BNP: should they be allowed to advertise?

Newspapers and online news organisations face an interesting decision as we prepare for the general election: should the BNP be allowed to advertise in our publications?

It's a question which polarises opinion.

Take this from Hackney TUC:

The presence of a BNP advert (which will also be a recruitment tool) in a Hackney paper will be an insult to the people of Hackney who have a strong tradition of resisting the BNP and their ilk. It will be an insult to black people, to Jews, to people with disabilities, to trade unionists, to gays and lesbians, to faith leaders, to women and to anyone who opposes their politics of hatred. In fact, there can be hardly anyone in Hackney who will not be repulsed by the thought of the BNP seeking to establish a visible presence in Hackney.

And this from media pundit Roy Greenslade:

Journalists should support freedom of expression and accept that it means reading and hearing material that they find offensive. Better that we do that than play into the BNP's hands by censoring it.

Think about it for a moment. If a liberal society is prepared to stifle freedom of speech then it provides fascist parties with a justification for their illiberal policies.

Hackney TUC is 'outraged' that their local paper, the Hackney Gazette, has decided to publish adverts from the BNP:

We want to approach every newsagent in Hackney and ask them to send a fax to the publisher protesting at the plan to give advertising space to the BNP and cancelling their order for this week’s paper unless it drops the BNP advert.

We need to approach the regular advertisers (principally estate agents) and ask them to use their economic influence with the Gazette to pressurise for the adverts to be dropped.

We need some volunteer ‘community leaders’ to seek to meet with the paper on Monday or Tuesday to put our case.

Please send email’s of (polite) protest to the publisher

According to Greenslade, the newspaper owners, Archant, say that to refuse such ads "might be playing into the hands of those intolerant and anti-democratic forces that people condemn. It is for the electorate to cast judgement, not us."

My own views are perhaps closest to those expressed by former New Statesman editor Peter Wilby who argues that certain issues constitute a 'special case':

Anything to do with race ... falls into a special category. Racism (including Islamophobia) is peculiarly repugnant because it attacks people at the core of their identity, an identity that cannot easily be altered or hidden as political opinions can.

Some black or Jewish people will be genuinely frightened — as opposed to merely indignant — if they see an ad for the BNP or Irving’s books in their favourite paper. Their friends, they may feel, have deserted them. People who wish them serious harm are being given respectability.

That is what makes such ads so difficult for editors to call. The most central principles for any liberal society — freedom of speech and opposition to racism — come into direct conflict. At least, as an ex-editor, I don’t have to make such decisions any more.

However, I am still an editor and do have to make such decisions. I have already warned our ad director how I feel about this, but what do you think? Would I be right to ban such ads from the BNP?

Anger over council 'ban' on tweeting by bloggers

A Guardian blog has today reported that a council has effectively banned bloggers from tweeting from council meetings in a move which it says is 'part of its commitment to increasing involvement in the democratic process. '

Ok, to be fair, I have twisted what the council actually said. Very slightly.

The council concerned is Tameside in the north-west and it was questioned by Sarah Hartley, the editor of Guardian Local, about whether or not it allowed people to tweet during council meetings. The council's response included this sentence:

Following requests the Council has authorised the Manchester Evening News, Tameside Advertiser and Tameside Reporter to use twitter in each of the Council meetings they have requested to do so, as duly accredited representatives of the press, as defined in the Local Government Act 1972.

and this:

As you can see the Council allows the use of ‘twitter’ during Council meetings by duly accredited representatives of the press as part of its commitment to increasing involvement in the democratic process.

According to Sarah, at least one blogger has been thrown out of the council building for attempting to tweet when he was not 'authorised.'

Every fibre in my body shudders at the thought that a council is going to 'authorise' who can report and the fact that someone wants to use Twitter as the platform is completely irrelevant in my opinion. What's worse, I'm not sure the council has the legal right to ban someone from tweeting in the public gallery - although this may be debatable and certainly Sarah says she thinks the council acted legally.

According to Tameside it ' follows the legislation governing the conduct of Council meetings and in particular the recording and transmitting of meetings which are set out in Section 100 (A)(7) of the Local Government Act 1972 .'

And this is what the Act says:

Nothing in this section shall require a principal council to permit the taking of photographs of any proceedings, or the use of any means to enable persons not present to see or hear any proceedings (whether at the time or later), or the making of any oral report on any proceedings as they take place.

So what exactly in that paragraph says anything about Twitter? It says the council can decide whether or not anyone can take photographs or use anything that allows people outside the council chamber to see or hear the proceedings. It also says that a council doesn't have to allow anyone to make an 'oral report' of proceedings while they are taking place.

But Twitter doesn't do any of those things. It quite obviously does not allow anyone to see or hear the proceedings and it doesn't involve the making of an oral report. That's not all that surprising given that the Act dates from 1972, long before the Internet was around, let alone Twitter.

So that's my first objection to this: it doesn't look legal to me. I also had a chat this evening with a media lawyer who said he couldn't see how the clause could be used to ban someone from tweeting a meeting.

