Them and Us

Last week’s big business news was the sky-rocketing success of banking giant Goldman Sachs, who defied expectations by recording second quarter profits of $3.4bn.

A whooping £6.65bn was immediately set aside for staff bonuses. You can imagine the bankers jumping for joy on their computer desks.

But it was only just over half a year ago that the famous, or rather infamous, bank went crawling to the US Treasury for a bailout to the tune of $10bn. So shouldn’t the taxpayer be the one getting these bonuses?

When banks are in trouble, they can simply stop lending and sell off debts to ruthless credit companies. Rich bankers can retire to their large homes, or simply move into safer jobs like accountancy. Often they will not even need to do this: instead the Government will bail them out because they are “too big to fail“. But when we get into debt, the bailiffs are on the doorstep

The general public have a right to be angry about this. Earlier this week, President Obama singled out Goldman Sachs when talking about the need for regulatory action to curb Wall Street recklessness. He said: “Now there are some companies, like Goldman Sachs, who have paid the money back and that means we don’t have the same kind of levers on them that we might have. And that’s why I think it’s important to pass this broader financial reform package.”

Goldman’s risk-taking culture doesn’t seem to have subsided with the financial crisis and subsequent bailout. Last week’s profits show their VAR (or value at risk) to have leapt from $184m to $245m. Hardly evidence of a bank who has seen the error of its ways and taken a more cautionary approach.

It’s easy to go over the top when assessing Goldman Sachs. Calling the bank a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,” as Rolling Stone put it, might be going just a bit too far. Setting up a blog linking them to Satan, as Florida-based investment adviser Mike Morgan did with www.goldmansachs666.com, again, may be a bit of a stretch.

However, the misty-eyed wonder of James Quinn could perhaps be too far in the other direction. He rains praise on their “survival of the fittest” work ethic and the partnership culture that he says has led many previous members into the upper echelons of US politics.

Big deal – these guys may work hard, but is there any real risk when the state bail them out if they fail? And should we really be lauding praise upon them for the very connections that could have swung this bail out in their favour?

The Lehman Brothers didn’t have the same luck last year, and neither did the millions of people who lost their homes and jobs when the recession hit home.

Newspapers must stand together in the name of freedom

The recession aside, the two biggest threats to newspaper journalism as we know it are:

• The rise of the ‘blogosphere’ and citizen journalism.
• The increasing prominence of European privacy laws in UK courts.

As I’ve said previously, with breaking news on the 7/7 London tube bombings and the Buncefield Fuel Depot explosion coming from ordinary people with mobile phones, digital cameras and a blog or Flickr account, some people have begun asking, “Who needs journalists?”

European privacy laws have given the press a further knock, with huge awards to Naomi Campbell, Caroline Von Hannover and most famously Max Mosley.

NOTW editor Colin Myler, after the Max Mosley judgement, said: “Our press is less free today after another judgement based on privacy laws emanating from Europe.” How right he was.

The 1998 European Convention on Human Rights forces UK courts to balance an individual’s Article 8 right to privacy with the Article 10 rights of people to freedom of expression when making case judgements. But Myler said recent court judgements “dangerously tipped the balance away from press freedom.”

MediaGuardian editor Jane Martinson writes in this week’s three-page Andy Coulson special:

Among broadcasters, there is barely disguised glee at the mess the press has got itself into without the sort of burdensome regulation the poor loves struggle with.

She later writes:

There is no appetite among newspapers, including this one, for laws that make holding wrongdoers to account even harder. Yet many are also uncomfortable that the public interest privileges we enjoy are being used to dig up dirt on the postnatal depression of an actor or the liaisons of a football manager.

If you are going to argue for unregulated freedom of speech, in my view it has to be applied universally, not just to the ‘highbrow’ titles. The very nature of freedom of speech is that people are allowed to say what they like – even if other people might disagree with it.

The only constraint on freedom should be freedoms that directly impose on the health of other people.

When Lilly Allen was pursued constantly by the paparazzi to the extent that one of them allegedly even crashed into her car, the courts were quite right to grant an injunction to protect her from harassment. They were quite right to reduce the stranglehold of the paparazzi on Amy Winehouse’s life by granting her an injunction to protect her from harassment.

