First, a disclaimer of sorts. I realise that I am coming to the argument discussed below a little late, and that all that is worth saying on the subject has almost certainly been said already. I'm piping up now because I have a question that I want to articulate (I'd like to get it answered too, but I doubt that will happen). I'm also a little tardy because I've been thinking hard about what I want to say here, and I think slow, sometimes.
Night Jack is no more. The anonymous blog maintained by a Lancashire police officer has been removed by its creator, the first blogger to win the Orwell Prize, after The Times 'outed' him earlier this month. His identity was revealed at the end of a court case against The Times, during which the officer was told by the judge that he could have "no reasonable expectation of privacy," because blogging is essentially a public activity instead of a private one. The whole story can be found here.
I hadn't heard of Night Jack's blog until I read about his revealing. I felt a little aggrieved when I discovered the blog had been removed, as I would have been interested to read it. I actually follow another blog about a policeman, The Johnny Law Chronicles, an anonymous account of an American military vet turned copper in a large but unnamed American city. It's pretty macho- Johnny Law is unafraid to break a few heads every now and then, but it provides an interesting perspective on policing that I'd honestly never encountered before. I'm a fairly liberal guy, and my lifestyle generally leads me to see the police as a threat rather than anything else, but it's nice to have my prejudices challenged sometimes. The style is direct but ironic, and so I occasionally find myself sympathising with Johnny as he maces some street punk. It would have been interesting to compare his stuff with a British bobby, and see what different issues come up, and what similarities.
Obviously now the chance is gone. As a blogger myself, I sympathise with the writer, but that doesn't mean I'm necessarily challenging the judges decision. Although I think it's a shame, the judge in question did raise some good points (specifically that it was not "part of the court's function to protect police officers who are, or think they may be, acting in breach of police discipline regulations from coming to the attention of superiors." Part of the reason Night Jack was blogging anonymously is because he knew he couldn't make his comments publicly without being reprimanded).
It's impossible to read all this without identifying similarities with another famous 'outing' of a blogger, again in The Times. Girlwithaonetrackmind was (and is) a sex blogger of some celebrity, whose identity was made public some time ago. Again, I don't wish to debate Girl's right to anonymity (although I would like to state that the conduct of The Times was discouragingly vulgar in this case). What I want to know is, why was her identity revealed?
It seems that there would be two sorts of people: those that had encountered girlwithaonetrackmind, and those that had not. I would posit that those who had some familiarity with Girl's blog would have an interest in her continued anonymity. It is easy to appreciate why she wanted to remain anonymous- she was posting about her sex life on the Internet. Those that enjoyed her blog were probably a bit saddened when her identity was made known, or were at least sympathetic. The other group of people are those who hadn't a clue there even was a blog called girlwithaonetrackmind. How, exactly would they be interested in her 'outing?' Someone they'd never heard of was revealed to be... (dun dun duuuunnnnnn) some else they'd never heard of. Extra! Extra! Reeeadalaboudit!
The situation with Night Jack is similar. He turned out to be a copper nobody had ever heard of. If an anonymous blogger is revealed, do they really become any less anonymous? They remain an unknown face in the crowd. Let's face it, we won't hear about them further in the print media. The 'outing' is the big deal, newspapers don't care about their further blogging.
So who actually gave a crap? How many members of Joe Public would have definitively said: "Yes, I really want to know the identity of such and such a blogger."
Why, then, is this considered newsworthy? I've got one reason, at least in Girl's case: she was (and is) blogging about SEX. In this country at least, anything remotely to do with SEX is considered news. She wasn't just a blogger, she was a SEX blogger, and that's what made it OK to put her mum's name in the article.
If that seems a little childish, don't worry, because it really is. Putting the word SEX in the title of a story shouldn't guarantee interest, but it does, even for me. Attitudes towards sexual relations in this country have made any mention of them feel faintly illicit, and anything illicit is interesting. That doesn't mean the news story actually has any merit to it.
The point I'm making (in a slightly roundabout way) is that journalism is supposed to relate to either what people want to read about, or what, in the journalist's opinion, they ought to read about. Does 'outing' an anonymous blogger really count as either? Or are the newspapers making their own 'news,' and expecting us to like it? This is no a blanket comment- I'm using the blogging thing as a specific example. Plenty of people want to know about Katie and Peters' relationship, and that's cool with me. But there seems to be a fair few news stories that pander to no-ones' interest, and moreover, have no real positive reason for existing, other than to fill up space (and in the case of girlwithoneonetrackmind, let's be honest, letting a young freelance journalist get her foot in the door).
If we allow the newspapers to print anything and class it as news, then the quality of journalism in general can only suffer. What exactly we ought to do about this I'm sure I don't know. But we could start with writing a letter or two- not to criticise a story on its moral grounds (although sure, you could do that if you feel like it), but to demonstrate when you do not believe it is worth reading about. Journalists might have to work a bit harder (or crowbar SEX into more articles), but we'd have more information that is relevant or instructive, rather than something transient- who among those whose first encounter with Night Jack was the article in the newspaper can remember what his name was now?
If any of you lovely people has an opinion on this it'd be a pleasure to read it. Also, links to any other articles that discuss the points I've made would be appreciated. Ta.
*Edit. Some people have already commented on this blog post, and have expressed some interesting opinions. I'm just letting you know as I don't get a lot of comments so I doubt many people check them.
3 comments:
I think the problem with writing to journalists, telling them what one deems as an unsuitable article to be gracing the pages of a newspaper, is that you cannot speak for everyone. Credit where credit is due, journalists are writing for national newspapers, newspapers that have to cater to a large cross section of the public. Journalists cannot satisfy every reader's own personal taste.
The information you would view as being relevant and instructive may be another person's katie and peter (i.e crap.)
Journalists have a tough job. Be nice!
"If we allow the newspapers to print anything and class it as news, then the quality of journalism in general can only suffer."
Isn't this what journalism has been doing throughout its existance? Newspapers do print anything and everything they can get their hands on to "fill up space". Ok, people may be interested in the content or they may not, but, looking deeper into journalism, it seems to me that it's a business and the most important thing to them is firstly that there is something to read. Second comes the popularity of what is written.
In the case of outing these bloggers you may be right in saying that nobody is interested in it. However, the way I look at it is that simply being in a newspaper carries an interest. In a way, it is interesting that somebody else is interested in it or that it affects sombody else. With the bloggers you have felt directly affected by the outing, however i have not. I still read it and found it marginally worthwhile (not the most captivating article i've ever read). It's the hunger for knowledge, even if that knowledge is seemingly useless. If something's been written, maybe it's worth reading?
Enjoying the blog Josh.
I appreciate that I can't speak for everybody (or even ANYbody) but that was sort of my point- how do newspapers make the choice as to what gets in? If a choice has actually been MADE then fair enough, but my point was that in the cases I identified I really didn't think there was a real audience AT ALL, and that the stories were being printed just because someone had written them.
I quite like James' point, that anything that is worth writing might be worth reading, but let's not forget that we are paying for this service. I totally understand that the industry is a business first, but AS a business we as consumers have the right to demand the best.
Journalists do have a tough job, because of the high demands (both creative and moral) placed upon them. I don't think we should be letting those demands slide, that's all.
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