But just as bad is that the fact that even if the council could argue that somehow the paragraph did relate to Twitter - or blogging for that matter - it would only give it the right to ban it. It doesn't say it should ban anything, just that it can. Why would any council want to?

Of course, Tameside says it doesn't want to - it sees Twitter as a way of underlining its ' commitment to increasing involvement in the democratic process.'

That's great. I'm all in favour of using anything possible to increase coverage of council decisions.

But how on earth can anyone argue that they support increased involvement in the democratic process and, in the same breath, say they will only allow 'duly accredited' members of the press to report on proceedings?

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be 'duly accredited'. I don't want any special priveleges and I don't want community journalists obstructed in any way: the more the better in my view.

We've been working for some time with Citizens' Eye and the community news hubs in Leicester as I believe we all have a role to play in local democracy. To be fair to Leicester City Council they appear to be happy to help the community journalists as they look to build on local coverage, but if it was ever to come to it, I would be happy to join the fight to protect the rights of others to report.

Amplified Leicester: an introduction

Obnoxious followers of my blog

I noticed today that my blog was being followed by someone using the name Gerry McCann and a photograph of Maddy in their profile.

The actual name being used was the fairly suspicious looking Gérry MCcann Operación Task Máfia Organizadas so I clicked on the user profile and found a few hundred words of Spanish (or was it Portuguese?) - two moments later and Google translate confirmed what I feared: this is an obnoxious person with lots of horrible things to say about the McCanns. I put the name into Google and found that this has been added to a lot of blogs and websites.

Blogger makes it fairly easy to block followers.

Government plays fast and loose with my personal data ... again!

If there's one thing in life that really drives me mad it's public bodies who treat our information as if it is theirs.

Usually this takes the form of them refusing to give out information - you can find plenty of examples elsewhere on this blog - but it also happens when they happily pass out our personal data willy nilly as if it belongs to them. It happened to me again today.

A few months ago I wrote about a Government department that sent out my home address to a car parking company which falsely claimed that my wife had breached some imagined contract. After a simple phone call, the supermarket which employed the car parking company admitted that the 'fine' was not aimed at customers like my wife and withdrew it. What annoyed me was the fact that I have to give my details to the Government by law, but they then decide to pass them on to a third party.

At the time I wrote to the Information Commissioner, the man charged with making sure that companies and public bodies do not misuse personal information. His office responded saying that they had decided that it was in the public interest for the DVLA to pass on personal data to all sorts of parking companies otherwise the only way for those companies to 'police' their land would be to use clamps ... and that would be worse for the drivers. Ah, so it's for our own good. Nanny knows best.

Of course, it's nonsense. This is not about controlling parking, it's about making money. If that's not the case, why are companies charging people £80 for parking? The unintended consequence of this decision is that every mean-minded money grabbing company has now decided that it needs to control parking on its land so badly that they employ third parties whose sole aim in life is to send out as many £80 parking charges as possible since that's the only way they make money.

In my wife's case, she took more than two hours to do the shopping at Morrisions because she chose to sit with a friend in their cafe and have lunch before heading off to the aisles. When she rang the manager of the local store he told her that they didn't intend to penalise customers like her and that not only would he cancel that charge, but should she ever get another in the future, all she had to do was ring and he'd cancel that too.

Right, so the supermarket doesn't want to charge my wife, but the DVLA is happy to send out our address?

Now it's happened again. This time the DVLA has sent my name and address to some idiotic car parking company which claims I spent five hours parked in a motorway service station car park. I didn't, but that doesn't seem to matter to the DVLA, they've sent my personal details out.

To make matters worse, the DVLA gave out my work details so the car park company wrote to my office telling them I had spent five hours in a motorway service station! As it happens, I was on a day off, but suppose I had been a rep on the road? How would I have explained that?

So why did I get one of these ludicrous £80 (£50 if I pay it quickly) charges? Well, I drove up to Newcastle to watch my daughter play football, stopped at Wetherby service station (yes, Moto, you are the guilty party) on the way up for 10 minutes and then, five hours later on the way back, stopped again for 20 minutes. The pathetic systems of the company Moto pays to 'police' the parking, CP Plus Ltd, can't differentiate between someone who stops for five hours and someone who calls in twice in five hours.

So twice in a couple of months, the DVLA has handed over my personal information to companies who had no right to receive it, one which can't differentiate between customers and non-customers and the other which has such useless systems in place that it really has no idea how long I parked for.

I'll be writing to the Information Commissioner again ... but don't hold your breath. In the meantime, I'll also be sending a request under the Freedom of Information Act to find out just how many times the DVLA has sent out personal details to car parking companies: I'm willing to bet that it has grown exponentially over recent years as more and more companies see it as a way of making money ...

New police chief promises 'safest' city

The new commander of police in Leicester city centre, Chief Superintendent Rob Nixon, says he has introduced a new 'back to basics' approach for police in the city.

