links for 2009-10-26

Kudos to Mr Cridland here: "This post was hijacked by a well-known industry harasser, Steve Green (aka ‘digitalradiotech’). Steve has been harrassing me since around 2000. I am taking advantage of not having a current employer to set the record straight about Steve’s appalling behaviour". By far the most worrying bit though of this often hilarious (to an outsider) thread is the assertion from Steve Green that "then I started doing journalism part-time". The mind boggles.

"The thing which makes a difference for me, as one who sits firmly in the ‘trained’ editorial camp, is that without the correct and professional usage of fact-collation, fact-checking and fact-integration into an editorial item, we’re left with a shabby representation to the readership". I'd totally agree with the sentiment of this piece, if you couldn't point to example after example after example of where all of our national papers have simply not checked their facts.

"Do we say, then, that all's fair in a comment war, that free speech – however much we may dislike a particular viewpoint – is fair game for blogging attack? That the instant voice of the many can silence the few – and frighten the living daylights out of those who want to make a living selling stuff to them?". Well, Peter, I'd say yes. If you want to make money as you peddle bigoted inaccurate homophobic tosh, then the least you can do is make sure you've found advertisers who don't mind their brand being associated with bigoted inaccurate homophobic tosh. I am given to understand that this is called 'the market'

From the comments: "You could just as easily replace 'Twitter, Facebook' in the headline with 'Gossiping with workmates' or 'Staring out of the window'" and "I used to spend about 16 hours a week in meetings I don't have to be in but that are part of the company's 'quality and communication' process. Do we have a survey on that, too? "

Brilliant blog post that simply uses tabloid front pages to illustrate the absolute hypocrisy of their 'outrage' over public support for the racist BNP following Ol' Nick's appearance on Question Time.

Fascinating and thoughtful essay from Meg Pickard on setting up rules for corporate social engagement over the web.