Dave Reeder: A tribute

The bemused look on Dave Reeder's face as he poses alongside a permanently preening Paris Hilton epitomises the man. Entirely unimpressed by celebrity for its own sake, he was far happier when interviewing chefs, discussing food and wine, and laughing uproariously with friends.

It came as a shock to wake up this morning to the news that Dave had died. And it was not as if he died in the last day or so - in this online age, we tend to learn about the passing of friends and family quickly. But, in a final tragic irony for a man who was a copious communicator and prolific writer, it turns out that he died last November and the news only filtered through to many of us in the past 24 hours.

In the last couple of years of Dave's life, he was struggling with health issues, with having to put aside plans to retire to France and instead live in his late parents' house in Devon, and with trying to rationalise his possessions which had filled every room, but he was still Dave. Facebook is deviously good at making people feel like they are not alone - for Dave, it was a place for him to update everyone on the minutiae of his life, as well as his thoughts on the state of the world and his strong opinions on food, as he lived alone in a cold house, where mountains of unsorted boxes were preventing him from bleeding the radiators.

But in between massive overshares about his assorted medical conditions (some of us are still recovering from his "arse tags" revelation...), the essential Dave was still there online, reporting from the house in Chagford or the village pub, defending his pescatarianism, expressing his sorrow at the terror attacks in Paris, despairing at the hell of ready-meals and people who can't cook, flying the flag for atheism, reporting on cheese and wine combinations, getting involved in spirited online debates.

And that was Dave at his best - the bemused raconteur with plenty to say. This morning, I thought back to meeting him for the first time. We were both working in Dubai and, over much wine, we debated the ethics of eating meat, agreeing to always disagree when I said that I had no moral issue with eating animals. 

Then I remembered when I last saw Dave in person - we met at a pub in London a few years back and I turned up with my dress tucked into my tights - a faux pas I only realised when I took my coat off before going to the bar - and walked across the pub with my bum on display. I can still hear him roaring with laughter. I chose the restaurant for dinner poorly - Maggie Jones is one of my favourite places in all of London but it slipped my mind that it is a terrible restaurant for anyone who doesn't eat meat. He pulled a face similar to the one in the photo with Paris Hilton as he perused the menu for a dish that would not offend his sensibilities, finally ordering the standard option offered by a chef who can't be arsed with vegetarians, a beetroot and goat's cheese tart. I, meanwhile, had the venison and he rolled his eyes and laughed loudly again. It is a restaurant where they charge for fine French wine by the inch from jeroboams - this amused him and all was well with the world again.

And since then, we communicated via Facebook. Quite a few of us became increasingly worried about him as he was slowly swallowed whole by boxes that needed to be unpacked, and by a collection of vintage horror books and magazines that he wanted to catalogue for sale to shore up his retirement fund. Tough love Facebook interventions were held, urging him to make a start, little by little, on the boxes, to accept the local offers of help, sharing links to vintage book dealers in the county who might be able to value his collection and maybe take the tomes off his hands. Dave became a frustrating, frustrated version of himself as he was increasingly overwhelmed by the house, his health issues and his disappointment about not being able to easily retire to his beloved France.

He last posted on Facebook on November 23 and it was a microcosm of his life towards the end - it appears that he had started cooking the formerly derided ready-meals instead of making dishes from scratch and sharing his tips on his page, but he was still dripping with his trademark sardonic tone: "Tesco is really losing the plot. A search for Thai ready-meals throws up ''Tesco Mushroom Stroganoff With Wild Rice' as its top suggestion. Such a well-known Thai dish..."

His birthday was on February 7. We all posted the obligatory Facebook birthday greetings, inquired about his wellbeing and wondered why he had been so uncharacteristically quiet. But it was a birthday he never quite got around to, all of us blissfully unaware that he had not been with us for a while. The sense that you are not alone with Facebook is merely illusory. A friend and I had talked about driving a van down to Chagford, turning up on his doorstep and blitzing the boxes. Maybe we should have set aside a weekend to do just that. Maybe we all could have done more. We will never quite know. 

The loose ends death almost always leave behind remain unbearably frayed, a ragged edge with which we must make peace.

What we do know is that a funny, smart, sometimes infuriating presence has gone from our lives. But he leaves behind a great legacy as a journalist and editor, as a mentor to many a young hack, as a staunch defender of print journalism. He would send me copies of the last magazine he edited before he retired, asking for my opinion on the contents and covers - for all his eagerness to be the first to share his views on everything from Bram Stoker to Brexit, Dave still sought out the honest opinions of people he respected. It was a privilege to be respected by Dave.

Despite living the latter years of his life largely online, Dave was always an entertaining presence in the real world. We should remember him with joy, with wine, and with opinionated but friendly debates, ideally over the dinner table with fine cheese to finish.

Who needs standards in journalism?

In this era of "citizen journalism", insisting on high standards in reporting - demanding pesky things such as accuracy, genuine balance, correct spelling, punctuation and grammar and, God forbid, paying journalists for their work - exposes one to mockery. 

Never mind that accuracy is the foundation on which credible journalism is built, or that balance on issues of climate change will not be achieved by wheeling out Lord Lawson to punch science in the face, or that journalism is more readable when spelling, punctuation and grammar are in order, or that journalists should be paid for their work because, well, it's work...

Instead, as part of the world's inexorable descent into idiocracy, the rise of the "citizen journalist" means that anyone, it seems, can call themselves a journalist. We wouldn't allow "citizen brain surgeons" to open our skulls but, it seems, many of us are happy to let "citizen journalists" tell us what to think, whether its accurate or not.

"Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?" I hear the indignant crowd shriek at me. After all, I've made a pretty good living out of being a journalist for more than 20 years now. Why would I want these untrained upstarts parking their tanks on my lawn? Why don't I just go back to my manual typewriter and report on the intrigues of the church fete and let "citizen journalists" take over?  

OK, I'll tell you why. Because journalism is a profession. Training is required. Journalists do not need to spend years and years at university, as is the case for doctors, and it is a shame that the days of cadetships, where aspiring hacks could leave school at 16 and work their way up the ladder at newspapers, have fallen by the wayside. But there are skills that need to be taught, an understanding of media law is essential, and ethics are as important as ever. These can be taught at college, university or on the job - or a combination of these - and they are essential for professionalism. 

This is not about Old Lady Lewis yelling at technology. It's great that social media can be used to break news, for people who are on the spot as news events unfold to film or write about what they see through platforms such as Twitter and Facebook Live. 

Hell, I'd be a massive hypocrite if I demanded that bloggers get shut down, particularly as bloggers have shown incredible bravery in less liberal parts of the world in their quest to expose true horrors and corruption. Raif Badawi, for example, is still languishing in a Saudi Arabian jail. He has been publicly lashed over charges, including insulting Islam and apostasy, because of his pro-free speech blog.

But plenty of bloggers and assorted social media users seem to be unaware of the responsibilities that come with writing either reportage or opinion pieces. They risk getting sued for libel or prejudicing court cases. Often, they contribute to the growing mountain of bullshit that can be filed under "fake news". 

The tidal wave of ignorance about the British criminal justice system and rules in regard to reporting on court cases has been brought into sharp focus in recent weeks. First, there was the #FreeTommy crowd, foaming and indignant that Stephen Yaxley-Lennon could be guilty of contempt of court when they thought all he was doing was telling the truth about rapists - except that his "reporting" has the potential to cost the taxpayers thousands in aborted trials and could cause rapists to go free. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon is not a journalist.

And ever since the trial of cricketer Ben Stokes commenced earlier this month, the armchair experts have been out in force crapping all over social media with their inane pronouncements of guilt or innocence. These fools do not care that the trial is ongoing and, at the time of writing, not all evidence has come before the jury. 

As well as being told to avoid the traditional forms of news media, jurors are now being advised to steer clear of social media, lest their decision is coloured by online pitchfork-wavers. The journalists reporting on the case have to be very careful with the language they use, to not allow opinion to creep into their stories, but head over to Facebook and everyone seems to know exactly what happened that night and what should happen to those involved. It's pathetic.

