After a Ruling that destroys the Right to be Heard - Is it Time to Overhaul the Ofcom Standards and Fairness Complaints Process?
In a telling scene in the new Stieg Larsson film, The Girl Who Played with Fire, investigative reporter Micke Blomqvist insists that the targets of a Millennium investigation into people trafficking, must be contacted for comment before publication.
As you’d expect most fetch up dead, but as asking for a comment or interview is what journalists do, it may come as a surprise that there is no obligation to contact the subject of an investigation in the UK.
A commonly cited reason (for not contacting people) is the supposed threat of injunction; grossly over-stated in my experience. But Editors usually insist the reporter ‘put a call in’, even if the reporter doesn’t really need to, or sometimes want to, hear the answer. The risk if they don’t, according to former Sunday Telegraph Editor Dominic Lawson, is that “the newspaper’s position is much weaker, legally, if it then publishes something which is untrue”.
Radio and TV are different. The convention enshrined in the Ofcom Code (which applies to both BBC and ITV) says broadcasters must avoid unfairness. In fact it pays dividends to read the whole of Section 7 which is all about contributors’ rights.
But most crucial is 7.11 which states. “If a programme alleges wrongdoing or incompetence or makes other significant allegations, those concerned should normally be given an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond.” This applies in particular to investigations by hostile TV programmes. BBC Panorama, C4 Dispatches fall into that category.
There is a PR maxim that says ‘the later they approach you, the worse the story will be; and the less they tell you, the worse the story will be.’ So when corporate PRs get wind of an investigation, but no reporter gets in touch or they have to kick the information out of them, alarm bells shrill.
Now everyone needs to sit up and take notice. The regulator Ofcom has validated the decision by a programme maker to be economical about content even, in one case, after they failed to contact the target at all.
Cast your mind back to October 2009 when Channel 4 Dispatches ran an hour long programme, made by Blakeway Productions, called What’s in Your Breakfast. It was an attack on health claims made by cereal manufacturers about their products. Whether the programme was right, partially right or plain wrong is not at issue. What matters is why there were no interviews or even a quote from Nestlé, Kellogg’s and others?
The key to this is the word ‘contributor’. Dispatches asked the manufacturers some questions, but it now seems, intentionally, never asked them to contribute (by interview or statement); thereby avoiding having to inform them in advance about the content.
The question Ofcom was asked to address was whether Nestlé and Kellogg’s should have been allowed to contribute to the programme. If yes, then they were entitled to be dealt with ‘fairly’ (7.3).
The Office of Non-Communication
Months went by, until last week fairness and common sense took a hit below the waterline when Ofcom ruled they were not ‘a contributor’ and handed Dispatches carte blanche to treat future targets unfairly. If you don’t believe it read the three adjudications (Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin 164 – 23/08/2010) .
This debate goes back more than 10 years, when the ITC (grandfather to Ofcom) stopped talking about ‘interviewees’ and introduced the notion of a ‘contributor’. The issue then as now, was how much information about the investigation, programme makers were obliged to provide individuals or organisations directly affected.
Restricting it to interviewees only, put the target in a Catch 22. First they had to agree to do an interview, before anybody would tell them what the interview was actually about. This was grossly unfair. Hence the change, in part at my insistence, to ‘contributor’. Anybody directly affected could agree to contribute, but hold fire on an actual interview, while they assessed the evidence the programme makers wished to confront them with. It was imperfect, but a lot fairer. Programme makers have never liked it of course..
And so it remained until last week. In the lengthy ruling, in which Nestlé and Kellogg’s had complained that they were not given a proper opportunity to respond; Ofcom said there was no requirement on the programme-maker to offer such an opportunity because “no significant allegations of wrong-doing” were made about either cereal manufacturer.
Ignore for a moment that Ofcom has mis-quoted the wording of Section 7.11 (see above) – surely, any critical comment on national TV about a product, especially foods consumed by half the world’s children, manufactured by two of the world’s most famous companies, is significant, and they should have been granted all the rights accruing to a contributor, including a timely and proper opportunity to respond.
You could argue that the viewer might have liked to hear what these giant manufacturers had to say. Instead they were shut out. Their input largely ignored. Their protests dismissed. Were it not so serious, one might have laughed when Channel 4’s lawyer Stephen Collins brushed off one short (two paragraph) rebuttal statement as “verbose and self-serving”.
As you can imagine there is more to this story. I sense a degree of ‘Regulator Capture’ by C4, but have no evidence of it. But perhaps instead of worrying about one adjudication, no matter how bizarre and perverse, the real problem is with the Ofcom Fairness and Standards process. It has become a legalistic, bureaucratic monster, where terror of Judicial Review eclipses common sense and fairness.
In December Ofcom quietly changed the rules. No longer is there an option for a complainant to have ‘their day in court’ – the tribunal hearing just vanished. Now all decisions are made in conclave by a committee. Who they are, we don’t know. Have they read everything, one can only hope. What we do know is they base the decision on a rinsed version of the original complaint.
It is time for a new complaints process; something more akin to the old Broadcasting Complaints Commission. In the meantime Channel 4 should take no comfort from this Ofcom ruling. Dispatches got away with injustice, that’s all. (c)JTCS2010
Ofcom has profoundly damaged the ‘right to be heard’ by this perverse ruling (see pages 51-108) The entire Channel 4 programme (Dispatches: What‟s In Your Breakfast?, Channel 4, 26 October 2009) was an attack on cereal manufacturers and their products. How Ofcom can declare there were ‘no significant allegations of wrong doing’ and therefore no need to give them a voice in the programme, defies any commonly held notion of fairness, but even worse in my opinion, paraphrases (intentionally misinterprets?) Section 7.11 of the Code, which actuallty states If a programme alleges wrongdoing, or incompetence or makes other significant allegations, those concerned should normally be given an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond. Ofcom might also look at their Rule 7.1 and Guidance Note 7.11 (20 March 2006).
“When someone says something is ‘off the record’ they have already told 20 people. When it’s ’strictly off the record’ they have already told 200″ (John Betjeman)
PR in Tweetspeak!
#pr power. #Crest Nicholson #FHDC shamed over Dead Red Lodge #newmarket ghost town #hatchfield. Indie http://bit.ly/bsIu5b #Boadicea Lives.
But a picture is still worth a thousand tweets:
Red Lodge resident Lisa Rothwell in the Independent 18/06/10
Lord Derby had wanted to build about 1,200 houses, a hotel, park and ride scheme and a retail park on a 160-acre site in Newmarket, Suffolk.
But councillors voted against the plans at a meeting last Wednesday, after a long-running battle during which Save Historic Newmarket Action Group used external PR help to fight the proposals.
The pressure group turned to independent PR John Stonborough, a former adviser to ex-House of Commons speaker Michael Martin, to advise on strategic and tactical PR. Working with Stonborough on the PR effort to see off the development was former Brunswick PR Victoria Sabin.
‘The people of Newmarket believed passionately that Lord Derby’s development would ruin their town and possibly their livelihood,’ said Stonborough. ‘All attempts to dissuade Lord Derby had failed and the local district council seemed hell-bent on imposing Labour housing quotas on Newmarket, whatever the locals wanted. We had one shot and one shot only to halt it, so we mounted a classic PR campaign for them.’
Over eight months, Stonborough and Sabin targeted local, national and racing media and built up lobbying firepower with support from new Conservative MP Matthew Hancock, top racing commentators including Sir Peter O’Sullevan, John McCririck and Clare Balding, as well as legendary trainer Henry Cecil and Derby winner Sir Michael Stoute.
Stonborough said: ‘The local authority, despite being Conservative, seemed deaf to all pleas until we were able to prove there was no need for any more houses in the Newmarket area and it had a democratic obligation to respect local wishes.’
Last week’s meeting, when Forest Heath district councillors voted against the plans, was so busy some people had to wait outside.
At 7.15pm last night Forest Heath District Council voted unanimously to reject the Earl of Derby’s application to build more than a thousand houses at Hatchfield on the edge of Newmarket. The result of one of the most intense PR assignments my colleague Victoria Sabin and I have ever undertaken and a personal triumph for the amazing Rachel Hood and her colleagues in SHNAG (Save Historic Newmarket Action Group).This vote, enabled by a fundamental change in housing policy under the new government, will have repercussions for other Local Authorities all over the country and give great strength to countless communities faced with similar attempts to concrete over greenfield sites. (illustration ‘Little Rachel Riding Hood’ by Ivana Nohel)
My friend Guy Black has been dispatched to the Lords in yesterday’s Honours List, (along with John Prescott for gawds sake). I am so delighted, Guy is a terrific bloke and currently executive director of the Telegraph Media Group; anybody remember what happened to the last Lord Black at the Telegraph?
Clients and anybody who’s sat through one of my lectures, has heard me bang on about creating an ‘exclusion zone’ around reporters ‘Treat all microphones as on and all cameras as running.’ ‘Classic Gaffes Caught on Microphone’
Due on Newsnight tonight?
We ready you for any Breaking News interview. We test drive your key messages, do real time run-throughs and give you the practical skills to handle any live or pre-recorded ‘Paxo’ style interview.
As the Teddy Bear sort of said;
It’s lovely down Wood Lane* today
But safer to stay at home.
If you go down Wood Lane today
You’d better not go alone
* BBC Television Centre
Leave it to the experts. Its no picnic! Call the Air Supremacy INSTANT RESPONSE number +44 7771 893 683
Dear John, dear Jane and dear Ian In the name of the entire Media Team we would like to thank you for this marathon training.You are beating all records here: the media training company who has been working with us for ever, the longest media training session ever (4 days), most interviews in one day (44!) and the gold medal to Ian for a truly tough job of listening to (JS) over and over again for 11 consecutive times…. Many thanks for your dilligent preparation, the stamina during the four days and the individual feedback reports sent by Jane today! Best regards,
Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd | Mythenquai 50/60, 8022 Zurich, Switzerland
A staggering 75 million people signed up for a Twitter account in 2009, but in December only 17 percent of them sent even a single Tweet. An all-time low say research company RJMetrics. That’s still nearly 13 million Tweeters but I wonder if there is too little commercial application for it work. I have tweeted journalists, without any noticeable benefit over picking up the phone. But my friend PR Queen Liz Male @lizmale swears by it.
It’s hard to believe it’s ten years since twenty of us crewed Ocean Spirit of Moray from Cadiz to Bermuda, in the Tall Ships Race. We were all ages from 17 to 70. Most of us had never met till the day we set sail. The fact that it was a huge success (2nd boat over the line) and great fun, was down to the skipper Ian Lerner. My job, in addition to story telling was making a home vid. Not easy, ocean passages are hours and hours of nothing much, with bursts of jolting high drama; too dark, too rough, too wet, too busy, too tired, too scared to film. Once safely back home, creating ‘sturm und drang’ out of the footage I did get, was relatively easy, but what I just couldn’t distil was the endlessness of 3 weeks at sea. The feeling of never arriving, always being in the middle of your own horizon. So, sitting at my PC, I put on my favourite Carlos Santana track, Samba Pa Ti and started again. (YouTube clip)
Did you hear the author Phyllis James - a most delightful woman to meet incidentally - interview (rip into) BBC DG Mark Thompson on the Today prog just now? She said the BBC, which is nearly as old as her (90), is unwieldy, bureaucratic, ageist, overbloated and had lost its way. As an ex-BBC Governor, Lady James had the info to hand to prove her case. He didn’t stand a chance!
I wonder if, when the BBC invited this ’sweet little old lady’ to be a guest editor on Today, they had any idea what an intellect more lethal than a gin-trap actually means. Well they know now!
Q: What was the only on-air arrest? (asks) Geoff Martin, Motherwell A: The Capital Radio show PDQ was hosted by John Stonborough. In March, 1983, he interviewed Derek Barnes about his minicab firm. When accused of fraud, Barnes tried to walk out but ex-policeman JS made a citizen’s arrest. Since it was sub judice, the episode could not be broadcast until the following October when Barnes was jailed for four years at Reading Crown Court.
What Sam doesn’t know is that Barnes wrote to me from Reading jail and asked for a ‘cassette’ of the programme, which he had missed. What I want to know is why a chap living in Motherwell, Glasgow presumably, is writing to a Californian news web-site?
I am just finalising an Ofcom Fairness complaint about a C4 programme for a client. Nothing new there. The rule is, or was until today, that TV complaints had to be submitted to Ofcom within 90 days. NOT any more. The new limit is 20 days. If you need to contact them for an extension, here is the address. Ofcom OCC Broadcast Team Riverside House 2a Southwark Bridge Road London SE1 9HA Tel: 020 7981 3040 Fax: 020 7981 3334 Email: occbroadcast@ofcom.org.uk
Just 3 degrees separate Hillary and me. Since the elevation of Baroness Ashton to High Representative for Foreign Affairs of the EU, it’s only a hop skip and a jump from my house to the White House. It goes like this: Me, Peter Kellner - my fellow Associate at Project Associates and founding President of YouGov - his wife Cathy (Baroness Ashton) to the Secretary of State herself. How cool is that?
Not very, if you read the British broadsheets. Even today they continue to spew insults instead of rejoicing, that an English woman has been awarded one of the most important jobs in the world. In time people will recognise it for what is, a remarkable individual achievement and a milestone for Britain in Europe. I don’t mind if it’s the Daily-Mail-on-Sunday accusing her of being a commie, or worse still a federalist (a dirty word if ever I heard one), I expect nothing else, but that the heavies should join in the scoffing fit, concerns me more.
