New.Journalism.Review

Tory right-wing MP, Dominic Raab, has had a busy summer emailing out Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

Raab’s most recent target has been the police, or to be precise, the Police Federation. Raab believes the body, which was founded in 1919 by the government, spends too much money representing its members rather than fighting crime. So Raab sent out a few FOI requests to prove his theory.

The result? This article in the Daily Mail:

“Police have claimed they will be left with 16,000 fewer officers because of a shortage of funding. Yet according to Freedom of Information requests by Tory MP Dominic Raab, they are forking out £4,801,817 on paying for union activities. There are at least 99 police working full-time for organisations such as the Police Federation, which has crossed swords repeatedly with ministers in recent months.”

But there is one problem – the Police Federation isn’t a union and the police can’t go on strike. Part way through the Mail’s article we discover, “The Police Federation, which is technically classified as a federation rather than a union”…(the clue was in the name!) So what’s this about ‘union’ activity?  The Federation is no radical left-wing RMT, yet someone seems to be trading on confusion.

Raab is wondering if ‘union’ work is a good use of police time? And a good use of an MPs time is bombarding police forces with FOI requests, right? Raab has to remember he is an MP and not a journalist for the Daily Mail. In fact some of his constituents would prefer that he spends more time representing their concerns rather than promoting his own Thatcherite views in the press and undermining hard-working police men and women.

Raab hates unions though…just try getting him to say the words “European Union” and, as any TV cop would say, he has ‘form’ in this area. He tried exactly the same trick in a bid to ‘expose’ union activity at Revenue and Customs back in July, which received massive publicity in the Express. Perhaps someone from Surrey Police will kindly arrest Raab for wasting all our time.

Read more:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2028679/Hundreds-police-paid-7-million-union-work-instead-keeping-streets-safe.html#ixzz1VyGmUDdN

Police Federation highlight Raab’s errors

It’s been a long time overdue, but this blog has finally moved to WordPress. As WordPress gets better and better, Typepad (or to be precise, Movable Type) has not really moved with the times.

I’ll be going through this blog attempting to remove all the duff links, but this may take a while.

It's Saturday and The Guardian is running yet another story about BBC funding. So what's new? Well, stories with an anti-BBC slant normally appear on a Monday and are confined to the Media section rather than splashed on the front page, so I'm already confused.

This time the Tories are saying that the BBC's growth must be curbed or it should expect the worst come the license fee renewal in 2012.

Tory spokesman, Jeremy Hunt, who The Guardian describes as an 'affable figure' and a 'moderniser' (so that's okay then – he's not one of those really nasty, right-wing types, who want to kill-off the BBC) says that the Corporation's growth represents a threat to democracy and there must be curbs placed on its websites and its executive's pay.

Of course, The Guardian reporters do NOT challenge him on the fact that the license fee remains incredible value at 39p a day ( You couldn't even buy a copy of The Guardian for the price). OR the totally unfounded portrayal of the BBC as being an evil predatory beast -  which is just looking for new markets to expand into. This is a myth that is repeated time and time again.

I convinced that most normal people (i.e. those who don't work for national newspapers or media companies with commercial agendas) believe that, at 39p a day, the BBC offers pretty good value for money. 

Well, there is the normal disclaimer… I am an avid listener to Radio 5 Live, I don't really care much for Radio 3 or, indeed, Radio 4. But I still want them to be there and at some stage in my life I will probably listen to it. I probably will never listen to BBC 1Xtra, but I teach some students who love it.

I've a feeling that when the Tory axe falls on the BBC, it will do so unevenly. The type of output that is loved by middle-aged white male MPs will stay, the rest will see cuts. 

To give a recent example of some great BBC output, BBC Sport's Formula One Grand Prix coverage online is simply superb. I'm loving these interactive circuit guides. Even those without slightest interest in Grand Prix should check it out.

Tory-boy Hunt, backed by new mate Rupert Murdoch, would probably prefer that we didn't get to enjoy this. They would perhaps argue that a commercial provider, given the chance, will offer an even better service.

Well, in my view, this argument doesn't wash with F1 coverage – ITV had F1 last year after all. There are a lot of F1 sites out there  and this assumption that they would all beneifit if the BBC didn't exist is just idiotic.

