More on shorthand from the UK Press Gazette

The UK Press Gazette has a very interesting online feature – a student journalism blog. A recent post by Dave Lee suggests that all young journos should not only be on Facebook and other social networking sites; they should also be using them as generators of story ideas and as a good place to find sources. This is not such a new idea any more. There’s a recent and growing movement in the US for something the proponents are calling “beatblogging”. There’s even a blog site devoted to it. The mission of this collaborative project is to figure out how journalists can better use social networking sites to improve their reporting and writing.

A big ask perhaps, but it does, in a round-about way, lead me back to shorthand. I’ve been canvassing opinion on three continents about this and, to be frank, it’s a bit of a circular argument.

Toxin Avenger – SST on the money

A very good story in the Sunday Star Times last weekend (25 May) about the trials and tribulations endured by TV3 investigative reporter Melanie Reid in her battle to defend a documentary she made in 2006 about dioxin pollution in Paritutu, near New Plymouth.

Adam Dudding’s feature laid out Reid’s fight with the Ministry of Health and the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR). The government agencies claimed that Reid’s story was unbalanced, based on “bad” science, was misleadingly edited and used theme music designed to influence viewers (I’m not kidding about this). The Ministry and the ESR complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority on the grounds of balance, accuracy and bias. It’s a salutory example of regulatory difficulties in the area of balance and bias. How can the BSA board rule effectively on such a complex case that rests on contradictory scientific claim and counter-claim?

Goff’s gaffe – where’s the story

If blinked you missed it. On Tuesday morning it was Goff’s gaffe and the news media was all over it in a flash. By the weekend it had all but vanished. Had Phil Goff signaled a hidden streak of disloyalty? Was the minister really suggesting that Labour might lose this year’s election? Did he want Helen’s job and was he preparing for a Christmas coup? Or was the whole thing a beat-up? Which ever way you cut it this won’t be the last such scoop/frenzy/speculation drama of 2008.

In defence of theory – a reply to Mr duFresne’s review of Intro

It seems that Dominion Post columnist Karl duFresne and I are destined to cross keyboards for some time to come. We first clashed in August-September 2007 in a debate about the state of journalism in New Zealand and the old chestnut of objectivity in journalism.

Now I find I have to challenge him once again. This time over a fairly damning review of the journalism textbook Intro.

I have no real interest in defending every word and full-stop in the book, but a couple of inaccuracies and the general tone of the review do need some comment. my particular beef with Karl is the disdainful voice he adopts when talking about “theory”.

The shorthand debate goes global – almost

Martin Stabe’s popular blog at the Press Gazette in the UK is carrying some interesting comments on the shorthand debate. Martin also links to another blog where the debate is also live.

Martin Stabe on shorthand

Charlie Beckett on shorthand

Charlie’s post ends with a nice line:

Those of us who have shorthand like to think that it is vital, but is it any more important than an ability to type fast enough for Twitter?

No free speech in New Zealand?

An interesting media release on the Scoop site today.

At the opening of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRINZ) annual conference, former newspaper owner Matthew Horton made some interesting comments about freedom of speech in Aotearoa. There are elements of anti-political correctness and pro-National bias present in the quoted comments and a demonstrable lack of understanding of the power of social media.

The Kahui verdict – what next

Just saw the news that the jury in the Chris Kahui murder trial returned a not guilty verdict. It took them only 10 minutes. I don’t know how this decision will be interpreted, but I for one found the daily updates from the trial on Morning Report and Checkpoint very interesting. In fact over the past two days Tiffany & I have been discussing the possible outcome. We both felt that a “not guilty” verdict would be the result.

[For non Kiwi readers, Chris Kahui was charged with the murder of his three -month-old twin boys, Chris and Cru in June 2006. The boys had horrific injuries and died in hospital.]

Copyright and fair dealing

What is the protocol about linking to content and using photographs in blogs about the media? I wonder because today I was asked to remove a photograph from a blog post on the grounds it was a breach of copyright.

The photograph was obtained by the newspaper from someone involved in the story; it wasn’t shot by a staff photographer. According an email in the correspondence chain between the publication and I, the owner of the image had vested copyright in the news organisation and I was in breach of this copyright by linking to the image in my blog.

Pandering to an audience or whipping up moral panic?

I mentioned a recent Sunday Star Times article in a previous post. A front page story about the conviction of a sex offender with form. He pleaded guilty and at the time of writing was awaiting sentencing. I said at the time that the SST was promoting moral panic and creating a climate of fear with its reporting. I’ve also had an interesting day: an exchange with two senior SST staffers about that post. One demanding that I take down a photograph because of copyright issues and one demanding a retraction (I deal with this at the bottom of this post). However, in general I think the point I was making about hysteria and sensational reporting has been borne out.

Marty on The Wire

I was asked to comment on the bFM current affairs programme The Wire on the Herald on Sunday’s front page exclusive about Bailey Kurariki’s “lavish lifestyle” and my blog comments on the Qantas Media Awards. I was hoping to embed an audio player here, but I”m not yet tech-savvy enough to do this. So if you want to listen in, you’ll have to click the link below.

On The Wire, talking to Tim Neale about the Bailey Kurariki “lavish lifestyle” story