College of Journalism Feed

A triumph of investigative theatre

2012-01-20T11:59:26+00:00

Journalists like to talk about stories and story-telling, but it's rare for someone who actually tells stories for a living to produce a hard-hitting piece of journalism.

Mike Daisey's The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs is just that - a one-man stage show by an Apple aficionado recounting his trip to China to investigate working conditions in the factories that make Apple products.

If you think that's a well-trodden path, give Daisey a chance - or at least give a chance to the recent episode of This American Life, the US public radio series, devoted to Daisey's project.

The programme begins with a recording of a version of the stage show (featuring more about China and less about Steve Jobs than you'd see off Broadway). In the second half, This American Life examines the claims made in Daisey's show. The results are surprising.

Daisey has been telling stories for years, since leaving the lowly job at Amazon that resulted in his first show and a hilarious book, 21 Dog Years: A Cube Dweller's Tale.

His account of investigating Apple in China is a cross between Michael Moore and Garrison Keillor. Daisey finds he can't get into the massive factory simply by turning up in a cab with his interpreter, but he can talk to workers outside, several of whom say they're 13 years old.

He poses as a US businessman to get access to other factories - seeing, for instance, dormitories, 12 foot square, housing as many workers. And he develops a network of contacts to meet union leaders and union members, who risk their livelihoods to be in a union, or to speak to him.

He hears about how repetitive strain injury (RSI) from production line work leads to hand injuries, and demonstrates an iPad to a man whose hands will never be the same after working on the assembly line for years without ever seeing one work. "It's like magic," he says, when Daisey shows him his iPad.

And he hears about a cleaning chemical that attacks the nervous system but allows the assembly line to speed up because it evaporates a little faster than alcohol.

You can imagine Daisey on stage in front of New York's chattering classes: it must be an amusing night at the theatre with a bit of an edge - wry laughter mixed with guilt as theatre-goers unmute their phones on the way home.

If you want more conventional coverage of the same story, the Financial Times also reported on the Apple supplier Foxconn this week. It too discussed worker suicides, the extraordinary size of the plants (400,000 workers in two factories in Shenzhen), and the resentment of workers at the difference in wages between different plants.

So should we turn to Daisey for the drama and human tales, and the FT for the straight journalism? Apparently not:

When Daisey's claims were rigorously examined in the second part of the radio show, they pretty much all stood up to hard-headed scrutiny. It seems that Daisey didn't use dramatic licence to write his show.

But when the radio producers tried to help listeners to decide how guilty they should feel about using their smartphones and Apple products, some of those you'd expect to champion Daisey's liberal point of view took the chance to put the opposing case.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, for instance, writes about development matters, but says his wife's relatives in a village in China are grateful that their living standards have been raised by 'sweatshop' factories.

And Daisey himself, interviewed in the second part of the show, acknowledges Apple's history of publishing its own audit of its suppliers. Although he complains that, where Apple does admit there are problems, it doesn't name and shame particular suppliers and only gives generic results.

At the very least, you could say that this pioneering example of 'investigative theatre' succeeds in highlighting the kind of uncomfortable facts that a more conventional piece of investigative journalism would be aiming for.

But more than that: in a website update, This American Life now reports that Apple has announced it is going to allow an independent third party to check on working conditions at its factories and publish the results. And for the first time it will publish a list of companies that build its products.

Not wishing to claim too much credit, the producers say:

"We don't know that our show inspired these moves from Apple, but both of the changes are things that Mike Daisey called for in Act Two of our episode."

I think they are being too modest. To me, that looks like a result. Take another curtain call, Mr Daisey.

Bob Woodward: how to report a story

2011-08-09T11:16:42+00:00

Bob Woodward, with Carl Bernstein, broke the story of Watergate nearly four decades ago. He still works as a journalist for the Washington Post. Interviewed for the Post's website, he talked about basic journalistic skills:

One of the questions which persists in journalism is where do we get our information? And there are actually three tracks which, I think, apply to any story.

The first, obviously, is people, and that doesn't mean just going to one person or one source; it means checking everything, talking to half a dozen or even a dozen people for a day. If it's something longer you want to totally surround and saturate the subject.

Second track is documents. I have not really ever seen a story in a newspaper or on TV or even on radio that couldn't be enhanced with some kind of documentation which would support or add more detail to what the story is about.

And the third track - often if you ask people what's the third they don't get it, and I would tell an anecdote from my early reporting career to illustrate the importance of the third track:

In the first months I started working at the Washington Post in 1971, I had developed a source in the local District of Columbia Health Department and they were doing inspections of restaurants, many of the famous restaurants in Washington, and closing them down for sanitation violations; so we were doing front-page stories on this. And one day the source called me up and said we have the worst score that any restaurant in the District of Columbia has ever received and I won't go through the gross details of what was floating in the food.

So I went and got the document - at a newspaper even then they liked to get early copy, so I wrote out the story about lunch time, maybe even before lunch. The story said that the document made it clear that the Mayflower coffee shop, as it was called, was the restaurant which had been closed down with the score of less than 50 points.

I wrote up the story based on the document about the coffee shop at the Mayflower hotel, one of the famous restaurants in Washington, and handed it to the city editor. I said 'Here's early copy' and he was delighted and he said 'Wow, this is a front-page story, that's an awful series of violations', and then he said 'Have you been there?' And I said 'No, I've got the document, I know it is authentic.' And he said 'Well, it's two blocks away, get your ass out of the chair and get over there.'

