Redundancies are apparently on the way at British Bookshops, which currently employs 600 people and has 39 shops in the south of England. Fingers crossed for them.
Meanwhile, book sales in the UK in the first quarter of 2009 were down by 6.5% on the same period in 2008, according to the latest figures from the Publisher's Association.
Still, at least the cricket's looking positive...
Friday, 10 July 2009
Monday, 6 July 2009
A Looking Glass World
We do seem to live in an increasingly black-is-white world.
A couple of weeks after the Nightjack furore, and two or three months after a nurse was struck off for helping Panorama to expose the appalling conditions in which elderly cancer patients were being 'treated', a dinner lady apparently faces the sack for telling David and Claire Scott that their seven-year-old daughter had been tied up and whipped with a skipping rope by bullies at school.
According to The Times, the school says the dinner lady's actions in discussing a pupil outside of school amount to 'gross misconduct' - notwithstanding that she was talking to the child's own parents.
Meanwhile, a mother who lied to get her son into a decent school won't be prosecuted, but the preposterous Ed Balls has ordered a major investigation into how many people are lying to get their kids into good schools.
How about an investigation into why they might feel the need to do this in the first place?
The answer is, as Frank Chalk pointed out in his book (an extract from which you can read here), that some of our state schools are absolutely terrible.
Unfortunately, they tend not to be the schools attended by the children of people who matter - Tony Blair, for instance, was able to ship his kids halfway across London to the Oratory School, rather than have them attend the shoddy comps in Islington. He didn't have to do anything so vulgar as lie about where he lived to arrange it, either (not that he was ideologically opposed to lying, mind you).
I was listening to Any Questions on R4 on Friday and I think I heard the writer Will Self say that he was against private education on principle but that he sent his own children to private schools.
Paul Weller, of course, recorded Eton Rifles, and attacked private education at every opportunity - until he had school-age children of his own, at which point he realised that the state schools near him were appalling and underwent a Damascene conversion.
Frank Chalk for Education Secretary, I say!
Posted by Dan
A couple of weeks after the Nightjack furore, and two or three months after a nurse was struck off for helping Panorama to expose the appalling conditions in which elderly cancer patients were being 'treated', a dinner lady apparently faces the sack for telling David and Claire Scott that their seven-year-old daughter had been tied up and whipped with a skipping rope by bullies at school.
According to The Times, the school says the dinner lady's actions in discussing a pupil outside of school amount to 'gross misconduct' - notwithstanding that she was talking to the child's own parents.
Meanwhile, a mother who lied to get her son into a decent school won't be prosecuted, but the preposterous Ed Balls has ordered a major investigation into how many people are lying to get their kids into good schools.
How about an investigation into why they might feel the need to do this in the first place?
The answer is, as Frank Chalk pointed out in his book (an extract from which you can read here), that some of our state schools are absolutely terrible.
Unfortunately, they tend not to be the schools attended by the children of people who matter - Tony Blair, for instance, was able to ship his kids halfway across London to the Oratory School, rather than have them attend the shoddy comps in Islington. He didn't have to do anything so vulgar as lie about where he lived to arrange it, either (not that he was ideologically opposed to lying, mind you).
I was listening to Any Questions on R4 on Friday and I think I heard the writer Will Self say that he was against private education on principle but that he sent his own children to private schools.
Paul Weller, of course, recorded Eton Rifles, and attacked private education at every opportunity - until he had school-age children of his own, at which point he realised that the state schools near him were appalling and underwent a Damascene conversion.
Frank Chalk for Education Secretary, I say!
Posted by Dan
Thursday, 2 July 2009
When Science Goes Wrong - Review 2
After The Guardian's recent positive review of When Science Goes Wrong, someone has very kindly sent in a cutting of a review from the Daily Mail, which we somehow missed.
I can't find a link, but here's the text, laboriously re-inputted:
We contacted Ben Goldacre of 'Bad Science' fame to see if he'd like to read it and maybe review it on his (most enjoyable) blog. He replied that he didn't read books which, if true, is very sad. (It's not a principle which extends to not writing them, of course.)
You can read an extract from When Science Goes Wrong here.
In fact, you can read extracts from all of our books by visiting our website, clicking on the appropriate title and scrolling down to the 'sample text' bit.
Posted by Dan
I can't find a link, but here's the text, laboriously re-inputted:
What’s the Big Idea?
For every scientific breakthrough there is a scientific disaster, and in some cases they are one and the same. The pioneering operation in which foetal cells were transplanted into the brain of a person with Parkinson’s disease, for example, was miraculous in that it showed that such cells could take root and flourish. But it was also catastrophic in that at least one patient ended up growing bits of bone and hair among his grey matter. Volcanoes explode when scientists have confidently predicted that they are safe, and dams burst despite engineers’ best efforts. Hurricanes happen, even when the man from the Met assures us they won’t. Science just isn’t as reliable as we like to think—and the devil, always, is in the detail.
So What’s New?
This side of the scientific story is rarely told, and certainly not in the kind of painstaking detail set out here. Other books have dealt with many of the 12 case studies LeVay writes about, and some of them, like the Michael Fish debacle over the 1897 hurricane, have been picked over obsessively. But in this book, LeVay digs beneath the claims and counterclaims about who got it wrong, to explain, in meticulous detail, the catalogue of (usually tiny) errors that cumulatively created each catastrophe. They include scientists’ little prejudices and conceits, careless assumptions, methodological slips and systematic weaknesses.
