Glenda Cooper

2011-10-19T13:47:00.002+01:00

What I've been up to

I've just had a piece published in Global Magazine "Lights, Camera, Public Reaction" about the ongoing relationship between the media and aid agencies.. (you have to register to read it); the magazine has a sidebar as well on Twitter etc.

Or if you want a bit of light relief: this on 1509 and all that: what would have happened if girls could inherit the throne ahead of boys for the Telegraph.

Meanwhile I'm re-reading States of Denial (Stanley Cohen), Reporting War (Stuart Allan) New Media, Old News (Natalie Fenton)

2011-10-04T16:44:00.002+01:00

Back to school

I'm finally back on the blog as I restart my PhD at the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism on social media and reporting disasters. First seminar today. In the meantime I've been reading David Campbell's blog discussing photography and famine.

Campbell comments as follows on our understanding of famine

Few if any of us have direct experience of disasters, so we necessarily rely on mediated knowledge. That means our reality comes through representation. NGO officials understand this. As Don Redding once observed, “the construction of the event (the humanitarian emergency) becomes the event – for the purposes of public opinion and policy flow.”

One of the questions I need to look at then is how social media mediates representations of disaster - is there a difference?

2010-06-09T19:51:00.001+01:00

Twitter and Iran/Disasters and the Media

Interesting piece on the Guardian today saying that Twitter's role in the Iranian protests was overhyped...

Also I've got caught up in a debate on disasters and the media on the ALNAP forums...

2009-12-21T22:32:00.002Z

Woo hoo!

My piece on the blurring of NGOs and news organisations has just gone online at the Nieman Journalism Lab. What a great end to 2009 - and in a week where all my pre-Christmas planning has gone completely awry, a great break....

The Nieman Journalism Lab, a project of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard is running a series on NGOs and the news at the moment so there's plenty of stuff to read there at the moment (and should speed up my next research considerably :)

Totally chuffed.

2009-12-18T10:01:00.002Z

Dispatches from Disaster Zones

I spoke on a panel at the Red Cross's Dispatches from Disaster Zones symposium earlier this week - Charlie Beckett's account here. Our panel was particularly lively thanks to provocative statements from Sam Kiley who wrote the following piece Do starving Africans a favour - don't feed them. He got into a debate with the DEC's Brendan Parry about whether NGOs had been misusing the word famine...it all got rather hot under the collar. Thoroughly good fun.

Meanwhile the Guardian has a really interesting piece here about how Africa is leading the west in terms of mobile phone journalism....

2009-11-30T08:41:00.002Z

Advent resolution

After a bit of a break from blogging due to various life situations getting in the way, I'm hoping to start blogging again on the subject of new media, aid agencies and the like. First a very interesting piece by Charlie Beckett about MSF and multimedia work in the DRC here.

Second - from a month ago there is the special that I contributed to on Al Jazeera English on 25 years since Ethiopia. Great quote from Michael Buerk on why he didn't interview any of those who had come to Korem because they were starving - shows how much times have changed. So for those who inevitably think journalism has got worse, think again. Part one here, and part two (including Buerk) here.

2009-10-19T08:15:00.002+01:00

Holding the aid agencies accountable

Interesting to see that Peter Gill is writing a book on famine reporting 25 years on from the Korem reports. He has done a piece for Media Guardian today reflecting on this - found here. The Dimbleby quote - how many skeletons - is all too believable (although the intro about Michael Buerk made me inadvertently laugh which I don't think was either Gill or Buerk's intention).

Gill puts his finger on it. The IBT's view that we should refuse negative images has its limitations. What is really needed is an examination of what aid agencies have done over the past quarter century. NGOs frequently complain they get a hard time in the media; I would disagree. Frequently they are not examined closely enough at all....

2009-09-09T22:31:00.002+01:00

Distraction - or the future?

Most journalists see user-generated content as a distraction from their real job according to a paper given at the Future of Journalism conference......

Certainly I think Claire Wardle is right that attitudes at the BBC have changed a lot - even from 2007 when the survey was carried out. When I last visited the UGC hub there there was a definite pro-active attitude and eagerness to embrace Twitter, Flickr et al.

2009-09-08T13:28:00.002+01:00

Blurring the lines

Good report in the Times yesterday about Lord May attacking the BBC's decision to drop Planet Relief Day. Although this is about global warming, the issue raised (and the reason why the BBC dropped the idea) is ongoing worries about impartiality - although it's only fair to say the BBC denies this in their response to the Times. Certainly however there has been ongoing criticism from certain sections about the BBC getting involved in big issues like this....and this is the result.

2009-09-06T20:29:00.003+01:00

Red Cross begins lobbying....

Picked up PR Week today to find a hugely interesting article by Kate Magee which reveals that the British Red Cross is setting up its first advocacy department.

Magee writes that this marks 'a radical departure from its long-standing politically neutral stance'. The BRC has hired a senior associate from PR giant Burson Marsteller.

The Red Cross has traditionally eschewed advocacy, preferring to concentrate on providing aid on the ground. But the reality of NGOs in the 21st century is that advocacy is a central part. As Ian Bray of Oxfam told me for my original research 'We don't believe aid changes the world; politics does."

Oxfam and Save the Children have been some of the strongest players in this area - along with Christian Aid which has just launched its Mass Visual Trespass Campaign. All will be nervous however about the BRC's venture into this field: it will be seen as a potential sleeping giant awakening. The BRC has huge reach, influence and will be taken very seriously.

Will this compromise the Red Cross's famous neutrality? The agency has said it will be careful not to by lobbying all parties equally and making sure its campaigns focus on humanitarian consequences rahter than root causes. It'll be a tricky one. A cliche to raise Amartya Sen at this point but it's something that the BRC will have to bear in mind.

2009-08-05T10:38:00.003+01:00

Alagiah in hot water over Fairtrade teabags

Interesting blog from Tony Durham of Action Aid on the BBC making George Alagiah step down from the Fairtrade Foundation. Has got to be about the corporation's sensitivity following criticism of their coverage of Live Earth and the (aborted) plans for a day long strand on climate change....

2009-07-28T16:26:00.001+01:00

How 31-year-olds consume media

Great comeback here to the 15-year-old Morgan Stanley intern....ah it all rings rather too true....I do remember when Mum used to answer the phone with our number....

2009-07-14T12:21:00.001+01:00

Privacy report now online...

here....

And debate with John Lloyd and Anne McElvoy on this week's Media Show is here

2009-07-14T11:55:00.004+01:00

Why I can't recommend BT Vision

I signed up to BT Vision in April this year, after being offered a deal as a longstanding BT customer. However I'm very disappointed.

The programme takes at least three minutes to load every time you switch the TV on - it's like going back to the 1970s waiting for a TV to warm up.

And it has when recording two half hour programmes on the run recorded 3 x 20 minute bursts instead and sometimes lost sound altogether (curiously always on ITV).

On catch-up TV only BBC is free, ITV and C4 you have to pay for.

The saleswoman who signed me up also neglected to set up the direct debit which meant I got stung for a bill of £60 (the processing fee was later refunded by BT after I complained).

All in all it has not been a pleasant experience.

BT refuses to cancel my 12 month contract on the grounds that a) the saleswoman did not mention catch-up TV in the call and b) I can get some service on BT Vision therefore it can't be cancelled on the grounds I get no service at all.

I'm sure they are absolutely correct that I cannot cancel BT Vision under the wording of my contract. But given the difficulties I've had with the service, the frustrations of getting it to work and failing, I'm afraid that I can't recommend it to anyone else.

2009-07-13T20:20:00.002+01:00

Going public on privacy - ET and sadomasochism

So today after a year in the writing, the report that I wrote with Stephen Whittle is finally published by the Reuters Institute, in which we argue that privacy has been fundamentally changed by the net, that there needs to be a stronger definition of public interest and that the PCC should be brought into line with Ofcom. There is a piece in Media Guardian today focusing mainly on the aftermath of the News of the World hacking story and we also made Reuters, Press Gazette, and PA in which I am quoted as follows....

"The person who believes in flying saucers or is conducting a sado-masochistic relationship may be a council officer or a department store manager. But this cannot be presumed to affect their behaviour in their job.

"There is no prima facie public interest in extra-terrestrial believers or in sado-masochists."

So there you have it.

There is an event to launch the report later in the month at the Frontline Club where various luminaries will be assembled.....see here

2009-06-24T22:34:00.002+01:00

Blog off?

Charles Arthur on how the long tail of blogging is dying....

Certainly that seems to be true. It's much easier to tweet than commit to a blog unless you've got something that has to be said in depth.

Meanwhile John Naughton is more optimistic for print journalists.....

2009-06-23T21:27:00.001+01:00

Twitter vs CNN

Interesting piece from the Telegraph looking at news out of Iran and the pluses/minuses of citizen journalism...

2009-06-19T16:35:00.002+01:00

Gordon Brown: the internet is changing foreign policy

In an interview with the Guardian, the PM says that foreign policy can no longer be down to a few elites as the Twitter revolution in Iran has shown over the past few days....

In regards to humanitarian crises he claims:

"You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken.

"Foreign policy can no longer be the province of just a few elites."

I'll be interested to see if that is correct; the cynical would say Sri Lanka, Darfur etc have still happened despite the growth of the world wide web.