The fact is, it’s a hideous difficult job, where raw intellect, persuasiveness and force of personality must replace the lack of any fire power. She has no army (unless you include her fell host of faceless bureaucratii ) and no chance of consensus among 27 EU Heads of State; yet she now represents half a billion of us at the top table. Bizarre? yes, but that is the reality of Europe.
I know there would have been more venom had Mandelson or Miliband got the job, though Gordon even managed to Balls that up. Personally, I am delighted that Peter’s wife got it. As he said to me, she never asked for, applied for, or campaigned for it. But they chose her. Now we must give her a chance, it will be only a matter of days before she is tested. Let’s reserve our judgement until year one is over. Its my hunch that she will do fine.
I gave a talk to some 50 post grad students at Cardiff Uni yesterday. Nice bright bunch. Suddenly mid talk I got a ‘tweet’ from one of them saying ‘Hi Jon, enjoying the guest lecture’. Thanks, but what happens if they hate you? Does it say ‘eff off Jon!’. Click to Comment // Posted on Wednesday 18 November 2009 // General
Did you see my friend Rosa Monckton’s film ” When a mother’s love is not enough” on BBC1. It was as devastating as Cathy Come Home. Rosa has a handicapped child - Domenica (my god-daughter). Rosa roamed the country visiting other parents of desperately handicapped children. Their plight didn’t just make me cry as a parent, but livid that our social services, instead of helping, trusses them in shaming red tape. Just how they cope is what Rosa captured so bleakly in her remarkable documentary. Perhaps now with a PM with a handicapped son and a PM-in-waiting (who Rosa interviewed about his son who died aged 6) there is a chance of something being done. God knows those parents deserve it. Catch it while you can on BBC iPlayer.
Click to Comment // Posted on Friday 13 November 2009 // General
“Would you like it sent straight to your mobile?”
“You bet”, I thought.
And there it was.
An SMS from SWISS
(heaven forbid you call it Swiss Air) and
this Thing.
My boarding-card was now bar-code.
Would it work?
What if the phone was nicked,
or the battery died?
No need to worry.
I sashayed my cool PDA through ZRH
(fast-bag-drop! who-needs-it!).
Scanned that cell past the bloke in the cubicle,
who said something in Züridüütsch about Vorsprung durch Technik;
and I was Airside.
Simples!
The flight gets called, I stand up.
No phone.
I’d left it in the café by the Duty Free.
Take my advice,
for a stress free life.
Stick to paper.
Just received this interesting letter from the fair Catherine Speller at the fast free Press Complaints Commission.
Dear John, I know from your blog that you already know about us - and indeed refer to the Code - but it might be helpful for me to give you some information about some of the other work we do in addition to dealing with complaints about published articles. We also have an increasingly important role to play in helping individuals in other ways. We run a very effective 24-hour anti-harassment service, for example, which has been praised by a wide range of individuals who have used it; and can also advise people on a pre-publication basis about stories that are about to be published. As you may know, we pro-actively contact those who find themselves in the media spotlight - for example, after a major incident or accident etc - and offer our services if they are having problems either with press behaviour or published material. (Recently, for example, I was in touch with the care home in Scotland where the two girls who tragically took their own lives were based - as well as the local police force - to remind them what we could do to help if necessary).
Traditionally, we have focussed our PR efforts on ensuring that those representing vulnerable people are fully briefed about our work: police forces and family liaison officers, Coroners, Hospitals etc, through meetings and presentations, mailings and events. However, I am now expanding this work to include media and PR consultants who are offering media advisory services, as I think this is another really important area for us to focus on. I hope that the information I’m sending you proves to be useful - do please feel free to pass it on to clients if appropriate. Kind regards, Catherine
The PCC is an independent self-regulatory body which deals with complaints about the editorial content of newspapers and magazines (and their websites). They keep industry standards high by training journalists and editors, and work pro-actively behind the scenes to prevent harassment and media intrusion” Unlike Ofcom (and the BBC) they can intervene pre-publication.
John Mair (left) has invited me to have a ‘Coventry Conversation’ with him at Coventry University on the 29th, http://www.scribd.com/doc/17567786/Coventry-Conversations-Autumn-2009 . The topic is PR’s “Blocking investigation or ensuring truth for clients”. It’s a good subject, discussing the vital role of PRs in the investigative process with John Mair, Senior Lecturer now but once a formidable investigative documentary maker for the Beeb and Granada’s World in Action series. I should know, I had more than one ding dong with him. But, as Lord (Manny) Shinwell said, ‘when all your friends are dead, your enemies become your friends’.
Come along; watch the fur fly. It’s free.
The Press Complaints Commission has made a couple of important amendments to their Editors Code; one is about media harassment. It says i) Journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit. and ii) They must not persist in questioning, telephoning, pursuing or photographing individuals once asked to desist; nor remain on their property when asked to leave and must not follow them. If requested, they must identify themselves and whom they represent. And here is a handy tip, to save a lot of time, if you need to get in touch with the Committee Secretary Ian Beales, here are his details. Tel: 01453 860577. Mobile: 0771 577 0400. Email: ianbeales@mac.com
This story was in the Guardian on Monday 24th August. ‘ PR groups cash in on Russian conflict: Russia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia are using public relations firms to influence the western media, writes David Teather
Apparently I had swine flu. I went to the Doc today as I’ve had this vicious earache, sore throat and a general feeling of malaise since returning from holiday.
‘I said, I think I have got something terminal, Doc. He said, that’s what you said last time you were here. I said, where is it written I can’t have two terminal diseases at once, if I want? I’m private, not NHS.’
The symptoms were so mild at first (cough) I didn’t know I had it. The secondary infection has laid me low. So low, they are sending me to Libya.
I was at a dinner in New York. We were discussing Georgia - no the other one. The Russians had barged through South Ossetia and feelings were running high. That was a year ago this week.
I said, somewhat provocatively, that the worst thing (for the West) about Mikheil Saakashvili, the charismatic President, is that he looks and sounds like the American educated lawyer he is. If he looked like the Georgian über-brigand with the big black moustache, we would dismiss him as a warlord and the whole disastrous escapade as a clashing of clans.
Various people jumped down my throat at the same time, explaining we had a duty to support newly independent democratic states; that he was a democrat, freely elected, an advocate of the free market and of open society. I know I know, I said, but a DUTY to support? I don’t think so. This is about oil again, only this time it’s in a pipe (2 in fact) not in the ground. I said I thought Saakashvili’s militant nationalism was foolish – the Russians baited him and he snapped; but NATO was much to blame for pretending that we could aid him. I added that NATO, stood for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and wondered which bit of the Trans-Caucasus littoral bordered our mutual Ocean. Cold Wars start with super power stand-offs and World Wars start because of treaties with faraway places that get invaded.
None of this won me friends on the Upper East Side. One year on, Georgia and Russia are simmering again. But surprisingly the anniversary went un-noticed in the West. The EU are monitoring the border, the Americans rightly refused. And mercifully talk of Georgia joining NATO is now demoted to a ‘goal’ along with shopping trips to Mars. If Russia’s horizons ended on the snowy summits of the Caucasus, wrote General Fadeev in 1850, then the whole of the western half of the Asian continent would be outside our sphere of influence and … would not long wait for another master. He was referring, interestingly, to Great Britain!
But why the change of heart – what happened to the Little Country that Can whom my dinner friends supported so passionately?
Well, sometimes I watch Russian TV (Russia Today) along with Al Jazeera and a lot of other stuff (Nigerian and Brazilian telly are fun) and I stumbled on this. Allegedly ITN’s Julian Manyon thinks Saakashvili is ‘a lunatic’, furthermore it is claimed by a Russian freelance, he is not allowed by his News Desk to say so.
Who knows if this hearsay is true? It was on Russian TV so it can’t be, It’s all anti Georgia propaganda. Innit?
I don’t know Manyon, but he might consider Saakashvili a bit nutty (for any foreigners reading this blog, this is slang not a medical term). After all who in his right mind would provoke a fight with a massive Russian army aiding South Ossetians who wish to be part of Russia not Georgia. Manyon knows better than most that every time anybody (mostly Muslims) cries independence in the Caucasus, they are ruthlessly suppressed. This was true in Chechnya, Dagestan as well as the Sufi-led revolts of the mid 19th Century to name just a few. No good comes of anything like that in the Caucasus, ever.
But it does raise the issue of partiality in news reporting. We are encouraged to side with brave Georgia and its telegenic President and not to trust the other lot. But, yesterday Helen Boaden, Director of BBC News wrote in the Times ‘our job is to represent all sides in an argument accurately and fairly and test them as rigorously as we can to allow audiences to reach their own judgements.’ So if one of the most experienced foreign correspondents in the English speaking world (albeit on ITV but governed by similar strictures) has concerns about Saakashvili - and has evidence to support it, I think we should be told more. It would clarify if this was just a lie (= ham-fisted Russian propaganda), or whether those New York diners were right in their support or very naive (see NY Times Aug 5). In the meantime I am reminding myself why Lenin ordered the Red Army into Georgia in 1921. It was to do with Ossetians and Abkhazians not wanting to be part of Georgia. Only back then there was no oil, no NATO, no US 6th Fleet and no President on TV in a Brooks Brothers button-down shirt and tassel loafers, to engorge liberal hearts in NYC but risk dragging the rest of us in into another load of trouble. Yes, I support Georgia, but a duty to support, because Saakashvili looks nice? Fiddlesticks.
I never thought I would pray for a mobile phone not to work. No, I am not on a train, listening to some ****hole. I am writing a book. It’s a novel, well, more of a thriller really, based on a handsome TV reporter – of course, what else. His name is Orlando Pound. I wrote another book about him some fifteen years ago. That one is on a memory stick somewhere. The modern equivalent of a drawer. The only fundamental change in the two stories is (are?) the gadgets I can place at his disposal.
Most gadget innovations created new exciting opportunities for the writer. Who can forget Q? Or The Wasp, John Buchan’s yellow and black Hispano Suiza racing up the Great North Road. Even Willa Cather’s settlers in covered wagons could give a redskin a run for his money with the ultimate gadget, the Colt 45, so cynically named the Peacemaker.
But the mobile phone screws everything. I feel like Anjelica Huston in that Orange advert – you know the one. How can I create dramatic tension if the victim just needs to call up for a bit of roadside assistance, or worse still somebody rings my hero to say danger lurks around the next twist in my plot.
To give myself any kind of a chance, I now have to manipulate handsets away from the characters, when they need them most. So the phone has to be lost, the battery flat, the signal nonexistent, just when a text could save a life but kill a story. To get around the problem, I am looking to set my next book in er, ….… - I’ll twitter you exactly where later; when I find somewhere other than North Dorset where mobiles don’t work and a cry for help is a message in a bottle.
Researchers at Cornell University say they can analyse why certain news stories ‘win out and others don’t’. This must be the holy grail to any PR, but as is so often the case, you have to hack away the hype. What they have done is analyse phrases and to a degree ‘memes’ – which are more than just phrases. A meme is a way of capturing a cultural shift by unitising the zeitgeist.
Richard Dawkins, who coined the term, calls a meme “a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation’. Memes, he says, are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashion or even ways of building arches. There are those including me, who are sceptical that it is possible to bottle miasma or for computers to convert and measure everything in binary. I prefer to blame TV, SN sites and magazines for expressions, fashions or ideas which seem to catch hold for ‘no apparent reason’.
But that is not what these chaps at Cornell think. They believe they have a remarkable tool which can, through algorithm turn fads into code, foresee which stories and ideas are going to capture the moment and which won’t. If it’s true, it truly would be a most remarkable tool. You may want to look at their web site www.memetracker.org and see for yourself.
Their research throws up some interesting (albeit American-centric) facts. Blogs, they say, tend to follow traditional news media outlets by 2.5 hours. Not this one! In fact stories often now appear on journalist’s own blogs before they surface formally in the traditional news.
Another Gee Whiz fact is that only 3.5% of stories originating in blogs make it into the traditional media. (They haven’t included Twitter - probably because it did not exist way back, er, three weeks ago) This will be a comfort to the CEO’s who are obsessed with tracking the blogosphere for hostile comment. Just think of the money they would save if they could use a bit of software to spot the runners and take the necessary action. Chaps like me would be out of a job. And political PRO’s could just put their feet up on the desk and relax, knowing that Idea A is a cracker and Idea B is DOA.
I don’t think it’s going to happen just yet. There is nothing particularly new about data mining, but this research does take snipping cuttings out of the papers to a new level of sophistication. What it highlights is the importance of the catchy phrase. The sound bite becomes ever more imperative, now there are super computers at Cornell that can digest 1.6 million news and blog sites and 90 million articles and posts at one munch.
I am so excited. According to Technorati.com I am at number 911,818 in the most popular blogs in the world chart. Dear reader, you are truly the chosen One.
What have Heinrich Postl and and the former Speaker in common? Everything and nothing. Heinrich Postl, in case his name doesn’t immediately strike a cord, was a coal miner from the Austrian village of Puchberg. He like Michael Martin, a sheet metal worker, came from a desperately poor family. And like Michael Martin, Heinrich Postl was musical. Martin plays the bagpipes, Postl sang. It was his voice that first brought Postl to the attention of the primary school teacher in Puchberg in 1922. One Ludwig Wittgenstein.
The story has it that Wittgenstein would hear the miners singing on their way home from work and was so taken with Postl’s fine tenor that he encouraged and paid for him to receive professional operatic coaching in Vienna. Postl’s singing career never took off. Still, he has earned a small corner in history, by asking his mentor a simple question. ‘What, he enquired, should he do to improve the world?’
