Director’s Blog

No Regrets

Tony Blair’s resolute, unchanging, self-affirming appearance at the impotent Chilcot Inquiry reminded us of the Politician’s Virility Dilemma. If they change their minds or admit fault then they are seen as weak. If they stick to their guns they are seen as strong but wrong. We in the media and the public can enjoy 20-20 hindsight while those who make history are doomed to live in it.

As Paul Staines so crisply put it, the Chilcot Inquiry will change nothing and nobody will change their minds. Indeed, “for the political classes [the Blair hearing at Chilcott] is the Super-Bowl of political self-justification.”

Of course, many journalists and voters have changed their minds about the invasion of Iraq. Or at least, there has been a remarkable re-framing of the story. It is often ignored that at the time just about everyone thought it likely that Saddam had WMD – that wasn’t really the issue. The argument was over what to do about it. And the real damage was done not by the invasion but the aftermath. I don’t remember anyone talking about that at the time, though now everyone claims they knew we were unprepared for the Post-Saddam situation. (more…)

A view of the world

Travelling around New York City at the weekend with my two teenage boys was a reminder of just how globalised our culture has become with shops, music and even art looking distinctly familiar to my young Londoners.

An all-day seminar today on world media seemed to suggest that global journalism has some trans-national trends, too. But as ever, look closer and the cracks appear. (more…)

Haiti pic from @firesideint

Across the world editors in TV studios and newspaper offices are looking for something else to lead on apart from Haiti. I know, I’ve been there. It’s the biggest story in the world, but it’s been around for a few days and it is starting to fit into the pattern of all disaster stories. If we want the viewers/reader/listener to pay attention we’re going to have to headline something without the words ‘Haiti’ ‘Aid’ or ‘Death’.

So the big US TV networks will be the first to leave, while everyone else will scale down their presence and perhaps rely on the agencies. The story will slip down the running order or the page. This is how news works and it’s not wrong. (more…)

Blimey, Polis has become influential on a global scale. On the day that we have an event warning about naive assumptions about the Internet and Democracy, Google ends its collaboration with censorship in China!

Alright, so there was no causal link between our digital democracy talk by Evgency Morozov and today’s news, but it was certainly topical. You can read Morozov’s general argument here, and he has responded directly to the Google move here: (more…)

We have all got to stop believing in the Monkey Myth of the Internet and Democracy, according to Evgeny Morozov, speaking at  Polis. By this he means that the current wishful thinking is that the Internet works like the monkey and the typewriter. Leave it alone to bash away and probability theory says that eventually it will write out the complete works of Shakespeare.

Evgeny was talking primarily about how digital optimists think that somehow, naturally, inevitably, the Internet will bring democracy to authoritarian regimes like China, Iran and Russia. But his argument can also apply to hopes for E-Democracy in liberal states, too. (more…)

Come to the LSE

NEW EVENT

Will the market and innovation decide the future of the internet, or will the future be led by law and policy?

The Internet is rapidly evolving and has mutated in the space of a decade from a static information source to a dynamic organism. In the future its shape will be dramatically different, as the online space moves even further to the centre of almost every aspect of our lives.

One of the key issues facing all online providers is the extent to which the rights of users should be protected and enhanced. Can users themselves be empowered to take greater control of their information? Recent controversies over new policies and practices also show that policy agendas and market pressures may collide on issues around privacy,  security, and end-user autonomy.

That is the subject of a special Polis discussion with the leading internet and telecommunications companies will identify the key policy and technological challenges for the coming years. Innovation in this space is dramatic. The companies taking part in this fireside chat are the buzz of the marketplace, and are constantly developing new devices and new platforms that substantially influence the online world. (more…)

Snow Queen?

The failed challenge by Hoon/Hewitt to Gordon Brown’s leadership is perhaps the first serious political coup that has ever been played out within a normal day’s news cycle. Thanks to texting, 24 hour news and the blogs this story was begun and ended between one conventional newspaper deadline and the next. This morning we wake up to headlines about something that was over by yesterday’s Newsnight. Truly, a political media snow squall rather than a big freeze.

The timeline actually stretches back to blogger Guido Fawkes giving a strong hint that something was afoot on Tuesday night. But the following lunchtime, while the BBC’s Political Editor was rubbishing that rumour, the actual story broke as the plotters emailed and texted fellow MPs. (more…)

The starting gun has fired in the UK election race and already the spectators are being bombarded with a series of disputes about detail and process.

I am on record as saying that the last US election was the best covered ever, in the sense that anyone who wanted to say or know something could find facts and a platform online somewhere.

But the downside of an information age election is that you get lots of information. (more…)

A Ministry of Justice consultation on defamation and the internet asks whether a single publication rule (SPR) should be introduced for online publications; whether, for this context at least, we should foreswear the Duke of Brunswick rule. Such a rule would set a limitation period running from the point of first publication (uploading), rather than from the date of each ‘republication’ (downloading) of a web page. The consultation paper offers three putatve reforms: straight shift to an SPR; shift to SPR with an extended limitation period (currently, 1 year); or an extension of the statutory version of the qualified privilege defence.

In responding to this consultation, we – Charlie Beckett of Polis, and Andrew Murray and Andrew Scott of the Department of Law at LSE – reject a move towards a single publication rule. (more…)