Comments on: Western Morning News Editor Alan Qualtrough uses sex case to wade into the internet

By: CommonSense

CommonSense — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:22:46 +0000

“Kept you up thinking about this then.”

Helen: That, and your copyright complain show that your arguments are wearing extremely thin. You want to talk investigative journalism? OK. How do you know that Geoff doesn’t have differing hours of work (and therefore differing sleeping times) to you? Do you know if he’s an insomniac? Do you know if he had decided to stay up to watch something on TV, and then typed his reply to you from his laptop whilst watching it?

No, you don’t. But, you assume that you’ve kept him awake. Well done!

Seriously, you’re coming across as the pompous ass on this one. Pompous, misinformed and completely in the pocket of/employed by the publication that this article discusses, in fact.

By: Cptn

Cptn — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:03:13 +0000

Tsk. The discussion isn’t about how nice Helen is.

But rather that the Editor of the Western Morning New’s blog started with a post that not only aimed to stoke the fire of fear of crime and create a boogeyman out of the internet, but also aimed to make mileage out of a tragic news story.

He followed it up with a piece on a football huddle, which shows he was gunning for the big stories and contentious issues rather than chasing Google juice.

The latest entry (as of October 7) is more like it – milk protests in Brussels.

We shall continue to watch the Typefacing blog, which is ‘about how we live, how we think and how we reflect it daily’ (and so far isn’t daily).

By: Bill Bailey

Bill Bailey — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:29:28 +0000

Wow, Helen’s not a very nice person

By: Geoff Clams

Geoff Clams — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:03:20 +0000

I was just using the example of a bafflingly popular newspaper going the whole nine yards as with regards to propaganda. The Guardian’s just as bad in it’s own way. Well, certainly The Observer.
I never laid the blame for Iraq squarely at your door and I would assume that, as an obviously intelligent person, you would decry that gung-ho adventure as the ill-advised war crime it was. I was just saying (in admittedly rather wide terms) that newspapers generally do shape public perceptions for the worse and therefore, have been pretty dangerous over the years.
I’m all up for debate, but you can’t accuse me of condescension on one hand whilst ridiculing the fact that someone from a “little South Devon homestead” such as mine should dare to air an opinion on (or care about truth in) the said universe. Perhaps you’re not too far from the “gutter” I supposedly inhabit, after all?

By: Cptn

Cptn — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:19:53 +0000

Hi there

Helen’s published comments were attacked by our spam filter for some reason. But now they are back.

By: Geoff not George

Geoff not George — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:12:52 +0000

Where did Helen’s comments go? Great, now it looks as though i’m arguing with air.
Ironic.

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:55:08 +0000

Am I suddenly being censored because I don’t fit your agenda? Not good for public engagement if only your contributers can comment.

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:50:40 +0000

Wasn’t referring to the hilarious ‘poopy-head’ comment, Geoff. Though entertained by your lack of insight and your condescending manner. And I do find it funny that you lay blame for the Iraq War at my door without even knowing my position on it, if or what newspaper I was working for at the time. But complexities and the practice of asking questions don’t fit comfortably with your rigid theories, which is why I don’t have any desire to read your, self-confessed, ‘amateur’ journalism. It’s probably why I didn’t remember your name correctly.

Don’t think any intelligent human agrees that The Sun is a good read – sexist and racist are just starting points, no? Though you don’t credit anyone else with the brain to work that out now, do you?

Aren’t you also a purveyor of comment on fact? Or have I missed something in these long essays you’ve submitted? Try harder next time. Sorry, I forgot you consider yourself the guardian of all truth in the universe from your little south Devon homestead.

Anyway, mustn’t spend all day fighting in the gutter with you. Better things to do with my day.

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:41:40 +0000

Wasn’t referring to the ‘poopy-head’ comment, Geoff. Though entertained by your lack of insight and your condescending manner. Nor do I have much desire to read your ‘amateur’ journalism.

Don’t think any intelligent human agrees that The Sun is a good read – sexist and racist are just starting points, no? But you don’t credit anyone else with the brain to work that out now, do you?

Aren’t you also a purveyor of comment on fact? Or have I missed something? Sorry, I forgot you consider yourself the guardian of all truth in the universe from your little south Devon homestead.

Anyway, I must stop fighting with you in the gutter. Better things to do with my day.

By: Geoff Clams

Geoff Clams — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:26:25 +0000

It’s Geoff, not George.
And, as an amateur investigative reporter myself (you can read my reports on these here pages) I tend to share your fears about the medium disappearing. Check out my blogs. Context is everything.
I’m sorry if I lost you there. Maybe I have a different bad taste threshold but calling someone a poopy-head isn’t properly libellous in my book. And there’s nothing paranoid about my outlining the accepted wisdom; that newpspapers are generally inherently evil.
In your line of work, you might have come across a website called youcare.com? They document irresponsible journalism.
The following link leads to a page of collected articles from The Sun newspaper, taken from the run-up to the Iraq war. With all these years of hindsight behind us and, given what we know now, it’s a terrifyng read and a good example of fact/comment merging from our recent history.
http://www.youcare.com/?p=19

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:43:56 +0000

Graham – that’s an interesting debate about facts and comment, especially as if you look at the reception of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show in the US it’s clear that there’s a public thirst out there for news facts presented with opinion, comedy and irony. There’s got to be some hope after Fox News, right?

There’s a school of thought that says the future of internet news may well be to present facts within opinion, afterall people are bright enough to separate fact from comment and are tired of this ‘flat Earth news’ that Nick Davies talks of http://www.flatearthnews.net/ where, to really simplify the argument, every news provider repeats the same (sometimes false) information – generally PA – and investigative journalism dies. In fact, I used to monitor internet traffic to a national newspaper site and the opinion pieces/those with attitude always drove more traffic than the straight ones. People wanted to be engaged, whether they agreed or not.

Cptn, thanks for the time switch and I’m well up for the debate.

By: Geoff Clams

Geoff Clams — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:41:09 +0000

As soon as she thought she had me pegged as a tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, she stopped drinking in the points I was trying to make.

Typical.