Medway Messenger's review of Citizen Journalists

I was very disappointed to read David Jones' review of Citizen Journalists in yesterday's Medway Messenger.

He begins by asking a straight forward question; Are citizen journalists little better than the tiresome individuals who write rambling, often near incomprehensible, letters, to the editors of local newspapers? Discuss.

He then goes on to question the validity of the term and whether or not it is good for greater transparency or for democracy in Medway. Having been to a Full Council meeting in the past I can say that there are is a small selection of people in the Public gallery, usually those who have a question or an interest in a specific subject. If you then factor out the political activists (such as me) you end up with a core of four maybe five who are genuinely interested in the running of Medway council. Their tweets and blogs are always interesting reads and pick up on subjects that are glazed over (due to necessity and shortness of space etc) by the paper. Also for people like me, who cannot attend the meetings due to family commitments and yes - the new series of How I met your Mother on E4, the digital stream of information means I can see what is happening as it happens rather than just relying on a half page article in the paper. Clearly this is aiding transparency.

I agree that I have problems with the term Citizen Journalist. It is not something I would have chosen and I don't think any of the others who have been chosen to represent this manufactured term have either. Most of us are either interested in the subject or are Party members of one party or another. At no point do we consider ourselves journalists, I think commentators would be a better term for us as Journalist makes me feel like someone should be paying me for this!

It is indeed true that we have not undergone any formal Journalist training or have a vast wealth of experience. It is also true that I, like most people have my own bias and loyalties and yep, it shines through in my work sometimes. HOWEVER this is true of the Messenger as well. Dare I remind them of the City status story that condemned the Liberal Democrats in Medway of betraying the City bid by writing to Nick Clegg and asking him to not consider Medway despite the fact we had not agreed to it and were representing our constituents who had said they didn't want it? Whom did we betray? I would also argue that, seeing as the Messenger has the lions share of the printed media in the Medway towns, it is good to get someone else's point of view as like David I've read reports from meetings and wondered: Were they at the same meeting as I was?

When I did my much underusued History degree we were trained to absorb information be it written, oral or pictorial. Once notes had been taken draw out the key information and weave as unbiased a piece of narrative/argument as possible using facts, notes and quotes to back up your argument. I was, interestingly, told that a History degree was a great start for a career in Journalism so does that mean I'm half trained?

Only the Von Ranke school of history sought to get rid of bias and personal spin by only writing out the facts and this makes for boring journalism and history!

Citizen Journalists (God I hate saying that) are important in a way as they do add to transparency and the more voices that speak about things, the more information gets out and the more people may become interested in the subject and hold our elected body to account more. So I think it is unfair to knock it as an idea, just not the name - someone think of another name... please...

Also, and this is a personal request not related to the above; don't ask me to look at stories, or ask me what I think our MP/Councillors are thinking/doing or not doing. I'm not a professional Journalist, I write when I can on what I find interesting - cheers.

Greater transparency at Medway Council & citizen journalists

Interesting news came out of the debacle that was Thursday night's full council meeting with yesterday's announcement.

From this day forth there shall be a row of seats saved for "Citizen Journalists" at every Full Council meeting. The Conservative overlords have recognised that there is a hard-core group of tweeters and bloggers who attend these meetings and publish what is said or happens for good/ill.
It also means that should there be a repeat of Thursday night then, unless they cause a similar disturbance, they will not be ejected and can continue scrutinising and reporting.

This is good news for politicos and activists (as long as they've reserved their seat that morning) who can transcend any angry mob.

In a modern democracy it is time we looked at recording / videoing and streaming key meetings of public significance not evicting ppl.
— Tris Osborne (@cllrtrisosborne) January 24, 2014

It does however throw up an interesting question, one that Labour Councillor Tristan Osborne has asked before, and that is one of greater transparency and that maybe these meetings and scrutiny meetings should be live streamed onto the net and archived so that more people can see how the council reaches it's decisions. At the moment, not all of us have the ability to down tools and abandon families to go to these meetings regularly and should they be available on line we could see them for ourselves and not just rely on the Medway Messenger to report these issues.

