My friend Kolya just sent me a very cool project - a Gazan recipe book being put together by Madrid-based translator Maggie Schmitt and Gazan writer Laila el-Haddad, of Gazamom fame. They're currently in Gaza and the initial posts about the research they're doing look absolutely mouthwatering...
The book is also interesting because it's using Kickstarter to help fund the research - a donations website which allows people to put money into one-off projects they want to support.
The crap press part of the heading is a reference to the common practice of reporting the exciting/shocking/dramatic bit of an event, and failing to report the more mundane downside. This is a widespread phenomenon - I remember reading some research years ago about how newspapers were much more inclined to print the titillating (to a distressingly large number of revolting men) details of rape trials, but then rarely followed up with boring details like, y'know, verdicts and sentences. The main culprits, shock horror, were various tabloids and the vile Torygraph. Posh blokes getting their rocks off at the idea of women being assaulted? Shurely shome mishtake.
But an example I came across today via the blog of an American blogging from Sanaa rather shows up the political agenda behind a lot of our media.
You may remember news agency stories last month of an audacious gun attack on the British Embassy in Yemen, rapidly attributed to al-Qaeda (obviously). What you may not recall are any follow-up reports of the fact that the attack never happened. What actually took place was a squabble between two security guards who were meant to be defending said Embassy, but who got in a row and opened up on one another, and then were too embarrassed to 'fess up to the origins of the gunfire. Read all about it here.
Genius.
Showing posts with label journalism - practical. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journalism - practical. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Writing: Gaza, Freelance Hackery
Sharyn and I did our first book event this evening, to a small but warm and interesting audience at Manchester Muslim Writers – hopefully a good intro for Sharyn for the substantial tour she has booked all around the UK.
One of the audience was a guy who, on his Manchester Evening Snooze blog, has done a neat analysis of the Sky TV 'documentary' about Ross Kemp's trip to Gaza. Congratulations to Azaad on sitting through the whole thing. I should make it clear I haven't seen the programme. But I'm putting inverted commas around the word documentary because it has Ross Kemp in it. Maybe I'm a crashing snob. Probably. But I've never quite gotten the point of him.
Anyway, our advance order of the books turned up last week, and what a strange experience that was. A real book, rather a nicely designed one and on nice looking-paper. With our names on the front. Bizarre. Both of us had similarly bemused, slightly stunned reactions, and then have had to keep going back and remind ourselves that the product of that frenzied chunk of work last summer really happened. I had another Oh! moment today when I had to find something from the book and realised I could look in the index. It has an Index. Somehow that made it more real too. As did having people buy it and ask to have it signed for their friends and mums. Very odd.
Reading the accounts of the same days a year ago, from the depths of the hellish bombardment and invasion, is also very odd. But not in a good way.
On a completely different note, I came across a link to this more parochially depressing article today, analysing the state of the freelance writing market. Last week one of my regular (and better-paid) sources of work informed me that they have had to impose tight constraints on their freelance budgets, so no more work for me for the moment. It's not a surprise – it's a publication which is substantially dependent on public-sector advertising for its revenue. But it's happened sooner than I expected.
So the LA Times overview of some of the developments in freelance writing markets is interesting, looking at the risible sums paid by many of the contractors on freelance job sites like oDesk or peopleperhour, or by pay-per-hit 'news' sites like Allvoices. Many of the advertisers on the contract sites make it abundantly clear that they're not interested in the quality of the writing they commission – they simply want search engine-friendly-text that will lure people to their websites, selling whatever kind of tat they're in the market for. And the huge amount of free stuff on the web means there is no incentive for them to pay anything approaching a proper rate. But, as the LA Times writer points out, it also behooves writers who actually want to make a living out of their writing to see themselves to some extent as business people, offering a service, rather than as creatives who are owed a living for churning out our chosen art form. Hmm.
One of the audience was a guy who, on his Manchester Evening Snooze blog, has done a neat analysis of the Sky TV 'documentary' about Ross Kemp's trip to Gaza. Congratulations to Azaad on sitting through the whole thing. I should make it clear I haven't seen the programme. But I'm putting inverted commas around the word documentary because it has Ross Kemp in it. Maybe I'm a crashing snob. Probably. But I've never quite gotten the point of him.
Anyway, our advance order of the books turned up last week, and what a strange experience that was. A real book, rather a nicely designed one and on nice looking-paper. With our names on the front. Bizarre. Both of us had similarly bemused, slightly stunned reactions, and then have had to keep going back and remind ourselves that the product of that frenzied chunk of work last summer really happened. I had another Oh! moment today when I had to find something from the book and realised I could look in the index. It has an Index. Somehow that made it more real too. As did having people buy it and ask to have it signed for their friends and mums. Very odd.
Reading the accounts of the same days a year ago, from the depths of the hellish bombardment and invasion, is also very odd. But not in a good way.
On a completely different note, I came across a link to this more parochially depressing article today, analysing the state of the freelance writing market. Last week one of my regular (and better-paid) sources of work informed me that they have had to impose tight constraints on their freelance budgets, so no more work for me for the moment. It's not a surprise – it's a publication which is substantially dependent on public-sector advertising for its revenue. But it's happened sooner than I expected.
So the LA Times overview of some of the developments in freelance writing markets is interesting, looking at the risible sums paid by many of the contractors on freelance job sites like oDesk or peopleperhour, or by pay-per-hit 'news' sites like Allvoices. Many of the advertisers on the contract sites make it abundantly clear that they're not interested in the quality of the writing they commission – they simply want search engine-friendly-text that will lure people to their websites, selling whatever kind of tat they're in the market for. And the huge amount of free stuff on the web means there is no incentive for them to pay anything approaching a proper rate. But, as the LA Times writer points out, it also behooves writers who actually want to make a living out of their writing to see themselves to some extent as business people, offering a service, rather than as creatives who are owed a living for churning out our chosen art form. Hmm.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Adsales job! (all in a good cause...)
