The Case of the Missing Journalists

What’s the similarity between these 7 Telegraph sports journalists?

• Oliver Clive (44 articles since November 2007, most recent on 30th June)
• Austin Peters (109 articles since October 2007, most recent on 18th May)
• Charles Carrick (169 articles since October 2007, most recent on 1st July)
• Matthew Hannah (14 articles since September 2008, most recent on 30th June)
• William Gray (180 articles since October 2007, most recent on 28th June)
• Perry Crooke (60 articles since October 2007, most recent on 16th June)
• Dan Harbles (35 articles since November 2008, most recent on 30th June)

Well, according to Private Eye, they don’t exist. They’re made up. Invented. Plucked from the imagination of someone in the Telegraph’s London HQ.

When I first read this allegation in Private Eye I admit, in my naïve way, I was unconvinced. I’m aware that news organisations have, for a very long time, published articles that bear a remarkable similiarity to agency copy with a byline from one of their own journalists. But inventing non-existent journalists is a step on from this. Would the Telegraph, the newspaper that was so – rightly – aghast at the improprieties of MPs create fictional correspondents? Wouldn’t that be potentially pretty embarrassing? And anyway, given they’ve got such a good repertoire of sports journalists in house, what would be the motivation?

But, having checked it with the help of the new Journalisted, it would appear to be true.

The new Journalisted site has a terribly helpful ‘similar articles’ feature, which finds stories that cover similar subjects. This is great for contextualising an article, for seeing alternative reviews (e.g. of books or films) and for checking facts.

But it also has another use. It makes it much easier to see when someone has simply republished copy from a news agency or a press release.

This is what I did with the allegedly non-existent Telegraph journalists. I looked up their profiles on Journalisted, checked their articles, and found that many of them bore a remarkable similarity to articles in other newspapers that were either not bylined or credited to agencies.

Take this football story, by ‘Oliver Clive’ on 5th May:

“Porto left-back Aly Cissokho is set to make a decision on his future at the end of the season after claiming Tottenham are interested in him.”

A story that was also covered in the Daily Express, without a byline:

“Porto left-back Aly Cissokho is set to make a decision on his future at the end of the season after claiming Tottenham are interested in him.”

Slapping a made-up journalist’s name on news agency copy is one thing, but it gets worse. And this is where there is a material difference from what is, I’m told, an age old practice of bylining agency copy. Someone appears to have gone through the copy and edited out references to other news organisations.

The same football article in the Express, for example, quoted Cissokho: ‘"I have a contract until 2012 and the club officials want me to add another year to that," he told skysports.com.’ Yet in the Telegraph the reference to skysports.com was removed. Later in the article a separate quote, attributed to mountakhab.net was also removed from the Telegraph’s piece (accessed 2-7-09).

So, not only is the paper inventing bylines, but someone appears to be going through the agency copy and excising reference to competitors.

To check this wasn’t an unfortunate recent graduate called Oliver Clive being told to churn out agency copy I called the Telegraph and asked to speak to Clive. He could not be found. I emailed him at oliver.clive@telegraph.co.uk. No answer. Nor has there yet been any response from the other six ‘correspondents’ (if there is I’ll update this blog and make that apparent).

I’ve since managed to track down someone at the Telegraph. He did not deny the Private Eye story but said he thought it was hypocritical of a magazine that uses many pseudonyms and that it ignored the fact that this is 'standard industry practice'. It was not, he suggested, a big deal - and was done more than anything for 'design reasons', because it looked odd to have an article without a byline (though the majority of BBC news online articles are published without bylines, and lots of the Express online is not bylined).

Even if one accepts that, in an age of print, this was a common and recognised inside practice, does that make it justified? And, in the age of blogging, linking, transparency, and of the importance of cementing the brand of your journalists? Isn’t it time it stopped?

An unnecessary unmasking that does more than just damage The Times’ reputation

Anonymity in reporting did not start with blogging. But anonymous writing has exploded since the arrival of the web. Whether it is blogs, comments below blogs, comments beneath comment pieces or articles, or indeed articles themselves, anonymity – or in most cases pseudonyms – has characterized much of this first phase of democratic self-publishing.

There are certainly downsides to anonymity. Not knowing who has written something deprives comments and blogs of context. It creates another hurdle for the reader to climb to establish a piece’s credibility. It can relieve the author of feelings of responsibility. This can make the writer feel freer to write whatever they want, which can also lead him/her to extend their language or their accusations further than they might were their identity known.

There are also some big upsides to anonymity. One of these is the remarkable flowering of many new voices on the internet. This explosion of new, previously unheard voices is not only a good thing for political writing – as recognised by this year’s special Orwell Prize for blogging – but a good thing for society and for public understanding. It is part of the reinvention of journalism. Previously, people had to take their stories to a professional journalist and rely on that journalist, and his/her publication, to publish. This is no longer the case. They can publish it themselves.