In an email sent out on Saturday, Chief Supt Nixon said he was working with his officers and staff to make Leicester the safest city in the country. Here's the text of his email:

Good afternoon

The purpose of this email is to formally introduce myself as the City Area BCU Commander. I am aware that Chris Garnham wrote to you and informed you of the changes in December. Having now been in post since 4th January, I have been overwhelmed by the support and commitment displayed and very much look forward to working with you in taking the City forward during 2010.

In an attempt to simplify the message to the Police Officers and Police Staff working in the City, we have introduced a back to basics approach which I have included below for your information.

During 2010 we will work together as a team to make Leicester the safest city in the country, where people have confidence in their local police. We will do this by:

* First rate response to those who need our help, getting it right first time
* Highly visible and accessible neighbourhood policing, tackling crime and anti-social behaviour with partners, on issues which matters most to the community
* Identifying and protecting the vulnerable, communities and people alike
* Preventing and detecting crime through hunting down and locking up criminals
* Acting with integrity, honesty and professionalism, valuing and supporting one another

I have fantastic memories of working in the City previously and encourage partnership working at all levels. I am sure that over the coming months our paths will cross and I look forward to working with you.

Regards,

Rob Nixon
Chief Superintendent
City BCU Commander

Don't you just love Google ads?

We're always a bit nervous on newspapers about Google's automated process that tries to match ads to the content on our website pages because too often it throws up inappropriate ads.

Perhaps most infamous were the ads for Samsonite suitcases after the suitcase bomb attacks on airliners or, seen more frequently, adverts for new cars against articles about car crashes.

However, I had to laugh when reading the blog of our Leicester City writer, Rob Tanner, this morning. He was writing about the sackings of various football managers, sparked by the dismissal of Gary Megson at Bolton and the subsequent appointment of Owen Coyle. There was a whole list of managers who had lost their jobs and the Google computers were working flat out to come up with the right ads.

The first one was:

Re train as a plumber: Huge shortage, Earn up to £50,747. No exp needed.

I guess that was aimed at Gary Megson, but I wonder if £50k a week is really enough for a Premiership manager?

The second one read:

Cash for cars in Bolton: We buy any car. From £50-£100,000. As seen on TV.

Obviously Megson will need to sell his expensive Merc so that he can buy the van he'll need for his new job!

And finally:

Football Stats: I'll do all the boring analysis so you can just pick up the cash ..

My first thought was that this was aimed at Mr Coyle who presumably would be able to sit back and relax as Bolton soar to the top of the league ... unfortunately it turns out to be a betting scam - 'pay me a few quid and I'll send you an email every Friday with betting tips that can't fail etc etc.'

UGC ruling comfort for bloggers

A landmark High Court judgement in early December offers some level of comfort to those bloggers who worry about being sued for comments left on their websites by visitors.

Our solicitors - Foot Anstey - issued a briefing note to editors shortly before Christmas and partner Tony Jaffa has agreed that I can use the briefing on this blog in case it is of help to anyone out there in the blogosphere.

The case concerned a lawyer, Imran Karim, who sued Newsquest Media Group - one of the other big publishers of regional newspapers in the UK - over an article headlined: 'Crooked solicitors spent client money on a Rolex, loose women and drink'.

Mr Karim was not happy. And he didn't like some of the comments posted by users of the newspapers' websites.

The newspaper group applied to the High Court to have the case thrown out on the grounds that Mr Karim had no chance of winning and Mr Justice Eady agreed and gave a summary judgement in favour of Newsquest.

I'm not going to go into why the article itself was ok - it was protected as a report of legal proceedings - as that is something for another day, but the interesting thing for bloggers was the decision that the newspaper was not responsible for comments left on its websites by users.

Here's what Tony says:

By his judgement, Mr Justice Eady has confirmed that web publishers who are unaware of defamatory UGC posts on their websites, have a defence to a claim for libel damages if they act quickly to remove such UGC posts as soon as they are notified that a post is the subject of a complaint.

The judgement also confirms that publishers do not need to pre-moderate or edit UGC posts on their websites to have a defence to a claim for libel damages.

And, here's the really important bit:

In fact, in purely legal terms, publishers will be better off not pre-moderating UGC at all.

The ruling is based on the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002, Regulation 19, sometimes known as the hosting defence. Here's that regulation:

Hosting

19. Where an information society service is provided which consists of the storage of information provided by a recipient of the service, the service provider (if he otherwise would) shall not be liable for damages or for any other pecuniary remedy or for any criminal sanction as a result of that storage where -

(a) the service provider -

(i) does not have actual knowledge of unlawful activity or information and, where a claim for damages is made, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which it would have been apparent to the service provider that the activity or information was unlawful; or

(ii) upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove or to disable access to the information, and

(b) the recipient of the service was not acting under the authority or the control of the service provider.