From MULE...
is looking for someone to bring in advertising revenue through both the website and the newspaper.
The work will involve contacting local businesses and ethical organisations, building a database of contacts and being a point of contact when adverts are submitted.
You will be supported by MULE volunteers and can choose to work from home, or in our city centre office. No experience is necessary but could be an advantage.
To discuss rates of pay, or to arrange an informal interview, please contact Jenny on jen.nelson [at] themule.info, or 07934 699 223.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Another very useful website
Here's another in my very occasional series of links to Extremely Useful websites. In this case, one which allows you to convert any hideous .pub (evil Microsoft) files that annoying people might send you into nice easily-opened PDFs. A big hand for www.pdfonline.com!
I should of course be saying something about the fact that we now have an effing BNP MEP for the North-West - despite, actually, the BNP getting fewer votes than last time.
It's hard to actually work out what to say though, partly because I'm so angry and disgusted that the BNP have got in, and partly because I'm so furious with ego-driven cretins like No2EU, who unfortunately normally sensible people like Attila the Stockbroker were bigging up at the otherwise excellent Billy Bragg/David Rovics/ Attila/Alun Parry gig at the Picket in Liverpool a few weeks back.
23,000 people voted for No2EU. 5,000 votes was the gap in the NW between the Green Party and the BNP. Even Respect had the sense and decency to stand aside, recognising that the Greens were the best chance of keeping the BNP out. But no, a bunch of idiots had to split the Left vote. Half of them don't even seem to know what they were campaigning for - Marc found a bunch of them flypostering in Moss Side a couple of days before the election and tried to engage them on this, and just got a mouthful. Well, No2EU, I hope your little ego project was worth the hundreds of thousands of pounds Nick Griffin is going to be getting in funding over the next few years. Nice one lads.
I should of course be saying something about the fact that we now have an effing BNP MEP for the North-West - despite, actually, the BNP getting fewer votes than last time.
It's hard to actually work out what to say though, partly because I'm so angry and disgusted that the BNP have got in, and partly because I'm so furious with ego-driven cretins like No2EU, who unfortunately normally sensible people like Attila the Stockbroker were bigging up at the otherwise excellent Billy Bragg/David Rovics/ Attila/Alun Parry gig at the Picket in Liverpool a few weeks back.
23,000 people voted for No2EU. 5,000 votes was the gap in the NW between the Green Party and the BNP. Even Respect had the sense and decency to stand aside, recognising that the Greens were the best chance of keeping the BNP out. But no, a bunch of idiots had to split the Left vote. Half of them don't even seem to know what they were campaigning for - Marc found a bunch of them flypostering in Moss Side a couple of days before the election and tried to engage them on this, and just got a mouthful. Well, No2EU, I hope your little ego project was worth the hundreds of thousands of pounds Nick Griffin is going to be getting in funding over the next few years. Nice one lads.
Friday, March 20, 2009
20th March: Nablus, Bethlehem, Hebron, Jerusalem
Well, we're back in Jerusalem now after a fairly hectic few days in which Dad got his first proper checkpoint experience, A got invited for dinner in Beit Safafa by a nice lady on a bus and found that there's a brand of water named after her, and I got fed so many different kinds of little Arabic sweets and pastries in Nablus that I got a massive attack of the sugar shakes, and officially became a year older and less wise.
My friend Naseer very kindly took the time to show the three of us around Nablus again. Between destroyed buildings and ancient stonework, one of the highlights was watching kanafeh being made. This delicious sweet is a layer of chewy cheese topped with crunchy baked semolina, which turns bright orange when cooked, and doused in sugar water. It's made in metre-wide metal trays in a kind of upside-down-cake style, where the semolina layer turns orange by being baked against the bottom of the pan with the cheese on top of its, and then a second pan is placed on top and the whole thing turned over with one terrifying but skillful flip. At the al-Aqsa sweet house in Nablus Old City, it is then sliced up and served hot and one of these metre-wide trays lasts about 5 minutes.
Anyway, I've got a terrific sequence of photos of it being made so if anyone can think of a place I can pitch a kanafeh piece too, let me know!
The following day, after a slightly tense and very odd morning amongst Mt Jarzim/Gerizim's Samaritan community for an article for The Arab, we headed back to Jerusalem and on to Bethlehem via Ramallah. At Huwarra we had a bit of a wait because we were in a private taxi but all generally went pretty smoothly.
At Kalandia checkpoint, however, Dad and A got their first real taste of how these monstrous barriers to movement work. Last year when I passed through it the public buses from Ramallah to Jerusalem were being permitted to pass, albeit with men and boys having to get down and be id'd.
This week, however, they were being strict, so we all had to get out and pass through the full battery-animal process. Although it was busy, only a couple of channels (narrow rows between metal grid walls and corrugated iron roofs) were open, with x-ray machines and id checks at the end of the lengthy queues. After that check there were ore turnstiles – great fun for getting through with large bags, small children, sick people etc – and then more id checking. This was being carried out by a small, plump and exceptionally shouty Israeli female soldier, who kept yelling at people to get behind the line. If she thought this was inspiring discipline and gravitas amongst her line of victims she was wrong, as most of the Palestinian people in the line with us were in massive fits of giggles over her antics and kept delivering stage-whispered instructions to their friends 'not to annoy the lady.'
