reporting

Congratulations to Alan McGuinness (Third Year) who helped the Independent on Sunday to cover Ed Milliband's crucial relaunch speech in Gillingham yesterday.  Alan is credited it at the foot of this story by Matt Chorley, the IoS's Political Correspondent.  Well done also to every CforJ student who took the initiative and went to the speech with their notebook. 

 Afghanistan, War and the Media: Frontlines and Deadlines (Abramis 2010) is a new book about journalism and the Afghan War. It contains essays by top war correspondents including Allan Little of the BBC, Stewart Ramsay of Sky News, Alex Thompson of Channel 4 and Vaughan Smith of Frontline News. The practitioners' impressions are mixed with commentary and analysis by academics including the excellent editors, Richard Lance Keeble and John Mair. Huw Edwards wrote the introduction.  I contributed Compromising the First Draft? - an essay covering the history, rules and challenges of embedded reporting.

During his excellent session yesterday, Allan Little told the story of Jessica Lynch, the 19-year-old US Army Ordnance Clerk  who was captured by Iraqi soldiers in 2003. Allan described how the truth about Private Lynch was spun into a fictional heroic fantasy by the Pentagon's top rotational surgeons. You can read the full version of Jessica's story here.

I have been infuriated by news reporting of the controversy surrounding the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Time and again editors have tried to pin blame on the UK government without considering the bald fact that this decision was taken in Scotland by a Scottish Nationalist government. The pack has been motivated more by ideology than by any desire to find out what really happened.

ITV's flagging regional news provision could be replaced by 80 truly local television news bulletins if the Conservatives are elected next year. Jeremy Hunt, the Conservatives' culture spokesman, has pledged support for a new tier of commercial city-based channels. There have been previous attempts to do this. Truly local television is an attractive idea. Anyone who views Newsroom South East's diligent efforts to make what happens in Sussex interesting to residents of North East Kent, or Meridian's still tougher task of fashioning unity in a ludicrously synthetic region should understand its appeal. But the challenge should not be underestimated. Previous attempts at local TV in the UK have failed, leaving only one example standing - Guardian Media Group's Manchester-based Channel M. That said, there are profitable micro channels in other countries (Canada provides a particularly interesting case study) and the possibility of lots of new jobs in local TV reporting is attractive.  Perhaps we could transmit Medway News Live from the Centre for Journalism? I jest not entirely. 

Reading Mr. Justice Eady's full judgment in the case of 'The author of a blog and Times Newspapers Ltd.' (a.k.a. The Night Jack case), has inspired in me an optimistic thought, viz. the ruling draws a potentially valuable distinction between professional reporters and bloggers. I suspect this was not Mr Justice Eady's top priority. In fact he writes that "Although the Claimant [Night Jack] here is not a journalist, the function he performs via his blog is closely analogous." However, by ruling that "blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity" and that there is a "public interest in revealing that a particular police officer has been making these communications," his argument does tend to reinforce the status of the professional reporter. Why?

Guardian correpondent Ed Pilkington's descriptive prose from Wichita, Kansas, puts the murder of George Tiller in its proper, doleful context. Here was a brave, compassionate man gunned-down for putting his expertise at the disposal of people in depserate need. Pilkington's writing demonstrates the value of expert correpondents who are familiar with their territory and can offer insight as well as evidence.   

Torin Douglas, the BBC's media correspondent, has been thinking about journalism's reputation in the light of the MPs' expenses scandal. He asked me for my opinion.  You can read his piece and my comments here.   

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, News of the World boss Colin Myler and Ian Hislop of Private Eye defended original reporting against the "chilling" costs of legal action yesterday before the House of Commons select committee on culture, media and sport.