So I went to the Mayflower hotel and I asked to visit the coffee shop. Everyone there said we don't have a coffee shop. We have a famous Jean Louis or something restaurant, we have the buffet, but no coffee shops. So I looked at the address of the Mayflower coffee shop and it turned out not to be in the Mayflower hotel but in the Statler Hilton hotel which was a half a block away from the Washington Post. So I went over there and found the Mayflower coffee shop and they had a big sign saying closed for repairs. The man who ran the restaurant happily but reluctantly acknowledged that they had been closed down for all of these violations. I went back to the Post and asked the editor for the copy back. I said I had a few minor changes to make.

And if we had run this story without me getting my ass out of the chair and going to the scene, we probably would have had to run a front-page correction.

Is investigative journalism alive in the USA?

I think that there will always be investigative or in-depth reporting. Clearly the newspapers are going through a convulsion now. It may last a long time, but young people are going to develop new business models. Everyone, all age groups, realises that it is important to have good data, good information about what government does. I asked Ben Bradlee, who was the editor of the Post, what he thought and he said 'Look, it's going to change.' But then with great passion he said that there will always be a group of people, a band of brothers and sisters working to get to the under-layer of what's going on, and they will find a way to publish or broadcast what they believe the truth to be.

Bob Woodward has worked for the Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor. As a young reporter in 1972, Woodward was teamed with Carl Bernstein: the two did much of the original news reporting on the Watergate scandal which led to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon on 9 August 1974.

This is an edited version of a chapter in the forthcoming book Investigative Journalism: Dead or Alive?, edited by John Mair and Richard Lance Keeble and published by Abramis. It is used with the kind permission of the editors.

Six lessons from a career in investigative journalism â�¨

2011-08-04T14:55:28+00:00

Phillip Knightley shares lessons from his career in investigative journalism and recounts how he achieved one of his biggest scoops:

Investigative journalists are seen as dashing, devil-may-care reporters who made the leap from suburban courts to 'undercover' work exposing the wrongdoers in our society.

They have flashes of inspiration and insight, so the myth goes, persuading reluctant insiders to confide in them and then, at the right moment, confronting the guilty men (seldom women) to reveal all.

It must have sometimes happened that way - Watergate, for example. But not in my experience.

I got into investigate journalism by accident. I never went 'undercover' in my whole career. I never pretended to be other than what I was: a reporter on the Sunday Times. Most of the â¨exposures that I worked on involved long, boring hours in libraries, looking things up, tracing people, studying court reports, attending legal conferences, typing up memos and listening to outlandish conspiracy theories. Yes, there were occasional long lunches with new sources, but I was usually too busy to take lunch at all.

In fact, the investigation of which I am most proud, The Rise and Fall of the House of Vestey, came to me because I was not out to lunch. On a quiet Wednesday in 1979 at the Sunday Times building in Gray's Inn Road my telephone rang. It was the commissionaire at the front door.

"There's a Canadian gentleman here who wants to see Stephen Fay," he said. "But he doesn't appear to be in." I shared an office with Stephen and we fielded each other's callers. "Send him up," I said. In those days a lot of stories walked in off the street because newspaper offices were in the centre of London and easy to contact.

Lesson One: make it easy for potential whistleblowers

The Canadian turned out to be an economist who was living in Australia and working for a group of cattlemen in Queensland who sold their beasts to the Vesteys, best known for Dewhurst, a chain of British butcher shops.

His assignment was to try to improve the price the Vesteys were paying for beef cattle. He had started his task by drawing up an organisational chart showing all of the Vesteys' worldwide companies and their interlocking structure. At first the chart occupied the top of his desk, then the floor of his study, and finally his whole garage.

"Don't you think that's interesting," he said. I could not see a story but to humour him I called the library and ordered up the clippings on the Vestey family and its companies. In view of â¨what he had told me, I expected several bulging packets. There was one packet which contained only one clipping - a story about Lord Vestey playing polo with Prince Charles. "You see," the economist said. "There's something odd going on here."

Lesson Two: be prepared to believe improbable stories

We mapped out a plan. He would return to Australia after his holiday in Britain and continue his research. Meanwhile I would try to find out more about the Vestey family. We would share our results and if there was, indeed, a worthwhile story the Sunday Times would pay him a handsome freelance fee. I dropped everything and started work on the Vesteys that â¨afternoon.

Lesson Three: work for an overstaffed newspaper

Only an overstaffed paper can afford to allow you limitless time to pursue your hunch that your story will eventually stand up. My Vestey investigation took a year and involved enquiries around the world. It revealed that the Vesteys, one of Britain's richest and most respected families, had been tax avoiders to the tune of millions ofâ¨pounds for more than 60 years.

It soon became evident from the Canadian's research that the whole structure of the Vestey empire was created to avoid taxation. They ran the biggest privately owned multinational in the world. They were the world's biggest retailers of meat. They owned woollen mills in Yorkshire, textile factories in Hong Kong, and cattle ranches in South America, Australia and New Zealand. The family had interests in 27 countries,â¨including grocery wholesalers, supermarkets, guard dogs, insurance,â¨shipping lines and travel.