Take Fish’s infamous ‘No hurricane’ pronouncement. Far from being one man’s mistake, LeVay shows that it was partly due to sub-optimum programming of the British Met office computers. Further research shows that the programmes were written in that way because the computers were not powerful enough to run more complex ones sufficiently quickly to serve the demands of TV and radio. Then there was the possibility that a strike by French forecasters on the day meant crucial data was not forthcoming. But, though the French Met Office agree there was a strike call, they claim that so few workers obeyed it that data communication was unaffected. And did Michael Fish actually say there wouldn’t be a hurricane? Well, yes, and no. He said the words, but subsequently claimed he was referring to a hurricane in the
In a world of snap judgments and knee-jerk blame, this sort of in-depth research into the cause of disasters is hardly ever published outside official reports. In its way, it is a scientific breakthrough in itself.
Is It Reader-Friendly?
If you are looking for a book that will make you laugh or shudder at scientific hubris, this is not it. Science is deeply embedded in society, and its faults, as well as its triumphs, are society’s, too. If this complex interplay interests you, this book will intrigue you to the very last sentence.
Boffin Rating
Simon LeVay is a British-born neuroscientist who has worked in some of the finest scientific institutions in the world. He is best known for his work on the ‘gay brain.’ He was widely pilloried for it at the time, but has since been found to be broadly correct. Most of these stories are off his scientific beat (only a couple deal with neuroscience), but the scientific rigour of his questioning shines right on through.
We contacted Ben Goldacre of 'Bad Science' fame to see if he'd like to read it and maybe review it on his (most enjoyable) blog. He replied that he didn't read books which, if true, is very sad. (It's not a principle which extends to not writing them, of course.)
You can read an extract from When Science Goes Wrong here.
In fact, you can read extracts from all of our books by visiting our website, clicking on the appropriate title and scrolling down to the 'sample text' bit.
Posted by Dan
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Reading For Pleasure
The Waterstone's parent company HMV released strong figures today, but in amongst them was the news that Waterstone's like-for-like sales are down 3.8%.
Music and video games sales were up, HMV having benefited from the collapse of Zavvi and Woolies (incidentally, isn't that 'wither'?).
Chief executive Simon Fox said on the Today programme this morning that the decline in book sales was partly due to a collapse of 20% (I think) in travel titles - people not having the cash to take as many foreign holidays. He forecast a good year ahead, with some big titles on the horizon. (He didn't mention any of ours, but this was probably an oversight.)
While 3.8% isn't good news, it could be worse, I'm sure. Speaking as someone who lost cash and stock when the Zavvi wholesaler EUK went under, we need a strong and profitable Waterstone's.
I do wonder if we'll be a nation of readers in the next 30 years or so, though.
This recent post by the used-to-be-left-wing-now-right-wing blogger Laban Tall caught my eye at the weekend.
It concerns A level history students who were dumbfounded by an exam question which asked, 'How far do you agree that Hitler’s role 1933-45 was one of despotic tyranny?'
That's the sort of exam question I used to love, in that there is no right answer; this allows weak but quick-writing students like me to spray the page with lots of half-remembered almost-facts, some of which will stick and earn you a B. (You can't do this in physics.)
However, it does rely on you being able to understand the words 'despotic' and 'tyranny', and therein lay the problem for a number of entrants. They didn't know what the question was asking, and are now up in arms about it. (A Facebook page called Despotic Tyranny Ruined My Life currently has more than 1,500 members. Given the millions of lives which really have been ruined by despotic tyrants over the centuries, I imagine it started out as a piece of irony. But if you read some of the comments on Facebook - not least the genuinely foul and threatening abuse directed at the students - it gets quite depressing.)
I'll leave it to Laban and others to decide what this all means for literacy and the education system generally (it's not exactly a scientific sample, and there must have been plenty of kids who had no problem at all - and probably wondered if 'despotic tyranny' wasn't, in fact, tautologous).
But most of my own vocab, such as it is, came not from school but from books, and so I do think - unscientifically, and taken with the explosion in video games - that it probably reflects a decline in reading for pleasure.
When I were a lad, by the way, when we weren't reading we were outside playing sport. After Saturday's Lions defeat, I'd be interested to see what the video game sales are in South Africa, Australia and NZ.
Posted by Dan
Music and video games sales were up, HMV having benefited from the collapse of Zavvi and Woolies (incidentally, isn't that 'wither'?).
Chief executive Simon Fox said on the Today programme this morning that the decline in book sales was partly due to a collapse of 20% (I think) in travel titles - people not having the cash to take as many foreign holidays. He forecast a good year ahead, with some big titles on the horizon. (He didn't mention any of ours, but this was probably an oversight.)
While 3.8% isn't good news, it could be worse, I'm sure. Speaking as someone who lost cash and stock when the Zavvi wholesaler EUK went under, we need a strong and profitable Waterstone's.
I do wonder if we'll be a nation of readers in the next 30 years or so, though.
This recent post by the used-to-be-left-wing-now-right-wing blogger Laban Tall caught my eye at the weekend.
It concerns A level history students who were dumbfounded by an exam question which asked, 'How far do you agree that Hitler’s role 1933-45 was one of despotic tyranny?'
That's the sort of exam question I used to love, in that there is no right answer; this allows weak but quick-writing students like me to spray the page with lots of half-remembered almost-facts, some of which will stick and earn you a B. (You can't do this in physics.)
However, it does rely on you being able to understand the words 'despotic' and 'tyranny', and therein lay the problem for a number of entrants. They didn't know what the question was asking, and are now up in arms about it. (A Facebook page called Despotic Tyranny Ruined My Life currently has more than 1,500 members. Given the millions of lives which really have been ruined by despotic tyrants over the centuries, I imagine it started out as a piece of irony. But if you read some of the comments on Facebook - not least the genuinely foul and threatening abuse directed at the students - it gets quite depressing.)
I'll leave it to Laban and others to decide what this all means for literacy and the education system generally (it's not exactly a scientific sample, and there must have been plenty of kids who had no problem at all - and probably wondered if 'despotic tyranny' wasn't, in fact, tautologous).
But most of my own vocab, such as it is, came not from school but from books, and so I do think - unscientifically, and taken with the explosion in video games - that it probably reflects a decline in reading for pleasure.
