Taking Out The Trash

New investigative journalism foundation for UK?

Over at Journalism.co.uk they carry a report from clumsily-named Voices Online Blogging Conference about the poor state of investigative journalism in the UK.
It's been said many times before and it probably doesn't do any harm to say it again, I guess.
However there is an interesting snippet:

(Nick) Fielding, who was formerly a senior journalist at the Sunday Times, will meet other leading investigative journalists this week to continue discussions on a new British investigative journalism body, which could be built on foundation funding.

Nick Davies has spoken about possible 'mini-media' structures in the past; other journalists involved in the meetings include Stephen Grey and David Leigh.

In America there seems to be a culture of philanthropy willing to back journalism which doesn't exist in the UK. Perhaps because they know guard dog will eventually turn on its master and also because journalism doesn't have the same cultural cachet.
Hopefully these guys have found another way....
For an American perspective on this see Tracy Van Slyke's post on Comment is Free.

Trust the pitch

I've just filed a piece for The Guardian Work section on peple who staff customer complaint lines. This morning I checked the paper to see what Work was running and came across a piece by Cath Janes.
It's about what people who have controversial jobs say when they get that inevitable question at parties: "What do you do?"
"I experiment on monkeys to make better perfumes."
Silence followed by a statement of fact about the weather.
I'm mad at myself now because I had this idea about six months ago. I honed the pitch and then bottled it thinking; "nah, the editor's not going to go for this one." I think I had had a bad run of rejections so my confidence was a bit low.
Well done Cath for a nice article - trust your instincts next time Chamberlain.

Flat Earth win

Thanks to FleetStreetBlues for the tip that Flat Earth News has won the Bristol Festival of Ideas inaugural book award. Top reading.

Predicting swine flu through Google

I've been meaning to post about the new UK-edition of Wired magazine but the usual things got in the way.
Suffice to say I was impressed with the first issue. Not overwhelmed, but certainly enthused by its intelligence and the luxury of its presentation.
Not overwhelmed because you expect a launch issue to blow your socks off. It's six months down the line that the quality shows through. You imagine that Conde Nast are in for the long haul so let's see what happens by issue six.
What did spark me to finally getting round to this was an item I caught today on their web site about how traffic analysis of Google searches pre-dated media reports on swine flu. It has interesting implications for journalists (and business and spooks) who want to get the jump on imminently breaking events.

Hello to Felix

Welcome to Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, a new blog about, well, let's here what 'Felix' says:

"I thought it would be interesting to get lots of informed people talking about the future of news reporting in Bristol, so I’ve started this blog. In coming weeks I plan to post a series of short articles addressing various questions and hopefully will get some debate going. It might be a complete waste of time, or it could fire some really interesting ideas. We might even create some wonderful new media models for other cities to emulate.

"I am a Bristol-based freelance journalist, working for local and national organisations, mostly in print. I am not an employee of any media firm and have no ulterior or financial motives in doing this. It’s simply that the future of news is something that colleagues and I discuss constantly in the pub and something which we all assume, rightly or wrongly, is an important issue. So let's open the debate up beyond the pub."

Can't argue with that - let the debate begin.

And perhaps we can look a little beyond Bristol to take in the hinterlands of Bath, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset as we're all suffering the same problems. However, while Bristol is supplemented by a healthy blogging community, the same cannot be said for my local area of Bath and Wiltshire.

Learning from nature

The Institution of Engineering and Technology's E&T magazine has just published a piece I wrote on how biomineralists are trying to replicate things such as squid sucker rings and gecko feet to create new products.

Invertebrate zoologist James Weaver was out on a fishing trip collecting specimens when a Humboldt squid latched on to his arm and secured itself with its powerful tentacles.

While the first thought of most of us would have been the pain, Weaver began to wonder how it was that the squid could generate such enormous power through the soft tissue of the suckers which line the tentacles.

His curiosity could lead toward a new generation of stronger and more abrasion-resistant materials. It’s also just one example of how multidisciplinary teams are looking at proteins as potentially very important structural materials. Bio engineers believe they could produce strong, light material cheaply using proteins or mimicking their structures.

The full piece is here.

Just filed copy for the IET's Flipside magazine on anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. Those nice folk at Northwood invited me over to Djibouti to get a close view of Operation Atalanta - the EU naval task force protecting - shipping and food convoys - but I just couldn't justify the time or expense. Maybe next time....