In other news Google and Facebook are rolling out Farsi services in the aftermath of Iran

2009-06-17T10:17:00.002+01:00

The revolution will not be televised....

it will be coming to you via YouTube, Flickr and mobile phones....

See BBC story here

Plus see Guardian story here

2009-06-16T08:55:00.004+01:00

Iran cont'd

Today reports on the importance of blogging/Twitter/Facebook in the Iranian election aftermath....Turi Munthe points out the second language on the web is Farsi.....points out that we are only hearing a self-selecting constituency - Western

It takes a few days for social networks to be up and running he points out.

Follow the hashtag #iranelection as the best on Twitter

Also some pictures out of Iran - thanks once again to Richard Sambrook....

PS The US state dept gets involved- although at time of writing Twitter appears to be down for maintenance

2009-06-15T20:00:00.002+01:00

Iran and the media

Just been watching the extraordinary scenes in Iran - amazing stuff. On C4 News as Charlie Beckett points out, Lindsay Hilsum had to have her track voiced by someone else although she later managed to do a live with Jon Snow. On Twitter Stephen Fry has been listing functional proxies.

There are striking pictures here - although Getty and AP not UGC...

2009-06-14T22:27:00.002+01:00

Putting it all together...

Thanks to Richard Sambrook for linking to this on Twitter - this is Mashable's guide to tracking the Iran election with social media....just what I've been looking for for the next piece of research I'm thinking of doing.....(if the link doesnt work then try http://mashable.com/2009/06/14/new-media-iran/)

2009-05-28T11:20:00.002+01:00

Back to basics

As Dr KP has pointed out this blog has been moribund for over three months. I plead guilty to

a) having a baby

b) getting obsessed with Twitter

c) having to finish a 20,000 word report for the Reuters Institute

The combination of the three has not left a huge amount of time for blogging (and I am wondering whether it is superseded by Twitter anyway)

Anyway this week I submitted From their own correspondent? to RISJ - it now goes through an internal review before going to the editorial committee so not likely to be seen for some months. Also waiting on the Annenberg book to which I contributed a paper to be published

Meanwhile I am trying to put together my next proposal. But decided to give myself a day off first as its sunny and a small child wants to go to the park for an icecream (well technically speaking I think that is what small child wants....)

2009-01-30T11:15:00.002Z

DEC: was the BBC right all along?

Very good piece by Dan Sabbagh in the Times about why the corporation was right to say no to the Gaza appeal....

Much later....

Meanwhile, my analysis of the Katine project has made it online.......

2009-01-28T22:30:00.002Z

The DEC rolls on....

Good piece by Keith Dovkants in the Standard which recounts the recent problems for the BBC and Israel in the past.....

Also AP is now reporting that the IAEA head has refused to do an interview with the BBC in protest at the BBC's refusal to do the Gaza appeal.

2009-01-27T09:23:00.002Z

More DEC....

Good account of what has been going on for the last week here in the Guardian......

2009-01-26T21:19:00.003Z

DEC cont'd...

The DEC row rolls on, becoming increasingly bad-tempered in parts.

There is an interesting line tucked away in Patrick Foster's account in the Times this morning in which it appears correspondence between DEC chief exec Brendan Gormley and the BBC has been leaked. Cui bono?

It says that Gormley wrote to the BBC on the 13 January admitting little of the aid would go to Israel and thus "this state of affairs would conflict with the BBC's editorial need to be impartial".

I'm wondering however in what context these words appear because it would seem unlikely to me the DEC would continue to push the BBC for an appeal if they had accepted the BBC would be unlikely to consider one. Particularly in the light of the problems over the 2006 Lebanon appeal that never happened where impartiality was a key issue, mainly because the original idea for the appeal had included Gaza as well.

It's also interesting that Sky has come out late in the day saying it won't run the appeal either.

The appeal itself I think is different to the usual, where different personalities depending on the channel 'front' the appeal. The version I saw on Channel 4 was only footage and no one on screen voicing it.

It also seems there is no one who hasn't written a piece on this. Interesting stuff from Martin Bell on the crisis of confidence at the BBC -and also Iain Martin in the Telegraph on the truth about covering the Middle East if you are a news organisation.

Re Iain Martin's piece, this is the elephant in the room that Mark Thompson refused to address in his Today interview: the rules are different when it comes to the Middle East. Or as one person said to me 'it seems when it comes to appeals set in politically contentious situations, Africa, there's no problem, Asia be more careful and Middle East - forget it'

(PS It's also worth noting that while there has been a lot of criticism of the BBC publicly from journalists, politicians and humanitarians, a majority of comments on the Times forum appear to support the BBC's stance.)

2009-01-24T17:12:00.003Z

The BBC and the DEC

Hugely interesting to see the fallout over the BBC's refusal to broadcast a DEC appeal for Gaza

It seems the BBC has form in this area. In 2006, the DEC wanted to set up an appeal for Lebanon; at that time the BBC and other broadcasters turned down the ask, as the Guardian reported at the time (it's worth noting that the other broadcasters said they did agree with the BBC on that occasion compared to this time where Sky for one basically passed the buck by saying the DEC appeal could not be launched if everyone did not agree and as the BBC had taken that decision then it was out of their hands).

It is also worth remembering that the Balen Report of 2004 into the BBC's coverage of the Middle East was said to have been prompted by criticism of anti-Israeli bias. The BBC is in an unenviable position.

There are three criteria that have to be met for a DEC appeal: if it is large and urgent enough; if help can get in to whichever area is to be the subject of the appeal and if there is enough public awareness.

The BBC has talked about the need for political impartiality and sensitivity; the issue as its critics have pointed out is that many DEC appeal do end up dealing with areas where there are political dimensions; the Darfur appeal, or the Burma appeal. Perhaps the message is that some places are more impartial and sensitive than others.

2009-01-18T22:42:00.003Z

Sometimes....

I've been offline for a long time but one of my new resolutions is to be back (another is to use up small coins)...And curiously since my last posts are concerned with Obama this is what my first one of 2009 is about.

I won't name the poet who wrote this poem as she hates what she calls "the dreaded Sometimes" and no longer allows it to be anthologised although she allows it on personal blogs. But I think it's apt, and given that D has just told me off about getting overexcited about the inauguration, it's time to think that maybe things will not turn out as badly as the pessimists think:

Sometimes things don't go, after all,

from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel

faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail.

Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,

elect an honest man, decide they care

enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.

Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go

amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.

The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow

that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.

2008-11-13T08:23:00.001Z

From bitchiness to disasters...

This is what I spent part of my day doing yesterday - reliving teenage hell - and this is what I'll be doing this afternoon for Polis at the LSE....

2008-11-05T12:47:00.004Z

Were you still up for Ohio?

Went to bed but with the radio on and woke up to hear Obama's acceptance speech. Have to say it made me cry a bit.

Best moments on TV - Dimbleby completely losing control of Schama and Bolton. Schama trying to make the BBC call it; Bolton getting into slanging match with Katty Kay and then demanding Rajesh Mirchandani be sacked...(it was a pretty rubbish interview and too combative that Mirchandani did but Bolton was really frothing at the mouth...)

Forgot to mention - Burger King and Subway were the food outlets of choice at the Embassy last night. Spotted - George Robertson and George Osborne's PR (in different rooms I hasten to add)

Ps Courtesy of the Guardian - I missed Maureen Dowd on the BBC but love these two quotes. First on John McCain's fundamental problem...

"In a way it reminds me of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. The Republican Family did not let John McCain marry the girl that he wanted to which was Joe Lieberman so he married the younger, fashion-interested girl that they chose for him. It fell apart and the two camps began sniping at each other and now McCain just wants to get back to Lieberman."

And second, when asked by Paxo how historic the night was:

"The first 16 presidents of this country could have owned Barack Obama"

2008-11-05T02:37:00.002Z

So...just heard Ohio has been called for Obama...Just back from the US Embassy complete with cheerleaders outside, where it seemed likely (the lifesize cardboard cut-outs of Obama and Palin were being grabbed so people could have their photos taken with them; McCain's was left propped up against the wall....*) and a huge cheer went up when Pennsylvania was called for Obama

Spotted: Ian Paisley, Margaret Beckett, Hazel Blears, Chris Huhne in black tie, Nick Robinson, Andrew Rawnsley (wearing a Charles Tyrwhitt tie); Nick Robinson (bad shoes), Mark Thompson (wearing the same jacket as he did on the Andrew Marr show; obviously cutbacks already at the BBC), Janet Street Porter (shouting), Zeinab Badawi (taking two icecream canapes at once), Lembit Opik lurking outside the media centre

Downstairs Glenn Tillyard was reprising Squeeze's greatest hits - although difficult to see how Up the Junction relates to the election; and a disastrous attempt at Perfect Day (NB never get drunken US embassy guests to try to sing Lou Reed ex tempore) - although it was worth it at the end when Tillyard kept asking "Ian Paisley...come up here if you're here"

A poor woman dressed in droopy eau de nil as the Statue of Liberty was still holding the torch high (literally - must have biceps of steel) by 2am

*Actually cant even remember if Biden was there....

2008-11-04T21:36:00.001Z

Overexcited and over here

Have read every single Telegraph, Guardian, BBC update....wish I was over in the US - but about to head out for the next best place....

2008-10-30T09:52:00.001Z

The Ross/Brand controversy....

Matt passes judgement....