Of course, not all journalism is perfect and bad journalism should be called out. This week, for example, there was a mass outrage because apparently an innocent British woman was jailed in Dubai for the heinous crime of having a glass of wine on an Emirates Airline flight. Except that's not quite what happened - and the reporting of this case in the UK media was almost universally terrible.  

The woman in question, Ellie Holman, a Swedish citizen who lives in Kent, arrived in Dubai from London with her daughter. At passport control, she handed over an expired Swedish passport. Understandably, she was not allowed into the country, as would be the case if she tried to enter any country with an expired passport. Ms Holman then produced an Iranian passport - Iranian citizens cannot get a tourist visa on arrival to the UAE, just as they can't if they want to visit the UK. She had the option of paying on the spot for a visa which would allow her, as an Iranian citizen, to spend 96 hours in the UAE. But she refused. 

As the situation escalated, she filmed the border control officials - again, this would land you in trouble at pretty much any international airport. In the UK, for example, while filming in public places is legal, airports are privately owned businesses and, as such, they can set their own rules in regard to filming and photography. 

Ms Holman was asked if she had been drinking and she said she'd consumed a glass of wine on the plane. But her detention was not for drinking a glass of wine - it was for visa irregularities. However, it was decided that charges would not be pursued and Ms Holman and her daughter should be arriving back in the UK today. 

If someone rocked up to Heathrow on an expired Swedish passport and then tried to enter the country by producing an Iranian passport without a valid UK visa - and then filmed border control officials as the situation escalated - they too would be taken aside and public sympathy would be non-existent. 

As someone who has herself fallen foul of the law in the UAE, I am not going to sit here and tell you all that UAE law is perfect. It's not and there are plenty of good reasons to criticise it. But I am also someone who believes in accurate journalism and there is nothing to be gained by reporting on Ms Holman's case in such a shoddy manner. It undermines the good work other journalists have done on reporting on legal matters in the UAE and neighbouring states.

If people who declare themselves "citizen journalists" would like to become professional journalists, there are multiple options available for training. It would be great if such people did take the time to make themselves aware of media law, of rules and conventions particularly in regard to court reporting, and of media ethics. Good things have come out of the rise of blogging and social media - but when you publish something, you have responsibilities. I'm sure plenty of people, if they have made it to the end of this blog post, will still dismiss me as a boring and bitter old hack, trying to take all the fun out of their crusades - but if you cannot be bothered with accuracy, you are not a journalist. 

Photography by rawpixel.com from Pexels

George Osborne insults us all

George Osborne's appointment as editor of the London Evening Standard while refusing to stand down as a member of parliament is ridiculous, offensive, corrupt and insulting. It has already been said over the last couple of days that it is impossible to be an effective MP and newspaper editor at the same time. They are both demanding full-time jobs and the people served by both jobs deserve so much more than a part-timer. It has already been said that doing these two jobs represents a massive conflict of interest. His appointment demeans the role of an MP as well as the role of a newspaper editor.

Of course there are inane apologists for this steaming truckload of bullshit.  

"But he'll just be a figurehead editor!"

Great. Super. Wonderful. So he'll be on an inflated salary to waft in and out of the office when he can be arsed, doing the bits of the job that amuse him, while the rest of the Evening Standard staff have to do the real work? Will he be there for boring parts of the editor's job? For the negotiations with the sales team that require decisions about balancing revenue with editorial credibility? For refereeing a dispute over the style guide? For the inevitable staff member who appears at the editor's desk in tears?

As well as propping up the notion that only the privileged get the top British media jobs, Osborne's appointment reinforces the myth that journalism is an easy job that anyone can do. 

"It's all about his great connections!"

When he first aspired to be a journalist many moons ago, his rampant privilege and connections could not get him entry-level positions on The Times or The Economist. He did a freelance stint writing the Peterborough diary for the Telegraph. This means anyone who has done a competent enough job on more than one publication has more experience as a journalist than George Osborne. And in a city the size of London with its large media market, there are plenty of well-connected journalists with genuine runs on the board. 

It should not be beyond the wit of Evgeny Lebedev to find someone who has a full contacts book and the ability to run the daily news conference without having to refer to Journalism For Dummies or surreptitiously Google "what is the splash?" on his phone.

"But Boris Johnson did a great job as a journalist!"

Yeah, that'd be Boris Johnson, the same irresponsible spoiled flake of a journalist who got a bit bored trying to report accurately on the European parliament so he started simply making shit up instead. He is largely responsible for starting the "bonkers Brussels" myths that so many leave voters fell for in the EU referendum. He wrote stories about the EU declaring snails as fish, and EU directives to standardise the smell of manure, ban prawn cocktail crisps and standardise condom sizes. This nonsense was published unchecked and people believed it. Boris Johnson was a purveyor of fake news. 

"But Michael Gove is a Times columnist!"

Yeah, that'd be Michael Gove, the man responsible for an embarrassingly sycophantic interview with Donald Trump that was about as hard-hitting as a headbutt from a sea-monkey.

And perhaps most inane of all...

"Oh, it is just delicious that George Osborne can make mischief by trolling Theresa May in the pages of the Evening Standard!"

This is not what a newspaper is for. No newspaper should exist for a self-serving editor, particularly one who already has plenty of opportunities to publicly air his views, to settle scores, to use it for his own personal vendettas. This is not the same as holding the government to account. It is all about George Osborne's ego. It is about him being arrogant enough to assume he can do some newspaper editing in the morning and a spot of parliament in the afternoon and do justice to both jobs.

There is no way George Osborne can do a credible job of editing a newspaper for London. It was bad enough reading the Evening Standard on the commute home when Boris Johnson was mayor. The level of arse-kissing was off the chain. I honestly don't know what Boris would have had to do to be criticised by the Evening Standard in that grim era. Deep-fry a few live kittens outside Buckingham Palace,  perhaps? Then the paper backed Zac Goldsmith even as the wheels fell off his mayoral campaign, Sadiq Khan won the election convincingly and ever since, the coverage of his time in City Hall has been very fair and balanced.

Whether fair and balanced coverage of City Hall will continue when Osborne takes the reins remains to be seen. But it is impossible for him to be an objective editor overseeing the stories that affect Londoners when he has been responsible for votes in parliament that affect Londoners. He is a mess of conflicting ideologies and competing priorities.

He is arrogant enough to think he can remain as MP for Tatton, in England's north-west while editing a London paper. George Osborne has been the mouthpiece for the largely vacuous Tory policy of creating a "Northern powerhouse", of developing the north of England and moving away from a London-centric economy. This is at odds with the unabashedly pro-London stance of the Evening Standard. Can readers expect to be urged to leave the capital for the north? 

He voted for the Health and Social Care Act 2012, an act which led to the creation of Clinical Commissioning Groups, which are putting health services and, in some areas, entire hospitals under threat in London. Will he ensure the government is held to account in the coming months and years if and when London loses essential health services?

Despite being pro-remain, he voted against seeking to protect the residence rights of EU citizens lawfully resident in the UK post-Brexit, despite London being a city that will be seriously depleted in multiple professions if we cannot guarantee the rights of EU citizens to stay on here after the negotiations to leave the EU are complete. Osborne can claim all he likes that he is offering resistance to a hard Brexit but on this issue, he is on the same page as Theresa May. There were two votes on the same issue last year and he was absent for both, hardly the actions of a man committed to wanting the best for London. Yet he is set to edit a paper in a largely pro-remain city where plenty of readers will be uncertain of their own fate or that of friends, lovers, colleagues and neighbours.

He has voted consistently for a reduction in spending on welfare and for a reduction in housing benefit for council tenants with a spare bedroom (the so-called bedroom tax). Unsurprisingly, these laws have done nothing to alleviate poverty in London or address the shortage of affordable housing in the capital, particularly for workers in essential services and low-income earners. 

