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Fawkes, whose real name is Paul Staines, has broken a number of high-profile political stories on his controversial, right-leaning blog. But he told journalism students at the University of Westminster that video holds the future for journalism.

Staines said that new video technology is quicker and easier for journalists and the public to use. He questioned why anybody would read an article in a newspaper when they could watch a video with the same information on their mobile phone.

Bigger role

Staines said the fact that The Guardian’s offices are fitted out with recording studios is proof of the changes under way. He described seeing The Guardian’s Assistant Editor, Michael White, setting up his tripod and doing pieces to camera unassisted at public events.

As a result of these changes, Staines believes that video journalism will have a bigger role to play than blogging in the general election next year.

“It’s more likely to be the ‘YouTube election’ than it is to be the ‘blogging election’”, he said. “I think that somebody will catch something on their camera phone that people don’t want them to see.”

Digital billboards

But a campaign this week in which the Conservatives compare Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling to X Factor contestants Jedward, shows how political parties can use the new media to their advantage.

“[Political parties] will be able to change their campaigns in the flash of a switch. They just did that when Jedward were knocked out of X Factor. The Tories ran a campaign immediately on digital billboards. You know, you couldn’t do that in the past,” said Staines.

The blogger believes the Scottish National Party (SNP) has set a good example for English parties to follow during the election.

Breaking stories

“In the last general election the SNP in Scotland had their own online six o’clock news. It was fantastic. It had a former local news reporter doing the reports and it was really well done.”
Staines has been blogging as Guido Fawkes since 2004. His reasons for starting the blog were “completely narcissistic”.

“I realised that I could be the drunk complaining in the corner of the pub or I could do it online. I chose the latter,” he said.

Staines has been criticised for the quality of his journalism and his undisguised support for the Conservative Party. But he has succeeded in breaking a number of important political stories.
In 2008 Welsh Secretary Peter Hain resigned his ministerial posts after Staines revealed details about donations Hain received for his campaign to become Labour leader. And in the Smeargate scandal this year, one of Gordon Brown’s top advisers resigned after Staines blogged that he was planning a smear campaign against senior Conservatives.

Staines believes that he is doing important work not covered by other sections of the media.
He criticised the lobby as “an embedded system, in which you become the client of people you should be reporting on.” And said that ian Hislop, the editor of Private Eye, has “become pretty much establishment”.

Additional reporting Rob Powell

Guido Fawkes’ political blog

The Daily Telegraph’s deputy political editor Robert Winnett and chief reporter Gordon Rayner told how their team sifted through a million documents in a secret room at the newspaper’s headquarters and endured the wrath of many angry MPs. Some even shook their fists at researchers

Their work for the conservative-leaning newspaper, which has been turned into a book called ‘No expenses spared’ explained how some MPs from across all parties abused the expenses system.

‘Genuinely excited’

Rayner said the cases went from the downright ridiculous and trivial to “bordering on criminality”.

Victoria Maw reads the detail about Elliot Morley

The information was so sensitive that it took the Telegraph a month to build up a relationship of trust with their source.

“It was a big digging exercise,” said Winnett. “A cynical group of journalists were genuinely excited.”

Rayner believes that Prime Minister Gordon Brown damaged his own reputation by micromanaging the expenses scandal. “Cameron showed leadership whilst Brown dithered,” said Rayner. “He [Brown] was obsessed with his image. He was only interested in how it would rebound on him. He poured over the paper late into the night with a pencil,” he said.

Benefit

The spotlight has also fallen on one of the university’s local members of parliament, Tony McNulty. The reporters believe the expenses row will probably wreck the Harrow MP’s political career.

The MP for Harrow East agreed to pay back more than £13,000 in expenses this October after it emerged that he had claimed second home allowance expenses on a house that his parents live in.

The Commons Standards and Privileges Committee found that the expenses were not wholly connected with McNulty’s parliamentary duties and his parents obtained a benefit from parliamentary funds to which he was not entitled. Although McNulty occasionally worked from the Harrow property, the committee said he overclaimed in relation to mortgage interest and council tax. Former employment minister McNulty publicly apologised to his constituents in October.

‘Fully complied’

Winnett said McNulty was “fairly contrite” when he was told that the Telegraph had details of his expenses claims.

“He dealt with it moderately well. I think he even made a joke about it,” said Winnett “but it will probably end his political career”.

In response, Tony McNulty said: “Any fair-minded person who reads the committee’s report will see that I fully complied with all rules and advice given to me at the time and that the commissioner decided he would change the advice retrospectively. He is perfectly entitled to do that and I have absolutely no complaint. It will be for the people of Harrow to decide my future.”

Hostile
Winnett and Rayner say that the clever MPs said very little whereas those who got into trouble defended themselves too publicly. “Nobody had even heard of Margaret Moran before she insisted on going on television. She now may well be replaced by Esther Rantzen, “ said Rayner.

