Roger Alton: good bloke, good editor, poor blogger (so far)

December 2, 2008

macho1405_468x836.jpg

What is Roger Alton, the editor of the Independent, conveying by his first blog entry on the beleaguered newspaper’s website?

Alton alludes to the Indy’s recent, uncomfortable stint in the media spotlight, and uses it as a gambit: “The Independent has been in the news a bit recently, and thats’s [sic] why I would like to ask anybody out there for views.”

But will just ‘views’, from ‘anybody out there’, help turn the paper around? Fortunately, Alton is more specific:

“Please let me know the type of news or features or pictures or investigations you would like.  Do you want Strictly or the Large Hadron Collider or Britain on the Booze, or Damian Green or all of the above?”

As if the idea of the Independent mutating into, well, anything, really, isn’t crass enough, Alton goes on to muse over whether the paper is “women-friendly enough” in its coverage. Perhaps by way of an attempt to lure stray Star readers into posting helpful comments about what they’d like to see more of in the paper, Alton confesses that “I am a bloke and  probably useless at that, so I am asking you: what could we do to become more woman-friendly?”

To which the cynic might be inclined to say: bear in mind that in the 21st century it is generally accepted that women are not an alien species. Do try not to find them quite so difficult (and certainly, don’t confess, publicly, that you do). And, while you’re at it, double-check your typing. OK, you’re merely blogging but you are the editor, and certain standards ought to be met. Oh, and get a better idea of the blogosphere: as inaugural posts go, this one is memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Pictured: An unreconstructed male says ‘Deliver me from the torment of trying to be women-friendly, for I am bloke and useless at that.’ Image courtesy of the Daily Mail. 

 

Comments

Please submit comments to Swordplay below.

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.