Live notes from the Police and the Media panel
Keith Bristow, DG, National Crime Agency
Alex Marshall, CEO, College of Policing
Andrew Trotter, Chief Constable, British Transport Police and national policing lead for the communication advisory group
KB: NCA brings number of other organisations and our mission is to cut serious and organised crime. It is about recognising policing is local but we need an overall effort. Organised crime is a national security threat, cyber, organised and immigration crime is now all classed as this.
Directive powers are important but are in extremis - I would use them if there was a refusal to undertake a reasonable request.
Cub crime is often depicted as unique and requiring specialist intervention but increasingly criminals are committing old crimes using new ways.
The biggest challenge is our starting point and we need your (the media) help in getting people to understand serious organised crime is not happening somewhere else to someone else... We must be increasingly concerned about our children's uses of the Internet - you don't have to open your front door to let criminals in now.
We want the media to help us get the message out to criminals - like some of the media coverage about Curtis Warren (a Liverpool gangster -search www.liverepoolecho.co.uk) In the last few days.
It means more of our offices will be accessible to you (the media). "If you're the rights person to talk about what we are doing, do so". The public want to see and hear the men and women who do fantastic work keeping them safe.
This will mean:
More off the record briefing
More advance briefing
Specialist media advisors present for briefings
No leaks - that is outside the rules of our organisation
Digital media: We don't want to tweet every thing - less is more - but as we learn and develop our approach we will give you what you need to do your jobs
We want to engage withal fellow professionals with a shared public interest, not as mates.
AM: It is important that the NCA and forces have a close relationship. The college is doing a lot of work around cyber crime and we also produce a lot of guidance, including contact with the media. We have now put the vast majority of that online - it is on the college of policing website now.
Acknowledged the difficulties of police/media relations recently and asked for feedback. Said bad news. Stories about policing were "massively damaging" and a code of ethics was under consultation now.
AT: I was the author of the guidance and I stand by it. I champion good relations between the police and media. I want a good and open and legitimate relationship with journalists. They have not always been legitimate and we are not going back to that.
Regarding police/media relations: "If you can tell your mum and your boss about that conversion and it id correct then that is about right."
I want us to engage with you and for the debate to move on.
Police feedback, he said, was that forces have good relations with locals and regionals, and with local representatives of nationals, but it is not so good when other nationals turn up.
Chairman Dermot Murnaghan asked: Are you announcing the death of the tip off?
AM: we can have coffee together and talk about legitimate issues and if it is proper to give guidance on certain issues then we can do that.
KB: It has to be legitimate and public interest has to be at the centre of it. I would undertake that contact with one of our media specialists present.
Barry Davies of NWWN asked: We have papers covering several counties and the approaches can be quite different. What are your views?
AT: I discourage local policies as I don't want to see local practices brought up which are confusing. It is a poor service and it is not very bright.
AM: if you see discrepancies tell me and I will bring it up with the local force.
KB: regional and local relationships are important. We are working to have an effect on real people in real neighbourhoods and there will be very few occasions where we are not doing that in partnership with the local police.
A PA reporter asked about leaks and whether KB found them alarming. He said there were suggestions the leaks had benefited paedophiles.
KB said intelligence collection techniques were important and anything that puts information in the public domain can help criminals. There is the potential for unlawful sharing of information to be an offence.
Heather Brooke asked that, as the FBI was accountable to the public should the NCA be too. She also asked what defined 'legitimate' and asked if there should be more protection for whistleblowers raising concerns about police practices.
KB: We are FOI exempts but I don't think FOI is the same as being balanced and transparent. I have given commitment to get into the public domain everything I can.
AT: Real and genuine whistleblowers have absolute protection in law.
Asked if the panel was advocating a hard and fast policy of no pre arrest publicity
AM: there is nothing to stop police force naming someone. If Lancs Police had wanted to name Stuart Hall they could have done. If there is a reason to publicise it, then we can do so. What I am saying to forces is that this should not be as a result of an old pals act of a corrupt relationship.