Wittgenstein says he answered, ‘Just improve yourself, that is all you can do.’ Had you or I delivered that platitude, it would have been the end of the conversation, but because it was LW, it is hailed as the quiddity of Stoicism, ensuring Postl’s place as a philosophy foot-note.
I can confirm the remark hit home. When I knew Heinrich Postl he was already an old man, recently released from POW camp having been pressed into the German navy. He was my grandmother’s butler. Shiny bald, bushy browed and smiling, he would wear a white jacket and serve us at lunch. In the evenings he might sing Brahms or Schubert for us accompanied on the piano by Rudolf Koder. Sometimes, he would sit in the huge stuffed black leather ‘portier’ chair by the front door waiting for ‘Die Herrschaften’ to return. He spoke little or no English. But to pass the time would read English and French literature from our library, including Shakespeare’s sonnets. As far as I know he enjoyed them. On one, possibly two occasions he asked me to translate for him. As I was barely ten, I suspect I failed.
The only other snippet about Heinrich Postl I can share, is that he was unusually hairy. I know this because we children would hide in the bushes, when he had his weekly dip in the icy lake below the house. He always took a bar of soap with him and would lather himself robustly, until he resembled a foaming snowman. Then he would plunge under the water, bubbles everywhere. As entertainment this was about as good as it got, though I do now wonder if he was not aware of his giggling audience. Heinrich Postl retired in 1971, a kindly man, memorable for his innate nobility, his gentleness and the pride he took in improving himself for no reward other than knowledge itself.
I mention all this because self improvement seems to be the theme at the moment. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of that Victorian bestseller, Self Help, by Samuel Smiles. He was the father of self improvement, the man who, through his ‘illustrations of conduct and perseverance’, told the world that God helps those that help themselves. Apparently it’s still in print and you have only to go to an airport bookshop to see the industry he spawned.
I don’t know whether Michael Martin bothers with self improvement books on his trips from Westminster to Glasgow, but he is about to be elevated to the House of Lords. He should by rights be the earthly manifestation of everything that Samuel Smiles, Heinrich Postl, Ludwig Wittgenstein, the pantheon of Stoics and Victorian Britain revered – the man who through his own effort, made the journey from a Glasgow slum to the highest Office. Yet the public reaction is dismay. Just yesterday even the Times described breathlessly how: The vetting panel for the House of Lords warned Downing Street against awarding a peerage to Michael Martin, the former Commons Speaker, The House of Lords Appointments Commission suggested that elevating Mr. Martin, the first Speaker to be ousted in 300 years, would damage the reputation of the second chamber.
This sort of talk was once the territory of gossip columns. Now they are so aghast at the venality of our politicians it is a news story. But please marvel with me at the hypocrisy of it. An Old Leftie sees it as his hereditary ‘right’ as a retiring Speaker to be elevated to the (now no longer hereditary) House of Lords; no matter that he failed to stop the House of Commons from helping itself to anything that wasn’t tied down. Martin’s chippy friends say that this dismay is further proof of the anti-working class, anti Scottish, anti-Catholic bigotry that has dogged him ever since he became Speaker in 2000. And they would be wrong. The reality is that their man was never up to the job to which he was promoted as a token sop to Old Labour. His faux feelings of entitlement are not a substitute for deserving, failure is not the new success. A peerage, especially the sort of Peerage Lite that Labour have created for the undeserving, is not what that Socialist aesthete Wittgenstein envisaged when he said to Heinrich Postl ‘just improve yourself, that is all you can do.’ From a public figure evidence is required that the world was also improved.
Qataris Shelve Chelsea Barracks Plan After Prince’s Criticism. That was headline on June 12th. The fury (of Lord Rogers, architect of the £1bn Chelsea barracks scheme) over Prince Charles’ interference has taken up rather more space since. But I can’t help wondering if I am not having sand blown in my face. There is no doubting Rogers’ ire or the overwhelming local support for Prince Charles. But who leaked the private letter from the Prince to the Prime Minister of Qatar. Why did the Qataris take any notice, so late on in the planning process. Surely nothing to do with the oil price dropping from $150 towards $30 a barrel recently? Just a thought.
It was June 1953. Jamie was feeling sick and had to be taken home. The rest of us, Ki-Ora’d and butter-kist’d waited for the main film. It was a cartoon about this girl who got lost in a forest and was rescued by some dwarves. It was OK, bit long. Even the 3/9d seats at the Tivoli cinema, Wimborne were prickly in shorts.
The best bit was the film which came first. It was about these two blokes climbing Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. One of them was called Sherpa Tenzing. The Queen was pleased because he and this other bloke stuck a Union Jack in the top, to celebrate her Coronation.
From the age of five, I could tell you the route Hillary and Tenzing took. Base camp, Khumbu Ice Fall, Lotse, South Col. And there was all that vocab too: crampons, seracs, crevasses, belays. To a small boy this was beyond exciting.
It wasn’t long before I accepted I would never reach the summit of Everest myself. Vertigo and chubbiness featured in my personal lexicon. But it didn’t stop me reading everything about Nepal, the Hindu Kush, K2, Anapurna and dreaming, as Belloc puts it, about ”peak and field and needle of intense ice, remote from the world, sky beneath them, sky above them, a steadfast legion, they glittered as with the armour of the immovable armies of Heaven.’
Reality was any wet Sunday at Sandroyd prep school, trying to keep up on a compulsory walk to South Lodge and back. A distance of no more than a mile and a half. Mr House was shouting at Nicky and me to catch up or risk having him pick me off the ground by my ear, or worse still, the hair by my ear.
At the front, some seniors were singing their gang song as they marched. Their leader was a lanky twelve year old called Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, who had recently arrived from South Africa. His dad was dead which is why he had the title. He was the only person I knew with a triple barreled name.
I wanted to be in his gang. Quite why Fiennes would have an eight year old squirt in his gang never occurred to me. So I took the precaution of learning that song, just in case. I can still remember the refrain. It probably has its roots in Zulu or Xhosa.
Since then I have followed events on Everest and the adventures of our greatest living explorer. A friend of mine actually met Sherpa Tenzing. I heard Sir Edmond Hillary talk at the RGS. I nearly blew a gasket when someone claimed Sherpa Tenzing had carried Sir Edmond’s bags to the top.
I still dream of ascending Everest, but new words have slithered in. With vertigo and chubbiness come bad heart and senior citizen.
Finally, last month I did get to the top, not literally but vicariously, in my head and my imagination. Fiennes finally made it. Base camp, Khumbu Ice Fall, Lotse, South Col. Aged 65, with double by-pass surgery and missing most of his fingers and toes.
56 years to the month after seeing Snow White and Sherpa Tenzing at ‘the Tiv’, I still want to be in his gang.
In 2003 I visited Ireland to research the impact of their Freedom of Infomation Act on their members of Parliament. Here is what I wrote at the time.
Freedom of Information caused barely a stir in the Republic of Ireland until January 1999 when a Sunday Tribune reporter, with two weeks experience, requested the records of all Members expenses. His name was Richard Oakley.
From the outset the Oireachtas (Ireland’s parliament) refused on grounds of privacy. They argued that these records contained Members’ personal information, given by them in confidence. But media pressure was building. Richard Oakley and the Sunday Tribune turned to the Office of the Information Commissioner.In May 1999 The Oireachtas released partial records, but without the Members’ names.
Richard Oakley appealed again to the Information Commissioner to determine if the public interest over-ruled privacy and so force the Oireachtas to divulge those names as well. Believing the electorate might choose ‘cut price’ Members if they knew what each one was costing the Irish taxpayer, the Oireachtas used a number of legal and emotional arguments in defence of their decision to withhold.
They claimed, for example, that ‘the information would be used to make comparisons between Members’ and that the level of expenses was ‘not a valid indicator of that Member’s performance’. Other grounds included: ‘that the newspapers were likely to oversimplify figures’ and that ‘public curiosity was not ‘coterminous’ with the public interest’.Information
Commissioner Kevin Murphy was having none of it. He ruled that the public interest in ensuring accountability ‘far outweighed’ any right to privacy which Members might ‘enjoy’ in relation to their expenses. He threw out any suggestion that expenses could be considered ‘private papers of the Members’ or ‘official documents of the Houses’ adding, ‘he had great difficulty in seeing that details of expenses ….. are any more private than their salaries.’Members, who had earlier voted themselves an IRL£5000 expenses increase, had all that summer to appeal the Commissioner’s decision. Wisely, on PR, not legal grounds, they decided to remain silent. The anticipated hostile publicity overriding their unease at the revelations. And so on 5th September 1999, nine months after Richard Oakley made his request, the Oireachtas released the names alongside the expenses paid to each of the two hundred and twenty five Members of the Dáil and Seanad Éireann.‘Tomorrow will not be a happy day for some of our politicians’ said the Irish Times gleefully (while inwardly smarting they had been scooped by a ‘boy’ at the Sunday Tribune).
To everyone’s amazement, the Oireachtas had no means of providing the financial information they held on computer in a user-friendly form. In the end, they had no choice but to release each record as raw data. One thousand pages of ‘screen dumps’ delivered to the nations’ media.
The press release said, ‘The word expense has come to have a surreptitious connotation, conjuring up in the sceptical mind a frivolous image of wining and dining.’
And worse was to come. The figures released and trumpeted by the papers, were not just their claims for the previous year, but the amounts actually paid to them. These included arrears from previous years plus expenses for work related foreign travel. This was particular hard on Tom Enright, an elderly Fine Gael TD. Of the IRL£ 45,000 he received in 1998, some £15,000 had been travelling as a member of the Council of Europe. But to the media Tom Enright was Ireland’s most expensive TD.
Closer analysis of the figures revealed still more anomalies for the media to pick over. Why were the significant differences between neighbouring Members? Why did Ministers claim so little? (Ministers’ expenses paid from departmental budgets, themselves became subject to Freedom of Information requests).
To counter this frenzy, the Oireachtas engaged in some damage limitation. Fianna Fail Chief Whip Seamus Brennan compiled a table showing that far from milking a gravy train, Members were actually losing money! Overnights in Dublin, he claimed, were so expensive that Members had just one pound left for dinner. And as for miscellaneous contributions to local causes and ‘drinks’ for helpers, they were ‘incalculable’.
Then adding ‘Any perusal of the figures will indicate that no profit ensues to Members from their expenses and disabuse any notion that expenses surreptitiously enhance salaries.’ The press met this with derision. Stories about a Member who reclaimed the entry fee to no less than seventeen golf tournaments or another who hid a heart attack on a train, because he was claiming mileage, circulated Dublin dinner tables.
‘Oireachtas Members should apply the first Law of Holes’, ran the leader in the Irish Times,’ when you’re in one, stop digging.’
The Oireachtas admit this effort back fired. But they make the point that no matter how hard they tried to achieve balanced coverage, the media remained wedded to the far easier, chart topping TD story, rather than look for reasons. Their superficiality included confusing expenses with salary and, inevitably, stating that claims were paid ‘unvouched’ and tax free, whether relevant, true or not.
And so it continued for some weeks, both at a national, but also at a local level. Members were invited onto radio talk-shows to justify themselves and often made it worse through their ignorance of what expenses they were entitled to claim or even why.
Unlike the UK, the Irish parliament did not issue figures on a scheduled basis, but awaited FOIA requests. So when in December 1999, the Oireachtas issued the next tranche of figures, it was still under Freedom of Information though not under duress.
It was to become a dance. The Media applied, the Oireachtas released. The Media pounced; they discovered a new candidate for the most costly member award, and, as expected, bandied comparisons without much attempt at analysis.
The creation of league tables concerning the ‘top ten’ is invidious, misleading and tendentious. Sensational headlines obscure and ignore the circumstances that give rise to legitimate and statutorily based expenses. (from an Oireachtas press release 7 July 2001).
Interestingly, by the end of 2002, the Irish media appeared to have lost interest. The figures are mostly published alphabetically, not top down and without much comment. As for the Members, they survived.
From The Sunday Times, May 17, 2009, by John Stonborough
It gives me no great pleasure to say “I told you so, Mr Speaker”, but had you heeded my advice in 2003, much of this need not have happened.
I was employed as media adviser to the Speaker and the House of Commons Commission in late 2001. My background, first as a London policeman, then as a radio and television reporter and finally as a PR man gave me the necessary skills to bring some new thinking to the House on handling a hostile media environment.My strategy when dealing with PR issues is, to use a German phrase, Die Flucht in die Wahrheit, which means “escape into the truth”. And it was my intention that openness would be the basis of my media strategy at the House of Commons. It wasn’t that easy.I was the first media adviser the House had ever employed and there was disquiet, with members asking questions on the floor of the Commons about my presence. Michael Martin even described PR people as “oily rags”, meaning why talk to the oily rag when you can talk to the engineer. The problem was the engineer wouldn’t talk.. One to one the Speaker and I got on well. He is an affable man and we both share an interest in pipe music. He plays the bagpipes and I was a side drummer in the Gordonstoun school pipe band. Several times we would sit in his flat in the Speaker’s House and over the three years that I worked at the House, he told me very interesting facts about his life and forebears. Martin’s grandmother nearly starved to death, trapped on a cod fishing boat in the ice-locked St Lawrence river in Canada.