2008-10-23T22:39:00.004+01:00

I Know What You Did Last Summer...

Robert Shrimsley in the FT's take on the Osborne-Mandelson-Rothschild-Deripaska affair is well worth reading....

As is Garland's cartoon right...

What I don't understand was when did Corfu get so hot? I still thought it was meant to be an embarrassing throw back from the 1980s. Shows what I know..

Meanwhile here is a take on what it was like to be at Oxford in the 1990s.....ah happy days.

2008-09-22T23:46:00.002+01:00

What do you reckon?

Will post about LSE Media Communication and Humanity Conference tomorrow as I came home and carried on finishing off my chapter on privacy for the RISJ....lots of discussion, and I was especially interested about John Ellis on mundane witnessing, Barbie Zelizer on "about to die" images and Mirca Madianou on shame and the media.

But the best moment of the day has to be the beginning of the panel which I was on organised by Henrik Ornebring, whose paper with Annamaria Jonsson Tapper began with Mitchell and Webb's deconstruction of user generated content - the funniest (and sadly accurate) account I've seen. So worth watching....

2008-09-07T16:03:00.002+01:00

It's Sunday - so it must be LSE

Still finishing off my preparations for the Media Communications and Humanity conference at LSE later this month - and importantly waiting to see how Ushahidi.com does in the Knight-Batten Awards due to be announced on Tues. They won the NetSquared Mashup challenge, have just announced big new funding so I'm guessing they have a pretty good chance...I'm guessing I won't be the only one talking about them at the conference somehow....

Meanwhile another thought provoking post from Dan Gillmor on 'almost journalism' that I've just come across....

2008-09-06T20:46:00.003+01:00

There's something about Sarah....

Much excitement about Sarah Palin this week, and much comment; this piece by Anne Applebaum I particularly enjoyed because it considers whether Palin is indicative that the Hillary Clinton era is over.

The move from early feminist to post-feminist is an interesting one; the idea that we are now ushering in high profile female politicians who were not the ones who had to fight to be allowed to go to university, to be the doctor rather than the nurse, the director rather than the secretary does indicate a sea change....

But there is still a long way to go. Criticism of Palin this week and the unease about her from many women commentators made me think about the frequent whisper during the Democrat primaries from women saying that they wanted a woman president - just did it have to be Hillary? The same is being said of Palin....That glass/concrete ceiling -no matter how important the 18m cracks are - will only finally be broken when we can describe our distaste for Palin, Clinton or whoever down to them as individuals or their party not their gender........

PS one last thought. Much furious comment on whether Palin should be running for Veep despite having a baby with Down's Syndrome. I look forward to similar debates about the suitability of both Gordon Brown and David Cameron to run this country.....oh, no, there hasn't been any has there....? Is this because we take disability in our stride in the UK - or is it because they are both men?

2008-09-04T13:04:00.002+01:00

Gustav v Bihar

A provocative blog in the Telegraph today saying that Bihar could be India's Katrina....there has certainly been small coverage of the floods in India here too - there was some media criticism of the BBC's Damian Grammaticus's report where he took a place on one of the overcrowded boats rescuing those stranded - an age-old debate over how to report in such situations.

I couldn't find anything about Bihar on Global Voices surprisingly but I did find this rather intriguing post on Big Brother Africa III

2008-09-03T12:45:00.003+01:00

Thinking aloud....

Have sent off the rewrite of the novel; currently knee deep in disasters and new media again ahead of the LSE conference in a couple of weeks....(nearly finished honest Henrik)

So I'm thinking disasters and aid and money (thanks to Charlie Beckett's blog from Harvard) plus Susan Moeller's paper at the same conference, and Burma (Charlie again) plus an event at the Brookings Institution last year. Plus WFP's account of Mr Sokor and the mobile phone.

In the meantime, here is the ALNAP report

2008-08-26T10:55:00.002+01:00

Paxman, Blyton and a nun's beauty contest

I took time off from privacy to write a short, intended-to-be-mischievous piece about Paxo's lament for the middle-class white male for the Telegraph yesterday.

Inamidst gags about underpants and the BBC's policy on curly hair, I was rightly taken to task by one of the commentators on the Telegraph website for pointing out I have a picture of me with straightened hair on this website.

Mark Culley you are right - that's how deeply the BBC affected me that I still straighten my hair to this day.....But that's another piece

2008-08-18T11:53:00.002+01:00

Kafka, a hedgehog and privacy

I've written a column for the Telegraph today making reference to this new report I am co-authoring for Ofcom and RISJ. In the piece I debate our changing ideas of what is private and what is not with reference to the author of Metamorphosis and his savings book.

2008-06-27T12:23:00.002+01:00

Sorry I have been absent for so long.

I have been working more or less full time and dashing around - to Sex and the City, to Madrid - where I was a key note speaker for the ALNAP conference - and which I have blogged about for AlertNet - see link here. And also thinking about football and weddings.

I've also started work on co-authoring a report into privacy - of which more to come...

I was interested to read Mark Lawson's piece in Media Guardian here - he is talking about the MoD practice of filming military funerals and the restrictions that places on the story. Plus Megan Rowling's blogs for AlertNet from Aceh

And I am very guilty for my lack of blogging. Will redeem myself forthwith.....

2008-05-22T19:40:00.002+01:00

Burma, China continue....

I missed this gem from the Guardian the other day about the broadcasters squabbling over their takes on the disasters. Interesting, in between the insults that they are throwing at each other, Jon Williams of the BBC talks about "throwing money" at these two stories.

2008-05-21T07:39:00.003+01:00

Comment is free.....

I had the pleasure of being asked to write for the Guardian's CiF site yesterday about the media coverage of Burma and China - you can find the piece here. It was interesting for me to sit down and think why these disasters are still in the news, when other disasters - Hurricane Stan, the Java mudslides, the Peruvian earthquake in the past - have not done so; and what we can learn from this in order to improve reporting in future.

It was also interesting - and instructive - to read the comments. Several seemed to think I was against disaster reporting; not my intention, what I am concerned about is how to sustain good humanitarian reporting in future.

However I was particularly struck by one by Liuzhoukaf who pointed out that it was wrong to say that there had been little citizen journalism from China and Burma; that there had been in China and if it had not been recognised in the West then that was because it was in Chinese. S/he makes a good point; I was thinking in terms of the British media (which used 5 mins of UGC video at News at Ten on Monday which I mentioned at the top of the piece) and did not make that clear enough.

Of course as mentioned earlier there are claims that news of the earthquake broke on Twitter. Perhaps in writing the piece quickly I did not make it clear as it should have been. With Burma the situation is slightly different; as one producer said to me 'the cyclone succeeded where the junta failed' - the huge amount of UGC we saw after the protests last year has not been repeated because of sheer logistics, and power failures. But as Roland Buerk reported, DVDs are now on sale in Rangoon of film of the cyclone and there have been examples - particularly on Global Voices and the BBC of people trying to get the stories out. But due to the sheer devastation there has been less.

I can't finish this post however without mentioning Jay73's verdict

"I have only read Glenda's profile and the headline of this article so all I know at the moment is that she specialises in crap titles for things and looking scarily intense in photographs."

Hahahaha. Too true (although I didn't write the headline in this case). The sad thing is, as anyone who's met me knows, I look scarily intense in real life as well.

2008-05-19T11:36:00.002+01:00

More Burma/China thoughts

Kim Fletcher on the difficulties of reporting the two disasters in Media Guardian and Jeff Jarvis on how Twitter broke the news of the Chinese earthquake. Plus - something I'd missed - a BBC apology for using old tsunami footage.

2008-05-18T22:09:00.005+01:00

Merlin's wizardry? Burma and the new journalism

I've just watched the most extraordinary edition of the Ten O'Clock News tonight for two reasons. First of a 20 minute bulletin 7 minutes was given over to both Burma and China; this, so many days on is a significant percentage of a bulletin; agencies have worked hard to keep both in the news. Both stories defy the usual rules of disaster reporting; for a domestic audience like the UK these are faraway countries (although there is a significant Chinese diaspora here, and a historical legacy with Burma). Even so, for a third of a bulletin to be devoted to disasters that happened more than a week ago is unusual.

Second one or other of them should be in the news; not both. Jonathan Benthall in Disasters, Relief and the Media quoted a French newscaster as calling it the "funnel" effect - that emotion can only be channeled one way at one time. I call it the Mother Teresa Death syndrome; the nun who toiled in Calcutta could have expected huge swathes of news print dedicated to her achievements; nstead because she died on the eve of Diana Princess of Wales's funeral, the queen of nuns was elbowed out by the queen of hearts.

However, both have survived. Part is luck: there are no other running foreign stories. Part is the interesting problems both throw up: the debate over whether Burma should be forced to accept aid on one side versus China's 'openness' compared to previous occasions. Part is hard work by the aid agencies to ensure the story stays in the public domain.

In the meantime the most vivid exposition of this is the lead story on the Ten tonight; using pictures from Labutta shot by the aid agency Merlin to give an idea of the devastation in the delta. This is the original 2'47 package from Jonathan Pearce of Merlin from which these pictures are taken is there.

I have written in the past about the blurring of lines between aid agencies and journalists and chaired a debate about this at the Red Cross's Dispatches from Disaster Zones. Let me begin by saying that the BBC in this case flagged up in the cue these were Merlin's pictures, astoned them and then in the script reiterated the fact these were aid agencies pictures. No one can fault them there.