Enormous numbers of people have taken up this opportunity. At BlogPulse’s last count there were 110,175,548 blogs published on the net. In the UK, there are blogs about care working (like Tanya Corbett's), about magistrates (like The law West of Ealing Broadway), about local politics (like Bob Piper's), and about driving an ambulance (like Random Acts of Reality).

But we are still at the very early stages of this reinvention. As the Media Standards Trust discovered with the 87 entries to this year’s Orwell Prize for Blogging (we, the Media Standards Trust – run the Orwell Prize with Political Quarterly and the Orwell Trust, but have no role in the judging), some blogs have a way to go before they could be said to have achieved Orwell’s aim of making political writing into an art. And there are clearly many unanswered questions about the responsibilities of bloggers to their work, to their colleagues, to those they work with and to the public.

Night Jack’s blog about his experiences as a policeman, which he submitted to this year’s special Orwell Prize for Blogging, was - the judges unanimously agreed – ‘wonderful’ and a clear winner. In their judgment ‘'The insight into the everyday life of the police that Jack Night's wonderful blog offered was - everybody felt - something which only a blog could deliver, and he delivered it brilliantly’. Their decision was subsequently welcomed by many others. In an editorial The Guardian wrote that although Night Jack had stopped blogging after receiving the prize, ‘what is already there should be read by anyone who has a view on policing… This is life as the police see it. Read it’. His blogs not only illuminated the daily grind of a policeman, but shed light on the legal and judical process – something that has sadly disappeared from most newspapers with the decline of court reporting.

Night Jack was careful to disguise his own identity, and that of the people and cases he blogged about. He even stopped blogging having won the prize, conscious that his increased profile would make it impossible to continue. He did not seek to make any money from his blogs – then or since. He did not come to the awards ceremony. He donated his £3,000 prize money to the Police Benevolent Fund.

Then this week, more than two months after Night Jack stopped blogging, The Times published his real name, his picture, the police force in which he worked, and the name of one of the people in a case about which he wrote.

The Times justified its actions by suggesting that it was exposing the malpractice of a police officer. It did not say anything he had written was inaccurate, nor did it explain the public interest in publishing his real name – as opposed simply to telling the police force for which he worked (which it did) and letting them take disciplinary action (which they are). Why did it then need to publish it to an audience of millions? By publishing his identity the paper has not only prevented the continuation of the Night Jack blog (in its previous form), but significantly raised the risks of others who may be writing, or thinking about writing, from the frontline of public life.

By taking the decision to expose Night Jack The Times has almost certainly deprived us of voices that would otherwise have spoken out. It will probably have made whistleblowers and anonymous sources think twice before releasing information. It has, in other words, done a good job of suppressing free speech and freedom of expression.

In 1984 George Orwell wrote “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." It appears that The Times has, in this instance, taken on the role of a large boot, stamping on a little but important voice. Is this something for which a venerable 225-year-old newspaper would like to be remembered?

New New Journalisted now live

Hooray! We've just launched a *new, improved, fresh faced Journalisted (www.journalisted.com)*. Apart from looking cleaner and more well scrubbed, we've added a bunch of stuff to the new site to make it - we hope - that much more useful:

- *Compare journalists who write similar articles*. Our clever semantic search tool compares the articles of all national news journalists and identifies journalists who write stories about similar subjects. Andrew Grice (The Independent), Andrew Sparrow (The Guardian), and Andrew Porter (The Daily Telegraph) - for example - as well as sharing the same first name, also all write about Westminster politics. Richard Littlejohn, Peter McKay, Peter Oborne, Macer Hall and others all tend to write trenchant pieces on the government and Gordon Brown. Charlie Brooker, who writes a TV and a feature column, pens pieces similar to Anna Pickard and Sam Wollaston (the TV ones) but also Paul Carr and Hugo Rifkind (the technology and features types stuff). It gets even more fun if you do one degree of separation but that's for those with far too much time on their hands

- *Read similar articles by other journalists*. Click on an article and you can not only see people who are blogging about it or commenting on it, but read similar articles by other journalists. This is meant to help in three ways: (1) You can compare facts - e.g. on swine flu cases, on political revelations, crime etc (2) You can compare opinions - about books, people or politics, (3) You can see who is churning out press releases (because their articles will bear a remarkable similarity to wire copy in other papers)

- *Link to more biographical info*. We've made it alot easier for journalists - and the public - to send us more links to Wikipedia pages, Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts, you name it. And we're going to encourage people to send links to prizes won, books written etc.