Several more buses later we were in Bethlehem, staying at the Star. Now, last time I was in that particular part of town for any length of time it was 2002 and in the middle of some humongous invasion, with tanks and squished street lamps littering the streets and a heady blend of ISMers, international journalists and Israeli soldiers making life hellish for the staff of the hotel. I was staying down the road in the Palestine TV building, helping out with Indymedia and the occasional food run into the area around the Nativity Church which was under 24/7 curfew. So being there was a fairly memory-laden experience, and to see it all busy and full of shops and cars and buses was odd, if good. The Star still has lousy plumbing and minimal hot water though.
I figured that given Dad's short time here an ATG day tour would be a good way to introduce him to some of the Southern part of the West Bank, namely Bethlehem and Hebron. As well as full organised tours, an increasing number of organisations here, including ATG and PACE, seem to have realised that there are plenty of people who don't necessarily want or can't afford full length organised tours, but who are in the market for day-long experiences which introduce them to the issues and sights. It was also lovely to see Samer from ATG again, from my Olive Co-op days.
So, this tour included visits to the Ibrahimi Mosque/Tombs of the Patriarchs in Hebron, a 2-thousand-year old part-synagogue, part-mosque which houses the resting places of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah and other significant early Biblical figures. It's also, of course, the site of the massacre of several dozen Palestinian worshippers by the settler Baruch Goldstein in 1994, when he and possibly others walked into the early Friday prayers spraying bullets, having locked the doors to prevent any escapes.
Hebron is also shocking for the revolting behaviour of the settlers – who live inside the city, not around it – towards the local Palestinian population. They through piss and dirty nappies and rotting food into the streets, necessitating nets across the souq roads to catch it all. Where they want to drive a family out, they commit appalling acts of cruelty. In the case of one family we visited, this included torching rooms in the house using Molotov cocktails, on one occasion burning a three year old boy to death. The family have had to put a grille up above their stairwell to stop rubbish being thrown in by the settlers, but this has now been punctured by a boulder which was thrown in a few weeks ago, shattering on the stairs but fortunately not hitting any people.
Heading back to Bethlehem, we passed through Deheishe refugee camp, where 12,000 people live in a space spanning a kilometre by a kilometre, enduring 75% unemployment and a complete lack of space and privacy. There are new martyr posters in the entrance to the camp, after a 16 year old was killed last autumn for throwing stones at soldiers demolishing a house.
And now back into the melee that is Jerusalem, with Dad sorting out his journey home and A and I working out our plans from here.
My friend Naseer very kindly took the time to show the three of us around Nablus again. Between destroyed buildings and ancient stonework, one of the highlights was watching kanafeh being made. This delicious sweet is a layer of chewy cheese topped with crunchy baked semolina, which turns bright orange when cooked, and doused in sugar water. It's made in metre-wide metal trays in a kind of upside-down-cake style, where the semolina layer turns orange by being baked against the bottom of the pan with the cheese on top of its, and then a second pan is placed on top and the whole thing turned over with one terrifying but skillful flip. At the al-Aqsa sweet house in Nablus Old City, it is then sliced up and served hot and one of these metre-wide trays lasts about 5 minutes.
Anyway, I've got a terrific sequence of photos of it being made so if anyone can think of a place I can pitch a kanafeh piece too, let me know!
The following day, after a slightly tense and very odd morning amongst Mt Jarzim/Gerizim's Samaritan community for an article for The Arab, we headed back to Jerusalem and on to Bethlehem via Ramallah. At Huwarra we had a bit of a wait because we were in a private taxi but all generally went pretty smoothly.
At Kalandia checkpoint, however, Dad and A got their first real taste of how these monstrous barriers to movement work. Last year when I passed through it the public buses from Ramallah to Jerusalem were being permitted to pass, albeit with men and boys having to get down and be id'd.
This week, however, they were being strict, so we all had to get out and pass through the full battery-animal process. Although it was busy, only a couple of channels (narrow rows between metal grid walls and corrugated iron roofs) were open, with x-ray machines and id checks at the end of the lengthy queues. After that check there were ore turnstiles – great fun for getting through with large bags, small children, sick people etc – and then more id checking. This was being carried out by a small, plump and exceptionally shouty Israeli female soldier, who kept yelling at people to get behind the line. If she thought this was inspiring discipline and gravitas amongst her line of victims she was wrong, as most of the Palestinian people in the line with us were in massive fits of giggles over her antics and kept delivering stage-whispered instructions to their friends 'not to annoy the lady.'
Several more buses later we were in Bethlehem, staying at the Star. Now, last time I was in that particular part of town for any length of time it was 2002 and in the middle of some humongous invasion, with tanks and squished street lamps littering the streets and a heady blend of ISMers, international journalists and Israeli soldiers making life hellish for the staff of the hotel. I was staying down the road in the Palestine TV building, helping out with Indymedia and the occasional food run into the area around the Nativity Church which was under 24/7 curfew. So being there was a fairly memory-laden experience, and to see it all busy and full of shops and cars and buses was odd, if good. The Star still has lousy plumbing and minimal hot water though.
I figured that given Dad's short time here an ATG day tour would be a good way to introduce him to some of the Southern part of the West Bank, namely Bethlehem and Hebron. As well as full organised tours, an increasing number of organisations here, including ATG and PACE, seem to have realised that there are plenty of people who don't necessarily want or can't afford full length organised tours, but who are in the market for day-long experiences which introduce them to the issues and sights. It was also lovely to see Samer from ATG again, from my Olive Co-op days.
So, this tour included visits to the Ibrahimi Mosque/Tombs of the Patriarchs in Hebron, a 2-thousand-year old part-synagogue, part-mosque which houses the resting places of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah and other significant early Biblical figures. It's also, of course, the site of the massacre of several dozen Palestinian worshippers by the settler Baruch Goldstein in 1994, when he and possibly others walked into the early Friday prayers spraying bullets, having locked the doors to prevent any escapes.