Many MPs were hostile towards the Telegraph over its handling of the scandal but Winnett and Rayner say that most soon realised that they could not afford to isolate the papers.

The story also caused a surge of interest in politics. “This summer people got interested in politics again,” said Rayner. “They took interest in who their MPs are and this can only be a good thing for democracy.”

Rayner adds that the story’s beauty was in its simplicity. “The story was something that kids can understand. It was straightforward and dead simple. Hazel Blears claimed a Kitkat,” he said.

The journalist told students that other papers had refused to buy the story, notably the Times who thought the story was too risky from a legal perspective. Winnett thinks the Telegraph’s new young editor Will Lewis is responsible for the go-ahead attitude.

“There was a will to have a big story and to show that the Telegraph has changed,” says Winnett.

The June 7th election in Lebanon was a contest between the two major political blocs - the loyalists (who refer to themselves as March 14th) and the opposition (known as March 8th).

Since February 2005, the country has not known a period of stability between the series of targeted assassinations, the 2006 war against Israel, the 2007-2008 sit-in led by the opposition, as well as the parliament’s stalemate on choice of president.

The victory of the loyalist bloc reassured the West. A March 8th poll win would have meant a victory for Hezbollah, and thus considered by the West a victory for both Syria and Iran.

In total, the loyalist bloc won 71 seats (including three independent seats) in the parliament, whereas the opposition won 57. Even though the opposition failed to win control of parliament, the Change and Reform bloc, led by General Michel Aoun, won the major Christian votes in eight out of 11 regions.

The biggest surprise regarding was the turnout as well as the number of Lebanese living abroad that came specifically to vote.

For the first time since the country’s independence, the elections took place during the same day in every Qada, region. It was also the last time that voters had to be over 21 years and six months old to vote. For the next legislative elections, they can be 18.

Compared to the last vote in 2005, the members of the parliament haven’t changed that much, which brings us to ask ourselves, is Lebanon truly moving towards a democracy? And what will be different this time regarding laws, the fight against all types of corruption, the GDP and the internal public debt that has risen from $35 billion to $50 billion since 2005.

The main question today remains the functioning of the government and whether the opposition will have a third the seats in government, meaning they can paralyse all activities according to the Lebanese Constitution.

A 12-minute documentary on the elections in Lebanon will soon be available for further information.

A strong Northern Irish accent shouted out: “I give you your Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown.”

Then right in front of me, Gordon and Sarah Brown walked down the steps of No 10 Downing Street into the back garden. I had to pinch myself as I was standing there with Joanna Lumley on one side of me, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to her other side and Gurkhas lined up ahead of me, waiting to thank the prime minister for granting them rights to stay in Britain.

Interviewing a star

I was making a radio documentary on the Gurkhas’ campaign for my University of Westminster MA journalism project. The most I could have ever hoped for was a short interview with Joanna Lumley but to interview the lawyers of the case, chat with Joanna Lumley and then gain extra audio whilst on the lawn of the prime minister’s residence was beyond my most ambitious dreams.

Jacqui Smith with Joanna Lumley. Picture: Laura-Jane Hawkins

Joanna Lumley, the star of so many TV dramas and comedies, was more than happy to talk to me. She was so dignified and I was impressed how well she had handled the media circus that had taken place around her throughout the day.

“Isn’t this wonderful,” she said in pure delight. “It’s truly a historic day and everything we wanted has been given to us.”

I spotted Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister standing at the edge of the lawn. When asked about the amendment of the law, he explained that all Gurkhas who have retired either pre-1997 or post-1997 can now all gain rights to settle in the UK.

An interview I conducted with Jacqui Smith added to this by saying: “I’m very pleased and proud. It’s been a great campaign and I’m glad that we have been able to find a way to do justice to the Gurkhas today.”

‘Welcome in our country’

After Gordon Brown made his speech stating that he wants all Gurkhas “to feel welcome in our country and to know, that we know, that you are the bravest soldiers of all” he took the time to shake hands and say hello to every single Gurkha present and bending down to speak to those in wheelchairs.

Photographs were taken and I was even able to get in with a sneaky handshake and introduced myself. The Gurkhas surrounding me were in shock at the day’s events but they were so grateful. “Thank you Gordon Brown and thank you to Britain” was the most popular response to the news of their victory.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown with Gurkha campaigners. Picture: Laura-Jane Hawkins

The whole experience was unforgettable. When I woke up on Thursday 21st May 2009, I never imagined that at 4pm in the afternoon I would be having tea and biscuits on the prime minister’s lawn. It just shows that you never know what could happen or how your day could turn out – that’s the beauty and excitement of life and hopefully the life of a journalist.

