Recent posts in my Politics Category

The British press don’t seem to be treating the Communications Data Bill as a threat to their freedom. Perhaps they should be.

The Leveson Inquiry report has been criticised for not addressing the impact of the internet on the press, and the way it was published today was symptomatic of old-fashioned print publishing that doesn’t put user need at the centre.

It appears to be compulsory to write about press regulation in the run-up to the Leveson report being published. So here is my tuppence, hopefully before you get bored of the entire business.

Yesterday I glibly tweeted that I had trademarked the term “The British Nate Silver”. Not for myself, you understand, but in recognition of the fact that his data analysis has played such a pivotal role in debate around the US election that it is inevitable that someone will get dubbed with that title in the run-up to the next General Election in the UK.

Legendary journalist Duncan Campbell spoke at Hacks/Hackers London about his lifelong crusade against state surveillance techniques, and his concerns about state attempts to monitor and intercept internet traffic in the draft Communications Data Bill. Here are my notes from his talk.

I was genuinely impressed this morning with the Metro’s double-page spread about photographers’ rights. I love to see papers campaigning on issues of civil liberties and freedom, and I was particularly impressed with the fact that Metro produced a simple layman’s terms explanation of photographers rights in a cut-out-and-keep format.

We seem to have matured beyond declaring each year that this is “going to be the internet election” to having campaign web sites and social media as an integral part of the political cycle. Here are some notes I’ve made whilst looking at the sites of the candidates for tomorrow’s London Mayoral elections.

I’ve not written much on this blog in recent months on media regulation, which used to be one of the recurring themes. It has seemed to me that whilst the Leveson inquiry and various police operations related to newspapers are ongoing, it is safer, on the personal blog of someone who works at a news organisation, to say nothing. I can’t, however, let the dissolution of the PCC pass without comment.

Headlines today have suggested that the murder rate has gone up by 5%, or that knifepoint robbery has gone up by 10% in England and Wales. The figures also show that crime overall has dropped by 4%. Reporting crime statistics is a data journalism minefield however, and last year I attended a fascinating set of talks on the subject.

I’ve been wholeheartedly behind the Guardian’s digital literacy campaign. But how do we stop looking like nerdy zealots - who who would give up programming contractor rates for a teaching salary?

At last week’s Hacks/Hackers London meet-up, Stephen Grey was talking about the journalistic process behind his work to uncover the CIA’s network of rendition flights. Here are my notes from the session.

When I was at school, I can remember some pupils campaigning to be allowed to sell and wear the Peace Pledge Union’s white poppies, as well as the British Legion’s red ones. The school authorities refused, and at the time I thought passionately this was the wrong decision.

I still do.

But over the years, my perspective on the red poppy has changed considerably. Where I once saw them as a symbol of aggressive warmongering by the political classes, I now view them as an opportunity for reflection on the human impact of war.

Guardian Readers’ Editor Chris Elliott recently gave a lunchtime talk to assorted staff about his recent trip to Egypt, where he was talking to local journalists about journalistic ethics and press regulation. It turned out to be a timely visit, as Chris arrived shortly after the toppling of Hosni Mubarak, with the press in the country facing an uncertain, but presumably freer future. During it, he discussed how Egyptians themselves see the role played by social media in the events.

Last week I attended an event on 'data and news sourcing', and one of the panels was about crowd-sourcing. As is often the case in this context, The Guardian’s MP’s expenses app was mentioned. I got a chance to chime in, and wanted to tell the story of how between the first and second iteration of the app, we’d learnt a little about encouraging participation and in keeping it going.

Last week I was at the Online Information conference, and here is the second part of my notes from a session featuring Richard Wallis, Chris Taggart and Noel Hatch, looking at linked data in the context of local government in the UK.

Last week I was at the Online Information conference, and here are my notes from a session featuring Richard Wallis, Chris Taggart and Noel Hatch, looking at linked data in the context of local government in the UK.