Hebron is also shocking for the revolting behaviour of the settlers – who live inside the city, not around it – towards the local Palestinian population. They through piss and dirty nappies and rotting food into the streets, necessitating nets across the souq roads to catch it all. Where they want to drive a family out, they commit appalling acts of cruelty. In the case of one family we visited, this included torching rooms in the house using Molotov cocktails, on one occasion burning a three year old boy to death. The family have had to put a grille up above their stairwell to stop rubbish being thrown in by the settlers, but this has now been punctured by a boulder which was thrown in a few weeks ago, shattering on the stairs but fortunately not hitting any people.
Heading back to Bethlehem, we passed through Deheishe refugee camp, where 12,000 people live in a space spanning a kilometre by a kilometre, enduring 75% unemployment and a complete lack of space and privacy. There are new martyr posters in the entrance to the camp, after a 16 year old was killed last autumn for throwing stones at soldiers demolishing a house.
And now back into the melee that is Jerusalem, with Dad sorting out his journey home and A and I working out our plans from here.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Co-ops rant!
The last couple of weeks have had some ups and downs for the co-ops/social enterprise chunk of my life and work.
On one hand, there's been the brilliant news, which I'd heard about months ago but finally happened, that Zaytoun's fairly traded (organic, extra virgin) Palestinian olive oil has received full Fairtrade Foundation accreditation and is now therefore the first olive oil to bear the widely-recognised Fairtrade logo (a French/Moroccan outfit is also looking to get certified but it's unlikely their product will be in the shops until at least the end of this year). This is of course fantastic news for the Palestinian farmers' co-ops producing the oil, for Zaytoun and Equal Exchange who have worked so hard to market the oil and get accreditation, and for pioneers like Olive Co-op who have been selling it for the last 5 years.
On the flipside, I've had some depressing encounters with the hierarchies of the co-operative and social enterprise sectors as well.
These have largely taken the shape of trying to disentangle the jargon-laden, increasingly corporate bullshit churned out by some of the 'support agencies' and 'representative bodies' out there. Some of the stuff I've had to try and comprehend this week has been totally impenetrable, even to me, and I did social theory classes at MA level, so I've worked my way through a lot of totally opaque and atrociously written crap before.
The social enterprise support sector just seems to be more and more a gravy train for white men in suits to get nicely-paid jobs telling people with no money and tiny businesses in a credit crunch about how to be entrepreneurs, while being firmly locked into a bureaucratic mindset and fat-cat mentality themselves.
My other gripe is with some of the PR leeches who lurk round the edges of the sector. Without naming names, I thought I had managed to find someone sensible within a co-operative sector organisation who was willing to enter into a bit of debate about whether the expansion of co-ops in a recession was, willy-nilly, a good thing. Now, I've spent nearly 10 years working in co-ops, am still a member of one, and have a considerable commitment to the sector. I certainly have no interest in doing a hatchet job on them.
But I'm finding increasing amounts of credit crunch propaganda - from 'support' and 'advice' organisations whose main function is to suck up government funding like vast cash-Hoovers, and not from actual people running actual enterprises in what might be termed the 'real' world – about how bloody marvellous co-ops are, how they are the stable, sustainable soft-capitalist economic model that encourages responsible economic behaviour and would have bolstered the economy against the current crisis.
So, when the person I thought I was getting somewhere with went off on leave, I got handed over to the organisation's PR consultants instead, and any notion of realistic, sensible, real-world debate vanished, and I got yet another bit of pointless flannel attributed to the organisation's ennobled Chair, about how wonderful co-ops are and how they are the Way, the Truth and the Light.
And I'm sorry, but this does the sector no good at all. A failing enterprise is a failing enterprise, and while being a co-op might make companies more economically and socially sustainable, this is only true if they have real markets and decent marketing and good internal controls.
To promote the idea that anyone, anywhere, wanting to do anything somehow can just by being a social enterprise is totally irresponsible. Firstly it has the ability to create a lot of pissed off, skint people if their businesses do fail. Secondly in creating those people it has a massive potential to 'tarnish the brand,' devaluing the idea of social enterprise and co-ops and making them synonymous with dud enterprises. And thirdly damaging people who should never have been persuaded by ivory-tower consultants that they should run businesses in the first place.
On one hand, there's been the brilliant news, which I'd heard about months ago but finally happened, that Zaytoun's fairly traded (organic, extra virgin) Palestinian olive oil has received full Fairtrade Foundation accreditation and is now therefore the first olive oil to bear the widely-recognised Fairtrade logo (a French/Moroccan outfit is also looking to get certified but it's unlikely their product will be in the shops until at least the end of this year). This is of course fantastic news for the Palestinian farmers' co-ops producing the oil, for Zaytoun and Equal Exchange who have worked so hard to market the oil and get accreditation, and for pioneers like Olive Co-op who have been selling it for the last 5 years.
On the flipside, I've had some depressing encounters with the hierarchies of the co-operative and social enterprise sectors as well.
These have largely taken the shape of trying to disentangle the jargon-laden, increasingly corporate bullshit churned out by some of the 'support agencies' and 'representative bodies' out there. Some of the stuff I've had to try and comprehend this week has been totally impenetrable, even to me, and I did social theory classes at MA level, so I've worked my way through a lot of totally opaque and atrociously written crap before.
The social enterprise support sector just seems to be more and more a gravy train for white men in suits to get nicely-paid jobs telling people with no money and tiny businesses in a credit crunch about how to be entrepreneurs, while being firmly locked into a bureaucratic mindset and fat-cat mentality themselves.
