@JTownend

By Lawrence McNamara

With the Justice and Security Bill due soon, some interesting issues are arising around the use of closed material proceedings in Employment Tribunals. Under Rule 54 of the regulations that govern procedure, closed proceedings and the exclusion of a party and their legal representative can be used in Crown employment matters if it is ‘expedient in the interests of national security’.

In April, it was reported in the Telegraph that there is a current action against GCHQ. On 12 May, the Telegraph reported on an action against the Metropolitan Police related to the suspicion of a police officer having attended terrorist training camp, the suspension of the officer’s counter-terrorism security clearance, and the legal proceedings in the Employment Tribunal.

In that matter – Rahman v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis & the Secretary of State for the Home Department (UKEATPA/0076/09/RN & UKEAT/0125/10/RN) – Mitting J has said that there is ‘a legitimate public interest in those parts of the proceedings from which the Appellant and his legal representatives are not excluded’ and ‘cogent reasons’ would be needed to exclude the public.

(It might be said that even if the public can be excluded whenever the Appellant has no access, there is nonetheless still a legitimate public interest in all aspects of these proceedings.)  However, it seems clear from the judgment that closed proceedings will play a very substantial role in this case.

The Employment Tribunal matters are interesting not only of themselves but also because the Justice and Security Green Paper cites it as a jurisdiction where closed material proceedings are well established, and thus it forms part of the normalising landscape within which general closed material proceedings are said by the government to be acceptable.

However, as with all closed material proceedings in existing areas, including SIAC, there seems no record of how often they are used. The MP for Tooting, Sadiq Khan, has asked the Justice Secretary to answer on 14 May the question: ‘on how many occasions a closed material procedure has been used in an employment tribunal in each of the last 10 years’.  It is an important question.

Moreover, any proposals in the Justice and Security Bill should ensure that such records are kept and reported regularly, and that all orders for closure are reviewed periodically so that matters of public interest do not remain secret for any longer than absolutely necessary.

Lawrence McNamara runs the ESRC-funded Law, Terrorism and the Right to Know project at the University of Reading.

It is expected that today’s Queen’s Speech will contain the government’s plans for allowing cameras in court – albeit it limited to summing up and sentencing in selected courts [update: it does].

But what about opening up justice online? The new issue of the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers features my article summing up the ‘Open Justice in the Digital Era’ project at the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism, and the forthcoming ‘Justice Wide Open’ working papers. Appropriately, as of this month, access to the journal is free online [print subscription details here].

I argue that our project raises important questions to be teased out and properly considered by legal authorities and government, in consultation with the public, researchers and the media. In that sense, our project is a call for debate as well as action.

Read the article in full here.

As anyone who has tried will know, it’s very hard to measure different types of civil litigation in England & Wales.

I am primarily interested in defamation and privacy claims; some information can be obtained from the courts when you know what you’re looking for. You can start to build up a patchwork picture through Ministry of Justice releases, law reports, news articles, law firm updates, journal articles, legal conferences, published judgments, blogs and social media. But clear quantitative data at source is tricky to come by and, as I’ve pointed out many times before (eg.), a lot of the information is behind legal paywalls.

For example, in August 2011 the Inforrm blog took a Sweet and Maxwell report to task for its statistics on the number of online defamation cases, arguing “the figures are curious and their precise provenance unclear”. Inforrm suggests some other sources of data: the MoJ’s annual stats on number of defamation claims and a very useful table showing the number of defamation writs since 1990, supplied by RPC’s Jaron Lewis. But further breakdown is difficult to come by.

I am currently gathering supplementary information about defamation and privacy claims through interviews with media lawyers, as part of my doctoral research (please email me if you’re interested in participating: judith.townend.1 [at] city.ac.uk).

I spotted on WhatDoTheyKnow.com that a user (Anna) had asked what might seem a reasonable question through FoI, inquiring about “the numbers of cases of online defamation concerning businesses/corporations” and the names of the businesses involved.