According to Tony Jaffa the judge held:

1 the users of publishers' and newspapers' websites are recipients of an 'information society service';

2 UGC facilities on such websites are bulletin boards;

3 web publishers have no knowledge of, or control over, UGC prior to becoming aware, or being notified, of any contentious posts;

4 therefore, publishers have no liability if posts are removed as soon as a complaint is received.

So, you can sleep a little more easily now! Although, of course, there are a number of caveats and if you have lots of controversial comments on your blog, it would be worth reading both Tony's briefing and the judgement in full ... or even taking legal advice (I'm sure Tony would give you a good price if you told him you knew me!)

I just want to add two further comments. Tony hints at the first when he says that in 'purely legal terms' it might be best to avoid pre-moderation. The issue this throws up, of course, is the fact that you have a reputation to protect and if you don't pre-moderate you may well find all sorts of rubbish appearing on your site, undermining your own good name. This is a difficult one for publishers and it probably comes down to your own confidence in pre-moderating, along with the level of comments, both in terms of quantity and quality. I think lots of bloggers do moderate comments on their sites and I must admit, I tend to come down in favour of moderation on this blog.

The other point that I'd like to make is that this sort of ruling often has unintentional side effects - for example, it would be easy to see why people might remove comments from their sites as soon as they receive any complaint about them so that they can say they acted quickly, allowing them to use the hosting defence. But we sometimes receive complaints - particularly from Leicester City Council - about comments on our sites which they don't like. Of course, the fact that they don't like them, doesn't make them libellous and I usually refuse to remove them ... this ruling may increase pressure to remove comments before too much thought is given to the merit of the complaint.

Finally, I'd like to say well done to Newsquest for fighting this battle. In these difficult times, it often easier to give in than to challenge those who attempt to use the law to control the press. If companies like my own, Northcliffe, and Newsquest don't stand up to be counted, it's unlikely that anybody else will. So, thanks, to whoever made the decision at Newsquest.

Newspapers today - with thanks to Charles Dickens

I don't know why (?), but this passage from A Christmas Carol reminds me of work at the moment! I read the book in early December and went to see the new Disney version just before Christmas - I'd recommend the book to anyone. The film was surprisingly true to the book, but for a couple of Disney moments where they inserted a Victorian 'car chase' and a roller-coaster ride! Nevertheless, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the film.

Anyway, here's the original bit of Dickens:

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr Scrooge, or Mr Marley?"

"Mr Marley has been dead these seven years," Scrooge replied. "He died seven years ago, this very night."

"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word "liberality", Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

"At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, " I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.

"You wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know that."

"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.

"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

Should we publish pictures of children in bus crash?

Today's horrific bus crash in Leicester left us worrying about privacy issues for what seemed like the umpteenth time this week.

You might think it would be fairly straightforward when it comes to covering a big public news item like a bus crash, but we spent some time looking at pictures and discussing the issues before making our decision.

In case you haven't seen or read the story, a double decker bus carrying more than 50 children and teachers ran into a low bridge in Lancaster Road, shearing off much of the top deck. In what really was a miraculous escape, nobody was seriously injured and by tea time, even the 10 people taken to hospital for treatment were allowed home.

The decision we were discussing was which pictures to use in tomorrow's paper. The Mercury's photographers arrived shortly after the emergency services and we had a large choice of shots. Many of them showed the bus and the damage, but there were also quite a lot of the children being comforted by various adults. The question was this: should we use pictures showing the faces of the children involved?

There is no legal reason why we shouldn't, it was more an ethical or moral discussion.

We turned to the Press Complaints Commission's Code of Conduct for guidance. There are three sections of paragraph 6 that might be relevant:

i) Young people should be free to complete their time at school without unnecessary intrusion.

ii) A child under 16 must not be interviewed or photographed on issues involving their own or another child’s welfare unless a custodial parent or similarly responsible adult consents.

iii) Pupils must not be approached or photographed at school without the permission of the school authorities.

However, we decided that none of these was really relevant, particularly as we felt the reference to a child's welfare was probably intended to cover issues around court cases rather than this sort of incident. We did not believe that the use of the pictures would in any way harm the welfare of the children. Add to this the fact that the children were actually from Nottingham and, therefore, unlikely to be recognised by anybody in Leicester and we made our decision to publish the picture you see on this page. We also discussed the tone of our coverage and as it was to be of a supportive nature, we felt this also made our decision easier.

It will be interesting to see how our readers react to our decision.

The very definition of optimism ...

Newsrooms have always been a place where gallows humour flourished. I admit I even enjoy - much to my wife's disgust - disaster jokes. I've always assumed it was a sub-conscious coping technique because we spend so much time looking at tragedy.

So perhaps it wasn't that surprising that on a trip to the House of Commons on Monday to listen to Peter Mandelson - that's the Right Honourable Lord Peter Mandelson to you and me - the thing that most stuck in my mind was a gag told by another journalist, rather than anything that came from the lips of the First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills, Lord President of the Council ...