But it was with meat that the Vesteys made their millions. At their peak, it was difficult to eat a chop or slice of beef in Britain that had not come from a Vestey animal. They owned the ranches and farms where the animals were raised; the slaughterhouses and packing plants that processed the carcasses; the shipping lines that brought the meat to Britain; the insurance companiesâ¨that insured the ships and their cargoes; the wholesale companies that took delivery; and the butcher shops that sold the meat to the housewives. This meant that they were able to take their profit at any stage down this chain and, naturally, they took it where they paid the least tax. So the Vesteys set off profits in one part of their empire against losses in other parts, a practice which is entirely within the law. But it meant that, in one â¨year for example, the Dewhurst butcher shop chain turned over Â£152.5 million and their pre-tax profits were Â£2.3 million. Their tax bill was Â£10.

The real problem for the Vesteys was to avoid tax on their personalâ¨income and yet still be able to live in Britain. In 1919, the family hadâ¨found a brilliant accountant, Edward Brown. Brown was a tax genius and he created for the family the famous Paris Trust, to this day a source of the Vesteys' wealth. The scheme, with all its intricate subtleties, requires hundreds of pages of legal jargon to set out, and has been pored over, dissected and examined by some of the greatest legal minds of the century. Generations of Revenue officers and their legal advisers have tried to crack the Vestey Trust, all without success. The Vesteys have always fought any attempt to break the trust, or tax its payouts, and have always been prepared to go to the House of Lords.

And, in the end, they have always won. Revenue officers have summed up what fighting the Vesteys, generation after generation, has been like. One described the genius of Edward Brown: "It was as if he had peered into the minds of the Revenue and anticipated their every move, not only for now but for years to come."

Another said: "Coming to grips with the Vesteys is like trying to squeeze a rice pudding."

They had social clout as well. The Vesteys were pillars of the Britishâ¨establishment - friends of the Royal family, peers of the realm, Old Etonians, High Sheriffs, Deputy Lieutenants of the country, Masters of Hounds. Lord Vestey liked to joke that he was the only butcher in the â¨House of Lords, but at weekends he would often entertain the Waleses, the Westminsters, the Beauforts, the Astors, the Hoares and the Cobbolds.

Lesson Four: you must not be afraid to take on the powerful

But it is wise not tell your editor in advance how powerful they are. So I plugged away at the story because it seemed to me to confirm my definition of what investigative journalism is all about. The story shouldâ¨reveal a major injustice or scandal which has been there untouched for some time. The guilty parties should be people of substance. ("Don't expose people who earn less than you do," Paul Foot used to say.) Theâ¨investigation should lead to setting matters right and then legal reform soâ¨it won't happen again. Although it should arouse indignation, it must be a good read.

Gradually the Vesteys emerged as a Victorian family whose obsession with making money was almost pathological. The brothers who foundedâ¨the fortune, William and Edmund, considered business not simply a way of making a living but life itself. They worked six days a week, kept modest houses and had no outside interests whatsoever. They refused to live on income or even the interest on capital. They lived on the interest on the interest. William believed business to be so important that when he was on his honeymoon in 1924 in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) with his new wife and there was a fire in the Vestey meat plantâ¨in Brazil, he packed her off on the next steamship to Rio to sort out theâ¨trouble, while he went back to London.

The brothers maintained their own debt-collection department to handle small traders who could not pay for their meat, or tenants who had fallenâ¨behind in their rent. It was their policy to sue in the county court for any debt of Â£1 or over and evict any tenant who was more than Â£4 behind with the rent. Employees were treated fairly but without sentiment. It was Vestey policy, for example, to promote three times a good workman in their Argentine meat plants, but when the man became due for a fourth promotion he was instead sacked - on the grounds that he had already given his best for the company and could now only decline.

None of this was generally known about them because of the family's obsession with secrecy. How was I to penetrate this? What I had learned about the current head of the family, Lord Vestey, did not suggest that he would be forthcoming at an interview, although it was obvious that sooner or later I would have to put my allegations to him and give him an â¨opportunity to comment.

The experience of Anthony Gardener, a magazine writer, was notâ¨encouraging. Lord Vestey met him and remained aloof but courteous until there was a mix-up over an appointment. Then Lord Vestey told him:

"You are the most disgusting little shit I have ever come across... How dare you come bursting into my office without an invitation. Do I have the right of veto on this article? No? Out! Out! You'd better bloody get it right, sonny, or I'll sue you until your feet don't touch the ground."

When I was nearly ready, I wrote to Lord Vestey suggesting a meeting. He replied saying that he had been well aware that I had been making enquiries about his family for a long while but he had no interest in speaking with me. Far from a reassurance, this alarmed me.

Lesson Five: use the crucial confrontational interview to test conclusions

The confrontation interview is your chance to test your conclusions and confirm their accuracy. Without such an interview it becomes doubly important that you've got it right.

Had I got it right? Hundreds of highly skilled accountants and expensive lawyers had pored over the Vesteys' tax affairs for years. Was I not presuming too much to imagine that I could tell their story without making serious errors for which I would be severely punished? One of the advantages of living in a bureaucratic society is that everything is written down somewhere. It is just a matter of finding it. I had heard rumours that a senior Revenue officer with a literary bent had written for posterity a small book that set out the story of the battle between the Vesteys and the Revenue. I was told that the book might be available inâ¨the House of Lords library. I contacted the librarian who said, yes, there was such a book and it was in the library. Could I borrow it? He said no journalist had ever asked to borrow a book from the House of Lords library but as far as he could see there was no rule against it.