I didn’t hold out much hope for her! First of all, the Government Office for Science Business, Innovation & Skills, where she originally directed her inquiry in February 2012, replied on 6 March 2012 (my emphasis):

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) holds has some statistics on defamation – specifically the number of claims issued. The latest published stats are for 2010 and are available on their website at the following link: http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/statistics-and-data/courts-and-sentencing/high-court-queens-bench.xls. MoJ has no breakdown of the statistics beyond that either in terms of the number of cases that result from defamation online, or the number that involve corporations. 

Then, on 11 April 2012, Anna re-submitted the request to the Ministry of Justice, which replied on 2 May [reply in full here]:

Your request has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). I can confirm that the Department holds some of the information you have requested. However, I am sorry to inform you that from my preliminary assessment of your request, it is clear that I will not be able to answer your request in full without breaching the section 12 cost limit under the Act.

No surprises there.

It may help if I explain that the Ministry of Justice Court Proceedings Database holds information on defendants proceeded against, found guilty and sentenced for criminal offences in England and Wales. This database holds information on offences provided by the statutes under which proceedings are brought but not all the specific circumstances of each case.

Well, not really: her request concerned civil not criminal data…

Other than where specified in a statute it is not possible to identify from centrally held data, for example, in cases proceeded against for publishing defamatory libel under Common Law, the specific form in which the publication allegedly occurred, i.e. whether the publication was made online, including social networks like Facebook or Twitter. This detailed information may be held by the courts on individual case files which due to their size and complexity are not reported to Justice Statistics Analytical Services…

My emphasis again.

…In this instance to provide you with the information you seek we would be required to contact all the courts in England and Wales and ask them to search individual case files. To confirm whether the Ministry of Justice holds the information you require on the scale that you have requested would therefore exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ set out in section 12(1) of the FOIA.

For Anna’s purposes this could be limited to the High Court.

…. Whilst you could narrow the scope of your request in order to try and bring it within the cost limit, for example by requesting information for a particular magistrates’ court, I would like to take this opportunity to advise you that it is very likely that any information that may be held within scope of your request may be exempt from disclosure under the FOIA under the terms of Section 32 (Court Records). Therefore it is likely that any subsequent narrowed request could be refused under Section 32.

A magistrates’ court wouldn’t be very useful in terms of tracking libel claims. And finally, the issue of Section 32, quoted below (my emphasis):

Section 32 exempts information contained in certain litigation documents and court, tribunal and inquiry records and will apply regardless of the content of the information. There are separate and specific regimes for gaining access to court and tribunal records and section 32 ensures that those regimes are not superseded by the FOI Act.

Key points:

• Section 32 will apply only if the public authority concerned holds the information solely because it was contained in one of the specified documents.
• Section 32 applies regardless of the content of the information
• The application of section 32 is not subject to any public interest balance.

If you’ve got any bright ideas for Anna and other people interested in this area, please do comment below, or drop me an email. I’ll address the issue of counting/tracking privacy claims in due course.

Related links:

• Lucy Series and I wrote a submission to the Cabinet Office’s open data consultation
• The Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism ‘Open Justice in the Digital Era’ project

One of the impromptu sessions at the informal Talk About Local conference in Birmingham on Saturday discussed crime reporting – instigated by Ed Walker, who is founder of Blog Preston and senior digital producer with Trinity Mirror Regionals:

“Thinking of putting forward a session at #TAL12 on hyperlocals and crime. Reporting it, legal stuff and why you should do it. Of interest?” @ed_walker86

The small group of hyperlocal publishers discussed their individual approaches to crime reporting, and it raised – in my view – pertinent questions about best practice and ethics in the digital era, as well as access to police and courts information.

Delegates had already been briefed on contempt of court by David Banks in a morning session, so this session focused on the how and why, rather than the legal parameters [for a quick and cheap guide to reporting criminal courts, you could look at Sarah Chapman's e-book; for a more in-depth advice see McNae's Essential Law for Journalists].

Ed suggested some of the reasons we might report courts on local news sites, including reader interest and community benefit (my paraphrasing – he might like to elaborate in comments below).