What was interesting was that the majority of the package (I'll have to watch it again to get timings) narrated by the BBC's Andrew Harding was Merlin's pictures with what appeared to be a piece to camera by Jonathan Pearce (again clearly astoned) which I haven't seen before. Again I would have to check but in the original package Pearce is in an edit suite, whereas in the BBC package they use shots of him in the field. There is also an interview with Dr Sean Keogh (I presume by Pearce) in the Ten package. There was also what appeared to be shots of Mark Malloch Brown; whether that was Reuters/agency pix or also done by Merlin (I'm presuming the former, as that was not astoned; the words appear to be from the Andrew Marr interview)

I'd like to watch it again before coming to firm conclusions - as I say given the hard time I've given broadcasters in the past for not labelling footage correctly, the BBC could hardly have mentioned Merlin more. (I'm not sure where Harding was, but scripting to news agency pictures is common practice) But it's interesting to see how an aid agency can make the lead item of the Ten and the quality of broadcast filming they are now producing. Technology is finally meaning that aid agencies have the ability to do what they have wanted to do for some times.

2008-04-28T20:18:00.001+01:00

Aid agencies and the media cont'd

ReliefWeb's verdict on the DfDZ debate at the Frontline.....

2008-04-23T20:27:00.002+01:00

May 1st....

The only mayoral debate that counts

2008-04-17T14:46:00.004+01:00

Aid workers and the media - a match made in hell?

So, to the Frontline Club this Tuesday for the latest Dispatches from Disaster Zones events organised by the Red Cross (I'm part of the DfDZ task force). This was entitled as above, and certainly the er spirited nature of the debate at times seemed to be nearer hell than heaven.
Those taking part in the debate were Bill Neely of ITN, Greg Barrow of WFP, Dominic Nutt of SCF (disclaimer:my husband) and Martyn Broughton of AlertNet.
What was interesting was when it wasn't the media who were accused of sensationalising things for once; Broughton pointed out that an "awful triage" exists in NGO press offices just as in newsrooms in considering stories. Marc du Bois of MSF raised the question of whether humanitarian organisations were soemtimes tempted to fund projects that were media friendly (in my view that was certainly the case in the tsunami when very many NGOs flocked towards building houses) and Neely pointed out an AlertNet weekly bulletin sent to journalists talking about stories concerning flesh-eating diseases that, he said had a "Daily Star" ring to them (AlertNet via Megan Rowling rebutted this)
What I found interesting in particular was Broughton's point that UGC could hold aid agencies to account in a way that hadn't been done before. And Barrow's assertion that maybe agencies were too obsessed by the media that it often wasn't "make-or-break" to get in the press/on TV as most projects would still be funded.
Oh and thanks to Bill Neely for mentioning my research! At least I know one person has read it now....

2008-04-05T10:27:00.003+01:00

Desperately Seeking Boris

The press pack have found Boris Johnson elusive in these last few weeks as the mayoral election draws closer. Neil Tweedie skewers the Johnson campaign in a piece* that made me cry with laughter

*but sadly that I didnt commission or edit

2008-04-02T17:23:00.002+01:00

Will the revolution be televised?
I've been blogging on the Telegraph website today about how those inside Zimbabwe see the situation there. In fact that explains partly the silence on this blog, I have been writing for the Telegraph's society blog, when not writing about Mme Sarkozy (senior).
However I've also been working hard on my research - am due to give a talk at the Red Cross and also perhaps at a conference in June which is very exciting. I came across Nalaka Gunawardene's new book on reporting disasters. I have spoken and emailed with Nalaka but missed out on seeing him in Sri Lanka last year - our schedules did not collide.

2008-03-14T23:29:00.002Z

Six of the best minutes of television...

I've seen in a long time; the last six minutes of Ashes to Ashes last night....as Helen Rumbelow says in the Times: pulls off the seemingly impossible: and after 28 years makes Ultravox's Vienna sound meaningful.

Been in Crewe; thoughts on aid agencies to follow after this temporary diversion...

2008-03-11T11:43:00.002Z

Grand Sam, Liverpool and on the Frontline.....

Apologies for radio silence, I have been up north with the boys in blue (talking to them about media rather than helping them with their inquiries I hasten to add...)
Today, I'm back in the pages of the Telegraph writing about Samantha Morton..... and recovering from the Liverpool half marathon last week (1hr 53 according to my stopwatch personal best know you were dying to ask) . But made me think while I was puffing my way around Sefton Parkto the tune of Christina Aguilera’s Fighter (what is it about running that any sophisticated music taste goes?) and it made me think: how does a place’s culture affect the race?
I’ve run races in London, Newcastle and Liverpool now. Newcastle – the Great North Run – is brash and tough, but with a soft centre; locals stand on the side of the road offering drinks and sweets, determined that no one from Middlesborough will not say that they don’t treat their runners right.
In London when I ran the Nike 10k it seemed full of overachieving young Londoners who were ticking off yet another life experience to put on the CV. But then find yourself in the dippy hippy enclave of Victoria Park for the Rainforest Alliance Run and you splash through the mud in a rather disorganised way to save the planet, no chance of an ecological sound T Shirt.
And then there’s Liverpool, which I’ve run two years now. It falls on the same day as Reading ends up rather like the Tranmere Rovers to Reading’s Everton. Last year it was all the things that I love about Liverpool and simultaneously make me want to bang my head on my desk: great atmosphere, great camaraderie and disorganisation - ie the water ran out, there were no free T shirts and residents whinged that they didn’t want runners passing in front of their houses.
This year they’d sorted the water, the T-Shirts and re-routed the 13.1 miles. Still at the start there was a delay. The Century FM DJ told the thousands assembled that they had to wait as someone had parked their car on the course.
Only in Liverpool.
Finally the Frontline Club in New York held this really interesting event - the News Carers last month that I have just discovered. The video should be downloaded in the next week or so. Glad to hear this is now being debated across the Atlantic as well.

2008-03-04T08:32:00.002Z

Lecture online

My Nuffield Lecture is now available on the Nuffield website - listed under Working Papers. Or you can see it via my page on the Reuters Institute site....

2008-02-27T20:44:00.002Z

In other news...

And the latest on user generated content by Neil Thurman and flagged up by Adrian Monck

2008-02-27T20:30:00.004Z

Bernard Tabaire

A reminder about the fragile nature of press freedom around the world today. The Reuters Institute is reporting that one of last year's fellows Bernard Tabaire, whom I had the good fortune to sit and discuss my research with, has been charged with "defamation" back home in Uganda. There is also more information on John Kelly's blog and Henrik Ornebring's blog has Bernard's account in his own words.

2008-02-25T21:36:00.002Z

Reuters et al....

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has my new biog up there - rather more serious than my blog one you may find. Are these two people related? I think we should be told.

Last week I read something in a newspaper that genuinely taught me something new. The Guardian ran a series on Susan Faludi's new book The Terror Dream on the aftermath of 9/11. In an interview with Decca Aitkenhead and then three extracts, Faludi talked about the ideas that had grown up after 9/11 - the heroic male image, the mom and apple-pie return, the treatment of the 9/11 widows.... intriguing, thought provoking and taught me several new things.

The power of the media to create myths (my own field the tsunami 'orphan' is a particular potent one, when all statistics show that in fact far more children and women died in the wave) is something that we fall victim to, whether serious or less so. I was particularly amused to read somewhere in a newspaper today (brain gone blank, cant remember where) about TV reporters fanning out the night the Queen Mum died in the hope of silent cinemas, clubs etc showing respect for the Nation's Matriarch. When they found the ungrateful populace drinking enjoying themselves as usual it was immediately recast as the Blitz spirit....

2008-02-19T07:41:00.008Z

Facing up to Facebook

Having predicted doom and gloom for aid agencies who are turning to social networks (sort of), I was inundated with emails defending Facebook's relevance in 2008 and now comes a report from the Centre for Policy Studies (see disclosure below) that analyses how it will force politicians to be more open. Robert Colvile's theory (headline grabbing stat: the BNP's website has the same market share as all of the other major political parties combined) is that so far politicians in this country have failed to take advantage of the web, which will prove just as revolutionary to politics as TV and radio did in the 20th century.

His argument is that technology transformed politicians from masters of rhetoric (Gladstone, Pitt commanding the Houses of Parliament) to communicators able to project an intimate image on television (Wilson, Thatcher, Blair).

Web 2.0 and its successors means this will change again: politicians won't worry so much about facing down Paxo as being more responsive, more interactive - and more open, due to Google's ability to keep on record previous remarks/policies that may come back to haunt them (although the Sunday Times reports there are already companies working on cleaning up your internet profile; useful for those who may fear Facebook indiscretions could stymie them).

Aid agencies could certainly consider these lessons. How to target appeals in future; will the old style DEC still work? Probably for the tsunami style natural disasters, but not so much for the long term chronic ones.....how they will be put under pressure even more quickly if they fail to deliver (those guerilla aid workers were keen on blogging). And whether they, like politicians, will be put under pressure from activists - Facebook already has groups criticising Amnesty's abortion policy.

*Disclosure: I sit opposite Robert when I work in the Telegraph and he has been known to buy me cups of tea and vice versa.

