Establishing the facts on animal experiment labs

I often hear people say that it is the job of a newspaper to be fair and balanced, but of course it's not except when it comes to matters of opinion. When it is a matter of fact, it is the job of a newspaper to ascertain the truth and report it.

Nick Davies in his book Flat Earth News illustrates it with this question: if a council sends two men to mow a meadow and they return with one of them saying they mowed it and the other saying they didn't, what should the newspaper report? If it was fair and balanced, the article might start like this: A row broke out today over whether or not two men had mowed a meadow ... But, of course, that's not how the story should go at all - the newspaper should seek out the truth and put it before its readers. In this case, it is fairly simple to go and check whether or not the meadow has been mowed.

It's not always that easy. Take the row going on over the work by Leicester University to replace the fairly dated facilities that it has for carrying out experiments on animals.

Vivisection is a controversial subject at any time and, unsurprisingly, there is a campaign to stop the building. You can see the website of Stop the Leicester Lab here.

It seems to me that the question of whether or not there should be animal experiments at the university is one of opinion and our coverage should be fair and balanced, allowing both sides of the argument to put their case.

However, within that argument there are some facts and part of what we should try to do is establish the truth about the various claims and counter-claims.

One of the key arguments going on is over the sort of experiments that are carried out in the labs. The campaigners say that the university experiments on dogs and primates. Indeed, their website shows pictures of beagles being operated on. The university, on the other hand, says this is simply not true.

It is often difficult to establish the truth in situations like this because the discussion around vivisection is always carried out with an underlying threat of violence. To be fair to the Stop the Leicester Lab, their website is clear in its call for non-violent protest: 'We ask that supporters hold demonstrations outside their local office and politely contact those listed in complaint of their involvement in increasing animal experimentation and abuse.' However, the history of violence in similar cases elsewhere in the country is enough to mean that the university and those who work there are nervous about publicity.

Despite this, the University of Leicester has allowed one of our reporters to see for himself exactly what goes on in the labs. There were no preconditions put on our visit and our reporter was told that he could choose where he wanted to go and could look wherever he chose.

You can see his report here.

The outcome is that we could find no evidence whatsoever of experiments being carried out on dogs or primates. This, combined with the licence conditions and the statements of the university, leads us to believe that no such experiments are carried out.

This is not a comment on whether or not vivisection is right - but the argument should be based on fact, not exaggeration and scare tactics.

How should I view the way Leicester Mercury journalists use social media sites?

The Leicester Mercury - in common with all good regional papers - commits itself to work within the guidelines set by the Press Complaints Commission. Our staff know this and we have written a requirement to abide by the code into any new contracts for some years now.

However, it's not quite clear how the PCC code relates to our online work and particularly to the use of social media sites by our journalists. Up until now, I have talked to individual reporters about their usage, but thought it might be useful to put my thoughts down in writing and ask the journalists what they thought.

I also thought it would be good to hear what other people think so here's what I sent to our staff:

This is how I view the way journalists at the Leicester Mercury use Twitter and other social media sites, including blogs.

I separate it into two categories:

1 Personal usage: where a member of staff uses any social media site in a personal capacity (ie where they do not mention the Leicester Mercury in their profile nor mention work in anything other than a passing reference) I do not believe that I have a part to play in overseeing that content. In the same way that I would expect them not to bring the company into disrepute in their personal lives, I would expect them to take that into consideration when writing in a personal capacity.

2 Professional usage: I believe that any use of social media sites (including Twitter) in a professional capacity (ie where the member of staff links their usage directly to their job) should be treated in the same way as a column of the newspaper. As a columnist, the journalist gets far more freedom and is able to express an opinion. However, as a columnist their work is subject to my editing. I reserve the right to edit their posts. In practice, I never see their posts until after they have been published, but staff know that I am reviewing them and, therefore, I believe, they take this into consideration before publication. I have not had to intervene in any posts so far. I regularly read all staff blogs and have a ‘list’ of Mercury journalists set up on Twitter and I review their posts every day.

It follows from this that I would be happy for the professional usage to fall within the PCC’s remit.

So, what do you think?