In our discussion, hyperlocal publishers described how they reported crime and some of the issues that had cropped up. One publisher said that since they couldn’t attend court (an issue of blogger manpower), they waited for a result before reporting on a case. A couple of people described occasions when they were asked to remove information relating to specific cases, by individuals named in a published crime report.

A few specific incidents particularly interested me, which I’ll follow up and possibly report in more detail in due course – or please add comments below, if you’ve got relevant examples to share.

In view of the concerns being raised, I mentioned our ‘Open Justice in the Digital Era‘ initiative at the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism (CLJJ), City University London. In a forthcoming publication, a range of journalists, lawyers and academics discuss the path ahead for the digitisation of courts and legal information.

It will include founder of Talk About Local William Perrin’s ‘Courts Transparency Charter‘, which has sparked some debate around the issues of privacy, rehabilitation of offenders and data protection.

Following the publication of the working papers, the CLJJ is planning to discuss some of the proposals in more detail, to feed into recommendations for the Ministry of Justice and the judiciary and other relevant bodies.

We’d love to hear from hyperlocal publishers. The session on Saturday, at least, indicated that there might be some divergence from a typical journalistic approach (due to resources and mission of the sites) and it seems sensible to include these views in any discussion going forward.

Please contact me via:

• jt.townend [at] gmail [dot] com (for Meeja Law related inquiries)
• judith.townend.1 [at] city.ac.uk (for open justice project inquiries)
• More information about the open justice initiative at bit.ly/openjustice

Or leave a comment below! Thanks to the organisers, Talk About Local and the online community noticeboard n0tice, for an excellent and thought-provoking day.

One of the first slots of the day at the Talk About Local 2012 (un)conference in Birmingham is on media law, led by David Banks, a specialist in the area, who runs a media consultancy. It’s being live-streamed – a fantastic and free resource for anyone who wants a basic overview of media law for hyperlocal and online bloggers.  So far we’ve run through libel, reporting the courts, and now onto privacy … Follow tweets here.

There was a parallel session on the ‘Hyperlocal Alliance‘ which I missed, but understand that it picked up on the theme of hyperlocal regulation, which I covered in my last post and Damian Radcliffe covered here on the Democratic Society blog.

This weekend I’m very much looking forward to a day in Birmingham at the Talk About Local / N0tice 2012 “unconference”.

My current research project focuses on national newspapers and media law/regulation and I’m keen to extend my view to digital and local news providers.

I’m hoping other TAL12 attendees will be interested in talking about media law and regulation and two key questions:

• Should we regulate the hyperlocal space? If so, how?

• Hyperlocal publishers are already subject to the law of the (global and national) land. How can they best be supported?

It’s something I initially looked at in 2010, the results of which can be found here.
Damian Radcliffe (@mrdamian76) – who until recently worked at Ofcom but is now based in Doha – has addressed the issue of hyperlocal regulation in a post for the Democratic Society blog.

In his view, “where possible, regulation of online hyperlocal media should be avoided”. He struggled to come up with reasons in favour of regulation and instead sets out five arguments for leaving well alone, which deal with: the open internet philosophy; the inapplicability of historic rules of regulation; practicalities; Citizen Smith; innovation. Read them in full here.

Damian’s argument against regulation is persuasive in terms of enforced regulation, but I would welcome more discussion around small-scale (informal?) self-regulation and the benefits that might bring. With the caveat that these are rough, working thoughts up for discussion, here are a couple of comments:

Protection for hyperlocals. He mentions the broadcasting type “two-way contract”. This explains the logic of broadcasting regulation: that broadcasters give something (eg. standards/public service content) in return for spectrum and broadcasting rights. While I accept that such a deal isn’t really applicable to online publishers (we have no need to negotiate hosting space which can be bought outside the UK), but could we think about some other kind of two-way contract? ie. hyperlocals could have recourse to some sort of support or resources (ie. a dispute resolution service, similar to the PCC’s complaints mediation arm) if they abide by certain standards and ‘public interest’ goals? This would not necessarily have to be a mandatory – and certainly not statutory – obligation but could be developed by an independent, non-profit organisation, for example. (Of course, the big question is how it would be funded). I’m not convinced by media ‘accreditation’ schemes as incentives, however.