Whatever you think of Lord Mandelson, he is a consumate politician. He hasn't survived the scandals to go from Minister without Portfolio to Minister of Everything for no reason. That's why I wasn't that surprised at my reaction to his speech. I couldn't help thinking yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah ... Some might not agree - I might have missed something insightful or interesting, but I felt I'd heard it all before. I notice that Guardian media pundit Roy Greenslade, who was sat opposite me, didn't even mention the speech in his prolific blog the next day, preferring rather to talk about Marmite, Dubai, Singapore and New York. The full speech is here if you'd like to read it yourself.

Anyway, back to the gag ...

Actually, I need to do a tiny bit more scene-setting first. DMGT - parent company of Northcliffe Media Group, owners of the Leicester Mercury - released its interim profit statement at the end of last week. Although the group as whole exceeded the City's expectations, the figures for Northcliffe did not look great - profit down 67% on revenues down 24%. But for £50-million of cuts, much of it made up from the loss of more than 1,000 jobs, the company would have made a £30-million loss.

The Guardian ran an article based on an interview with DMGT chief executive Martin Morgan which began like this:

There will be more cost-cutting at the Daily Mail & General Trust's Northcliffe Media regional newspaper operation next year, with further job losses possible, the DMGT chief executive, Martin Morgan, said today.

Morgan said that Northcliffe Media – which has already shed 1,100 staff, about 25% of total headcount, in the year to 4 October – had perhaps weathered the worst of the unprecedented advertising slump but that more needed to be done.

"The drive for change and efficiency is continuing and we expect costs to fall [further] next year," he added, saying that further job cuts were "possible". "We will continue our reorganisation and re-engineering of the business. There has to be a continuing drive. We expect costs to fall again next year but the big cuts are behind us."

I guess the silver lining in that statement is that the big cuts are behind us, but it's why it is understandable that job security is still the number one issue for many of our staff in any one-to-one conversations I have with them.

And that gag?

What's the definition of optimism? A regional newspaper journalist ironing five shirts on a Sunday ...

So that's why he had the office changed!

The following memo went out to all staff this morning:

Subject: Leicester Mercury - Keith Perch

Earlier this year in February, following Nick Carter’s departure, Keith Perch agreed to serve as Acting Editor of the Leicester Mercury.

I am delighted to inform you that Keith has agreed to remain in this position on a permanent basis. Thus, with immediate effect, Keith is appointed Editor of the Leicester Mercury.

We wish Keith every success in his new role and in taking forward the Mercury during this challenging time for local newspapers.

Michael Pelosi
Managing Director
Northcliffe Media Group

The decade in seven minutes

Another day in the office ...

The day didn't get off to a great start ... out of the blue came an email to all staff from head office telling us that the company was continuing with its pay freeze, probably for the rest of this financial year (which for us means all the way through to next October).

I understand why the pay freeze is in place - we continue to face an incredibly difficult financial situation - but there's no hiding how disappointing it is for everyone. The pay freeze affects everyone including head office and local directors, but obviously it will be even more keenly felt by the lowest paid amongst us. ****!

An absence of malice

Our new writer, Simon Perry, has his first column, The Skeptic, in the Mercury today and turns his attention to a local shop which claims that if you give it £35 and a strand of hair, it will tell you what you are allergic to.

Simon calls himself a skeptic. What does that mean? Well, a dictionary definition looks something like this:

Skep -tic

–noun

1.	a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual.

2.	a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others.

I would say it was someone who would doubt a claim until they saw conclusive evidence to support the claim.

[Before you write and complain, I know that in this country we spell the word with a 'c', as in sceptic, but Simon prefers the American spelling (with a 'k') because it avoids confusion with 'cynic', which is, of course, a completely different kettle of fish.]

I like the way Simon thinks. His doubting and questioning is an extension to much of the work that we have to do as a newspaper and it's great to find someone else with the inclination and time to look into claims made in our local area.

It is a few weeks now since I first asked him to write for the Mercury and much of the time that has elapsed has been spent with us checking out Simon's writing with the lawyers. Here's how our news editor, Mark Charlton, put it on Twitter last night: 'You are a legal fXXking nightmare. But welcome 2 journalism.'

The problem for us is the libel law. It's not an easy law to deal with for newspapers because it puts all the onus on the newspaper to prove what it says is true. You might think that is entirely the right way round on the grounds that we ought only to print what we know is true, but that's the issue: sometimes you know something is true, but you can't prove it. We are pretty sure that the claims made in Simon's first column are both true and provable - it will be interesting to see how much more difficult that becomes with some of the topics he intends to cover over the coming months!

The other question that came up was the motives behind Simon's articles. The lawyers wanted to know that he was not driven by malice. Of course, he's not. As Simon puts it: An inquiring mind, an interest in the truth and an urge to prevent people being ripped off are my only motivations.

Why does that matter? Because if, at some point, we make a mistake - Simon gets something wrong and we don't spot it - we may have to rely on a defence against libel other than one which simply says that we got it right. There are circumstances where, even when we are wrong, we can claim protection against a libel suit. However, any such defence would melt away if it could be shown that either Simon or the newspaper acted maliciously.

