static squid

WHAT IS PHONE HACKING AND WHO DOES IT?

The Guardian's story on 'phone hacking' at the News Of The World is creating a mini-storm, partly because of the press's narcissistic desire to talk about itself.

How does phone hacking work? In essence a reporter phones the target on his/her mobile and keeps them talking. Meanwhile a second reporter phones the same number and gets through to voice mail. Armed with a list of the default settings for voicemail passwords (8888 for one phone company, 1234 for another), it is possible to get through to the targets voicemail account, assuming s/he hasn't reset the password.

When I worked on papers (outside News International), this was widespread and regarded as little more than slightly sharp practice (it's illegal now, of course). But I am certain that many journalists and newspaper groups will be quaking slightly at today's revelations. And I don't think all of them will be tabloids...

THE EGO OF THE JOURNALIST 2

Here's another piece from the NYT reflecting what Jeff Jarvis correctly calls the 'narcissism' of journalists.

"The table was formidable: oval and elegant, with curves of gleaming wood. The editors no less so: 11 men and 7 women with the power to decide what was important in the world."

The reporter is talking about the 4pm news conference at his own paper. They aren't just debating what to put in a newspaper, they are "deciding what's important in the world". British journalists probably wouldn't put it quite so self-confidently, but many would share the assumption.

Really, the need for this process stems from the formal size limitations of a newspaper. With print you have to leave something out. Journalists have parlayed it into something grander - a prioritisation of what matters - that is, like papers themselves, in the process of becoming obsolete.

The web lets me decide what is important to me through a host of means: swift browsing of key sites, feed readers, recommendations from trusted sources, be they blogs, Facebook friends, Twitterers. My news agenda is different to his, hers, yours, theirs and the NYT's. So why do I need 11 men and 7 women, formidable or not, to decide for me?

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THE EGO OF THE JOURNALIST

Roger Cohen of the New York Times reflects, in rather florid prose, on his time in Iran and what he sees as the 'actual responsibility' of the journalist. American journalists are famously serious about their calling but his sentiments would be shared by many Brits, too.

Cohen believes that journalists can bring something to a story such as the Iranian revolution that you could not get from Twitter, Youtube or the web. But is he right, I wonder, or is he really reflecting on the pleasure and sense of self-worth that he got from being close to and observing the conflict?

I'm not meaning to criticise Cohen - the attitude I detect in his piece is common among journalists. Ego has always been a motivating force in journalism, the desire for a byline, to prove yourself, to witness momentous events and believe you are helping shape them. But who gets the most out of this: readers or journalists?

Do we any longer need journalists as quasi-omiscient intermediaries, reflecting on and explaining events for us? Or can we get a better, more vivid, multidimensional view from other sources? Or is the journalist's role to curate what's out there, select the best and weave it together in coherent form?

Cricket fans used to receive their views and impressions of important matches from the pen of a Neville Cardus or a John Arlott, who are still remembered as great judges of the game and fine writers. Instead today we have the kind of live blogs you see on the BBC and elsewhere, replete with stats, debate, description and argument, with the journalist as ringmaster, rather than ultimate authority. I know which I prefer.

THE AUTHORITY PROBLEM

One thing that can make journalism valuable is its authority - the idea that the writer has knowledge or insight that cannot easiy be gained elsewhere. It is part of the personal and professional myth of many journalists that they have this authority, that they are highly knowledgeable, well connected or both. The reality is often different as Sathnam Sanghera of the Times candidly admits.

"business journalists rarely get the full truth about companies. The fact is that, despite all the awards we enjoy giving ourselves, with the exception of one or two individuals, we failed to predict almost all the crises enveloping us: the Ponzi schemes, the frauds, the credit crunch, everything in fact, including Cobra. Not that it’s our fault: journalists are only as good as their sources and if there’s one thing we’ve learnt this year it is that the people running businesses are as clueless as everyone else.

