“The ethics of live online video” – notes from a panel session at #ijf17

I’ve been at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, and here are my notes on a panel session entitled “The ethics of live video” featuring Mark Frankel, Joanna Geary, Ben de Pear and Mandy Jenkins. The session was moderated by…

Bye then, for now

Bye then, for now

Life comes at you fast if you are willing to say trash for cash, as Milo Yiannopoulos has found out this week. It’s nothing personal. I mean, he did email my boss saying me and my team consisted of “an…

Yes, Trump’s tweets are a distraction – but one people clearly want to read

Yes, Trump’s tweets are a distraction – but one people clearly want to read

I have some sympathy with the view that Donald Trump uses his Twitter account to the do the “dead cat strategy” of distracting people and the media from more important issues. I think it is important that the media hold…

Why you shouldn’t jump to conclusions about the BBC’s “banned from Google” URL list

The BBC have published a list of their URLs that have been removed from Google search results under the “right to be forgotten”. I’ve seen a fair bit of commentary saying this is brave journalism, and being a bit gleeful…

As a journalist, what would I write if Dapper Laughs committed suicide?

As a journalist, what would I write if Dapper Laughs committed suicide?

So this week Dapper Laughs launched DappsDaily then pulled it after accusations of plagiarism from the Guardian, banned the Liverpool Echo from reviewing a show, and faced local council calls for him not to play in Sunderland. And today on…

The tl;dr version of critiquing articles about #GamerGate

The tl;dr version of critiquing articles about #GamerGate

Over the weekend Newsweek published some interesting stats about the tweets using the #GamerGate hashtag, and who they were aimed at. I covered it for Ampp3d. You can imagine what happened next on Twitter. But what I was especially interested…

The Press Complaints Commission is dead! Long live the 404 page. Er wut?

The Press Complaints Commission is dead! Long live the 404 page. Er wut?

For years and years I blogged on here and on currybet.net that the PCC was totally unsuited to regulating the press in the era of the internet. And what a fitting epitaph. Go to their website, and you’ll see that…

Was Jack Of Kent right to break an embargo on Conservative Party plans for human rights legislation?

Was Jack Of Kent right to break an embargo on Conservative Party plans for human rights legislation?

The internet’s very own learned legal friend Jack Of Kent has caused a stir today by publishing detail about Conservative party strategy on human rights legislation that was embargoed. The Mail’s Political Editor – James Chapman – was particularly vexed,…

The Scotsman really has banned mention of Wings Over Scotland in their comments

The Scotsman really has banned mention of Wings Over Scotland in their comments

UPDATE It’s been pointed out to me in the comments here, and I’ve tested it, and the ban on mentions of “Wings Over Scotland” has now been removed Original article from September 8th: In all my years of commenting about…

The newspaper columnists tone-policing your grief on social media

I’m always surprised by the extent to which some newspaper columnists are disturbed by the unwashed masses being able to communicate their feelings of grief. First Dylan Byers and then Rosamund Irwin have felt the need to write newspaper columns…