Lent update: These are the things I now really want to buy currently and can't: a stopwatch that means I can change tracks on my iPod while running (I didn't even know such a thing existed until a week ago, but now am convinced it will change my life); the DVDs of Cold Feet after reading a James Nesbitt interview in the Observer; tracksuit bottoms with a mobile phone pocket in them (so I can call my brothers to jeer at the end of the Liverpool half marathon in two weeks); a copy of Fateful Choices, by Ten Decisions that Changed the World by Ian Kershaw. I feel this attempt to combat consumerist thoughts isnt really working.

2008-02-17T21:01:00.002Z

Reporter Within Borders

Lent (only buying what you need instead of what you want) is really biting now; I found a piece in the Mail on Sunday about a woman who did this for a year profoundly depressing. And yesterday I took my godchild to buy a birthday present, to Borders to buy her whatever book she wanted.

The problem was this meant I had to go into a bookshop and not buy anything for myself; equivalent to the shopaholic going past Primark blindfolded. D danced round in front of me pushing dustjackets in my face, rather as I imagine a pusher dangles wraps of cocaine in front of an addict. Pig.

I read ALL the children's books to them in the Starbucks cafe. This really is getting desperate if you read Dr Dog*, Little Miss Magic and More Pants just to get round the need/want Lent problem.

*Do not read Dr Dog unless you have a strong stomach. Or are obsessed with intestinal worms.

2008-02-16T08:50:00.003Z

A Woman's Place...is in the wrong?

The Guardian reported yesterday that Ashes to Ashes had lost a million viewers for its second episode, and the biggest debate seems to be over the character of DI Alex Drake. Keeley Hawes, as Helen Rumbelow puts it in the Times, the new series has divided viewers as sharply as the miners' strike or the disbanding of Wham! did in the real life 1980s.

The problem was that in Life on Mars, Sam Tyler was portrayed as a nice bloke with a lovely mum who found himself back in time. His 'niceness' made us like Gene Hunt's complete unpolitical correctness more. The writers with Ashes to Ashes have attempted something more tricky; made Drake a knowing, irritating heroine who has defects as a mother (well I think it's pretty bad form to take your daughter along to a hostage situation) and who - aha - had a dysfunctional relationship with a mother who looks the spit of Edwina Currie (surely the problems Alex faces are all apparent now).

Alex "Hello constructs" Drake I can put up with; what is interesting is that it affects the rest of the cast. The sexism that was apparent in LoM has a nastier side in A2A because Tyler as New Man isn't there to counterpoint it; the writers no doubt justify the snooker ball scene, Rupert Graves shagging on the sofa and stamping Alex "Property of the Met" on the backside as part of Alex's id (in fact they made her explicitly say it) but there is a nastier tone. Ray Carling was always the dodgiest of the three but he has turned into Finbarr Saunders with a perm; Chris Skelton has gone from being sweetly naive about women to a repulsive lech. And Gene Hunt - well - he looks rather lost.

I am hoping this will turn out to be a witty and perceptive take on how women have moved forward since the decade that first saw a woman in power; that the darker tone reflects a deeper deconstruction of the materialist girl decade. But at the moment there aren't as many laughs. And they're still avoiding tackling racism.

Talking of materialist girls however, I am sorely sorely tempted however to buy a T-shirt that says "A woman's place is in the White House". I don't even support Hillary but it made me laugh a lot. The problem is with Lent rolling on til March, and Obama's victories rolling on, if I wait until Easter Sunday it may be far too late.....

2008-02-13T07:46:00.002Z

What do women want?

Over the last century sociologists, feminists, anthropologists have all tried to answer Freud's frustrated question. However, a quick peek in cardboard boxes at Paradise Rd, Richmond, south London suggest they may have overlooked a particularly interesting repository: the Mills and Boon archive.

2008-02-12T13:59:00.000Z

RUOK, the death of Facebook and Gene Hunt, plus Lent, not borrowed

First things first: I have just been sent a paper on how people use blogs in times of crisis called RUOK. Havent had time to read and analyse it yet myself but will return to it soon. I'm very grateful so far for those who received my lecture who've taken the time to comment on it. (And no I still haven't worked out how to put the PDF version here but I hope it will end up on the Nuffield website soon).

Second I have been thinking a lot about social networking given so many aid agencies are increasingly turning to Facebook, MySpace and Bebo to promote their messages. I joined Facebook at Nuffield before it was thrown open and did little. Then everyone could join and my summer turned into a mass of poking, superwalling, status updating and adding photos. There have been increasing numbers of negative articles about Facebook recently - particularly this one from the Guardian. The truth is - as Richard Sambrook once mused in his status update - is the tumbleweed now blowing through the 2007 sensation. Is it - dare it be said - turning into Friends Reunited; once equally must have and now reduced to sending emails reminding you of its existence.
Last week I conducted a small unscientific yet rather telling experiment. If 2007 was the year of Facebook, it was also the year of Gene Hunt with the second series of Life on Mars. The sequel - Ashes to Ashes which began last Thursday was much anticipated.
Because of a feature I was helping out on at the Telegraph I got hold of a copy of A2A a day earlier. And in irritating fashion I immediately updated my Facebook status to say I was watching A2A right then. Obviously partly to annoy people; but also to see how many people were still checking Facebook.
The results were as follows: one person emailed me mid Thurs to see if his friend who was playing the clown had a big part.
Conclusion:
1. Facebook is over (if so, bad news for the aid agencies who think social networking could be the answer)
2. Gene Hunt is over (bad news for the BBC who have pinned so much on A2A)
3. I have no friends anymore (bad news for me)
I think it may be a combination of all three.

Finally Ash Wednesday last week means it's Lent. This year having read Affluenza by Oliver James (good idea, although the writing irritated me in parts) I decided I would launch my own assault on the consumer society by only buying things I need, not what I want for six weeks to try to stop being so wasteful (and maybe save a bit of cash too). This is obviously slightly subjective but I think it goes as follows:
In brief this means I can buy newspapers (essential) but not magazines. I can't buy new clothes although I can reheel boots. I am only buying lunch, not chocolate and snacks (although who says no good deed goes unpunished; I got sent some chocolates from Save the Children for my talk which I feel I can eat as I didn't buy myself).
The big test is: can I buy books? I was arguing this as a necessity in my life (I feel physically panicky if I travel somewhere without reading material) But then I remembered I have a library card.....

2008-01-31T09:04:00.000Z

Back for good

I've returned from the essential (ahem) research trip to Wengen full of good intentions, although I woke up feeling down this morning. I was in Oxford yesterday at the RISJ where I took in a seminar on the Canadian press 1890-1930 by Gene Allen. I was struck by one thing he said

"Newspapers do not tell you what to think; they tell you what to think about"

Now up to a point Lord Copper. The example Allen used was that papers tell you not whether Gordon Brown is a good PM or not, but the fact they write so many stories about him that he is someone you ought to be thinking about.

This may be true of the Canadian press in 1930 but I'm not sure that it still stands in the British press of 2008.

My favourite question of the day was from John Kelly (as always) who asked Prof Allen about the demise of the bus plunge story (see this reference to Slate.com)

Meanwhile, Matt (see above) as always provides the best commentary on l'affaire Derek Conway.....

2008-01-16T23:23:00.000Z

We Save the Children - Can YouTube?

Nifty headline courtesy of Save themselves......went in to give my seminar; only one person fell asleep and they were related to me so that must be a triumph (surely)....am trying to work out how to put up my paper here. Will do so tomorrow. Also proofreading final version of my Nuffield lecture for the printers; so much for a week off...

I bought a hat for skiing on impulse afterwards that I fear makes me look like an expensive east European hooker; I showed D, he doubled up laughing and said "No no not an expensive one."

Charming.

2008-01-14T09:18:00.000Z

Sunshine on a rainy day

I am back to Oxford this week to update my research for a paper I'm doing for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism; back to thoughts about where aid agencies and journalists are at. I am overexcited at going back - I've booked my room at Nuffield where I am now an associate member (get me!).

Trying not to think about the fact I'm also juggling writing a talk for SCF UK on user generated content. It's nearly done. While doing it I came across this excellent piece on technology and humanitarian aid from The Economist last year and these thoughts from a Sri Lankan journalist on the limits of citizen journalist in Sri Lanka

In the meantime, I am stocking up on oily fish and strolls in the park after investigating vitamin D for the Telegraph....I was much taken by Julie Mytton's suggestion that the reason we don't hear much about this Cinderella vitamin is that there's no money in it as you can make it yourself by going out in the sun..

2008-01-09T17:04:00.000Z

Round- up

The US election just gets more and more fascinating....I thought I had misheard the 7am headlines this morning with a Clinton victory - but no there it was.....astonishing.......

Am looking forward to Super Duper Tuesday even more now....

In the meantime however Peter Horrock's latest speech on citizen journalism is thought provoking, given that he says that Twitter provided an early indication on how Iowa was going to go....wonder what happened with Twitter in New Hampshire....

Meanwhile I've been writing on various different things - aid agencies for AlertNet and Jeremy Clarkson for the Telegraph....

2008-01-04T07:23:00.000Z

Pain and prejudice

Spent Weds night re-reading Sense and Sensibility in order to write this piece. I've always found S&S dark but going through it again I was surprised at how dark I found it. Even when you're laughing at MRs Palmer's silliness, or Marianne's extremes I found it increasingly unsettling. As for Lucy Steele - brrr the woman is a menace.

