Nick Clegg: 2010′s Word of the Year?

April 27, 2010

postal history

What’s your candidate for Word of the Year 2010?

We ask following this post from Legal Blog Watch on the social media phenomenon of “oversharing”. Yes, this one does what it says on the tin. As defined by Webster’s New World Dictionary, which made “overshare” its Word of the Year for 2008, to overshare is a verb meaning “to divulge excessive personal information, as in a blog or broadcast interview, prompting reactions ranging from alarmed discomfort to approval.”

Oversharing is ubiquitous in social media. We rather like this summary of what it entails by the New York Magazine:

The dirty little conceit of so many social-media and -networking sites, including Facebook and Flickr and FriendFeed, is that they disguise self-publicity and oversharing as chatting with friends and uploading for storage. By turning private information into public fodder, these sites eliminate the difference between communication and publishing.”

So much for oversharing. Indeed, we’re sufficiently worried about its connotations to refrain from discussing it forthwith. Instead, we revert to our opening question: what are the contenders for 2010′s Word of the Year? Last year’s winner was “distracted driving”, a term which is but seldom encountered today, but here are some of our favourites for the 2010 title:

1. Wrap Rage.

Webster’s defines this as “the anger experienced as one struggles to open a seemingly impenetrable blister pack or heavy cardboard mailing box to get at the contents”. We know the feeling. All too well.

2. Wallet Biopsy.

The examination, before medical service is provided, of a patient’s ability to pay, enabling the health care provider to decide whether free or discounted medical care is appropriate. Only in America.

3. Go Viral.

Surely some mistake? Hasn’t this term been around for donkey’s years?

4. Hung Parliament.

A strong contender, this term denotes the dire consequences of giving too many votes to that damned foreigner, Mr Clegg.

5. Nick Clegg.

Britain’s first overseas Prime Minister. Never knowingly overshared, unless subject to (4) above.

Pictured: Nick Clegg’s alleged aide memoire? Image courtesy of sludgegulper.

 

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Good work by Rusbridger

February 10, 2012
scissors

The headline says it all: ‘Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger takes pay cut‘.

Dan Sabbagh’s piece says a bit more: said editor ‘emailed staff at the newspaper to say that his salary in the upcoming 2012-13 financial year will be £395,010, compared with £438,900 in the current financial year’.

Some voices say: ‘How worthy.’

Others opine: ‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’

But we say: good work by Mr Rusbridger. For the sake of the media’s survival, we hope that others in senior positions in the industry will follow suit.

Image of toolkit allegedly deployed by Alan Rusbridger courtesy of Flickr user LollyKnit.

From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.