My other gripe is with some of the PR leeches who lurk round the edges of the sector. Without naming names, I thought I had managed to find someone sensible within a co-operative sector organisation who was willing to enter into a bit of debate about whether the expansion of co-ops in a recession was, willy-nilly, a good thing. Now, I've spent nearly 10 years working in co-ops, am still a member of one, and have a considerable commitment to the sector. I certainly have no interest in doing a hatchet job on them.
But I'm finding increasing amounts of credit crunch propaganda - from 'support' and 'advice' organisations whose main function is to suck up government funding like vast cash-Hoovers, and not from actual people running actual enterprises in what might be termed the 'real' world – about how bloody marvellous co-ops are, how they are the stable, sustainable soft-capitalist economic model that encourages responsible economic behaviour and would have bolstered the economy against the current crisis.
So, when the person I thought I was getting somewhere with went off on leave, I got handed over to the organisation's PR consultants instead, and any notion of realistic, sensible, real-world debate vanished, and I got yet another bit of pointless flannel attributed to the organisation's ennobled Chair, about how wonderful co-ops are and how they are the Way, the Truth and the Light.
And I'm sorry, but this does the sector no good at all. A failing enterprise is a failing enterprise, and while being a co-op might make companies more economically and socially sustainable, this is only true if they have real markets and decent marketing and good internal controls.
To promote the idea that anyone, anywhere, wanting to do anything somehow can just by being a social enterprise is totally irresponsible. Firstly it has the ability to create a lot of pissed off, skint people if their businesses do fail. Secondly in creating those people it has a massive potential to 'tarnish the brand,' devaluing the idea of social enterprise and co-ops and making them synonymous with dud enterprises. And thirdly damaging people who should never have been persuaded by ivory-tower consultants that they should run businesses in the first place.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Journalistic bollocks
All very insignificant, this, but a good illustration of how inaccurate some journalists can be, and how a couple of poorly checked facts can replicate themselves...
Several years ago I interviewed a UNISON rep and psychiatric nurse called Karen Reissman about NHS privatisation, for the TogetherWorks magazine Enterprising. The article ended up as one of the excuses Karen's former employers used to sack her, since few employers are enlightened enough to want active, politicised union reps on their staff.
Unsurprisingly, this attracted a certain amount of press coverage, including from press industry publications like the Press Gazette. So when Karen settled her claim out of court during her employment tribunal, there was a certain amount of followup. This included this article by Dominic Ponsford, written using material from the PA Mediapoint agency added to by the Press Gazette. Now, this article is peppered with inaccuracies. The ones I can comment on are that he calls the magazine 'Inside Enterprise' and states that it is no longer running - when in fact there have been a number of issues of it since the Karen Reissman affair, and I'm putting together a new one at the moment. It also claims that the article was a feature on social enterprise, which is in fact the subject of the entire magazine.
A reply from the PA's Legal Editor emphasises that it was not their agency piece which included the mistakes - so I guess they were added by Dominic Ponsford at the Press Gazette.
Now, I'm not saying that these errors are particularly significant in themselves. But I am interested in what it says about poor standards of fact checking. Especially since agencies and industry publications like the Press Gazette are generally regarded as pretty reliable, which means that if anyone, for instance, ever decided to write a history of Karen's struggle, they would probably go first to these kind of sources, and get misled and sidetracked.
I'm also curious as to why the Press Gazette has removed my completely anodyne correcting comments to their web version of the article - aren't they prepared to admit they've printed an incorrect piece?
Several years ago I interviewed a UNISON rep and psychiatric nurse called Karen Reissman about NHS privatisation, for the TogetherWorks magazine Enterprising. The article ended up as one of the excuses Karen's former employers used to sack her, since few employers are enlightened enough to want active, politicised union reps on their staff.
Unsurprisingly, this attracted a certain amount of press coverage, including from press industry publications like the Press Gazette. So when Karen settled her claim out of court during her employment tribunal, there was a certain amount of followup. This included this article by Dominic Ponsford, written using material from the PA Mediapoint agency added to by the Press Gazette. Now, this article is peppered with inaccuracies. The ones I can comment on are that he calls the magazine 'Inside Enterprise' and states that it is no longer running - when in fact there have been a number of issues of it since the Karen Reissman affair, and I'm putting together a new one at the moment. It also claims that the article was a feature on social enterprise, which is in fact the subject of the entire magazine.
A reply from the PA's Legal Editor emphasises that it was not their agency piece which included the mistakes - so I guess they were added by Dominic Ponsford at the Press Gazette.
Now, I'm not saying that these errors are particularly significant in themselves. But I am interested in what it says about poor standards of fact checking. Especially since agencies and industry publications like the Press Gazette are generally regarded as pretty reliable, which means that if anyone, for instance, ever decided to write a history of Karen's struggle, they would probably go first to these kind of sources, and get misled and sidetracked.
I'm also curious as to why the Press Gazette has removed my completely anodyne correcting comments to their web version of the article - aren't they prepared to admit they've printed an incorrect piece?
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Gaza continues
The Israeli military atrocities in Gaza continue. The death toll nears 400.
Meanwhile, Obama 'monitors' and Brown has little twitches of conscience while figuring out which bank to nationalise next. In Tehran, Iranian Jews demonstrate for Palestine, and in Israel, Ha'aretz reports that the Israeli military has been cooking this up for months, during the 'ceasefire.'
It's very hard to know what to do here, of course. Yesterday, my first day properly out of bed after a week of 'flu, I took myself off to the vigil outside the BBC in Manchester. The previous day's demonstration apparently attracted maybe a couple of hundred, according to my friend Hannah. The vigil had perhaps 70. There will be one every evening that this continues, so I guess I'll be down there again tomorrow at 5pm before I head off to friend Ruth's to try and not be too much of a spirit of depression at the New Year party. And at 3pm on Saturday there will be a bigger demonstration.