The book became my bible that enabled me to check everything I had written about the Vesteys and after a long bout with the defamationâ¨lawyers the Sunday Times proceeded to publication in October 1980 underâ¨the headline "The Gilded Tax Dodgers". On the Monday, readers' letters poured in full of praise - for the Vesteys. Three out of four letters attacked me and the newspaper and supported the Vesteys. The newspaper was accused of "gutter journalism", "pandering to envy", and "humbug".

Lesson Six: readers may not necessarily support your investigations

Do not expect all your readers to agree with your investigation. There will always be some who consider any media enquiry to be an invasion of privacy, sensationalism, and designed solely to sell papers. There isâ¨nothing you can do about this. I had some success. The tax laws were changed, but too late to make any difference to the Vesteys. In 1993, when Lord Vestey heard that the Queen had agreed to pay income tax, he smiled and said: "Well, that makes me the last one."

Conclusion

I am sure there are stories like the Vesteys out there now waiting for someone to find them and investigate them. The trouble is finding theâ¨finance. If no-one is willing to do so, we may have to put up the money ourselves.

An Australian by birth, Phillip Knightley became part of the celebrated Sunday Times 'Insight' team from the 1950s to the 1970s, breaking such famous stories as the Kim Philby spy scandal, the Profumo sex scandal and exposing the effects of Thalidomide on new-born babies. Now an acknowledged expert in the dark arts of warfare, having written the seminal text on wartime propaganda, First Casualty, he lives in London and works as a freelance journalist for publications all over the world. He is the author of ten books, covering in depth some of the biggest stories of recent times. Most recently he has written his autobiography, A Hack's Progress, and the critically acclaimed history Australia: A Biography of a Nation.

Annals of Journalism 7: A very promising little war

2011-04-12T13:18:58+00:00

Lord Copper, the newspaper magnate in Evelyn Waugh's 1938 novel Scoop, is determined to make the most of what he calls "a very promising little war" in the obscure East African country of Ishmaelia.

Waugh (above, in 1961) ) has Lord Copper inadvertantly send his newpaper's country matters columnist, William Boot, to cover the conflict, but not before giving him an incisive briefing on what's expected of a war correspondent:

"What the British public wants first, last and all the time is News. Remember that the Patriots are in the right and are going to win. The Beast stands by them four-square. But they must win quickly. The British public has no interest in a war which drags on indecisively. A few sharp victories, some conspicuous acts of personal bravery on the Patriot side and a colourful entry into the capital. That is The Beast policy for the war... Goodbye Mr Boot, and the best of luck. We shall expect the first victory about the middle of July."

It's left to Boot to work out which side are the Patriots and which the Traitors, and how to engineer Lord Copper's July victory.

Today's journalist reader can't fail to be impressed by the lavish expenses offered by the Beast. Boot has so much equipment to take to Africa that an extra plane to Paris has to be chartered from the airfield in Croydon. Boot positively leaks cash on his travels, on the advice of the newspaper's Foreign Editor.

What would Lord Copper have made of the current conflict in Ivory Coast (below)? It may not be as hard as it was in Ishmaelia to work out which side are Patriots and which Traitors - since the UN pronounced on the result of last November's elections - and it looks like the "colourful entry into the capital" has been achieved ahead of the Beast's July deadline. But, like Boot, many readers of today's Beasts may have needed an atlas to find the exact location of the conflict.

Previous editions of this Annals of Journalism series:

6: Speak clearly into the meat safe

5: Reginald Bosanquet

4: The Ladybird Story of Newspapers

3: The telephone interview

2: Offending royalty

1: Thurber on the New Yorker

Protest numbers: How are they counted?

2011-03-28T14:14:58+00:00

How do you know how many people are at a march or rally? It can be an important judgment politically, as at Saturday's rally against the spending cuts.

This BBC News article sheds some interesting light on the subject.

It turns out there are a couple of methods for estimating the number of people in a large crowd. Each has its merits and flaws, but in a nutshell the authorities rely on:

1. Measuring the area of streets where crowds assemble and doing a multiplication according to how densely packed it is. "You apply a rule of thumb that three people per square metre is comfortable and four is like a rock concert," according to a TUC expert.

2. By timing how long it takes for a whole march to pass a particular point.

3. The police get an idea simply from experience. "For example, on New Year's Eve, we know the strip along the Embankment by the London Eye holds a certain number," said a police spokeswoman.

One of my first jobs as a journalist was to report on a demonstration in Norwich against the Poll Tax. This involved counting, as best I could, the number of people involved.

I was flummoxed and slightly in awe of the police officer who was able to tell me confidently that between 800 and 1,000 protestors were present. To me, they looked like so many ants milling around beneath the banners and placards.

It's reassuring to learn that even the experts admit it's not an exact science. The man from the TUC says he would qualify any figure with a warning that it has a 20% margin of error, adding: "The media demand for accurate numbers is an impossible one to meet."

The 'churnalism' detector - and the sting that shows it's needed

2011-02-25T14:02:53+00:00

Not so long ago, wire copy was the bedrock of many a publication but newspapers never openly revealed their dependency on agency material. The intro was tweaked, the copy rejigged and the reporter's byline put at the top.

