A tale of two professions..

Take a look at these quotes:

"The concerns about conflicts of interest are much more at the top of my mind than they were 10 or 15 years ago."

On close links with industry, this person says...
"...we are going to have to wean ourselves off a dependency that is generally inappropriate. This relationship is one of those things we need to clean up. The sooner the better."

"Some conflicts are unavoidable; but that doesn't make all conflicts permissible. Conflicts of interest should be avoided when possible, and the conflict resulting from the acceptance of gifts from industry is both voluntary and unnecessary."

"Disclosure is a highly limited tool for dealing with conflicts of interest,"

Many of us would think these quotes come from academic journalists? Perhaps people working in journalists' associations? Maybe just individual journalists at some meeting about ethics? But we'd be wrong. Those quotes are actually from doctors. All of them concerned about the influence industry is having on the medical profession and how it is skewing health decision-making leading to bias in research and harming patient care. Whole issues of leading medical journals have recently been donated to covering just one issue: ethics and conflicts of interest in medicine.

Similar issues are often discussed by journalists. Many of us are worried that journalists are too easily influenced by industry; too cosy with PR departments. Others are worried about professional standards. It isn't right that, on some publications, it appears to be standard practice to dream up case studies; to fiddle around with quotes to make them fit the narrative rather than the other way around; and, to ignore even basic ethical codes.

'Embellishing' is becoming accepted practice - and not just in some of the glamour titles. Its hardly worth pointing out that readers are becoming less and less sure what they can trust. Perhaps they'll start to look for alternatives.

But if some doctors and some journalists are concerned about ethics - there the similarities between the two professions ends. Colleagues argue that ethics and publishing no longer mix. Ethics is for wimps. A culture is in place where you can't question the ethics of the advertorial - even where readers aren't aware that the copy amounts to advertising.

Yet our medically qualified cousins can't stop debating the issue. Doctors commit whole journals to the subject. New professional groups such as nofreelunch.org and healthyskepticism.org are growing in strength and confidence and fighting industry influence in medicine. Doctors are increasingly questioning industry sponsorship of training, education and the notorious weekend symposium. Even more significantly, some medical journals are putting in place rigid new systems to ensure that conflicts of interest are declared. Leading journals are now starting to put real pressure on drug companies on the issue of biased research.

So what's my point? Just this - if doctors can get to grips with the issue, why the inertia among journalists?

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.

Helping newbies - honourable or cruel?

A supporter of the JournoWimps forum has been over (see comments to The other side of JournoWimps) & suggested that:

... 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?

I'm not so sure that spoonfeeding beginners the JournoBiz way is honourable. It may be cruel.

Most beginners won't make it. They may sell a few stories, probably based on their own or their friends' experiences. But the gulf between that and earning even a decent part-time living as a freelance journalist is vast. The cosy mutual help that JournoWimps provides seems to be a good substitute for the personal support network traditionally provided by friends and family. But to sell it as professional assistance is to raise false hopes and ultimately to mock.

In contrast, being rude to people, pushing them to try harder, encouraging them to build up their own resources, getting them to think before they ask, rubbishing their dafter ideas, correcting their ignorant presumptions, helping them break through the self-consciousness and preciousness that afflict so many wannabe hacks...all these seem genuinely useful. It isn't nice at the time. It can be horrid. But that's because learning things, especially about yourself, your fantasies and realities, can be horrid.

We don't need to go back to the days when news editors ritually humiliated trainees by tearing up their sweated-over & proudly submitted copy in front of the whole office. That was bullying and unnecessary. But implying that you can learn the trade by having a nice cup of tea & a biscuit with your Aunty Jan is also, in the end, heartless.

Les

The other side of JournoWimps

One of the JournoWimps has moved to the other side. The other side is PR. The JournoWimps are an odd breed of journalists who meet in an online forum "to be nice to each other".

I'm not joking. It is that nauseating.

Except there are weird contradictions. This morning a regular poster said she was stopping writing life stories for women's mags. And has taken a job doing PR with a mental health charity.