It always amazes me that Palestinians in such appalling circumstances draw hope from what feel like the most tiny things we do here, but a text from my amazing friend Sharyn just after I sent her news of these two demonstrations and the bigger ones outside the Israeli embassy in London read as follows:
"Fatima is so happy telling her family what you just said. 10 people just gained some strength for this night under the bombs."
Of course I cried and felt inadequate. Doh.
What else to do? There's not much I can usefully write - my only attempt at getting into Gaza, 7 years ago, ended up with me in al-Hussain Hospital in Beit Jala, shot full of pethidine, thanks to a little altercation with the lovely Captain Joseph Levy of the Erez border crossing. I can draw on the words of friends - including Sharyn - who are there. I can help to spread Free Gaza movement press releases and the writings of those with useful things to say and reports from the ground, including Sameh Habeeb. I can keep making sure that the Free Gaza Facebook group stays up to date and also that the stupid, hateful, vile anti-semitism that Israel's stupid, hateful, vile actions engenders is not allowed to find its voice through any channel that I can stop up. And, I suppose, I can not give in to the grief and guilt that so many of us who have spent time in Palestine feel at not being there at this hour, and keep working in the ways that I can here, even if it's not there. But it feels so very little.
Meanwhile, Obama 'monitors' and Brown has little twitches of conscience while figuring out which bank to nationalise next. In Tehran, Iranian Jews demonstrate for Palestine, and in Israel, Ha'aretz reports that the Israeli military has been cooking this up for months, during the 'ceasefire.'
It's very hard to know what to do here, of course. Yesterday, my first day properly out of bed after a week of 'flu, I took myself off to the vigil outside the BBC in Manchester. The previous day's demonstration apparently attracted maybe a couple of hundred, according to my friend Hannah. The vigil had perhaps 70. There will be one every evening that this continues, so I guess I'll be down there again tomorrow at 5pm before I head off to friend Ruth's to try and not be too much of a spirit of depression at the New Year party. And at 3pm on Saturday there will be a bigger demonstration.
It always amazes me that Palestinians in such appalling circumstances draw hope from what feel like the most tiny things we do here, but a text from my amazing friend Sharyn just after I sent her news of these two demonstrations and the bigger ones outside the Israeli embassy in London read as follows:
"Fatima is so happy telling her family what you just said. 10 people just gained some strength for this night under the bombs."
Of course I cried and felt inadequate. Doh.
What else to do? There's not much I can usefully write - my only attempt at getting into Gaza, 7 years ago, ended up with me in al-Hussain Hospital in Beit Jala, shot full of pethidine, thanks to a little altercation with the lovely Captain Joseph Levy of the Erez border crossing. I can draw on the words of friends - including Sharyn - who are there. I can help to spread Free Gaza movement press releases and the writings of those with useful things to say and reports from the ground, including Sameh Habeeb. I can keep making sure that the Free Gaza Facebook group stays up to date and also that the stupid, hateful, vile anti-semitism that Israel's stupid, hateful, vile actions engenders is not allowed to find its voice through any channel that I can stop up. And, I suppose, I can not give in to the grief and guilt that so many of us who have spent time in Palestine feel at not being there at this hour, and keep working in the ways that I can here, even if it's not there. But it feels so very little.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Manchester climate change essay competition
Essay contest: What do we do next?
"What are the current problems/future opportunities for climate campaigners in Greater Manchester"
First Prize- £30
Runners Up- to be confirmed
Deadline Sunday 1st February 5pm
entries to editor@manchesterclimatefortnightly.info
Winner announced on Tuesday February 10th at the "Climate Change: Global and Local" meeting hosted by Manchester Climate Forum. Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount St
More information from http://www.manchesterclimatefortnightly.info
"What are the current problems/future opportunities for climate campaigners in Greater Manchester"
First Prize- £30
Runners Up- to be confirmed
Deadline Sunday 1st February 5pm
entries to editor@manchesterclimatefortnightly.info
Winner announced on Tuesday February 10th at the "Climate Change: Global and Local" meeting hosted by Manchester Climate Forum. Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount St
More information from http://www.manchesterclimatefortnightly.info
Sunday, December 07, 2008
The Guardian on writing for the internet
Now here's an interesting piece on writing for the internet, and how to go about pushing a website up the ratings not by filling it with rubbish that's searched for a lot ('Britney Spears naked' etc) but by the quality and quantity of links to it.
Michael Wignall at Streamengine does great short workshops on how to do combine writing in a search-engine-friendly way, as well as one that's attractive to website readers.
Michael Wignall at Streamengine does great short workshops on how to do combine writing in a search-engine-friendly way, as well as one that's attractive to website readers.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
A work of pure genius
As someone who occasionally needs to resize photos for work purposes but has no desire to learn (or to shell out for) Photoshop, and who hasn't yet managed to figure out how to resize or crop pictures using the various opensource graphics programmes, I was very, very happy to discover DrPic. That rare thing, a really useful website...
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Surviving winter in freelance-land
This spring, I moved from being a part-time employee and part-time freelancer to being a full-time freelancer. I joined the pyjama workforce, that band of people who can be shamed at any time of the day by a postman turning up with a parcel, only to find them unshowered and wearing worn plaid jammies or a threadbare dressing gown.
A few months later I decided that this lifestyle is psychologically unhealthy, at least for me, and joined a shared workspace co-op called Openspace. First and foremost this provides flexible work packages ranging from full membership (£100 a month for a desk, some storage space, high speed internet, some blog space on a shared website and use of other shared facilities such as a printer and secure backups) to the ability to just drop in with your laptop once or twice a month to get a change of scene or a reliable web connection.