If the media has the correct information they have no reason to com to the police, they can just publish it. A journalist ringing the press office to ask for confirmation that someone has been arrested [ie. of a name the journalist has that they want confirmed], then that is corrupt. That person's reputation could be trashed without good reason.
Nick Turner, from Cumbria Newspapers: If you asked local editors in the room they would, all would have examples where crimes had happened but it was very difficult to get information from the police. It is a basic thing to tell the community about crimes.
AM: So many of our successes come from publicity I am concerned to see how many people in this room agree they have problems with information. I am happy to take up individual cases.
Mike Glover, of Lakes and Land Communication, said police press offices always said victims of crime did not want to talk to the press and there was a culture of no publicity. AT said in his experience people would say no in the first instance to publicity and then perhaps reflect on it and change their minds.
Monday, 11 November 2013
Society of Editors conference Freedom of Information panel notes
Rather than live tweeting the Society of Editors conference, I thought it might be easier to blog it and have a written record to mull over. So these notes are taken live, and then tidied up and posted via Blogger email.
Freedom of Information session with:
Heather Brooke, FOI campaigner
Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty
Christopher Graham, Information Commissioner
Andrew Vallance, Air Vice Marshall, DPBAC
HB: I was used to doing public record based journalism in the US - police logs, witness statements etc - and when I came to UK I realised all those records were pretty much sealed.
It was incredibly difficult to get official documentation from government and liberate public information. The MPs expenses case was a wake up call; I had done something almost identical in Washington state and all that was required was to ask the Clerk of the House to see politicians expenses receipts.
When I made that request in Britain I was basically laughed out o the building and it went to a five year legal case and ended in the High Court.
Information that should be in the public domain that is suppressed and it creates a sort of black market for that information.
We should be fighting for a sort of First Amendment - the press in the UK is in a weak place now.
SCh: Article ten of the human rights convention is our equivalent of the First Amendment. That guarantees free expression and sometimes it will be in conflict with Article eight regarding right to privacy but not often.
It is rare for a journalist to try to put words in my mouth or spin words. It does happen occasionally and when it does it is shocking.
As director of Liberty I have to try and calibrate all the different important values - absolute transparency would lead to people dying. I find it interesting that politicians become upset about phone hacking and so they farm it out to a judge. It was terrible but what about the Snowden revelations - invasions into people's privacy on an international and industrial scale.
The same politicians upset about hacking are angry with the Guardian for exposing this surveillance.
CG: As a former journalist I don't like the 'press as a victim' which comes across on occasions like this. You can't say freedom of the press excuses everything and yet sometimes it comes across like that.
We are now busy drafting guidance re data protection act and there will be workshops for journalists and the general public next February.
It is not about amending the law. It is not a statutory code. There is a lot in it about what the act is not. The is a lot of myth busting and I hoe that will be a contribution to responsible journalism
AV: My input is on national security and our interest has been to ensure the media did not inadvertently damage nations security.
The DA optics system requires engagement from the media. The editor needs to know the consequences of what is being disclosed to make a decision.
We work hard to ensure that editors know where they are going and what they are doing and don't shoot themselves in the foot.
AV: Snowden I have no time for because if you steal files on an industrial scale you have no knowledge what they contain. When you are talking about hundreds of thousands of files he does not know what they contain or the implications. He went into the
unknown and the consequences may not be appreciated.
HB: You could say he was a whistleblower and who does that information belong to? Things are being classified not in the public interest and we are finding public interest is becoming the private interest.
The digital revolution has changed everything and now that is hitting the heart of power, and they do not know how to deal with that - it is freaking them out. Things done in the name of national security are dangerous to national security. Like breaking encryption on the internet. The NSA did that, not Snowden.
CG: When Snowden and the encryption story started running I started taking an interest. We find the US are much further down the track in investigating this. (He would not say if he was concerned by this or not, despite being pressed hard).
