Spalpeen

In response to an email from the NUJ New Media email list (the general gist being that a) why should NightJack want to remain anonymous, since running a blog is about getting readers, right? and b), that NightJack should have expected to have his anonymity busted at some point) I wrote some thoughts at 8AM on the train to London. Here’s what I wrote:

I’d question whether every blogger’s primary intention is for people to read what they are writing. Especially when you’re talking about someone working within a high profile organisation who may have gripes about his work. How many of us have been in a job that is frustrating for organisational or bureacratic issues? All of us. However, that doesn’t mean it’s justifiable for every individual to start an anonymous blog about their employer.

Say you’re a call centre employee working in London on minimum wage. You’re working for a private company, so no public money is subsidising your work, and you’ve probably signed some form of non-disclosure agreement about information you procure at work. There’s very little justifiable reason for you to start an anonymous blog decrying the organisation that you work for.

Now, say that same organisation starts paying you less than minimum wage, stops paying for overtime, and begins employing people under 16. You have a huge incentive then to reveal this information. Its not hard to see why someone in this situation who has no easy way out might start an anonymous blog. They certainly would not be doing it for wide readership (at first). Most likely they would want to experience a sense of catharsis, and connect with other people in similarly hopeless situations (both of which are true in the case of NightJack).

I’d also suggest that there are some very obvious reasons why someone in this hypothetical situation would not go to a journalist or alert authorities to the situation. One, they may not have or known an easy way to get in touch with a journalist. Two, they may not trust a journalist, even if they do know a way to get in touch with one. The same reasons apply regarding the proper authorities.

If we expect privacy from the prying eyes of the Government, then surely individuals who do a public service and reveal information in the public interest should be able to expect some privacy from the News organisations that claim to act in their interest! We may not be able to expect the courts to agree with this principle, but I’d have thought a newspaper like The Times would understand and accept it!

On the point about the distinction in privacy between publishing on your private blog and on someone else’s server (or via a journalist), I think this is a clear case of how the law has failed to keep up with technology and society. We didn’t have such a widespread network of “self-publishers” ten years ago: now we do. So the rights to privacy that anonymous sources enjoy should unquestionably be extended to individual anonymous bloggers.

The Independent, Jerome Taylor - First it was models, now bloggers and sex workers add to the return of unions

Press Gazette, Martin Stabe - NUJ may get its first full time blogger tonight
- NUJ freelance branch confirms first blogger member

Jeremy Dear, General Secretary of the NUJ - Through Bleary Eyes

Journalism.co.uk, Laura Oliver - NUJ admits ‘first full-time blogger’

PoynterOnline, Paul Bradshaw - Why One Blogger Joined the NUJ

Freelance UK - NUJ admits its first freelance blogger

Online Journalism Blog, Paul Bradshaw - Over to you, Roy: Why a blogger joined the NUJ

Andrew Keen, via email - “not really. Your work still needs to be edited.”

In response to a question on the NUJ New Media email list. 

Google is clearly eyeballing Wikipedia with Knol. (Disclosure: I work for Mahalo.com - many people have cast Google’s Knol as a direct response to Mahalo)

The key questions that journalists and the NUJ as a whole should be asking here is: will there be any vetting of content? Will writers be paid?

The NUJ always seems to be at least couple of steps behind with everything related to the web. Jeremy Dear wrote today/yesterday that bloggers should be thinking about joining the union. That might have been a relevant statement two or three years ago. And it’s still irrelevant today considering the farce of a process that is “applying to the NUJ”.

An entirely new form of publishing is rapidly being built through companies like Wikia, Squidoo, Digg, Mahalo, etc. Technically, we have 3,000 part time employees at Mahalo on top of the 50 in house guides - all of them are getting paid to write. The numbers at other sites are even bigger. Mahalo’s numbers could be 10-100x bigger in 4 years.

5 years ago, it was unheard of for people to get paid to blog. 6 months ago, it was unheard of for people to get paid to write search pages.

If the NUJ is really serious about its role of defending workers AND new media, it should be completely on top of every single new development where people get paid to write online. They should be reaching out to people and asking them if they need help with dealing with their employee(s). The application process to the NUJ should be as simple as clicking a link.

In response to a question on the NUJ New Media email list.