Accusation of bias is an insult to our integrity

As the dust finally settles on the General Election, there's something I'd really like to get off my chest.

This was the eighth General Election since I first became a journalist in 1978. The Conservatives won the first four, Labour the next three - I'll leave you to decide who's won this one. I've seen the majorities swing violently from the Thatcher years when the Tories had a majority of 144 to the emergence of New Labour and the 179 majority of the first Blair government in 1997.

However, the one thing that hasn't changed during all that time is the complaints by the activists of the major parties that we are biased against them and in favour of their opponents. Some journalists will say that the only way that they know they are doing a fair job is that they receive complaints from all parties that they are biased against them. I'm not sure that I buy that, but I can see where they are coming from.

We've said more than once in the Mercury that we do not support any particular party and seek to be impartial in our coverage, but there are clearly those who don't believe us. One particular Conservative constituency party accuses us of bias, suggesting it might be because their opponent apparently once bought some print off us. Give me strength! I have no idea whatsoever whether or not the opponent ever bought print off us, but I do know that it is totally irrelevant to our coverage.

Oddly, at the same time as our bias against the Tory party, some thought we were equally unfair towards Labour. Take this comment left for me online by Labour Councillor Colin Hall, the man who is about to be made Lord Mayor of Leicester:

"In Leicester, as in Nuremberg, obeying orders is no excuse. You've had a shocker this week, as election results will show."

He doesn't elaborate, but I assume he believes that I take my political orders from the Daily Mail, the national newspaper of our parent company.

He's wrong. In fact, we're fiercely proud of our editorial independence at the Leicester Mercury and only one person sets our editorial policies and that's me. Of course, I have a boss. In fact, I have two.

The first is Lord Rothermere, chairman of our ultimate holding company, DMGT, the other is Michael Pelosi, managing director of Northcliffe, the company which runs the Mercury, and the man who appointed me and who has the power to fire me. However, in the 32 years since I first joined Northcliffe, I have never heard of any occasion on which either of them has in any way tried to influence the editorial policy of any of our regional papers. I can state categorically that neither of them has even so much as mentioned editorial policy to me.

You might be surprised to hear that my contract says nothing at all about how I should edit the paper, it simply says that I am the editor. I also don't have a job description.

I haved searched around looking for some written basis for my belief that I alone have the authority - and responsibility - to set the editorial policies of the paper. There's not much, but every now and then our company gives evidence to parliamentary committees and that makes interesting reading.

Here, for example, is what the Monopolies and Mergers Commission reported that Northcliffe said in 1994 when it was seeking to buy the Nottingham Post:

Northcliffe said that for all of its titles the respective editor determined editorial policy

Northcliffe expected the following of its editors:

to report local events in the principal town and the surrounding area as comprehensively and impartially as possible, trying always to be fair to different points of view;

to cover differing political points of view as impartially as possible and certainly without commitment to any political party;

to adhere to the code of conduct of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), to publicise the newspaper's support for this body regularly and always to report any adverse findings against the title by the PCC;

to be ready to publish, where necessary, corrections and apologies without reluctance if such publication is appropriate;

to make the letter columns accessible to those who disagree with editorial comment which the newspaper may have published, again recognizing its importance in the life of a local community;

to produce a newspaper which, while meeting the requirements above, is stimulating and entertaining, avoids being merely bland and appeals to the majority of the local people, not just leaders within the community;

and to be prepared to campaign vigorously for what he or she identifies as the interest of the principal town and county which the title serves.

Although there is little written about the authority of the editor, in practice, the editor does make the decisions to such an extent that other parts of the company often think that we are a pain in the backside.

I guess that's just a very long winded way of saying that if you don't like what you see in the Mercury, don't bother looking for a conspiracy theory, just pick up the phone and tell me that I got it wrong!

Northcliffe update shows improving situation

The Leicester Mercury's ultimate parent company, Daily Mail and General Trust, today released a trading update covering the first five months of the current financial year (which runs from October to September).