This is a good move for local democracy, it is just a shame that its announcement was in the shadow of such a bad night before.

Keeping the investigation into Newscorp balanced.

As the News Corp case unfolds and the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks are held to account by a parliamentary select committee I have begun to think about some of the dangers of the case.

The British people always need a villain, be it the Germans (at war and football), Nick Clegg (a former hero who fell to villainy- the best kind of hate figure.), Gary Glitter and Bin Laden. These are people that you can walk into any Pub or public venue and say "... what a bastard" and get a general murmur of agreement whether deserved or not.

The media will often attack them on front pages and reports, it becomes easy for people to be lead by the passions and centralise their anger on one target often losing track of all of the information involved aided by distortions in the media.

A current example of this is the growing call for David Cameron to stand down and resign over links between Andy Coulson and the mobile hacking cases at News of the World. It would be ridiculous to suggest that Cameron should be removed just because he has association. To be fair to David Cameron, when Andy Coulson was hired he had been sworn, on oath, that he had no involvement with phone hacking. As far as anyone should be concerned, at the time the man was not proven guilty. Accusations are not fact until proven.

At the time, despite these accusations, Coulson was a good choice for the role. (although maybe Cameron should have listen to leading Lib dems such as Clegg and Lord Ashdown!) The appointment has now proven to have been a mistake but despite the protestations of Ed Miliband- who is himself courting the media and scoring easy points against the government by echoing what the people want to hear rather than come up with an alternative economic policy, hindsight is the only thing proving it.
Beyond that, the removal of David Cameron as Prime minister at this time, for this reason would be detrimental to this country's economic recovery. Agree or disagree with the coalition's economic policy any delay or massive political upheaval cannot be good for the economy or in investment confidence in Britain.
After all for the meantime Nick Clegg would be running the country until the next Conservative Party conference in September when the leadership contest would be resolved and then there would be a shift in the dynamic in the Coalition agreement. Love it or loath it the fact that Cameron and Clegg get on in a personal capacity and share many of the same ideals helps keep the coalition together, without that dynamic it could descend into chaos and inter party fighting that could tear the agreement apart and possibly force a general election, something no one is prepared for and would again through economic stability to the wind, or a minority government. What we need is stability and a steady hand on the tiller. At the moment I think that there is the correct amount of debate and discussion in parliament to affect change that has been thoroughly thought our.

My other worry is that Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson are being painted up to be the main villains of the piece along with the Murdoch's. I think Rupert Murdoch has shown good amount of humility and an understandable lack of culpability with the main issues, after all he claims not to have spoken to the News of the World editor on a more than a monthly basis, after all it made up less than 1% of his global empire.

However Coulson and Brooks are being painted as the key "bad guys" - The danger of this is, yes they as editors were responsible for the conduct of their staff and if they were unaware that certain practices were being carried out then they were clearly incompetent and had no idea how their organisation was being run. However I fear the public will continue to bey for their blood and once they have been prosecuted then they will lose interest. Much like the MP expenses scandal, some of the worst were charged, publicly shamed, lost their seats or removed from power but the lesser players got away with it as the Public lost interest. Worse yet they will shout miscarriage of justice if they are declared innocent whether they are or not.

My fear is that everyone will be concentrating on Brooks, Coulson and the Murdoch's and forget about the people who actually carried out the acts or allowed them to happen and will have satisfied themselves with just the big scalps much like the Nuremberg trials, the top people all rightly dealt with by justice but those who signed individual orders, or carried out acts of brutality slipped the net.

Another fear is that this will turn into a guilt by association like the July bomb plot of 1944. Just because you have had dinner with Mrs Brooks, or had meetings with Mr Murdoch over the years you must somehow be linked to the scandal and have your name and office smeared by the association. After all Sir Paul Stephenson has gone from the Met and he was a much better head then Sir Ian Blair, and now so has his deputy on the basis of an as yet unproved rumour and pressure is mounting on Cameron to resign just for association with the Murdoch press. Something Mr Miliband has avoided despite him having 11 meetings out of 32 with News international yet the PM is feeling all the heat and now George Osborne is taking the flak as well for 18 meetings during the election.