Will he as editor of the Evening Standard be able to look such tough issues squarely in the eye and ensure they are covered properly? Or will be simply play-act at editing a newspaper, leave the hard work to the rest of the staff and return each night to one of his lovely, warm houses, secure in the knowledge that there will be people on the streets of London using copies of the Evening Standard as bedlinen? 

Photography: duncan c/Flickr

A right royal Brexit mess

Reports emerged around Christmas that Queen Elizabeth II said she was in favour of Brexit but BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg did not report it at the time. This news story got lost in the speculation as to whether she was actually alive and not spending the festive season getting embalmed when she was meant to be at a church service.

In the meantime, Buckingham Palace confirmed that the Queen is indeed still alive, but there were some shrill voices screaming about BBC bias because Laura Kuenssberg did not report the story before the referendum. She did not report the story because she only had the one source and, for a story as potentially explosive as the Queen expressing a clear view on such a contentious issue, this was quite simply not enough to run it.

Without a second source, the story was on very shaky ground. Laura Kuenssberg followed good journalistic practice but she was still slagged off, particularly by those who favour leaving the EU. Brexiters were whining that she didn't report it because the BBC is pro-remain and if people knew the Queen supported Britain leaving the EU, that would tip the vote in favour of voting out.

For a pro-remain broadcaster, the BBC sure as hell gives Nigel Farage a lot of airplay... But I digress.

I trust every Brexiter who got a bit excited because the Queen might favour leaving the EU is a republican. After all, pesky "unelected" people seemed to be a cornerstone of every pro-leave argument and a post-Brexit republic would mean the unelected Queen would become a private citizen and vote like the rest of us can. Or she could run for office herself and her popularity and world view could be put to the test at the ballot box. And how about some House of Lords reform with an elected upper chamber while we're at it, eh? Wouldn't that be just lovely?

Of course the "unelected people in Brussels" argument is bunkum because we do vote for MEPs. But we are now in a post-fact, post-expert idiocracy.

And it is a post-responsibility idiocracy if low voter turnout in Britain for European elections is any indication. God forbid anyone take an interest in voting for those who represent us in Brussels. As a result, we ended up with gravy-train-riding UKIP MEPs not turning up for important votes despite these self-serving hypocrites telling us at every opportunity that they were our "eyes and ears in Brussels". It would seem our eyes and ears did not very often extend to being bums on seats.

In the meantime, MEPs from other parties did plenty of good work that was seldom reported in the British press and engagement with constituents by MEPs was poor. If the hounds of Article 50 are released, we won't get a chance to forge closer links with our MEPs or demand better media coverage of their work, or, I dunno, take some bloody responsibility and seek out information on what our MEPs are doing - it's actually not that hard to find if you have an internet connection and a functioning brain stem.

But back to the Queen...

If you're a monarchist Brexiter, is one of your pro-monarchy arguments that the Queen is above politics? If so, you might want to really think hard before getting too excited about a Brexit-loving monarch on the throne. If she did express a view on the referendum, she is clearly not apolitical so that's that pro-monarchy argument shot to pieces. If Laura Kuenssberg had a second source, it would certainly be in the public interest to report it.

Kuenssberg's source claimed the Queen said: "I don't see why we can't just get out. What's the problem?". Good Lord. The problem is that this is exactly the kind of ignorant, simplistic statement that helped a bullshit-ridden, cynical leave campaign win against a complacent remain campaign in the first place. If the Queen really said such a stupid thing, she is like millions of other people in this country who seem to think leaving the EU will be easy-peasy and that trade deals can be easily done over a cup of tea and a slice of Victoria sponge.

Whatever the hell Theresa May meant by a "red, white and blue Brexit", one thing is clear. We are gearing up for another year of extreme levels of stupidity, possibly starting at Buckingham Palace. The other certainty is that Laura Kuenssberg will continue to be a responsible journalist but that won't stop elements of the left and the right criticising her without ever bothering to do a proper content analysis of her work.

2017: my expectations are very low indeed.





Photography by Maxwell Hamilton/Flickr

Why I won't join the Fidel Castro grief orgy

Fidel Castro is dead. And I, for one, will not be shedding a single tear for his passing.

As a journalist, I cannot mourn the passing of a man who on the day of his death left behind a country ranked at just 171 on the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. Cuba is ranked 171 out of 180 countries. It is dwelling at the bottom with other press freedom dumpster fires such as North Korea, Eritrea and Syria. It rates lower than Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Turkey.

Just last month, Cuba arrested journalists who were attempting to cover the Hurricane Matthew disaster. Equipment was confiscated, and in the wake of harassment in recent months, some journalists have fled the country.

Raul Castro's calls for reforms in 2010 have been meaningless. The regime has almost 100 per cent ownership of all media outlets. Access to the internet for citizens is severely limited. Only around 5 per cent of Cubans have internet at home, all internet comes via the government-owned telco Etecsa. Opposition websites are blocked. There is no real editorial independence in Cuba. Censorship and threats to journalists trying to do their job are par for the course.

We will never know for certain how many people have been murdered under Fidel Castro's regime. The Cuba Archive has documented 3,615 firing squad executions since 1959. It's not on the same scale as the deaths under Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot or Mao but the mentality is the same - wipe out opposition and dissent through executions, a legal system without due process and labour camps.

Why would anyone who claims to chreish freedom, who is appalled by capital punishment, who believes in free and open political debate be OK with such repression, regardless of the scale?

"BUT FREE HEALTHCARE AND EDUCATION!" scream Castro's apologists.

Yeah, that's great as long as the educated, healthy people can actually fulfill their potential, travel freely, express their views freely, and enjoy access to a free press and a polling station once in a while. Have the apologists not noticed that plenty of countries have great educational and healthcare options and democracy? It should not be an either/or situation.

"BUT WHAT ABOUT THE US?!" the apologists yell.

It is precisely this non-nuanced, binary thinking that is turning the world into an idiocracy. It is possible to be angry about more than one thing. There is plenty to criticise the US over, especially in terms of foreign policy over multiple decades. But none of this will bring back the people who were on the receiving end of Castro's firing squads, or reunite families who have been separated, or bring peace to those who want to practice their faith without state repression.

People have risked their lives in dangerous sea voyages to escape the Castro regime. Yet it is stunning how many people who, I am certain, are quite rightly sympathetic to refugees escaping brutality, economic hardship and repression by sea in other parts of the world are seemingly unbothered by the plight of those who felt they had no choice but to leave Cuba. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Instead, I stand with the people who are dancing on the streets this weekend. The mere fact that I can sit here in London and criticise both the US and Cuba, and indeed Britain, without fearing for my life speaks volumes. Make mine a Cuba libre.



Photography by Kevin Burkett/Flickr

An open letter to The Agenda Beirut

Dear members of staff of The Agenda Beirut,

This letter is directed in particular to senior management, for that is where the buck stops when an organisation says or does something stupid or unprofessional, and to one Issam T. Eid, who is responsible for writing, quite frankly, a sexist load of tripe.

I refer to Mr Eid's embarrassing attempt to promote his Automotive Journalism course. Here, Mr Eid rattles off the eight ways he can teach people to become automotive journalists.

Firstly, the writing is sloppy and there is a blatant disregard for paragraph spacing. This is somewhat ironic given that one of his tips is: "Even if you like what you wrote, have someone else read your articles". Did anyone else cast their eye over this tragic sales pitch before it was posted?

Then there is a spot of encouragement for race-to-the-bottom journalism with the advice: "Nowadays if you believe you're a good automotive journalist, you can write articles and post them online". The problem is that plenty of people with an internet connection believe they are good journalists and post reams of bullshit online.

Hell, I can believe I am Wonder Woman, but when I look in the mirror, I see more Helena Bonham Carter than Lynda Carter. Belief does not always translate into reality. It is one thing to motivate your students to believe they can achieve great things. It is quite another to urge anyone who "believes" they are a good journalist, automotive or otherwise, to fill the internet with unedited rubbish.