But it is a tight rope to walk.

If there are too many ‘burdensome’ regulations, like those imposed on broadcasters from OFCOM, people will have no more reason to read quirkier, more in-depth and often brand-targeted newspapers rather than just watching the TV news.

If there are too few, people will have no reason to pay for an authoritative news provider, when they can get all their news from citizen journalists and the blogosphere.

Give profits raised from Michael Jackson’s funeral to charity.

So Michael Jackson is dead. Fans around the world moonwalked in his memory. Bars and clubs belted out Jackson hits to late night revellers. The media had a frenzy and I even heard one comparison to the death of Princess Diana.

Thousands of fans and admirers flocked to see his five-star funeral extravaganza. At the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, his body was presented to a packed stadium in a gold coffin. Ticket touts and souvenir peddlers earned thousands in one night. Mariah Carey and Stevie Wonder sang and 6.5million Brits tuned in to watch. Jermaine Jackson said, “Everything Michael did was over the top”. Quite so.

Part of me thinks it is quite sad that Michael Jackson’s death, like his life, was symbolised by a display of opulence, extravagance and celebrity. There was more to him than that – he was a great musician who created the soundtrack to many peoples’ lives. And he invented the moonwalk.

Another part of me thinks that his statesman-like funeral was a bit much. Some would say he was just a disco pop singer. He wasn’t famous for feeding the hungry or finding cures for the severely ill. He just sang and danced.

When Richard Wright from Pink Floyd died last year, his death earned barely a footnote in the news. OK, he wasn’t as world-renowned as Michael Jackson, but he was a great musician who, like Jackson, had played the soundtrack to many peoples’ lives.

He was buried quietly and discretely and the media were then allowed to continue with stories about the Iraq war and breakthrough treatments in science and medicine – things that could have a massive impact on the world.

Both deaths were sad and both men should be remembered, but one man’s death should not overshadow the other huge problems of the world. It would be nice to think that future profits from the Jackson brand would go towards solving some of these problems!

Expenses

Politicians have been claiming for everything from porn to duck houses to moat clearing while the economy around them crumbles and thousands of people are made unemployed.

The excuses have been coming in thick and fast – my personal favourite being Sir John Butterfill’s statement that he needed our public money to pay for his servants’ quarters.

But the apologies have been few and far between. Luton South MP Margaret Moran said she needed £30,000 of taxpayers’ money to treat dry rot in her partner’s home in Southampton, because it was essential to her work as an MP that she should be able to visit him.

Has she never heard of the telephone, or e-mail? I’ve heard they work wonders in linking people who live hundreds of miles away from each other. There was no apology and she did not, at first, even face the press after she was ‘outed’ as an expenses cheat.

GM Motors filed for bankruptcy just last week, and around 4,000 Vauxhall jobs in Luton are under threat as a result. You’d expect her to show at least a little bit of remorse for making these extravagant claims in the current climate.

Then, Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, was ‘outed’ for claiming £16.50 for a Remembrance Day reef and Labour MP Frank Cook claimed £5 for a Church collection.

Nine Cabinet members, including Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistar Darling, failed to pay Capital Gains Tax after claiming public money to help them fill in their tax forms, and more than 30 junior ministers followed suit. HM Revenue & Customs now say they will be mounting an investigation.

The resignations have been countless, but MPs who stay on until the next General Election could still receive an annual salary of more than £60,000 and a severance package of more than £30,000. Do they really deserve it for what they’ve done?

No they don’t.

Recession-hit blog revitalised by government nationalisation

A LEADING blog that was forced out of business after investing all its money in Icelandic banks has been brought back to life by a new injection of government funding.

 

The money will provide a welcome jumpstart to An Experiment in Digital Media, which had been officially declared insolvent by executive blog director David O’Neill in January this year.

 

He said: “I invested all of my internet connection money in Icelandic banks after a contact in Herts County Council told me it may be a good idea.

 

But then the banks went bankrupt and I was left home-page-less for months afterwards.”

 

The blog was bought by the Department of Spin as a part of their Private Lives Initiative after pledging to spread rumours about the Conservative Party.