Still don't get why Elinor goes for Edward Ferrars either.

The US election doesn't disappoint this morning with upsets by Obama and Huckabee triumphing. Huckabee I was not so surprised at because of the evangelical organisation on the ground. But - having watched the Ten last night where Clinton's supporters seemed so organised - all those Harvard PhDs clearing snow - I was surprised she's ended up in third place. Mind you I wonder how all those Harvardites went down there...

2008-01-02T15:35:00.000Z

Caucus countdown

I am excited beyond belief by the kick off tomorrow deciding who will be Democratic and Republican candidates. One I still am not sure who are going to emerge the victors. Two the whole Democrat approach to caucuses is just so random. The country that leads the world in democracy can as the Times pointed yesterday end up with a different candidate if someone walks into a kitchen by mistake.
Sort of.
I like this joke (also from the Times). How many Republican frontrunners does it take to change a lightbulb? Two - one to change the bulb and another - Mitt Romney - to attack his record.

2008-01-02T08:37:00.001Z

Changing times?

Just to note that on the BBC Breakfast 8am bulletin I noticed this morning that the BBC credited the Red Cross for its footage from Kenya. I note that it was also done with the Serbian story of abuses of the disabled before Christmas - where the script also was careful to state that the BBC could not verify the charity's word. So it seems there is a sea change in the BBC at least about more credit of NGO footage compared with the past. (Interesting there is now no link to this story on the BBC site...)

By the way if my Dec 31 post sounded terribly smug I apologise; I was feeling upbeat but that can come across as annoying

2007-12-31T13:32:00.000Z

Goodbye 2007

I am now almost 48 hours without eating, having fallen victim to the winter vomiting bug, and having suffered the joys of the Virgin festive train service going back home (6 hours both way). Yet I seem more chirpy than I was this time last year...or at least it appears so from my Goodbye 2006 post.
There are all the things that didn't happen this year, chalked up to add to the usual collection - and the sadness in particular at one of those. But in general - and for someone born into a dynasty of Welsh Presbyterians this is an unusual statement to make - I feel more optimistic than usual when looking back.
This time last year I had only just started at Nuffield -hardly tasted the delights of high table. I had only just started learning Spanish and I was at a much earlier stage with my novel.
Now from Jan 2008 I'm about to become a visiting fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. The book has been largely rewritten in a way that's better, I hope. And I managed to order a beer in Almedinilla without a local laughing. Well not to my face anyway.

2007-12-24T15:46:00.000Z

Happy Christmas

and may new year bring you everything you hope for.........

2007-12-21T12:11:00.000Z

I used to be a research fellow don't you know.....

However my latest piece for the Telegraph concentrates (ahem) on my more domestic side. Or rather my lack of domestic side....

The advantage of online rather than hard copy is that you only get to see one of the pictures of me and not the ones pulling faces they put in the paper, which has led to smothered laughter from my co-workers, who really should know better than to mock as they star in previous pieces here and here

Oh the joy of the feature writing world......

2007-12-18T15:18:00.000Z

News occurs in pre-Christmas week shocker

Nick Clegg has been elected leader of the Lib Dems. I am really trying to work up enthusiasm but the contest has largely passed me* by. Clegg and Huhne have suffered by Vince Cable's virtuoso performance as acting leader - although as has been pointed out he has had a much easier ride than he would have, were his leadership term not finite. Still he has had the best line of the year - Stalin to Mr Bean...as John Lloyd formerly of Spitting Image points out, a line Gordon Brown may come to regret.

Still I will try and care more; my emotion today has largely been directed towards the radio, viz the "feminist" debate on Today, a depressing piece of broadcasting. What I do find curious is that 20something women are so reluctant to declare themselves feminists although quite happy to talk about how liberated they are. In a previous incarnation, there was a couple of occasions when I had to commission pieces about whither feminism. What amazed me was that so few young women were willing to identify themselves as feminist; one young woman said airily that she had left feminism behind at college (rather, I felt, like Morrissey posters, dodgy ashtray and a grubby beanbag chair).

Of course when you are just out of college, it can feel like nothing is holding you back. I felt no different when I was 22/3 . I am just surprised that less than a decade separated me and the feature writers I was trying to commission.....and yet I would never have been so indignant at the thought of being labelled a feminist. Was that me or has there been a big change? Maybe the Spices and Girl Power have made more of a difference than I thought.

*and I suspect most of the British public.

2007-12-15T08:54:00.000Z

Hurrah

Looks like a climate change deal has been agreed.

Earlier I listened on Today to Yvo de Boer breaking down in tears during the process after two weeks of wrangling and having to be led off the podium.

Blimey anyone who's had a bad few Christmas days at work knows how he feels.......

2007-12-15T08:43:00.000Z

From parliament to park bench

In between the Diana-Dodi letters dominating the papers, I was just listening to the Today programme and the interview with Ed Mitchell, the former ITN news editor now reduced to living rough in Brighton. The story was discovered by a journalist on the Brighton Argus who was volunteering with a homeless charity (see we are not all bad). Since then all the papers have taken up the story. The pictures of Mitchell then and now stop you short, but what was strange was hearing the umistakeable broadcast tones of a newsreader being interviewed on Today - speaking in carefully timed and modulated sentences.

There are two trends to the story: the credit card spiral that Mitchell found himself in and the alcoholism that according to the papers which seems to have dogged him from his early days as a reporter. There is of course endless debates about whether journalistic lifestyles can exacerbate problems like drinking or whether it is something about the nature of those who go into journalism that means that you tend to find a large number of people susceptible to drinking. My personal belief is that it is a mixture of both.

Whatever, the story at least reveals what most of us turn our eyes to: the idea of the homeless as individuals. My friend N used to volunteer for Crisis every Christmas, I admired him hugely. Listening to Ed Mitchell saying cheerily that he wouldn't starve this Christmas but unable to really answer what his children thought, I felt ashamed for not doing the same.

2007-12-11T10:36:00.000Z

One of those days

I have either left my mobile at home or it's been nicked.
I am appalled at the sense of bereftness I feel in (for the first time in years; in fact I really can't remember when this has happened before) being without a mobile phone.

(I should add that this culminates a morning in which so far a) the bread failed in the breadmaker b) D ate the last bit of edible bread without telling me, the sod c) I nearly got into a fight with some a*** on the tube d) I forgot my work pass and e) my hair has gone terribly terribly wrong. All before 9.30am)

I excuse my sense of panic being a freelance; the mobile is the way any editor/PR/anyone with a story will get in touch with me. There is something terrifying about being unobtainable and not being able to tell anyone that this is the case. I feel like a non-person (yes I am hamming this up slightly but there is a strange sense of loss which - given I only ever got a mobile in 1999 - means I somehow managed for XXXX years without one. Now however it feels like some kind of disability.....)

I KNOW I should be embracing the chance of freedom, that for one day I could play hookey I cannot be tracked down. But I feel panicky. There must be some kind of psychiatric description of this....Or of me as the epitome of sadness

2007-12-10T18:14:00.000Z

Aid workers vs journalists

Preparing to chair a panel for the Red Cross on Weds on aid workers and journalists I came across this blog post which refers back to my Guardian piece of a month ago....interesting

2007-12-10T14:53:00.000Z

Canoe Post Two

The canoe story just keeps on giving. This afternoon the police have released a photo that they believe may show John Darwin when he was missing - and this is it....

I spotted it on News 24 and immediately saw in my mind's eye Charles Darwin

Or even Charles Dickens

Are they all related? I think we should be told....

2007-12-10T08:24:00.000Z

Self harm

One in 15 young people now injure themselves on a regular basis. But as Petra Boynton raises the question - is this the latest manifstation of distress that young people particular girls have always shown - are we seeing the modern equivalent of Victorian 'hysteria'? This may be so but experts are genuinely worried about the scale that is now revealing itself. Here's a piece I wrote for the Telegraph about it.

2007-12-08T11:28:00.000Z

Something for the weekend....

I had hoped to be posting on what I might do next...but no official confirmation yet...sigh...so in the meantime I'm recording two things that have added to the gaiety of nations.

First the pseudocide of canoe man (love the new word). I was at a party last night when someone said 'I really can't understand why everyone is so excited about this story'. But for a journalist it has everything - and in vulgar parlance has 'legs'. A man turning up from the dead after five years excites; who has not dreamed of doing the same (in fact my whole novel is about that). Then...a wife who has mysteriously left the country and gives an emotional interview about her surprise at his return....Followed the next day by the appearance of a photograph which proves she can't be THAT surprised. (The woman who googled it - and every journalist thinks why didn't I think of doing that? - before going to the Mirror lived in a part of the country where the Sun is not welcome.....ah how those old wounds fail to heal). And the fact that they were apparently brought down by an overheard phoencall at a doctor's surgery failing to say no to posing for an estate agent's picture...you would think if you had perpetuated an alleged fraud then you would think twice...Extraordinary stuff. Not least the fact he lived in a bedsit next door for three years. This is the Mail's latest update

One friend summed it up by saying: "It's the story with something for everyone. The bloke walking in to the police station - men are all sighing inwardly at the thought he got away with doing a runner. The women....she's got all the money in her name. Then for some reason they allegedly fall out - and it ends..."