And then, at the end, perhaps most offensive and ridiculous of all is the advice under point #8. This is, apparently, the "life cycle of an automotive journalist (Pros vs. Cons)".

Mr Eid says "Everyone envies you for your fancy life as you're on the go all year long".

Sure, there are some nice travel perks, but anyone who is serious about the job cares little for the fancy hotel, does not bugger off in the middle of dinner with senior execs from automotive companies because hookers await (I have witnessed this in my time working as an automotive journalist in the Middle East), does not throw a tantrum because a 45-minute flight on a work trip is economy class (I have also witnessed this in my time working as an automotive journalist in the Middle East), does not refuse to go to the airport once they realise the flight is economy class and only calls the PR back three days later with a pathetic excuse (Surprise, surprise, I have witnessed this too...), and often has to file copy from hotel rooms and airports.

But I suspect basic etiquette will be conspicuous by its absence in Mr Eid's course.

And then he concludes his sales pitch for his course in the most startling and unprofessional way imaginable, with this gem:

"It affects your private life. No girlfriend will tolerate you being away most of the time. Wife. That's another bad story too."

Wow. Really? Given you are charging $450 for this course, I assume you are trying to make money, so why the hell would you include in your sales pitch a sexist load of bunkum that excludes half the population? Do you not want to make any money out of women who are interested in becoming automotive journalists? Or did you simply assume that no woman wants to bother her pretty little head with an automotive journalism course?

Do you have any evidence for wives and girlfriends of automotive journalists being unsupportive partners or is it easier to stereotype all women as nagging shrews who don't understand men and their big engines?

Sure, being a journalist, any sort of journalist, can be demanding on personal relationships. We are not necessarily brilliant marriage prospects. We can be grumpy, deadline-driven, obsessive and alcoholic. But there are plenty of jobs that impede on private lives. Doctors, emergency services workers, any job involving anti-social hours...

Is Mr Eid trying to give students a reality check with this advice? Or is it a lame attempt at boys' club comedy? Whatever the hell he was trying to do here, he just comes across as a sexist jerk rather than a professional from whom aspiring automotive journalists can learn great things.

Seriously, it's 2016. Do better.

Your sincerely,

Georgia Lewis, happily married journalist, automotive correspondent for Elite Living Africa and woman.





Picture: Thomas Hawk/Flickr

Cut the crap on Chinese and Saudi human rights!

Come on, David Cameron. Come on. If you're going to kowtow to China and Saudi Arabia, at least have the honesty to admit that it has sod-all to do with human rights and everything to do with money.

This really has been the week of unedifying spectacles in Britain. The state dinner to honour Xi Jinping served bottles of wine worth £1,450 each - that's one month's rent on a one-bedroom flat in Clapham or a figure not too far above the drop in annual household income that will be experienced by an estimated 20% of British households if the House of Lords can't fend off the planned changes to tax credits. There was the Duchess of Cambridge looking demurely bored, resplendent and obsequious in the red of the Chinese flag. The blokes looked either dapper or awkward in white tie. It was all rather obscene.

Then there was the press conference that wasn't really a press conference. Not if Britain is trying to be a democracy with a free press anyway. Cameron kicked things off by announcing there would only be two questions. Two! One from a British journalist and one from a Chinese journalist. Sorry, Dave, that does not a press conference maketh. But I'm sure you know that. But God forbid we do anything to offend Xi with anything resembling a media holding governments to account. That's not how they do things in China.

And it sure as hell shouldn't be the way things are done here.

Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC political editor, crammed a lot into her one question (she had no choice, really...), calling out the Cameron and Xi on the steel industry job losses, the lavishness of the state visit and China's human rights in one fell swoop. And both men gave glib politician's answers that promised nothing and said nothing worthwhile or courageous.

Xi can slyly grin his way through a monologue about human rights being important to China and how changes are happening all he likes because he knows he will not get voted out of office any time soon, nobody will hold him to account to make any changes and he leaves the UK safe in the knowledge the moneymaking deals are safe.

Britain and China have been trading for a while now. Historically, we've done business with China since the Ming Dynasty and more recently, we've lapped up the deals as China became open to making money (largely for state-owned companies and with very little of the new wealth trickling down to the cheap labour force...). China is now a massive market for luxury goods and has the world's highest number of women billionaires at 49. Way to go, Red China!

But despite all these yummy deals, human rights have not improved in China. Exact statistics are almost impossible to obtain but it is estimated that China alone executes more people than the rest of the world combined - at least 607 executions took place in China last year and 778 in 2013. There is no free press and journalists are arrested with alarming frequency - just last month, Wang Xiaolu was arrested for "spreading false information" when he reported on the stock market crash. The one-child policy leads to forced abortions and forced insertion of IUDs. Freedom of religion is restricted. Chinese democracy is nothing but a fairly terrible Guns N' Roses album.

Limiting a press conference to two questions, both from government media outlets, is just the sort of thing one would expect from China. And yet that happened here in Britain this week.

Let us not pretend that China is anywhere near being a freedom-loving democracy. But, more than that, let us quit pretending that doing business with them will stop the human rights abuses any time soon. By "us", in particular, I mean you, David Cameron.

And the same goes for Saudi Arabia. It is probably the worst place on the planet to be a woman. And it is pretty damn horrific if you're an atheist, a Christian, a Hindu, gay, bisexual, transgender, unmarried and sexually active, a republican, a Wiccan, or you are at all interested in a free press, freedom of assembly or universal suffrage.

This didn't stop Cameron giving the same apologist answers for human rights abuses in China when he was asked by Channel 4's Jon Snow about his part in the ridiculous election of Saudi Arabia to the UN Human Rights Council. As well as stammering around the issue of whether he'd personally intervene to try and save the life of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, the teenager sentenced to be beheaded and crucified for encouraging pro-democracy protests, he again peddled the lie that all these trade deals we do with Saudi help improve human rights.

Nothing much is improving in Saudi Arabia when it comes to human rights. Saudi has executed at least 175 people in the past year, including 102 in the first six months of 2015 alone. Nearly half of these people were foreign nationals and the mentally disabled and those accused of crimes committed while under the age of 18 are not safe from the sword or firing squad either.

It took the lobbying by Jeremy Corbyn and the ensuing mass outrage at the sentencing of British expat, Karl Andree, to 350 lashes for being caught with home-made wine in his car for David Cameron to do anything constructive. He cancelled a training contract with Saudi prisons worth £6 million to the UK and now, it seems, Karl Andree may be spared the lashes.

Obviously, this is great news for the Andree family and anyone who is appalled at such a violent punishment for a victimless crime but it was also a case of affordable principles.

In the big scheme of things, a £6 million pound contract to train staff who work in one of the world's most repugnant justice systems is small potatoes.

David Cameron was never going to risk the lucrative arms trade with Saudi Arabia to spare a British citizen from being lashed. The UK-Saudi arms relationship goes back a long way. Between 1992 and 1994, 75% of the UK's total arms sales were to Saudi Arabia. In 2013, Saudi was the world's biggest buyer of British arms, spending £1.6b. Since March this year, the government granted 37 export licences for military goods to Saudi Arabia. We will never know how many of these weapons will end up in the hands of IS but it would be naive to suggest that does not happen.

If David Cameron just admitted that the deals with China and Saudi Arabia were all about the money and really won't have any impact on improving human rights in either country, at least I'd appreciate his honesty. Right now, there's nothing honest about pretending these trade deals will help the people of either country and everything about a supposed democracy where a two-question press conference is allowed by the Prime Minister stinks.

The hypocrisy of the royal paparazzi outrage

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have done the very British equivalent of hanging their heads out the window and yelling at the top of their lungs: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!". They wrote a strongly worded letter.

