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As noted on this blog last month, political bloggers are to be granted the same access to parliament as their mainstream media counterparts.
Who would be the first, we asked. Well, now we learn that ConservativeHome’s Jonathan Isaby is now a proud lobby pass holder – one of, if not the, first blogger members.
“It certainly felt that the case I made was a strong one,” Isaby, who formerly worked for the BBC and the Telegraph, told Journalism.co.uk. As a full-time political blogger, he felt he should have the same access as political journalists. “As a site we break stories that are followed up by the mainstream media,” he said.
Whilst some claimed that ConservativeHome, in which Lord Ashcroft is a majority investor, had too much of a political agenda, he argued that that hadn’t previously precluded other publications, such as the socialist Morning Star, from being part of the lobby.
Tags: blogger, jonathan isaby, mainstream media counterparts, Political blog, Politics
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger raised what he said was a little known fact about phone hacking evidence, in yesterday’s press regulation debate in the House of Lords.
He had been told by Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Yates, he said, that the police only considered the interception of phone messages an offence if they hadn’t been listened to.
Once messages were stored after they were listened to by the recipient, subsequent access by a third party was not considered a criminal offence. The public should be aware of the “narrow definition” of phone hacking, the Guardian editor warned.
As reported in last week’s Culture, Media and Sport select committee report:
“The police also told us that under Section 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) it is only a criminal offence to access someone’s voicemail message if they have not already listened to it themselves. This means that to prove a criminal offence has taken place it has to be proved that the intended recipient had not already listened to the message. This means that the hacking of messages that have already been opened is not a criminal offence and the only action the victim can take is to pursue a breach of privacy, which we find a strange position in law.”
The committee recommended that “Section 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act is amended to cover all hacking of phone messages”.
“Narrow definition” line is a “convenient PR shelter for Scotland Yard”, argues Davies
The Guardian’s evidence of widespread phone hacking attempts contradicted police reports that only a ‘handful’ of victims had been targeted, so Scotland Yard is trying to “justify its position” by raising the narrow legal definition of the criminal offence, Guardian journalist Nick Davies told Journalism.co.uk.
Davies also challenges the legality of any kind of phone hacking:
“The narrow legal definition is highly contentious. The idea is that it is illegal to listen to somebody’s voicemail only if they have not themselves already heard it. This not written in the law at all; it was clearly not parliament’s intention. It’s an interpretation – not one that has been tested and accepted by a court, simply something that was said during a legal conference at the Crown Prosecution Service while the police were investigating the original case.
“It was said by David Perry, Crown counsel in the case, but he didn’t even produce a written opinion and never mentioned it in court when [Clive] Goodman and [Glenn] Mulcaire came up.” A future court may or may not agree with this definition, Davies added. “At the moment, however, it is a convenient PR shelter for Scotland Yard who are embarrassed by their handling of the case.”
Satchwell claims phone hacking case has ‘grey areas’; challenges Guardian’s proof
The liveliest part of yesterday’s House of Lords debate came when executive director of the Society of Editors, Bob Satchwell, challenged some of the Guardian’s claims and insisted there were “grey areas” in the case.
Journalist Nick Davies vehemently disagrees: the black and white is there, he later told Journalism.co.uk, but newspapers and the Press Complaints Commission don’t want to see it.
“Satchwell says editors don’t know the truth about all the material confiscated by the Information Commissioner’s Office from [private investigator] Steve Whittamore in March 2003 because the ICO didn’t investigate it. That isn’t correct.
“The ICO analysed all the material and produced spreadsheets – one for each newspaper organisation – and the spreadsheets lists all of the journalists who asked Whittamore to find confidential information, all of the targets, all of the information requested, how it was obtained, how much was paid.
“The ICO and police worked together to prepare three court cases: one led to four convictions, the other two collapsed for technical reasons. You really can’t say that there wasn’t an investigation. Furthermore, when the new information commissioner, Christopher Graham, gave evidence to the media select committee, he said he would not publish the spreadsheets, but he clearly indicated his willingness to talk to any editor who got in touch in search of detail.”
No editor has asked for extra information from ICO
“I checked last week with the ICO as to how many editors had now got in touch to ask which of their journalists are named in the spreadsheets and also to ask whether the PCC had approached them and asked for information,” said Davies.
“The answer was that no editor and nobody from the PCC had asked.” Furthermore, Davies said, he had written detailed stories about the contents of the spreadsheets.
“So, if editors are still in a grey area on all this, it’s because they refuse to look at the facts in black and white, even though the facts are there for them.”
Tags: Alan Rusbridger, Christopher Graham, cms report, David Perry, Information Commissioner's Office, Metropolitan Police, Nick Davies, Press Complaints Commission, Society of Editors, Steve Whittamore, The Guardian
Speaking to Journalism.co.uk after last night’s event on the role that new media will play in the forthcoming election, Matthew McGregor, London director of Blue State Digital – the agency behind Barack Obama’s new media presidential campaigning, said it was important not to overlook journalists’ own use of social media in reporting and gathering the news.
The interesting thing for me about blogging is that so many journalists have started blogging to try and get their stories out quicker, to try and publish stories that they are know are interested and printable, but just don’t make it into the paper.
Local political newspapers and their blogs will be interesting [during the 2010 election campaigns]. For example, the Nottingham Evening Post has a politics blogger, who will break stories that might not get into the newspaper, but will be of national importance.