When I were a lad, by the way, when we weren't reading we were outside playing sport. After Saturday's Lions defeat, I'd be interested to see what the video game sales are in South Africa, Australia and NZ.
Posted by Dan
Friday, 26 June 2009
Stat Blather And Rugby Football
I sat opposite a young woman on a train this week, and to my delight she pulled out one of our books to read. (You can read an extract from the same book here - if you enjoy it, the whole thing is available from our website, Amazon or all good bookstores.)
If you run Penguin or Headline this must happen to you all the time, but it's rare for us and it was a bit of a thrill. It's always nice to clap eyes on an actual customer.
We get some feedback through this blog, of course. Most of our readers are from the UK, but we get a lot of people visiting the blog from the USA, Canada and Australia. Less frequently, we get people from other European countries - mostly France, Germany and Ireland.
We get the occasional readers in more exotic locations. In the last week, I imagine because of the interest in Nightjack, we've been visited by people from, Chad, Colombia, Estonia, Iran, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Tonga and Uzbekistan.
More specifically, we've had visits from the Univerza v Ljubljana and the Universiteit Utrecht (plus several British universities), a number of British police forces, the House of Commons, several national and regional UK government departments, someone from the Australian government and a company from Arlington, Virginia, which specialises in analysing 'humint' for the CIA. Bizarre.
But I can't concentrate much on books at the moment, to be honest.
There's nothing in sport like a Lions tour (except an Ashes series) and it plays havoc with my concentration - I'm spending far more time at planetrugby than I really ought to.
Eight years ago I was lucky enough to follow the Lions across Australia - a series we lost, thanks in my opinion to Nathan Grey's swinging arm on Richard Hill in the second test.
(I was there again two years later when - for English Lions supporters, at least - revenge was very sweet.)
I've always feared the Boks would repeat the All Blacks' 2005 3-0 whitewash, so this time I'm watching from the sofa, with copious bottles of Abbot Ale and a cushion to hide behind.
That said, if the Lions can hold the Boks in the scrum, win some line-out and turnover ball and get it out to the backs ASAP, who knows?
It's great to see Simon Shaw get a test start - I think he should have played last week, possibly instead of O'Connell. And I'd have gone with James Hook at 10 (he's not even on the bench), and Shane Williams on the wing (on the basis that class is permanent) because WE NEED TRIES!
Posted by Dan
If you run Penguin or Headline this must happen to you all the time, but it's rare for us and it was a bit of a thrill. It's always nice to clap eyes on an actual customer.
We get some feedback through this blog, of course. Most of our readers are from the UK, but we get a lot of people visiting the blog from the USA, Canada and Australia. Less frequently, we get people from other European countries - mostly France, Germany and Ireland.
We get the occasional readers in more exotic locations. In the last week, I imagine because of the interest in Nightjack, we've been visited by people from, Chad, Colombia, Estonia, Iran, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Tonga and Uzbekistan.
More specifically, we've had visits from the Univerza v Ljubljana and the Universiteit Utrecht (plus several British universities), a number of British police forces, the House of Commons, several national and regional UK government departments, someone from the Australian government and a company from Arlington, Virginia, which specialises in analysing 'humint' for the CIA. Bizarre.
But I can't concentrate much on books at the moment, to be honest.
There's nothing in sport like a Lions tour (except an Ashes series) and it plays havoc with my concentration - I'm spending far more time at planetrugby than I really ought to.
Eight years ago I was lucky enough to follow the Lions across Australia - a series we lost, thanks in my opinion to Nathan Grey's swinging arm on Richard Hill in the second test.
(I was there again two years later when - for English Lions supporters, at least - revenge was very sweet.)
I've always feared the Boks would repeat the All Blacks' 2005 3-0 whitewash, so this time I'm watching from the sofa, with copious bottles of Abbot Ale and a cushion to hide behind.
That said, if the Lions can hold the Boks in the scrum, win some line-out and turnover ball and get it out to the backs ASAP, who knows?
It's great to see Simon Shaw get a test start - I think he should have played last week, possibly instead of O'Connell. And I'd have gone with James Hook at 10 (he's not even on the bench), and Shane Williams on the wing (on the basis that class is permanent) because WE NEED TRIES!
Posted by Dan
Monday, 22 June 2009
In Foreign Fields
As we mentioned a while ago, we've created a feature on our website where you can read excerpts from out titles and decide whether you want to buy them.
Here's one from In Foreign Fields.
Sgt Terry Bryan's story sounds like something out of a Commando comic, or a movie, but it actually happened.
There are 24 other stories like that in the book - it's all a bit humbling when you read it.
If you want to buy IFF, it's available at Amazon and other online sites, in all decent bookshops and direct from us (with free p&p in the UK).
Posted by Sam
Here's one from In Foreign Fields.
Sgt Terry Bryan's story sounds like something out of a Commando comic, or a movie, but it actually happened.
There are 24 other stories like that in the book - it's all a bit humbling when you read it.
If you want to buy IFF, it's available at Amazon and other online sites, in all decent bookshops and direct from us (with free p&p in the UK).
Posted by Sam
Friday, 19 June 2009
Daily Drama
PC Bloggs' Diary Of An On Call Girl started the week at around 3,500 on Amazon.
As I write, it's at No163.
Just goes to show the power of Radio 4, and its 'Daily Drama'.
A while ago, The Bookseller (the trade magazine for booksellers and publishers) printed its definitive list of the 100 most influential people in publishing.
By some unaccountable oversight, no-one from Monday Books was included, but one of the 100 was the lady who commissions the Daily Drama.
According to the Bookseller, major publishers beat a path to her door and will sell their souls to have a title taken on.
To be honest, the BBC came to us - we hadn't even thought of approaching them.
So much of being a small indie publisher is taken up with actually getting the books finished and out that this sort of really valuable icing doesn't get done.