Essentially, it was a plea to paparazzi photographers for the same sort of privacy non-royal parents enjoy. It was a call for control over what photographs of their kids are shared widely. Just as it is up to parents to decide what pictures of their little darlings end up on Facebook, on mantelpieces and on naff Christmas cards, William and Kate would only like official photographs and photographs taken at official photo calls to be published.

Of course, if they truly want to raise their kids in a normal environment, a republic would solve that problem. They could live as private citizens and get jobs and everything. Yes, I know Prince William works as a part-time air ambulance pilot and donates his salary to charity, but he can afford to have the luxury of such altruistic principles. He could always give up the tax-free money his dad gives him from the Duchy of Cornwall and pay tax like the rest of us.

But to suggest a British republic is still, for many, as absurd as suggesting we all wear shoes made of tofu and hats made of argon. So that leaves us with the letter from the here-to-stay-for-now Duke and Duchess, which was dutifully published in full across multiple newspapers, including the Daily Mail.

It was nice of the Mail to do this, accompanied by official pictures of Prince George and Princess Charlotte. No seedy pap pics taken from the boots of cars. But on the Mail's website, right alongside this reverential reprinting of the letter were paparazzi pics of Brooklyn Beckham, aged 16. And this was just days after the non-story of four-year-old Harper Beckham photographed sucking on a dummy was considered front page-worthy.

A quick click on the Mail's homepage as I write this reveals, along with the usual papped shots of grown-ass adult celebrities, the following kiddie-based crap in the sidebar of shame: the Beckham kids again (this time, Romeo, Cruz and Harper but no Brooklyn, who was clearly too cool to attend his baby's sister's recital), a video filmed from across the street of David Beckham and all four of his kids performing the fascinating act of getting into the car, Kylie Jenner's boyfriend's two-year-old son, 17-year-old Elle Fanning trying to eat a frozen yoghurt in peace, Reese Witherspoon and her sons, aged 12 and two, Kourtney Kardashian and her kids, aged five, three and 18 months, and Kim Kardashian and her two-year-old daughter, North West.

They were all paparazzi shots. None of them were pictures the celebrity parents volunteered to the world's media. They are dull pictures of famous people and their kids going about their business, doing the same boring things the rest of us do. How come in Daily Fail-Land, papped shots of underage celebrities and underage celebrity kids are OK but papped shots of royal kids are a crime against media ethics? Prince George and Princess Charlotte can't help who their parents are but neither can the kids of David and Victoria Beckham, assorted Kardashians or Reese Witherspoon.

Which leads us to the bigger question here: Why the hell does anyone care at all about photos of celebrity kids?

If you are so pleased William and Kate took a stand against those evil paps, but you read the Daily Mail, especially the website, you are part of the problem. If you blush a little, giggle coyly, and admit the sidebar of shame is your "guilty pleasure", you are part of the problem. Hell, if you buy any magazine that uses pap shots, you are part of the problem. The editors know people want to see pictures of celebrity kids, they know it makes them money through copy sales, ad revenue and clicks.

You are creating the market for pictures of celebrity kids. If you feel a bit creepy about this, that is a good thing.

You should be embarrassed if you regularly pore over photos of children you will never meet. It is not the same as looking at photos of your nieces and nephews or your friends' kids on Facebook. It's an invasion of privacy and those pictures online will live on forever for the kids of celebrities, usually with nasty comments at the end.

A free press is a wonderful thing and it should be defended. But when we feed the market for the journalist equivalent of sniffing bicycle seats, for bottom-of-the-barrel-scraping non-news, we end up with the media landscape we deserve.




Photography by Anna Langova

Charlie Hebdo, what now? Part Deux

Following on from last week's blog post on the Charlie Hebdo murders, it is clear we still really don't know what to do about all this terrorism and the threats to free speech and a free press. What is clear is that the right to free speech includes the right to say something stupid (and this is as it should be) and plenty of people are exercising their right in this manner.

Still, facetiousness aside, it is heartening to see people in multiple cities come out in their thousands in a show of defiance against threats to free speech but ironically, the wall-to-wall coverage of these marches has taken up so much of the news cycle that other important stories are not being reported.

Indeed, to add to the irony, among the leaders of nations who linked arms to show their support for free speech in Paris were plenty of people who would do well to clean up their own backyards.

We have Francois Hollande demanding to know how the attack could have happened despite laws passed at the end of 2013 which increased government surveillance powers. Here's a clue, Francois: Your stupid laws aren't working. Then there is David Cameron who rushed through email and phone surveillance laws last year, describing them as "essential".Oh, and let's not forget Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. That'd be the same Israel that jailed three journalists in 2013 and targets journalists, especially those trying to cover the situation in Gaza. Not that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, also at the march, is any better with attempts to control the messages people hear via state-controlled media and ensuring peace negotiations are kept secret and not properly reported. And Queen Rania of Jordan was there too. She'd be the one everyone says is so amazing yet she is also queen of a country that blocked 300 news websites in 2013 and isn't above jailing journalists either. But she seems to get a leave pass because she has such great style.

Barack Obama and John Kerry were criticised for not being there, despite the US ambassador to France and the Assistant Secretary of State being there. John Kerry was in India and is off to Paris next week for talks on countering violent extremism. Maybe Obama couldn't be arsed to attend, maybe he was busy doing other things, maybe he didn't want to link arms with a bunch of hypocrites, maybe it seemed like a futile exercise to him. I don't know and I don't really care just as I wouldn't really care if Bush was still in the White House and he didn't take a trip to Paris.

The reason I don't care is because one of the more ridiculous responses to all this has been to demand that every newspaper in the world print the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in a show of solidarity. "Demand" is the operative word here. While it was certainly absurd that numerous media outlets ran pixellated versions of the cartoons with their coverage of this story, trying to force every newspaper to run the controversial cartoons is not what free speech is about either.

If a newspaper doesn't want to run a cartoon for whatever reason, they shouldn't have to do that. You don't have to publish every single thing that has offended someone in order to be an advocate for a free and fearless press, or to defend the right of others to publish things that may cause offence.

A great way to not hand victory to those who threaten press freedom would be for journalists to simply keep on working, to be fearless, to not be bound by political agendas, to pause every time they are self-censoring to ask why they are doing this and what they - or their masters - are so scared of.

Having worked for five years in the UAE, I was involved in some absurd self-censorship. I wrote an opinion piece about how easy and transformative it would be for the UAE to have a rail service to link all seven emirates. If it ever happens in my lifetime, I will be stunned. As such, I ended the piece with: "Do the leaders of the UAE have the political will to make this happen?". Cue a panic-stricken editor emerging from his office, fearful that I had broken the country's laws against criticising the rulers.

"But Georgia, it sounds like you don't think they have the political will to do this!" he wailed at me.

"That's right. I don't think they do."

"But people might think that we think they can't do this."

"I know, hence I wrote it as a rhetorical question so people can make their own minds up."

"Can you please tone it down, Georgia?"

As a result, a wishy-washy ending to my opinion piece went to press. Sigh... But I was working in a country that does not have a proper free press or freedom of assembly. I knew the score when I moved to the UAE and my time there was sometimes frustrating but the experience was still worthwhile. And it was obvious my boss was terrified of jail and deportation over a little column in the corner of the newspaper's motoring section.

For those working as journalists in the Middle East, I hope you can one day be a bit more fearless than I was over an opinion piece about trains. And for those of us who are working in countries that are doing better on the Reporters Without Borders Free Press Index, a lot of us can probably do better ourselves. We don't need to be forced to print anything we don't want to print. But a media governed by fear, even if there is nothing in legislation to justify the fear (and even if there is, quite frankly...), is not much of a media at all and it serves nobody.

Picture by Petr Kratochvil

Get angry about jailed journalists in Egypt - but look in your own backyard too...

There is global anger at the jailing of journalists in Egypt. Three Al Jazeera journalists - an Australian, a Canadian and an Egyptian - have been sent down for seven years on absurd "terrorism" charges. Two British journalists and a Dutch journalist were tried in absentia and each sentenced to 10 years.