He would also tell me about his early life as a shop steward in Glasgow and his childhood in a tenement in Anderston, Glasgow. It’s this background and his soft Glaswegian accent that caused a tabloid newspaper to dub him “Gorbals Mick”. I strove to stop it, explaining to one reporter that it was deeply offensive to Martin, as “Mick” is a derogatory term for a Catholic in sectarian Glasgow. The Speaker did joke though that Gorbals was a lot posher than Anderston where he grew up, but I knew the nickname wounded him badly. It stopped for a while.
Other than security, the main preoccupation in 2002 and 2003 was the impending publication of members’ expenses and allowances. This was to be a major departure from existing procedures but it was finally agreed that this would happen in the autumn of 2004.
The responsibility for the publication was administered by the fees office, which issues every new MP with an expenses bible that is known as the Green Book. It sets out what and how every elected member is entitled to claim for. It’s a complex document as every member is technically self employed, responsible for maintaining their own offices and staff in the constituency as well as needing an office and living accommodation in London.
One particular section deals with members paying their family for administrative jobs — the Speaker employed both his wife Mary and his daughter — and another section deals with members’ second homes, for which at that time they could claim about £21,000 per annum. My concern as media adviser was that the Speaker was still claiming for a second home while living at the taxpayer’s expense in a grace and favour flat in the Speaker’s House, a little palace on the bank of the Thames. I felt that this was a danger area. Irrespective of whether he was entitled to do so under the rules in the Green Book. I knew the media and the public would view it critically and it would cause him embarrassment. How right I was.
During 2003 the Green Book was in the process of being re-written. I was present on one occasion when the Speaker asked to see a draft.
I was aware that this document directly affected his own livelihood and he took a keen interest in the wording of any draft changes. I believe he kept the draft document for 10 days or possibly longer and rejected or reworded some of the changes recommended by his officials. One day I got wind that Michael Crick, the BBC Newsnight reporter, was investigating a senior Commons figure. Try as I might I couldn’t find out who. Eventually it was to be Iain Duncan Smith and the “Betsygate” affair. He was accused of claiming for his wife salary even though Crick alleged she did no parliamentary work. This was later proved to be unfounded but, nonetheless, I saw the result of the publicity and I was not about to let anything like that happen to the Speaker.
On the July 1, 2003, I had one of my regular private meetings with the Speaker in his study overlooking the river. It was a friendly encounter, just the two of us, and I decided to mention this business of claiming for his second home. I think I had mentioned it once previously. I should not have needed to do this, but few Commons officials had the guts to voice their concerns to him. I did.
The Speaker went puce. He told me to stay where I was and summoned the Clerk of the House, Roger Sands, and made me repeat my “allegation” in front of him. I wrote to the Speaker afterwards saying I thought he had been a bit rough on me. Being an adviser is not a popularity contest. The Speaker never spoke to me again and like others before and after me I was cast out. This did not worry me overly, no more friendly chats about pibrochs and reels, but plenty to do for the commission in the run up to the publication of expenses, including monthly formal meetings of the commission which I attended.
Obviously I became very familiar with the Green Book. In my opinion it contained what are called “Spanish practices”. The term comes from the Elizabethan era, but is now used to describe deceitful workplace financial practices. The print unions (I was formerly a member of the NUJ) and the TV camera crews with whom I worked were famed for their officially sanctioned fiddles. To me as a former policeman and investigative reporter, some of the Green Book seemed to allow members to make claims that would not be acceptable in the commercial world.
Part of my job allowed me to address the commission. My opinion was that the House should over-publish details of expenses, knowing that in time the media would become bored and it would no longer be a story. This opinion was roundly over-ruled and ignored. Indeed on one senior official gently scolded me for talking too much at a commission meeting. When I first saw some of the expenses claims made by members, prior to their publication, I was surprised at the range of claims between individual MPs. It was obvious the press would have a field day and that there would be a leaderboard of the most expensive members. The Speaker to my relief did not come near the top. The publication day came and a tsunami of media assaulted us, but as it had been very carefully planned we dealt with it.
It was then I made a stupid mistake. I wrote a note to a friend in the office of Michael Howard, the then Tory leader, saying that in my opinion he should get a grip of those Tory members who were playing fast and loose with the rules but that Labour members were at it too. I had no business as an officer of the House sending any such partisan document, however private. To make matters worse, I managed to send it to the wrong person. All hell broke loose and I resigned my job immediately. Today, I still stand by every word of that e-mail, What is more, had the Speaker not bawled me out and the House of Commons Commission listened to wiser counsel (not just me) on matters relating to the employment of family members, the claims on second homes as well as adopting a policy of full disclosure instead of employing every tactic to maintain an untenable status quo, much of the catastrophe that has befallen the House today need not have happened. Michael Martin and the Commission of the House of Commons must take responsibility for this and in my opinion the Speaker should resign.
More excitements this week with a new client for Air Supremacy, media training B&Q in conjunction with Z-PR Ltd. An interview is of course the ultimate DIY experience.
Big excitement on the business front, we have teamed up with Nici Marx, the former BBC news anchor and reporter. Nici has been at the sharp end of news and current affairs, anchoring live programmes for BBC World TV, BBC News 24, CNN International and Sky News for more than two decades. You can read more about her on the Air Supremacy website.
Nici has her own successful consultancy with clients anyone would be proud of. Last week she was training senior Ministry of Defence personnel. She was in the Middle East recently for the EU, advising on raising the profile of a major EU humanitarian project in Gaza and the West Bank. All fascinating stuff.
Nici will concentrate on Media Training and Broadcast Media Relations consultancy, bringing new insights to the wisdom and experience provided by Jane Renton and the rest of my excellent team. I am delighted to welcome her.
I worked with a woman at the House of Commons who said that she would like to have BBC Radio 4 as her boyfriend. Because, she said, its usually interesting, sometimes spectacular but you can always switch it off. Well, not always Liz. Not if you suffer from ‘Can’t Switch Off Syndrome’.
Paul Donovan, who writes the thoughtful, often amusing Radio Waves column in the Sunday Times (see Culture p77) is offering a bottle of Bolly, for the best ‘CSOS’ story from R4 addicts who’ve been glued to their cars to catch the end of something, even if it meant being late for something else.
Paul mentions the Afternoon Play but I can add: Analysis, The Now Show, Start the Week, Excess Baggage, Law in Action, Woman’s Hour, Midweek, FOOC, the News, File on 4, Crossing Continents, PM, The News Quiz, Today, I’m Sorry I …, The Moral Maze and anything at all with Fi Glover (left).
I remember once driving down Park Lane enjoying something Radio 4ish. Stylish, witty, slick, topical, relevant, provocative, essential. It was only after a few minutes I twigged it was a repeat of a prog I’d made some years earlier. Glued? No, bolted.
I was very flattered to see my last blog entry The Sinking of the Met I Know re-printed almost word for word in the Sunday Times last Sunday, sadly without a source credit. But I am very flattered nonetheless. Yes, very flattered.
He was walking away. He had his hands in his pockets. He was walking away. I was a Metropolitan policeman in the early seventies. I speak with some knowledge having policed football crowds and rent a mob ‘rioting’ student and anarchist groups. So to witness a British policeman, dressed like an OMON trooper, with his face obscured, running up and striking a defenceless man from behind makes my blood run cold. What possible excuse or defence can that officer from the Territorial Support Group have. (And what an unfortunate name for those who remember the excesses of the SPG in the 1970’s). It will be our Rodney King moment.
I expect the copper will claim he was ‘provoked’ or something by this homeless drifter, apparently trying to get back to his hostel lodgings and not part of the G20 demo at all. And equally I fear that the officer ‘will have got his story straight,’ with his colleagues. Cautious fair British voices (and the police) say we must not pre-judge, but must await the outcome of the inquiry. I say thank God for the video evidence, it doesn’t leave much doubt in my mind, that a terrible criminal assault took place that evening.
And there is the rub. If this government has its way, technically the cameramen who shot this vital footage are guilty now of a serious criminal offence. Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act, which came into force in February, permits the arrest of anyone taking photographs of the police, the armed forces, or the intelligence services which are “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”. The police claim they will only enforce it in the public interest. The real assault here is not just on poor Mr Tomlinson but on our civil liberties in the name of terrorist prevention. I believe that the public interest is far better served by photographing the police at every occasion. If they do nothing wrong, as they are keen to say, they have nothing to fear.
So what to do, well, one small step that everyone can do to stop the march of the police state, where the policeman demands your name, rather than you his, is to: • take his picture. (snap a cop) • and demand the repeal of S76.
And while we are about it, the police must be prevented from wearing balaclavas. Let us see their faces. I opened my paper this morning to find every picture of a policeman had a black bar across it. Who is the terrorist now? The chances of them being tracked down by a terrorist are as nothing compared to the risk we run by not being able to identify them. If they are frightened of being hurt by a terrorist or anyone else, they should not be a policemen. One of my friends was killed by an IRA bomb while on duty in December 1983 and I had a couple of scrapes myself. The risk of being hurt is part of the job, I don’t believe Inspector Stephen Dodd gave it a moment’s thought, and if he did, he would have gone to work just the same.
Newspapers snappers whose livelihoods depend on their freedom to photograph are beginning to protest, but it should not be only professional photographers. We all have a civic duty to observe and report on our law enforcers. Ask a foreigner about Britishness and they list, unarmed police, ‘bobbies on bicycles’ as unique and definingly British. Ian Tomlinson’s death blows that quaint notion out of the water. Thank God for the video evidence.
(This is from Wikipedia: Rodney Glen King was an African-American man who, on March 3, 1991, was the victim in an excessive force case committed by Los Angeles police officers. A bystander, George Holliday, videotaped much of the incident from a distance. The footage showed LAPD officers repeatedly striking King with their batons. A portion of this footage was aired by news agencies around the world, causing public outrage. Four LAPD officers were later tried in a state court but were acquitted (which) sparked the 1992 Los Angeles Riots.)
Ofcom has today fined the BBC a total of £150,000 for breaches of Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code (“the Code”) in two episodes of the Russell Brand show broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on the 18 and 25 October 2008.
The scale of the fine reflects the extraordinary nature and seriousness of the BBC’s failures and the resulting breaches of the Code.
The BBC broadcast explicit, intimate and confidential information about Georgina Baillie, the granddaughter of the actor Andrew Sachs in both programmes without their consent. This not only unwarrantably and seriously infringed their privacy but was also gratuitously offensive, humiliating and demeaning.
Broadcasters must be permitted to enjoy the creative freedom to explore issues and ideas without undue interference. Creative risk is part of the BBC’s public service role, however, so is the management of that risk. In this case, Ofcom’s investigation revealed that despite the Russell Brand show being considered by the BBC to be “high risk” prior to these episodes, the broadcaster had ceded responsibility for managing some of that risk to those working for the presenter, Russell Brand. The presenter’s interests had been given greater priority than the BBC’s responsibility to avoid unwarranted infringements of privacy and minimise the risk of harm and offence and to maintain generally accepted standards.
Ofcom identified six underlying flaws in the BBC’s compliance systems:
· a lack of clarity about the exact role of a senior figure at the agency that represents Russell Brand, as the Executive Producer, on behalf of the independent production company;
· the failure of the Executive Producer to attend a BBC Safeguarding Trust compliance course, despite this being a condition of the production contract;
· the failure of the Executive Producer to sign off compliance forms for these programmes,despite this also being a condition of the production contract (it was not known whether he signed off previous forms);
· no proactive testing and insufficient monitoring of the compliance systems in BBC Audio and Music in general, but especially after Russell Brand became an independent production from May 2008;
· an unacceptable conflict of interest for the Line Producer seconded from the BBC on a part-time basis to the independent production company making Russell Brand; and
· a lack of clarity about who at the BBC had editorial oversight of the series.
These overall weaknesses set the scene for the very serious failures of the BBC’s compliance systems that resulted in the repeated broadcast of exceptionally offensive, humiliating and demeaning material. These failures included:
· no senior manager at Radio 2 listened to the pre-recorded programme of 18 October 2008 in its entirety before broadcast;
· there was a failure to obtain the informed consent of Andrew Sachs;
· there was no attempt at all to obtain consent from Georgina Baillie as required by our Code and the BBC’s own Editorial Guidelines; and
· the failure to complete and submit the compliance forms for Russell Brand before the broadcast on 18 October 2008.
Ofcom welcomes the BBC’s assurances about improving compliance. However, Ofcom was concerned that it had received similar assurances as recently as the summer of 2008, following its investigations into competitions and voting in BBC programmes. Ofcom therefore expects BBC management to ensure that these latest improvements are fulfilled effectively and quickly.
Specifically, Ofcom found the following rules of the Code were breached: Rule 2.1 (generally accepted standards must be applied programmes); Rule 2.3 (offensive material must be justified by the context); and Rule 8.1 (the ’standard’ requiring adequate protection for members of the public from unwarranted infringements of privacy).
A fine of £70,000 was imposed for the breaches of Rules 2.1 and 2.3; and a fine of £80,000 imposed for the contraventions of Rule 8.1.
Ofcom has also directed BBC Radio 2 to broadcast a summary of its findings.
The full statement can be found here: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/obb/ocsc_adjud/BBCRadio2TheRussellBrandShow.pdf
ENDS
My clever friend and colleague Jane ‘Rentgirl’ Renton has a new book out in August called Coaching and Mentoring. The clue is in the title. It’s published by the Economist and available at all good Amazons. You can pre-order it now. That’s me on the front; quite an old picture though.