What needs to be done is a sensible, non frenzied investigation that takes in all the possible guilty parties and prosecutes everyone who is guilty. There should also be a further reaching investigation to see if other newspaper groups are responsible for similar acts and legislation drawn up so as to make sure it never happens again. Clear guidelines need to be put down as to what is and isn't acceptable for reporters and also the way politicians and Police interact with the media as well as stiff penalties for those who break them.

The Press and Freedom of speech

On Wednesday, as I hopped channels and trying to absorb the unfolding situation I came across Kay Burley on Sky news asking, what I thought was a fairly stupid question.

"Does this all mean an end to investigative journalism?"

Then I saw comments on the Twittersphere and blogs about government attacks on free speech and press or of the government waging war on the press.

When one reads of government interference and control of the press images of Goebbels or a Soviet commissar reviewing and censoring every report.
I cannot believe that any government that we are a part of, or indeed in the UK would ever, outside of a state of war/emergency, control the press.

Gordon Brown stated on Wednesday in his speech to the house;

"With the exceptions on peace and war, there is no matter of greater importance than the basic liberties of our citizens."

It is the liberties of the individuals - You, I, Ryan Giggs, Nick Clegg, Milly Dowler etc...etc

Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right and a key belief of our party but then so are others freedoms. The basis of law is that the individual is allowed to carry out any action unless it causes offence to sensibilities or restricts the freedom of another individual(s) causes damage to the state.
This is why you are free to say what you like UNLESS it is prejudice or incites hatred or violence.
I, the individual am also free to act as I please in my own home and personal life as I see fit, again as long as I do not interfere with another individuals rights or freedoms.

The business at News corp has indeed crossed the lines, driven to get the next best story or gossip some journalists have soared where even the police fear to tread and engaging, as Mr Brown said, engaged  in "Law breaking often on an industrial scale."
This is indeed true. They have been invading Your liberty, or the Liberty and freedom of individuals to sell news papers and to dig dirt. Even worse they targeted a thirteen year old murder victim and then even deleted some of the messages which not only means the family think Milly Dowler was alive but also perverts the course of justice.
Other possible victims include families of servicemen lost in Afghanistan, September 11th, or even the 07/07 victims. For what reason though? To spice up a story further?

I'm not saying that investigative journalism should be stopped but there should be limits to what is done, such as attacking an individuals freedoms. Indeed investigative journalism has done amazing things and turned up very important stories that have had major ramifications in the world of politics and even in life in general. In recent times nothing more poignant has been turned up than the Westminster "expenses scandal."
It must continue and the press must be free to write and print what they want as long as it doesn't affect the individuals rights and liberties.

The next issue is the bribing of Police officers for information. I understand that sometimes the Police and Press do discuss matters for mutual benefit however the paying for information is straight up corruption and BOTH parties are guilty. A full investigation must be carried out to discover the depths of corruption with in the Police force, they are not above the law only the enforcers.

David Cameron was right to say that the press needs to be regulated by an independent body, like Offcom does for television. The media has to be reminded that they cannot break the law and are not above it.
These allegations against News international do show that criminal law has been broken and that the Police, whilst having a long look at themselves, need to investigate thoroughly.


Why Rebekah Brooks had to go.

It may be argued that she has become a scapegoat along with Andy Coulson and that as Editor in chief she had nothing to do with or knowledge of any wrong doing.

This is irrelevant. The Head of department is always responsible for the actions of their employees be it good or bad. German Field marshals were executed for the misconduct of some of their men whether they knew about it or not because they were their commanders and thus responsible.

Her willingness to lead the investigation could have been a genuine drive to save the company she loved and root out any wrong doing. However, as she was implicated in the crimes it would be massively hypocritical or even that she was destroying any evidence of any wrong doing by herself. It would be like asking Bruce Ismay to look into the Titanic disaster.

Her willingness to "Stay on the bridge" would only be noted as self serving. Ex News of the world employees were already touting the idea that they had been sacrificed to save her, it looked like Rupert Murdoch was willing to sever a limb of the company to save her and bury the evidence.
She had to accept full responsibility and resign and to rid any further investigation of a taint of unfairness.