The whole case is completely appalling. In a world where news can break on Twitter, it is ridiculous that an Egyptian judge tries to silence journalists who are doing their job. And it is absolutely horrendous that the censorship is attempted via prison sentences.

But in the midst of the outrage, we should all stop to look at what is going on in our own backyards. On the weekend, thousands of people marched in London to protest the government's austerity measures. Regardless of your point of view on the current government's policies, a march of this magnitude is a news story. Of course, if the march descended into violence, if people were arrested, if anyone was kettled, if Boris Johnson could use it as justification for his stupid water cannons, if Nigel Farage spoke at the march, it would be guaranteed widespread media coverage. But a peaceful mass movement with numbers that have increased year on year? Tumbleweeds. It lurked on the fringes with a bit of Russell Brand-obsessed coverage in the Independent and Huffington Post. There was a wee bit in the largely unread Morning Star.

Oh, and a mere three sentences on the BBC news website for a protest that happened on their doorstep so it wasn't as if they would have even needed to pay for a reporter's cab fare. Not sure how those who keep banging on about "BBC lefty bias" will spin that one.

The Guardian did a slightly better job but, predictably, focused on Russell Brand for clickbait which led to a mea culpa piece to explain that the whole thing wasn't just about Katy Perry's ex-husband.

Yet today both the Guardian (which has confused media morals as it both covered much of the Leveson inquiry, apart from the few hours given to the portrayal of women in the media, and championed the ridiculous report) and the BBC news site have gone big with the Egyptian story today.

It is easy to wring one's hands about something happening in a foreign land far away.

Of course, the locking up of western journalists adds the much-needed proximity for media outlets in Canada, Britain, Australia and the Netherlands to ramp up the coverage. The Sydney Morning Herald has been diligently giving live updates. It's a shame Fairfax, the company that owns the SMH, has not been quite so diligent about preserving staff jobs or maintaining quality across the board. Murdoch's news.com.au is also leading with the Egypt story - that'd be the same stable of journalists that are so deeply in bed with Prime Minister Tony Abbott that they were photographed after the last election toasting his victory.

Like I said, we all need to look in our own backyards because even if our countries are not jailing journalists for doing their job, they're not necessarily being conducive to giving people the free press they deserve either. Just ask any Australian journalist who has tried to get a visa to visit the detention centre for asylum-seekers on Manus Island about jumping through ridiculous hoops.

And then there is the elephant in the room - these journalists work for Qatar-based Al Jazeera and it is pretty clear that this is politically motivated. I don't think President Sisi will be sending warm Ramadan greetings to the Emir of Qatar next month. Indeed, tensions between Al Jazeera, the Egyptian government and Al Jazeera journalists working in Egypt are not new. And while Al Jazeera is obviously and rightfully reporting this outrage loud and clear, their journalists based in Qatar need to be constantly on their guard when reporting on local issues. On top of all this, Al Jazeera has been censored in the US, an act which deserves a slow hand clap.

Then there has been outrage expressed over the jailed journalists by expats in the Middle East. But a quick look at the today's homepages for newspapers in Qatar's neighbours in the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain reveals that none of these countries, all of which have heavily state-controlled media, are keen to make a song and dance about Egypt shitting all over press freedom today. It might give people in those countries ideas and all four governments are terrified of any dissent. All four countries have imprisoned journalists and bloggers. In the UAE, when bloggers went on trial, the ban on freedom of assembly was conveniently ignored by the police when a group of stooges gathered outside the court house to show their support for the government.

As such, lead stories on news sites for these countries include such groundbreaking stuff as Ferrari World opening a new ride in a mall, Ramadan working hours announced for the UAE private sector and Bahrainis being urged to commit to national unity, Interestingly,  the most hard-hitting lead today is from the Kuwait Times, with a call for action over an anti-Shi'ite article in light of horrific events in Iraq but there is nothing on today's news out of Egypt. The Saudi Gazette, meanwhile, leads with a two-steps-forward-one-step-back story on gender equality with a ban on visas for male tailors who make women's clothing and an unintentionally ironic story about the second Saudi woman to qualify as a pilot - except she won't be able to drive herself to the airport... But nowt on Egypt imprisoning journalists.

Who has the cojones to call out these newspapers on their ongoing commitment to peddling a government-approved line?

A terrible, terrible thing has happened in Egypt today. But as well as demanding the immediate and unconditional release of the three Al Jazeera journalists, we all need to be vigilant about calling out the assorted bullfuckery that goes on in the media we consume on a daily basis.

Nobody's backyard is full of roses.



Image by Dawn Hudson.

Fifteen reasons not to get romance advice from e-harmony...

Yes, yes, I know it's a goddamn dating website and I know that e-harmony was only having a bit of fun with its clickbait article "15 Reasons to Date a Reporter" and I know I am a curmudgeonly old bag but seriously, it was one of the daftest things I've read in a while. And I have been trying to read a 290-page report written by NHS bureaucrats so I am spending a lot of time reading daft things at the moment.

I really hope the e-harmony article was not written by an actual journalist. Maybe they got the work experience kid to write it, someone who has not yet become a cynical, ageing, alcoholic hack, someone who still has a ridiculous, romanticised idea of what the reporter's life is like, because the following 15 points are bunkum.

1. Reporters have a great "B.S radar." They expect honesty and transparency - and know how to find out the truth if it's not being told.

Firstly, I have never heard a reporter say "B.S". It's "bullshit". We are potty mouths. You may or may not find that attractive. Also, knowing how to find out the truth in a work context can be a different kettle of fish to doing this in one's personal life. You have been warned.

2. Reporters are usually self-employed and have flexible schedules. If you're free for lunch on a Wednesday, your significant other might be able to join you.

For "self-employed", this may actually mean "unemployed" or "I'm only freelance because the media job market sucks and it is largely because of people working for free or next to nothing and because of the rise clickbait-as-news and Twitter-as-a-replacement-for-reporting." True, there are plenty of journos who are freelance by choice, and that is great, but it doesn't mean they have all this time for lunch at the drop of a hat. And if your beloved reporter does have a staff job, they are probably eating an unhealthy lunch at a crumb-infested desk. The glamour...

3. You'll be getting a great Scrabble partner. (Don't try to use fake words. He/she will know.)

Since when was Scrabble a game you played with a partner? Surely you mean "opponent"? This is strictly a game where it is everyone for themselves. This probably suits the egos of most journalists. While there are plenty of journos out there who are terrible spellers, there are plenty who could spell for their country. Think very carefully before playing Scrabble with such a person, especially if they are also competitive and/or prone to gloating.

4. Reporters meet deadlines. If punctuality is your thing, a reporter won't let you down.

I know of a monthly magazine that didn't come out for six weeks because of deadline failures. And I know of journalists who are so obsessed by the work deadline that everything else in life becomes secondary, including dates and loved ones' birthdays.

5. Feeling out of touch? Your date will be up on all the local news and current affairs.

Alternatively, go read a damn newspaper...

6. Successful reporters (like the one you're dating) are ambitious and aren't afraid to take risks.

But they are still probably chronically underpaid so if you're a gold-digger, you might want to reconsider. Also, "risk" can include "being sent to a war zone at short notice." On the flipside, you may be bitterly disappointed if your journalistic paramour is ambitious in the world of trade magazines and aspires to be the editor of something that is only ever seen by the wider world as the guest publication on Have I Got News For You?.

7. Related to #6, your date might even make the first move. (Or ask why you haven't.)

Here's the thing. While reporters are paid to ask fearless questions, this doesn't necessarily translate to dating. There are plenty of journos who will shamelessly ask the Prime Minister an embarrassing question at a press conference but are barely recovered high school nerds with terrible social skills when out on the pull. Alcohol may help or hinder this process.

8. Reporters make great dates to parties and family events, as they're great at asking questions and engaging others in conversation.

Good Lord. See Point #7.

