Well in a rather unexpected move, a Daily Mail exclusive will reveal in the paper tomorrow (and on the website this very second) that Andrew Marr, BBC Broadcaster is one celebrity who had taken out an injunction but has revealed himself because the increased use of them by celebrities was 'out of control' and that these injunctions should not last 'forever'. He publicly outed his injunction after " public controversy over injunctions intensified, [and] Mr Marr found himself featuring in newspapers anonymously, with his face published as a silhouette, alongside other mystery celebrities who have cheated on their wives but who could not be named. That led him to the conclusion that he no longer wished to share their company."
What the aftermath of this will be remains to be seen but some critics of injunctions are hopeful it may be able to change the law if other celebs follow suit as it highlights the absurdity of injunctions.
Read the article here and decide for yourself whether Marr was right to take out an injunction in the first place and whether he was right again to expose his own wrongdoing.
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
Thursday, 21 April 2011
19th Century: The Age of Change (with some William Cobbett)
Calling it The Age of Change doesn't half make it sound important but I suppose there's no underestimating the influence of this period on this country's history. It was the transformation of Britain from an agricultural society to an industrial one and it's this transformation that forms much of the focus in William Cobbett's book, Rural Rides.
The 19th century wasn't just about industrial change though. It was also a move from the enlightenment of the 17th/18th century (a clockwork and mechanistic paradigm), to the paradigm of change and organism, so for example Darwin and evolution. Subjects like geology, (melting rocks would have been unimaginable to Newton); Biology, Organic Chemistry where chemical change is very much different to mechanical change. The people of the time were also exposed to Eastern civilization and in particular non-Ibrahimic religions which gave new concepts of the earth and the universe (especially Hinduism). You can observe the impact of Hinduism and Buddhism as an ultimately profound thing on the works of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche - it was a pathway to modernism. As I said before though it did cause industrial change, it moved science to mass production in the factory system. First it caused the destruction of the peasantry in Great Britain as in the Highland Clearances, this brings you to the the impoverished of Ireland and rural England whom Cobbett wrote so much about (Jonathan Swift also, thinking back to earlier blogs); finally we have the migration to the cities and migration to the colonies which another great writer of the time, Charles Dickens, wrote about in great detail. Dickens wrote about these subjects and as such, laws like the new poor law of 1844 and the rise of the workhouses affected him greatly in his writings and novels i.e. Oliver Twist. He also wrote about subjects like illegitimacy and inheritance of the upper classes in novels like Bleak House.
The conditions of the English working class were pretty abysmal at this point but people of the time, as now, looked at the issues through very different eyes. Thomas Malthus, the British scholar and theorist of political economy looked at it with, unsurprisingly, an economist's eyes and his An Essay on the Principle of Population, published in 1798, observed that sooner or later population gets checked by famine and disease. Using our knowledge of Hegel from previous blogs he saw it as teleological historicism; what's that you say? Well essentially it means the idea that history unfolds inexorably (I'm really going for these big words today) according to universal laws. Anyway, this led on to him seeing the battle of nations as a force in history and in this case, possibly what was happening to the British working class is much closer to the battle of the classes that Marx enjoys banging on about so much. You can in turn contrast the static mechanism of the empiricists with the dynamism of Hegel creating a pathway to relativity. Using the metaphor of evolution in liberal society policy, you see population growth, Victorian social reform, liberal democracy and imperialism, socialism and social reform, and origins of the modern industrial estate (especially in Germany where Max Weber and his sociology is so influential).
Charles Darwin (no introduction needed I think) followed the tradition of empiricism and scientific method as evident in his theory of evolution as he collected species and observed what would become one of the biggest discoveries of the age. He saw the effect of evolution by natural selection and the descent of man from common ancestors, survival of the fittest and all that, but that's also a key concept of cumulative causation e.g. in economics which you can contrast to Adam Smith and his hidden hand of the market.
There were also impacts in this century on religion, the biblical criticism movement in particular in Germany from the 1830s onwards (Fuerbach et al)
Wow this blog has been pretty disjointed, I put that partly down to the fact it was written in short and confusing bursts over four weeks but excuses are just that. Hope you enjoy deciphering what points I was trying to get across and that you've had a very Happy Easter.
Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.