I know that lots of people on this site do real life stories, and I'm not knocking it, that's what I did for several years, but I began to feel uncomfortable with making entertainment out of serious issues in people's lives for very little benefit to the them or the reader and I couldn't carry on doing it.

What's wonderful about this is that:

a) It is a savage and entirely damning indictment of what JournoWimps seem to spend their time doing. But expressed with a wide-eyed & tolerant friendliness

b) The writer invites other JournoWimps who might be looking for case studies or information on mental health issues that they "know who to come to". In other words, having felt uncomfortable making entertainment out of serious issues in people's lives for very little benefit to them, she's happy to supply her chums with the material to carry on doing it.

That's the strange world you get, when journalists go someplace to be nice to each other.

At the risk of labouring the point that the niceness extends to each other, not particularly to their interviewees, here's a request from another contributor a couple of weeks back:

I've been chasing a woman for an interview after her partner accidentally killed her 12-year-old son in a freak accident. (The court case has been and gone by the way). I've already had the nod from the Mail on Sunday and the cash on offer could pay for our holiday this year!!

Charming people.

Les

Chucking eggs at tabloid hypocrites

A refreshing piece on tabloid depths by Rod Liddle in the current Speccy. He does some reporting - actually visiting - and some fine opinionating about Nora Black, the mother of Leighanne. The daughter, and the whole family, were ridiculed and abused in the tabloids last month after an outburst in the youth court.

Leighanne's parents had the foresight to bring some eggs to chuck at the press photographers. Liddle hopes that he would have the courage do the same in similar circs. He writes:

Shortly before I left their house, Nora showed me a note which sort of confirmed all you might have thought about our tabloid press and its quite breathtaking, staggering hypocrisy. It had been shoved under the door by a bloke from the local news agency and detailed a number of offers from Fleet Street publications for Nora - offers to someone whom they had, previously, gleefully vilified.

Helen Weathers at 'Femail' (the Daily Mail) was prepared to pay £500 for an exclusive interview giving her side of the story. Emma Doman at the Daily Express was offering a similar amount. Sharon Hendy from the Sun was prepared to give Nora a 'free makeover' following her hideous mooning picture. Nick Appleyard at the Daily Sport was prepared to pay £700 for Nora to, oh God help us, 'get her tits out' for the paper.

Liddle admires the contempt that Mr and Mrs Black, "perpetually on their uppers, jobless and disabled", shows these offers. And wonders, "frankly, if you had some eggs to hand, wouldn't you throw them at Sharon and Nick and Emma and Helen?"

You don't even need to ask.

Les

Contribs & casuals

Apparently there are two types of freelance journalist, says a student journalist. There are casuals and contributors.

She's blogging on the new NUJ students site. But so far no one has answered her request for someone to explain the difference.

So here's my response.

A contributor is most people's idea of what a freelance journalist does. A news reporter, feature writer or columnist, they work from their own premises - office or spare room. They generally file their copy electronically to whichever editor commissions it. They have no contract of employment. They are free to come and go, work for whoever they fancy, and just get paid for what they manage to sell. Hence the term freelance.

But journalists do many other jobs. They can be news editors, subeditors, production editors... people who process other people's copy, making the pages fit, and getting it all delivered to the printer. These are not roles that easily take place outside the publisher's premises. Normally, therefore, they are staff jobs.

However, employers have a tendency to want to cut costs, keep flexibility and employ as few people as necessary. So there is a regular demand for "freelance" staff to come in, on a shift basis, to cover for absences or to get through a crisis. These are the casuals. They work on the employers' premises. They may typically be booked for a week at a time, or longer. Or just called in for single shifts. It is a haphazard and uncertain way of earning a living. I've never done it, but it sounds appalling. The worst of all worlds - you sell your time, not your produce - and can be summoned or dropped without notice as management fancy. But it suits some people, who like the variety and the challenges.

A purist might argue that casuals are not freelances at all. They are just temporary workers with very short term contracts. And that is how some are being regarded now. Many do not invoice their client with a fee that they set. They are put on the company's payroll and have tax and national insurance deducted. They even, thanks to employment law, receive holiday pay and some entitlement to maternity and paternity leave. That's the stuff that full blown freelances sort out for themselves.