Codes of conduct. Journal Local founder Philip John raises this issue in the comments underneath Damian’s piece and suggests that publishers could “choose to adopt [a code] specifically for adding credibility”. It’s also something the Media Standards Trust has explored with its Transparency initiative and the Value Added News / hNews  mechanism. They have developed a system of rel-principles, which MST’s Martin Moore describes as “a line of code that embeds a link within each article to the news principles to which it adheres” (these are particular to the news organisation). In response to Philip’s comment, Damian said he supports the idea of self-imposed codes, but he is dubious of the benefit for”external stakeholders”. This is a question worth exploring further. Sure, we don’t want hyperlocals to get bogged down in bureaucracy but perhaps some of form of code that would help strengthen a site’s journalism and communication with users would be a commendable exercise – especially if, as I suggest above, it could give them access to a pool of resources.

Damian previously asked me about my thoughts on hyperlocal media law for his recent report for NESTA on ‘Here and Now – UK hyperlocal media today’ [PDF]. This is from the section on ‘understanding the law’, including my quote in the middle:

“Whatever your platform, another core skill – and one which may not necessarily be obvious – is an understanding of media law. Hyperlocal sites blur the boundaries between journalism and activism, and this can be particularly difficult in terms of media law. For sites written by concerned individuals and community activists, there is a risk of undertaking news reporting which readers – and in particular, public bodies – may take issue with.

‘Big professional news organisations can afford in-house legal advice, which simply isn’t feasible for smaller operations, such as independent local news sites. In 2010 I conducted a small online survey among 71 bloggers and small online publishers, many of whom were in the ‘hyperlocal’ space. The results indicated mixed feelings about resources, with 27 per cent respondents encountering legal trouble in last two years. Of these, 19 online writers who were contacted over a legal matter in the last two years, only seven sought legal advice, which was paid for in four instances. The remaining 12 dealt with it alone…. … without legal help available, bloggers may be less inclined to pursue certain kinds of stories or avenues of investigation.’ Judith Townend, Founder, Meeja Law

“As we can see, the level of legal support for the citizen journalist/reporter is often minimal, if indeed there is any at all. In the US, J-Lab and the Knight Foundation ran a Legal Risk Blog for American citizen journalists, bloggers and social network users, but its usefulness as a tool for UK practitioners is limited. As the sector grows it may be only matter of time before we see the emergence of similar services in the UK.” (Radcliffe 2012. p.23)

I think it would be brilliant to see the “emergence of similar services in the UK”, in the mould of something like the Berkman Center’s Digital Media Law Project in the US. Which leads us to the question of who/how/what …

As I say, these are rough thoughts-in-progress and I hope other people will be interested in joining this discussion on Saturday. I’d love to hear what people actually doing hyperlocal news think.

Cross-posted on the Online Journalism blog.

The journalism class of 2012 has a pretty enviable opportunity to get their stuff out there; the development of online platforms like Twitter, Google+, Storify, Tumblr, Posterous, AudioBoo, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, CoverItLive and Vimeo allows piecemeal dissemination of content to relevant and engaged audiences, without necessarily needing to set up a specific site.

Free technology allows them to find and do journalism outside journalism, in productive and creative ways. To adapt David Carr’s description of Brian Stelter, his browser tab-flicking colleague at the New York Times, we’re seeing the rise of the ‘robots in the basement‘.

While it’s sensible for students to craft and co-ordinate their individual – or group – blog projects, bits and pieces of journalism can be let loose into the world with technological ease – and without waiting for an email from an elusive commissioning editor. You can respond in comments, offer guest posts to relevant online publications, join live webchats – it’s all part of “interactive journalism”. (Although, like the journalists who say all journalism should be investigative, I can’t see how anyone can do journalism without being “interactive”). These tools and platforms aren’t the journalism itself but they enable journalistic research, conversation and content.

