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Why teaching journalistic ethics is only the start of a cure

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:59:30 GMT

First, despite the growing level of redundancies across the media and the bad odour created by phone hacking, young people remain eager to become journalists.

Most university journalism courses remain over-subscribed. That's certainly the case where I teach, City University London, but I understand it's true across the country. Tuition fee rises do not seem to have had any impact on intakes thus far.

Second, wrote Pritchard, the number of candidates for exams administered by the National Council for the Training Of Journalists (NCTJ) "remains at roughly the same level as previous years."

I might take issue with him about whether NCTJ accreditation is as vital as he suggests (City isn't accredited) but it's his third point, about the importance of teaching "ethical practice" in journalism courses that caught my eye. He argued that there is an urgent need "to demonstrate that the next generation of journalists is taking ethics seriously."

Evidently, to that end, NCTJ course directors have been pointing out to the Leveson inquiry that ethical journalistic practice is embedded in their teaching. He cites three examples. At the University of Central Lancashire, an ethics module is compulsory and students "cannot graduate if they do not pass the module."

At Salford, the study of ethics is given the same priority as media law while, at De Montford, ethics "forms an integral part of professional practice; a core aspect of doing the job of journalism". I would add that City's head of journalism, George Brock, explained in his witness statement to Leveson the centrality of ethics in our courses, and repeated it during his appearance at the inquiry.

He was sitting alongside two other professors of journalism - Steve Barnett of the University of Westminster, and Brian Cathcart, of Kingston University - and Angela Phillips, senior lecturer at Goldsmiths.

All four were somewhat disparaging of the NCTJ. Barnett thought its demands "slightly inflexible", and Brock thought them "too rigid" and "too difficult for us to operate."Cathcart pointed out that although Kingston's MA course is accredited, he considered its references to ethics as "effectively a corner of the teaching." Only "a small corner of it... addresses ethical questions." He added:

Phillips interjected: "Absolutely."

So that's four leading j-school chiefs rejecting the NCTJ's contention that it teaches ethics. The point, however, is not about the past, but the future. What everyone - academics, the NCTJ's chief executive Joanne Butcher and all newspaper publishers - surely recognises is that the hacking scandal puts journalistic ethics centre stage.

Almost every academic book on journalism published in recent years deals with ethics. We teach students about the editors' code of practice and, incidentally, the National Union of Journalists' own code. Alongside we consider the rules that govern journalistic behaviour on television. My experience during my eight years at City is that students are deeply interested in where the boundaries should be drawn and why.

The problem is, of course, what happens once they get a job. We can teach ethics all we like, enjoying the cut and thrust of debate about the justification for using subterfuge, the difficulties in handling sources and the the respect for peoples' privacy. But it means very little if young journalists are inculcated with a very different ethos when they start work.

While the next generation of journalists may take ethics seriously, their bosses may not. That's the challenge for Leveson - to come up with a way to build a new ethical foundation for our journalism that overcomes the reality of newsroom pressures. Meanwhile, the NCTJ and the various universities - whether accredited or not - have to ensure that ethics is a major module in all journalism courses.

Birth of long-form journalism

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:55:34 GMT

It’s the most important book of 2012 that you are unlikely to read; or at least that’s what the statistics say. Katherine Boo’s new book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, about a slum in Mumbai has won praise from India’s leading historian, Ramachandra Guha, as “Without question the best book yet written on contemporary India. Also, the best work of narrative non-fiction I’ve read in 25 years.” Shashi Tharoor, an MP and best-selling author, has sung similar praises. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and others have also been effusive in praise. East or West, Katherine Boo’s India book has emerged as the best.

But in India, the book will be lucky to sell 50,000 copies. The importance of narrative non-fiction books or long-form narrative journalism, of which Boo is a pre-eminent practitioner, cannot be underestimated, and in India we are just awakening to its power. The stories illuminate the world around us, make us think and feel about the issues in a relatable human manner. And often the stories impact and influence public policy.