But the rise of the blogger outside of journalism will be a game changer for those in the profession covering the election, added McGregor. While the pre-preparedness of the party leaders ahead of the TV debates may save them from newsworthy gaffes, as suggested by BBC political editor Nick Robinson, the way in which journalists cover the news and interact with candidates will leave them open to ‘gotcha’ moments. The dissection of the National Bullying Helpline story is just the start.
A game-changer for local media?
The openness that politicians have with Twitter and Facebook means they can’t hide and there’s no point trying to, because authenticity can’t be faked.
Journalists covering the election from a local angle have a lot to gain from using social networks to track candidates, suggested McGregor. Candidates may well try to bypass mainstream media to connect with voters – local media needs to get in on the act in this interim space.
There’s also an opportunity for local journalists to push their election stories to a national level using new media channels, he added, echoing comments made by fellow panellist DJ Collins, Google’s director of communications and public affairs EMEA on the benefits of this to the general public.
You’re not just local anymore, especially during an election (…) and people vote a home who have moved away.
Tags: cityvote, local and regional media, Matthew McGregor, political reporting, Politics, uk election
As reported elsewhere on Journalism.co.uk, last night we supported City University London’s ‘Will 2010 be the first new media election?’ event, hosted by the Media Society and also supported by the Media Trust.
Finally, here’s Rupa Huq, blogger, socialist, Labour supporter talking to City University student Heather Christie (@heatherchristie) about getting carried with the “brave new world of new media”:
Catch up with the other Journalism.co.uk coverage here:
Tags: city university london, cityvote, Entertainment/Culture, Media Society
An $18 million settlement between freelancer writers and a group of US publishers, which was thrown out after objections by some of the writers involved, has been revived by the US Supreme Court.
The writers, including freelancers who did and some who did not copyright their work, took the action against publishers including the New York Times Co., Dow Jones and News Corporation claiming copyright infringement by the use of their work in digital archives and databases.
As the Bookseller explains:
The case dates backs more than 10 years and has implications for how publishers can digitally use content that was originally supplied only for print publication. The settlement was reached in 2005 after about four years of negotiations over writers’ claims that their contracts did not allow for publication of their work electronically. This followed a 2001 Supreme Court ruling in favour of six freelance authors claiming copyright infringement in The New York Times Company v. Tasini. The publisher had won the original case.
The Supreme Court’s decision will not change the original terms of the settlement, says the Bookseller, but its revival could resolve some holes in the publishers’ archive benefitting both readers and news groups, says the New York Times.
Tags: Copyright, us
Interesting piece from Jessica Geen, editor of gay news website Pink News, on being straight and how this affects relationships with readers and contacts.
My predecessor has been harangued in the bars of Westminster for daring to employ someone who is “not even a bisexual”. One head of a small gay charity visibly flinched when I mentioned my boyfriend and has been cold towards me ever since.
Tags: Jessica Geen, Pink News
BBC, ITV and Sky have reach an agreement on how the televised Prime Ministerial debates during the election campaign will be run.
The three programmes will feature a “pre-determined theme” for half of their airtime, says a release from the BBC, and the debates will be broadcast live in mid-evening weekday slots. Members of the audience will be allowed to ask questions and viewers will be invited to submit questions in advance by email.
The full BBC release is at this link…
But at a Journalism.co.uk-supported event last night on the role of new media in the election, BBC Today programme presenter and chair of the event Evan Davis explained some additional rules for the audience:
Speaking on BBC Radio 5Live this morning, a BBC producer involved with setting up the debates said after audience questions had been taken the focus would be on the candidates interacting with one another. This would not involve interjections from the audience, he quickly told the interviewing presenter.
The full rules for the debates will be available online via each broadcaster’s website, says the release, but they haven’t been published just yet.
The planned restrictions led some in last night’s audience to question the value of the debates. But BBC political editor Nick Robinson, who was speaking as part of the panel, was quick to respond:
“If we cannot be excited after 5-and-a-half decades about seeing the PM and politicians debate the issues, what more do you want?
There’s a cynicism about the rules here that is over the top. There are things you won’t get, but there are things you will get because they’ve ruled out the bear pit. They’ve ruled out the heckling and shouting. To get three guys to agree with this they had to set some rules. Would I trade what we have [PMQs] for four hours of our leaders debating on national TV you bet I would.
More to follow on last night’s event from Journalism.co.uk…
Tags: election, live debate, prime ministerial debates
Mark Briggs compares and contrasts the use of liveblogging to cover two different trials: the first in 2007 covered by the Bakersfield Californian; the second by Jason Trahan over the past year for the Dallas Morning News:
Trahan used his laptop and iPhone to cover the trial via a closed-circuit feed in an overflow room at the courthouse. The Dallas Bar Association specifically praised his trial blog coverage when handing him an award for legal reporting, and he also was named the paper’s 2009 Beat Reporter of the Year.
He said blogging throughout the day forced him to be more mentally focused during testimony, which then allowed him to “mine” from his blog entries at the end of the day while writing his newspaper stories.
Tags: court reporting, us
Tonight Journalism.co.uk is pleased to be supporting City University London’s event to mark the launch of its new political journalism MA, ‘Will 2010 be the first new media election?’ The charity the Media Trust is also partnering the event, organised by the Media Society. Chaired by the BBC’s Evan Davis, it also features:
For those wanting to follow by Twitter, the tag is #cityvote.
Tags: city university london, dj collins, Ivor Gaber, Matthew McGregor, Media Society, Nick Robinson, rupa huq
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