The web exposed the lie when people were easily able to read multiple, but strikingly similar, versions of a story across a range of titles.

Now the Media Standards Trust, an independent journalism think-tank, is shining a light on the cut-and-paste culture around stories and press releases with a "churn engine" that seeks "to distinguish journalism from churnalism".

By dropping a press release into a text box on the Trust's Churnalism.com site, it's possible to run a comparison with articles appearing in the UK media. The churn engine highlights text that is common to both - i.e. has been 'lifted'.

To show how easy it is to place a press release into media output, independent film-maker Chris Atkins created a fake 'chastity garter' story, with just a website and a press release.

The story soon found its way into the Mail Online's science and tech section, and elsewhere.

Atkins' film of what he did and how the media took the bait (above) accompanied the Guardian story about the experiment.

Churn stats show that 40% of the Mail piece (now taken down) had common content with the fake story: "For the footballer with a suspicious mind ... the garter that texts if his WAG is unfaithful." The garter story even made it overseas: e.g. onto US television news shows.

It's easy to scoff but the BBC doesn't come out of it unscathed, with BBC Radio 5 Live giving airtime to another spoof story about Downing Street's new cat.

The back-story about the technology that underpins the results is interesting in itself and has been written up here by Donovan Hide.

Paul Brannan is Editor, Emerging Platforms, BBC News.

How the papers over-egged BBC cuts reports

2011-01-17T08:16:02+00:00

Devil and Detail 3: An occasional series highlighting stories that are not all they seem.

With all due respect to MediaGuardian, I don't think it added to the sum of human understanding with its coverage of the latest BBC cuts announcements.

Its first story was headed "BBC Trust chair: we may cut back digital channels" and went on: "Sir Michael Lyons casts doubt over future of BBC3 and BBC4 as corporation seeks to make at least Â£300 million in savings."

Only in the third paragraph did it admit that the BBC Trust chairman had said nothing at all about the digital channels:

"[Sir Michael] added that the corporation should continue to concentrate on doing 'fewer things better' - prioritising BBC1, BBC2, Radio 1 and Radio 2 - but made no mention of any of the BBC's digital TV or radio services." (my italics)

Had MediaGuardian identified this as a 'dog that didn't bark' - making it clear this was its interpretation of what he said - it might have worked (though Sir Michael didn't mention Radio 4 or Radio 3 either and no-one suggested they were for the chop).

To state it so baldly, both in the headline and the standfirst, misled many people - not least in the BBC.

The BBC Trust put out a statement later, saying: "The Trust has never suggested that the Executive should close any individual service." But how many people will have read that? It wasn't added to the MediaGuardian story and many - not least at the channels themselves - think the Trust has asked managers to target BBC3 and BBC4.

The following day, further confusion was sown by coverage of Mark Thompson's address to BBC staff.

MediaGuardian's first report said the BBC was seeking "an extra 20%" in cuts. Some - including the National Union of Journalists - interpreted this as being on top of the 16% cuts already identified as the cost of the BBC's new licence-fee obligations - the World Service, BBC Monitoring, S4C, rural broadband and local TV.

Responding, the NUJ said "budgets would be slashed" by about Â£700 million and went on: "The announcement goes way beyond the cuts set out in the Comprehensive Spending Review which pushed Â£340 million of costs onto the BBC and represented a 16% cut in real terms."

In fact, Thompson was proposing a rise of four percentage points, from 16% to 20% - Â£400 million a year on average. That's still significant, but not "way beyond" the Â£340 million earlier identified.

MediaGuardian later adjusted its first sentence to read: "The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, told staff today that he was raising the target for cuts at the corporation from 16% to 20% over four years."

But by then the horse had bolted.

The Daily Telegraph reported: "Jeremy Dear, the leader of the National Union of Journalists, yesterday estimated Mr Thompson's new proposals as equivalent to a Â£700 million-a-year cut to the BBC's existing annual budgets."

Of course, some might argue that the BBC didn't make itself clear enough (and the figures are certainly complex).

Judge for yourself: this is the BBC press statement.

Torin Douglas is BBC News' Media Correspondent, @BBCTorinD.

Also see
Devil and Detail 2: BBC strike

Devil and Detail 1: Jeremy Hunt's Telegraph interview

A quizzical look at language

2011-01-14T12:52:05+00:00

On Saturday, the Daily Mirror ran the headline "Boy, 14, Fire Bomb Quiz" above a report that "A boy of 14 has been arrested on suspicion of being a petrol bomber pictured at last month's tuition fee riots."

And "Chamber offers bosses chance to quiz MP" appeared in the Coventry Evening Telegraph on 18 January.

Why is it journalists are sometimes tempted to substitute 'quiz' for the verb 'to question'?

Maybe there's something satisfying about seeing an unusual combination of letters written down; or something delicious in the way they roll the tongue, with that final little 'zzz' buzzing through the teeth.

And it's not just the red-top or local press subs who have a weakness for 'quiz': the Independent on Sunday reported on 16 January that the Independent Commission on Banking wanted to further "quiz" Bank of England Governor Mervyn King over regulatory structures.

We are painting pictures with words and the image that 'quiz' conjures up in my mind is of a gameshow - albeit one with tension and jeopardy. But nothing to do with a process that is part of a police investigation, for instance.

