"I'm about to go on television with an arse the size of Africa."

Does media celebrity fit club also beckon?

Anyone acquainted with the true stature of Ms Bell's behind, please feel free to reveal.

This has been cited as an example of 'citizen journalism' helping to make the media more accountable and transparent. And the National Union of Journalists was prompted to issue a rather lame and belated press release condemning the practice.

Meanwhile, on an email discussion list for editorial photographers, initial discussion centred on how awful the photographer's 'Photoshopping' skills were. Not the fact that a trusted newsgatherer was prepared to distort the truth and, in doing so, prepared to compromise the integrity and reputation of other photographers currently risking their lives in the Lebanon.

But how far was the truth actually distorted? So far we have been presented with evidence that Hajj added some extra plumes of smoke and, possibly, accentuated the extent of damage caused by Israeli bombs to one of his images. It also appears that he might have added a couple of extra flares being fired to a picture of an Israeli fighter jet.

Yet, up to a point, this kind of post-doctoring is common practice. Given the technology to do it, what photographer would not attempt to enhance his images by, for example, brightening colours or making skies appear more dramatic? Furthermore, the staging of news pictures has a long history and is still widespread today. As long as the essence of the story is not misrepresented, what is wrong with a certain amount of interpretation? After all, this is exactly what happens with writers.

If he is guilty as charged, Hajj clearly overstepped the mark. And given the ferocious politics in the Middle East, has been more than a tad foolish (his images really did not need any enhancement to tell the story). But, as wiser voices on the editorial photographers' email list pointed out, the real story is how they got past Reuters' editors. Without proper gatekeepers in place, and given the current proliferation in potentially unreliable citizen contributors, it is no surprise that news organisations are laying themselves open to mauling by politically motivated bloggers.

Hajj has become a scapegoat. Perhaps he will find some solace in cleaning up on all the unauthorised uses of his images around the world. It should amount to a tidy sum in reproduction fees.

That's right bloggers. It's called copyright.

Sharp intake of breath. But, astonishingly, on a forum claiming to have several hundred freelance journalist members, not one commented on this extraordinary admission.

I also learned that a company had been targeting prominent freelance journalists in the UK asking them to write and place articles promoting their products. In other words, to use their contacts and reputation to hoodwink commissioning editors into publishing puff material under the guise of impartial journalism.

Thankfully the two or three recipients who admitted to being approached, were incensed at the suggestion. But clearly a climate exists in which this sort of practice can flourish.

Elsewhere, on paidContent.org, large sections of its content are "sponsored" by various commercial enterprises (how does that differ from advertising?) and the site invites (and gets) sponsors to pay for its 'coverage' of conference events. So that is what 'paid content' is then. Before long, I expect to see journalists turning up at events wearing corporate-branded T-shirts.

Bottom line, advertorial is being passed off as editorial, and there are clearly 'journalists' out there prepared to participate in this process. Readers beware: don't ever trust an article about products or services again. Chances are, somewhere down the line, someone's been bought off.

I quote from the PG's original piece:

Regional newspaper publishers will from this week be able to place vacancies across one or two pages dedicated to the sector, at no cost.

The regional press has had a tough year commercially - with widespread job cuts - and the initiative hopes to extend the reach of regional advertising beyond a handful of online-only alternatives.

I don't get it. Regional press publishers are axeing jobs but are still apparently making obscene profits so obviously they deserve to get free recruitment advertising. And obviously we should be falling over ourselves to go and work for these wonderful employers who cannot even afford or be bothered to pay a few quid to recruit staff. Not exactly an exciting prospect is it?

Also, what sort of message is the PG sending out by encouraging the practice of 'free advertising' for publishers? Revenue from recruitment advertising helps pay the wages of many of its readers who work on trade publications, for example.

The true purpose of this scheme may be to claw back some of the damage inflicted on PG's recruitment ad revenue by 'online-only' alternative holdthefrontpage.co.uk, the regional press recruitment vehicle for Newsquest, Northcliffe, Johnston Press and Trinity Mirror. Given the dominance the 'big four' have in this sector, the PG is essentially scrabbling for crumbs under the table.

As for the Press Association, wouldn't it rather be selling content to help fill the pages of under-staffed newspapers instead of encouraging 'free' recruitment?

Last week's PG boasts of having more jobs online than any other resource. At today's count, that's 52 jobs, 30 of which are from a single recruitment agency (do all those jobs really exist, or are they just collecting CVs?). The Media Guardian would probably have something to say about that, and journalism.co.uk has twice as many (105, it claims). All a bit desperate really.

Under Piers Morgan's control, the PG has been acting increasingly strangely (eg "Citizen Journalism" awards for, err, mobile camera snapshots and video - doh). But I guess the same could be said of his tenure at the Daily Mirror...

It's an interesting exercise, and probably going to be quite alien to the experience of some journos out there. But there's food for thought here even for journalists who acknowledge the responsibility of their profession. None of us are perfect and most will cross the line at some point in their careers. The dividing line is between those that learn from their mistakes and have a social conscience, and those who don't even acknowledge that a line exists.

The last section of the code covers transparency and accountability:

Journalists should:

* Clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct.
* Encourage the public to voice grievances against the news media.
* Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.
* Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media.
* Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.

One of the most positive aspects of the current journalism revolution is how technology is breaking down the walls between journalists and readers. Monopolisation and commercialisation of news outlets are more to blame for the percieved elitism, arrogance and disengagement from readership of news gatherers than the actual traditions of journalism itself. Renaissance journalism, as Kevin Anderson of Strange Attractor has coined it, is much more than technological innovation, it's about a return to collective ownership of the news and pre-monopoly news values, taking advantage of smarter tools to achieve this.

Journalsim - simulated journalism. Just because it's written by a journalist don't necessarily make it journalism...

Here's an example. Ex-Mirror editor Roy Greenslade has jumped on the blogging bandwagon. Mostly a series of links to other sites' stories about journalism and journalists - something you could easily throw together yourself using a couple of RSS feeds from keyword searches of Google News. Is there any added value to this aggregation because it's done by a journalist? No. Any decent blogger would bring something more to the table, journalist or not.

Give it a miss. If you can't be bothered to go the DIY route, try the vastly superior Editors Weblog instead - it's written by editors who still have their jobs...

"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?

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

Journojizz - the emission(s) from journos

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

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.