5 Aug 2011 | Uncategorized
The Daily Mail’s new review of editorial controls and procedures is one of several now under way as the British press prepares to face the probing of Lord Leveson’s inquiry into phone hacking and related matters. Every newspaper will need to show the inquiry that it has responded to the public crisis of confidence in press standards.
There is little detail on what the Mail proposes, and there is no hint of a historical investigation into newsgathering methods at the Mail, though we can be sure that the Mail has already put a great deal of work into preparing for Leveson’s scrutiny. (It knows, for example, that it will have to explain its extensive use of private investigator Steve Whittamore, as revealed in the Information Commissioner’s report What Price Privacy Now? [pdf])
So what can a review of editorial controls and procedures do that might affect the Mail’s standards and impress the inquiry? Here are three suggestions.
First, it could examine standards of attribution. When somebody is quoted in the Daily Mail, what measures has the paper taken to ensure that the quotation is accurate and fair? Has the interview been recorded and the recording preserved? If not why not, and is there a good written note instead? If the quote is second-hand, has its authenticity been checked? If a quotation is used in a story without specific attribution, is there a good reason? Has it been satisfactorily explained to the reader why the speaker could not be identified in such a way that he or she might ultimately be traced? Does the relevant news editor know the speaker’s identity?
These simple if often tedious steps are marks of conscientious news reporting in the modern, accountable world. They make news credible and they make reporters virtuous. There is no reason why a well-resourced newspaper like the Mail could not establish and enforce clear rules along these lines, and such rules would undoubtedly impress the Leveson inquiry.
Second, the review could look at lines of command. When a reporter files a story, how much responsibility does the editor on the desk take for its content? Is there systematic fact-checking? If not, is the reporter questioned about the content to ensure it is accurate and fair? Where appropriate, is the reporter challenged about the methods used to gain the information, to ensure they conform with relevant codes of practice? And is it always clear to all parties which news editor is taking the appropriate responsibility?
Again, many journalists will find this tiresome and onerous, but they owe it to their readers and to the people they are writing about to make every reasonable effort to get things right, and to have measures and pressures in place to check. A culture of ‘don’t ask; don’t tell‘ is likely to flow from the absence of such checks, and inevitably leads to low standards.
Third, there is accountability. When something goes wrong, is there a satisfactory process to establish (for example, relying on the structures and rules above) how it went wrong and where the fault lay? Is there a clear understanding of who is responsible for what, right up through the system? And if there is, are there appropriate disciplinary procedures and are they used?
All very bureaucratic, no doubt, but again journalists — and particularly, it has to be said, journalists on the Daily Mail — need to remember that these are standards their paper demands of people in every other walk of life, from social workers, teachers and nurses to politicians, bankers and the people who run the railways and airlines.
Yes, journalism is usually done in a hurry and yes, it can be untidy and unpopular and it will sometimes get things wrong, but those are reasons to do everything possible to get things right. They are not reasons to opt out of a culture of responsibility that the most of the rest of society already accepts.
Brian Cathcart teaches journalism at Kingston University and is a founder of Hacked Off. He tweets at @BrianCathcart.
9 May 2011 | Americas, Mexico
Mexico City is the third largest city in the world. And like every major city, its citizens have a love hate relationship with governability. But in the 2010 barometer of the Americas, conducted by Vanderbilt University, 40 per cent of Mexican citizens believed that the rule of law must be respected, a higher ranking than Argentina and Chile, an important comparison given that Mexico is facing unprecedented violence due to its drug war. But citizens want to get involved, and there is a proliferation of citizen journalists.
One of the most interesting citizen groups is called Ciudadanos en Red, or Citizens Connected, an internet portal that was founded in 2004 and has grown to be one of the most important independent citizen journalism groups in Mexico City. The group is consulted daily by journalists, analysts and just curious city residents. It’s director, Rene Solis Brun, says they are different than any other group because they don’t apply filters and only place in their portal the information submitted by citizens. Unlike other citizen internet sites in Mexico, it is not an activist group. It receives announcements, denunciations, and criticisms from 1700 citizen committees, from throughout the city, which it runs on its site without changes. The site has comments on events in the city, including incidents of corruption by government workers. In another the site runs a story of violence at another elementary school in a working class neighborhood. The group Citizens Connected is a project of Metrópoli 2025, a citizen awareness group.
Brun says the site is evidence that people in Mexico City care about their city. His only worry is that most of those involved in citizen groups are people 40 years and older. His organisation is working towards engaging the youth in the city, and has joined Twitter in an attempt to reach out to a younger audience, you can follow them at @ciudadanosenred
26 Oct 2010 | Uncategorized
If you ever imagined that, over time, British journalism would inevitably adjust to the society it serves by becoming less white and less middle class, now is probably the time to abandon that idea.