It’s not that an Indian writing long-form journalism has not had a major affect on policy. It’s just that it happened in the US. Atul Gawande, the best-selling author, wrote a piece in?The New Yorker on the rising cost of healthcare costs in the US and how to control them. President Barack Obama had his entire healthcare team read the piece and some of the outcomes were adopted in his landmark healthcare reform. Good public policy can be, and often is, informed by the laborious task of narrative non-fiction.

Today, in India, we are witnessing the birth of non-fiction. Meenal Baghel wrote Death in Mumbai about the Neeraj Grover murder. Beautiful Thing by Sonia Faleiro explores the dance bars of Mumbai; the book has been praised in the pages of Vanity Fair and The Economist. Every Saturday, our paper puts out among the best pieces of narrative journalism in India. Last Saturday, readers were led into the workings and prospects of India’s female boxing team. Mint’s partner publication, The Wall Street Journal, recently ran an in-depth five-part series on the heinous murder of a nun in Chhattisgarh. The Caravan magazine is trying to fill the gap of long-form journalism in India and become The New Yorker of India; The New Yorker, along with the Atlantic, are institutions of long-form journalism in the US. As we grow as a democracy, we will see more long-form journalism—for there are many stories to tell. The story of 26/11 has yet to be told, while in comparison, 9/11 has been covered in more than a dozen major books. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have more than a dozen major books each on them. While a few very good books have been written on the Naxalite movement or the Kargil war, a seminal book remains. One book that I eagerly await is Amana Fontanella-Khan’s (full disclosure, she is a good friend) The Pink Sari Revolution, about a woman in Uttar Pradesh who leads a group of women clad, aptly enough, in pink saris to fight for justice and against corruption.

For businessmen, businesswomen, or policymakers, it’s important to make time and engage the ideas coming out of these books and articles. The Reserve Bank of India rightfully wants to increase the number of banked customers, but how to implement that in a lower socio-economic urban setting? It’s hard to imagine the characters of Boo’s book going to a bank; they neither have the time nor the resources. Much more plausible would be to see the bank come to them, either in the form of a UID card or a mobile phone. Katherine Boo’s book makes it utterly clear that no form of low-cost branches is likely to touch the urban poor.

It would be good to know what books move our Prime Minister or finance minister or chief ministers. Are they even reading? President Bill Clinton is said to have read a book a day. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru is supposed to have been a voracious reader. Those in power have a responsibility to read and engage these books and articles with the populace. It’s impossible for them to be everywhere and think of everything. Books and stories help them go where they cannot.

Long-form journalism is not for the faint of heart. The most common thread I hear among friends is that they have a stack of New Yorkers awaiting them. It takes time and effort to read long-form journalism. Yet the rewards, as President Obama will tell you, are manifold.

Boo’s book may have been the most important non-fiction book of the last 25 years, but India has so many stories to tell that I doubt it’ll be the most important book of the next 25 years. Indian readers and policymakers need to take notice.

Consider David Foster Wallace, journalist

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:47:12 GMT

On Tuesday, David Foster Wallace would have turned 50 years old, an occasion that has even inspired conferences. After his death and canonization into what looks like an entire field of academic study, there remains a popular critical notion that Wallace is to be solely known as a writer of fiction. These are typically readers who swear by “Infinite Jest,” a work that is indeed Wallace’s crowning achievement, but by no means his only. They acknowledge his other fiction, but refuse to credit him as having also been a skilled nonfiction reporter. Or, they happily acknowledge that there are many readers that go right to Wallace’s essays and skip the fiction altogether, but simply consider this a mistake.

There even seems to be a now common agreement in academia that readers who champion Wallace’s essays as their favorite work of his are simply missing something and must be less advanced readers, because his nonfiction couldn’t possibly hold up to his one towering opus. It’s a facile assumption that accessibility signals lack of seriousness.

It doesn’t help matters that Wallace himself said, on occasion, that he is no journalist. “I think of myself as a fiction writer,” he told Charlie Rose in 1997, just after the publication of “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” a terrific collection of essays. “And I’m not even a particularly experienced fiction writer,” he added, in trademark self-deprecation.