All we need now is for the ongoing BBC TV Bloggs comedy to come to fruition, and maybe we will be able to have the rising damp on the wall next to my desk patched up.
READ AN EXTRACT FROM DIARY OF AN ON CALL GIRL FREE HERE
Posted by Sam
As I write, it's at No163.
Just goes to show the power of Radio 4, and its 'Daily Drama'.
A while ago, The Bookseller (the trade magazine for booksellers and publishers) printed its definitive list of the 100 most influential people in publishing.
By some unaccountable oversight, no-one from Monday Books was included, but one of the 100 was the lady who commissions the Daily Drama.
According to the Bookseller, major publishers beat a path to her door and will sell their souls to have a title taken on.
To be honest, the BBC came to us - we hadn't even thought of approaching them.
So much of being a small indie publisher is taken up with actually getting the books finished and out that this sort of really valuable icing doesn't get done.
All we need now is for the ongoing BBC TV Bloggs comedy to come to fruition, and maybe we will be able to have the rising damp on the wall next to my desk patched up.
READ AN EXTRACT FROM DIARY OF AN ON CALL GIRL FREE HERE
Posted by Sam
Thursday, 18 June 2009
More Nightjack Blah
I expect most people in the real world are getting a bit bored with the Nightjack teacup/storm interface by now, so here's our last word on it (barring any developments).
The question, it seems to me, is simple: Do we want people who work in the police force (or the NHS, the education system and other trades and industries) to be able to give us, as adults with an interest in the truth generally and in crime specifically, the inside track on their daily working lives?
I think the answer is yes, though I accept that we have a vested interest, and that while the question might be simple the answer is not.
If the material recounted is based on truth, with personal details altered beyond all recognition*, and it makes broad points about the criminal justice system which are at odds with the official line, who wouldn't want to hear it?
Before PC David Copperfield started The Policeman's Blog, and then we published Wasting Police Time, no-one really knew that there were hardly any cops on duty on a Friday night in most towns, or that it took 20 hours for three kids to be dealt with for stealing a bike, or that trivial non-crimes like playground hair-pulling were being administratively 'solved' by a prolonged process of box-ticking in order that the crime figures looked better.
This may sound unimportant, but there still are very few cops on frontline duty (whatever the government says), and they aren't coming to your burglary if they're spending forever on paperwork, and one of the playground hair-pullers might be your son, and he may now have a criminal record.
Why Chief Constables themselves weren't making these points, I don't know.
Why newspapers like The Times weren't investigating the CJS, likewise, I don't know.
But they weren't. Indeed, when we sent The Times a review copy of Wasting Police Time, they binned it.
Anyway.
Mr Justice Eady's ruling, and the actions of The Times, haven't actually changed things much - we've always operated on the basis that our blogging authors might be exposed, and have taken steps to prevent that exposure. Are those steps foolproof? Bearing in mind that people can hack into the Pentagon, probably not.
Those actions will have made potential whistleblowers less likely to step forward, and that's a shame, but they won't stop it. In fact, I don't think it can be stopped. As Inspector Gadget points out, people are writing from Iran in the middle of what may turn out to be a revolution.
The truth is, by trying to repress people like Nightjack and Copperfield and Gadget and Bloggs, police forces do more harm to themselves than good. If I were a Chief Constable, I'd think I'd announce that officers in my force were allowed to blog if they liked - on the basis that all names are thoroughly changed to protect the innocent. Only one officer in a thousand would be bothered, and official sanction would remove half the fun.
After all, as they often say vis a vis criminals, if you've got nothing to hide, what are you worried about?
Here - for those who haven't read them, are extracts from our three police books:
Wasting Police Time
Diary of an On Call Girl
Perverting The Course Of Justice
* The Times claims, I feel spuriously, that it outed Nightjack because he revealed details of specific cases; I was briefly interviewed by the Daily Telegraph yesterday and made the obvious (and not particularly original) point that this danger was increased tenfold by the newspaper's own actions. Nothing in our books could ever be traced back to anyone or any case.
It's also important to point out that there is no existential truth to be found in any one book or blog. These are the views and thoughts and experiences of individuals; after Wasting Police Time came out, we were bombarded with emails, letters and phone calls of support from low-ranking cops who were delighted that something representing their working lives had been published. But we also had one or two critical calls - there was a sergeant in Sussex who said it was a disgrace and should never have seen the light of day.
Posted by Dan
The question, it seems to me, is simple: Do we want people who work in the police force (or the NHS, the education system and other trades and industries) to be able to give us, as adults with an interest in the truth generally and in crime specifically, the inside track on their daily working lives?
I think the answer is yes, though I accept that we have a vested interest, and that while the question might be simple the answer is not.
If the material recounted is based on truth, with personal details altered beyond all recognition*, and it makes broad points about the criminal justice system which are at odds with the official line, who wouldn't want to hear it?
Before PC David Copperfield started The Policeman's Blog, and then we published Wasting Police Time, no-one really knew that there were hardly any cops on duty on a Friday night in most towns, or that it took 20 hours for three kids to be dealt with for stealing a bike, or that trivial non-crimes like playground hair-pulling were being administratively 'solved' by a prolonged process of box-ticking in order that the crime figures looked better.
This may sound unimportant, but there still are very few cops on frontline duty (whatever the government says), and they aren't coming to your burglary if they're spending forever on paperwork, and one of the playground hair-pullers might be your son, and he may now have a criminal record.
Why Chief Constables themselves weren't making these points, I don't know.
Why newspapers like The Times weren't investigating the CJS, likewise, I don't know.
But they weren't. Indeed, when we sent The Times a review copy of Wasting Police Time, they binned it.
Anyway.
Mr Justice Eady's ruling, and the actions of The Times, haven't actually changed things much - we've always operated on the basis that our blogging authors might be exposed, and have taken steps to prevent that exposure. Are those steps foolproof? Bearing in mind that people can hack into the Pentagon, probably not.