Openspace also fits into my work and concerns nicely by being a social enterprise (by virtue of its not-for-profit, co-operative status) and its commitment to environmental and social functions such as recycling, using recycled products and green electricity and providing a networking point for other social and ethical enterprise.
Now I've been a member for several months, I thought it was time to evaluate whether this was a good decision, and decided that actually it's probably been close to a life-saver.
As winter draws in and daylight hours get unspeakably and depressingly short, dragging myself outside during the daytime would have been really hard to do regularly as pyjama-me. Somehow actually getting my arse in gear by 3pm or whenever it's getting dark at the moment seems like a massive effort when I don't actively HAVE to. But the bike ride down to Openspace forces me to get outside and get a bit of sunshine and exercise, and that's a very, very good thing for my mental wellbeing.
Secondly, one of the unexpected benefits of Openspace – even to its founders – has been the quantity of cross-fertilisation of work and projects that has come out of it. People have submitted bids together, developed artistic projects and generally passed round useful information about economic opportunities. With the credit crunch and looming economic nightmare of the next year or so, opportunities that I wouldn't have known about but for being in a shared space have made my financial situation that much more stable, at least for the moment.
Working at Openspace comes easier too, especially when I've got a big deadline looming – I'm pretty good at keeping my self-discipline going when it comes to deadlines, but my bathroom does tend to get suddenly cleaner and my kitchen floor washed when I've got a big one coming up. But being in a workspace somehow forces me to get my head down and get on with it, and that makes me that more productive.
A final small benefit has been that as the weather gets colder, it's nice to be able to head off to the office, where it's nice and warm, instead of staying at home, having to put the heating on at some eye-popping cost in fuel bills. Yes, I know I should wrap up in more jumpers, but there's only so many I can actually fit on, and if I'm going to work (ie type) my fingers still need to be out there in the air and not seized up from the cold. The cats are pissed off though – fewer nice hot radiators to weld themselves onto.
There's only one lovely Openspace, in Manchester, but I know that Edinburgh has the Melting Pot and the Hub network has places in a number of cities worldwide, including London and Bristol in the UK. And similar, if less ethically-oriented, setups can often be found by Googling terms like 'shared workspace' or 'co-working' for your town.
A few months later I decided that this lifestyle is psychologically unhealthy, at least for me, and joined a shared workspace co-op called Openspace. First and foremost this provides flexible work packages ranging from full membership (£100 a month for a desk, some storage space, high speed internet, some blog space on a shared website and use of other shared facilities such as a printer and secure backups) to the ability to just drop in with your laptop once or twice a month to get a change of scene or a reliable web connection.
Openspace also fits into my work and concerns nicely by being a social enterprise (by virtue of its not-for-profit, co-operative status) and its commitment to environmental and social functions such as recycling, using recycled products and green electricity and providing a networking point for other social and ethical enterprise.
Now I've been a member for several months, I thought it was time to evaluate whether this was a good decision, and decided that actually it's probably been close to a life-saver.
As winter draws in and daylight hours get unspeakably and depressingly short, dragging myself outside during the daytime would have been really hard to do regularly as pyjama-me. Somehow actually getting my arse in gear by 3pm or whenever it's getting dark at the moment seems like a massive effort when I don't actively HAVE to. But the bike ride down to Openspace forces me to get outside and get a bit of sunshine and exercise, and that's a very, very good thing for my mental wellbeing.
Secondly, one of the unexpected benefits of Openspace – even to its founders – has been the quantity of cross-fertilisation of work and projects that has come out of it. People have submitted bids together, developed artistic projects and generally passed round useful information about economic opportunities. With the credit crunch and looming economic nightmare of the next year or so, opportunities that I wouldn't have known about but for being in a shared space have made my financial situation that much more stable, at least for the moment.
Working at Openspace comes easier too, especially when I've got a big deadline looming – I'm pretty good at keeping my self-discipline going when it comes to deadlines, but my bathroom does tend to get suddenly cleaner and my kitchen floor washed when I've got a big one coming up. But being in a workspace somehow forces me to get my head down and get on with it, and that makes me that more productive.
A final small benefit has been that as the weather gets colder, it's nice to be able to head off to the office, where it's nice and warm, instead of staying at home, having to put the heating on at some eye-popping cost in fuel bills. Yes, I know I should wrap up in more jumpers, but there's only so many I can actually fit on, and if I'm going to work (ie type) my fingers still need to be out there in the air and not seized up from the cold. The cats are pissed off though – fewer nice hot radiators to weld themselves onto.
There's only one lovely Openspace, in Manchester, but I know that Edinburgh has the Melting Pot and the Hub network has places in a number of cities worldwide, including London and Bristol in the UK. And similar, if less ethically-oriented, setups can often be found by Googling terms like 'shared workspace' or 'co-working' for your town.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Writing course at Gorton Monastery
For anyone foolish enough not to be coming to ChomskyAt80, here's a quick plug for a writing course on the 29th November, bring run by Hyde freelancer Andrea Wren. I don't know Andrea well, but we met a few times at the late lamented ConnectMedia NorthWest get-togethers and she could certainly teach aspiring feature writers a thing or two about how to market themselves.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Reporting Poverty in the UK
Last Wednesday was the Manchester launch of Reporting Poverty in the UK, a guide for journalists based on research carried out by Glasgow Caledonian University.
The research looked at how the British press talks about poverty, and while perhaps not a surprise to someone with my attitude to the ethics of the mainstream press in this country, it did include some depressingly good illustrations of the way that some journalists think.
