5 Responses to Hopeless. A distracted journo and a mayor with a dodgy history – in the clear

1. John Brace says:

   May 26, 2014 at 8:29 am

   “about our shrinkingly reticent UK media. It’s the rabbit in the headlights, petrified kind of silence that many of them seem to have adopted because they’re too shit scared to argue with their editor / proprietor, or blow the whistle on abuse or impropriety, or complain when they’re not allowed to investigate scandal properly, or pack their bags and leave, or protest when they’re prevented from doing a proper job in the service of their paying readers.”

   That doesn’t apply to all of us in “the media”. However writing about Wirral Council politics is a niche market, I earn more for less hours writing about stuff that has nothing to do with politics. As I am “the editor/proprietor” if there’s something I want to pass by someone before clicking publish, I read it to my wife.

   As to investigating scandal properly, see above comment about covering Wirral Council politics being a niche market. Doing “public interest” journalism isn’t very well paid compared to more commercial stuff. Blowing the whistle on abuse or impropriety is something all journalists have a problem with doing but why you ask?

   It’s because we’re trained to “double source” that sort of controversial story involving abuse or impropriety because it’s not good for anyone’s career/reputation to have to print a correction/clarification or even worse be sued for libel.

   The problem however with such stories is you have one source (a whistleblower), you try to “double source” it but hit a “conspiracy of silence”. Your only recourse then is to ask the press office for their take on the story and inevitably you’ll be given a spun quote or if there’s a lot of pressure on them a limited hangout. Bear in mind the last time I heard statistics quoted there were four people working in public relations/PR/press offices compared to every one in the media.

   Then there’s the issue of expenses. I’ll give you two examples. It’s in the public interest for the public to know who funds politicians election campaigns and political parties (whether private donors, political parties, individuals or organisations) and how it’s spent. Councillors in these elections have until some date in June 2014 to submit their election expenses. Once they do I can inspect them for free, but have to pay I think it’s 40p per a page if I want photocopies to scan in and put on my blog. So say I just wanted to publish one candidates election expenses return (which could be 20 pages long) that would be 20*£0.40 = £8 for the photocopies.

   As you know yourself from making FOI requests, there’s an exemption for material to do with legal cases. However the Civil Procedure Rules allow you to get copies from the court of judgements in public and statements of case (you can have more if you have the permission of parties to the case). I was curious to find out what Wirral Council’s statement of case was over the Fernbank Farm possession order and have a copy of the two judgements in the case. Civil Procedure Rule 5.4C allows a non party to a case to request such documents.

   Birkenhead County Court asked a District Judge who said yes I could have them. However for what is four to six pages (two judgements at 1 A4 side each plus perhaps two to four pages as a statement of case) they want £10 for photocopying before supplying the documents.

   So as you can see, “public interest” journalism costs money! I have yet to check whether Birkenhead County Court quoting £10 is above the prescribed fee but I will. Hopefully the above gives a few insights into how unless you have deep pockets the kind of public interest journalism you describe would likely not be done by most newspapers as it’s time consuming and expensive! The journalist involved would have to get an ok from their boss to expenses incurred.

   This is why the media love quoting from reports instead. For example the Anna Klonowski Associates report cost the taxpayer a six-figure sum (plus whatever her legal advisers asked for). The media then felt free to report on the publication of the report and quote from it without having to spend the hours interviewing people involved.

   Maybe the above examples don’t sound like much money but say for instance I wanted to publish (for Wirral) each winning candidate’s election expenses (twenty-three individuals) and their second placed rivals (a further twenty three). Say each return was an average of 15 pages, that would be 46*15*40p= £276! It would also take about 12 hours to scan in! Maybe you could use crowdfunding or a small grant to fund it but otherwise it would be uneconomic as the advertising from such a story would not cover the expenditure.

   A similar argument can be made about filming public meetings. The cost of equipment (tripod say £30, camera £25, memory card £35, batteries and charger say another £10) is far more than the revenue from advertising on such videos. If you’re talking about professional filming then you’re looking at equipment costing £500-£1000.

   These type of public interest projects just aren’t commercial and are generally only done when taxpayer funded or grant funded. I have thought of crowdfunding things such as publishing election expenses or large contracts (eg the BAM Nuttall contract) but haven’t investigated it fully yet.

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   • Wirral In It Together says:

     May 26, 2014 at 5:25 pm

     Thanks John for that inside knowledge. Very enlightening to hear.

     What I find troubling also is the fact that executives at TrinityMirror are offering gifts to the Wirral Council leader, he’s accepting and we’re left wondering what the kickbacks are, how many officials are involved and are they abusing public money? When we ask for information, we’re told there’s a legal exemption preventing disclosure.

     It’s all becoming very incestuous and corrosive to democracy. The Murdoch effect on newspapers and media was catastrophic

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     • John Brace says:

       May 27, 2014 at 10:29 am

       If you aren’t getting a straight answer out of Wirral Council with regards to the donation, there’s nothing to stop you making enquiries to Trinity Mirror as to the reason/s behind the gift/s.

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2. joeddj says:

   May 26, 2014 at 1:49 pm

   once again excellent writing and so very true – it seems to me the journalists ”bend the knee” to those in the corridors of power ……

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