Catching the eye of a potential employer is an obvious incentive to engage online (there are the digital stars who shine their way into jobs straight from journalism school – Josh Halliday (Sunderland), Conrad Quilty-Harper (City) and Dave Lee (Lincoln) are among the best-known examples) but experimentation online also helps improve your journalism, as you get live feedback and use the tools to source new information (that doesn’t have to stop once you’ve got the certificate).

City University London launched its Interactive Journalism MA last year and the first intake can be found on Twitter here and are publishing online, across the course curriculum – on their own sites as well as professional platforms. Their newspaper and broadcast colleagues can also be found online (see, for example, this list). I have been working once a week with the Interactive group, better known as the “Interhacktives” – agreeing on the hashtag and site name was one of their first tasks. It caught the attention of OU lecturer Tony Hirst, who depicted their network here.

They have been devising community-oriented journalism, coming up and analysing existing projects, developing content and building up a portfolio of interactive work. As Rosie Niven has noted on her blog, there are potential pitfalls students need to look out for when attempting to interact in the local community and existing online forums. “As well as learning, students and their tutors need to consider legacy,” she points out.

This term, the Interactive students have divided into teams to manage the output of four projects: the Interhacktives site, which tracks social media and community management for journalists; the Data Journalism Blog, a site taken over from a previous student; Islington Now and Hackney Post. The two latter projects will be brought to life during three intensive production weeks, in collaboration with their colleagues on the newspaper course.

The Interhacktives site was particularly lively as they liveblogged, Audioboo’d, and filmed activities at Social Media Week London (#smwldn). Next a couple of them will be blogging and tweeting from the Media Briefing’s conference on paywalls. Obviously, their projects are works in progress (or in beta) – that’s the point – and I’m sure they’d like to hear feedback and suggestions. Likewise, thoughts welcomed on this.

Judith Townend is a journalist, researcher and visiting lecturer at City (@jtownend on Twitter).

“I still can’t get over the feeling that Brian was a robot assembled in the basement of the New York Times to come and destroy me”

New York Times’ David Carr (@carr2n), affectionately describing his browser-flicking colleague Brian Stelter (@brianstelter), ‘Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times’.

The film (2011) neatly captures many of the dilemmas in the newspaper industry: laid-off journalists clearing their desks; editorial meetings about Wikileaks; the limitations of aggregated content sites (at an industry debate David Carr holds up a screenshot of Newser, with holes showing where all the content mainstream media content sat, much to founder Michael Wolff’s chagrin).

The new robots are slowly rising rank in the newsroom, slinging their notebooks and pens aside as they tweet and live blog as a matter of course.

But the new breed are not emotionless automatons: social interactions and the human touch are still at the heart of successful interactive journalism.

That’s what I tried to get across in my talk at Coventry University this week, which borrowed Carr’s description for the title and looked at the possibilities of digital interaction for the dissemination of information in the public interest (which might include what I’ve previously called journalism outside journalism).

New technology enables journalists, researchers and bloggers to challenge mainstream and tired ways of doing news, to make the process and product of journalism more diverse, and to hold powerful organisations accountable. And no, I don’t know how it will be funded.

Afterwards, Coventry lecturer John Mair asked me which five people I’d recommend them to follow. Of course, it completely depends on the students’ specialisms and interests, but five Twitterers I’d recommend for their innovative and exciting approach to journalism include:

• Andy Carvin (@acarvin), Senior strategist at NPR (US)
• Neal Mann (@fieldproducer) Digital News Editor at Sky News (UK)
• Joanna Geary (@guardianjoanna), Guardian’s Digital Development Editor (UK)
• Patrick Smith (@psmith), editor, the MediaBriefing (UK)
• Sarah Hartley (@foodiesarah) MD at Talk About Local; Community strategist at Guardian Media Group (UK)

Here are some of the links and projects I mentioned (in order of appearance):

• Recent research on regional journalists’ pay and redundancies by Francois Nel, University of Central Lancashire