Those actions will have made potential whistleblowers less likely to step forward, and that's a shame, but they won't stop it. In fact, I don't think it can be stopped. As Inspector Gadget points out, people are writing from Iran in the middle of what may turn out to be a revolution.
The truth is, by trying to repress people like Nightjack and Copperfield and Gadget and Bloggs, police forces do more harm to themselves than good. If I were a Chief Constable, I'd think I'd announce that officers in my force were allowed to blog if they liked - on the basis that all names are thoroughly changed to protect the innocent. Only one officer in a thousand would be bothered, and official sanction would remove half the fun.
After all, as they often say vis a vis criminals, if you've got nothing to hide, what are you worried about?
Here - for those who haven't read them, are extracts from our three police books:
Wasting Police Time
Diary of an On Call Girl
Perverting The Course Of Justice
* The Times claims, I feel spuriously, that it outed Nightjack because he revealed details of specific cases; I was briefly interviewed by the Daily Telegraph yesterday and made the obvious (and not particularly original) point that this danger was increased tenfold by the newspaper's own actions. Nothing in our books could ever be traced back to anyone or any case.
It's also important to point out that there is no existential truth to be found in any one book or blog. These are the views and thoughts and experiences of individuals; after Wasting Police Time came out, we were bombarded with emails, letters and phone calls of support from low-ranking cops who were delighted that something representing their working lives had been published. But we also had one or two critical calls - there was a sergeant in Sussex who said it was a disgrace and should never have seen the light of day.
Posted by Dan
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Nightjack IN The Times
Richard 'Nightjack' Horton has written a piece for the paper that outed him here.
It contains one powerful argument in favour of his privacy being maintained, which doesn't seem to have been addressed in court: 'Over the years, I have dealt with some unpleasant characters. I know that some of them have made determined but unsuccessful efforts to find me and I believe that some of them are still looking.'
It's now a lot easier for them; I hope nothing happens to Richard or his family.
'Anon' asks in the comments to the last post what my views are about this, because of our dealings with Inspector Gadget (and, I suppose, PC Bloggs).
As I wrote yesterday, I have some understanding of why The Times unmasked Nightjack, even if I think it was wrong-headed. They're journalists, and journalists reveal things, including things people don't want revealed.
Some commentators think it's all about the 'MSM' (mainstream media) trying to 'smash blogging', but I can't see that. I don't think any government pressure was exerted, either.
There's no conspiracy: a hard-hitting anonymous police blog won a national prize, and they tried to find out who wrote it, that's all.
For what it's worth - not much, let's face it - I do think it was short-sighted of The Times, and I don't agree with their suggestion that this judgment assists 'freedom of speech'. Yes, they won the right to name him, but in doing so they closed down his freedom to explain life in the police from the inside. I don't think that's a good thing. If all we have to go on are official stats and figures, we're more easily lied to; inadvertently or not, The Times has handed the establishment a major victory. (Mr Justice Eady isn't likely to suffer from the depradations of the people Richard Horton was talking about, after all.)
If I'd been the editor, I'd have wanted to hire Nightjack as a columnist, rather than exposing him. But there you go.
Of course, I am concerned about the anonymity of Gadget and Bloggs.
In the case of Nightjack, it seems that loose lips sank ships. Gadget and Bloggs keep their cards close to their chests, so it would take some illegal computer hackery to discover their identity, I think.
UPDATE: Danny Finkelstein responds to Times readers' concerns about the story.
I can't disagree from logic with what he writes about the specific case, or even blogging generally. My concern is more about the bigger picture: what will this do for journalists, including Times journalists, when they themselves want information from insiders?
Newspapers, by definition, have to be anti-establishment, surely. The editorial columns can take a party line, but the general idea is to invigilate authority: that is their raison d'etre.
Nightjack gave people an insight into life on the front line, and that is why the Times - voluntarily - should have maintained his confidentiality. We can get press releases from Lancashire Police delivered straight to our inboxes, after all.
UPDATE 2: Views from Gadget and Bloggs.
UPDATE 3: Jean Seaton, director of the Orwell Prize, criticises The Times and defends Nightjack at the Guardian. 'A window that had opened on to the way in which policeman go about their work, bristling with insights into contemporary Britain, has been slammed shut,' says Seaton. 'The Times has shut down a voice.'
I think the most interesting thing in this piece is its conflict with this line in yesterday's Times piece by Frances Gibb: 'In April Mr Horton was awarded the Orwell Prize for political writing, but the judges were unaware that he was using information about cases, some involving sex offences against children, that could be traced back to genuine prosecutions.'
This line was clearly inserted to imply that the Orwell judges might now be somehow regretful of their decision to award him his prize; Jean Seaton dispatches this particular fox with some vigour. As we said yesterda, the second part of this justification - 'that he was using information... that could be traced back' is quite unworthy of a great newspaper, given that it was all utterly untraceable to anyone or anything until they named Richard Horton.
READ FREE EXTRACTS FROM ALL OUR BOOKS ON OUR WEBSITE
Posted by Dan
It contains one powerful argument in favour of his privacy being maintained, which doesn't seem to have been addressed in court: 'Over the years, I have dealt with some unpleasant characters. I know that some of them have made determined but unsuccessful efforts to find me and I believe that some of them are still looking.'
It's now a lot easier for them; I hope nothing happens to Richard or his family.
'Anon' asks in the comments to the last post what my views are about this, because of our dealings with Inspector Gadget (and, I suppose, PC Bloggs).
As I wrote yesterday, I have some understanding of why The Times unmasked Nightjack, even if I think it was wrong-headed. They're journalists, and journalists reveal things, including things people don't want revealed.
Some commentators think it's all about the 'MSM' (mainstream media) trying to 'smash blogging', but I can't see that. I don't think any government pressure was exerted, either.