A year ago, on Slate, Tom Scocca stoked the “not a journalist” theme further (those words even composed the article’s headline). Scocca posted the transcript of an interview he did with Wallace in 1998, in which Wallace said, “The weird thing about the nonfiction is, I don’t really think, I mean, I’m not a journalist, and I don’t pretend to be one … The thing that was fun about a lot of the nonfiction is … it was just mostly like, yeah, I’ll try this.”

It would be weak to take Wallace’s tongue-in-cheek humility as definitive evidence of what he was or wasn’t as a writer. Wallace was likely aware, even in his more self-doubting moments, that he was a skilled reporter (he certainly enjoyed it, at least). Yet even if he didn’t realize the rich tradition into which his style of nonfiction fit perfectly — even if, as he let on, he bought into the idea that he was merely pretending — it should not preclude the literary establishment from considering his talents in this second, less showy role to be equal to the studied brilliance of “Infinite Jest” and his other fiction. “I’ll try this” can certainly be the mantra of someone who nonetheless succeeds immensely in a new form, whether they’re fully aware of the success or not.

In his nonfiction, Wallace most closely resembled another writer before him, a man who was also considered something other than a journalist: Hunter S. Thompson. Both writers took reportage a step further than the literary techniques of Gay Talese, Joan Didion and the New Journalism. Yes, both Thompson and Wallace shirked objectivity, happily injecting their own commentary and asides into factual reportage, but today scores of journalists reject objectivity (Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, Esquire’s Tom Junod or, to a lesser extent, Jon Krakauer, who certainly makes his own views clear by the end of “Where Men Win Glory”).

What Thompson did differently that Wallace emulated (consciously or not) is more about a slippery definition of honesty and truth. An essay Wallace wrote about attending the Adult Video News (AVN) Awards opened the collection “Consider the Lobster.” It’s a rollicking tour in which the author plays representative for the reader’s disgust and fascination (when a girl meets Wallace and brags about small valves in her new breast implants that allow her to adjust the size of the breasts by adding or draining fluid, she raises her arms to show him and Wallace can only write, “There really are what appear to be valves”).

But the essay, it seems, stretched the truth of what happened to Wallace at the AVN Awards. Evan Wright, author of “Generation Kill,” was also at the 1998 event and spent some time guiding Wallace around. He appears in the essay as “Harold Hecuba” and as many people have noted, his own account of the events differs from Wallace’s. Notably, he tells Wallace a brief anecdote about meeting a cop who professed to be a porn fan. Wallace expanded the story into a much larger chunk and seems to have added to the quotes relayed to him by Wright, embellishing them a bit. Blogger Annlee Ellingson has a more detailed side-by-side comparison of the story as relayed by Wallace in “Consider the Lobster” and then by Wright in an L.A. Weekly piece, but aptly concludes that Wallace, “writing about somebody else’s anecdote, in a footnote, no less … gives a much more complete picture of the entire scenario” and uses it “to expound on the entire adult-entertainment industry.” Nevertheless, this may be the reason Wallace called his nonfiction stories “essays” and not “journalism,” but from a perception point of view, it almost shouldn’t matter.

The same goes for his massaging of the facts in other essays. In October, during a New Yorker Festival event, Jonathan Franzen stirred up some drama when he told David Remnick that “David and I disagreed on,” as Remnick raised it, a “view of fact and fiction” and the “dividing line” between the two. Remnick, aghast, asked if Wallace “said it was OK to make up dialogue on a cruise ship” and Franzen confirmed that, indeed, he did. Pushing aside for a moment the question of why Franzen even felt the need to randomly interject about Wallace (and the jealous, complicated feelings Franzen has demonstrated publicly for his friend), the idea that Wallace’s occasional use of invented dialogue makes him, by definition, not a journalist is a laughable one.

As Michelle Dean aptly noted in a piece for the Awl, “It’s very hard to say whether Franzen’s charge is (a) true … or (b) new information.” It certainly wasn’t new information for most Wallace devotees, and as for whether it’s true to contend that Wallace made up dialogue, the evidence says otherwise. This is a person who, as the Awl piece points out, felt extremely bad about his portrayal, in the cruise-ship piece “Shipping Out,” of two of the people he met on the cruise. And yet even as he described his shame over insulting this couple who had befriended him, he reaffirmed the accuracy of the meaner parts of his portrayal, describing the wife as “a terrific, really nice, and not unattractive lady who did happen to look just like Jackie Gleason in drag.”