• The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, funded by the Potter Foundation

• Jeff Jarvis on journalism’s myth of perfection and the strength of the blogging process

• Churnalism.com, a Media Standards Trust project

• mySociety’s admirable portfolio of civic projects

• Help Me Investigate network

• ScraperWiki

• ProPublica and Spot.us

• Finalists’ list for the ONA awards 2011

• openDemocracy’s Anthony Barnett on the changing process of journalism

Pic: Arthur40A on Flickr

[I don't maintain this blog very regularly; check out my other site, Meeja Law, for links, posts and resources on media, law and ethics]

Yesterday saw the announcement of Jill Abramson as the New York Times’ first female editor. You might say so what?

But more to the point, why not till now? Former Guardian.co.uk editor Emily Bell could list previous UK national newspaper editors in a tweet, also noting that there used to be a lot of female online editors in the early days.

Actually, there are two in the editor’s chair right now: Tina Weaver at the Sunday Mirror and Dawn Neesom at the Daily Star. And men head the 19 other national daily and Sunday newspaper titles.

I was always amazed when attending media conferences how many male-dominated panels there were – in the top digital, as well as print, jobs.

But let us not forget the first lady of Fleet Street (HT: Adrian Monck), Rachel Beer, who edited the Observer and the Sunday Times in the 1890s.

Anyway, if like me, you’re curious about just how many there have been, see above for a list of UK national newspaper female editors – feel free to edit and add more if I’ve missed any.

My source for the table was Wikipedia and this rather good – and later updated – article in the Guardian by Hadley Freeman.

PS. I don’t blog very regularly on this site anymore – check out Meeja Law for media law and ethics related news and commentary.

Predictably, the panel at last week’s Future of Journalism discussion at the Frontline Club didn’t reach any firm conclusion as to the industry’s path ahead. Mary Hamilton has a good commentary here and BBC College of Journalism has a write-up here. Raymond Snoddy discusses Twitter’s role in the profession here.

My own view is that there are many exciting futures ahead, with the development and increased recognition of digital tools. The economic question is more troubling of course, and while the big media companies may still have pots of money it isn’t always used to support quality journalism. Regional newspaper journalists are feeling that particularly keenly.

When addressing the question of building better quality content, it’s more interesting, I think, to categorise news and commentary by publishers’ aim and style, rather than their chosen media form. Good journalism may be found in things not called journalism. That is to say, a more positive vision for journalism may be seen through mySociety’s range of sites and a multiplicity of open data projects (eg openlyLocal), rather than (some) inward looking newspapers, frequently limited by traditional news formats (eg. finding the case study for the story, rather than the other way around). At a conference I attended later in the week, participants talked about ‘small media’ which helped avoid slipping into that boring and pointless blogger v journalist debate.

In my own field, media law research, I’ve heard people raises concerns with the state of newspaper court reporting and the demise of the legal correspondent. But at the same time, lawyers and legal commentators are reporting and discussing more information online than ever. Sure, legal blogs are funded differently from traditional media organisations, but they’re also part of the future of journalism. (I think all of this links to something a recent POLIS research report calls Networked Journalism).

Anyway, there’s a book out on the whole topic and I’ve written a chapter about Twitter. The book is called ‘Face the Future; Tools for the Modern Media Age’ edited by John Mair and Richard Lance Keeble (Abramis £17.95). This is an opening extract from my bit.

Battle of (t)wits? Using Twitter as a journalistic tool

Judith Townend

Newspapers love to talk about Twitter. A search for the word Twitter in national newspapers returns over 3,000 articles for the past year, too many for the Nexis® UK database to count – 1,696 in one month alone. Twitter has appeared in 900 national newspaper headlines in the last year, while 24 articles in the same period refer to “Twitter twits” (see, for example, the Sun 2010). “Twit” may be a milder term than the one David Cameron chose to describe users of the service (Siddique and Agencies 2009), but it is an unfair label. Generalising about Twitter users is as pointless an exercise as uniformly describing all people who pick up the telephone, or appear on television. Twitter is a communication tool; it is the way it is used that defines whether it is a productive or daft activity. This chapter attempts to show the different ways Twitter is being used by journalists, both effectively and ineffectively, and argues that while Twitter does host a lot of trivial activity by “twits”, it also gives opportunity to create good journalism and enables better communication with the world outside the newsroom.