 

David O’Neill said: “I am becoming an expert in shadow cabinet peccadillos and have several in the pipeline already. How do you spell devient?”

 

It is believed O’Neill’s blog will replace official Government smear-site Red Rag, which was compromised this month after its covert sleaze operations were sabotaged by a vicious, bourgeois counter-revolutionary.

 

The saboteur had allegedly discovered e-mails from smear king Damien McBride to Red Rag owner Derek Draper, discussing the best untruths to spread about the Tories.

 

 

 

Prime Minister Gordon Brown allegedly said: “Those complete fools. The public aren’t supposed to know the truth. If they start to find out, how are they supposed to have any faith in us at all?”

 

The ‘covert’ operation became so public and widespread that I actually had to say sorry to the Conservatives. I was so embarrassed.”

 

David O’Neill said: “The Prime Minister needn’t worry about that now I’m in charge. Secrecy is my middle name.

 

“Ask EB… shh, you know who.”

Capturing the Butetown Graffiti Wall

 WHEN the Butetown Graffiti Wall was completed last year, Media Wales boldly proclaimed ‘Butetown history is immortalised in spray paint’.

The irony of this is it is scheduled to be pulled down in February to make way for the development of yet another new block of flats by developers hoping to cash in on the redevelopment of Cardiff Bay.

 What many people don’t know is that although Cardiff Bay is one of the most expensive places to buy or let in Cardiff, the area it is in, Butetown, came top of the Multiple Deprivation Index in 2005 and second in 2008.

 Anthony Brito, who researched the project, said: “Butetown is one of the oldest multi-cultural centres in the world, but it is so often overlooked by people driving through to visit the Bay.

“We wanted to develop interest in the area, tell the important story of Butetown and educate local people about their great history.”

 

 A History Lesson With Anthony Brito

 

My full interview with Anthony Brito can be found here.

The project, which was begun in April last year, was scheduled to be finished by July, but you don’t finish a project tracking the history of an area back to Neolithic times just like that you know.

In fact, it took Anthony Brito, 32, and Kyle Legall, 34, who head the Community Helps Itself group (link), until the end of November to fully research and paint the project.

And to look at the wall, you can see their hard work has paid off.

 

My full set of photos of the Butetown Graffiti Wall can be found here.

 

The wall covers the development of Butetown as a driver of the industrial revolution through its coal and iron trade, the establishment of its global docking port and the closure of West Butes Dock with the decline of the docking industry in 1964.

 

 The 1911 Merchant seaman’s strike, 1919 race riots in Bute Street, the 1930’s depression and World War Two also take prominent places on the wall.

 

 Famous faces include Dame Shirley Bassey, retired rugby star Billy Boston, boxing heavyweight Joe Erskine, and Paralympics medallist Julie Hamza, all of whom have roots in Butetown.

 

 It is one tenth of a mile long and the longest mural in the UK. Local people of all ages were involved in constructing the wall, and a book is due to be released about it this February.

 

 Anthony Brito said: “We hope to do nine more of these across the world to create one mile of graffiti art, directed by us and painted by local people depicting their histories.

 

“We’re hoping to be in Los Angeles by September to begin this.”

 

The current graffiti wall, sponsored by Cardiff Council, has transformed plain boards that were being used by the council to block off derelict land, shown here.

 

Kyle Legall, who has been a graffiti artist since he was 17, said: “I’ve wanted to paint all my life and was born and raised here, so I really enjoyed painting our history.”

 

He previously helped to redecorate the Butetown Youth Pavilion, where he worked from the age of 17-25, by painting a string of murals, which include messages about the rights of the individual, the role of the youth worker in the community, and the importance of diversity in communities.

 

 

Photos of the Butetown Youth Pavilion Graffiti can be found here.

 

The Butetown Youth Pavilion offers classes in beauty and hairdressing, as well as offering a football pitch/basketball court, a pool and table tennis room, a computer room and a music room, all free of charge. They organise free trips for local children to places such as Alton Towers, and are currently trying to raise £15,000 for a trip to Sierra Leone to help build a school there.