If he did on occasion tweak direct quotes, it didn’t affect the truth of the situations, and if anything likely got closer to a representation of truth, at least the personal, first-person narrator sort of truth that the cruise-ship piece and others like it aimed to convey. The cruise piece, among many others, delivers an extremely satisfying, complete representation of Wallace’s own personal experience (a very bad one) on the cruise, and if altering dialogue served to better crystalize and define that experience, then it’s still truthful, no matter what David Remnick or his fact-checkers would say. (For more on this ever-raging debate, read John D’Agata’s new book “The Lifespan of a Fact,” though D’Agata strays much further off the rails of allegiance to fact than Wallace ever did.)

As for Hunter S. Thompson, the man is certainly revered today — movies are made of his books, like “The Rum Diary”; documentaries present him to wider audiences — but his career is continually diminished by the term “gonzo journalism.” Those who use it, to this day, do so to point out his craziness, lies and unreliability. Yet “gonzo,” with its negative connotations, fails to reflect Thompson’s passion for truth and devotion to accuracy. What makes his writing so engaging is that no matter how far off the rails he allows himself to stray (he titled his eulogy of Richard Nixon “He Was a Crook”), he maintains investigative honesty. In most of his work, Thompson plays a sort of intimate, dunderheaded guide, walking the reader through whatever event he may be chronicling. The same goes for Wallace, a Virgil guiding us as he traverses hell, whether that’s a porn convention or an old woman’s house as she watched 9/11 unfold on television. Wallace said as much to David Lipsky in “Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace”: “In those essays … there’s a certain persona created, that’s a little stupider and schmuckier than I am.” This confession also stands as a sort of mantra for Wallace’s journalism.

In his article “Seething Static: Notes on Wallace and Journalism,” Christoph Ribbat of the University of Liverpool writes that “there is nothing particularly ‘bold’ about Wallace’s nonfiction, at least not the kind of boldness that Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and Mailer developed to establish themselves as maverick heroes.” But that’s the point: Wallace didn’t want to establish himself as a maverick hero; instead, he echoed Thompson’s techniques in order to create something more accessible.

Some of the same tricks Wallace used in “Big Red Son,” Thompson enacted before him, particularly in “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72″ and in “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,” an assignment for the now-defunct sports rag Scanlan’s Monthly. Thompson was asked to write a story on the famed race, but instead wrote about the drunk, drugged-out crowd that attends it, Thompson and his illustrator Ralph Steadman included.

“Big Red Son” has one scene that, whether by coincidence (possible) or intentional tribute (more likely), directly mirrors a scene from “Campaign Trail.” Wallace writes: “A strange and traumatic experience … consists of standing at a men’s room urinal between [porn stars] Alex Sanders and Dave Hardman … The urge to look over/down at their penises is powerful and the motives behind this urge so complex … Be informed that male porn stars create around themselves the exact same opaque affective privacy-bubble that all men at urinals everywhere create.” Yes, he’s going for shock factor, but he’s also telling you something, and above all else, he’s playing the wide-eyed Average Joe.

The similar moment in “Campaign Trail” happens when Thompson cleverly (if inappropriately) takes advantage of a vulnerable moment to speak to George McGovern, whose campaign he is covering: “By chance, I found George downstairs in the Men’s Room, hovering into a urinal and staring straight ahead at the grey marble tiles.” Thompson proceeds to interrogate McGovern on a touchy subject — McGovern’s reaction after his good friend Harold Hughes endorsed a different candidate — and carefully observes his body language at this moment of weakness: “He flinched and quickly zipped his pants up… I could see that he didn’t want to talk about it.” This is what Thompson and Wallace do; they take every potential opportunity, no matter how unusual or taboo, and mine it for information and storytelling value. And the same blend of intrigue, humor and discomfort that Thompson achieves with the urinal scene is present throughout “Big Red Son,” like when Wallace brazenly notes that a porn director forced a starlet to stick a pen “up her asshole.” He then, in his essay, doesn’t just include the actual phrase she scribbled down, but copies the phrase into his text in the same jagged handwriting with which she originally wrote it in the director’s notebook. The result: that messy, unsettling feeling in the reader, the same Thompson often embraced, a feeling that signals fearless journalism.