For a few exciting years it looked as though improvement might be on the way, but sharp increases in university fees will surely put paid to that. Like it or not, for at least another generation your news and current affairs will continue to come to you through that white, middle-class filter.
The window of hope that is now closing was opened by the universities, which over the past 20 years quietly took over responsibility for most journalism education after the big news organisations, national and regional, cut down or shut down their training schemes to save money.
At first the media studies departments did the teaching, but now universities teach journalism as a subject in its own right, often at both undergraduate and MA levels. This transformation has been almost entirely state-funded, which means the news industry pulled off the clever trick of nationalising its own training.
But if this change has given employers a free, trained talent pool (they ask for their applicants to be “newsroom-ready”, like so many supermarket chickens), it has also had the potential to bring valuable long-term change to the industry.
For one thing, universities teach students to think about journalism as well as do it; they teach about the ethics, responsibilities, history, politics and social function of the job – never high priorities when the industry was training its own. Call me an idealist, but I think that could only improve the news culture in this country.
For another, the universities have operated open, transparent recruitment and admissions policies which gave applicants from ethnic minorities and from poorer backgrounds a far better chance than before of getting an education in journalism.
There are drawbacks. Experience of the workplace is important in journalism education, as was recognised in the old sandwich courses. Universities can’t provide that themselves, or at least they can’t provide enough of it, and the result is the journalism work experience phenomenon, a powerful filter that halts the progress of many who can’t afford to work for several months for no pay.
None the less, university journalism departments have been quietly turning out able, independent-minded, thoughtful graduates who, though they are by no means a perfect reflection of the society they live in, collectively reflect it far, far better than the industry itself does. In other words, more people from poor backgrounds, more people from the ethnic minorities, more disabled people, more women…
The idealist in me fondly imagines this generation, over time, moving through the system and helping to change the way that British society sees and understands itself.
But a big hike in university fees, combined with other effects of the reforms proposed by the government and Lord Browne, will cut this precious experiment short.
Of all the professions, journalism is surely among the most vulnerable when it comes to the kind of touch cost-benefit analysis that school leavers and parents will have to do in a world of higher fees. Undeniably, the news industry is in existential crisis: yes, it offers thrilling new possibilities, but it is distinctly short on security.
In this environment, whatever Vince Cable and Nick Clegg may say, poorer students — by which I mean students who are not middle class — are more likely to back away than risk the big debts that will accompany a journalism degree.
The next generation of journalists, therefore, will probably have just the same social profile as the generation currently supplying us with news, even though the country around us will have changed.
It reminds me of those generals in the Crimean War whose mindset equipped them to fight only in the way that Wellington had fought Napoleon 40 years earlier. They made a terrible hash of it.
Brian Cathcart is professor of journalism at Kingston University London.
24 Sep 2010 | Uncategorized
Mexico continues to be an important destination for press freedom organisations. The Inter American Press Association and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists visited Mexico this week to promote legal changes on the prosecution of crimes against journalists, and a protection plan for journalists under threat, similar to the one implemented in Colombia in early 2000. Under current law, murder cases are presided over by provincial authorities, and international groups have been pushing for crimes against journalists to be brought under the federal government´s control. President Felipe Calderon told both groups he will put in place a government sanctioned plan to protect journalists, which will include early warning alerts, extension of the statute of limitations for crimes against journalists, a programme to transfer threatened journalists to other residences, police protection for threatened reporters, and establishment of a government-media group that would identify motives behind attacks on the press.
IAPA, meanwhile, gave a vote of confidence to Calderón’s protection plan, but warned about a lack of resources for putting the plan into action.”There aren’t necessary resources to cover the magnitude of the problem,” the IAPA Vice President, Gonzalo Marroquín.
The group held a public meeting at Casa Lamm, a grand old house located in the Colonia Roma of Mexico City, where editors from Ciudad Juarez, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Tijuana and Zacatecas told the meeting that they practiced self censorship. Some of the editors were told the group that they would not accept government protection. “How can we ask the government to protect us if they cant protect themselves” Ismael Bojorquez, editor of Rio Doce, Sinaloa asked rethorically .”They can’t protect themselves,” he added, mentioning that a number of state government officials have been killed in Sinaloa.
The debate over protection measures for journalists in Mexico will continue, especially because journalists in the provincial cities, called states in Mexico, need to understand how these measures will work.
Ana Arana is Director of the Fundación Mexicana de Periodismo de Investigación