There's no conspiracy: a hard-hitting anonymous police blog won a national prize, and they tried to find out who wrote it, that's all.
For what it's worth - not much, let's face it - I do think it was short-sighted of The Times, and I don't agree with their suggestion that this judgment assists 'freedom of speech'. Yes, they won the right to name him, but in doing so they closed down his freedom to explain life in the police from the inside. I don't think that's a good thing. If all we have to go on are official stats and figures, we're more easily lied to; inadvertently or not, The Times has handed the establishment a major victory. (Mr Justice Eady isn't likely to suffer from the depradations of the people Richard Horton was talking about, after all.)
If I'd been the editor, I'd have wanted to hire Nightjack as a columnist, rather than exposing him. But there you go.
Of course, I am concerned about the anonymity of Gadget and Bloggs.
In the case of Nightjack, it seems that loose lips sank ships. Gadget and Bloggs keep their cards close to their chests, so it would take some illegal computer hackery to discover their identity, I think.
UPDATE: Danny Finkelstein responds to Times readers' concerns about the story.
I can't disagree from logic with what he writes about the specific case, or even blogging generally. My concern is more about the bigger picture: what will this do for journalists, including Times journalists, when they themselves want information from insiders?
Newspapers, by definition, have to be anti-establishment, surely. The editorial columns can take a party line, but the general idea is to invigilate authority: that is their raison d'etre.
Nightjack gave people an insight into life on the front line, and that is why the Times - voluntarily - should have maintained his confidentiality. We can get press releases from Lancashire Police delivered straight to our inboxes, after all.
UPDATE 2: Views from Gadget and Bloggs.
UPDATE 3: Jean Seaton, director of the Orwell Prize, criticises The Times and defends Nightjack at the Guardian. 'A window that had opened on to the way in which policeman go about their work, bristling with insights into contemporary Britain, has been slammed shut,' says Seaton. 'The Times has shut down a voice.'
I think the most interesting thing in this piece is its conflict with this line in yesterday's Times piece by Frances Gibb: 'In April Mr Horton was awarded the Orwell Prize for political writing, but the judges were unaware that he was using information about cases, some involving sex offences against children, that could be traced back to genuine prosecutions.'
This line was clearly inserted to imply that the Orwell judges might now be somehow regretful of their decision to award him his prize; Jean Seaton dispatches this particular fox with some vigour. As we said yesterda, the second part of this justification - 'that he was using information... that could be traced back' is quite unworthy of a great newspaper, given that it was all utterly untraceable to anyone or anything until they named Richard Horton.
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Posted by Dan
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Nightjack and The Times
Some time ago, a blogger called Nightjack started writing about his life as a detective constable in a run-down British town.
His writing was hard-hitting and 'gritty' and - having published three police books already - we approached him to see if he wanted to be No4.
He decided against, and continued instead with the blog.
He had a way with words and an eye for dramatic scenes, and he lifted the lid on life at the margins of society - where the police spend their working lives but most of us (including judges and Times reporters) rarely tread.
Last month his writing won him the inaugural Orwell Prize for blogging.
It was well-deserved, and his blog was discussed at some length on Radio Four and Newsnight Review.
The Guardian praised him in its editorial, and interviews with the anonymous officer appeared here and there, too.
Ironically - given the author in whose name the Orwell Prize is given - if you visit the blog today you will find that it has been deleted.
Shortly - I suspect tomorrow - Nightjack's identity will be revealed in The Times after the newspaper discovered his name.
He fought to prevent this exposure, injuncting the newspaper and appearing in a High Court hearing before The Honourable Mr Justice Eady.
Today, the judge publishes his findings, and he is squarely behind The Times.
You can read the full judgment here.
Mr Justice Eady divides his findings into two parts.
Essentially, the first was to consider whether blogging itself conferred any expectation of privacy: that is to say, if you write an anonymous blog, should others be expected to maintain your confidence if they discover who you really are?
The judge says emphatically not: "I consider that the Claimant fails at stage one, because blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity."
He then looks at the specifics of the case - do police officers (and surely, by extension, other whistleblowers) enjoy any special protection?
He says: "The Claimant is a serving detective constable and his blog mostly deals with his police work and his opinions on a number of social and political issues relating to the police and the administration of justice. He expresses strong opinions about these matters including on subjects of political controversy. In particular, he has criticised a number of ministers. In so far as he has written about cases of which he has obtained direct knowledge through his police duties, it is said that he has taken particular care to disguise the information."
He also says: "Although [counsel for Nightjack] rather dismissed it, a further argument was advanced by [counsel for The Times] to the effect that the Claimant's writing, being 'overtly political and highly critical of central and local policing strategies', are such that the public is entitled to receive information about the author, so as to enable it to make an assessment of the weight and authority to be attached to them. [Nightjack's counsel] submitted that all the Claimant's readers need to know is that the author is a serving police officer. I disagree. It is very often useful, in assessing the value of an opinion or argument, to know its source... one may wish to apply greater caution or scepticism in the case of a person with an 'axe to grind'. For so long as there is anonymity, it would obviously be difficult to make any such assessment. More generally, when making a judgment as to the value of comments made about police affairs by 'insiders', it may sometimes help to know how experienced or senior the commentator is."
With the greatest of respect to the learned judge, this amounts, in practice, to little more than a gagging order.
Yes, it is 'often useful', in assessing the value of an opinion or argument, to know its source - but if the source has no protection, and will lose his job (or otherwise suffer greatly), then there will be no 'opinion or argument' the value of which to assess.
No anonymity for 'insiders' = no revelations. All we will have are the tractor production stats and press releases put out by Chief Constables and the Home Office - and with what will we assess their value?
Let's not forget what happened when our first police book, Wasting Police Time, was published.
