Spalpeen

I’m helping to run a campaign to free Benjamin Geen, a former nurse who was wrongly convicted of killing and harming his patients. Please check out the campaign site, where we will be posting news and information about the case as it proceeds. Make sure you add your email address to the mailing list so we can keep you updated.

Also please read the Independent on Sunday’s report into Ben’s case, and have a look at the Innocence Network for more information on the London Innocence Project.

Journo-activists haven’t learnt much from previous global catastrophes. Even with a report in hand saying that 300,000 people a year are dying from climate change, there will be no popular outrage. Why? Because these people don’t have a face, and most of them are from third world countries.

To get Governments to really makes changes on climate change, there needs to be a highly specific person or group of people who are directly affected by climate change in a significant way.

This exact scenario played out with nuclear testing in 1950s, with the Daigo Fukuryū Maru. This was the boat that was contaminated by radioactive fallout after the Castle Bravo nuclear test. The people on the boat were subject to large radiation doses, and fell very ill, with some of the crew dying of their exposure. It led to international outrage, which led to the Partial Test Ban Treaty, influential novels (On the Beach) being published and a general public that was aware of the dangers of continuing with these horrible tests. Before this, misinformation by the US Government was enough to downplay the need for such an agreement.

The media has shown in the last month or two that it is extremely partial to a face on a story. From Jade Goody, to the Gurkhas, to MPs expenses, to the bloody economy, there’s always a victim or a protagonist behind the story. Climate change needs its own Jade, or Lumley, or Duck House, or Goodwin.

Until the media becomes truly utilitarian in its coverage — never have so many people been affected by so big an event — we’re going to need cynical solutions to a cynical press.

burning paper from the last 10 years of my life by The Shifted Librarian on Flickr

Some commentary on David Carr’s article, United, Newspapers May (Could, Possibly, Might, Will Hopefully, With Crutches) Stand. I’d like to rename it “United, Newspapers Will (More Likely) Fall.”

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Back when I was a young media reporter fueled by indignation and suspicion, I often pictured the dark overlords of the newspaper industry gathering at a secret location to collude over cigars and Cognac, deciding how to set prices and the news agenda at the same time.

It probably never happened, but now that I fear for the future of the world that they made, I’m hoping that meeting takes place. I’ll even buy the cigars.

Got news for ya’ David, even the non-smoking newspaper men ain’t meeting anymore.

Even casual followers of the newspaper industry could rattle off the doomsday tick-tock: a digitally enabled free fall in ads and audience now has burly guys circling major daily newspapers with plywood and nail guns. The Rocky Mountain News is gone, The San Francisco Chronicle is on the bubble, and dozens of others are limping along on the endangered list.

Including the very paper that this column appears in.

Magazine and newspaper editors have canceled their annual conferences (good idea: let’s not talk to one another). But perhaps someone can blow a secret whistle and the publishers and editors could all meet at an undisclosed location.

Alright, so you saw that link about the newspaper people not meeting. My bad. Maybe for your proposed secret meeting they could try emailing each other?

My fantasy meeting goes something like this: a rump caucus could form where the newspaper industry would decide to hold hands and jump off the following cliffs together on the following actions.

No more free content. The Web has become the primary delivery mechanism for quality newsrooms across the country, and consumers will have to participate in financing the newsgathering process if it is to continue. Setting the price point at free — the newspaper analyst Alan D. Mutter called it the “original sin” — has brought the industry millions of eyeballs and a return that doesn’t cover the coffee budget of some newsrooms.

Unfortunately printing information on paper don’t seem to be selling either. And as far as I can tell, internet articles behind paywalls don’t seem to sell either.

The big threat would be that newspapers could lose the readers they have, lots of them. The mitigating factor is that a lot of those readers aren’t paying anyway. And keep in mind that people are already paying for quality content all over the Web: The Wall Street Journal, Consumer Reports, The Arkansas Gazette. Tiered Web access — from a bare-bones free product to a rich, customized subscription — could be among the solutions.

Isn’t part of the problem that newspapers seem only want to churn out one-product-fits-all? Since when have newspapers cared about who the hell I am? This article doesn’t even allow comments. How are they going to customise anything to suit my needs? (by the way, any information that does get revealed through these “customized subscriptions” will end up being free anyway.) [insert something about the internet destroying boundaries to information/mp3s/movies]

No more free ride to aggregators. Google announced that it would begin selling ads against Google News, with almost no financial accommodation to the organizations that generate that news. The book industry — of all Luddites — has extracted cash from Google, as did the wire services. Google, The Huffington Post and Newser have built their audiences and brands on other people’s labors. Continue Reading »

Clay, what really tipped you over the edge? Was it the eight trillionth biased, irrelevant, spammed, or purchased link on the homepage of Digg.com that made you lose faith? Or was it the fact that every politician who has successfully utilised the internet, has cynically used it to raise money for their existing political platforms? Perhaps the continuing utter insignificance of Creative Commons in relation to greater society, and the prevalence (and success) of DRM?