SC: There is a difference between someone trying to be a responsible whistleblower and a dangerous data dump - there may be a moment when you become aware of unethical things by your employer when you have to take action. If you do, you have breached your duty of confidence to your employer but you attempt to do some sifting and you either do it yourself or you go to people you trust to do it. That is what has happened with Snowden and Greeenwald.
AV: We are not concerned about embarrassment but we are concerned when people wilfully damage security. They are exposing us on a grand scale to terrorists... Immediate risk, no. Consequential risk, yes.
CG: We need to be considering whether the arrangements we have are adequate for the 21st century. We have the intelligence and security committee who say "this is ok" (SC cut in and said this was the watchdog that never barked.)
HB said the committee wanted no challenge to be made and had a 'who are you to judge' approach. She described the Guardian has conducting highly responsible journalism: "I was vey upset with the reaction of some other newspaper. You need to put these divisions aside, it is one time when you should support each other."
"The intelligence services act like the priesthood in the Middle Ages, who acted like they had a hotline to God".
Asked why newspapers had to have the same opinions SC said that strategically it was sensible not to turn on fellow journalists "when fear stalks the land".
HB said if you want to criticises the content of the story that's one thing but to go after them around the right to publish that's another and it's undermining.
Freedom of Information session with:
Heather Brooke, FOI campaigner
Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty
Christopher Graham, Information Commissioner
Andrew Vallance, Air Vice Marshall, DPBAC
HB: I was used to doing public record based journalism in the US - police logs, witness statements etc - and when I came to UK I realised all those records were pretty much sealed.
It was incredibly difficult to get official documentation from government and liberate public information. The MPs expenses case was a wake up call; I had done something almost identical in Washington state and all that was required was to ask the Clerk of the House to see politicians expenses receipts.
When I made that request in Britain I was basically laughed out o the building and it went to a five year legal case and ended in the High Court.
Information that should be in the public domain that is suppressed and it creates a sort of black market for that information.
We should be fighting for a sort of First Amendment - the press in the UK is in a weak place now.
SCh: Article ten of the human rights convention is our equivalent of the First Amendment. That guarantees free expression and sometimes it will be in conflict with Article eight regarding right to privacy but not often.
It is rare for a journalist to try to put words in my mouth or spin words. It does happen occasionally and when it does it is shocking.
As director of Liberty I have to try and calibrate all the different important values - absolute transparency would lead to people dying. I find it interesting that politicians become upset about phone hacking and so they farm it out to a judge. It was terrible but what about the Snowden revelations - invasions into people's privacy on an international and industrial scale.
The same politicians upset about hacking are angry with the Guardian for exposing this surveillance.
CG: As a former journalist I don't like the 'press as a victim' which comes across on occasions like this. You can't say freedom of the press excuses everything and yet sometimes it comes across like that.
We are now busy drafting guidance re data protection act and there will be workshops for journalists and the general public next February.
It is not about amending the law. It is not a statutory code. There is a lot in it about what the act is not. The is a lot of myth busting and I hoe that will be a contribution to responsible journalism
AV: My input is on national security and our interest has been to ensure the media did not inadvertently damage nations security.
The DA optics system requires engagement from the media. The editor needs to know the consequences of what is being disclosed to make a decision.
We work hard to ensure that editors know where they are going and what they are doing and don't shoot themselves in the foot.
AV: Snowden I have no time for because if you steal files on an industrial scale you have no knowledge what they contain. When you are talking about hundreds of thousands of files he does not know what they contain or the implications. He went into the
unknown and the consequences may not be appreciated.
HB: You could say he was a whistleblower and who does that information belong to? Things are being classified not in the public interest and we are finding public interest is becoming the private interest.
The digital revolution has changed everything and now that is hitting the heart of power, and they do not know how to deal with that - it is freaking them out. Things done in the name of national security are dangerous to national security. Like breaking encryption on the internet. The NSA did that, not Snowden.