This is a very British affair - with bedsits and doctor's receptionists, canoes and estate agents. In the US surely there would have been a glamorous broad or two, a breakneck run for the coast, a final cryptic note saying farewell. Instead we have angry boat owners allegedly complaining about non-payment of bills.

Read Andrew Pierce in the Telegraph's account. It made me laugh out loud

Meanwhile this song is my current earworm. I love it though. It makes me laugh every time I hear the rhyme for 'thirty' and 'dirty'

2007-12-03T11:38:00.000Z

Of human bonds.....

This is the piece I wrote for the health section of the Telegraph today about the problems some women have forming attachments with their children - linked to a Channel 4 documentary on tonight.....

2007-11-28T21:05:00.000Z

Another point of view

I'm currently reading Rhett Butler's People the new "companion piece" to Gone With the Wind (for an interview with the author read Melissa Whitworth's piece in the Telegraph). Actually it's not as bad as some of the reviews have made out, as long as you don't think too much about GWTW as neither Scarlett or Rhett feel like their Mitchell counterparts. It certainly does a very good job in clearing up the uncomfortable parts of the original for a 21st century reader; there's condemnation of the Klan, Rhett's supposed racial murder is explained away....it's a version that is certainly much easier to defend.

But Scarlett appears as a shadowy selfish figure; so far (three quarters in) I'm still not sure what McCaig's Rhett sees in her. Certainly we get a lot more of his inner pain but I'm not sure why he bothers with her. You have to remember Scarlett's attraction from Mitchell's book to be convinced.

Also the selling point of GWTW for me was the transgressive nature of Scarlett - a woman who refused to conform to the boundaries of southern womanhood (while of course being hypocritical about convention). This struggle - and her blindness over Ashley and Rhett is what made GWTW the bestseller it was. RBP loses this whole struggle with Scarlett as a small side character. This is not to say the book isn't enjoyable - it is - it's jsut not the sort that sticks in your mind.

What is really interesting is why it was written like this. The whole point of RBP as Donald McCaig tells it is not to do a straightforward sequel but to tell the same story from another angle - an idea I love

But it also made me think, what makes this approach work and what doesn't? The Wide Sargasso Sea is now seen as a classic in its own right. Why do I think RBP won't work the same?First if you are going to tell a story from another character's viewpoint I think you have to choose carefully. WSS works I think because the first Mrs Rochester is a) a vital part of Jane Eyre but not a character we know well b) has a crucial if tangential part in the plot c) has meaning beyond her character - the whole concept of the Madwoman in the Attic (Gilbert & Gubar) which has taken on the idea of Victorian ideas surrounding womanhood

Why doesn't Rhett work the same? Well he plays too big a role to start off with; there is lots we don't know about his past, but the interest for the reader is his relationship with Scarlett, a relationship that appears shadowy in this book. So far - although an interesting retelling of the civil war I don't feel hugely different about Mitchell's Atlanta, Scarlett or Rhett so far. There hasn't been a dramatic change in view.

The next point seems rather contradictory but I think it does tie together; in a way McCaig as Whitworth says is rewriting Rhett for a 21st century audience - as the New York Times review makes clear - the recasting of Rhett as Everyman. But do we really want Rhett as Everyman? Does that diminish him?

So my thoughts are: you need a smaller character but one on whom the plot hinges in some way; a character who represents an idea bigger than themselves; a character that in some way we have no firm opinion on or a very crude one word opinion of.

It made me wonder which other classics could actually work if rewritten with minor characters pushed to the forefront. Wuthering Heights is already told by multiple narrators. Rebecca has already performed the trick in a way by being written by the second wife. What others I wonder?

2007-11-27T14:08:00.000Z

Regrets? I've had a few....

As I mentioned in my lecture one of the consequences of citizen journalism, blogging et al is that for journalists, errors that might have passed by unnoticed in earlier years are frequently seized on. As Leonard Doyle of the Independent said broadsheets can't rely on one stringer in a far off place when often people will have been there on holiday....and will know just as much about the place as a desk bound editor. Reading Adrian Monck's blog he mentions a website I hadn't come across before compiling errors made by journalists called Regret the Error which brings together a list of some of the errors made. These are the ones that the blog's author Craig Silverman chooses as his favourites:

Here's the correction, from the Dallas Morning News of October 2004:"An Oct. 19 article on songwriter John Bucchino incorrectly stated that he doesn't read. The sentence should have said he doesn't read music."The same paper did a similar thing in 2005:"Norma Adams-Wade's June 15 column incorrectly called Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk a socialist. She is a socialite."

They remind me of one of my favourite fictional depictions of problems correcting errors in newspapers - as in Adrian Mole, when his mother doesn't get her Giro and abandons him at the (then) DHSS office. After a huge number of errors such as age, relationship etc fail to be corrected Mrs Mole does at least get one thing corrected. The newspaper reports

"Mrs Mole did not say 'Adrian means more to me than life itself'"

2007-11-26T12:20:00.000Z

The mental scars....

a piece about soldiers' mental health coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

2007-11-24T11:27:00.001Z

From bonnets to boutiques

Here's the piece I wrote for the Telegraph after watching Cranford. I surprised myself by really enjoying it....

(enjoyed watching it that is; I enjoyed writing it but expected to)

2007-11-22T14:20:00.000Z

The Girl Who Came In From the Cold

This week I have been rained on three times cycling into the office. There have been moments when my commitment to a green lifestyle (organic vegetables, no car, recycling paper, trying a bit to stay away from cheap clothing stores) has been severely questioned. London in November - was there ever a more depressing three word phrase.
In the meantime, I have been taken by two pieces in the Independent: first Steve Connor's piece on birth order . Birth order fascinates everyone; the truth is if you are the oldest of four (like me) then basically you are doomed. Conservative, conventional, neurotic and swotty - these are the adjectives that get bandied about. Not for the eldest the freethinking creativity, the lateral thinker, the sociable party goer that everyone wants. No, you're the person who decides to be an actuary at age 11 and spends the next 15 years in a library (apologies to all first born actuaries who are fun loving creatives freaks).
What's interesting about Connor's piece is that it concludes that in the end birth order doesn't really make any difference at all. Which means I could have spent the last 15 years being a freewheeling creative sort instead of being conditioned to think that the world will come to an end if I don't do my homework on time.
So that was one myth quashed. The other is that Jonathan Brown notes a new North/South divide. Northerners like dogs; southerners like cats. I like cats. So I've either lived away from the North for too long or was always a spiritual southerner. A southerner second born.....maybe it's time to enbrace a new life.
In the meantime, I'm watching closely the new DEC appeal for Bangladesh to see what kind of stories come out of it following my fly on the wall stint for the last one; reading Adrian Monck on Andrew Marr and for pleasure as always John Kelly whose voxford blog always cheers up a November day.....

2007-11-13T11:19:00.000Z

Tuesday morning life

I was very happy to read about Bonnie Brown's retirement - she's the Google masseuse who has become a millionaire because of share options she had with the company. I only wish that I had any shares at all. I was once young and foolish and thought that journalists should not own any shares in case you ever ended up writing about the company. Now I am just old and foolish and broke. But I still think it was probably a good precept.
However shares might have meant I did better on the Times work/life balance test but seriously who ARE these people who put 10% of their income away as savings. I presume that isn't for the tax man. I guess those who still tithe do, but anyone else?
Meanwhile I am still trying to recover from seeing Posh Spice in the Tesco advert - indeed all the Spice Girls. It just seemed...so wrong.

2007-11-08T14:07:00.001Z

After The Wave

Since giving my lecture on Monday I have been felled by some kind of bug. I don't know if it is an aid agency taking revenge for my (slightly provocative) comments,or just slight exhaustion after a year's work crammed into 1.5 hours but I am just about coming round now...
I also have to polish up the finished version so that Nuffield can print it and also put it online. I feel rather a hypocrite having spent the night extolling new media that I a) havent done that yet and b) am still struggling to get the Mac to do links properly. Thanks to Adrian Monck, Richard Sambrook and Henrik Ornebring for the links...

2007-11-05T10:34:00.000Z

The day dawns.....

Off to Nuffield to give my lecture. Finally. Yikes. In the meantime here is a potted version as written for Media Guardian

2007-10-16T11:26:00.000+01:00

No More Mr Nice Guys

I was transfixed by the sight of Simon Hughes and Vince Cable outside LibDem HQ last night, trying to explain the absence of Ming Campbell. It was not the Lib Dems' fault perhaps that they choose to topple a leader just as the nights are drawing in, and the ghostly glare of the camera lights made Messrs Hughes and Cable look like dodgy doctors who had - rather like George V -hastened Ming's end to coincide with quality media (instead of the Times now, it's so that the assassins can utter soothing words on Newsnight)

The headline writers have had huge fun with puns on the Ming dynasty etc. Andrew Gimson in the Telegraph is good value
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/15/nming615.xml

as is Ann Treneman http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2666584.ece

But my favourite is Simon Hoggart I particularly like his comparison of H&C as the Walrus and the Carpenter. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2192053,00.html

What I can't help remembering is Mark Lawson's description of the SDP all those years ago as the Nice People's Party. Seeing Hughes and Cable on Newsnight last night it seemed a very long way from that....

Now of course the anticipation is, after that gobsmacking revelations of the last Lib Dem leadership contest, what could possibly top that?