Part of the process

As Jeff Jarvis has outlined, journalism’s product is not perfect, despite the popular myth, and blogging facilitates “beta journalism” in which writers admit what they don’t know, as well as what they do, and invite collaborations that will help improve their work (Jarvis 2009a). “Online, the story, the reporting, the knowledge are never done and never perfect,” he writes. In his view, that does not mean that bloggers “revel in imperfection” or have no standards:

It just means that we do journalism differently, because we can. We have our standards, too, and they include collaboration, transparency, letting readers into the process, and trying to say what we don’t know when we publish – as caveats – rather than afterward – as corrections (ibid).

Twitter is an ideal tool to use in this “beta journalism” process: it can be used to let readers and followers know what you are looking for, to receive tip-offs and ideas and to publicise your work once it is finished. Some journalists have also experimented with conducting interviews by Twitter (Townend 2009a) although this method has its limitations. Not only is it difficult to express an idea in 140 characters, it can be difficult to co-ordinate the timing of answers and questions and involve onlooker contributions. Newspaper columnists have frequently mocked the limits and triviality of Twitter updates – sometimes before reversing their opinion of the service (cf. Knight 2008 and Johncock 2010). However, the word limit is longer than many news headlines and subheadlines and photo captions. Furthermore, the information contained within one tweet can be far more extensive because hyperlinks to additional content can be included in the message.

An extract from Face the Future; Tools for the Modern Media Age’ edited by John Mair and Richard Lance Keeble (Abramis £17.95).

I’m at SOAS, London at the Small Media Symposium 2011. You can find the programme and more information here. Academics and media practitioners are presenting papers about “small media”, also known as – as the event’s site says – “alternative media”, “participatory media”, and “social movement media”. This Cover It Live should pick up some of the tweets…

Live blog at this link…

Since I covered this issue on my blog at the weekend and I’ve noticed debate springing up elsewhere (Press Gazette / FSB: 1 & 2) I thought I’d post the work placement guidelines that have  just arrived in my inbox from the NUJ. Here’s one part that jumped out:

Placements can be unpaid provided the individual is not a ‘worker,’ as defined by the National Minimum Wage legislation as outlined below. However, work experience placements should be time limited and should not exceed 160 hours, carried out either full-time over a four week period or part-time over a three month period. If the terms of the placement are such that the individual is performing as a ‘worker’, and the placement is not being carried out as part of a further or higher education course, then the National Minimum Wage should be adopted throughout the duration of the placement. In both cases, reasonable and pre-agreed expenses should be reimbursed.

I’ve half followed the debate about unpaid internships and Girish Gupta’s fight against the Indy.

Initially, I couldn’t see how such cases would be successful, given that there’s no contract for payment, and the internships are advertised or offered as such. But the NUJ is bullish. Claim back your cash, it advises me in the latest issue of the mag:

Have you worked as an unpaid intern within the past six years? You could be entitled to claim back the National Minimum Wage, regardless of the terms of your internship agreement.

The National Union of Journalists wants to hear from any former journalism intern who would like legal support from the union to claim unpaid wages.  It could be possible to recover up to £232 per 40-hour week of the internship.

Wow. A quick sum. Before getting paid part and full time jobs in journalism, I did about six or seven weeks on regional newspapers; four weeks at a national; six weeks at a newspaper overseas (air fare and accommodation were paid); and two or three weeks at a broadcaster. 18-20 weeks in all*.

I wouldn’t mind getting £4,176 back now! I probably would have felt more exploited if I’d done longer stretches in one place. While I filed lots of copy in those places, I also benefited from many journalists’ time and help while I was learning/training.