“Consider the Lobster,” the title essay of Wallace’s collection, is itself another piece of evidence linking Wallace to Thompson. When the food and travel magazine Gourmet assigned Wallace to write an article on the annual Maine Lobster Festival, he ended up musing about the ethical dilemma that cooking a lobster alive presents to eaters. Implementing facts and figures along with his own judgments, Wallace reaches no final conclusion but rather poses the question directly to Gourmet readers, asking them, “Do you think much about the (possible) moral status and (probable) suffering of the animals [that you eat]? If you do, what ethical convictions have you worked out that permit you not just to eat but to savor and enjoy flesh-based viands?” This essay in particular makes it a shock that he’s rarely remembered as a journalist; just look at what he was doing with the form. Thompson took a similar avenue with “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”: “Cover the story. Never lose sight of the primary responsibility. But what was the story? Nobody had bothered to say. So we would have to drum it up on our own.”

When the Atlantic’s Matthew Hahn asked in 1997 if he thought any younger writer was approaching nonfiction in the same style as he did, Thompson answered: “I don’t think that my kind of journalism has ever been universally popular. It’s lonely out here.” But Wallace, in myriad ways, was that heir. (He also burst onto the nonfiction scene right around the time of Thompson’s interview with Hahn.) Like Thompson, he killed himself (though at a far younger age) and dealt with depression. Of course, it’s the writing that counts, and the writing irrefutably reflects Thompson’s influence.

In 1997, Wallace told Charlie Rose, regarding his nonfiction essays: “If there’s a shtick, the shtick is, Oh gosh, look at me, not a journalist, who’s been sent to do all these journalistic things.” Whether or not Wallace fully believed in the shtick he created, the evidence — his outstanding reportage — speaks for itself.

Journalist Richard Blood Dies at 83

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:34:38 GMT

NEW YORK—Richard J. Blood, a former city editor at the New York Daily News who nurtured a generation of young journalists while teaching for more than two decades at the Columbia University School of Journalism and New York University, has died. He was 83.

Mr. Blood's eldest son, Associated Press political writer Michael Blood, said his father died Friday in New York of respiratory failure. Richard Blood began his career at newspapers in New Hampshire, Vermont and New Jersey before joining the now-defunct Newark (N.J.) Evening News and, later, the Daily News in New York in 1970.

Mr. Blood put his stamp on a slew of notable journalism students, including Frank Bruni of The New York Times. Michael Blood said he "never knew anyone to get more excited about a good story" than his father.

Journalists from The Sun look to sue News International after managers referred investigation to police

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:30:37 GMT

Mr Murdoch has arrived at his London home, according to an AFP photographer, ahead of a planned visit to The Sun's offices. The Australian-born media proprietor, who shut down The Sun's weekly stablemate, the News of the World, in July after it became embroiled in a phone-hacking scandal, has promised to continue publishing the top-selling daily despite the corruption row. Mr Murdoch's News Corporation also publishes The Australian.

Former editor of The Sunday Times Andrew Neil warned his ex-boss would do "whatever it takes" to detoxify his company's brand. "At the moment, it looks like he's prepared to sacrifice the journalists and journalism in London to do whatever it takes to be seen to be cleaning up his act so that it will play better in the US," Mr Neil told CNN.

Police arrested five Sun journalists last weekend on suspicion of bribing public officials, after receiving information from a committee set up at Mr Murdoch's News Corp to investigate allegations of wrongdoing.

The arrests caused outrage in the newsroom and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said it was now looking at how to defend staff "against a management that seems prepared to throw them to the wolves".

"We have been approached by a group of journalists from The Sun. We are now exploring a number of ways to support them, including discussing legal redress," NUJ General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet said in a statement.

She said the issue at stake was the protection of sources, and suggested the journalists might use European human rights laws.