Technology is not innately “good.”

People split the atom, they use it to build bombs that can millions, and to provide power for millions.

People make a site that can allow anyone to vote for stories, they use it to help other people discover “10 Famous People Saved By The Heimlich“, as well as the latest obscure political development.

Crowds are not wise. They are mobs.

Clay now thinks of the internet as “just another implementation layer for special interest groups” - this didn’t have to be the case! But that’s what happens when people just invent a piece of technology and give it to millions with no guidance. There will always be a need for editorial control.

Frankly, the kind of wide eyed optimism that many people have about the internet is really unhelpful. Theories aren’t enough. Just putting it out there isn’t enough. It’ll take a lot of hard work to make the internet even a shade of the amazing place that people like Clay like to imagine. People want money and power, and the internet is just another tool to get it.

Catch21 got Emily Thornberry MP, Mark Field MP and Nick Harvey MP on to talk about Boris Johnson’s off-hand suggestion for National Service for young people, knife crime and how to encourage young people to volunteer.

UPDATE: this post previously mentioned Shell as one of the companies International Alert is advising on the potential consequences of their programming in countries like Iraq. Shell is one of many companies that International Alert is advising. Also, the information on “costs” comes from a document called Red Flags: Liability Risks for Companies Operating in High Risk zones (Warning: PDF link).

I’m at the 2nd Hull Peace Conference (Warning: PDF link) where Aurelien Tobie from International Alert just finished his talk on the training and skills required for “Peacebuilding”. An interesting anecdote came when I asked him about lobbying, and how the organisation would like to influence Governments and policy makers.

International Alert works with a variety of Non-Governmental Organisations and corporations across the world’s hotspots, including a variety of large international corporations. Some of these companies apparently want to go back to Iraq, which is an extremely dangerous area to get involved in. Inevitably a corporate presence there would result in deaths, due to the grave security risk out there.

Instead of telling these companies that it’s wrong to engage there because your presence will result in killings because of the security they’d have to employ, they tell them that it would cost them a lot of money if their presence did result in killings. They often cite cases where corporations have been successfully sued in similar scenarios, which has far more impact on the corporations than mere threats that human beings might die.

Business ethics? Pah!

I support Obama for President (the opponent would be a disaster for America and the world), but this video the campaign aired recently is essentially propagandist drivel. Who would in their right mind sit through a 30 minute commercial?! I expect that it’ll come off cheesy for uncertain voters, and probably patronising for most supporters of Obama. The only group I can see actually sitting through it are hardcore fanatics of Obama, but they would have watched this if it had been published solely online. Seems like a waste of money to broadcast this on the networks. Then again, most of this $1 Billion “race” to the White House comes off as a waste sitting from all the way over in the U.K.

I’ve always hated it when politicians refer to “evil”. It sends shivers up my spine when the people that have/could potentially have a degree of influence over the actions of the state use the word evil to justify their beliefs or actions. The reason for my trepediation whenever a politician brings up evil can be traced back to when I attended a lecture by the shadow home secretary, David Davis. He referred to the detainees at Guantanamo as “evil” individuals. David Davis certainly isn’t the first person to say this: Blair has said it, and Bush has said it repeatedly. In fact, I blame Bush entirely for the increase in popularity of this simplistic word. Search any of his speeches, and you’ll find multiple mentions of “evil” this, “axis of evil” that. Frankly, I think it’s probably one of the most worrying linguistic trends in politics for a while. Rejecting the concept of right to a fair trial and using some arbitrary idea of “evil” to justify your stance is dead wrong.

Anyway, this rant was inspired by Randall.

This is one of the primary reasons that I believe representative-based politics isn’t the right system to run Governments by. Why should $500 million need to be spent to find the next president, why should any money be spent finding a leader? That money could and should be used on actually improving the lives of people in America. OK, so some will argue that the money will improve America by supporting a worthy candidate, although I’d be willing to argue that the majority of that money is about garnering influence over the representative. Each presidential candidate will be hosting events where you’re expected to pay money to attend, and the pay off is an audience with the candidate, and therefore the potential to influence policy.

It’s the same situation with lobby groups. The same group of rich people have an unfair influence over the process of running a Government. Why should money be the yardstick by which a country’s agenda (via powerful and well funded lobby groups) is set, and the barrier to entry to a politician hearing what you need to say (via rich donors)? The answer is that it shouldn’t.

Strict deliberative democracy doesn’t have representatives. Even a mild form of deliberative democracy that exists within a representative liberal democracy could have the effect of reducing the influence of money over the process of Government.