It's good to talk... isn't it?

Following my post urging the National Union of Journalists to launch its own, open-access bulletin board to regain its foothold in journalistic debate, it seems the Press Gazette is to launch its own online discussion forum in association with AOL.

Given the current furore over at the Grauniad's 'blogs-for-all' Comment Is Free section, where some have been calling for more control over, among other things, the language used in comments, it will be interesting to see how the PG copes with attempting to moderate debate between its readers. Journalists are generally not noted for being nice to each other, and at at the same time are notoriously sensitive to criticism. Oh, and they hate being moderated.

Should be fun.

Those nice people at The Guardian...

Press release just out from the National Union of Journalists (reproduced verbatim):

Night editor wins RSI damages of £37,500

A Guardian newspaper night editor who was refused access to the company physiotherapist after developing crippling elbow pain and was eventually forced to leave the paper, has been paid £37, 500 damages.

Andrea Osbourne, who had been a casual at the paper for two and a half years, worked almost exclusively using a mouse, at speed, for an average nine hours a night, and up to 45 hours a week, without a break. No risk assessment was carried out when she started the job in February 2001.

By May 2002 she had developed stiffness and pain in her right elbow. Soon she was unable even to lift a kettle. Her GP diagnosed repetitive strain injury, gave her a cortisone injection and told her the waiting list for NHS physio was so long she should seek help from her employer. The Guardian's HR department refused.

Requests for a workplace assessment were ignored by the health and safety unit, and a risk assessment, which was eventually carried out by the editor's PA, did not cover mouse usage.

Andrea carried on working because the injection had eased the pain. Another request to see the company physio was refused as she was told the facility was only available to permanent members of staff, not to casuals. The HR department advised that the pain was caused by a neck problem and was nothing to do with the mouse.

The pain returned in early 2003 and was so intense that Andrea was unable to bend her elbow. The pain eased during the day but finally, in March 2003, it had become constant and she was unable to continue working. She was told by a hospital consultant that she would never be able to do that type of work again and was advised to seek an alternative career.

She was unable to work and suffered financial difficulties. Gradually, following nine months or rest and physio, the movement returned in her right elbow and she eventually secured a lower paid job in new media.

Andrea said: "The Guardian showed absolutely no sympathy. Because I was employed as a casual and didn’t have a permanent contract, they refused my requests for physiotherapy and made no attempt to find a way for me to work which would have reduced the repetitive strain in my elbow. The paper has all but ended my career in website editing and production."

Marion Voss, Andrea's solicitor at NUJ lawyers Thompsons said: "The Guardian failed in its duty of care to Andrea. This is one of the worse cases Thompsons has seen of a newspaper employer refusing to follow basic health and safety procedures. When so much is being talked about by HR professionals and the insurance industry about the importance of rehabilitation, that the paper refused Andrea treatment that might have enabled her to keep working is disgraceful."

How journalism works (sometimes)

About four years ago, I was at a conference which was covered by specialist correspondents from most of the national papers.

The press officers from the organisation behind the conference were very attentive, giving regular briefs on the 'breaking' stories of the day and obligingly offering up case studies and people who had taken part in the key debates for the press to interview.

The correspondents huddled together for the briefs, interviewed the subjects collectively, and checked with each other afterwards to make sure they had written down the quotes correctly.

For the press officers, it was like spoonfeeding babies. Not one paper journalist dared to do anything different - in fact they even checked with each other to make sure they were all following the same angle on their stories. So much for competition between national newspapers then.

The best part came when, on the eve of a planned press dinner with the press officers, the woman from the Daily Mail offered to finish off the Guardian correspondents' story for him while he nipped back to his hotel to get changed. To his credit, he turned her down, but he did not seem to be that surprised or shocked by the suggestion.

So everyone has an easy life, no-one gets a bollocking from their editor for missing a story, and the press officers get to dictate the news agenda as their employers would wish.

As like as chalk and cheese?

Journalists are in the business of exposing the truth, PRs are in the business of twisting it. Journalists want nothing more than to strip away the protective layers with which the powerful camouflage their objectives or their achievements; PRs are paid by the powerful to prevent precisely this. So no, there is no moral equivalence between journalism and PR.

Thus wrote Cristina Odone in the Guardian last month, further fuelling the debate that has raged over Julia Hobsbawm's attempt to bridge the divide betwen PRs and journalists that is Editorial Intelligence.

Oh if only it were so black and white as that. The truth is a murkier grey.

In an increasingly controlling and paranoid world, PRs have proliferated and risen to the surface like the scum on a cup of calciferous tea to increasingly obfuscate truth and obstruct journalists in their daily lives. But journalists have to get a job done like everyone else and, under the pressure of deadlines, or possibly motivated by ruthless ambition, they are easy prey to the more skillful practitioners of the black arts.

A favour here, a genuine news tidbit there, some horsetrading over what to report and what not to, oh and here's a freebie (feel free to write what you think about it, because obviously you cannot be bought).

And so it goes on.

Morally on higher ground? Perhaps, but on a very slippery slope.

Outbreak of niceness threatens to stifle debate

A little birdie tells me that someone on the National Union of Journalists' (NUJ) new media council thinks there is too much negativity on the union's email discussion lists. Apparently it's a big turnoff for the younger folk and there is talk about introducing a set of guidelines on how to conduct debates.