- *Articles from other publications*. The old site only covered the national press and the BBC. Though we don't automatically add any additional articles on the new site journalists can now send us articles published in other publications - to better represent their output

There's some more new stuff - and alot more in the pipeline - but I'll let you find that for yourself.

If you've got any thoughts on how we can make the site better - or if you find any glitches we haven't spotted - please let me know (by commenting here or emailing me at martin DOT moore AT mediastandardstrust DOT org).

News Innovation 'Unconference' - Friday 10th July

What do these have in common:

Audioboo – an ‘iphone audio blogging app’ that came of age during the G20 protests and is now being touted as the 'YouTube of the spoken word' (from Matthew Weaver on guardian.co.uk)

Addiply – ‘Perfectly targetted local advertising’ software aimed at entrepreneurial journalists and online news organisations. Rick Waghorn tells you more about it on his blog, and you can see it in action on the Peoples Republic of South Devon

Guardian Open Platform – enabling people to build applications out of the Guardian’s content (like trending swearwords…). A 'chasmic leap into the future' says Tom Watson.

Talk About Local – ‘a project to give people in their communities a powerful online voice’ by teaching them how to use online community and reporting tools.

Journalisted – a directory of all the journalists published in the national press and on the BBC with links to their articles and other useful info (statement of interest – we built and run Journalisted – and are about to launch a new version) at www.journalisted.com

Debategraph – enabling you to use interactive graphics to help structure debate. “What’s cool here: This tool lets you “see” and engage with ideas, and explore their inter-relationships, very elegantly” says Craig Stoltz (from debategraph.org)

Help Me Investigate – where you will be able to ‘Collaborate with other people to investigate things you all care about’. Paul Bradshaw explains more on his OnlineJournalismBlog

They are all news innovations that have the potential to change the way we fund, gather, publish and consume news on the web.

But it’s rare that the people who developed these innovations, who use them, or who who want to understand their potential, get a chance to meet and discuss them (the recent JeeCamp being a notable exception).

That’s why we, the Media Standards Trust and the Web Science Research Initiative, are organising News Innovation London – a half-day ‘unconference’ on 10^th July, supported by NESTA (and at NESTA’s swish 1 Plough Place venue).

The idea is to get a bunch of journalists, developers and thinkers (academics and think tank types) together to talk about this stuff and learn from one another. It’s an unconference so there's no formal programme and anyone can put their name down to present (wiki to go up shortly).

It’s free – as long as you register in time, and as long as you’re prepared to participate (and maybe even present). You can register at http://newsinnovationlondon.eventbrite.com/

If you're developing an online news innovation yourself, or know about one you think should get an airing, please do tell me about it here or, even better, come along on the 10th.

Unanswered questions about The Sun’s ‘baby-father’ story

On 13^th February, The Sun broke the original story about 13-year-old ‘baby-father’ Alfie. This week, it revealed that the story was almost entirely wrong (though you wouldn’t have known that from the coverage).

The most astonishing aspect of the story was not only that Alfie was young, but that Alfie also looked incredibly young. Rather than a 13-year-old, Alfie looked – from the published photographs and video – no more than 10.

The Sun held the exclusive rights to the original story – which included video access to Alfie, his 15-year-old girlfriend and their new baby in hospital (video still available to view, 21-5-09, here)

The commercial impact of the story was immediate. So popular was the story and video (‘video that stunned world’ the site said) that, combined with the Sun’s coverage of Jade Goody, it helped make www.thesun.co.uk the most popular UK newspaper website in February (rising from 5th to 1st position according to Media Guardian).

Nor was the impact simply commercial. For politicians, particularly opposition politicians, the story showed that Britain really was ‘broken’. David Cameron, writing in The Sun, said ‘I could barely believe my eyes yesterday morning when I saw the pictures of baby-faced Alfie Patten and his own baby girl’, and he applauded The Sun ‘for bringing this to public attention’. Turns out he should have suspended his disbelief.

This week The Sun returned to the story – and not apologetically. It splashed the news that the 13-year-old was not the real father across its front page on Tuesday and continued it on pages 4-5. It named the actual father (based on DNA this time) – then 14, now 15, and talked about the sex life of the 15-year-old mother. It referred to the liberalism of the girl’s mother (reporting that she let her daughter take boys upstairs to her bedroom) and acknowledged that the girl at the centre of the story was being bullied.

So the story has come full circle. We find the actual story is arguably much less newsworthy (’14-year-old boy – who looks 14 – makes 15-year-old girl pregnant’) and would probably not have boosted audiences to The Sun website or elicited the same political laments about our moral malaise.