CG: When Snowden and the encryption story started running I started taking an interest. We find the US are much further down the track in investigating this. (He would not say if he was concerned by this or not, despite being pressed hard).
SC: There is a difference between someone trying to be a responsible whistleblower and a dangerous data dump - there may be a moment when you become aware of unethical things by your employer when you have to take action. If you do, you have breached your duty of confidence to your employer but you attempt to do some sifting and you either do it yourself or you go to people you trust to do it. That is what has happened with Snowden and Greeenwald.
AV: We are not concerned about embarrassment but we are concerned when people wilfully damage security. They are exposing us on a grand scale to terrorists... Immediate risk, no. Consequential risk, yes.
CG: We need to be considering whether the arrangements we have are adequate for the 21st century. We have the intelligence and security committee who say "this is ok" (SC cut in and said this was the watchdog that never barked.)
HB said the committee wanted no challenge to be made and had a 'who are you to judge' approach. She described the Guardian has conducting highly responsible journalism: "I was vey upset with the reaction of some other newspaper. You need to put these divisions aside, it is one time when you should support each other."
"The intelligence services act like the priesthood in the Middle Ages, who acted like they had a hotline to God".
Asked why newspapers had to have the same opinions SC said that strategically it was sensible not to turn on fellow journalists "when fear stalks the land".
HB said if you want to criticises the content of the story that's one thing but to go after them around the right to publish that's another and it's undermining.
Home Secretary Theresa May' SOE keynote speech on the future of newspapers
Rather than live tweeting the Society of Editors conference, I thought it might be easier to blog it and have a written record to mull over. So these notes are taken live, and then tidied up and posted via Blogger email.
Home Secretary Theresa May, keynote speaker, said the most serious issues faced by journalism was falling sales and advertising.
She said somber reductions meant that newspapers would soon disappear, and the market would shrink and disappear, but that she remembered when something similar was said about cinema - killed by tv, video, DVD etc, and: "They are still with us and doing well."
Talking about the future of newspapers, the home secretary seemed to work on the basis that people grow older and automatically become newsprint readers. Personally, I think they might possibly become readers but that's not assume they will buy papers. To be fair, she did go on to discuss the various platforms though.
"I believe that newspapers will survive the onslaught of new technology but the industry that emerges will be very different. Young people get their news from the Internet as they grow older they may buy papers as their tastes change... lots of people already pay for news on devices."
She acknowledged local newspapers were having a particularly hard time partly because of BBC dominance, especially thorough the subsidy of the license fee.
She said emerging BBC dominance and expansion at local level posed the question of what reason was left for local readers to buy a paper. She said: "It is destroying local newspapers and it is dangerous for local politics too."
She said the impact of BBC locally had been discussed with her local paper in Maidenhead: "This is a debate that won't go away and the BBC has to think carefully about it's impact locally and on local democracy."
She said she thought local papers would survive despite the internet. "I think newspapers will survive despite the internet. A plurality of resources is essential to our democracy. If newspapers are forced to close down we could see the rise of monopolies."
Referencing Orwell's1984, she said malpractice inefficiency and corruption were a danger.
"Competition in the provision of news is essential in democracy and that is why it is important the Internet does not dilute the plurality."
She said the quality of debate relied on many voices but the media and newspapers were crucial and the transparency was critical; comparing national and regional journalism, she added sensationalisation of news was one reason people would believe their local newspapers more than a national one.
"It is essential that newspapers reflect people's opinion and poplar opinion. Not everything promotes democracy but beyond entrainment and gossip the public wants information on how elected representatives do their jobs and how their money is spent."
And she was empathic around the ability of people to live cover their local council meetings: "Local councils must stop trying to arrest people for trying to film or blog council meeting."
On the Royal Charter: "I believe in a free press and it is vital if we live in a democracy. There is cross party agreement for a royal charter and most politicians have now wish to censor the press. We are all engaged in trying to protect press freedom."