9. Your date will always have interesting stories to tell.

Sure, plenty of us love the sound of our own voices and regaling people with tales of journalistic derring-do. And plenty of us are not the charismatic social animals that the e-harmony writer seems to think we are and we'd rather have a quiet drink than be performing seals at weddings, parties, bar mitzvahs...

10. Remember the time your ex forgot your birthday? Reporters pay attention to important details. Your date will remember your birthday, the way you like your coffee, and that promise you made her last week. Your words will matter.

Crap. We rely on Facebook birthday alerts just like everyone else does. And we may be so wrapped up in the details of a story that we forget we are even in a relationship. Honestly, we are just as rubbish at remembering adorable little things as anyone else.

11. Reporters are passionate communicators, excited to share stories with a wider audience. They also want to hear others' stories.

Unless your stories are completely tedious. On a night out, we don't need a flashback to working on a local paper and getting the dreaded "I've got a story for you!" phone call. The "story" invariably turns out to be something like: "The council forgot to collect the bins this week and I blame immigration!". And they will refuse to go on the record or have their photo taken. Much alcohol will need to be applied.

(By now, you might be learning that, despite countless pop psychology studies showing journalists up to be terrible partners, we tend to date, shack up with, and marry each other in the hope that, despite our often disproportionate egos, we find someone who understands us.)

12. Reporters are trustworthy. And when you're in a relationship with one, everything is off the record.

Unless you have the misfortune to be Liz Jones' boyfriend... And since when were journalists ever immune from not cheating on partners? How adorably naive. Or you may recognise your failed relationship in an embittered column written by your ex after a truly horrendous break-up. Don't laugh. I have done this.

13. Reporters can act fast, redirect questions and problem-solve on the fly. If you like smart guys/girls, a reporter will keep you on your toes.

Alternatively, after a long day at work, we probably can't be bothered to keep anyone on their toes. Like any profession that involves long hours, really. And if we do have the energy for such nonsense, we morph into the world's most annoying people with whom to have an argument.

14. Reporters get invitations to swanky events. If you've ever wanted to hobnob with the mayor and other local celebrities, dating a reporter helps.

And we can't always bring a guest to these allegedly "swanky" events. Swanky? Hello, 1978! If the reporter is going to an event in the hope of sniffing out a story, it might not be as much fun as you were hoping. Or, if your beloved works on Tiles and Taps Monthly, you might only ever accompany them to some thrilling event such as "Bathroom Sales Team Of The Year". Or your presence might be a hindrance rather than a help. In any case, no journo wants to be used as an accessory to social climbing. Grow up.

15. Clark Kent. Enough said.

Oh, do fuck off.



Photography by George Hodan

Journalists working for free: It's just not cricket or capitalism

Journalism is a job. Just like any other job, real work is done. It can be tiring, the hours can be anti-social, countless studies have shown us up to be terrible at marriage and a bit too good at alcohol consumption, but the rewards can be priceless. Well, almost priceless. Just because many journalists genuinely love their job, it does not mean they should do it for nothing. Like anyone else, journalists have to eat, they have bills to pay, they cannot get by on bylines alone.

But it is a profession where many are expected to work for free. Especially freelance journalists. There is barely a freelancer alive who hasn't been told that the work will be "good for your portfolio" or "it will be good exposure" or "we're not paying anyone because the company hasn't yet broken even". And so on and so forth.

And some companies aren't even that honest. It is a rare freelancer that has been paid for every single piece of work they have produced or, at the very least, hasn't had to embark on a frustrating wild goose chase with editors and accounts staff to ensure money they are legally entitled to ends up in their frequently depleted bank accounts. I know someone who once staged a sit-in at the accounts department of a well-known newspaper. He was only handed a cheque when he lit up a cigarette indoors and refused to put it out. Journalists should not have to resort to being a fire hazard to get paid.

Nor should journalists have to resort to embarrassing people on social media or calling in lawyers because monies owing have not been paid. A high end magazine that I am currently not naming for legal reasons is one such case in point. It was launched in Asia with four issues produced, leaving in its wake a bunch of unpaid freelance journalists and subscribers who never received a single copy. The publisher is now trying his luck in the competitive British market.

I've seen the high quality launch party invitations. I can only assume that these weren't free, that someone paid the printing costs. And, given it's a magazine launch, booze will most likely flow freely and the canapes will most likely be Hoovered up. I can only assume that caterers will be paid for their services. So why haven't journalists who were commissioned to work for the Asian edition been paid?

Well, the plot thickens. I decided to defend the unpaid writers on social media and by the end of today, I'd received a message from the publisher promising that the writers will be paid in two weeks. He has not explained why they were not paid in a timely manner. He has also promised to me that subscribers who have not received copies of the Asian edition will receive six issues free of charge. I will keep everyone posted on whether everyone is paid in full within the next two weeks.

I wish the publisher well in his British endeavours, if only because I value a free press operating in a free market economy, and I value diversity in the media. Without that sort of press freedom, we have North Korea. I value the BBC, I value not-for-profit media outlets such as Channel 4 but I also value the outlets that operate in the free market. The more publications the market can support, the more work there is for journalists and this means there are more ways for people to get their information on everything from sports cars to Syria. 

And this means that media outlets have to value the skills of journalists, to pay them properly so that quality products are created, products that people will want to consume, products that advertisers can work with, confident that it is credible, that print run and circulation figures are not being massaged, products that paid-up subscribers will receive in a timely manner without publishers having to give away freebies to save face. This is not just good for the media, it is smart business sense. And part of this is ensuring the people that do the work are paid. Nobody should have to do their jobs as a labour of love. When people are not paid, that is when there is a greater reliance on the welfare state. Why would any capitalist support that? Yet, sadly, it appears, so many do. There are plenty of media businesses constantly advertising for unpaid interns, unpaid full time staff or not paying in a timely manner, or simply not paying at all. It has to stop.



Photograph of Jane Stafford, scientist and medical writer, from the Smithsonian Institute.

G4S, BBC, police: All in it together?

So far, this is what we know about a BBC staff being prevented* from working on a balcony at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester yesterday...

1. There was a large protest about NHS cuts and privatisation - 50,000 people marching on the CPC - in Manchester.

2. It was a peaceful protest. Only two arrests were made.

3. BBC political correspondent Norman Smith did not film live coverage of the NHS demonstration from a balcony at the CPC venue.

4. According to Norman Smith's Twitter feed (@BBCNormanS), security staff had been told by police not to allow the BBC access to a balcony overlooking the protest, but no reason was given for this ban.

5. On the Greater Manchester Police Twitter feed (@gmpolice), it has been denied that police prevented the BBC from filming.

6. Whoever manages the police Twitter account did say that people were "prevented from entering plaza area outside venue reducing potential tensions between protestors & delegates".

Firstly, the balcony in question is private property in that it is part of the venue where the CPC is currently being held. But to say the CPC is a private event is a little absurd. A BBC reporter wanting to film here is not the same as demanding to film, say, a wedding at the same venue.

The CPC has been getting wall-to-wall coverage on the BBC Parliament TV channel, as did the Labour and Lib-Dem conferences. It is important in an open, functioning democracy that BBC, as well as all other news outlets, cover the party conferences. And it is important that people are free to protest at party conferences, regardless of their views. If a party conference is targeted by protestors, that should be covered and every assistance should be given to the media to properly cover it. If a balcony is a good vantage point for getting live footage of a protest, that should be made accessible to the media just as the CPC is open to cameras and reporters.

The NHS protest as well as the events of the conference are inextricably linked and need to be properly covered. Even if you would happily see the NHS disbanded tomorrow, it cannot be denied that 50,000 NHS-supporting people giving up part of their weekend to protest the party conference at which the Prime Minister and Health Secretary were both present is not newsworthy.

Norman Smith's Twitter feed raises more questions than it answers.