           

An in-house scrap book is kept to help children understand their culture and community, and how their local area has changed over the years.

 

However, they are tight on funding and rely on the good will of others for donations to keep the place running. There has been a lack of public investment in the old Butetown, while its neighbouring ‘Cardiff Bay’, still a part of Butetown, has flourished with the redevelopment of the docks.

 

The Google Map below shows the location of the wall and the main places in Butetown:

View Larger Map

 

Butetown Councillor, Delme Greening, said: “People of Old Butetown feel left behind by the Cardiff Bay redevelopment. What we need to make sure we do now is bring them up to date.”

 

The short version of my interview with Councillor Delme Greening can be found here, and the full, longer version can be found here.

 

An ambitious plan to redevelop the shopping area, health centre and council housing of Old Butetown is due to begin in 2009.

Rick Waghorn: Internet Branding Will Keep You in a Job

I considered a few blogs ago that the power of gonzo journalism was the extra personal dimension that it brought to a story, and said that in this respect, blog journalism was a natural development of gonzo journalism – only more maturely expressed.

My tutor, Glyn Mottershead, disagreed, and said that journalists should just be cameras for the public to see a story through, not celebrities in their own right because of what they say or how they behave. I’m not completely disagreeing with that – but I think there is gain to be made if a journalist brings his own method of creative and personal expression to a story.

Rick Waghorn, in last week’s lecture, said that he survived the media downturn by making a brand out of himself during his time working for Norwich Evening News, and established MyFootballWriter before leaving them, so that many of his readers simply transferred from the one source of news to the other. The writer became, for them, more important than the organisation. His down-to-earth manner and expertise in his area were for them more important than the brand of Evening News, and the privileged few who are given control over the limited capacity of the printing press.

Hunter S Thompson did a similar thing, making himself as writer central to the story being told, so that people looked to him, as a name, over the then much larger brand name of the magazine Rolling Stone. In Fear and Loathing in Las Vagas, he created a unique and energetic story that was completely free of editorial interference, yet at the same time compelling and exciting.

Obviously I’m not suggesting that Rick Waghorn would drive through Las Vagas on acid while vomiting through the window, but the point is that both men, through the power of their writing style and story-making abilities, created successful brands for themselves that extended far beyond the company they were working for, and helped them gain recognition and success.

Rick Waghorn argued that the internet has made it easier than ever for both journalists and the general public to create brands for themselves based solely on the quality of their work, rather than, say, office politics.

He gave Robert Peston as an example of how this can work – Peston used the BBC broadcasting machine to make a name for himself, but now posts stories to his blog before even broadcasting them on the Beeb, and he posts the stories in greater detail too. I would argue that Nick Robinson has done the same thing, which is why in 2005 he was taken back by the BBC from ITV in a much higher post than he had been in when he was working for them before – the man was valued more highly than the ITV organisation. His quirkiness, expert news-gathering, and political expertise made him more valuable as a product than ITV, which by contrast has seen many problems recently.

A few of my colleagues were made uneasy by the word ‘branding,’ but I think that this could bode well for the future of journalism. As news organisations are increasingly laying off their workers, surely it is in our favour, as soon-to-be entry level journalists that the individual should have the power to make it big on talent alone, without any other factors interfering with our rise to success?

Too Much Citizen Journalism Can Be Bad For You

We have been told by various speakers during our online lectures at Cardiff University School of Journalism that the technological advances of the past twenty years are great, because they hand over the powers of publishing and mass communication to the general public. This gives us all greater power to participate in the democratic process and communicate our beliefs, so those in the public eye can respond appropriately. They also give us the power to create great news and entertainment of our own making.

There are numerous positive examples of this:

• The 7/7 bombings, it has been argued, ‘democratised’ the media. With the advent of mobile phone cameras, the general public were able to capture videos and pictures live from the scene that the broadcasting media – for all of their technical know-how – would never have been able to get. The general public brought accurate news to us in greater detail.

• This trend was continued, with ordinary citizens producing aerial photographs of the Buncefield Fuel Depot explosion, which took place months later on December 12, 2005, and sending them into the BBC.