She said she understood how difficult the debate was and hoped that through trust it could be made to work.
She said she wanted to celebrate freedom of the press and that the role of the press was vital in democratic freedoms.
"A future without a diversity of newspapers is much grimmer than the alternative."
Asked what the government would do about the BBC, she said: "One of the challenges is changing behaviour without banning media outlets from opting in specific markets. The BBC needs go think about what it is doing.
"They are dominating the market in a way that prevents others from operating."
However... "The government is not about to legislate."
Home Secretary Theresa May, keynote speaker, said the most serious issues faced by journalism was falling sales and advertising.
She said somber reductions meant that newspapers would soon disappear, and the market would shrink and disappear, but that she remembered when something similar was said about cinema - killed by tv, video, DVD etc, and: "They are still with us and doing well."
Talking about the future of newspapers, the home secretary seemed to work on the basis that people grow older and automatically become newsprint readers. Personally, I think they might possibly become readers but that's not assume they will buy papers. To be fair, she did go on to discuss the various platforms though.
"I believe that newspapers will survive the onslaught of new technology but the industry that emerges will be very different. Young people get their news from the Internet as they grow older they may buy papers as their tastes change... lots of people already pay for news on devices."
She acknowledged local newspapers were having a particularly hard time partly because of BBC dominance, especially thorough the subsidy of the license fee.
She said emerging BBC dominance and expansion at local level posed the question of what reason was left for local readers to buy a paper. She said: "It is destroying local newspapers and it is dangerous for local politics too."
She said the impact of BBC locally had been discussed with her local paper in Maidenhead: "This is a debate that won't go away and the BBC has to think carefully about it's impact locally and on local democracy."
She said she thought local papers would survive despite the internet. "I think newspapers will survive despite the internet. A plurality of resources is essential to our democracy. If newspapers are forced to close down we could see the rise of monopolies."
Referencing Orwell's1984, she said malpractice inefficiency and corruption were a danger.
"Competition in the provision of news is essential in democracy and that is why it is important the Internet does not dilute the plurality."
She said the quality of debate relied on many voices but the media and newspapers were crucial and the transparency was critical; comparing national and regional journalism, she added sensationalisation of news was one reason people would believe their local newspapers more than a national one.
"It is essential that newspapers reflect people's opinion and poplar opinion. Not everything promotes democracy but beyond entrainment and gossip the public wants information on how elected representatives do their jobs and how their money is spent."
And she was empathic around the ability of people to live cover their local council meetings: "Local councils must stop trying to arrest people for trying to film or blog council meeting."
On the Royal Charter: "I believe in a free press and it is vital if we live in a democracy. There is cross party agreement for a royal charter and most politicians have now wish to censor the press. We are all engaged in trying to protect press freedom."
She said she understood how difficult the debate was and hoped that through trust it could be made to work.
She said she wanted to celebrate freedom of the press and that the role of the press was vital in democratic freedoms.
"A future without a diversity of newspapers is much grimmer than the alternative."
Asked what the government would do about the BBC, she said: "One of the challenges is changing behaviour without banning media outlets from opting in specific markets. The BBC needs go think about what it is doing.
"They are dominating the market in a way that prevents others from operating."
However... "The government is not about to legislate."
Sunday, 27 October 2013
My 'interesting reads' roundup (weekly)
-
I challenged hackers to investigate me, and what they found out was chilling
"What I learned is that virtually all of us are vulnerable to electronic eavesdropping and are easy hack targets. Most of us have adopted the credo "security by obscurity," but all it takes is a person or persons with enough patience and know-how to pierce anyone's privacy - and, if they choose, to wreak havoc on your finances and destroy your reputation."
