Telegraph to publish ‘unredacted’ expenses information… in print

From the first day the Telegraph began printing information about MPs’ expenses Journalism.co.uk wanted to know what would happen to the data and how exactly it was being handled inside the ‘bunker’. An insight into the process would have been fascinating for journalists and non-journalists alike.

Would the expenses information ever be released in its pre-redacted format? Or would it be too much of a legal risk and detract from potential print sales?

Unfortunately, the Telegraph press office did not want to discuss the issue, and any enquiries made directly to journalists were forwarded to the press office. We were told we were on the waiting list to talk to someone about data, but we never heard anything.

Today, however, the big announcement was made, following the House of Commons’ official release of blacked-out and redacted data. The Telegraph will print a special supplement free with this Saturday’s Daily Telegraph. It’s a move reported here by the Guardian. The Telegraph also said:

“Inside the 68-page magazine supplement you will find files concerning all 646 MPs, with details of their Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) expenses for 2007-8, the most recent year for which figures are available.

“This is the first time that such detailed information about our elected representatives has been available in one place. It is an historic moment. We believe that our expenses files will help change the face of British politics for the better.”

Journalism.co.uk asked the press office if the information would be available online.  No answer as yet.

But… we just spotted this exchange between the Telegraph.co.uk editor, Marcus Warren, and a follower on Twitter.

MarcusWa: @craigelder: i wld suggest everyone wait a day or two for the uncensored expenses to appear….

craigelder: @MarcusWa: Might we be seeing something on Saturday?

MarcusWa: @craigelder: in newspaper form yes, saturday http://bit.ly/10HiC8

MarcusWa: @craigelder i can also suggest that you ‘watch this space’…..

craigelder: @MarcusWa: I had a feeling! Looking forward to it. Any chance the data can be made available in some sort of *useful* online format as well?

MarcusWa: @craigelder: i can’t say as yet!!!

craigelder: @MarcusWa: You tease

Related links:

• ‘Has the Telegraph failed by keeping expenses process and data to itself?’
• ‘Telegraph ‘didn’t tell any lies but was selective in its facts’, says Lib Dem Voice site editor’

Similar posts:

• Let the expenses data war commence: Telegraph begins its document drip feed
• MPs’ expenses data will be officially released Thursday but how much will be edited out?
• #FollowJourn: @MarcusWa/online editor
• Were these MPs’ expenses stories misleading? The screen grabs
• Ethical question of the day: would it be justifiable to pay for MPs’ expenses information?

EPUK: NUJ to complain to Data Commissioner over journalists surveillance

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is to lodge a formal complaint with the Data Commissioner about a database of images of journalists compiled by the Metropolitan Police.

According to EPUK, the Met has failed to release details of the database and made contradictory claims about its existence and the body’s surveillance of journalists.

Full story at this link…

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PRWeb: British Library launches online newspaper archive

The British Library has digitised its 19th-Century archive of more than two million UK newspaper pages (from 49 regional and national titles).

Certain elements are free to access – or you can buy a 24-hour pass for £6.99 and view up to 100 articles.

Full release at this link…

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Online Journalism Blog: How to blog anonymously

Outside of the issues raised by a British court’s decision to reveal the identity of anonymous police blogger NightJack, Paul Bradshaw offers seven tips on keeping anonymity.

Links include: registering your blog with an anonymous email address and using an anonymous blogging platform.

Full post at this link…

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Star News Online: Why news organisations should link to the competition

It’s fair to say that Journalism.co.uk likes a link and linking to good content from other news sites on our patch is all part of the process.

For many newsrooms it’s a cultural (and sometimes technological/CMS) shift – those introducing a linking out policy could do worse than read StarNews’ executive editor Robyn Tomlin’s thoughts on why her title links to other regional print and broadcast websites:

“I firmly believe that we are much better served by linking out to other voices, sources and even competing news organizations than we are ignoring them and hoping they’ll go away. In the end, we all share a goal of informing and educating our community,” she writes.

“While the web has opened up so many valuable sources of information for our journalists, it’s a shame if we ignore our competitors when we are curating the information that we think is relevant and valuable to people in our community.”

Full post at this link…

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• Grants for New Voices projects and UCLAN lecturer Andy Dickinson

ReadWriteWeb: How a baseball iPhone app could create a new media model

RWW looks at MLB.com’s iPhone app, which has just added a feature to stream live video.

At $10, fans of the sport are downloading the app to gain access to stats and data – a new revenue stream for other media?

“The emphasis on statistics, the extensive reporting infrastructure that baseball already has built out and the ‘wow factor’ of the iPhone’s interface are all things that other established media outlets have an opportunity to emulate,” writes Marshall Kirkpatrick.

Full story at this link…

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#Digital Britain: Ten good links

Yesterday it arrived: the final version of the Digital Britain report. Landline users among us will have to sacrifice around three lattes a year to meet the 50p a month levy for the Next Generation Fund.

Director of digital content for Guardian News & Media, Emily Bell, asked, via Twitter, for two words to sum it up other than ‘colossal disappointment’. An advanced Twitter search showed these responses from her followers: ‘as expected,’  ‘damp squib,’ ‘disappointingly colossal,’ ‘wasted chance’ and ‘too cautious’. However, Bell is now worried she might have been ‘too negative’ in her reaction – but that could just be her going soft, she says.

Ten good links*:

• 1. Universal access of 2 Mbps by 2012, but will it be achievable, asks the Guardian’s Jemima Kiss.
  