• Fans are inreasingly seeking a creative role in the plots of their favourite shows by writing about them online. Online fan reviews of Heroes Season 2 led Heroes creator, Tim Kring, to say at this year’s Comic-Con: “We’ve made a mistake. We’ve heard the complaints. We’re doing something about it,” and bow to fan pressurs for a Good vs. Evil stand-off for Season Three. This kind of public feedback and involvement creates better entertainment for everybody.

• The public is using what have recently become widely available forms of technology to bring us their own entertaining shows, broadcast over youtube and other websites. DeviantArt has helped talented artists get noticed by comic websites such as Reynard City, and myspace has helped launched the music careers of stars like Lilly Allen. That’s not to mention the top-rate video footage brought by amateur video websites such as youtube. Who would have known about Skateboarding Dog were it not for them?

My only concern is that perhaps the public have been given too much freedom by these new technologies.

The Downside

Firstly, citizen journalists may have the technologies available to them to produce the same work as the professionals, but they have none of the training. They have no knowledge of health & safety or trauma, and are given none of the protection afforded to those who work for major media outlets, should they come up against opposition in their line of work.

Secondly, and what worries me more, is the question of responsibility. Giving the power of publishing to everybody is all well and good, as long as you presume that they will use it responsibly.

Communities Editor of telegraph.co.uk Shane Richmond told us in a lecture last Thursday that Mr Justice Eady had recently compared posts on forums, blogs, and internet websites to conversations in a pub, and by so doing effectively protected the hosts of websites that permit free conversation from prosecution on libel or defamation charges.

With this in mind, how do you stop people who want to cause harm over the internet? The BNP membership leak earlier this week is said to have been the work of a disgruntled former party member who breached a court injunction to publish the information. While most of us would have just had a look to see if any of the people at work or in our neighbourhood were closet supporters, there have been some serious reprecussions for people whose names were on the list.

This kind of leaking of private information, to give one example, is irresponsible and detrimental to the public interest of preserving a peaceful society – but nobody knows who posted it and little action can be taken against anybody involved in publishing the information.

Publishing ability may have evolved with the technological revolution, but the laws controlling it have not. This is potentially a very dangerous time for society.

Comics, The Internet, and Communist Revolution

Here at Cardiff University School of Journalism, we have been told for weeks by speakers including Matthew Yeomans, Andy Williams and Anthony Mayfield about how the internet and new technology will change the face of society by bringing the powers of publishing to the masses.

 

People can publish what they want, when they want, and make it available for all to see. People can likewise read what they want, when they want. No longer do people have to rely on a rich few to publish their take on today’s news, and they can get there news from literally anywhere. The oligopolies of old have been blown apart and anybody can come in and seize a sizable chunk of this new market.

 

Matthew Yeomans told us in his lecture how:

• the record industry has been hit by online services like iTunes, where people can buy whatever single they want to buy from a band’s album, rather than relying on what the record company chooses to sell as a single in shops;
• the advertising industry has been hit by Sky Plus, where people can wind on adverts they don’t want to see; and
• professional journalists have been hit by the rise of ‘citizen journalists’ with mobile phone cameras and an internet connection.

 

Andy Williams told us how CNN’s iReport now allows anyone and everybody who has news to tell to upload their video news story directly to their website, which could then be broadcast by CNN.

 

Anthony Mayfield said that with the rise of blogs, forums and mass publishing techniques, we were in the middle of a ‘technological revolution’ comparable to that of the printing press. Never before the rise of the World Wide Web, which was created in 1989 by English scientist Tim Berners-Lee, did we have access to so much information literally at the click of a mouse.

 

However, as I highlighted in my last blog, the downside of this rise in the availability of information is the ‘fast food’-esque culture of absorbing facts that has arguably come with it. Nicholas Carr argues that the internet, in particular Google, through its nature of regular linking and providing lots of distractions, has made people digest information in a rather ‘artificial’ way, whizzing through texts to find quick answers, rather than thoroughly absorbing and understanding texts and what they tell us about the world – a more productive way of thinking that was encouraged by the printing press revolution, but not this one.