That's not going to happen.

If you like what you read, you might also be interested in Simon's blog, Adventures in Nonsense, or perhaps turn out to one of the Skeptics in the Pub meetings in Leicester: next Tuesday (Nov 17th) sees Professor Chris French discussing the Psychology of Alien Contact and Abduction!

Where in the world?

We tend to pour moral outrage on to those parts of the world where people can be arrested, charged, tried and jailed in secret. Conversely we are proud of our own open and transparent judicial system.

Witness the widespread anger over attempts to prevent coverage of Parliament recently in the Trafigura case ... and yet, here in Leicester, if judges had their way, you might be surprised how often people were locked away in secret. As Editor of the local paper, I am threatened with jail if I report the cases.

Just in the past couple of weeks we have come across two such cases. In both, we have launched a legal challenge to the decisions of the courts to ban publication of details of the names of those charged and have won, overturning the decisions so that justice could not only be done, but be seen to be done.

In one case, we found ourselves in the ludicrous situation where the defendant had been named in the Mercury and details of the allegations against him had been published before a judge imposed an order banning us from publishing anything else. In other words, the man could have gone on to be jailed for many years, but you would never have known ... or equally unfairly, the man may have been found not guilty and would have had no way of telling the world that the allegations printed were unfair and that he was an innocent man.

We challenged the order immediately, but the judge dismissed our point of view and the trial went on in secret. By law, our reporter was allowed to remain in court, taking notes of everything that happened over the next few days but could not report it. Even more oddly, any member of the public could also sit in court listening to the case as long as they did not publish the details. Behind the scenes, we continued to challenge the order and even considered employing a barrister to take the case to the High Court - an expensive and time-consuming issue for us. In the meantime, we continued to send letters to the judge and, after a few days of stand-off, he unexpectedly relented and accepted our arguments about the importance of open justice and we were able to resume our coverage.

Why did the judge issue the ban in the first place? I would argue that it was because of a misguided belief that it would protect the victims of the crime, but we are experienced in covering cases in such a way that the defendant is named, but the victims protected. I've written about this before here.

UPDATED: I have removed the details of the next case because of a legal issue which I will blog about separately ... but we now find ourselves in the position where we would have to spend about £10,000 to challenge a court order made by a judge. It's an order we are sure is incorrectly made, but which the judge remains adamantly behind.

Earlier this week, I was asked to speak at a Common Purpose workshop. The title I was given to speak to was: Local media and its impact on the city and county. I knew they wanted me to talk about whether or not negative stories impacted adversely on the perception of the area, but I believe that is such a narrow view of our impact that I talked instead about the other ways we impact on Leicester.

And, this, ensuring we have an open and transparent justice system is just one of those ways. If we were not in court challenging the decisions of judges and magistrates, nobody would be. We would effectively have secret trials and people would disappear without explanation.

As I've said before, you'd miss us if we were gone.

Update on Mercury columnist

Here's the latest on our newest columnist and BBC 5Live reporter Ben Jacobs. It comes from the Biased BBC blog.

BBC freelance sports broadcaster Ben Jacobs, the alleged prime suspect in a high-level BBC inquiry into the sabotaged early Saturday morning precording for a 5 Live sports news bulletin that contained inserted obscene material from the Beeb’s bloopers file, will take legal action if necessary to clear his name.

Jacobs says in an email to BBC colleagues: ‘I now face being barred from potentially all BBC outlets for something I fervently, vociferously can swear I did not do, nor could ever conceive of doing.

'I will take the matter to a law-court if I have to, because I have worked hard and honestly for the past five years and some idiot has ruined my reputation and career overnight.’

Hey ho.

Another sucker punch for newspapers

Great. It's just what we needed five days before Nick Davies rolls into town to persuade everybody - if they needed persuading - that newspapers are full of lies!

The author of Flat Earth News is in Leicester to speak to a meeting of Skeptics in the Pub with the promise that: 'A veteran reporter blows the whistle on his own profession, exposing the scale and origin of falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the news.' I've read Nick's book (twice, as you ask,) and he has a list as long as your arm of examples of how papers get it wrong.

So, he doesn't need any help. But that hasn't stopped director Chris Atkins and his documentary film makers from loading Nick's gun with further ammo. I don't suppose there's much chance that he's missed the reports especially as the Guardian, the paper that employs him on a freelance contract, reported what was going on.

Chris Atkins and his team decided to test their theory that tabloid editors sometimes print stories about celebrities without checking them very much first. All right, without checking them at all. They set about ringing the Sun, Mirror, Star et al with completely false tip-offs and then sat back and laughed as the papers ran the stories without even vaguely checking if they were true.

Here's a taste of what happened according to the Guardian:

Their first call, on 18 March, concerned a fictional sighting of the Canadian singer Avril Lavigne asleep at the nightclub Bungalow 8.