One illuminating quote from the editor of a national tabloid was along the lines of: "Fuel poverty is not a story. Poor people fiddling their gas meters is a story." So - thousands of people freezing in their homes over the winter isn't interesting, and fuel companies making massive profits off huge price rises isn't interesting, but a tiny and unrepresentative number of poor people finding ways to get round that is a valid subject for prurient, judgemental prying. What a delightful society we are.
A more comforting comment was from an anonymous female tabloid reader, who said something akin to 'I read the News of the World but I don't believe anything in it - not even the TV listings.'
The actual launch event, run by funders the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Media Trust, was excellent (and not just because of the really good lunch, much better than the somewhat suspect sarnies usually on offer. And a decent veggie selection).
With a reasonable balance of journalists and people from a wide range of organisations tackling poverty or working in marginalised areas (like Carisma from Home Sweet Home, Moss Side), there were some really active debates about how third sector organisations, especially those with tiny PR resources and budgets, can relate to the media, how they can protect their members and service users when journalists turn up wanting case studies, and how journalists can behave in a slightly more ethical and honourable fashion, respecting people whose life circumstances have put them in poverty.
Discussions raised issues like why the press seems to feel the need to stereotype and insult poor people - is it so that the better-off can deny to themselves that they might be benefiting from an unequal system? And is the kind of understanding and improvement in reporting that the event and report are trying to achieve eroded by developments in the media industry itself, where it seems to be increasingly difficult to get an entry into national-level newspapers and magazine without spending weeks or months doing unpaid internships. And who gets to do those in London, a ludicrously expensive city to work in? Rich, usually white, kids. Increasing yet more the distance between journalists and the people and communities they talk about. So, all the more need for people to take a look at the Media Trust/JRF guide, and try to absorb some of its lessons.
The research looked at how the British press talks about poverty, and while perhaps not a surprise to someone with my attitude to the ethics of the mainstream press in this country, it did include some depressingly good illustrations of the way that some journalists think.
One illuminating quote from the editor of a national tabloid was along the lines of: "Fuel poverty is not a story. Poor people fiddling their gas meters is a story." So - thousands of people freezing in their homes over the winter isn't interesting, and fuel companies making massive profits off huge price rises isn't interesting, but a tiny and unrepresentative number of poor people finding ways to get round that is a valid subject for prurient, judgemental prying. What a delightful society we are.
A more comforting comment was from an anonymous female tabloid reader, who said something akin to 'I read the News of the World but I don't believe anything in it - not even the TV listings.'
The actual launch event, run by funders the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Media Trust, was excellent (and not just because of the really good lunch, much better than the somewhat suspect sarnies usually on offer. And a decent veggie selection).
With a reasonable balance of journalists and people from a wide range of organisations tackling poverty or working in marginalised areas (like Carisma from Home Sweet Home, Moss Side), there were some really active debates about how third sector organisations, especially those with tiny PR resources and budgets, can relate to the media, how they can protect their members and service users when journalists turn up wanting case studies, and how journalists can behave in a slightly more ethical and honourable fashion, respecting people whose life circumstances have put them in poverty.
Discussions raised issues like why the press seems to feel the need to stereotype and insult poor people - is it so that the better-off can deny to themselves that they might be benefiting from an unequal system? And is the kind of understanding and improvement in reporting that the event and report are trying to achieve eroded by developments in the media industry itself, where it seems to be increasingly difficult to get an entry into national-level newspapers and magazine without spending weeks or months doing unpaid internships. And who gets to do those in London, a ludicrously expensive city to work in? Rich, usually white, kids. Increasing yet more the distance between journalists and the people and communities they talk about. So, all the more need for people to take a look at the Media Trust/JRF guide, and try to absorb some of its lessons.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Meeja whinging
As a media freelance who occasionally crosses the divide between PR and journalism - as seems increasingly common - I appreciate that the PR's job is not always a happy one. But Cake PR of London seem to be taking it out on muggins, the hapless freelance on the receiving end of their less-than-impeccable competence.
Nearly 3 months ago, I went on a PR trip to the Lake District organised by Cake on behalf of fair trade fruit company Agrofair. The trip went fine, but because of the short notice I paid for my own train and taxi fares, which totalled over eighty quid. The following week I sent my tickets and receipts and an invoice into the PR girlie at Cake who I'd been dealing with. She acknowledged receipt and said she'd get the cash sent asap.
Have I seen that cash yet? Have I buggery. Maybe in smug London PR-land eighty pounds is small change, but in Northern freelance land it's a fair wad on spending money, and I want it back. The rude cow has even stopped replying to emails, and the accounts department don't seem to know what I'm on about, which seems to imply that she hasn't even registered the claim.
So, warning to fellow freelances etc. Avoid Cake PR. And to fair trade companies wanting to operate ethically, avoid them too, if you're as interested in freelance journalists not getting screwed over as you are in just treatment for majority world farmers.
Ho hum.
Nearly 3 months ago, I went on a PR trip to the Lake District organised by Cake on behalf of fair trade fruit company Agrofair. The trip went fine, but because of the short notice I paid for my own train and taxi fares, which totalled over eighty quid. The following week I sent my tickets and receipts and an invoice into the PR girlie at Cake who I'd been dealing with. She acknowledged receipt and said she'd get the cash sent asap.
Have I seen that cash yet? Have I buggery. Maybe in smug London PR-land eighty pounds is small change, but in Northern freelance land it's a fair wad on spending money, and I want it back. The rude cow has even stopped replying to emails, and the accounts department don't seem to know what I'm on about, which seems to imply that she hasn't even registered the claim.
So, warning to fellow freelances etc. Avoid Cake PR. And to fair trade companies wanting to operate ethically, avoid them too, if you're as interested in freelance journalists not getting screwed over as you are in just treatment for majority world farmers.
Ho hum.
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