So if it was up to me there'd be no more "Extra Time Given to Quiz Shooting Suspects." Sorry if that messes up your headline, but I think it sounds daft.

VAT: the wrong number at the wrong time

2011-01-04T13:42:03+00:00

So what do you think of the 14.29 per cent increase in VAT?

Yes, that's (2.5 Ã· 17.5) x 100 = 14.28571

VAT has risen by two and a half percentage points, but not "by two and a half per cent".

Roll of shame:

- "The 2.5 per cent rise in VAT is immediate." The Times' editorial, today

- "The 2.5 per cent increase in VAT is the wrong tax rise at the wrong time for hard-pressed families, Ed Miliband, the Labour Leader, will say today." Daily Telegraph, yesterday

- "The 2.5 per cent increase is predicted to raise an extra Â£13 billion a year for the Treasury." Daily Telegraph, 16 December

- "The first hit is the 2.5 per cent increase in VAT on 4 January." The People, 4 December

- "There will be a 2.5 per cent increase in the rate of VAT to 20 per cent." Evening Standard, 12 November

And, while I'm at it, call me pedantic but what does Ed Miliband mean by "the wrong tax rise at the wrong time"?

Does he mean there is a better time for the wrong tax rise? Maybe even an optimum time for the wrong tax rise? But wouldn't that make it really rather a good tax rise for that particular moment?

More from the College of Journalism on accuracy with numbers here.

There's no business like the news business - any more

2010-12-22T10:33:41+00:00

The Today programme's guest editor, Richard Ingrams, wanted to examine how journalism has changed, and, in particular, how a buzzing newsroom is now little more than a romantic memory for hacks of a certain age.

He brought together Derek Jameson and Rosie Boycott to discuss what the practice of journalism has lost in the age of email and the internet.

And he visited the Telegraph to find out for himself. He notes, with disappointment, that the Telegraph newsroom is "a very, very quiet environment" rather than, as was, a world of "terrific activity and noise, of people rushing, the clatter of typewriters and people talking on the phone, and people coughing over their cigarettes".

"Having seen the future, I don't really want to be any part of it," Ingrams concludes.

More to Ingrams' taste, I suspect, would have been the world that Samuel Clemens found as he set out in journalism - and adopted the name Mark Twain. Twain's later writing made him a towering figure. The centenary of his death was celebrated this year.

Twain's move into journalism came in Nevada in 1862 at a time when he'd been seeking his fortune in the gold and silver mines. There was no fortune to be had, so he was pleased to receive an offer from the local newspaper, the Virginia City Daily Territorial Enterprise. He had written a few letters for publication and the Editor wrote back offering him the job of City Editor and $25 a week.

Twain had no experience as a reporter, but was given some good advice from the proprietor on his first day:

"He told me to go all over town and ask all sorts of people all sorts of questions, make notes of the information gained, and write them out for publication."

And the boss had some more specific advice:

"Never say, 'We learn' so-and-so, or 'It is reported', or 'It is rumoured', or 'We understand' so-and-so, but go to headquarters and get the absolute facts, and then speak out and say 'It is so-and-so'. Otherwise people will not put confidence in your news. Unassailable certainty is the thing that gives a newspaper the firmest and most valuable reputation."

Twain admitted that, however certain his writing sounded, he didn't always manage to follow the advice about accuracy: "I let fancy get the upper hand of fact too often when there was a dearth of news."

So, finding a hay wagon coming into the city, Twain "multiplied it by 16, brought it into town from 16 different directions, made 16 separate items out of it, and got up such another sweat about hay as Virginia City had never seen in the world before".

No doubt the above, from his account of his Nevada trip in Roughing It (1872), is another example of 'letting fancy get the upper hand'.

But the young reporter made efforts to improve. He said that, as he got better acquainted with good sources, "I became able to fill my columns without diverging noticeably from the domain of fact."

Passive beauty on the news website

2010-11-04T15:38:16+00:00

The eurozone doesn't excite me. But the opening sentence here did (sad but true):

"Tough rules for the eurozone, aimed at averting another financial crisis, have been agreed at an EU leader's summit."

Why? Because it would have been so easy to write it in the active and start with a boring phrase:

'EU leaders have agreed tough rules for the eurozone, aimed at averting another financial crisis.'

This is a great example of using the passive form to get key information at the start. What's more, the sub-clause (we are not normally fans of sub-clauses on the news website) works really well in the middle - "aimed at averting another financial crisis". That leaves the phrase you've heard and read a million times for the end - "EU leaders".

Reporting the weather

2010-11-02T13:31:03+00:00

Someone is so pleased with the BBC's online weather site that there was an expensive-looking ad for it on TV last night.

Online weather is all very well, but it misses the point of a proper weather forecast, whose real purpose is to draw its audience in for a homely chat; ideally about shared suffering.

A good forecast reminds us that, whether we're in the Hebrides or East Anglia, we're also part of something bigger, and all at the mercy of meteorological events.

So, however sophisticated online weather gets, I hope we don't lose the reassuring tones of Helen Willetts (left) and her colleagues, gently bamboozling us with this kind of thing (at 5.30 on BBC Radio 4 this morning):

Rory Morrison:

"Well, that's the news. Now the weather forecast and we welcome back Helen Willetts."