The story appeared in the following day's Daily Mirror under the headline: "Avril Lavigne a lightweight at London clubbing". "After knocking back cocktails, the singer was found slumped across her table, snoring," the story noted. "Lightweight!"

Within a fortnight, almost every daily tabloid newspaper in the UK had published one of the Starsuckers team's bogus stories about the likes of Amy Winehouse, Pixie Geldof and Guy Ritchie. At times, the fake stories were reproduced by media outlets across the world, where they were presented to millions of readers as fact.

And:

A story about singer Amy Winehouse's hair catching fire from a faulty fuse spread across the world after it was printed in the Mirror on 21 March under the headline "Amy Winehouse in hair fire drama". The Starsuckers researcher gave the newspaper fictional details of the story, which she said she had "heard" from an unnamed friend who was at the singer's house.

"Fuses blew as Wino jammed with mates at the house in north London – and sparks lit up her beehive," the Mirror reported. "We always knew you were a hothead, Amy."

What can I say? I'd like to say that it's the tabloids, that we wouldn't do it, but I know that's only tempting fate. I think we check more carefully than that ... and we sent out a link to the Guardian's story to all our staff this afternoon as a gentle reminder.

Fair play to Chris Atkins - he set about proving his point and proved it.

But wait a minute. There's a short video on the Guardian site with an interview with him in which he makes completely unsubstantiated claims which go far further than can possibly be stood up by his film ... and the Guardian lets him state these 'truths' without vaguely checking them or challenging him.

For example, Mr Atkins says: 'on no account were any of the stories fact checked.' Is that true? The Guardian gives a number of examples where various tabloids did not run the stories. Mr Atkins says his film shows 'exactly how little truth there is in the tabloid press.' I don't think it does that at all - it shows how easy it is to fool them into printing untruths, but that's not the same thing. And then, finally, he goes on to say that when it comes to celebrity stories in the tabloids 'nothing whatsoever is about the truth.' Again, his film simply does not prove that one way or another.

Which sort of brings me all the way back round to Nick Davies.

Because he's coming to Leicester next week, I thought I'd read his book again. I have to admit, I agree with a certain amount of what he says, but I can't help thinking that he's guilty of what he accuses papers of doing ... and of what Mr Atkins and the Guardian do in that video.

For example, as I drove home tonight, I was listening to a chapter from Nick's book (I bought it from Audible, a life-saver for anyone who has a daily commute) in which he casts a nostalgic eye back to the good old days and tells us about a journalist in the 60s who went off to a small Welsh town to report on a court case. While he was there he met journalists from all the other nationals. Nick's point is that these reporters went to where the story was and he contrasts that with an account of life on a regional daily paper today where a young reporter tells how he is tied to his desk. Nick goes on to say that this is one of the problems - reporters don't get out any more and nobody covers courts. They don't have time to make good contacts or find their own stories.

I'm sorry, but that's simply not true. It's a generalisation.

The Mercury still has two reporters whose only job is to cover courts - it's all they do. We also have two full-time council reporters, two full-time business reporters, a health correspondent, an education correspondent and a social affairs correspondent. None of these is tied to their desk. They all run their own diaries, find their own stories, cultivate their own contacts - they decide whether or not they are at their desks or out and about.

Much the same could be said about our district reporters as they pretty much set their own diaries. It's also true of our feature writers who nearly always suggest their own topics. It's less true of our general reporters, but that's at least in part because the newsdesk has stories that it wants covering - as do I, as Editor - and these are usually given to general reporters. We also have to make sure that various evening and weekend shifts are covered.

What's the point I'm making? I don't know, I guess I'm just hacked off that the tabloids get caught out so easily by people who want to pour scorn on them and it ends up reflecting badly on the whole media industry when you find those same people doing pretty much what they accuse the tabloids of.

But then again, may be I'm just hacked off!

You'd miss us if we were gone!

Some of the response to our exclusive revelations about the perilous state of the finances at De Montfort Hall was surprising to say the least.

Take this comment left on our website by Sean, of Leicester:

Once again, the Mercury, printed from Nottingham, shows that is only interested in 'bad' news stories from Leicester. We have a fantastic city and the vision that the team at De Montfort Hall have shown to grow an event of nationwide significance like Summer Sundae should be absolutely applauded. Instead it's derided by jealous journalists who are upset because they couldn't get a free ticket to the show.

Adam Wakelin should put his true cards on the table as should the editor of the Mercury. How are your sales going Keith?

So Summer Sundae lost money in 2007 and 2008. I hear that 2009 figures will be much healthier. I hear that the Mercury knows this as well but was only interested in printing the bad news.

And with Summer Sundae it's not just about the bottom line. I'm sure that Leicesters restaurants, hotels, shops, taxi firms, pubs and clubs all benefit from the activities which go on.

I for one would hate it if Summer Sundae did not happen next year. I'm hoping that the Mercury's witch-hunt with half truths will not lead to that but if it does we'll all know who to blame for hurting Leicester.