The second painful truth revealed by the Cobra debacle is that the business world is hugely susceptible to the influence of public relations. This is, in part, because business is overrun by PR people — and Cobra was more image-obsessed than most, announcing plans to sponsor this year’s Bafta awards as part of a £8.4 million PR and marketing drive only months before it went into administration — and, in part, because business is a bit boring and a good story, such as Cobra’s, gets seized upon.

I’m not guiltless in this respect. I was one of the hundreds of journalists who wrote positively about Bilimoria in recent years, penning a piece a decade ago that mindlessly cited growing sales without mentioning the lack of profits. Frankly, I should have realised when the company subsequently sent me some Cobra wine to try — a beverage that tasted like fermented mouthwash — that its attempts to diversify were going to get it into trouble."

JOURNALISM: NOTES ON A CRISIS

Journalism is in big trouble. It doesn't seem very long since the internet was a saviour, opening up new ways of telling stories and bringing them to the public. Now online seems to be falling into the same mire as print. Is the web going to be able to support journalism even at the rather attenuated level at which it is practised in today's newspapers? Will there be experts, investigations, scoops, exclusives? At the moment, it doesn't look likely.

What's gone wrong?

1 The economics - the expectation that online everything is 'free' or, more accurately paid for by users being served advertising or handing over valuable personal data.

2 The recession - this has made everything worse

3 Structural problems with the advertising market - I think these are independent of the recession and won't go away

4 Shortsighted management determined to do things on the cheap - poor quality of most journalistic websites. Journalism is expensive.

5 Reluctance to embrace new ideas - most journalistic websites are print put online

6 Journalism isn't valued in Britain (which is often the fault of journalists) and this has led to a conviction that amateurs can do the job just as well as professionals.

7 Web metrics, which have encouraged publishers and editors to focus on the populist at the expense of the complex, risky.

8 Linked to 7, the death of the media 'package' wit its web of hidden cross subsidies.

9 The dominance of the BBC.

These are just notes to myself at the moment and my plan is to expand on each of them over the next few weeks and see where it takes me. Then I want to start thinking about what can be done to - and I know it sounds grandiose, but I can't put it any other way - save journalism.....

Malcolm Gladwell reviews Chris Anderson’s book. He doesn’t like it

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/06/090706crbo_books_gladwell

SHOULD JOURNALISTS GET PAID AT ALL?

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0519/p09s02-coop.html

AND MORE...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/may/14/newspapers-blogging?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:0fd09898-183f-46d5-bb6d-b50ca329f106

MORE ON FREE

Chris Anderson, himself, talking to the Guardian.

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-chris-anderson-newspapers-need-to-find-the-pet-for-their-penguin/

You can't put the genie back in the bottle....no model works perfectly etc

Review of Chris Anderson's new book in the Observer by Emma Duncan of the Economist

Key quote for journalists: "Wikipedia and open-source software, for instance, are the products of something that has floored economists - that people enjoy doing, and will do for free, all sorts of things that other people regard as work."

Key quote for journalists: "The good news is that quality still sells."

DES EMEUTES DANS LES RUES

The French like a good riot and they are on the streets of Paris in protest against the global economic crisis and the way it has been handled. Why should bankers be bailed out and their comfortable lifestyles protected, when ordinary people are finding it tough, is their complaint. The overtly political and socialist context to the riots makes it feel very 1968 ish.

There have been similar riots in Latvia, Bulgaria and Iceland, where the government was brought down by violent protests. How long before it happens here?

I JINX OLD ROCKERS

So John Martyn has died. I saw him at the Barbican just before Christmas in what I'm pretty sure was his last gig. I only went because a friend got tickets but I ended up really enjoying it and went back to his CDs for the first time in years. Solid Air and One World, which I'm listening to at the moment, are great records.

Life had not been kind to John Martyn. To be more accurate, he had not been kind to himself. He was an alcoholic, bloated, ill looking and confined to a wheelchair, having lost a leg a few years ago. I'd known he wasn't in great shape but it was still a shock. As we left, one of my friends said he didn't look as if he was long for the world, and so it has proved.