It was full of uncomfortable revelations and mockery of the powers-that-be, and the then Police Minister - who was more than able to judge its worth as a revelatory work, and was also one of the very people that this judgment will protect - stood up in the House of Commons, behind the protection of privilege, and denounced it as a 'work of fiction'.
He later retracted this assertion on the BBC Panorama special about PC Copperfield, and these days has much more on his plate to worry about, of course.
I find the judge's suggestion that 'one may wish to apply greater caution or scepticism in the case of a person with an 'axe to grind' confusing, too.
Does he really mean we must only take seriously opinions or information which is officially sanctioned for release?
Are we not adults, able to apply scepticism and caution without the assistance of a judge? I read lots of blogs; I don't believe every word they contain.
Nightjack polarised people - here's a good debate on the always interesting Liberal Conspiracy, for instance, where it seems to me that some people miss the point about his 'Evil Poor'. He's not saying the poor are evil, he's saying that the poor are preyed upon by evil people in their midst, and that the police can, in practice, do very little about it.
Night after night, old ladies are terrified to leave their homes on some of our housing estates: I think that this is something that should be talked about (and an impeccably liberal point to take), but I strongly suspect that the official news releases from Nightjack's force will talk instead about the tremendous 'reassurance' that their 'neighbourhood policing teams' are 'delivering', and their ever-greater successes in the war on crime.
But irrespective of that polarisation, it's not about the message, but about the messenger, and future messengers on all sides of the political debate.
Leaving aside the strategic question of whether they should burn one apparently honourable man for the sake of a here-today, gone-tomorrow story, with all that entails for the future confidentiality of their own sources, I don't blame The Times, tactically, for uncovering Nightjack's identity and reporting it: that's what newspapers do, and I'm sure he's a big boy.
In submitting himself to the Orwell judges, he would have been extraordinarily naiive not to imagine that, if he won, his true identity would be sought.
Of course, while I feel for Nightjack, my real concern is for the confidentiality of Inspector Gadget and PC Bloggs.
Commercially, Monday Books ought to be delighted that Nightjack is about to be exposed; it can only bring more attention to anonymous, whistleblowing cops, and that ought to mean more sales.
But while more sales are always welcome, it has never been about sales alone, for us or for Gadget, Bloggs or Copperfield. If it had been, we'd only publish glamorous, high-selling true crime titles, and they'd all have been very disappointed.
None of them published their books to make fortunes (indeed, thousands of pounds has gone to charities like Rape Crisis and Care of Police Survivors).
They published because they were increasingly exasperated with the bureaucratic burdens which prevent the police from arresting more burglars, muggers and thugs - and they wanted to be able to tell the people who pay their wages what was really going on.
Mr Justice Eady has just gone a long way towards shutting that door.
UPDATE: The Times have now revealed Nightjack as DC Richard Horton.
Their justification is interesting: "In April Mr Horton was awarded an Orwell Prize for political writing," writes Frances Gibb. "But the award judges were not aware that he was revealing confidential details about cases, some involving sex offences against children, that could be traced back to genuine prosecutions."
This is nicely worded. I assume he changed a lot of the details in every post he wrote, but one thing's for sure - revealing his identity and the force he works for will make it a lot easier to 'trace back to genuine prosecutions'.
"Thousands of bloggers churn out opinions daily - secure in the protection afforded to them by the cloak of anonymity," she writes. "From today they can no longer be secure that their identity can be kept secret, after a landmark ruling by Mr Justice Eady. The judge who has become synonymous with creating a law of privacy has struck a blow in favour of openness, ruling that blogging is 'essentially a public rather than a private activity'.
I'm not sure that this will work for openness - it may make bloggers who currently expose what goes on a little less keen to do so.
UPDATE 2: Although Nightjack's blog itself has been taken down, some of his work was reproduced in The Observer a while back and can still be read here.
UPDATE 3: The Guardian covers this story, and its comments section is interesting. Most commenters so far are against Eady.
'Andreakkk': 'Hang on. Some celeb doesn't want a picture of them taken in a public place with a hangover = right to privacy. Some ordinary person wants to remain anonymous = no dice.'
Or 'Orthus': 'This judgement from the man who runs Britain's libel tourism industry. I suppose Horton is just too poor to count.'
Posted by Dan
VISIT OUR WEBSITE TO READ FREE EXTRACTS FROM ALL OUR BOOKS
His writing was hard-hitting and 'gritty' and - having published three police books already - we approached him to see if he wanted to be No4.
He decided against, and continued instead with the blog.
He had a way with words and an eye for dramatic scenes, and he lifted the lid on life at the margins of society - where the police spend their working lives but most of us (including judges and Times reporters) rarely tread.
Last month his writing won him the inaugural Orwell Prize for blogging.
It was well-deserved, and his blog was discussed at some length on Radio Four and Newsnight Review.
The Guardian praised him in its editorial, and interviews with the anonymous officer appeared here and there, too.
Ironically - given the author in whose name the Orwell Prize is given - if you visit the blog today you will find that it has been deleted.
Shortly - I suspect tomorrow - Nightjack's identity will be revealed in The Times after the newspaper discovered his name.
He fought to prevent this exposure, injuncting the newspaper and appearing in a High Court hearing before The Honourable Mr Justice Eady.
Today, the judge publishes his findings, and he is squarely behind The Times.
You can read the full judgment here.
Mr Justice Eady divides his findings into two parts.
Essentially, the first was to consider whether blogging itself conferred any expectation of privacy: that is to say, if you write an anonymous blog, should others be expected to maintain your confidence if they discover who you really are?
The judge says emphatically not: "I consider that the Claimant fails at stage one, because blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity."
He then looks at the specifics of the case - do police officers (and surely, by extension, other whistleblowers) enjoy any special protection?