He tweeted: Also to be clear. I was stopped by security staff who said they had been told by police not to allow access. No reason was given #cpc13 

Smith doesn't elaborate as to whether he challenged security staff. Nor does he say if he contacted Greater Manchester Police to ask why filming from the balcony was not permitted. All we have from the police is a tweet about other people being denied entry to other areas reduce "potential tensions between protestors and delegates".

Can anyone from the security company (G4S, by the way... Remember them? The company that did such an appalling job of London Olympic security that the army had to be called in...) or Greater Manchester Police elaborate as to what danger could have been caused by allowing filming to take place from a balcony? After all, a balcony would offer a safe, aerial shot of the protest. A bulky TV camera wouldn't be getting in the way of protestors from a balcony, would it? If filming took place from this particular vantage point, BBC staff would not be getting in the way of the police officers patrolling the protest either.

All in all, it sounds like it was a good place to film live events without obstructing either protestors trying to get a message across or police officers trying to do their jobs.

So, here are the questions that the public deserves to have answered. Our taxes pay for the police force and the BBC so accountability is crucial.

1. If nobody's personal safety was going to be compromised by BBC staff working from a balcony, what exactly was the problem?

2. Was there a problem with the BBC running live footage of the protest? Is it the live aspect of filming an event as unpredictable as a protest that caused consternation?

3. Was anyone from the Conservative Party passing on directives about how BBC journalists should do their jobs to members of the police force who then passed these directives on to a private security company?

4. Did the police force and G4S in their combined actions yesterday cross a line from simply ensuring people stayed safe to dictating how a media outlet does its job?

5. How strongly did Norman Smith protest when disallowed access to the balcony?

6. If Norman Smith proceeded to the balcony and carried on filming regardless, would he have risked being arrested?

I know I am not alone in wanting these questions answered. And if you still think this is a storm in a teacup, just remember how many important stories have been broken precisely because journalists showed some backbone and didn't bend to petty rules. A media populated by obedient people is not a media worth having.


* "Prevented" as far as we know from the journalist's Twitter feed. If he wasn't prevented from filming from the balcony, it is reasonable to gather that he would have filmed from the balcony and there would not be any questions that need to be answered about police and G4S interfering with journalists doing their jobs properly. 





   

Leveson's toothless tiger

It's strange to be writing about the Leveson report from Qatar, a country that currently sits at a dismal 114 on the World Press Freedom Index, two rankings down from the United Arab Emirates, where I worked as a journalist for five years. The UK is currently ranked at a could-do-better 28. But at least I have the freedom to criticise the report, and the responses to the report without fear of ending up in a British prison. This is a stark contrast to Qatar where this week a poet has been sentenced to life imprisonment for criticising the Emir-led government.

I don't think Britain is on a track that will end up with similarly outrageous prison terms for things that should never be a crime anywhere in the world. And the Leveson report does not represent a move towards full government control of the media - but legislative change has been recommended to give an independent panel legal footing.

The report itself makes for some bizarre, and often wishy-washy, reading (he went way too easy on Jeremy Hunt for example. Cameron should be thrilled about that...). Despite ongoing controversies about people being arrested over stupid tweets and Facebook posts and David Cameron calling for a social media clampdown in the wake of last year's riots, the report only devotes a page to the internet. It is as if it was all too much for Lord Leveson to think too hard about the implications of this newfangled internet on a free press and freedom of speech. Indeed, he seems to be harking back to the original definition of a free press, which was literally the freedom to use printing presses. How quaint.

But what about phone hacking? Phone hacking is indeed an invasion of privacy and the Dowlers should never have gone through what they did when their daughter was missing. Equally, hacking celebrity phones for gossip about private lives is completely out of line. And phone hacking is illegal. If someone hacks a phone, there are already criminal sanctions available in courts of law to punish the perpetrators.

The Leveson inquiry testimonies exposed phone hacking as a practice that was largely used to collate celebrity gossip stories, the kind of stuff that is simply not in the public interest and serves the greater good in no way at all. But what if a phone hack revealed government corruption or exposed a terrorism plot? Should a public interest test be applied if such cases went to court?

All the celeb goss crap does is generate website clicks and copy sales. Should Hugh Grant's sex life be in the public interest, for example? No. He is an actor, he is a man with a penis, he is not a saint and he has never spoken out about the evils of fornication. What he gets up to in his personal life these days is his business. He did indeed break the law with the Divine Brown incident in LA, but that was a story that had an element of public interest and it was not obtained through hacking.

Tabloid journalism can be incredibly awful but in a free society with a free press and free market capitalism, they are businesses that are entitled to operate. It is also important to remember that even if a media outlet was run as a non-profit organisation, it still needs cover costs, such as ensuring staff are paid. While it is generally cheaper to run a website than a print or broadcast operation, it's a rare media outlet that can be successful, not pay anyone and not have to generate any revenue. As consumers of media, we have a responsibility to be educated consumers, to be aware that such media businesses may be beholden to advertisers and to read and watch smartly. Similarly, political bias is generally pretty obvious in newspapers, whether it is from the left or the right.

As consumers of media, we have the power to choose where we spend money on media. If you don't like the Daily Mail, don't buy it and don't give its website hits. And you have the right to do the same if you don't like the Guardian. There are plenty of good things being written by good journalists but they are not always commercially successful. Seek them out, spread the word, don't just rely on one newspaper or one news channel for all your information. You have choices. And you have the freedom to call out bad journalism through all manner of mediums - social media, letters to the editor, online comments, talkback radios, hell, start your own blog if you feel that strongly about it...

Then there is the issue of libel and defamation. In theory, you have the right to sue if you have been libelled or defamed by a media outlet. But the cost of litigation means that this has become a privilege for the wealthy. And this is where David Cameron's criticism of Leveson is hypocritical. Is he about to announce reforms whereby ordinary citizens could access legal aid if they wanted to pursue libel or defamation lawsuits but cannot afford to legal fees? Of course not. Is it in Cameron's interests to urge a private citizen who has been libelled or defamed in the Daily Mail? The constant and unbalanced exposure of "benefits scroungers" springs to mind, but would David Cameron make it easier for people on benefits to sue newspapers? Of course not.

And Cameron knows he cannot afford to lose the support of newspapers that have spoken out against the Leveson recommendations. But perhaps this is a time for newspapers to re-examine their support of politicians and parties. As an Australian, I have always been baffled about the way British papers will come out in public support of one political party or another at every election. How is that the role of a newspaper? Where is the balance or the independence?

As I write this from Qatar and reflect on the often frustrating realities my colleagues and I encountered while working in the UAE, 112 on the Press Freedom Index, I am very grateful that I can criticise without fear of getting arrested when I land back in London tomorrow night. I fully expect that I will not lose that right in post-Leveson Britain.

I had a very different experience in the years 2006 to 2011. Now that I no longer live and work in the UAE, I can now freely say that Hassan Fattah, the Editor-in-Chief at The National, where I worked in Abu Dhabi, told me to "tone down" an opinion piece about whether the seven sheikhs of the emirates had the will to cooperate to improve the nation's transport. And I can tell you about a story of mine that was spiked by Fattah. I worked on it in my own time and I planned to expose a man wanted by the Cypriot courts who was (and, as far as I know, still is...) hiding from the law in Dubai - but Fattah told me the story was "legally fraught." It is the kind of story that I would have no problem convincing an editor to run in Britain.

Instead, we used to get excited about pathetic victories, such as the time the section of the newspaper on which I worked got away with running a picture of a trophy featuring a naked man. It is probably the only time The National has ever run a picture of a penis. "Getting away with it" was something we'd do to feel like we had a small win over the system and for our own amusement.

I expect that Britain will not end up with a highly restricted and regulated media like that of the UAE or Qatar - and I expect that current laws regarding illegal activities of journalists be upheld so that the whole profession is not brought into disrepute. And I include tabloid journalists in the profession because not all tabloid journalists are hacking phones and tabloids have as much of a right to exist in a free society as the Guardian. Deal with it.

Image courtesy of www.kozzi.com