He's the fourth musician whose last, or nearly last, gig I've seen in recent years. Arthur Kane of the New York Dolls keeled over a few days after we saw him at the Royal Festival Hall; Arthur Lee of Love died not so long after playing at the same venue and Ron Asheton of the Stooges died not so long ago, after I saw them playing on Clapham Common last year. Am I a jinx or do I just watch too many clapped-out musicians?

BOB QUICK AND THE TORIES

In this great democracy of ours, you shouldn't accuse the Conservative party of dobbing you in to the Mail on Sunday, especially if you are a police officer. Met Police Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick apologised but that hasn't stopped the Tories from demanding his resignation.

Funny to see the party of law and order coming over all Militant Tendency as regards the police. Is it good politics? Iain Dale seems to think not and the electorate will note that, in times of economic turmoil, the issue that seems to animate the Tories is the Damian Green affair, that affects their own rights, rather than ours.

FOR EMMA, FOREVER AGO BY BON IVER - RECORD OF THE YEAR?

Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago has cropped up on a lot of album of the year lists. For those who haven't heard it, it's a bunch of well-crafted, tuneful indie-ish songs, played on guitar, sung in a pleasing, treble-y voice, often multitracked so that at extremes it sounds as if it's being sung by a small choir. The effects pedal is used frequently but tastefully, principally to add echo. The effect is at once intimate, thanks to the subject matter (a broken love affair), the vocal style and the use of silence and quiet passages, and sweeping, thanks to the echo and overdubs.

The story behind the album is that Bon Iver, whose real name is Justin Vernon, retreated to a cabin in a Wisconsin wilderness after splitting up with the Emma of the title. He took with him a guitar, a couple of drums, an effects pedal and some basic recording equipment. He spent three winter months in the cabin, writing and recording and emerged with the songs that make up the album. The bleakness of the landscape seems to have chimed with his mood and it is easy to hear in For Emma, Forever Ago a sense of wintry, solitary despair and reflection. "Bon Iver" is, near enough, French for 'good winter'.

I bought the record in the summer, played it a couple of times, put it on my iPod and forgot about it. I got it out recently and listened to it a few times: I do like it, but clearly not as much as some of its fans.

The reviews have praised the music, but also responded strongly to the back story of the heartbroken young man in his cabin in the woods. The story adds that valuable quality of authenticity: had For Emma, Forever Ago been funded by Simon Cowell and recorded in a studio in West London, good though it is, I doubt that it would have received quite the same acclaim.

OCTOBER CRASHES

A side note on the current stock markets crisis. For some reason market crashes almost invariably happen in October. Black Monday, the crash of 97, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 - all in October. Four of the biggest single-day falls in market history took place in October, and the fifth was in November. So the worst could yet be to come.

FIRE IN ISLINGTON AND THE JEWEL OF MEDINA

The BBC is reporting that two men have been taken into custody after setting a fire at a publishing house in Lonsdale Square, Islington. The only publisher I can find at that address is Gibson Square, which has recently taken on the novel The Jewel Of Medina.

This book tells the story of Mohammed's relationship with his nine-year-old bride Aisha (a historical fact that allows a certain kind of person to make provocative comments about 'the paedophile Mohammed') and was dropped by Random House after an academic warned that it might expose them to attacks by angry Muslims.

The BBC is not yet making these connections but it is fairly easy to put two and two together.

NO SYMPATHY FOR ESTATE AGENTS

Estate agents have been badly hit by the recession, to the point that they can only sell one property a week. It seems fair to point out that estate agents have organised things so that their earnings are linked to property prices, by insisting on percentage fees. They do very well out of this when the housing market is booming so shouldn't complain when it is flat.

Stephen Pollard wonders why estate agents exist at all, in the internet age. The reason is that people like to use internet property aggregators, which bring together all the homes available from all the agents in a given area. These aggregators will not take ads from private individuals because they know that, if they did, the estate agents would boycott them. This is what happened to Tesco when they tried to launch a website that mixed estate agents' details with those of private buyers. This was the result.