"The protection of sources is an essential principle which has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the European Court of Human Rights as the cornerstone of press freedom and the NUJ shall defend it," Stanistreet said.

News International, Mr Murdoch's British newspaper unit, refused to comment on the possibility of staff legal action. The 80-year-old tycoon flew to Britain to manage the latest crisis in his media empire.

In a email to staff when the journalists were arrested on February 11, News executive Tom Mockridge said the proprietor had given him a "personal assurance... about his total commitment" to publishing The Sun.

How to Write a Journalism Profile Story

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 09:37:37 GMT

The key to writing a good journalism profile is discovering an interesting tale to tell. A profile is a narrative with a purpose: telling the everyday story of someone---perhaps a well-known figure, perhaps not---in a unique way that transcends time. Journalist Gay Talese is perhaps best known for his 1960s "Esquire" profile, "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold," which is still studied by aspiring writers not only for its entertainment value, but as the model of an excellent profile feature story, capturing the man and the icon in ways the tabloids could not.

As Talese told writer Alice Hlidkova of "The Christian Science Monitor": "If you want to write something that can last---meaning something that can be read months, years after you write it because the writing is good, the story is interesting, because the choice of language is superior, it is clear to a large range of readership---have the willingness to rewrite your story."

Instructions:
Find a subject. Explore the fringes: it does not have to be Frank Sinatra or the Queen of England. It could be the homeless man in the park, the Starbucks janitor on her lunch break, the city librarian or your taxi driver. Get to know them, but remember: The story is more about the person than his or her accomplishments.

2 Conduct your interview in person, not over the phone or via email. Personal interviews are essentially the only way to obtain a first hand view and gain observances that add to the feeling of your piece. Remember, a profile is more than just an interview. According to journalist Jim Short, "Listen to what the subject is saying, not just to what you want to hear. Listen to the changes in his/her vocal patterns; watch the eyes; be cognizant of changes in demeanor. Then use these keys to unlock another subject." This approach is precisely what sets Talese and other good profile writers apart from the mainstream news. They do not merely record their subjects' words, but they observe and analyze everything, and then craft their observances creatively yet accurately.

3 Record your interview. Notes are not always enough; in fact, for a less-obtrusive, more casual interview, it is best to take few to no notes at all. Instead, record the conversation (with your subject's permission) on a small video or audio recorder. Do not be afraid to ask basic questions, both common and unusual. Do not, however, ask redundant questions. Be flexible in your interviewing, and do not be afraid to abandon prepared questions in favor of interesting rabbit trails. Maintain control of the interview, but do not let it become rigid. Be casual, but be alert.

4 Write the narrative. Even as the writer, remember that it is not your narrative. It is your subject's story. Through insight and thoughtfulness, you should be able to make your readers believe they are meeting this person, that it is the reader in the room with the subject, not you.

5 Begin your profile with a short, scene-setting phrase: a quotation, a pithy observation on the setting, an interest-grabbing snippet of your profile's essence. Traditional hard news nut graphs are typically not appropriate for profile pieces. Write shorter sentences. Be succinct, be intelligent, but be clear. Your readership will be much wider if you do not sound like an outdated academic textbook. Ernie Pyle was a correspondent during World War II who later won a Pulitzer Prize. He advocated short, punchy sentences that told the story directly and poignantly. He attracted a wide audience of varying demographics because of his writing style's accessibility.

Captive journalist calls on Rudd to intervene

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:28:19 GMT

Freelance reporter Austin Mackell has been barred from leaving the Egypt, a day after he and four others were released from detention on suspicion of bribing activists.

“I would like to know that Kevin Rudd is paying attention and that he is aware that something serious is happening,” Mackell told Media today.. “As I said in my tweet, perhaps Kevin Rudd might take time out from his comeback to actually be a foreign minister for a bit.”

Earlier this morning Mackell tweeted a link to statements by Egyptian prosecutors that he would be prevented from leaving the country and asked: “does @KRuddMP have any time left over from his Rocky like comeback training?”

Mackell confirmed that Australian Embassy staff were working with his lawyers to get his passport back but said he was worried that the process was stuck.