I am trialling a new time scale, the HV. Do not confuse it with HGV or even HIV. The HV is a period of four months based on the standard unit of Hygienist Visits. Just as the farmer talks of ‘three winters past’ or the Red Indian counts moons, so now you might hear me say ’just a couple of HV’s ago’ or ‘it was six HV’s last Tuesday’. Its a bit of a mouthfull at first, but you quickly wonder how you ever managed without. I am always shocked how quickly HV’s come around. It is clinically proven that HV events themselves are impossible to remember, especially it seems in SW6, where each is now augured by a cheery text alert from ‘your hygienist.’ Oh no she isn’t mine! She is a fully functioning member of a monstrous regiment, The Tooth Taliban. ‘Mine’ holds the rank of ‘Floss Boss’. Her ukase are sharia (only her eyes are visible) and being in no position to disagree, I buckle under. (Prod about and you will find a rotten pun in there.) But as a measure of time passing, the HV is perfect. It is regular, inevitable, requires little thought, the outcome being the same whether I brush before and after every mouthful, or never, and the astronomical cost clocks up on my bank statements, back to my very first rinse or swallow.
Being a hack on a local paper means knocking on people’s doors, often at times of extreme grief and asking them ‘how they feel.’ The reporter will try to get a photo of the dead husband, injured son, a peek at the child’s bedroom or any other snippet with which to write a better story. It’s not a lot of fun (I hated it) but it’s what reporters do. The Press Complaints Commission has a Code of Conduct, designed to protect children in particular and the public from the worst intrusions of a sex money and power obsessed tabloid machine. But the PCC has come in for a lot of criticism which can be summed up as ‘the PCC is a toothless self serving watchdog, made up of industry insiders and editors, ie. the fox guarding the coop etc’. So what does the PCC do, they act real tough. Yes, they pick on some local reporter in Wales to make an example of! Naturally they make a complete horlicks of it. The gist is this. The reporter hears about a road accident and turns up at the house of a friend of the victim to get some information. A girl wearing her school uniform answers the door. The reporter quickly realises she may be under 16 (she is 15 and Sec 6 PCC Code says parental consent is needed) so leaves immediately and nothing appears in the paper. Despite this her father complains to the PCC. Instead of rejecting it, perhaps explaining that the reporter was just doing his/her job, the PCC uphold the complaint! It makes you proud. And to read this in the same week as Gerry McKann gave evidence to the Commons Culture Media and Sport Select Committee about the excesses he and his wife faced, about which the PCC did next to nothing. So we enter another self-inflicted flagellation, with everyone chanting ‘its time for draconian laws to curb the beast.’ No its not. The PCC just needs to do a lot better.
NEW guidance for editors on coverage of suicide, data protection, privacy and a range of other issues is published today.
A second edition of The Editors’ Codebook - official handbook to the Editors’ Code of Practice that is at the heart of the press self-regulatory system administered by the Press Complaints Commission - is launched to reflect the rapidly changing media scene. The book, first published in 2005 to help journalists and members of the public understand how the Code worked in practice, has been substantially revised to include the latest landmark cases handled by the PCC, especially in areas of privacy and intrusion into grief. There are new Briefings on reporting suicide, on complaints about websites and on investigative journalism. A radical redesign means an extra 40 pc of content fits into a slimmer A5 format, colour-coded for easy reference. The book, by Ian Beales, Secretary of the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee, is also available in pdf format – hyperlinked to PCC adjudications - on the Committee’s website: www.editorscode.org.uk/the_code_book.html
Key features include:
· Suicide: A major expansion of the Codebook’s coverage of reporting on suicide includes important new guidance in the aftermath of the series of deaths of young people in and around Bridgend, South Wales. The Samaritans and Papyrus, leading organisations engaged in the prevention of suicide, have welcomed the book’s new guidance.
· Data protection: New briefings collate the efforts made by the Code Committee, the PCC and the press industry to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act and other legislation. The book stresses that journalists must stay within both the law and the Code.
· Privacy: Extended case studies include latest PCC rulings on intrusion into privacy - with guidance on photographing people without consent; on revealing pregnancies; and on journalists joining police raids.
· Harassment: The Codebook highlights the success of the PCC’s system of private advisory notices alerting editors to requests from people who do not wish to be pursued by the media.
Copies can be obtained from the Press Complaints Commission: price £5 including postage. There are discounts for orders of more than 25 copies. To place an order contact: Tonia Milton at tonia.milton@pcc.org.uk
For further information on The Editors Codebook or the Editors’ Code Committee: Contact Ian Beales: ianbeales@mac.com
Phone: 01453 860577. Mobile 0771 577 0400
Note
• The Editors’ Code Committee writes, reviews and revises the Code of Practice administered by the Press Complaints Commission. Its members are: Chairman: Paul Dacre, Daily Mail; Neil Benson, Trinity Mirror’s regional newspapers; Adrian Faber, Express and Star, Wolverhampton; Douglas Melloy, Rotherham and South Yorkshire Advertiser; Ian Murray, Southern Evening Echo; David Pollington, The Sunday Post; Jonathan Grun, Press Association; Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian; June Smith-Sheppard, Pick Me Up magazine; Neil Wallis, News of the World; Harriet Wilson, Conde Nast magazines; John Witherow, Sunday Times.
Heroine’s welcome for Sam Davies the fourth woman ever to have have completed the Vendee Globe. Her time of 95 days 4 hours and 39 mins was a day longer than it took Ellen Macarthur (in 2001) but she sailed an extra 3,000 miles, due to gates inserted to keep the fleet away from icebergs, and endured wretched conditions that proved too much for 19 of the 30 skippers, who dropped out. “Sam thoroughly deserves her result,” said Macarthur, “She is the first Brit to finish in the race and she has shown that she is a real force to contend with in offshore racing – and I hope that she will now get all the recognition she deserves.” Dee Caffari and fellow Brit Brian Thompson are due in today.
Google googled me to download Latitude – it’s a GPS spy-in-your-mobile. It tracks where you are and sends your location to whoever wants it and to Google who’ll send it to the Government for you. Today’s papers are full of Lovecheat Beware alerts. I am looking for volunteers. But knowing where people are has unexpected benefits too. When I last raced across the Atlantic we never saw another boat in three weeks. Yet we were in this nail biting drag-race with yachts beyond our horizon, but not invisible to the empyrean snooper. We plotted their every tack, inching ahead one minute, shouting ‘wait for us’ the next. And they did mostly – Ocean Spirit of Moray finished second out of 40.
Today you can track our two solo Vendee Globe ladies, Samantha Davies (on Roxy lying 3rd) and Dee Caffari (Aviva 5th) and see exactly where they are every second. Two amazing British woman at the front, as the world’s longest toughest horridest race (yes spellchecker there is such a word if I say so) comes to an end. The French will turn out to greet them. We don’t. You can jib at the gibe (sorry, awful pun) but its true. We don’t give a monkeys.
Harmless and silly puns on Chinese surnames have been around a long time. My father’s generation liked to ‘quote’ a Mr Who Flung Dung (on a par with ‘what’s a Grecian urn?’, answer ‘about 10 bob’). So when China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao arrived, I couldn’t help a little frisson at the prospect of deliciously contrived semantic confusions (confucians, surely?). ‘Prime Minister who?’ asks the Queen, ‘No, Wen ma’am’ says Gordon Brown ‘When what?’ says the Queen You get the drift, right? But another unintentional unexpected calembour occurred.
The Cambridge man who flung the shoe meant
Shoo Wen Now!
Today alone, due to what Boris called ‘the right sort of snow, but the wrong sort of quantities’ the great British public, shirking from home, sent the BBC 24,000! (mobile phone) pictures and over a hundred videos. See for yourself, they are mostly of their kids taking a day off school; sliding down a snowy slope, skiing behind cars along suburban roads and generally having fun. Nothing wrong with that? Nothing. But who owns the copyright? The sender, the mobile phone owner, the person filmed, the broadcaster?
As you know the BBC and Ofcom guidelines define in great detail what broadcasters can do. So what about these images of children or possible breaches of privacy, anonymity? Was there consent? Are some of them technically secret recordings - in which case they enter a procedural minefield.
Just the other day the BBC had to issue a reminder (see below) to producers and PR’s saying “Only in exceptional circumstances will (the BBC) use material supplied by outside organisations (this includes individuals see Ch 6 p 56 BBC EG)) …especially if the BBC was not present when it was recorded. The fact that (the 3rd party) has a vested interest in the subject matter can lead to concerns about the editorial integrity … the BBC cannot vouch for the circumstances in which it was gathered or the editorial standards applied. None of this seems to apply when its Mums and Dads and Mates mucking about in the snow, on a beach or at some event. In the great scheme of things, this may seem totally unimportant, until you find yourself screwed out of hundreds of pounds or have your privacy breached with hideous consequences. Think about it. Mobile phone cameras are getting better and better. The pictures ever clearer. What happens when a piece of video footage is so good or news worthy it goes global? (eg that American jet ditching in the Hudson river). In the old days the lucky photographer could receive hundreds, possibly thousands of pounds. Who is protecting those interests?
Nobody wants to see this type of instant citizen journalism stopped - anyway you couldn’t. I just want to know what rights are being breached, or given up, by people’s urge to see their little darlings doing snow angels on the 6 o’clock news. I am going to try to find out, because some time soon, the BBC and the other broadcasters could find themselves in a very tricky situation.
If you know about this sort of thing, do add a comment in the box.
To send videos or pictures to the BBC, all you have to do is either email yourpics@bbc.co.uk, or Text 61124.
How hard is that!
God-daughter Domenica is 13 and has Downs Syndrome.
She emails; Brilliantly!
We swop jokes and notes.
She is chatty and very funny.
We have a real relationship at last. Staccato signals of constant information
…..These are the days of miracle and wonder
Online, looking up a timetable for a trip. It’s in Cyrillic.
No problem.
Click Translate This Page. Bingo, there it is in English. Staccato signals of constant information
…..These are the days of miracle and wonder
I like this translation tool.
I have added a button. Try it.
Now you can read me in Korean. Staccato signals of constant information
…..These are the days of miracle and wonder
I met Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells in Parkstone Dorset. He collared me when I was recording something for the BBC. Parkstone, in case you haven’t lived, is Haute Petit Bourgeois Poole; classy but not like Canford Cliffs where WAG mamas and papas go to die.
This bloke had been harbouring something to be disgusted about since the Sixties. At last there was a beebish person on whom to pounce. ‘You know that Richard Baker*? he said. ‘Well,’ he paused for what seemed like a minute, savouring his License given opportunity to unburden himself all over me. ‘Well,’ he repeated, arranging his false teeth with his tongue, ‘ that Richard Baker said ‘comprises of‘. There was fury in his pinched vowels. ‘You’d expect a BBC man of his learning,’ he was spitting, ‘to know the difference between a transitive and intransitive verb. Now wouldn’t you?’ Not a question, a declaration of war.
I sobbed, I begged forgiveness, said I was just a boy at the time, explained Baker was only obeying orders, accepted there is collective guilt for abusing a prepositional phrase, promised to direct his objection to the highest in the land and fled.
Over time opportunities for Disgusteds to vent and fumarole have improved. Newspapers, particularly the Guardian began to correct mistakes through the Readers’ Editor in the mid nineties. Others were slow to follow. Radio 4 broadcasts snippets of listeners with a beef and serves up their letters and emails with inappropriate actors’ voices. Probably some secretary.
Now newspapers Online are here and with them ReAction Direct; readers’ comment boxes - limited to 300 characters but space enough for consummate beefers. The DM Online even has a coy challenge. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts? its asks. Oh the thrill of it. Yes please. But, I am about to reveal a naughty secret here, when I have submitted a pithy rant or five - purely professionally of course, strictly on behalf of clients etc etc - nothing happens. It sinks into the ether without trace.
I tried it with the Times Online again yesterday. There was something in the paper I objected to, so I subbed, I squeezed, I chopped, snipped and elided, checked it for institutionlised racism and homophobia, I punched submit like a wrestler - nothing happened. It is not the first time. In fact I has me doubts about the system.
How many readers intensely held opinions, never see the light, never feel the breeze on their prejudices? Lots and lots if my experience is anything to go by.
Luckily strings are there to be yanked so I resorted to pal-eolithic PR. I rang a mate. Bob’s your uncle, my rant’s there now for all the world to see forever. Thanks G, I’ll not forget the favour. But most Disgusteds of Tunbridge Wells don’t have mates on the Times, or perhaps any at all, not even on the Daily Telegraph.
*Richard Baker presented the first BBC TV news at 7.30pm on 5 July 1954.
Contact Air Supremacy about 20% Discounts in January and for a free work-sheet on handling Doorstep interviews and Fly on the Wall documentaries. Happy New Year.
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We operate both single and double trainer courses. Air Supremacy recommend using 2 trainers to ensure the optimum use of the time available. We work with PR executives to tailor courses for individuals working at the highest level. We research our stories, we identify potential issues. We film and record relevant interviews in various styles and locations. We play-back offering constructive critique and advice on how best to present yourself .You learn what to expect from interviews, how to focus on key messages without being daunted by difficult questions in a bewildering broadcasting environment.
We will ensure that you achieve your objective of training authoritative confident spokespeople to optimise each media opportunity. (info@airsupremacy.co.uk)
What a year this has been! We celebrated 20 years in the business in February with a party. It was great to welcome so many friends and colleagues - and colleagues who have become great friends.
I wish you a peaceful and joyous Christmas and the very best for the coming year. My especial thanks to David, Heidi and the gang at PA, CamCrews and Jerry, Jane R, David W, Taz, Viktoria, Lyndsay, all the Oxford contingent, my excellent clients and patient suppliers. Merry Christmas.