But the name freelance seems to have stuck. Labels matter to people. It is probably sounds better to think of yourself as a freelance, rather than as a casual temp.

For an insight into the working life of a casual freelance sub - see this blog of someone who has been doing it, more or less happily, for years.

Les

Ten days that shocked this hack

There is an extraordinary piece of detail in the Brockes-Chomsky-Johnstone-Aaronovitch row that most commentators have missed.

First a summary. In italics, so you can skip it.

In October last year a Guardian writer, Emma Brockes, wrote a profile of Noam Chomsky. It wasn't a sympathetic piece. There were some mistakes in it. Some readers complained. So did Chomsky. The readers editor looked at the complaints, didn't like the journalism, issued corrections, asked for the article to be removed from the website and apologised.

The journalists yesterday resurrected the business, publishing their previously private letter on their blogs, doing a lot of arguing, provoking the Media Lens barmy army into retaliatory email strikes, and generally reigniting the whole row.

What's the extraordinary detail?

It is that the readers editor, Ian Mayes, picked up Chomsky's complaint when he got to his office on 7 November. Until the correction was published on 17 November he devoted his time almost exclusively to investigating Chomsky's complaint. That's ten days. Solid. On one correction.

I'm a journalist and I write for a living. I've never spent a solid week-and-a-half writing researching and writing anything. If I spend a single day working exclusively on one piece I feel I'm over-focusing. Respect.

Les

New editor, better security

Someone, I blame the magazine's new editor, has locked me out of the Spectator website.

Many of the articles are behind a paywall. You get in with a subscription to the mag.

Last year I subscribed. Dirt cheap offer. Cancel any time. I let it run for a few weeks, but then tired of the offensive bile. I had a brief exchange with the editor, Boris Johnson, about some distorted reporting by Rod Liddle that irritated me. Then I cancelled.

But by then I was registered on the website. And for months and months had access to the online version. The fun-loving shambles that Boris ran wasn't geared up for such mundanities.

Now I've been rumbled - the locks have been changed, and I'm denied access without stumping fifty quid. Which I won't be. It's a moderate shame, because I did sometimes pick up odd leads from there. But not fifty quids' worth of shame.

Talking of Boris. He fell off his bicycle. Sprained the jolly old wrist. How do I know this? I read it in a national newspaper.

NS media columnist Peter Wilby reckons that the Daily Telegraph's acting editor, John Bryant, is "an amiable technician who produces a competent paper, but one that lacks distinction". If Boris tumbling off his bike is worth mentioning, the paper doesn't just lack distinction. It lacks news.

Les

Through a Lens, comically

The good, clueless people from Media Lens reached new comic levels yesterday.

They are good, incidentally, because they doggedly question media distortion & half-truths, and pay refreshingly close attention to a lot of detail. They are clueless because they have no idea how journalism works, and don't see how they alienate people who might be on their side.

But yesterday's email alert was just funny.

It centres round a book, Guardians of Power: the myth of the liberal media, written by the motive force behind Media Lens, David Edwards and David Cromwell. (Published by Pluto Books, London, 2006, price £14.99 paperback).

It was reviewed in a couple of weeklies - NS and Speccy - but nowhere else. So Dave & Dave decided to have a go at the literary editor of the Independent for not reviewing it. Very amusing. Edwards and Cromwell get precisely nowhere. And Boyd Tonkin, the besieged editor, presumably has some quiet chuckles at the Pooterish pair.

But then, as Peter Wilby pointed out in his NS review, the Davids "don't do humour".

Les

Halt, cheque! Who goes there?

I just read a leaflet on copyright that arrived last week with the NUJ London Freelance branch newsletter.

Mostly helpful stuff. But what does it have to say about publishers who issue cheques with daft instructions to sign away all rights on the back? It calls the practice "nonsense". And says:

"The NUJ's Freelance Industrial Council advises you always to challenge such cheques."

Come again? Challenge a cheque? I think most freelances bank them. Fast. Does challenging them mean returning them with a note saying, please do this again properly. Hah! Fat chance. Can we have some more practical suggestions please?