The 19th century wasn't just about industrial change though. It was also a move from the enlightenment of the 17th/18th century (a clockwork and mechanistic paradigm), to the paradigm of change and organism, so for example Darwin and evolution. Subjects like geology, (melting rocks would have been unimaginable to Newton); Biology, Organic Chemistry where chemical change is very much different to mechanical change. The people of the time were also exposed to Eastern civilization and in particular non-Ibrahimic religions which gave new concepts of the earth and the universe (especially Hinduism). You can observe the impact of Hinduism and Buddhism as an ultimately profound thing on the works of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche - it was a pathway to modernism. As I said before though it did cause industrial change, it moved science to mass production in the factory system. First it caused the destruction of the peasantry in Great Britain as in the Highland Clearances, this brings you to the the impoverished of Ireland and rural England whom Cobbett wrote so much about (Jonathan Swift also, thinking back to earlier blogs); finally we have the migration to the cities and migration to the colonies which another great writer of the time, Charles Dickens, wrote about in great detail. Dickens wrote about these subjects and as such, laws like the new poor law of 1844 and the rise of the workhouses affected him greatly in his writings and novels i.e. Oliver Twist. He also wrote about subjects like illegitimacy and inheritance of the upper classes in novels like Bleak House.
The conditions of the English working class were pretty abysmal at this point but people of the time, as now, looked at the issues through very different eyes. Thomas Malthus, the British scholar and theorist of political economy looked at it with, unsurprisingly, an economist's eyes and his An Essay on the Principle of Population, published in 1798, observed that sooner or later population gets checked by famine and disease. Using our knowledge of Hegel from previous blogs he saw it as teleological historicism; what's that you say? Well essentially it means the idea that history unfolds inexorably (I'm really going for these big words today) according to universal laws. Anyway, this led on to him seeing the battle of nations as a force in history and in this case, possibly what was happening to the British working class is much closer to the battle of the classes that Marx enjoys banging on about so much. You can in turn contrast the static mechanism of the empiricists with the dynamism of Hegel creating a pathway to relativity. Using the metaphor of evolution in liberal society policy, you see population growth, Victorian social reform, liberal democracy and imperialism, socialism and social reform, and origins of the modern industrial estate (especially in Germany where Max Weber and his sociology is so influential).
Charles Darwin (no introduction needed I think) followed the tradition of empiricism and scientific method as evident in his theory of evolution as he collected species and observed what would become one of the biggest discoveries of the age. He saw the effect of evolution by natural selection and the descent of man from common ancestors, survival of the fittest and all that, but that's also a key concept of cumulative causation e.g. in economics which you can contrast to Adam Smith and his hidden hand of the market.
There were also impacts in this century on religion, the biblical criticism movement in particular in Germany from the 1830s onwards (Fuerbach et al)
Wow this blog has been pretty disjointed, I put that partly down to the fact it was written in short and confusing bursts over four weeks but excuses are just that. Hope you enjoy deciphering what points I was trying to get across and that you've had a very Happy Easter.
Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.
Super Injunctions - The Next Generation
Unecessary Star Trek reference in the title aside, I wanted to blog today about a new and extremely serious development in super injunctions which are essentially gagging orders for journalists. It is today the front page story in the Daily Mail that a TV star (who, because of the injunction cannot be named) has won a High Court injunction that will suppress forever apparently intimate photos of him with a woman who planned to sell the story.
It is the latest story with such draconian rulings just one day after another celebrity was granted a super injunction over an affair with a colleague to protect his family. The ruling of a permanent gagging order and injunction is, say the Daily Mail "similar to the protection orders hiding the identities of James Bulger's murderers Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. In these cases the murderers were deemed to be in danger of being attacked if the public found out who and where they were following their release from prison." So what would happen to this celebrity were his identity ever known?
The Mail goes on to say that "effectively it hands another legal weapon to the wealthy seeking to hide their failings from the public." The Judge at the centre of this and almost all injunction rulings is a Mr Justice Eady who declared he had the power to grant a permanent 'contra mundum' injunction which translated from the latin means 'against the world'. In this case it would mean the case is never ending and applies to anyone and everyone. Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming who is campaigning against the use of injunctions said: "I am suprised the judge limited himself to silencing the world. Why not the whole Solar System?'
For the full story please read the original article on the Daily Mail website here.
For a look into the history of the UK's current privacy law on the BBC website click here.
For a more detailed blog I wrote on the subject of confidentiality click here.