Putting aside the jibes about where we are printed (actually, it's Derby not Leicester and it makes no difference to what we cover, or how), and our falling circulation (we are independently audited and our figures are published), Sean misses the point.

Do you know what? I agree with him 100% about one thing - I'd also hate it if Summer Sundae disappeared.

There are, however, a couple of factual errors in his comment. Firstly, Summer Sundae is not derided by our journalists - we put a massive amount of effort into previewing and reviewing the festival and I've just checked this year's coverage and it was overwhelmingly positive. The only negative note came from the fact that The Streets pulled out at the last moment and even that was covered in article headlined: 'Word on The Streets meant cancellation was no problem.'

We'll come back to Sean's call for me to put my cards on the table - it's the main point of this post and I do have a few cards I'd like to lay down.

But he says that he has heard that this year's festival performed much better financially and that we know this, but were only interested in printing bad news.

Actually, we don't know that. We did ask for the figures, but we were told they were not yet available. If they had been, we would have published them whatever they showed.

Which brings me to my main point: this article was not about Summer Sundae. It was not even really about DMH - it was the latest in a series of revelations from the Mercury about the way the city council spends our money.

Don't get me wrong. It's not about the fact that the city council spends our money, it's about the way it spends our money.

Personally, I'm in favour of public money being spent on public art. I don't believe Leicester spends enough on it, but the level of spending is a decision for the councillors we elect to make these decisions. Should they plough money into DMH? I think that it's great that they do.

Over the past two years, councillors have looked at DMH and decided to give it a grant of just over £1million to help it bring music to the city and we at the Mercury have no issue with that at all. Leicester needs DMH and it needs to attract performers to the city.

So far, so good.

But what we do take issue with is what happens next and the way the city council reacts.

It turns out that De Montfort goes £1.4million over budget and needs to be bailed out with taxpayers' money. Independent auditors are brought in and uncover a catalogue of mismanagement and a bewildering scene of chaos. (We'll try to publish a full copy of the report later today - we should have done that yesterday).

What does the city council do to stem the flow of cash? Well, not enough. The overspend went up in the year after the report and it's clear that the council failed to implement many of the recommendations of the auditors' report.

And that's the nub of our report. It's not about the level of grant aid given to DMH in general, or the Summer Sundae in particular, it's about the lack of control over the way our cash is spent and the way the council makes decisions.

As I hinted at above, this is not an isolated instance:

The Curve Theatre - another essential part of the city's cultural offering - was promised at a cost of £26million, but came in at £61million. Again, independent auditors were very critical of the city council's handling of the project. The Mercury's complaint is not that the city council built The Curve, but that it got the finances so wrong.

Plans for a new art gallery on New Walk - the estimated cost has risen from £1million to £2.2million before we've even seen the plans ... and the plans themselves were not made publicly available early enough in the process and turned out to be unsuitable.

Bowstring Bridge - contrary to popular opinion, the Mercury has not campaigned to save the bridge, but we have tried, to no avail, to force the council to hold its discussions in the open instead of hiding away behind closed doors when making such a big decision.

The common thread running through these reports is not that we object to the decisions taken by the council - we elect them to make the decisions. But we, in common with all the taxpayers of Leicester, have a right to expect the council to spend our money wisely and openly, and to keep a tight grip on projects so that we don't 'accidentally' spend far more than they told us we needed to.

And going back to Sean's comment about our circulation, I'm not sure what point he is trying to make. In common with every newspaper in Britain, our circulation has fallen and has done so pretty much every year for the past 30 years. However, we still have about 150,000 readers every day and we see 'public watchdog' as one of our key roles.

Uncovering the sort of mismanagement outlined in the stories mentioned above is not easy. Adam Wakelin has been looking into DMH's finances for months - it takes determination, time and knowledge - and if we weren't doing it, who would?

No such thing as bad publicity ...

Today's Mercury carried a first column from BBC 5Live freelance reporter and Leicester City season ticket holder, Ben Jacobs, and, I guess, there's an argument that says any publicity is good publicity ...

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions on this little piece that appeared in the Daily Mail today:

Saboteur hunt at 5live

The BBC are mounting a top-level probe, using CCTV and computer information, to find who was responsible for tampering with an early Saturday morning 5live sports news bulletin featuring a pre-recorded Jacqui Oatley interview with Wigan manager Roberto Martinez.

The Martinez chat was interrupted by a voice saying '******* trumpet, ******* Stanley Clarke', which the Beeb hierarchy believe may have been inserted by a disgruntled employee.

Freelance sports reporter Ben Jacobs, who graduated from Oxford University with a double first in English Language and Literature in 2004, missed his BBC sports shift on Sunday having been told he was involved in the inquiry.

Jacobs' agent David Welch said: 'Ben is fully co-operating with the investigation but totally denies any involvement in any malpractice.

UPDATE: I've just found this YouTube clip of the outburst at the centre of the issue via the Biased-BBC blog. Don't listen to it if you don't want to hear swearing on the BBC!