Helen Willetts:

"Rory, thank you very much indeed. What a day yesterday - some lovely sunshine around. Fifteen degrees at Mumbles in South Wales and over six hours of sunshine - not bad - in East Sussex. And we'll see some sunshine again today. I'm going to start the detail actually across the South of England, including the Midlands, Eastern England and Wales. Well, we've got some early misty low cloud and drizzle. That'll clear the South-East fairly quickly. Then we'll see some drier, brighter weather; a little bit of sunshine. Just a rogue shower through the day, then, I think. And, although it'll be windier than yesterday, I think temperatures will get up to between 14 and 16 degrees Celsius - 16 in the sunshine. There will be exceptions though of course, as there always are, and for North Wales it'll turn quite wet. And particularly windy into the afternoon. Which brings me on to the North of England where we're having more concern about some sizeable amounts of rainfall here for Cumbria, Lancashire and possible Yorkshire through the day - up to 50 millimetres, which could lead to some localised flooding. So temperatures fairly academic at 13 degrees, but there will be some reasonably bright weather, particularly east of the Lincolnshire wolds and east of the Pennines, so here hopefully not seeing that much rain, but certainly a lot of cloud. For Northern Ireland, well, southern areas will potentially have a little bit of rain, so counties Down and Fermanagh. And there'll be some local gales in the north. But for the North generally, a little bit brighter with just a scattering of showers and a little bit of sunshine. Temperatures, as I say, 13 degrees Celsius. Forgot to mention as well that Northern England will have some very strong winds as well, as will Scotland. We're talking about gales, locally severe gales here as well, particularly for the Highlands and the Islands, driving in plenty of heavy showers and thunderstorms. Otherwise, I think we'll see fewer showers for the eastern side of Scotland; a little bit more sunshine. So 13 for Aberdeen, just 12 in Glasgow, but obviously tempered by that strong wind and more to come this week I'm afraid Rory ..."

Rory Morrison:

"Hmm, hmm, [or possibly a very muted 'ha ha'], thank you Helen for that."

If you still think you can get any idea about the weather from a classic performance like that, see how many of the following questions you can answer (without cheating):

1. Will it be windier in North Wales this afternoon than it was yesterday?

2. Why will temperatures be 'fairly academic' in Yorkshire?

3. If you are thinking of going out in southern Northern Ireland, should you wait?

4. What is Helen afraid there will be more of later this week?

5. Where in the country should you be prepared for a 'rogue shower'?

6. Which part of England will experience local gales, showers and a little bit of sunshine today?

7. How good would you feel about it being 12, 13, 14, 15 or 16 Celsius today?

8. Which is worse: a scattering or a smattering of showers?

9. Was Paul Simon right to claim he could "get all the news I need from the weather report"?

10. Can you identify any similarities between Helen Willett's report and that given by Matt Taylor (right) on Radio 4 two and-a-half hours later?

"We've got mild Atlantic air with us today. But that will be offset somewhat by a strong south-westerly wind touching gale force in places across the UK, particularly over the hills and around the coast, and it will also bring a little bit of wet weather for some as well. Now, across South-West England, South-East England and also East Anglia, the overnight rain is now clearing. We'll have a predominantly dry day here with some bright or sunny spells, although any sunshine will be a little on the hazy side. But temperatures in those brighter moments will peak at around 15, maybe even 16 Celsius. Pretty mild for the time of year. Across Wales, Midlands and North-East England, a little bit of rain around at the moment, chiefly in North-East England. Most starting dry and bright. We will see some further damp conditions develop through the day, chiefly over the higher ground. And Snowdonia will start to see the heaviest rain later on - temperatures around 13 or 14. For North-West England, rain becoming more widespread, heavier into the afternoon. Strong winds as well; temperatures here only around 12 degrees. Northern Ireland: some bright and sunny spells, and one or two showers this morning, but the afternoon cloudy with rain across the South and a high of 13. And for Scotland, most will see some sunshine, at points through the day, but there'll be some heavy and thundery downpours as well; temperature of 12."

Devil and Detail 2

2010-09-14T09:22:35+00:00

If you read this morning's papers (Mail, Telegraph, Independent), you may think that the BBC unions have called a strike for 6 October, the day that David Cameron is expected to give his speech at the Conservative Party conference. This is not actually the case - they have threatened one, not called one.

A while ago, I pointed out here that Jeremy Hunt hadn't attacked the BBC in the way he was said to have done. I encouraged people to read what he actually did say.

Similarly, I would urge you to read the BBC unions' statement, responding to the BBC's new pensions offer. You can see it on the BECTU website.

It starts with the words: "BECTU, the NUJ and Unite have announced a further programme of meetings with members to discuss new pension proposals from the BBC. However the backdrop to the consultations will be formal notice of a number of strike dates."

"Formal notice" - a legal requirement the unions have to go through if they are going to go ahead with strikes.

The quote from Gerry Morrissey, BECTU general secretary, begins: "We believe that a further round of meetings with members is the next best course of action in the current dispute."

The quote from Jeremy Dear, NUJ general secretary, ends: "We will consult with members, give the BBC the chance to address our ongoing concerns. If they fail to do so they will face strike action."

It was the Press Association that set the tone of the coverage with this headline: "BBC WORKERS TO STRIKE IN PENSIONS ROW."