Tribune unveils new board

Political weekly Tribune publishes a short item today on its new board now that it's confirmed Kevin McGrath as the new owner (more on McGrath here and here).

The report says:

The board also decided to set in motion plans for a ring-fenced budgeted promotions programme and a re-launch. It also agreed to set up an editorial advisory board from within the Labour Party and the trade unions.

The board is chaired by Mr McGrath and attended by the editor. Its members are: Joe Holder, lawyer; Gill Morris, head of public affairs agency Connect (see also); Ivor Gaber, freelance journalist and consultant (see also); John Braggins, former senior official with the Labour Party; and political affairs consultant (see also) and Mark McDonald, an international human rights lawyer (see also). The posts are voluntary.

The links are mine

Meanwhile the board also made Michael Foot lifetime honoury editor-in-chief.

Declaration of interest: I write for Tribune, mostly book reviews. They bought me a couple of drinks at their last Christmas bash. I'm cheap, me.

Civil liberties, chalk and local journalism

So last week James Barlow links to a tweet which points out a story on Bristol Indymedia about a UWE student being arrested for criminal damage involving chalk.
Paul Saville had been arrested for writing a slogan about liberty on the pavement at Bristol's Broadmead shopping centre. It took four officers and a PCSO but resolve this incident involving a calm and compliant person armed only with some calcium carbonate. Saville was given a caution.
A couple of weeks later he's back at Broadmead and chalks another slogan on the floor. The cops pull up and he's nicked and is now due to appear before magistrates charged with criminal damage.
Sure, second time round is pushing it, but it's a bit over the top and whatever happens his fingerprints and DNA are now on file for good.
Ring up Daily Mail straight off, 'yes please well have some words on that', get hold of Paul, 'sure I can tell you what happened' and then he says 'I did speak to the Bristol Evening Post but they said they didn't want to do anything because a court case was coming up'.
Well the BEP's inability to understand contempt of court isn't my concern so do the interview and set-up some pictures and file my copy. South West News also filed on it.
And the story appears in The Guardian diary, Daily Telegraph, BBC. Henry Porter weighs in with some ponderous words about us all going to hell in a hand basket and MP Kerry McCarthy points out that a bucket of water might have been cheaper than a visit to the cop shop. Nothing in the Mail (oh well).
And puffing up in last place is the dear old Bristol Evening Post. The paper offered the story in the first place.
Quite whether the reporter just thought 'nutter' when Paul rang up and used the old 'sub judice' excuse to get him off the phone or they didn't spot a good story or they genuinely thought it couldn't be covered isn't clear.
When I approached Avon and Someset Police for a quote I was told they wouldn't because of the court case. No off-the-record chat either to check the facts. Was it an attempt to shut the story down? No, I just think they couldn't be bothered.
Just to be clear though. There were two incidents involving Paul and his chalk. The first one was dealt with, so you can't prejudice it because there is no case. I could argue about why you're unlikely to prejudice a magistrate's hearing into the second case, but my heart isn't in it.
In contrast to the police, John Hirst, the Broadmead manager got me a comment within 20 minutes after I emailed early in the morning. UWE supplied me one about four hours after I asked.
Then I got an email from one of the sergeants who works at Broadmead expressing surprise that I hadn't sought a police comment. Sigh. Not for want of trying.
I suppose you could try and turn the post's poor show into a parable about how local newspapers are doomed. The Bristol online community had it all first and freelancers, who were light on their feet, only approached the nationals because they bother to pay and the BEP is left with the scraps.
Given the fact that Northcliffe is shedding jobs at the BEP and its sister papers like its going out of fashion one wonders whether reporters have the appetite.
Meanwhile some people are pledging a sympathy chalk-in on the day Paul is due before Bristol magistrates (April 9) and The Guardian made him the civil liberty hero of the week.
Free the chalkist 1!

Sunshine Week

Like any journalist I'm a fan of Freedom of Information legislation and over in the States they run a fun week to promote access laws.
Perhaps we could adopt Sunshine Week over here?

chip wrapping

Meanwhile on with other stories as Friday's splash becomes Saturday's fish and chip paper. Have interviewed this man about piracy in the Gulf of Aden and need to turn that into 1,600 words.

And this seems like a great story on fake safety gear and I'd like to pursue it; if I can get a commission . . .