 

But the common man, coming home from an exhausting day behind a till, does not want to spend hours reading Nietzche – he wants the information in a ‘lite’ format that he can easily understand. And the internet gives him exactly that. The internet is not a replacement for long texts, as Carr presumes; it is just an additional resource.

*

What caught my interest this week is that comics are doing exactly the same thing. David McNeill writes: ‘Japan’s prolific comic culture has distilled complex issues into pocket-sized, graphic books that can be read in the office or in transit.’ Japan went into recession this week for the first time since 2001, and McNeill writes: ‘A string of publications have found success capitalising on Japan’s growing inequalities and economic insecurity.’

 

Image courtesy of filmonic.com

 

For years, the Western comic industry has been trying to prove to the public that comics are not just for kids and geeks. Alan Moore has dealt with issues including rape (in Watchmen, which is in the process of being adapted into a movie), and Victorian drug abuse (in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) in realistic detail, while Frank Miller has painted harrowing modern cityscapes in comics like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Sin City, not unlike those painted by Marx, Dickens and other Victorian writers.

 

The same real life topics of depravity, inequality, death, love and survival are examined in comics as they would be on any other platforms – be it film, novels or politics. But they are looked at with far less words and a more simple sentance structure, with the added componant of fantastic artwork.

 

Fans are still commonly dismissed as geeks, as were avid internet users only a few years ago.

 

I would like to, half-seriously, suggest that comic book and internet geeks could be the ‘middle-class intelligentsia’ spoken of by Marx in Capital that will lead the workers out of their oppression as the economy crumbles and into a communist paradise where everybody is equal.

Is the Internet Trying to Reprogram Our Minds and Our Society?

Video courtesy of shuji13

 

OK, so maybe the internet isn’t quite as hell-bent on world-domination as The Terminator.

 

But it would certainly have the power to be that evil – if it had its own free will. Google co-founder Sergey Brin, said:

“If you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” His partner, co-founder Larry Page, is reported to have said: “The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people – or smarter. For us, working on search is a way of working on artificial intelligence.”

 

Scott Karp writes that ‘the web is disruptive force in the history of media.’ He argues that it is destroying the assumption of the media moguls and monopolies that they would always have a market, because of the inherent value of the branded service that they offer. Over the internet, where the latest news can be got at the click of a mouse from a Google search – so why would you have brand loyalty for any one particular news source?

 

He says that news-providers will have to collaborate and relinquish their monopoly control of the media to survive in this new market. Readership, popularity, and the subsequent advertising revenues, come from collaboration with other news providers to link to and from each other’s sites and channel the readership traffic, helping each other to gain in the process. The monopoly power that came from big companies of old through ownership of expensive printing presses or broadcasting companies must be relinquished to succeed in the world of the internet for a more collaborative approach.

 

So perhaps it wouldn’t be unfair to say the internet is hell-bent on destroying the world – the old world, that is, to replace it with an entirely new one.

 

Cardiff Journalism School guest speaker Anthony Mayfield, who is Vice President and Head of Social Media at iCrossing UK, said last Thursday that we are currently undergoing a technological revolution comparable to the development of the printing press hundreds of years ago. While the printing press revolution brought to the masses the ability to read new and wide-ranging works of literature, this technological revolution brings them the power to publish works of their own.

 

Nicholas Carr suggests that this new method of reading and publishing may not be as good as it sounds. He writes that the internet may be ‘weakening our capacity for deep reading,’ shortening our attention span, and making it more difficult for us to absorb complex pieces of work:

 

The faster we surf across the Web – the more links we click and pages we view – the more opportunities Google and other companies gain… feed us advertisements… The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.

 

I’m afraid to say I think he may have a point. I’m not denying that technology allows humankind to do what they already do ten times better – I can drive a lot faster than I can run, I can shoot people in the head from a rooftop a lot more easily than I can strangle them, and I can get the necessary information for my essay a lot more quickly from a Google search than I can from reading the book.

 

However, I can’t help but think that a part of the emotion, the meaning, the grit, and the true umph of the action is being lost in the process. Although I can do things a lot better in life with the use of technology, to rely on it completely would be to lose the power of your body, your mind and your soul.

 

Like all things in life, you need to strike an even balance. So now I’m off to the pub.