But a number of questions remain unanswered about The Sun’s baby-father story:

How did The Sun find the story in the first place? Was it sold to them? If so, did the paper make a deal, and if so, has it paid for the story? (according to Max Clifford, on the Today Programme, and according to Stephen Brook on guardian.co.uk, it hasn’t).

How did The Sun try to check the boy’s story? Did it base a story of such commercial significance – and such personal significance to those involved – on the claims of a 13-year-old boy (or what he told his parents)? Did it speak to other children who knew the girl and boy (that the papers have since spoken to) or did it do its own DNA test, before running with the story across its paper and website?

Should The Sun have reported the story in the first place? Given issues surrounding reporting of children (as spelt out, for example, in Clause 6 of the Editorial Code of Conduct), privacy concerns, and the fact it was not sure the boy was the real father.

Is The Sun setting up a trust for the new baby (as reported in the Media Guardian this week but not commented on by the paper)? Is this meant as an apology for the original story?

Journalism wins

Though we don’t yet know the long term effects of the MPs expenses scandal we already know it has had a very positive impact on journalism. 

Despite the resignation of the Speaker, Michael Martin, the repercussions of this story will take a long time to play out for MPs and the political process. ‘Much much more needs to happen if MPs are to get out of the expenses morass’, Peter Riddell writes in The Times. And later in the same paper Daniel Finkelstein wonders if MPs have really yet understood what a profound impact the information revolution has had – and will have on politics.

But some of the beneficial repercussions on journalism are already apparent. For one thing it has reminded people – print journalists in particular – that not only are rumours of newspapers demise greatly exaggerated, but that they can genuinely hold politicians to account, and catalyse root and branch reform.

The expenses scandal has been a shot in the arm for public interest journalism. It has shown that political news can sell papers (the Telegraph has, according to Media Guardian, sold 600,000 more newspapers), that a newspaper (as opposed to a website or blog) can lead the news agenda for days – weeks – on end. And it has shown that the role of journalism as watchdog is alive and well.

This will not only put a spring in the step of political correspondents but make all journalists more conscious – and prouder – of their trade. It will help remind journalism students about why they’re going into a profession that has – in so many other respects – such an uncertain future.

All the better that the story has been owned – quite literally – by the conservative (Conservative?) bastion that is the Daily Telegraph. A paper that appeared to have lost its way politically and journalistically. The Telegraph has now found its voice – and found it in 130+ point type.

It is not yet clear whether this story represents a flare in the embers of newspapers that are already dying, or whether it represents a revival of the – often idealised – the Fourth Estate. Whichever it is, journalists should take a moment to reflect on a good time for public interest journalism.

Post MPs expenses, will shame come back in vogue?

Patricia Nicol's new book, Sucking Eggs, tells us 'What Your Wartime Granny Could Teach You About Diet, Thrift, and Going Green'. It could also teach us something about changing modern morality - particularly the rise of shame.

Bee Wilson's review in The Sunday Times (May 3rd) notes that Nicol  "shows that austerity worked to the extent that it did (and, of course, rules were flouted) only through a powerful combination of social norms and extensive government intervention. It was shame and fear of the consequences that kept people on the straight and narrow. Shame has largely vanished from Britain now".

But, post the MPs expenses scandal, could shame be making a comeback? Certainly there are many MPs now loath to show their faces in public. A week of wall-to-wall coverage detailing how our elected representatives spent their allowances on moats, chandeliers and manure has inflamed the tut-tutter in all of us.

Even those sometimes reluctant to wag a finger have been understandably unable to resist. A BBC correspondent talked on the Today programme about 'Hogarthian excess', while Simon Jenkins wrote about how, 'In scenes reminiscent of Gillray and Cruickshank, MPs have been kicked downstairs amid a cascade of loo seats, tampons, light bulbs, chandeliers, mole-traps, dog biscuits and horse manure'.

So, as we usher in this new 'age of austerity' do we also usher in the wartime and post-war values that go with it? Shame being one of the most powerful?

Certainly the mood seems right, and MPs are not the first. Bankers, who in not so ancient history considered themselves the 'Masters of the Universe' are now caricatured as the villains in Christmas pantomimes.

And there are other factors encouraging people to furrow their brow at their neighbour. Implicit and explicit shame will almost certainly play a part in Britain 'going green'.  The government will no doubt soon conclude that shaming people into recycling and cutting back is more effective than gentle encouragement.

But, as Wilson also points out in her review, shame can not only encourage austerity and environmentalism, it can encourage intolerance of difference, and foster suspicion, secretiveness and resentment.

Of course the news media plays a prominent part in the definition of our society's moral sense (and moral outrage). We shall soon see if the shaming of our Members of Parliament leads to a broader embrace of a value which can be as corrosive as it is effective.

Poster courtesy of ww2poster.co.uk under fair use guidelines for educational purposes