2007-10-11T13:32:00.000+01:00

Congratulations

to Doris Lessing, the new Nobel Laureate for Literature. She came to City a couple of years back when I was doing my MA and generally wiped the floor with everyone (she's just been telling Shaun Ley why she is surprised she got the prize on the basis that 40 years ago the Nobel committee apparently told her they didn't like her stuff and she would never win it. In fact she said they were rather rude...).

We had to read The Grandmothers before she arrived...still one of the most unsettling books I've read.

What I like about Lessing is a) she thinks life gets better as you get older (not an ounce of self pity) and b) she thinks writing is something you struggle and work at. As she once said

"I don't know much about creative writing programmes. But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer."

It consoles me every time I rip up another page and start again......

PS Ms Lessing's reaction here to being told

2007-10-10T13:37:00.000+01:00

My favourite things....

My new favourite thing is Persephone Books - www.persephonebooks.co.uk - I have to stop myself buying them all up. But apart from the truly beautiful design (these elegant gray covers with cream titles and then inside different fabric designs as endpapers) they are just extraordinary books available.
The idea that these are genteel books by genteel lady authors, now forgotten is rubbish though. They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple has an unflinching look at domestic violence. And I've just finished There Were No Windows by Norah Hoult which is one of the most terrifying books I have ever read about what it feels like to lose your mind. This is a review of it in the Spectator http://www.spectator.co.uk/archive/books/21598/losing-the-plot.thtml
I really didn't think about a third in whether I could stay reading it, but it's absolutely compulsive. Claire Temple is a dreadful snob, who has got by on charm and you can frequently sympathise with how difficult she is to live with. But the dismissive way many of her former friends and servants treat someone who is old and losing her memory is chilling too.
Claire is based on Violet Hunt who had once been proposed to by Oscar Wilde and had a liaison with Ford Madox Ford (who is Wallace in the book). Hoult used to go and visit Hunt in Campden Hill Road when the older woman was losing her memory - and used much of the material in the book. (Interesting...could you still get away with that now)
From my point of view finding a book written in 1944 which talks about bad behaviour in the war (in particular a couple caught in flagrante on the sandbags) is great, because it confirms many of the ideas I wanted to look at in my novel (no sandbag incidents there though)....Plus it gives lots of practical details about the war (eg Barkers closing at 4.30 because of the blackout which I found useful). And when she is taken to the pub there is a clear indication how reverence for the 'toffs' has gone, and that no one should really be surprised at the Attlee 45 victory....
The only problem is the books at £10 each plus postage and I can't bankrupt myself buying more....Can I?

2007-10-08T10:39:00.000+01:00

The limits of citizen journalism

John Naughton in the Observer this weekend makes a very good point......

Stick it up your junta

Once upon a time, we thought that the internet was essentially uncontrollable. Our mantra was John Gilmore's dictum that 'the internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it'. The ruling Burmese junta never had much time for Mr Gilmore's utopian views, however, and so have always exercised heavy control of internet use. A few months ago, the OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration between academics, reported that the Burmese regime blocked 85 per cent of email service providers and nearly all pro-democracy sites. And all in a nation in which less than 1 per cent of citizens have internet access in the first place.

After images of beaten-up Buddhist monks and the killing of a Japanese photographer leaked out via the internet last week, however, the junta took even more drastic steps - apparently physically disconnecting primary telecommunications cables in two major cities. As the extent of the clampdown became clear, John Palfrey of Harvard University, a leading expert on internet censorship, was much in demand. How did this compare with other state-controlled actions? 'I've never seen anything like this cut-off to the internet on such a broad scale so crudely and completely,' he said. 'They've taken the nuclear bomb approach. We've witnessed what appear to be denial of service type attacks during elections, for instance, but nothing so large-scale as this shutdown.'

The only silver lining is that some information has leaked out. When I last checked, the Facebook group 'Support the Monks' Protest in Burma' had 326,981 members.

2007-10-06T23:28:00.000+01:00

So Gordon Brown has bottled it?

According to the BBC the PM has told Andrew Marr that he is looking to 2009 to go to the country. Frankly I'm relieved. People might actually turn up now on Nov 5th if they are not in the middle of covering an election. Interesting according to an economist I interviewed last week, Brown's best chances for maximising his time in Downing Street is if he goes to the country in 2007 or 8; 2009 is late. Mostly politicians go too early - Atlee being the worst example....in fact the only ones who have gone late are Blair and Thatcher in 2001 and 1983 respectively.
I wrote a piece about this last week that got squeezed out (Sigh - the life of a freelancer)

On a more cheerful note I went to the Independents 21st bash last night, held upstairs in the Angel opposite the old offices in City Rd. Spookily even though it's eight years since I left everyone looked the same (and I wasn't drinking so this is not down to alcohol).
It reminded me of being a young and nervous trainee, sent off to the Women of the Year lunch at the last moment, terrified I was going to be late, and sacrificing my last few pounds on a taxi (so as not to get the sack for missing the story).
I had just got in the cab, when a man ran out of the Independent offices, equally in a hurry and asked if he could share the cab. I rather brusquely asked where he was going and gave in with bad grace; weighing up the chance of being able to eat dinner that night if he shared the fare versus being late.
He was niceness itself in comparison and asked me who I was what I was doing at the Inde, what story....I felt I had to reciprocate and rather gruffly asked who he was.
"Oh my name's Andy Marr," he said.
Horrorstruck and expecting to be sacked immediately he could phone the editor to tell him about this grumpy trainee, I could only stammer 'You don't look like your byline picture'...
Luckily I think he never did tell anyone about quite what a gauche northerner they had picked to be one of the trainees that year

2007-10-03T15:04:00.000+01:00

No more secrets....?

In between trying to finish my Guardian lecture I wrote this quick blog for AlertNet about how Burmese bloggers were the latest example of UGC...the use of user generated content is a big part of my lecture following on from the seminar I gave earlier in the year entitled Can You(Tube) Save the World?
I think it's very easy to overstate the importance of UGC but I still find it fascinating that only six years ago - at the time of 9/11, the kind of citizen journalism that we take for granted now was not around. When I talked to the BBC about this they said they got no images from ordinary people and only a handful of emails....fast forward to the Pakistan earthquake where they received 3,000 in one day.

2007-10-03T14:51:00.000+01:00

Meanwhile I am trying to think about morality and disaster reporting. One of the most famous images of famine is one taken by Kevin Carter. In 1993 Carter a member of the so-called Bang Bang Club – a group of white South African photo journalists known for their images of apartheid - went to Sudan to shoot pictures of famine victims who were then dying at the rate of 20 an hour. Seeking relief from the masses, he wandered into the open bush where he saw a small, emaciated girl collapsed from hunger. Then a vulture landed a short distance away. Carter waited 20 minutes hoping the bird would spread its wings and make a better image. It did not and after he snapped several pictures and chased the bird away.

The powerful picture, first used by the New York Times was reproduced around the world. Hundreds of people called the Times to find out what happened to the girl. Carter was praised for capturing the horror of famine and censured for not rescuing the child. Two months after winning a Pulitzer Prize for the photograph, he committed suicide. He had earlier told a friend “I’m really really sorry I didn’t pick the child up”

As Susan D Moeller comments “Being close enough to photograph the starving child meant being close enough to help. The responsibility to bear witness does not automatically outweigh the responsibility to get involved." And Jim Dwyer, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the late New York Newsday says the only ethical justification for a reporter’s intrusion into a victim’s life is that he will help.

But if you take that as a starting point where does that leave objectivity?

And (particularly if you take Amartya Sen's dictum that there's never been a famine in a democracy with a free press) what then happens to reporting?

It's difficult to have a debate like this without even sounding heartless but what is the responsibility of the journalist?

2007-09-28T11:18:00.000+01:00

Displacement activity while writing up great thoughts on aid, the media etc

So I turn my attention to really weighty matters instead....and imagine Mr Darcy at the cinema...

Now back to guerilla aid workers, parachute journalists and Susan D Moeller.

2007-09-19T17:54:00.000+01:00

Is nothing sacred?

Fantastic story here on Media Guardian about the latest Blue Peter woes here. The BBC denies it. What I want to know is what the inappropriate name for the cat is....

2007-09-18T08:55:00.000+01:00

Today and celebrity

Interesting programme this morning. How far should Today get involved with celebrities? Inamidst all the Northern Wreck stuff there was an interview with supermodel Naomi Campbell (who incidentally has a voice made for radio) who showed how she has stayed at the top by effortlessly dismissing any discussion over size zero etc and even managed to get James Naughtie to discuss push up bras (at which point I have to admit I was hiding under the table whimpering 'no no no I do NOT want to hear Naughtie musing about such things)
But that was followed by an excellent interview with Graeme Le Saux and the last taboo in football - being gay. Le Saux said he wasn't but had endured years of barracking because he was seen as an outsider and because he read the Guardian.
Nothing new in homophobia in football but it did make me think that if you substituted sexual orientation with race, how utterly unacceptable the kind of stuff Le Saux has put up with is. (Football has made an effort with the kick out racism campaign). And saddest of all was when Le Saux, asked what he would advise a young player who was gay....and he said that he would advise him to keep quiet.
The interview however ended with one of the best liners I've heard on the programme for some time, but it was indicative of the pressure that Le Saux felt under. Caroline Quinn asked Le Saux if he thought he had chosen the wrong career. Le Saux laughed and said "Maybe I just chose the wrong newspaper."