Obviously, I was lucky to be able to do those stints (numerous kind friends/family putting me up in various cities) but I don’t regret the experiences and have been very grateful for the support of some of the journalists/friends I met along the way.

While I can see it’s tempting for ex-interns to go for the Murdochs of this world, these payouts could be devastating for small media companies. So I’m sitting on the fence on this one. The unpaid culture needs to change, but I’m not convinced this is the best way to do it.

It did cheer me slightly (at the same time as boiling my blood) that Tories had paid thousands of pounds for their children to do unpaid internships, as a party fundraiser… Or how about £8,000 to work for free at City AM for a fortnight?**

No thanks!

*{update} looks like any work experience conducted as part of a journalism course would be excluded. Not sure how much of mine falls into that category. Some of the time on the newspapers was obligatory as part of the course, although we arranged it ourselves, and we were also expected to have completed a certain amount of experience before starting the course.

**That last one was for charity Help for Heroes.

This post marks (belatedly) the tenth year anniversary since the Titanic Express Massacre in Burundi.

Ten years have passed since the ill-fated Titanic Express bus was attacked as it travelled from Kigali in Rwanda to Burundi’s capital city, Bujumbura. Twenty-one people were killed including 27 year old British aid worker Charlotte Wilson and her fiance, Richard Ndereyimana, a Burundian teacher.

Amnesty International describes what happened on 28th December 2000:

The attack took place in Bujumbura Rural, a former stronghold of the then armed opposition group, the Palipehutu-National Liberation Forces (Palipehutu-FNL). Those onboard were separated according to their ethnicity. Hutu were released, while Tutsi passengers and one British woman were killed. The Burundian authorities, diplomatic sources and some international organisations have attributed responsibility to the then Palipehutu- FNL. The FNL denies involvement. Ten years later, those responsible have not been investigated and brought to justice.

This devastating event was only one in a series of mass killings during the Burundian civil war, says the human rights organisation. Along with his family, Charlotte Wilson’s brother, Richard, a blogger, author and human rights activist, continues to campaign for justice. On the 10th anniversary of the killings he said:

“Despite repeated promises from Burundi’s government, no serious effort has been made to deliver justice for the 21 victims of the Titanic Express massacre. Tragically, those responsible for Charlotte’s murder have killed many more innocent people over the last ten years, while countless others have died in reprisal attacks, highlighting the deadly consequences of Burundi’s culture of impunity. The Burundians we know tell us that justice can help end the cycle of violence.

“In solidarity with all those who have lost loved ones in this brutal conflict, my family calls on President Nkurunziza to honour the memory of the victims, and move swiftly to establish the Special Chamber and TRC [Truth and Reconciliation Council].”

Amnesty International UK supports this call for the Burundian government to establish the Special Tribunal, and stipulates that such a body should be “mandated to independently investigate and prosecute serious human rights violations without prior referral from the TRC”.

Richard Wilson is also campaigning for the release of journalist Jean-Claude Kavumbagu. He writes on his blog:

Tragically, while the war criminals remain free, one of the Burundian journalists who has done most to highlight the Titanic Express massacre, Jean-Claude Kavumbagu, has been languishing in prison since July. He is facing a criminal trial for “defamation” and “treason” after making critical comments about Burundi’s army.

The Amnesty appeal for Kavumbagu’s release can be found here.

To mark the anniversary of the massacre Richard Wilson conducted a 24 hour ‘Twitterthon’, using Twitter to post messages about Burundi and its recent history every 15 minutes from 1.30pm on the 28th (the time that the attack began) to 1.30pm on December 29th 2010. His Twitter feed can be found here, @dontgetfooled. His aim was to detail human rights reports, expose the ongoing activity of the FNL and call for press freedom in Burundi.

I’m at Coventry University for its annual journalism conference. You can follow on Twitter via the tag #facethefuture, or watch the video afterwards on the BBC College of Journalism (will be up tomorrow). There will also be reports on http://cutoday.wordpress.com/.

I’m going to be speaking about Twitter and its value to journalism, although it seems Alan Rusbridger beat me to it last week…

Liveblog at this link.