-
Police blunder sees Oxford Mail and BBC identify wrong man as rapist | Press Gazette
A fairly rare occurrence but when it goes wrong, it goes wrong "The BBC and a regional newspaper illustrated a court case of a man pleading to rape and firearms charges with a photograph of the wrong man after it was supplied to them by the local police force. "
-
For six years,Veronika Larsson used social media to get into political discussions, books, respected newspapers and casual chitchat. Except she doesn't exist. This is a great read, not just about how guarded media should be when dealing with online personas, but also of how a journalist painstakingly unearthed the real people behind the fakery.
-
Reporters of the future: Only quick thinkers need apply | David Higgerson
I wish I'd been quick thinking enough to write this post - it's spot-on. You can teach law, and how to shoot video on a mobile, and even how to behave on social media - but someone who knows how to think on their feet? That is journalism gold. "There’s another skill emerging which was maybe always essential, but is now as important as accuracy: Quick thinking. Anyone can be a journalist now – or, to save an argument, share news online like a journalist – but the successful ones will be the ones who think quickly. Maybe that was always the case, especially in newsrooms with multiple editions in days gone by. But now a journalist doesn’t need to just write quickly, they need to source quickly, sift quickly, verify quickly and, most importantly, capture the evidence quickly."
Sunday, 20 October 2013
My 'interesting reads' roundup (weekly)
-
How many top newspaper editors are from digital backgrounds? Still darn few | Poynter.
" “It’s more than being slow. It remains hard to find people who understand digital and who have run newsrooms.”" Jim Brady on why there are few editors with digital backgrounds heading up US newspapers. Interesting read.
Sunday, 13 October 2013
My 'interesting reads' roundup (weekly)
-
European ruling spells trouble for online comment | Index on Censorship
The unmodded 3rd party comments defence has long been established in the online world of news publishing. It does mean that comment threads can sometimes be shocking places marked 'here be dragons' - but the idea of pre-moderating views is something no typically-staffed newsroom could or would consider. Hence Trinity Mirror's Facebook login approach, Most people tend to think before they post, when their actual FB identity is attached (although that has slashed the number of comments posted on the Daily Post site, for example). Anyway, this ruling by the European Court of Human Rights should give us pause for thought... "The judgment in the case Delfi AS v Estonia suggests that online portals are fully responsible for comments posted under stories, in apparent contradiction of the principle that portals are “mere conduits” for comment and cannot be held liable. Further, the unanimous ruling suggests that if a commercial site allows anonymous comments, it is both “practical” and “reasonable” to hold the site responsible for content of the comments."
-
BuzzFeed stole my article, so I’m stealing it back | Death and Taxes
Amid the jokey angst and photos of teens falling downstairs is a very serious point about crediting sources, and the fine line between curation and plagiarism. "Last week I wrote an article about a new trend involving people tweeting photos of themselves and others falling down stairs. Roughly two hours later, BuzzFeed posted essentially the same article with a few new photos and some dad jokes. So I’m going to screengrab their entire article and steal it back. Aggregate their aggregation; aggrega-ception. But don’t worry, I’ll hide the citation to their piece somewhere below to give them the appropriate amount of credit."
Sunday, 6 October 2013
My 'interesting reads' roundup (weekly)
-
Journalism is going to survive this era of creative destruction
This is a pragmatic and interesting post from George Brock, who won my over with his opening line about disruption being 'no fun if your livelihood or beloved newspaper is being destroyed'. Some commentators sound as though they relish the pained thrashings of the Press industry as it struggles to find a new way to exist; others can sound as though blind faith and love of the job will find a way. Also, this: "Journalists worrying about "paradigm shifts", "network effects" and "post counts’ can often forget that, in many parts of the world, adapting journalism to disruption is not the big issue. Keeping reporters and cameramen alive and out of jail remains a priority for many news organisations. In 2012, 70 journalists were killed worldwide in direct relation to their work, making it one of the worst years since records began to be kept. The imprisonment of journalists reached a record high in the same year, with 232 individuals behind bars because of their work. In many places, journalists confront risks, obstruction and threats that are a feature of any society not accustomed to press freedom."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)