One, I thought the NUJ could help build my career by exposing me to British journalists and their editors.

Two, curiosity. I read Donnacha’s Web 2.0 editorial in The Journalist and it infuriated me, but it also made some kind of sense. I thought there’s gotta be a better way to investigate the NUJ’s attitude to new media than writing a blog post, and I thought that “better way” might have been to join the union.

Three, by joining, I thought it’d be a good counterpoint to Roy Greenslade’s public resignation from the Union. Frankly, I think that older journalists with established careers need the least support: it’s young people like me with an interest and some experience in journalism that need help to ensure that they’re not manipulated by employers. Some recent editorial by NUJ members highlighting the increasingly common practice of hiring unpaid interns for long periods of time definitely caught my eye here.

Four, to give back. There’s clearly a lack of understanding in the NUJ as a whole regarding new media and its benefits. Nearly three years at the world’s biggest blogging company has given me a fair degree of knowledge that I wish to impart.

Around two weeks ago I formally* applied to the NUJ, stating my occupation as “blogger”, and that my full salary came from blogging in a freelance role. A week later I received a call from Paul at the NUJ, confirming that I couldn’t be a full member of the NUJ if I was in full time education, and neither could I get a student membership if I wasn’t a doing a media course / on the student paper. Because my “situation” clashed with the NUJ’s rulebook, I had to admit that I’m taking a year out of my course, and therefore I won’t technically be a student this year (I’m off to work at Mahalo in Santa Monica, lucky me). I have to tell them I’m a student again when I get back and resume my course, which means I’ll probably be reapplying: depending on whether I find the union useful or not of course.

I received a letter a few days back, suggesting I attend a London freelancers meeting today (Friday 12th November) at 6.45PM. Unfortunately I can’t attend, so I phoned up the NUJ to see whether this would affect my application. It will, to the extent that I won’t be able to answer any potential objections that may or may not be raised.

Then, I get an email from Martin Stabe at the Press Gazette, quoting Jeremy Dear, General Secretary of the NUJ.

“I also approved the application of the first NUJ member who has blogger as their job title. Whilst we have hundreds, if not thousands of members who write blogs, this is the first person who earns their entire living solely from freelance blogging. Who says we’re not attracting new media workers? Membership in new media was up almost 11% over the past year.”

It sounds like I may officially be the first member of the NUJ with blogging as his/her only profession (as long as no objections are raised at this meeting tonight). But am I really the first to join the NUJ as a full-time blogger? It seems like half The Guardian’s online staff are bloggers by profession (including the co-signer of my application), and I’m sure there are plenty of other mainstream media reporters out there who are members of the NUJ, yet their primary job role is blogging. What’s different about me?

I may be the first person to apply as a new member with the vast majority of my experience being at a blog — that has always been a blog, and will always be a blog — but that doesn’t mean I’m the first blogger member of the NUJ.

Is Jeremy Dear saying that I am the first person who earns a salary solely from a blog (which isn’t associated with a mainstream entity) to apply to the NUJ? But wait, you say that Engadget isn’t associated with a mainstream entity? I thought you got your paychecks from AOL, you corporate whore, you! That’s true. So is it a requirement that every blogger who wants to be in the NUJ must be associated with a “big” media company with shareholders and stuff? It seems so. Either that, or no other non-MSM associated blogger has bothered to apply for the NUJ. That scenario honestly wouldn’t surprise me, considering the archaic application process.

The most surprising thing for me is that I was told to my face, on video by Andrew Keen (author of The Cult of the Amateur) and Richard Sambrook (the director of the BBC’s Global News division) that I’m not a blogger, because of my blog’s mainstream media association, and the fact that my paychecks exist and come from AOL.

So why did I apply? Mainly to see what it was like and whether I would succeed, partly in an attempt to enact some basic changes at the NUJ using a method other than arguing online with Donnacha DeLong (setting up a form based online application system, publishing The Journalist magazine online, and allowing international members would be a great start), and peripherally because I want advice on unions. Surely in an ideal world, that peripheral motivation would be the only motivation?

Let’s see how it goes.

*Apparently, “formally” means writing a letter, on paper, and getting it signed by myself and two other NUJ members (thanks to Jemima and her colleague!) using a pen. I also had to stick an AOL payslip inside.