“We are working through the system here but for anything more to happen it will have to come from Canberra,” he said. “We’ll have to see what they do and if I’m able to get my passport back and actually am able to leave.”Mackell and American student Derek Ludovici were arrested on Saturday along with their Egyptian translator Aliya Alwi, their driver Zakaria Ahmad and union activist Kamal El-Fayoumi in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla, accused of paying Egyptians to stage protests against the authorities.

"The Egyptian prosecution is still investigating a case in which a US citizen and an Australian are accused of bribing workers of Mahalla to stage strikes as part of the civil disobedience," the prosecutor's office said in a statement carried by the official MENA news agency.

"The prosecution has banned the suspects from travelling until the investigation is completed," it said.
The group had been detained on the same day activists held strikes to mark the first anniversary of president Hosni Mubarak's overthrow.

On Saturday, General Mostafa Baz, police chief of the northern Gharbiya province, had told reporters the Australian, the American and their translator were suspected of having coordinated over the Internet to meet in Mahalla, which has a history of labour strikes, to "incite people to protest".

A security official said people in Mahalla had complained to police that all three were paying people to protest. The authorities have in the past blamed foreigners for plotting unrest. During her detention, Alwi said on her Twitter account that "witnesses have been produced to confirm it".

The authorities, including the ruling military which took charge after Mubarak's ouster, have accused foreigners of stirring unrest in Egypt which has seen a spate of deadly protests over past months.

In June, security forces arrested a US-Israeli citizen they accused of spying and inciting Egyptians to protest. The man was released in October in a prisoners exchange deal.

Journalists arrange welcome party for TUJ

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:13:34 GMT

LANDIKOTAL: Tribal journalists on Monday arranged a welcome party for their newly elected office-bearers at the Tribal Union of Journalists (TUJ) office in Peshawar and paid tributes to their fellows killed in the line of duty.

A large number of journalists from Fata attended the party. The participants also offered Quran Khawani and special prayers for the deceased journalists, including Deewa Radio reporter Mukarram Khan Atif who was assassinated a month ago.

Speaking on the occasion, re-elected TUJ President Safdar Hayat Dawar and General Secretary Akmal Khan Qadri said that 12 tribal journalists had been killed and many others compelled to leave their hometowns.

They lauded the services of late Mukarram Khan Atif in journalism. The TUJ office-bearers asked the government to provide foolproof security and other benefits to the tribal journalists.The polling was held on Sunday. Safdar Hayat Dawar was elected for a second consecutive term as president.

Muhammad Baloch polled 103 votes, out of the total 161, to become vice president. The rest of the elected cabinet members include senior vice president Anwarullah Khan, finance secretary Dildar Hussain Khaksar, joint secretary Shah Zaman Mahsud and press secretary Muhammad Rasool Dawar.

Bad press blots journalism's public purpose

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:41:00 GMT

For two months, a succession of celebrities, a gaggle of nervous editors and a procession of tabloid "victims" has taken the stand in court 73 at the Royal Courts of Justice, a few minutes walk from Fleet Street, where Britain's popular press were once based, to denounce or defend an industry that revels in its ferocious reputation.

It is a spectacle that delights the celebrities who have given evidence about their harassment at the hands of the tabloids, including Sienna Miller and Hugh Grant, as much as it infuriates proprietors and editors.

But there can be no doubt Fleet Street is cowed. One senior tabloid executive says the inquiry has lead to exposes being pulled. "No one wants to upset the judge," he says, referring to Lord Justice Brian Leveson QC.

The first half of the inquiry, into press standards and the industry's relations with the public, the police and politicians, will not report until later in the year, while the second, into the phone hacking affair, cannot begin until hacking cases in the civil courts have been heard and separate criminal investigations completed.

It could be the end of next year before Leveson's probe is concluded, but in many ways that will mark the beginning rather than the end of the process.

The inquiry reignited last week as Heather Mills, the ex-wife of Paul McCartney, said she had never authorised CNN presenter and former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan to listen to her voicemail, while powerful Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre clashed with lawyers over accusations one of his papers had accessed the voicemail of Hugh Grant.