Generally good, informed advice though, as is much else at the London freelance site. Credit to its editor Mike Holderness.

Les

Remittance advice with menaces

Here's the words on the back of a cheque that arrived this morning:

1. In consideration of the payment to me by Haymarket Publishing Services Limited of the sum made out overleaf, I the undersigned hereby assign all the copyrights and any rights of a similar nature which may now or hereafter subsist throughout the world in work created by me and identified on the remittance advice attached to this cheque for the full term (including any renewals or extensions) of copyright.

Then, after another "it is hereby certified" clause, there is a space where I am supposed to sign and date it before paying it into the bank.

To avoid uncertainty, there is a note in bold italic caps on the front of the remittance advice:

Note: the attached cheque must be endorsed on the back before presentation to your bank

The Haymarket group is a major player in what insiders call the trade press. It publishes more than 100 consumer, professional, business and customer publications. Its co-founder and chairman is former defence secretary Lord Hesletine. Very professional outfit.

Which makes it odd that they continue with this silly rights grab on the back of the cheque.

It has no legal force. Either you have agreed to assign all rights, in which case it is irrelevant & pointless. Or you haven't assigned them, in which case sticking a condition like that on the cheque is unfair & therefore meaningless.

I've had hundreds of them over the years. Sometimes I sign them. Sometimes I don't bother. Mostly I regard it as comical. But occasionally it angers me - a reminder of how companies use their power to bully freelances.

Les

Coping with bullies

Esther Rantzen, one-time tv producer, bullied her staff. Sez who? She does, in an article in the British Journalism Review, and abridged by the media Guardian.

She says she is not alone. She blames women and largely excuses men as the industry's biggest bullies. She is bonkers about that. But it is undeniable that bullying is rife in the media industry, not just television. There's a lot of not very nice people around. They can and do cause a great deal of hurt to people.

Most of us know staff who have transformed from confident, bright young things at the dawn of their dream career to unhappy shadows of their former selves struggling with low esteem or depression. It is wrong. But in an attractive industry where hours are long and the supply of wannabies endless, bad things happen.

What's the answer? Here, for the benefit of newcomers to the industry, are some thoughts that might help:

* Read all the advice about dealing with bullies that is given to kids at school nowadays. Stuff about walking away, not letting bullies see that you are hurt, laughing at them, standing up for yourself but not plotting revenge. It all applies and can help. See the NSPCC for a starting point.

* Know when to report bullies and when it's best to ride the punches. It's a judgment call about what is best for you. If you get it right it puts you more in control.

* Don't live, eat, sleep and breathe your job. Make sure you have personal support networks outside work - not to spill your troubles to, but to get outside them.

* Join a union. They cannot provide a magic cure but have helped a lot of people.

Les

Flying whingers

A strange day may soon dawn for commissioning editors at the Independent. When it comes, freelance journalists will turn down any commissions offered. They will have already refused to deliver copy to deadline on that day. Freelances will be on strike.

That's the hope, anyway, of the NUJ, the journo's trade union. The Indy chapel, as sub-branches are still quaintly known, is balloting members on industrial action in support of this year's pay claim. Naturally, all good trade unionists, including freelances, will not cross picket lines or do anything else that makes a strike less effective. These days, that means not filing copy or taking on work. The NUJ plans to ballot freelances about industrial action in support of the chapel and their own gripes about rates and conditions.

The question arises as to whether freelance journalists are good trade unionists. Do they believe in collective action, banding together for the good of all, even if they personally lose out in the short term?

A few do. But a lot don't. They are good at bellyaching, but not at doing much about it.

One frustrated NUJ activist has the frequent habit of referring to the Spartacus film - the famous moment of solidarity when one-by-one the slaves stand up to confront the Romans. "Imagine if all the extras in the film had been freelance NUJ members," he says. "Kirk Douglas would stand up and say 'I am Spartacus'. Tony Curtis would leap to his feet and say 'I am Spartacus'. And all the freelances would sit there moaning that their loincloths were itchy."

Les