You can read the full statement here, but the general situation does appear to be getting better and this is the summary of what it says about Northcliffe, the company which runs the regional newspapers, including the Mercury:

For Northcliffe Media, underlying UK revenues for the period were 9% lower than last year with advertising revenues down 10%. Advertising trends have continued to improve: for the quarter to March so far they were 5% lower, with recruitment revenues 14% lower, but property revenues 4% above last year. Circulation revenues fell by 7% compared to last year for the five month period.

Just in case you didn't know ...

You may have thought that the annual move to British summertime was a quaint little local tradition, but in fact the country has no choice over the matter ... it's the result of an EC directive.

The 9th EC Directive on Summer Time, to be precise.

Here's the press release that I received yesterday from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills

Summertime begins

Summer time will start on Sunday 28 March at 1.00am GMT throughout European Union Member States. The clocks go forward an hour. This means that at 1.00am (GMT) the UK will move to 2.00am British Summer Time (BST).

Notes to Editors

1. The 9th EC Directive on summer time harmonised, for an indefinite period, the dates on which summer time begins and ends across member states as the last Sundays in March and October respectively. Under the Directive, summer time begins and ends at 1.00am GMT in each Member State. Amendments to the Summer Time Act to implement the Directive came into force on 11 March 2002.

2. Time zones are the responsibility of individual Member States and vary across the EU. The UK is not planning to move to Central European Time.

So now you know ...

Why on earth would council want to ban Twitter?

The Mercury has long campaigned for openness in council affairs and, in recent months, has had a number of very public spats with the city council in an effort to make its decisions more transparent. The Bowstring Bridge example springs to mind.

As such, I welcome the early comments of the new council leader, Coun Veejay Patel, who has vowed to make the authority less secretive.

Coun Patel has been in power for less than 48 hours and it is clearly going to take time to change a culture which is based on years of belief that the public only has a right to know that which the council wants it to know.

We wish Coun Patel well in his campaign.

The size of the task facing him is highlighted by our article in today's Mercury which details plans by Labour’s chief whip, Coun Barbara Potter, to ban the use of social media sites, Twitter in particular, during council meetings.

Twitter allows people to post short messages onto the internet almost instantaneously and is being used by councillors, journalists and members of the public to give an almost live feed of what is going on in council meetings.

It’s not clear how the council could legally ban its use, but more importantly, it is difficult to see why it would want to.

Live video streaming of Thursday night’s council meeting was watched by far more people than ever turn up to the council chamber and this was almost entirely due to the chatter on Twitter about the meeting.

More than 40 people clicked on the link I put on Twitter that evening and I know that many of them stayed to watch at least part of the meeting because I could see the discussion on Twitter. Even last night, people were still talking about the live stream.

One councillor told me that he thought there were about 15 people in the public gallery on the night and that that was more than usual.

So, why on earth would Coun Potter want to ban the use of something which increases public interest in council meetings? It doesn't make any noise or interupt the meeting. People will probably, wrongly, assume she has something to hide!

*This post is based on the opinion I wrote for today's Mercury.

PCC rules against Leicester Mercury

The Press Complaints Commission has ruled that the Leicester Mercury breached the code of conduct by publishing a picture of children without the permission of their parents.

It is the first time in 16 years of editing newspapers and websites that I have been found guilty of breaking the code. The ruling concerns a photograph of children being comforted in the street by a kneeling policeman after a bus crash in Leicester. We ran it on the front page under a headline which said: The tender arm of the law.

To be clear, the decision to run the picture was one that I took personally after discussing it with senior staff and considering the code of conduct carefully . The relevant clause of the code is aimed at protecting the welfare of children and I felt that the fact that the children concerned did not come from Leicester and would not be recognised by anybody meant that its publication would not adversely affect their welfare.

However, the Commission did not agree and I accept its ruling. We are running the adjudication in tomorrow's paper and I have apologised to the girl, her family and our readers for my error of judgement.

Here's the wording of the Commission's finding:

A woman complained to the Press Complaints Commission that an article headlined “Tender arm of the law”, published in the Leicester Mercury on 12 December 2009, contained a photograph of her daughter which was published without consent in breach of Clause 6 (Children) of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

The complaint was upheld.