Click for advice on handling the credit crunch.
Putney Bridge, Fulham SW6. On my bike.
Unusually, I was stationary at a red traffic light today.
Two smart Japanese men walked up, stopped and bowed deeply in unison.
‘Where is Stadium?,’ said one, still bowing.
I puzzled for a moment. ‘Craven Cottage? Stamford Bridge?’ Both are near.
‘Fulham?’ He said.
I pointed out the shortcut along the River, through Bishop’s Park.
‘It’s nicer.’ I said.
‘Sooh!’, he hissed, bowing again.
‘Thank you’, growled the other, also bowing. ‘Happy Christmas!’
Proud smiles.
So I bowed. Awkwardly, over the handlebars.
Chris Hoy meets the Mikado.
‘Happy Christmas’, I replied, speeding off.
I glanced back.
They were still on the pavement, calling ‘Happy Christmas’ smiling and bowing.
So polite. So, composed.
I felt like a train departing Tokyo Central.
Peace, Goodwill and Shinkan-Zen.
At the top of Putney Hill, where the busses turn,
there’s a café run by Turks. Very friendly.
Not the hijacker-chic sort you avoid outside West End nightclubs.
These men make the best bacon sandwiches.
The one doing a degree at City University,
shoved a tin wrapped in Santa paper at me.
‘Merry Christmas’.
I laughed. ‘Hang on’ I said, ‘You’re Muslim!’
‘Yes,’ he said, all smiles, ‘but I live in London.’
Peace, Goodwill, 40p to Otto-men.
“‘Ere John! You Scottish?,” said Frosty, drawing alongside in the stand-ups at the Britannia pub, Bow Common Lane, Mile End, E3. A villainous dive thirty five years ago and way off piste for all but brave or foolish reporters from the East London Advertiser.
‘No Frosty’ I said, ‘why?
“Cos you don’t ‘alf talk funny.” he said.
Frosty (who had a walk on part in Profession of Violence, a book about the Kray Twins), thought I ‘talk funny’ and must be Scottish because he had never heard a public school accent.
The way I speak has often been the cause of comment, even though I don’t think it’s particularly accented (is it?).
When I was a copper for a few years in the seamier part of pre-gentrified London N1, freshly nicked tow-rags, would say, ‘Ere, don’t the f*ckin’ plod talk posh!’ To which the reply from coppers and yobs alike was “Yeah, f*ckin’ posh git!”
Jokes aside, it took an Irishman George Bernard Shaw (in Pygmalion) to observe “it is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him”. This is as true now as it was in 1916. Class wars seethe at the Beeb too. I don’t know the ins and outs of why Ed Stourton is to be dropped from the BBC R4 Today programme in favour of Justin Webb. They say he’s too posh. (God we live in a weird country!) Historically the BBC recruit, via the left leaning Guardian, the brightest most gifted state educated kids. Though, both Ed Stourton’s bosses Mark Damazar and BBC DG Mark Thompson went to public schools. So did Justin, I think?
When I went for my first interview at the Beeb in the early eighties, I did a short voice test. They said I was too nervous, too nasal and too upper class. I still got the job. Gin and Otrivine dealt with probs One and Two and the offer of three times my BBC salary by Thames Television sorted the third for them a few years later.
At the time the Beeb was in transition. The old Home Service Toffs were mothballed and new voices were heard. Celts. Suddenly BH and Television Centre were full of Selinas, Eamons, Terrys. Soft, lilting, but above all classless to the English ear. Yoof and Estuary vowels didn’t surface for another ten years.
So what are my choices? Detune like Eton boy George Osborne (it must be true, I read it in the tabloids), adopt a faintly ludicrous glottal gob stop like Tony Blair, talk Mockney like my children’s public school friends or just rabbit on regardless, wearing language like an ID tag. Tim Nice but Dim. The trouble is, as GBS also said ’ The English have no respect for their language and will not teach their children to speak it.’
Organisations are increasingly producing their own video and audio news releases for the media to use in programmes.
But they can save their money. The BBC’s editorial policy on video and audio news releases is unchanged. Only in exceptional circumstances will they use material supplied by outside organisations – including PR companies, emergency services, Government agencies, interest groups, campaigners and charities – especially if the BBC was not present when it was recorded.
The fact that the organisation has a vested interest in the subject matter can lead to concerns about the editorial integrity of the material. The organisation supplying the material may claim that it has been produced objectively, but the BBC cannot vouch for the circumstances in which it was gathered or the editorial standards applied.
Some PR companies make interviews available in such a way that the original questions can be edited out an replaced by the voice of a programme presenter. The revoicing of questions by someone who did not carry out the original interview is never acceptable in BBC content. Thankfully there is always the independent sector, but if you would like more detailed guidance on the use of VNRs, give me a call.
Former political editor of The Sunday Times, David Cracknell has formed a ’strategic alliance’ with Project Associates the comms firm set up by former Camelot comms director David Rigg in 1997. It has links with the PR consultant John Stonborough, former Tory mayoral candidate Steve Norris and YouGov president Peter Kellner. Directors include Jonathan Horsman and Stuart Higgins, former Sun editor.
Cracknell said the partnership with Project Associates would provide him with access to a number of skilled consultants and allow him to pursue a ‘Facebook approach to consultancy - drawing in talent as and when needed’.He added: ‘I am delighted and flattered to be invited to join Project Associates’ network, which includes some highly experienced professionals.‘In these times many clients eschew the big agency approach, favouring creativity over process, flexibility over one size fits all, and just getting things done. In the digital age it makes sense to grow a business via a network of experts rather than generalists. Our alliance with Project Associates is a prime example.’
Have you thought about booking one of our successful Media Master Classes? It is a very cost effective way of training groups in the Do’s and Dont’s of media handling. These are fun (half day or full day) courses for people who don’t need intense Media Training, but need to be media-savvy just the same. Media Master Classes are best when tailored to your special requirements. Price is dependent on numbers, length and location. Have a glance at the Air Supremacy website for more details on this and other courses.
If she wins, I hope they name a coffee after Dee Caffari. On November 9th, Dee and 30 heroes start the 2008 Vendee Globe round the world SOLO yacht race - the one Ellen M nearly won last time. It calls itself the world’s toughest yacht race, though I would argue it’s the world’s toughest race - full stop. Three months on your tod, in a wild beast of a boat, flat out, 2000 miles from any help in the roughest seas imaginable. No thank you. Good Luck Dee and I bet your PRs are cheesed off with the Times Body & Soul section today. They have hidden your inspirational interview behind an uplifting piece about Killer Heels. For Gawds sake, Killer Heels! Here is a woman about to do something amazingly courageous for Britain, yet the Times’ wan answer to the DM’s Femail, think that some slapper teetering in daft Jimmy’s is more important. Je ne comprends pas as the Brit yachties say on the Sable d’Olonne.
One excitement this week, in a week of not many excitements, is that I win 2p on Osborne staying in post. A couple of people whose political savvy I value were convinced he was for the chop, but I said he’d survive. He hasn’t done anything except be a twit. So a gent’s wager of one penny was struck with each of them. Well he has survived and all eyes are back on Mandelson, so pay up chaps! If you can’t afford it there is this Russian yachtsman who might sub you.
Stumbled across a new word today ‘Roborant’ (pron. ROB-uhr-uhnt). Apparently it means v. to strengthen, or n. a restorative tonic. I think it should be ‘Robo-Rant’: to make an automated complaint on-line. Robo-ranting, n. a robo-ranter, disgusted of Tunbridge Wells goes ballistic in Cyber Space.
I am sure you know this, I didn’t, but the Unfair Trade Regs may impact PR’s and PR. I found this on the Schillings website. Be Warned. Since May this year, new laws designed to protect consumers mean that it’s now illegal to: ‘falsely claim or create the impression that a trader is not acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession or falsely represent oneself as a consumer.’ Which, in plain English, means that it’s now illegal to post positive comments about a brand on blogs etc without making it clear that the post has been created by or on behalf of the brand. Likewise, it would be illegal for a PR to write a positive review about a hotel client on a travel website without disclosing why they are doing so. Companies will also be prohibited from using buzz marketing specialists to communicate with potential customers, e.g. on social networking sites, without revealing that they are acting on behalf of the brand. You can go down for 2 years!
I have never met Sean Poulter. He’s been the Daily Mail’s award wining consumer sleuth since 1989!
Awards:
2007 - London Press Club Annual Awards, Consumer Affairs Journalist of the Year (Shortlist)
2004 - London Press Club Awards, Consumer Affairs Journalist of the Year
2004 - Natural Products Awards, Consumer Education Award
I would like to meet him. I used to be in the same line of work, before turning to PR and I am impressed how time and again Sean breaks terrific stories. But occasionally my sympathy is with the PR’s who get his call. I imagine Nikki Haine, a spokesman for McKenna Townsend, (who handle PR for Subway, that garish US Sandwich chain) is feeling pretty bruised by her encounter with Sean last week. You can read the story here but the gist is that Subway have been keeping shtumm about allegedly serving up dodgy Philly Style Steak and Chicken Fajitas possibly since last Feb! Their particular Salmonella flavour is Agona* – named perhaps by someone with a sense of humour as they faced the porcelain. But I was interested by how badly Subway handled Sean, who writes: On Wednesday, the Daily Mail asked the firm’s PR company - McKenna Townsend - whether Subway was involved in the salmonella outbreak. At the time, the company refused to admit its products were involved. On Thursday, the company issued a statement, again failing to admit its products were implicated in the outbreak. It also refused to respond to a direct question asking whether Subway products were linked. But the attempted cover-up failed yesterday when the Food Safety Authority of Ireland revealed suspect meat was supplied to Subway.
After the announcement, Subway was forced to issue a statement. - and had withdrawn batches of Philly Style Steak and Chicken Fajita. (JS asks ‘what took ‘em so long?’) A statement added: ‘The Subway chain has total confidence that its supply chain is safe and secure.’ Nikki Haine, a spokesman for McKenna Townsend, refused to say why she had attempted to keep the Subway link a secret.
How much is Ms Haine being paid to take the rap for Subway’s poisonous Philly Style Steak and Chicken Fajitas? Presumably she was just obeying orders and now she is in the Daily Mail cuttings for ever and a day accused of serving porkie pies on behalf of her client. I wonder if Sean should have named her? If she has no responsibility for the actions (or inaction) of the client, and more often than not these agency PR’s don’t, then Sean shouldn’t have ID’d her. It adds little to a cracking good story and causes immense distress to often quite junior people.
I always insist I am merely referred to as a spokesman.
Who says you can’t believe a word you read in the papers? This morning Ephraim Hardcastle writes that the Cote d’Azur is plagued with stinging jellyfish (pelagia noctiluca); think large lump of violet snot wielding a tazer and you have the measure of this little darling. I know this first hand.
So what is the point of providing a newspaper with a defensive statement? Mostly it is to explain your position. X says Y about you and you have a couple of sentences in which to clarify, justify, verify, amplify (that’s enough fys for one day). Speed is critical. Truth and accuracy are presumed but not always evident. There may be legal implications which prevent fervent apologies or gulping mea culpas.
But you have to judge the audience. Put it bluntly - who gives a shit? Get it wrong and you risk saying something so inappropriate that you raise the hackles of even the most disinterested reader. Garnish it in unctuous corporate double-speak and you have committed at least six of the seven deadly spins.
Boots managed all of the above this week, in their response to an averagely over-egged Daily Mail story, about their galumphing handling of a silly little girl who tested (stole?) a dab of nail polish she couldn’t afford. You can read the story for yourself, and the comments are interesting too, but take special heed of their quote.
A Boots spokesman said: ‘During the recent event at our Folkestone store we worked with Miss Gilbert and subsequent local law enforcement to ensure an effective resolution was met. Mrs Gilbert’s daughter remained on the premises until she was able to be released safely into the care of her parents. ‘These safety measures are in place to ensure our customers have a continued safe shopping environment.‘
Ignore the barefaced dishonesty, savour the toe curling language! “we worked with (no you didn’t).. … local law enforcement (is that the police by any chance?)…safety measures..safe shopping environment. (Oh thank you Boots for saving Britain from this 12 year old girl)
I suspect Boots hoped to assuage the Daily Mail with mealy mouthed bunkum, rather than escaping into the simple truth. They had a number of routes. They could have said we are sorry. They should have said that groups of girls flooding in to their store after school and nicking (sorry testing) stuff is a major problem and will be dealt with toughly. That would have been both honest and resonate well with the audience.
I found this in Matthew Parris’ column in the Times today:
From The Times last week, headlined “Ceviche: the new sushi”: “Put down the maki rolls and sashimi, the hot new trend in raw fish is spicy South American ceviche - marinated prawns on a bed of lettuce…” etc. An excellent piece about the national dish of Peru: raw white fish “cooked” in lime juice and chilli. Delicious.
But I remember when a cholera epidemic gripped Lima, where the fish are brought in from the Pacific - and the city’s untreated sewage is pumped back. Unsurprisingly, fish sales had plummeted and the industry faced ruin. An alarmed fisheries minister got straight on to national television to reassure Peruvians there was no danger. To prove it he ate a huge bowl of ceviche in front of the cameras, live. The following morning he was rushed to hospital with cholera. (c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2008
All I want for my birthday is my video back, I really miss it. I am rifling through back numbers of Broadcast as one does, reading about how in April alone, people ordered 20 million programmes using iPlayer and how smug old C4/Hardcash have managed to win a ‘landmark six figure sum’ from West Midland Constabulary for that Dispatches Undercover Mosque documentary.