My suspicion is that the vast majority of buyers find their homes through one of the big property aggregators. This means, in effect, that sellers are paying agents a fat premium simply to get their details listed on an aggregator, rather than being allowed to deal with the aggregator directly. It's a restrictive practice and I can't see why the OFT hasn't taken an interest.

This won't last. The story of the internet has been cutting out the middleman - travel agents, bricks and mortar shops, newspapers - and estate agents won't be able to resist the trend forever.

ANTISEMITISM ON FACEBOOK

A friend drew to my attention a truly nasty Facebook group called "Sweet Memories of The Holocaust" which, while claiming "we dont have brplem with jews our problem is with izrael and zionz" (their spelling), is predictably full of anti-semitic filth. It seems to have been set up by some death-metal mentalist but is attracting a depressing number of members.

I shan't link to it but I will point in the direction of a group calling, quite rightly, for it to be taken down.

IF HARRY'S PLACE IS DOWN...

....this is probably why.....

And if that is down too, then in brief, Harry's Place posted an interesting piece about neo-Nazi websites. An academic mentioned in the piece, Jenna Delich, took exception to a sentence in it that linked her with the website of David Duke, the neo-nazi ad former Ku Klux Klan leader. Harry's Place retorts that evidence for their claim is in the public domain.

I trust Harry's Place's testimony, rather than that of Ms Delich, but in any case there is a point of principle. She is, or so it is alleged, trying to suppress the claim by pressuring the ISP that hosts Harry's Place to take the site down. This sort of thing happens a lot and is quite illegitimate. Aggrieved individuals should take up their complaint with site itself, rather than trying to close it down by a backdoor route. It is reminiscent of the way some individuals used to go after Private Eye, by threatening to sue its distributors, such as WH Smith. It is usually an easy win, as the distributor or ISP has little incentive to fight the case.

Harry's Place was down earlier today, though it is currently available.

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGING

What an interesting figure Dylan Jones is. In the mid-eighties I used to see him at warehouse parties in places like Battlebridge Road, King's Cross. If memory serves, he may even have organised some of them. It always struck me as a very lucrative enterprise: find a warehouse, get a sound system, buy hundreds of cans of Red Stripe from a cash and carry, charge a fiver at the door, confiscate any drink that people tried to bring in, sell Red Stripe at £1.20 a go (a lot of money for a can of beer in those days), carry the money home in a big bag. Anyway, Dylan may or may not have been involved in that side of things but he always struck me as a man with an eye for the main chance.

In those days he was involved with i-D magazine and has since then woven a path trough the world of style magazines that has taken him to the editorship of GQ, which is a perfectly OK publication in its way. Somehow, however, Dylan has used this modest position to carve himself a significant role in London society. He's always cropping up at this or that event, organising or attending a private dinner for this or that famous person and so on. How has he achieved this feat of social alchemy? Nobody knows, except Dylan. I guess he must be very good with people.

He was, for a while, very pally with Peter Mandelson, which brings me to my point. This week Dylan published a book of interviews with David Cameron, which he has been working on for at least a year. So, not only has Dylan deftly ditched his friendship with the sinking New Labour nomenklatura; he is busily feathering his nest with the New Tories (do the Joneses and the Camerons share tapas in Galicia in Portobello Road? Have they holidayed together? If not, it can only be a matter of time).

But not only all that: he also read the politico-social weather more than a year ago so that, at the very moment Labour sinks below the waves of bien-pensant opinion, Dylan is reinvented as a Cameroonie. Even his Wikipedia entry (and I wonder who wrote that) makes no mention of the Mandelson friendship: it's all about making GQ 'more political (oh, come on) and taking it rightwards. And, of course, despite a year of research his book on Cameron omitted to ask the one question we'd all like to hear the answer to: "Have you ever taken coke". Clever boy.

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