• 2. ThinkBroadband’s summary. It’s clear and rectifies misunderstandings that might arise from second-hand summaries of the report.
  

• 3. Ben Bradshaw’s announcement in the House of Commons,  ITN video on YouTube.

• 4. No word on Channel 4 or BBC Worldwide partnership, as reported by Paul McNally on the Press Gazette blog.

• 5. PageFlakes page with related links for Digital Britain content: including video, Twitter and blog searches.

• 6. Bill Thompson’s thoughts, also here on the BBC’s pages.

• 7. The BBC opposes top-slicing of the licence fee for independent news consortia, stated by the Trust’s chair Michael Lyons in a BBC press release.

• 8. The paidContent:UK overall verdict is 7/10. Read it a bullet-point summary on the new-look site.

• 9. OFT report on local and regional media ownership rules released to coincide with Digital Britain report. Nothing will change. It’s a decision welcomed by the National Union of Journalists.

• 10. Oh, and the report itself, at this link.

*with an extra two, for luck.

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• Finding the ‘new new journalism’

MPs’ expenses data will be officially released Thursday but how much will be edited out?

Someone has left a comment beneath Journalism.co.uk’s article looking at the Telegraph’s transparency over MPs’ expenses. They  suggest that a member of staff at the Telegraph uploads the original data to Wikileaks.org. It’s probably unlikely to happen.

What has happened is this: following Gordon Brown’s promise last week, the speaker’s office yesterday confirmed that details of MPs’ expenses will be released tomorrow (Thursday), on the parliament website. Official, but edited.

The Guardian reports:

“The Daily Telegraph obtained a copy of the unedited expenses details and has been publishing extracts since the beginning of May.

“Attention on Thursday is likely to focus on how much damaging information would have been ‘redacted’ and hidden from the public if the Telegraph had not got hold of the details.”

WelshBlogger leaves this comment beneath the Guardian article:

“The ‘official’ one will be sanitised. I’ll only believe the Telegraph version. We, all, owe them a debt of gratitude. Why didn’t the Guardian do it?”

Will we ever see the unedited Telegraph version so we can compare the two? And compare the data with the stories generated by news organisations? Time will tell. WikiLeaks’ editor, Julian Assange, thinks it should be publicly archived information.

The Guardian, as WelshBlogger points out, didn’t get the data. It has, however, plotted information obtained via the Telegraph’s stories, in a spreadsheet.

Similar posts:

• Let the expenses data war commence: Telegraph begins its document drip feed
• Telegraph to publish ‘unredacted’ expenses information… in print
• Malcolm Coles: MPs’ expenses – the best of the web
• MPs’ travel expenses disparity highlighted by Guardian Open Platform projects
• Ethical question of the day: would it be justifiable to pay for MPs’ expenses information?

Right of a blogger’s anonymity: a selection of views

Since this week’s ruling that NightJack, winner of the Orwell Prize’s first political blogging award, could not remain anonymous was announced – summed up  by Paul Bradshaw here -  bloggers, commentators and commenters have typed furiously (a few the links at the end of this post). Has the Times been hypocritical? What are the implications for those working and writing about life in the public sector? Should one be able to protect one’s identity as a blogger… or journalist?

The only thing Journalism.co.uk will add is this insight into the Times’ investigative process of the case, as provided by the Times:

• ‘Ruling on NightJack author Richard Horton kills blogger anonymity’ by Frances Gibb, 17/06/09

“The action arose after Patrick Foster, a Times journalist, identified the NightJack blogger ‘by a process of deduction and detective work, mainly using information on the internet,’ the judge said.”

• ‘Writer advised on how to evade long arm of the law’ by Patrick Foster, 17/06/09

“Mr Horton was adamant that he had taken great pains to keep his identity secret. But on his blog, he also described his visits to a jiu-jitsu club, adding a hyperlink to the website of the organising body for the martial art. Lancashire Constabulary jiu-jitsu club lists only one member who is a detective – Detective Constable Richard Horton.”

Some of the wider discussion:

• Enemies of Reason: ‘Where did I put that cloak of anonymity?’
• Zoe Margolis: ‘Privacy‘
• Ian Reeves: ‘Night Jack: the end of the anonymous blogger?’
• Richard Horton, the Times: ‘My Everyman posts seemed to strike a chord’
• Random Acts of Reality (aka Tom Reynolds): ‘Notes on NightJack’
• Gary Andrews: ‘NightJacking anonymity’
• Gawker: ‘You don’t have the right to anonymity’

Finally, Horton’s Orwell Prize win as reported by Journalism.co.uk in April 2009:

“Anonymous blogger ‘Jack Night’ took the award in the blogging category, for his site NightJack.  In a speech made on his behalf, Jack said the last year had seen blogging become a more important part of the political reporting world. The blogger, who ended his posting after being shortlisted for the award, donated his prize to the Police Dependants’ Trust.”

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• Online Journalism Blog: How to blog anonymously
• Radio4Today: Would Orwell have been a blogger?
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – keeping anonymous online
• Online anonymity: Journalism.co.uk joins the debate on Al Jazeera English
• Orwell Prize blog entries double in 2010

BeetTV: Michael Wolff says News Corp. ‘knows nothing about technology’

From Beet TV: Journalist and Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff on why News Corp’s acquisition of MySpace could be seen as a ‘relative calamity’ because the corporation ‘knows nothing about technology’.  “We’ve seen this again, and again, and again and again … when mainstream traditional media companies buy technology companies they don’t do very well. Often they do terribly and often they actually collapse.”

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