What is too often ignored is the fact that the BBC raises the  game. To put it crudely, for websites to succeed they have to be good -  there is nothing wrong with that when it improves quality. Anyone can create a really bad website and moan that it is terrible because we're in a recession and nobody is advertising.

When a terrible TV channel like Quest launches nobody watches it because we are used to decent TV in the UK. Although I realise that Quest has one good show -  TJ Hooker.

Taken to its logical extreme, free market broadcasting would mean perhaps all TV channels will end up looking like Quest…. now that's scary. Only someone like Jeremy Hunt or Rupert Murdoch would want that.

In the highly fragmented online and broadcast media market, where
advertising revenue is split between numerous players, the BBC is
required now more so than ever to ensure quality.

Those who attack the BBC say that it limits commercial competition, as Hunt puts it "the BBC could be the only show in town". But this needs to be challenged.

This argument always ignores the work that  the Beeb does throughout the UK in encouraging creativity and training talent (which the commercial sector benefits hugely from).  And let us not forget it  outsources much of its programme-making to independent production houses, which it has carried on doing throughout the recent advertising downturn.

I am convinced that the public really values the BBC and the huge variety of (mostly) high quality output.  These arguments from the Tories just won't rub. But the Tory party will offer the 'carrot' to media companies of curbing BBC power in return for political support, something that The Guardian does highlight in its article.

But The Guardian has a duty to challenge Tory policy on the BBC, as  it does brilliantly in just about every other area of policy. It can not and should not simply act as a mouthpiece for those critics of the BBC.

Come 2012 and the BBC license renewal, whoever is running the government will have the power to either enhance the BBC or, alternatively, cut its funding and legislate it out of existence. 

So you have decided to choose Joomla! for your news site? (good choice!). Most commercial web hosts will host Joomla! for you. And if you go with one that offers the Fantastico suite of software, you will be able to install Joomla! in just one-click.  

NOT SURE YOU LIKE JOOMLA!? – THEN HAVE A FREE TEST

If you want to have a play around with Joomla for free – you can find it hosted at Jhost .  It doesn’t allow you to upload your own template, but it does allow you to play around and understand the interface. Or you can also have a play at the official Joomla! Demo Site.

CHOOSING A HOME FOR YOUR JOOMLA! SITE

To host Joomla! you don’t need a lot – just a webserver that supports MySQL and PHP. Both WordPress and Joomla! are written in a scripting langauge known as PHP.

Most news sites these days are not static-HTML, but are dynamic. MySQL refers to the database that is at the heart of the CMS. You don’t need to know a lot about this stuff, only that your hosting company supports it. 

You probably won’t be able to host it with
the free space you get with your ISP account. 

INSTALLING JOOMLA!

Take a look at -How to start a Joomla! site

 Downloaded the latest version of Joomla!.

BUDGET  UK JOOMLA! HOSTING COMPANIES

1. 1&1: You will probably need One and One Business package
2. Heart Internet: One-Click install of Joomla! and  WordPress on the Starter Package
3. FastHosts: Probably will need the Developer package

BUDGET  US JOOMLA! HOSTING COMPANIES
1. GoDaddy: The economy plan one-click install at $4.99 a month
2. ZZ Hosting: The $3.90 budget plan has one-click install for Joomla!
3. SiteGround: The $5.95 a month package offers one-click install for Joomla! SiteGround also has an impressive list of templates (see next page)

The story of my early attempts to find a host can be found here

This semester has been absurdly and stupidly busy. And I've not even looked at the marking yet. Thankfully, the new and converged journalism degree seems to have gone down very well with the students. .

Just one problem:
A new degree structure x new units x increased teaching hours

           = zero time to reflect or do anything else ..like write, for instance.

We're also taking the students to New York in January, which is very exciting for all concerned.We hope to get them to NYU. So if I can take this opportunity to make a rather cheeky public appeal to Dean Olsher and Jay Rosen …..it would wonderful to meet up! (hint!, hint!).

(Lets hope, with some careful tagging, my appeal will make it on to Google!)