He says: "The Claimant is a serving detective constable and his blog mostly deals with his police work and his opinions on a number of social and political issues relating to the police and the administration of justice. He expresses strong opinions about these matters including on subjects of political controversy. In particular, he has criticised a number of ministers. In so far as he has written about cases of which he has obtained direct knowledge through his police duties, it is said that he has taken particular care to disguise the information."
He also says: "Although [counsel for Nightjack] rather dismissed it, a further argument was advanced by [counsel for The Times] to the effect that the Claimant's writing, being 'overtly political and highly critical of central and local policing strategies', are such that the public is entitled to receive information about the author, so as to enable it to make an assessment of the weight and authority to be attached to them. [Nightjack's counsel] submitted that all the Claimant's readers need to know is that the author is a serving police officer. I disagree. It is very often useful, in assessing the value of an opinion or argument, to know its source... one may wish to apply greater caution or scepticism in the case of a person with an 'axe to grind'. For so long as there is anonymity, it would obviously be difficult to make any such assessment. More generally, when making a judgment as to the value of comments made about police affairs by 'insiders', it may sometimes help to know how experienced or senior the commentator is."
With the greatest of respect to the learned judge, this amounts, in practice, to little more than a gagging order.
Yes, it is 'often useful', in assessing the value of an opinion or argument, to know its source - but if the source has no protection, and will lose his job (or otherwise suffer greatly), then there will be no 'opinion or argument' the value of which to assess.
No anonymity for 'insiders' = no revelations. All we will have are the tractor production stats and press releases put out by Chief Constables and the Home Office - and with what will we assess their value?
Let's not forget what happened when our first police book, Wasting Police Time, was published.
It was full of uncomfortable revelations and mockery of the powers-that-be, and the then Police Minister - who was more than able to judge its worth as a revelatory work, and was also one of the very people that this judgment will protect - stood up in the House of Commons, behind the protection of privilege, and denounced it as a 'work of fiction'.
He later retracted this assertion on the BBC Panorama special about PC Copperfield, and these days has much more on his plate to worry about, of course.
I find the judge's suggestion that 'one may wish to apply greater caution or scepticism in the case of a person with an 'axe to grind' confusing, too.
Does he really mean we must only take seriously opinions or information which is officially sanctioned for release?
Are we not adults, able to apply scepticism and caution without the assistance of a judge? I read lots of blogs; I don't believe every word they contain.
Nightjack polarised people - here's a good debate on the always interesting Liberal Conspiracy, for instance, where it seems to me that some people miss the point about his 'Evil Poor'. He's not saying the poor are evil, he's saying that the poor are preyed upon by evil people in their midst, and that the police can, in practice, do very little about it.
Night after night, old ladies are terrified to leave their homes on some of our housing estates: I think that this is something that should be talked about (and an impeccably liberal point to take), but I strongly suspect that the official news releases from Nightjack's force will talk instead about the tremendous 'reassurance' that their 'neighbourhood policing teams' are 'delivering', and their ever-greater successes in the war on crime.
But irrespective of that polarisation, it's not about the message, but about the messenger, and future messengers on all sides of the political debate.
Leaving aside the strategic question of whether they should burn one apparently honourable man for the sake of a here-today, gone-tomorrow story, with all that entails for the future confidentiality of their own sources, I don't blame The Times, tactically, for uncovering Nightjack's identity and reporting it: that's what newspapers do, and I'm sure he's a big boy.
In submitting himself to the Orwell judges, he would have been extraordinarily naiive not to imagine that, if he won, his true identity would be sought.
Of course, while I feel for Nightjack, my real concern is for the confidentiality of Inspector Gadget and PC Bloggs.
Commercially, Monday Books ought to be delighted that Nightjack is about to be exposed; it can only bring more attention to anonymous, whistleblowing cops, and that ought to mean more sales.
But while more sales are always welcome, it has never been about sales alone, for us or for Gadget, Bloggs or Copperfield. If it had been, we'd only publish glamorous, high-selling true crime titles, and they'd all have been very disappointed.
None of them published their books to make fortunes (indeed, thousands of pounds has gone to charities like Rape Crisis and Care of Police Survivors).
They published because they were increasingly exasperated with the bureaucratic burdens which prevent the police from arresting more burglars, muggers and thugs - and they wanted to be able to tell the people who pay their wages what was really going on.
Mr Justice Eady has just gone a long way towards shutting that door.
UPDATE: The Times have now revealed Nightjack as DC Richard Horton.
Their justification is interesting: "In April Mr Horton was awarded an Orwell Prize for political writing," writes Frances Gibb. "But the award judges were not aware that he was revealing confidential details about cases, some involving sex offences against children, that could be traced back to genuine prosecutions."
This is nicely worded. I assume he changed a lot of the details in every post he wrote, but one thing's for sure - revealing his identity and the force he works for will make it a lot easier to 'trace back to genuine prosecutions'.
"Thousands of bloggers churn out opinions daily - secure in the protection afforded to them by the cloak of anonymity," she writes. "From today they can no longer be secure that their identity can be kept secret, after a landmark ruling by Mr Justice Eady. The judge who has become synonymous with creating a law of privacy has struck a blow in favour of openness, ruling that blogging is 'essentially a public rather than a private activity'.
I'm not sure that this will work for openness - it may make bloggers who currently expose what goes on a little less keen to do so.
UPDATE 2: Although Nightjack's blog itself has been taken down, some of his work was reproduced in The Observer a while back and can still be read here.
UPDATE 3: The Guardian covers this story, and its comments section is interesting. Most commenters so far are against Eady.
'Andreakkk': 'Hang on. Some celeb doesn't want a picture of them taken in a public place with a hangover = right to privacy. Some ordinary person wants to remain anonymous = no dice.'
Or 'Orthus': 'This judgement from the man who runs Britain's libel tourism industry. I suppose Horton is just too poor to count.'
Posted by Dan
VISIT OUR WEBSITE TO READ FREE EXTRACTS FROM ALL OUR BOOKS
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