Oh dear.

First off, we are a nation of whingers - but that is not a bad thing. It's a national hobby, like discussing the weather, and is actually quite cathartic. Especially if you happen to work in isolation as many freelance journalists and photographers do. The chance to get together and have a good moan is a great way to let off steam and is part of creating a community.

Secondly, how exactly do you have a debate without an opposing view? It is sometimes actually a matter of good manners to argue the opposite point, even if you don't necessarily believe what you are arguing. Debate refines arguments, and good debate more often than not results in better policies or strategies. Of course some arguments can never be resolved, but those that follow them will be the better informed for doing so.

So back to the NUJ. The email lists it runs are only open to NUJ members and, even then, quite difficult to access. So not a great recruitment tool then. Meanwhile other, open lists, flourish and do a great deal more to get some of the messages of the NUJ across to working journalists and photographers, thanks to the active participation of NUJ members who have become frustrated with their union's progress on the web. Worse still, in this vacuum bulletin boards have sprung up offering "advice" to young journalists and wannabes; advice that is often of a dubious, ill-informed quality and with a hidden commercial agenda.

The NUJ needs to move fast to reclaim this ground. The union is the best-qualified body to offer advice (it also has a great training programme) and needs to embrace the web's community-building tools to recruit young journalists to its ranks. That means open access, the active participation of NUJ officers and realistic, informed advice and debate.

Swimming upstream

MSM. A food additive? A Microsoft software package? A sexually transmitted disease? No. It stands for mainstream media and, in the blogosphere, is apparently shorthand for being old, out of touch, technophobic and protectionist, espousing values that have no place in the modern world.

Well I was a young journalist once. I was idealistic and rebellious and headstrong. But I did respect my elders in the profession, and took it as read that basic principles of journalism were not there to be challenged, having evolved over at least a century of journalistic practice. My journalistic heroes were anti-establishment; the idea that journalism was just another part of the propaganda machine that is government and commerce was an anathema to me and many of my peers.

Perhaps we were deluded. Certainly newspaper journalism has dramatically declined in quality over the past couple of decades. Instead of writing about other people and their stories, journalists started writing about their own lives. Suddenly all journalists had opinions apparently worthy of sharing with the nation.

Celebrity journalism now dominates the tabloids, and even celebrity status is being dumbed down thanks to reality TV. This is what the readers want, the argument goes, so the public gets the press it deserves.

But hold on, newspaper circulations are in freefall. That'll be the interweb then. Err, no, perhaps a factor but the disease predates the rise of the web. John C. Dvorak recently wrote the following on pcmag.com:

Joseph Pulitzer invented the idea of the journalism school before 1900. These institutions spread over time but didn't really take hold until the 1960s. By 1970, newspapers had begun to decline. Coincidence?

A sign quoting Pulitzer, posted at the Columbia School of Journalism as a kind of mantra, epitomizes the problem: "Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery."

The problem is the word "disinterested." [sic] It's the hallmark of journalism today and translates to bored and boring. Besides not giving a hoot about the story, the disinterested observer is often hoodwinked and subject to public-relations manipulations. Apparently, nobody sees this as a problem.

Mainstream media no longer commands the moral high ground if, essentially, it is partly producing the kind of content that can be easily emulated by bloggers, often to a higher standard.

Responding to a claim by Jonathan last that opinion writing is an insignficant part of journalism (no longer so in the UK?), Mithridate Ombud writes on News Busters:

If opinion writing is such a tiny and inconsequential corner of journalism, then why don't they give it up? Why do newspapers fill their pages with opinion and columnists? Why don't they just reprint bloggers? Why do they feel the need to endorse political candidates for office, thereby alienating themselves from half of their readers, if it is so inconsequential?

....Bloggers are not replacements for reporters, they are replacements for columnists and ombudsmans, especially for newspapers whose ombud is a journalism insider or is afraid to step on toes or who may not exist at all. The big problem is not bloggers who act like reporters, but reporters who act like bloggers. How many times have you read something where you know the reporter never left their desk? Where the story is not advanced? Where the sources are all online?

Why don't they just reprint bloggers? Why not indeed. Cheaper or even free content without the pretensions now associatied with the journalism 'elite'. It's already starting to happen... watch this space, and watch your backs columnists.

Some working definitions...

Journos - people in the business of public relations, or the willing mouthpieces of public relations people, pretending to be, or aspiring to be, journalists. And/or someone who is prepared to write fiction masquerading as fact for money. EG a typical 'journo' would be prepared to invent quotes or encourage interviewees to lie in order to please editors. Journos tend to congregate in groups to mutually massage their egos, but are scared easily if challenged.

Journojizz - the emission(s) from journos

Fluffies - supporters of, or people aspiring to be, 'journos'

I'm back, or should I say we're back?

I'm back from my holiday and I am a changed man. Literally. Les Hack is now the proud father of a litter of kittens and they will be relieving me of my duties here so I can put my paws to more profitable pursuits.

So farewell fluffies, my alley cat duelling days in these parts are over. Have fun with the little ones, I hope they will keep you entertained.