Is that all? Six figures, it’s hardly a landmark. Now Ofcom fining ITV £5.8m, that’s an eye watering landmark which ITV shareholders won’t forget in a hurry. But a paltry £150K probably represents a day’s takings from a B road speed camera. Anyway I digress, I miss my video. Listen to this, the BBC is now planning to plant ‘Minisodes’ (sic) on the web ahead of each weekly Panorama prog to boost audience and reach younger viewers.
Minisodes! I can’t keep up with the jargon anymore. The other day Simon, one of my techie colleagues, asked if I wanted to download or stream. ‘No thanks,’ I said, ‘I’ve just been.’ (Don’t worry, he didn’t get it either) Anyway. I want my vid back. I don’t need HD or Blueray and I hate iPlayer, SkyPlayer, C4OD, VoD for my job, because they don’t do what I want, or if they do, its only there for a week,. What about Sky+? True, it is easy to use, but I can’t download the stuff to keep. And if I do have a DVD, I find it hard to locate things. My old Video archive was easy. I could take the cassette out of the recorder. Review it, I could write on the spine. And joy, I ended up with a tape, which just went forwards and backwards fast or slow, instead of lurching and jumping all over the shop.
But, Hang on, this Slingbox thingy looks interesting. Just add broadband and you can watch your home TV on your lap top, where ever you are in the world. Umm –with the holiday season coming up …. On second thoughts all I want for my birthday is a Slingbox.
This made me laugh, its from Low Life: Jeremy Clarke’s column in the Spectator (9 Feb page 47). In the gents lavatory at my local pub, above the light switch, some wag has written the words ‘a light to lighten the genitals’ in black felt-tip pen. So at least one person who frequents the place is familiar enough with Luke’s gospel to try to make a pun out of it. But most other people, I suspect, assume that it’s just another health and safety notice.
I enjoyed Andrew Billen’s appreciation of Jeremy Beadle in the Times (page 11) today. He quoted Beadle’s warning at the Edinburgh TV Festival to those new to the game never to respond to the reporter who promises you the chance to “give your side of the story”. He said: “That means, ‘Kiss me because I am going to rape you anyway’.”
Good advice, but a bit rich coming from Beadle, who never asked the people he set up and there was no right of reply when he’d made a wally of them.
Did you watch Monarchy on BBC1 before Christmas. Fascinating. It was a brave decision of the Royals to let the cameras in. And it worked despite getting off to a very dodgy start which even resulted in the Controller BBC1 resigning (see below).
But there was one priceless moment when Prince Andrew all but lost his cool (>> 0:58 to 2:00) Watch his hands as he says one thing (through gritted teeth) but is so patently thinking something completely different. The camera never lies.
News Analysis: Gazing into the industry crystal ball 11 January 2008 From taking action to combat climate change to spotting the next agency to be snapped up and preparing for a shake-up in the recruitment industry - PRWeek readers predict what 2008 has in store for them. JOHN STONBOROUGH, founder, John Stonborough & Co ‘I guarantee that despite spending over half a million quid of licence payers’ money to send 16,500 employees on a Truth Recognition course, the BBC will be engulfed in another fact fiddling scandal in 2008.’
Well that’s it. Happy Christmas and my special thanks to Taz, Jane R, Ian, Jerry, Roger, Les, Stuart, Joan and Viktoria as well as Vickie, Sara, Rob, Heidi, Jonny and David and everybody else who helped make 2007 another great laugh-packed year.
The Editors’ Code of Practice Committee, which writes and revises the voluntary code of standards overseen by the Press Complaints Commission, has launched its own website: http://www.editorscode.org.uk
A major feature of the site is a digital version of The Editors’ Codebook, the official handbook to the Code, first published in 2004 jointly by the Newspaper Publishers Association, the Newspaper Society, the Periodical Publishers Association, the Scottish Daily Newspaper Society and the Scottish Newspaper Publishers Association.
Don’t go ‘off the record’. But if you are prepared to put your career or reputation at risk, take precautions.
Misjudgements can have dire - even terrible - consequences. There’s probably no more tragic example than the off-the record briefing that the weapons scientist, Dr David Kelly, gave to the BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan. Gilligan did his best to keep Kelly’s name secret but, as we know, he failed, and Kelly died. The chairman and chief executive of the BBC also lost their jobs.
But even at a much more humdrum level ask yourself:
1 Is this journalist known to you.
2 Does this journalist need you in future and do you need them.
3 Have you discussed and agreed in advance what is to be off the record. AND …
4 Have you discussed how you are going to be described (attribution).
You will have seen phrases like ‘ a close family friend’ in the papers every day. A ‘family friend’ is either the person themselves or someone with access. A ‘friend’ is often no such thing. A ‘source close to … (the Prince, the White House, the Chairman) is the person themselves or their official spokesman. A Whitehall Insider might be a very senior civil servant etc. How’s this one from the FT this week: “ ….an unamed Permanent Secretary, who is a knight and runs a major depatment” said ….
If you don’t agree the attribution in advance it may only be minutes before you are outed. Have a look at the latest ruling by the PCC (Press Complaints Commission) and you will see what I mean. It made no difference to the unfortunate mortuary worker that he was not quoted or identified, There were only 2 people working there, the other was his boss! Whoops. Having the PCC tick the offending paper off will make not a jot of difference. His ignorance of the way the media work will haunt him for a long time.
If I was American or some other feisty nationality I would have just asked Sir Paul McCartney’s divorce lawyer Fiona Shackleton what she thought of Heather Mills’ outburst on GMTV. But no, I’m so sort of British, that when I bumped into her and her husband at the Caprice that night, I just mumbled a few inanities.
Pathetic! So what did you think of Heather’s outburst? I bet you didn’t see it all and what’s more I bet you have an opinion! Just like everybody else. But I’ll tell you something, even if they don’t much like her, I suspect there is more sympathy out there for the way she’s been treated by the press, than people let on.
I hear that Phil Hall, her PR man (he and I started out as reporters on the Dagenham Post together) resigned. What a pity, she needs all the PR advice she can get now. Its not a job for the faint hearted. Colleagues say its PR mission impossible.
Heather needs to belt up for a bit. Paul needs to settle this divorce fast – please God lets have no custody battle with pictures of their daughter being dragged out of her mother’s home. And that certain section of the media might want to reconsider baiting Heather – because once she’s got a few million in the bank, she will go to the European Court. Hell hath no fury etc…. and they don’t come much more scorned than Heather Mills McCartney.
I wonder if this will make you chuckle as it did me. The nanny state ‘alive and coughing’, as a mate of mate of mine put it. Bonfire Night Smog Warning. If it does not click through to the Defra website and you get an error message, try pressing F5.
I’d never heard of Peter Serafinowiczbut there is a good PR case study about him in Saturday’s Daily Mail: The BBC’s hottest new comedy star Peter Serafinowicz yesterday abandoned an attempt to use the Human Rights Act to stop newspapers revealing his grandfather was the first man in Britain to face a trial for Nazi war crimes. I have no access to the full facts but I wonder if Peter Serafinowiczfeels that trying to gag the Mail, using the privacy provisions of the Human Rights Act, was probably a mistake. It certainly highlights the differences between a legal route and PR, when dealing with negative publicity.
Had he sought my advice, I’d have told him that nobody can be censured for the sins of a dead grandfather, let alone not wanting to talk about it. This is 99.9% born out by the reader’s comments which accompany the online story.
A short statement to the Daily Mail registering dismay, which I believe he feels, would probably have dealt with it. Instead his lawyers failed to silence the Mail, providing all the justification needed for a smug twist to a hideous allegation and possibly a fat bill too.
Dear Diary, Nearly fell off bike at 5.12pm yesterday. Was riding home, half on the pavement as usual, opp Green Park listening to the PM prog and enjoying Eddie Mair’s utterly butterly style, when in walked BBC COO Caroline Thomson. La Topspin had presumably been sent to studio S1 to ‘draw a line under the Fincham resignation’. i.e. Get in and get it over with as quickly as possible, and don’t worry, Eddie isn’t John.
She was doing well in an icy way when EM slipped her a classic Mair Omega 3 capsule question along the lines of:
“would it be a good idea if all broadcasters had to agree to a code of practice on editorial standards?”
Caroline seemed stunned. What follows is slightly abridged or had a Wafflectomy as its known.
“(pause) Um, I think that might be an interesting idea, we do have a sort of code of practice in Ofcom …in that Ofcom would be the appropriate body - Ofcom do have a code of practice that they hold us to … so in a sense it exists already .. but it’s an interesting issue we should look at.”
A word in your shell-like Dear, but the BBC already have 226 pages of advice and mandatory instructions to all BBC staff and contractors, stuffed with things about values, accuracy and lots more besides. Its called the BBC Editorial Guidelines. There is even a link to it on this page.
If you would like to hear the int in full then go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/noscript.shtml?/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/pm, its about 10 mins in. But take care if you are riding a bike.
My thanks to Mrs DF of Wimborne, Dorset for pointing out that my Air Supremacy website needs updating. Actually, its crashed and is in the garage so to speak. Should be back on the information highway shortly.
I media trained Anita Roddick. Must be well over ten years ago and we managed to have a row right from the start. I had been called in to gnaw over the issue of animal testing. The Body Shop always claimed they did no animal testing on their products. But of course, these were weasel words. They may not have done any animal testing, but some of the ingredients that make up their products have to have been animal tested by law– or they did then.
The company was uncomfortable with this and needed to work out a defence. So I was summoned to the Body Shop HQ somewhere behind Oxford Street to give Anita a hard time.
Anybody who met Anita Roddick will know that giving Anita a hard time was rash, even when she said, ‘John, I want you to give me a hard time.’ But I did and she bit right back. Nobody was going to attack her integrity, even when the company themselves were paying me to do it..
‘OK old girl’, I thought to myself, pulling a half used bottle of my wife’s Body Shop moisturiser out of my pocket. I’ll get you now!’
‘Right, while I’ve got you here Anita, just explain how you can justify saying this stuff contains 100% natural ingredients and charge (I don’t remember how much) when its actually 70% water?
‘Well, water’s natural isn’t it,’ she replied quick as flash.
Normally I don’t give a damn, despite the fact that I have met most of players. But on this occasion, it didn’t need the Daily Mail to tell me that a great many people were aghast at the Duchess of Cornwall attending the Princess Diana Memorial on Friday. Until this row, people were getting used to Camilla – about the worst thing anyone’s said is that she is a bit idle. And Prince Charles has seemed much happier since he married her. The End, at last of a ghastly chapter and nothing to think about until the Succession.
And then Clarence House and the Prince set off this Category 5 PR balls up. It wasn’t hate mail they were getting by the sack load, it was post from a shocked populace. How could Camilla possibly attend the memorial – (I don’t think I need to re-hash the circumstances) Yes it was sweet of her husband to want his wife at his side, yes it was sweet of the princes to want to show a kind of family unity by inviting her – though I wonder what they really think. But no it wasn’t sweet or clever of Clarence House even to countenance it for a moment. Saving clients (be they aspirant kings, top politicians or CEO’s) from their own stupidity is a fundamental PR job. Its not easy and I should know. Being an advisor is not a popularity contest and you should be prepared to resign if you truly believe a course of action to be foolhardy, criminal or as in this instance, perverse.
Please, I kept saying to myself, please can Camilla have a diplomatic snuffle, a cough, shingles, anything, on the day and so avoid being there. Better still (and more honest) would be to have issued a short statement saying that it would not be appropriate to attend. The country would have appreciated that and her tenuous popularity enhanced. I am sure all this was discussed endlessly but nobody had the balls to stand up to the Prince himself and say, either she stays home chum, or I leave the job.
Today I read that The Spirit of Wisdom and Good Sense in the shape of our Queen has stepped in. She may not have liked Diana much, but she wasn’t about to allow another hate fest against her eldest son’s second wife – something he seemed quite prepared to allow, perhaps because as he once told me, he never reads the papers. Get reading, Sir.
That last blog, back in May (I know I know, time just slips by) was very prescient. Who would have believed that the BBC and the other broadcasters would stumble so badly in the weeks since then? Even Blue Peter for Heaven’s sake tried to scam a quiz result and who couldn’t fail to be shocked when somebody doctored a bit of film about the Queen! I hear some old geezers (like me) who worked at the Beeb in the dim distant, chundering on about producers nowadays not coming from a BBC news and current affairs background. But that is no excuse, doctoring the evidence is doctoring the evidence what ever background you come from. It makes you wonder just how much else is fiddled with now that whole programmes are edited on lap tops on the kitchen table. And you know, I find spicing up the truth with a pinch of salt much more serious than pretending that somebody has won a phone-in quiz, when they haven’t. Why?, because that is, often as not, done out of panic as a live show unravels. But to sit in front of a pc and wilfully and maliciously shift the truth a nudge to the left or right with a mouse. That is in a wholly different league.
What with moving offices and travelling I have not had time to write, but have a glance at the May 8 Ofcom adjudication about the nursery school. If you need proof that the BBC doctors their evidence, and what’s more Ofcom sanctioned it - then read page 20. I am always nervous of the ‘end justifies the means’ excuse, especially where we (the viewer) is kept in the dark. In this case the programme makers shifted some dialogue by a few seconds - but we weren’t told. And while I am on the subject, Ofcom seem to have taken the BBC’s word that the original whistleblowers were ‘credible’. I don’t know that they weren’t but I want to be re-assured that the Ofcom Fairness Committee investigated sufficiently to justify the secret filming. (see page 44 onwards BBC Editorial Guidelines)
What is the German for schadenfreude? It’s so integral to our British psyche, we don’t have a word for it. Do the French? Or do they, like us, use the German for want of anything better. Literally it means Harm-Joy, but loses something in translation.