The evidence will be over by the end of April, by which time News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch will have taken the stand.

Some of the most harrowing evidence heard at the inquiry came from Miller, who said she has been repeatedly provoked and spat at by photographers. Kate McCann, whose young daughter Madeleine went missing in Portugal four years ago, told the inquiry that photographers had hammered on her windows and frightened her other children.

Leveson watches proceedings intently from his vantage point at the front of the court, resting his chin on an upturned hand, his brow often furrowed in concentration.

An ambitious judge eager to make a name for himself, it is thought he was not the first choice to chair the inquiry, but he has approached a hard task with enthusiasm and flashes of self-deprecating humour.

When Daily Mirror editor Richard Wallace remarked during his evidence at the start of the month that he had "done a few bishops", Leveson remarked: "I don't think you quite mean that."

Leveson appreciates he has been asked to play a tricky hand. The inquiry was called by Prime Minister David Cameron primarily to solve a political headache after criticism of his close links to the News of the World's British owner News International (part of News Corporation, ultimate publisher of The Australian).

Leveson has frequently criticised the papers' coverage of some elements of the inquiry, and he was barely able to suppress his irritation with The Daily Mail accusing Grant of "mendacious smears". Following the Mail's attack on Grant, Leveson is said to have privately asked a colleague: "Why are they making my job so easy for me?"

Leveson's inquiry was prompted by the phone-hacking affair, but the High Court judge has been asked to make recommendations that have little or nothing to do with systemic criminality at the defunct NoW. His findings will inform the biggest shake-up of press regulation for a generation. It is little wonder that editors and proprietors are searching eagerly for clues about Leveson's thinking.

Despite his repeated insistence that he is yet to form an opinion about future oversight of the press, clear patterns are emerging.

The Press Complaints Commission, the self-regulatory body that has policed the press since the early 1990s, has already been pronounced dead by Mr Cameron. Newspaper editors are unlikely to serve on its successor, as they do on the PCC, and MPs are pushing for it to be independent of the industry and government, with a chairman appointed by civil servants.

Labour MP Chris Bryant, a former minister whose phone was hacked by NoW, said private investigators, which were used routinely by most newspaper groups, should be licensed.

Bryant, who settled his own legal action against NoW last month, added it should be a crime to pay a police officer, despite the fact it is already illegal to bribe a public official. Another idea advocated by Bryant - a tribunal system to settle libel cases before they reach court - is being explored by Leveson. Bryant points out that his own legal fees totalled pound stg. 200,000, ($296,332) and his case did not even reach trial.

Also under consideration is the idea of licensing the paparazzi who are not tied to a newspaper group or a reputable photo agency. State regulation of the press has already been ruled out, but the industry is likely to oppose the creation of a powerful quango at what is already a time of perennial crisis. Advertising revenues are evaporating, circulations falling. The need to build an online presence of size and scale is burdening recession-hit businesses with added costs.

There have been some surprising moments during the inquiry: some stars have failed to shine while other bit-part players have become unlikely celebrities, often for the wrong reasons.

Paul McMullan, a former deputy features editor at NoW refused to apologise for phone hacking and declared that "privacy is for pedos". He said journalists at the paper who hacked into a mobile phone belonging to murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler should be praised as they were doing their best to help track down her killer.

The inquiry has heard plenty of evidence against the press from the prosecution, in the form of celebrities and members of the public who have been treated badly by its most unscrupulous practitioners, but precious little about the public purpose good journalism can serve.

Channel 4 investigative journalist program open [Britain]

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 10:03:01 GMT

Aspiring investigative journalists can apply to a training program. The Channel 4 investigative journalism training scheme is accepting applications for a program with placements in Glasgow, Manchester and London. The program will offer custom training to 20 people on a 6-12 month contract over a two-year period to help nurture the next generation of television journalists.

The program is open to researchers and assistant producers in television with at least two years’ experience who are ready to move on to the next stage of their career and to junior producers who are new to producing. It is also open to journalists outside TV, either in the newspaper, radio or online worlds, who have demonstrated strong journalistic ability and commitment and feel that they are ready to move into television.