The article reported that a bus full of primary school children on a day trip had crashed into a low railway bridge. The complainant objected to the inclusion in the coverage of a photograph of her daughter, together with numerous other children, being comforted by a policeman at the scene of the accident. Her daughter had been pictured in a clear state of distress and the complainant had not been asked for her consent for the photograph to appear. The child had been further upset by the publication of the image.

The newspaper said that this was a serious accident in which there was a legitimate public interest. The children depicted in the photograph had not been injured and were all safe from further harm. The decision to publish the photograph had not been taken lightly: its main concern was the possible impact any use of the picture would have had on the children. The photograph had been taken on the street and had been unaccompanied by any private details of the children involved. It would also not have had an impact on the welfare of the children as it had appeared only in Leicester, outside their local area. It said that they would not have been embarrassed or distressed by the coverage.

Adjudication

Newspapers are entitled to publish stories and pictures of serious road accidents, which take place in public and often have wide-reaching consequences. In this case, it was not in doubt that the bus crash – which involved more than fifty schoolchildren – was a serious incident which raised important questions in regard to public health and safety. The Commission did not wish to interfere unnecessarily with the newspaper’s right to report the matter, which it generally had done in a sensitive manner.

However, it was clear that the complainant had not given her consent for the newspaper to either take or publish the photograph which showed her daughter in a state of distress. The subject matter of the close-up photograph certainly related to her welfare.

There may be occasions where the scale and gravity of the circumstances can mean that pictures of children can be published in the public interest without consent. In the specific circumstances of this case, the Commission did not consider that there was a sufficient public interest to justify the publication of the image. It accepted that the newspaper had thought carefully about whether to use the photograph, but the Commission considered that it was just the wrong side of the line on this occasion. The complaint was therefore upheld.

Changes to Mercury website comments system

We have finally got round to changing the way we allow comments to be added to our main website, thisisleicestershire.co.uk.

It is something which I have previously proposed both on thisisleicestershire and here on my blog, but have backed away from for various reasons. Until now, we have allowed anybody to comment on stories without asking them to register or give us any details. To help us keep an eye on what people said, we have restricted the times at which comments could be left to normal office hours.

Now, however, we have introduced a system that forces people to register with the site before they can leave a comment. We hope that forcing people to register will encourage them to join in constructive conversation rather than the abusive slanging matches which so often seem to dominate the 'discussion.' In return, we will leave the commenting functionality enabled 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Following the advice given by our lawyers, Foot Anstey, we will no longer moderate the comments in any way, but have introduced an easy way for readers to report abuse which we will then check and act on if appropriate.

Unsurprisingly, the change was not met with universal approval and a number of users immediately set about proving that it was still possible to cheat the system by, for example, registering multiple accounts or changing their displayed user name to impersonate someone else. We know the system is not perfect, but I believe that the changes will help. We'll see.

At the same time as we introduced the changes, we highlighted our terms and conditions and the way in which we expected people to use the site.

One user, Daniel, wasn't happy.

Just looking at the house rules:-

You must not make or encourage comments which are:

• defamatory, false or misleading;
• insulting, threatening or abusive;
• obscene or of a sexual nature;
• offensive, racist, sexist, homophobic or discriminatory against any religions or other groups
  

If you enforced this then no-one would have an opinion on anything! and if they did it wouldnt stay on the comments page.

Freedom of speech!, i'm not so sure. It seems you can only post something if its politically correct but what if you dont actually believe in the ridiculous P.C world we live in are you less of a human who shouldn't be allowed to have your say. The L.M is clearly stating 'have an opinion as long as no one else disagrees with it, or happens to find it offensive' well I am sorry but so what if someone happens to find a post offensive thats their business, isn't the whole point of having your opinion known is that its YOUR opinion.

That seems a bit of an odd objection to me: if you look at the rules in reverse, how would people feel if we said it was ok to make comments that were any of the things listed - it's ok to be racist, defamatory or obscene, for example?

Of course, somebody always complains about a restriction of their freedom of speech whenever you have rules that prevent them writing whatever they want. I believe strongly in freedom of speech and would not seek to prevent you saying whatever you want ... but that doesn't mean that I think you should be allowed to do that on our website. We provide our website for the information and enjoyment of our readers, but it is our website and I think it is reasonable for us to set the rules.