As you and I know, schadenfreude (sound the last letter, so not as in Sigmund) is that gorgeous feeling of self-satisfaction at another’s misfortune. Nothing too serious mind, the British don’t laugh at grief and tragedy - like the MOD’s PR handling of the Navy’s Iran hostage crisis. What we are talking about are life’s little banana skins and surely the big PR banana prize this month (so far) must go to Sir Michael Lyons, newly appointed Chairman of the BBC Trust (£140,000pa). He is the man who at his first press conference told those Attack Jessies, the Media Correspondents, ‘I probably at the moment sample rather more radio than TV’. And not content in lowering himself straight into their feeding bowls, he compounded it by coming up with three TV programmes he did like (er, had heard of), of which one was on rival ITV and the other on Channel 4. HaHaHaHa!
Don’t get me wrong, my schadenfreude is not directed at his gaff but at the PR people who MUST have been minding him. Did nobody think to ask him before the conference, what his favourite BBC telly progs might be and if he answered Quatermass and the Lone Ranger, then suggest he say. “I watch the News and my wife loves anything with Lenny Henry and Red Nose Day”. Untrue perhaps but a major improvement none the less.
But then I wonder if this is the same lot of advisors who came up with this quote in the official BBC/10 Downing Street release announcing his appointment : “It is a great privilege to be appointed Chairman of the BBC Trust,” Sir Michael said. “As the BBC’s sovereign body, our duty is to ensure the public who pay for the BBC retain overall control of their BBC. As Chairman I will never lose sight of the public’s core expectations of editorial independence and quality programmes across television, radio and the internet which inform, educate and entertain. I look forward to the exciting challenges of the future and working with my colleagues on the Trust to ensure the BBC provides a quality service to justify the public’s continuing support.” “(Source: BBC press release, London, in English 5 Apr 07).” He never said any such thing. Some PRat wrote it for him. Sir Michael says things like ‘‘I probably at the moment sample rather more radio than TV. I’m an inveterate supporter of Radio 4. I wake up with the Today programme every morning. I am also a regular listener to Analysis and The Moral Maze.‘
Thank God, the man is an intellectual and not a dumbed down Toscar Winner after all.
Years ago, when I was a junior reporter on the East London Advertiser (no I never met the Krays), a girlfriend gave me words and phrases to weave into my copy. It was a good laugh. Mostly it was easy and the Editor never noticed (sorry Bob); but once I really struggled. The phrase was Noblesse Oblige. Noblesse Oblige in Mile End? Well, I wasn’t going to give up and as luck would have it, a garage which had put diesel in their petrol tank – causing mayhem locally – gave me the chance. Provided people could produce a receipt the garage paid for the repairs without question. The story in the ELA that week ran ‘Noble Esso obliged customers …’ History does not recount if I was properly rewarded for my literary sleight of hand.
So what has taken Tesco so long? It must be 10 days before they’ve fessed-up to the contaminated fuel which has brought countless cars to an expensive halt. Tesco N0-blesse Oblige.
This you have to hear. Tune in to John Varley, CEO of Barclays Group with Greg Wood on the Today programme this morning. Marvel at how he kicks off with his key messages then reels off statistics and context and makes it sound as if Barclays is a huge cuddly charity, there to make the world a better place. Brilliant!
Why the Beeb are running something this glossy and well-made to an 0915 audience of the infirm, housebound and benefits-cheats taking the week off work, is a question every license payer should ask. Its PSB (public service broadcasting) gone mad!
But seriously. I’m riveted at the difference between Asda’s* briliant handling of their film about some substandard frozen food on Monday; and on Tuesday, Somerfields’roasting in a 45 minute Kleenex weepy about a hard grafting supplier loosing his livelihood at the whim of a Somerfield buyer.
In the Monday film – which the BBC were spoon fed by the GMB union, with whom Asda have a running spat – Asda engaged the film makers head-on. It meant we were either hearing Asda’s key points in Sally Magnusson’s commentary, or in vision in punchy sound bites from a top Asda executive; who just happened to be: female, nice looking, broad Yorkshire, articulate, a mum and yes, shops at Asda. By ‘eck you’d have to be a GMB shop steward not to have been convinced by her oopnorth tell it like it is candour.
But on Tuesday we watched a lettuce farmer going down the pan, every nail wrenching step. Somerfields had cancelled his crop while it was already thrusting leafy rabbit ears towards the Worcestershire sky, a testimony to a lifetime of yeoman husbandry. We saw every pleading phone-call, his Kiplingesque nobility, his apologies for the fury he felt; every pain scratched feature of his family was there, and how we felt for them.
Unlike Asda, Somerfields bogged it or didn’t see it coming. They just banged out a holding statement. Usual guff. Can’t talk about individual cases … enjoy good relations with our suppliers etc etc. Bollox. Nul points to Somerfields.
Rule 101: If you are the recipient of public money or public trust, engage, engage, engage.
I have sat on my hands for a week, resisting the urge to sound off about Celebrity Big Brother’s big bother. Its not what went on in the House, or even the global scream since. What interests me professionally is what’s been happening at the Big Channel 4 HQ in Horseferry Road.
So let me ask you? How do you think the C4 board have handled it, so far? ‘Nul points’ I say. They’ve made every PR mistake in the book. Time taken to react: Appalling, programme sponsors Carphone Warehouse got it right when they disconnected instantly. Toscar Nomination: My Toscars go to Chairman Luke Johnson who scuttled from BBC biz reporter Greg Wood like the boss of a double glazing firm on Watchdog and to CEO Andy Duncan (an ex Flora marge salesman) who floundered and sweated though a belated press briefing in an old striped sports shirt. The only awe he inspired was as in awful. Credibility of Message. Zero. They think we believe their mendacity about CBB fulfilling C4’s committment to exploring important social issues. P-lease! We all know its about the ratings.The statement put out after last night’s emergency board meeting was no better. Best Supporting Actress: Shilpa’s Mum. Fact File:
C4 can’t pull Celebrity Big Brother. CBB is crucial to C4, contributing 10 percent of revenue. C4 pay Endemol £35m annually for the rights to the series and is committed till 2010.
Dear Friends. Wrapping up warm. Wrapping up presents, Wrapping up to go away! My thanks to everyone (in particular the home team Jane R, Gillian, Heidi, Vickie, Jerry and Ian) who helped make 2006 a particularly good year both for the consultancy and the training company, with some very exciting new business for 2007. Forgive me for not sending out a cheesy card of a robin on a spade but just the thought of licking stamps, spitting on envelopes and hauling the Mont Blanc over hundreds of ink-miles gives me Reuters cramp. A hygienic on-line donation to charity is more my style: Julia’s House, a wonderful kids hospice in my home village of Corfe Mullen, Dorset; the RNLI, so they hurry when I need them, plus ‘a few bob’ to St Patrick’s church, Soho who pick up the people we discard. Thank you one and all for your support and business and I wish you and your families, a very merry Christmas holiday and a happy and prosperous New Year. Its a wrap. John
PS. Congratulations Eloise: An unconditional place at Oxford to read English. Wow!
Quote: “The airline refused to answer questions during a phone call yesterday and insisted they be put in writing. It then failed to respond to emails”.
Why not? It doesn’t fill me with confidence. It reinforces the widely held view that this (most successful) airline is arrogant and contemptuous of the public – an approach which comes from the very top.
It also pisses journalists off. Never a good idea if they can write about you again and again or worse still, list your last three near mega-fatalities since 2004.
But sometimes papers miss a trick too. In broadcasting its called ‘the empty chair’, where you pose the questions anyway. What did Ben ask Ryanair? Were the questions impossible to answer truthfully - so ‘no comment’ was the only option. Or were they just the usual w.w.w.w h.w that are easy to dodge. I think we should be told. Ben if you see this, let us know.
As for what Ryanair should have done – well, any PRO could craft a statement to deal with a near-miss, in their sleep. …safety paramount….one off … pilots showed great skill….retrained … review procedures. ..safety paramount (r)… internet’s favourite airline (or is that the other lot?)
I had a tetchy email from a Mr PD who takes issue with a fleeting reference in an earlier post about the BBC World Service programme Outlook. He writes ‘what is wrong with Outlook? This is the programme that helped keep sane Terry Waite and the other Beirut hostages, and they were quick to pay tribute to the World Service for that when they were freed…’
Cool your jets, mate, I like Outlook, I just ought to be asleep at ‘3 hours’ or what ever the blasted World Service (and nobody else) calls 3am, and so should you. I also recommend their website, where you can get your Outlook badge and ‘listen again’ to riveting items about Nigerian villages where men and women speak separate languages; sounds familiar. Maybe a Nigerian reporter would like to visit our house.
What with it being Halloween, we need fresh blood – not literally, but a couple of presentation trainers (not media trainers) who really know their stuff to join the team. Someone who understands visual aids, timing, presentation, writing for speech, and everything that goes with multimedia delivery, even a couple of good jokes would be a blessing. Get in touch. Tonight.
Here’s a Sample bad joke:
How do they describe the Test Match on Transylvanian TV? The Vampire strikes Bat.
Fed up with listening to Outlook on the BBC World Service - well try this.
“Welcome to (BBC) Editorial Policy’s new monthly Newsletter. As part of the redesign of the Editorial Guidelines website the Newsletter will feature updates and information about current editorial policy issues in one easy to digest portion. Please subscribe to the newsletter by using the button above, and contact the Editorial Policy team if you have any questions.” David Jordan (Controller, Editorial Policy)
and here’s his picture:
Thanks Dave I have (you click subscribe on the web site) and I look forward to receiving my first edition shortly.
The question Ofcom was asked to address was whether Nestlé and Kellogg’s should have been allowed to contribute to the programme. If yes, then they were entitled to be dealt with ‘fairly’ (7.3).
on national TV about a product, especially foods consumed by half the world’s children, manufactured by two of the world’s most famous companies, is significant, and they should have been granted all the rights accruing to a contributor, including a timely and proper opportunity to respond.
Apparently I had swine flu. I went to the Doc today as I’ve had this vicious earache, sore throat and a general feeling of malaise since returning from holiday. 
If he looked like the Georgian über-brigand with the big black moustache, we would dismiss him as a warlord and the whole disastrous escapade as a clashing of clans.
From the age of five, I could tell you the route Hillary and Tenzing took. Base camp, Khumbu Ice Fall, Lotse, South Col. And there was all that vocab too: crampons, seracs, crevasses, belays. To a small boy this was beyond exciting.
Reality was any wet Sunday at 
and anything at all with Fi Glover (left).
Class wars seethe at the Beeb too. I don’t know the ins and outs of why Ed Stourton is to be dropped from the BBC R4 Today programme in favour of Justin Webb. They say he’s too posh. (God we live in a weird country!) Historically the BBC recruit, via the left leaning Guardian, the brightest most gifted state educated kids. Though, both Ed Stourton’s bosses Mark Damazar and BBC DG Mark Thompson went to public schools. So did Justin, I think?
partnership with Project Associates would provide him with access to a number of skilled consultants and allow him to pursue a ‘Facebook approach to consultancy - drawing in talent as and when needed’.He added: ‘I am delighted and flattered to be invited to join Project Associates’ network, which includes some highly experienced professionals.‘In these times many clients eschew the big agency approach, favouring creativity over process, flexibility over one size fits all, and just getting things done. In the digital age it makes sense to grow a business via a network of experts rather than generalists. Our alliance with Project Associates is a prime example.’
Globe round the world SOLO yacht race - the one Ellen M nearly won last time. It calls itself the world’s toughest yacht race, though I would argue it’s the world’s toughest race - full stop. Three months on your tod, in a wild beast of a boat, flat out, 2000 miles from any help in the roughest seas imaginable. No thank you. Good Luck Dee and I bet your PRs are cheesed off with the Times Body & Soul section today. They have hidden your inspirational interview behind an uplifting piece about Killer Heels. For Gawds sake, Killer Heels! Here is a woman about to do something amazingly courageous for Britain, yet the Times’ wan answer to the DM’s Femail, think that some slapper teetering in daft Jimmy’s is more important. Je ne comprends pas as the Brit yachties say on the Sable d’Olonne.
So what did you think of 
He is the man who at his first press conference told those Attack Jessies, the Media Correspondents, ‘I probably at the moment sample rather more radio than TV’. And not content in lowering himself straight into their feeding bowls, he compounded it by coming up with three TV programmes he did like (er, had heard of), of which one was on rival ITV and the other on Channel 4. HaHaHaHa!
This you have to hear. Tune in to John Varley, CEO of Barclays Group with Greg Wood on the 
The only awe he inspired was as in awful.
but just the thought of licking stamps, spitting on envelopes and hauling the Mont Blanc over hundreds of ink-miles gives me Reuters cramp. 
Why not? It doesn’t fill me with confidence. It reinforces the widely held view that this (most successful) airline is arrogant and contemptuous of the public – an approach which comes from the very top.
What with it being Halloween, we need fresh blood – not literally, but a couple of presentation trainers (not media trainers) who really know their stuff to join the team. Someone who understands visual aids, timing, presentation, writing for speech, and everything that goes with multimedia delivery, even a couple of good jokes would be a blessing. Get in touch. Tonight.