The release of Government spending data gives us a wealth of information about companies earning their living from the state. However, the ability to cross-reference it with data on the companies themselves is limited by the fact that Companies House keeps that state data behind a paywall.

This week Google in London hosted the launch of a study paper by ex-BBC News strategist and journalist Nic Newman entitled "#UKelection2010, mainstream media and the role of the internet: how social and digital media affected the business of politics and journalism". As well as NIc, the evening featured Emily Bell and Peter Barron discussing the findings of the report.

The 2010 General Election did not deliver the 'Internet election' in the way that some pundits predicted. However, the rise of social media tools, particularly those used to counter the more established broadcasting methods of delivering party messages, illustrated again the diminishing power of traditional media 'gatekeepers'.

News organisations have spent a lot of money on flashy election maps, graphics and interactives over the last few days, but I think it is two simple pie charts that illustrate what is wrong with our first past the post election system.

I've been keeping a close eye on the new media elements of this campaign, and thought I'd stick my neck out and predict three digital trends we will see a lot more of next time around.

Whilst some traditional broadcasters will be applying the standard polling day rules to their social media activities tomorrow, newspapers and political parties will enjoy a much freer hand.

During the course of the election campaign I've been making a gallery of screenshots of online news coverage, with a particular focus on the design of interactive tools and maps. I've put them together into a Flickr set, and made a short video compilation of them.

As part of their election campaign, the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green parties have all launched official iPhone applications. I've reviewed and compared them.

One feature of the digital coverage of the leader's debates in this election campaign has been the contrasting approaches taken Labour and the Conservatives to following what has been happening on their websites. In this post I look at how the Conservatives 'brochure' and the Labour 'extranet' are trying to fulfill different functions.

Labour may have said they 'regret' stealing a blogger's photograph in Walthamstow, but that hasn't stopped them having it on prominent display in Stella Creasy's E17 campaign office.

Despite legislating against digital copyright theft recently in the Digital Economy Act, it seems that The Labour Party is not worried about pilfering their election leaflet images from a local Walthamstow blogger.

Yesterday, The Guardian published an intricate interactive tool which mimcs the UK's carbon economy. You get the chance to be PM, setting the policies that will enable the country to make the required cuts in our carbon output.

I've been tracking the timeline of the 'digital election', and, with the second leader's debate taking place tonight, here are ten things about the new media campaign that I think we've learned so far...

The world probably doesn't need another blog post about the Digital Economy Bill that was rushed through Parliament this week, but here are the 6 bullet points that I thought were important...

I've been compiling a timeline of digital and social media campaigning by political parties, innovation from news organisations, and interesting election related web content and applications to see whether the 2010 UK General Election really will be a 'digital' or 'social media' election.

Sarah Hartley has been using the 'Help me investigate' crowd-sourced journalism tool to find out how local newspapers cover local councils. I've chipped in with a review of coverage in the Waltham Forest Guardian and the Romford Recorder.

In response to claims that David Tennant was on BBC television too much over Christmas, a Conservative MP seems to think he appeared on over 200 channels.

To coincide with the opening of the Copenhagen Climate Change conference, The Guardian worked to get the same editorial opinion column to appear in over 50 newspapers around the globe. Here is how it manifested itself online.

Information trends for 2010
I'm still waiting to hear why publishing the PM's private phone call online isn't a breach of the PCC code on privacy and phone tapping.

Live-blogging the BNP on Question Time
A look at how newspapers and political blogs covered Nick Griffin's BBC appearance online.

Muswell Hill BT fibre controversy
Pictures of the new BT broadband boxes causing a nuisance on North London streets.

"MPs Expenses and 'open' and 'closed' journalism"
How the contrasting approaches of The Telegraph and The Guardian to the MPs expenses data demonstrates debates about digital journalism.

"London European Election Guide"
A brief outline of the independent candidates and smaller parties standing for European Election in London