links for 2009-10-19

"Once again the masses (albeit a pretty small mass) are controlling the agenda and those who make a living out of doing precisely that need to get a handle on social networks quick or find themselves in trouble with their bosses."

"Bloggers don’t kill the thing they love: instead, they cascade potentially valuable attention onto the things they hate. Linking is part of online culture’s rhetoric of transparency. You’re inviting your reader to go back to the original, confirm your commentary, add to it if they wish to – giving credit to content you find praiseworthy, demonstrating your trustworthiness in handling something you oppose. The problem is that both sorts of link feed traffic, and all traffic looks the same when traffic is what’s being measured, as with ABCe figures. But that assumes that ABCe results are comparable to ABC numbers as a measure of audience engagement. I don’t think they are. Using a website isn’t the same as buying a paper: it’s more like flicking through a discarded copy you’ve found at a bus-stop. It requires no investment of money or identity".

From the user comments: "There have been comments from people within the PCC in the media today, saying that most of the 21,000 complaints they have received appear to be individual letters, rather than a copied form letter. I think that’s an indication that this is a very organic storm, rather than something orchestrated."

"The Press Complaints Commission has received 21,000 complaints about Jan Moir's article about Stephen Gately since Friday - more complaints in a single weekend than the regulator has received in total in the past five years."

"The PCC has traditionally interpreted 'normally' as meaning 'pretty darn near all the time', which is why this case will present them with a major dilemma. If they concede it isn’t normal, will that lead to their code being forced in to use much more widely in future as people can complain about poor and shoddy journalism even though it doesn’t name themselves? If they insist this is just another normal case, will the PCC’s reputation survive?"

"Moir-haters are currently camped outside the PCC headquarters (I imagine it looks a bit like the Batcave/Wayne Manor) screaming for blood; Fleet Street is still in the pub celebrating NoGag 2009 and the Starsuckers documentary maker is clearing the mantlepiece and taking his tux for a pre-awards show dry-clean. Or so I would like to think. In reality it was just another media week, but it felt quite exciting and out of the ordinary nonetheless. Perhaps it is the interactive nature of today’s news platforms – audiences can comment, react and spout bile with an immediacy no other audience could before."

"For a long time now, some elements of the mainstream media (msm) have been quite dismissive of bloggers, not all, some journalists have embraced blogging, but there are still many who see it as some kind of poor relation at best. One of the biggest criticisms has been that bloggers are not regulated, and therefore lack the ethics of msm journos. Can they still realistically claim that when one of their own published a piece that was so full of vitriol and insinuation even other journalists attacked it?"

"When Jan Moir receives thousands of complaints about an article on Stephen Gatley's death, her response is to ask 'How many of the people who complained actually read my column?'. As if to suggest that you can't complain about something unless you know the full details and that if you haven't read it, you have no right to comment. Which is fair enough. And yet - there is this - an article by Jan Moir on the Brand/Ross fiasco of a year or so ago. Saying they are both beyond contempt and appalling human beings. But no where does it mention her listening to the show. No where does it mention her being one of the original TWO people who complained."

"What I do totally agree with is the idea that extreme commentators should face up to the consequences of the collateral damage they cause, and social media has been excellent for that - she can be in absolutely no doubt about how cross so many people are. I also thought the idea of having a go at the advertisers on the site was a very good one. Also, if after all the protests, her employer feels that she is too hot a potato and chooses not to provide a platform, that too is fine, others are justified in denying access to their platforms."

"If you were following the Jan Moir-Stephen Gateley story that was all over Twitter today you may have come across a Twitter account claiming to be Jan Moir herself – @janmoir_uk. It wasn’t her – but it was a convincing attempt, and I thought it might be worth picking out how I and other Twitter users tried to work out the account’s legitimacy."

"This has been coming for a long time. Not just with the Mail, though it's the consistently worst offender, but with our press - they write for us, so they should do a better job of it. Want to know why people aren't buying newspapers any more? Because there's so little worth reading, so much of the time. The dog days are over. There's no point in thinking you can keep getting away with the prejudice, the hatred, the distortion, because you can't. It's not a big liberal conspiracy: everyone wants newspapers to be better. It's whether they want to be better, and thrive, or whether they think they're there only to push a narrow agenda, and die."

"In a scramble to save face, the Mail's editors, and in particular those of its online team, must have been bewildered when efforts to soften the blow by editing the headline to the piece online only attracted more derision; the change was documented on Twitter photosharing website TwitPic within minutes."

"I’m all in favour of criticising Moir for her spite, and especially the twisted leap of imagination that took her from Stephen Gately’s dead body to an argument about the nature of civil partnerships. Not only is that criticism fair, but it has worked: Moir’s reputation is in tatters this evening. But, my God, the social media world harbours some pretty smug and self-righteous individuals."