It is the latest story with such draconian rulings just one day after another celebrity was granted a super injunction over an affair with a colleague to protect his family. The ruling of a permanent gagging order and injunction is, say the Daily Mail "similar to the protection orders hiding the identities of James Bulger's murderers Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. In these cases the murderers were deemed to be in danger of being attacked if the public found out who and where they were following their release from prison." So what would happen to this celebrity were his identity ever known?
The Mail goes on to say that "effectively it hands another legal weapon to the wealthy seeking to hide their failings from the public." The Judge at the centre of this and almost all injunction rulings is a Mr Justice Eady who declared he had the power to grant a permanent 'contra mundum' injunction which translated from the latin means 'against the world'. In this case it would mean the case is never ending and applies to anyone and everyone. Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming who is campaigning against the use of injunctions said: "I am suprised the judge limited himself to silencing the world. Why not the whole Solar System?'
For the full story please read the original article on the Daily Mail website here.
For a look into the history of the UK's current privacy law on the BBC website click here.
For a more detailed blog I wrote on the subject of confidentiality click here.
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Headlines are an art form: Volume 1
Saw this gem on the Daily Mail website today, buried deep at the bottom of the news page (should they have a news page? Isn't all of it supposed to be news?) and had to share it.
I think this may just become a series of blogs showing you, the blog reader, the art of headline writing.
"How could they stoop so low? Thieves steal lead from roofs of MODEL VILLAGE."
Read the full story at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378853/Thieves-stoop-new-low--stealing-lead-roofs-MODEL-VILLAGE.html#ixzz1K5lwak7v
Monday, 18 April 2011
Apology and Charlie Brooker on Tabloid Journalism
Firstly, apologies for not having posted enough over my short break, but it was a short break and I used it to its fullest, successfully doing nothing really. I'll be blogging more soon, especially once I'm back at university, bringing news and comment and... stuff. For now though, enjoy this mini blog and the musings of Charlie Brooker.
In today's Guardian, Charlie Brooker wrote a column about the News of the World 'phone hacking scandal' and tabloid journalism in general. Suprisingly the response was less than warm from journos but Brooker responded to scientist and fellow Guardian columnist, Ben Goldacre on Twitter saying, "@bengoldacre Am honestly rather surprised. When I write barbed stuff about tv folk, tv folk tend to, like, laugh."
So was it just a harmless and mainly comedy rooted column or was it something that we journalists should be up in arms about.
Leaving my opinions out of it, here's the column in question for you to decide: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/18/phone-tapping-victims-tabloid-hacks
Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.
Sunday, 10 April 2011
News of the World - End of the Phone Hacking scandal?
Bloody hell it's been an odd week for journalists. Finally, we may have a conclusion to the phone hacking scandal that has dogged the recent history of the News of the World. The papers owners News International (e.g. Murdoch) have admitted which celebrities were targeted and has put aside £20 million in compensation.
The 'rogue reporter' defence that I reported on in a much earlier blog (link here) fell through and two journalists were arrested. The trial is still ongoing so there isn't a proper conclusion and we are yet to see the full damage it may do to reputations of News International and the workings of journalism itself.
Here's the BBC article with much more information than I could possibly hope to have. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13014161
It raises interesting questions about Journalism practice and our code of conduct also, especially the technique of subterfuge, which phone hacking has to come under.
More updates on this story as they happen.
Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Search Engine Optimization and Alexa Rankings 2
I said this would be a series didn't I? Well here's the second part.
A technique which I've been introduced to is the labelling of your posts in order to make them more relevant to the search engines. The Google system looks at labels and tags first in order to rank the sites, so if your labels are relevant, then you're more likely to be found. For example on this very blog, the labels will be SEO, Alexa Rankings and maybe Google, that's a hell of a label to put on your blog. That means that in theory, people searching for SEO, Alexa Rankings and quite possibly even Google could end up directed to this blog. It doesn't always work that way however. One of the highest search keywords on this blog is 'greek philosophers painting', an obscure term when you consider that this blog has only scant mention of the great Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. As a side note, this tactic has often been abused, tagging things that aren't in the article is a tactic as black hat as putting in text the same colour as your background. For example if I were to tag one of my law blogs with Justin Bieber, just in the hope that people will be misdirected to my website because of it, this would be wrong. I'm advising you now as your friendly neighbourhood blogger-man NOT to employ such a tactic, it will get you taken off Google's lists, leaving you absolutely nowhere. Without Google you're nothing.
For more on black hat tactics and how to avoid using them, (you could have done it by accident after all), click on the link here.
Until next time. Stay Classy Internet.
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