Its opening sentence read: "Thousands of BBC workers are to stage two 48-hour strikes in a row over pensions which threatens the corporation's coverage of the Conservative Party conference and the Government's comprehensive spending review, it was announced today."

Yet in paragraph four it went on: "Unions will consult with their members over the next few weeks before meeting on 1 October to decide whether to press ahead with the strikes."

Read the unions' statement and see whether you think it is accurately reflected in the coverage.

2010-09-02T08:27:07+00:00

Last night, BBC Radio 4's Six O'Clock News led on Tony Blair's memoirs, which it described as "the most eagerly anticipated political memoirs in a generation".

In a generation? So, since when?

According to 2008 figures from the Office of National Statistics, the average woman giving birth for the first time is 27.5 years old.

On this basis, women having their first child now are those born in 1983 - so "in a generation" would mean "since 1983".

Well, John Major's autobiography was published in 1999. Even Margaret Thatcher: the Downing Street Years was published in 1993 - less than two thirds of a generation ago.

Radio 4 news is not alone in trying to add a sense of significance to ordinary stories with generational claims. I'm sure I've heard this clichÃ© more in the last few weeks than, well, for a generation:

- "Town halls ... are facing the biggest spending squeeze in a generation." Daily Telegraph, 24 August

- The housing market is experiencing "the worst downturn it has suffered in a generation". Independent, 24 August

- "Local authorities are facing the biggest cash squeeze in a generation." Daily Telegraph, 23 August

- "Scottish schools face 'chaos' this week as pupils return amid the biggest overhaul of the education system in a generation." Sunday Express, 15 August

- "The whole nation really believed [the England football team], above any in a generation, was capable of great things." Daily Star, 12 August

- "For the first time in a generation, the number of women serving in Congress could decline." Chicago Tribune, 29 August

- "Australia was ... rolled for 88 - the national side's lowest Test total in a generation." Herald Sun, Australia, 22 July

- "A new constitution is a once-in-a-generation opportunity." Africa News, 14 August

Call me pedantic, but isn't this kind of hyperbole only justified when backed up with the name and date of the relevant event a (full) generation ago?

How I went head to head with amateurs

2010-06-28T14:35:51+00:00

Newser collects together online news stories and presents them under its own headlines and summaries. Now the New York business has introduced a feature called 'Newser by Users'. It invites readers to do the work of its few paid staff - picking stories and writing their own headlines and summaries for the site.

I decided to have a go. If I did well, my story could appear in the 'Most Popular Newser by User' list, or even be picked by one of Newser's editors to go on the site's front page, alongside pieces written by the pros in the Newser office.

Having taken the measure of Newser's front page (e.g. '9 Celebs in Serious Debt'), I picked a story by the BBC health reporter Emma Wilkinson, and gave it the Newser treatment.

On the BBC website it was headlined "Women Freeze Eggs to Wait for 'Mr Right'." I changed that to "Women are postponing kids by freezing eggs."

Then I wrote my summary of the piece, starting "Women are freezing their eggs to give themselves more time to start a family." (Emma Wilkinson had opened with "Women in their late 30s are freezing eggs because they are still hunting for 'Mr Right', research suggests.")

After a few more sentences, I was ready to publish. Seconds later, my story was up there on Newser (below, far right):

It was soon shunted along by "WV Senator Robert C. Byrd, 92 died this morning" and other, more recent uploads, many from someone called Disillusioned - who should really have been called Super-Keen or perhaps Time on My Hands.

I clicked on Most Popular, but, sadly, no sign of my piece. I suppose I never really had a chance against the top-rating "Boys Found Starved, Beaten; Calif. Woman Arrested".

But I hoped "Women are postponing kids by freezing eggs" might have rivalled "New Navy Device to Defeat IED's" or "United States Social Reform Vs. Tea Party." Apparently not.

My downfall may have been the lack of a picture. When you upload your story, you are invited to search for possible images. I tried 'baby', 'mother', 'family' and 'birth', but the Newser selection was sadly lacking in anything suitably generic. I had to go for the standard Newser background, which looks like nothing much, and certainly nothing interesting.

For my next effort, I think I'll start with a good picture and then use Google News to search for a story that it could illustrate.

I'm determined not to let Disillusioned beat me, even though he or she is spending far too much time adding to the profits of Newser, and, frankly, I'm rather disillusioned at my own story-picking skills.

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE ...

As I was writing the above, I took another look at Newser and, guess what? My story has been catapulted to prominence - given a proper photograph and promoted to the lead spot on the front page (left).

My summary has been subbed, with some new information from the original article added, but my credit (CoJo) is still there.

Hey, I've made it as an unpaid drone in the cut-throat world of US online journalism! Eat your heart out, Disillusioned!

If you fancy trying your luck on Newser, here are some of its tips for aspiring writers:

- Be concise and snappy

- Don't try to summarise the whole lengthy article; cut to what happened or what's most compelling about the story

- Include details that matter or that provide colour, but don't sweat over including every interesting argument or point of view that appears in the story

- Make sure every sentence tells readers something new and moves the story forward

- Write active, readable sentences

- Don't be formal. Loosen up

- Try not to lead with the name of the source; it's stuffy and formal and not Newser. Examples: 'According to the New York Times,' or 'The New York Times reports.' Zzzzzz.

For a BBC College of Journalism interview with Michael Wolff, the founder of Newser, click here.