suggestions for a hot tips for a successful coffee morning. Nothing wrong with that, even for a journo forum. Knitting jumpers helps cut down your costs in winter and coffee mornings are solid for networking. But I find the journalism.co.uk list far more engaging, argumentaive and interesting. Horses - with knitted nosebags - for courses and all that.

If you look at the following thread, from another forum, this time largely populated by regional journalists, you'll see why 'being nice to each other' isn't always so nauseating.

http://www.news-monkey.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=416

I haven't posted a knitting pattern yet but I have posted a link to a picture of my babies. Seemed to go down quite well.

I think you're being a little unfair, Les. You've picked one thread to justify your claim that the 700-odd members "care zilch for those of their "case studies", as they call people who supply the raw material they flog to anyone they can regardless of consequences." The day before you posted your rant, another topic discussed, er, caring about case studies.

I sincerely hope you're not going down the trolling for traffic route, because there's more interesting stuff to blog about.

I think you're being a little unfair, Les. You've picked one thread to justify your claim that the 700-odd members "care zilch for those of their "case studies", as they call people who supply the raw material they flog to anyone they can regardless of consequences."

I don't know why you and others are so concerned about the selectivity involved here. It was the silence that followed both posts that was striking. And that implicated everyone. Either they are, en masse, careless of their interviewees' sensibilities, which I agree is unlikely. Or they are wimps for not speaking out.

The headmistress shut the thread down yesterday. There is something preposterous about getting people to a meeting, real or virtual, and trying to control what they can and can't talk about. But again, the little lambs failed even to bleat.

Makes me wonder what Headmistress Murray's seminars are like. Perhaps I'll take my cj mobile phone camera, enrage her by talking journalistic ethics and film her putting me in detention.

Some of us never grow up.

Les

The 'headmistress' hasn't shut the thread down. It's open for anybody to post in, including you. She's suggested we leave it there on the basis it was dominating everything else on the forum, but if anyone else wants to add their two'penneth, go right ahead. I know it must be very frustrating for you, Les, that nobody's resurrected the thread, what with you having spent several hours browsing the site today and rifling through anything with a subject heading 'case study'...

Are you looking for an official position from us on journalistic ethics? I didn't see the second thread you alluded to in your original missive at the time it was written, and I'm not sure it's my job to judge the journo 'going PR'. Surely that's her affair?

And personally, I don't feel the need to clamp down on case study requests when - with the exception of the one you've highlighted - they don't break any new ground in the ethics department (though I'm sure you'll disagree and have the facts at your disposal).

We're not a high-brow forum, we're not dealing in weighty issues, we never pretended to. We're a handy means (or no doubt a 'lazy tool' in your world) for connecting freelancers, their ideas and contacts. We're hardly raking through the bones of corpses and souls of the vulnerable every day in our bloodthirsty quest for a byline in Pick Me Up.

I find your several hours of lurking on our forum over the past week quite phenomenal given your original posting on our forum where you half-extended the hand of friendship. True, you later took some flak from members, but I'd've thought that was par for the course in the cyber domains you frequent?

Are you looking for an official position from us on journalistic ethics?

Got one, thanks. Jan's made it clear that you don't do journalistic ethics.

I think that is itself an ethical position. Not one to be proud of. One to be criticised. So I do.

Les

> Or they are wimps for not speaking out.

Or they're too busy, or can't be bothered getting involved in threads that don't interest them. If I posted to journobiz, ukpress, freelance list or whatever whenever someone said something I thought was insensitive, daft, deliberately argumentative or anything else negative, I wouldn't have time to get any work done.

Eeeh Gary, lad. Didn't you young people do any chemistry at school?

We were taught you're either part of the solution - or you're part of the precipitate.

Solid stuff.

Les

Well for what it's worth I agree with Les.
I'm a member of the http://www.news-monkey.com forums mentioned above and I can see a stark clash between the styles of both sites.
I personally find the niceness of Ms Murray's forum a little... to use a word in the blog title... nauseating, but each to their own. I'm much more at home on news-monkey because there's no thread police to speak of to dictate what can and can't be said. It polices itself, really.
A site which just glows with niceties simply isn't real-to-life and makes me a little queasy.

"But again, the little lambs failed even to bleat."

Nothing further I wanted to say on that thread...
otherwise I would have.

Cheers Euphrosene

Permit me please to rake up old threads. I think on any media forum you are going to get a mixture of several 'types' - including boring old farts, aspiring journos who need a reality check and those who are a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
What you seem to get quite a lot of on the JournoBiz forum is erm, women. It's not entirely simplistic to suggest that actually women, at times, can do business differently to men. Some people can see this as 'nicey nicey' girlie nonsense - and who can blame them?
People may not spend their time pontificating about the rights and wrongs of examples of journalistic conduct on this particular forum - but the headmistress as you call her has gone out of her way to help others find a step up to being published - sharing contacts and passing on advice based on experience.
That's quite an honourable thing to do, isn't it? Instead of responding to an appeal for information with 'Pick up the phone you lazy b******', I mean. That approach may be closer to real life in some people's eyes - but it doesn't make it right, does it?

Eeeh Gary, lad. Didn't you young people do any chemistry at school?

We were taught you're either part of the solution - or you're part of the precipitate.

You never got as far as colloids, then. Somehow, I'm not surprised.

You never got as far as colloids, then. Somehow, I'm not surprised. - Charles Arthur

Your disdain for people who never got as far as colloids is duly noted.

Unpleasant character, aren't you?

Les