Unfortunately, the event also taught me several harsh lessons about the world of journalism and the media. My experience was overheard by another journalist and along with information from my blog and photographs, the story was written up from another person’s point of view. This meant that many facts were untrue and my experience was sensationalised.

I learnt several good lessons. Never be too trusting of people, don’t tell anyone and everyone your story (however happy and excited you may be), always have enough memory space on your camera to take as many photos as your heart desires (mine unfortunately was lacking memory space!), always recharge your Marantz batteries and camera batteries as if you would your mobile phone and always talk to as many people you possibly can, and hang around to wait and see what happen - you never quite know where it will lead you!

Jeremy Paxman was given the first Sir Charles Wheeler award commemorating the late journalism great, and Boris Johnson made a surprise appearance at the conference.

Mark Thompson delivers the final address for Journalism In Crisis.

Over 50 academics and industry workers were shadowed by an equally large crew of students who interviewed, videod, edited, uploaded, tweeted and blogged throughout the two days, as important points on the state of journalism were made.

Particularly interesting was the debate on media and privacy, with former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie and investigative journalist Nick Davies verbally sparring on stage.

Read our latest blog posts to learn more about all the conferences and speeches.

Thank you for tuning in,

The Westminster Uni team.

The British Council exists to ‘strengthen understanding and trust between and within different cultures’. They attempted to do just that for a group of 11 Westminster journalism students by organising a visit to the European Parliament, a month ahead of the Euro elections, taking place in early June.

EU Commission building Photo: Alex Ivanov

For the British students in our group, the British Council might well have had their work cut out – a Eurobarometer poll published in September last year found the UK and Finland were the countries whose citizens were least aware of the Euro elections. Of those polled in the UK 94% had no idea that elections were due to take place in 2009.

Having caught the 7am Eurostar train and made the journey under the Channel sustained by a packet of supermarket croissants we were greeted by the efficient, charming and alarmingly energetic Owen Wainhouse from the British Council.

Press briefing at the EC

One of our first visits was to the press briefing at the European Commission to hear real, hot news being discussed – EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou was fielding questions about swine flu. At one point she stated the EU had decided to call the illness Novel flu, rather than swine flu because the virus responsible for the outbreak is actually a hybrid of swine, avian and human flu. The name has yet to catch on in the British media.

No doubt thinking of the EU’s thousands of pig farmers Ms Vassiliou said: “Consumption of pork is safe so long as it is properly cooked.”

For anyone with the slightest interest in pipeline politics the most arresting item at the press briefing was the announcement of a project to link the electricity grids of Sweden and the Baltic states. Welcoming the agreement Energy Commissioner Andris Pielbalgs commented: “It will also strengthen the security of supply of the three Baltic states.”

This is code for avoiding reliance on energy supplies from Russia. The Baltic electricity agreement follows the conclusion of the Sofia Energy Summit last Saturday which ended with a statement calling for diversification of gas supplies in Europe.

Meeting MEPs

After lunch we followed Owen over the Brussels cobbles and acres of mushroom coloured carpet in the European Parliament to meet some actual, elected MEPs.

We chatted with Mary Honeyball in the Anna Politkovskaya room, named after the Russian journalist who was murdered in 2006, probably because of her coverage of the war in Chechnya.

Mary has been a British Labour MEP since 2000. Her blog, The Honeyball Buzz, tries to challenge the dominance of right-wingers like Guido Fawkes in the blogosphere. It reflects her keen interest in women’s rights – one of her latest entries attacks David Cameron for not including “a single woman in his testosterone-fuelled team to fight Labour over the economy”.

It seems that getting the testosterone balance right might be an issue for David Poyser who is press officer for the Socialist Group of MEPs, a grouping which obviously includes Mary. I hasten to add this comment is meant on a strategic, not personal, level.

According to David socialists in the EU tend to be seen as rather dated - creatures left over from an earlier, more ideological age. Returning to our analysis of ‘codespeak’ this probably means they are viewed as stubborn, excessively male trade unionists, given to banging tables and calling for all out strikes in a non-consensual sort of way. The good news for David is that people don’t seem to blame the socialists for the current economic fiasco.

Entropa

Our final visit was to the Entropa sculpture which hangs suspended in the foyer of the Council of the European Union. Created by the Czech artist David Cerny it caused something of a sensation when it was unveiled in January this year.

Entropa is a huge grid containing representations of each EU member state – with the exception of the UK which is marked only by its absence, a comment on our semi-detached attitude to the whole venture.

Cerny has given other EU states equally problematic identities. Germany is a network of autobahns which almost but not quite form the shape of a swastika, Poland features a group of Catholic priests raising the gay liberation flag.

Entropa sculpture Photo: Alex Ivanov

But it was the portrayal of Bulgaria, one of the newest member states, as a squat-type, Turkish toilet that caused most offence. Following a formal diplomatic complaint the Turkish toilet has been discreetly covered with a piece of black cloth. Hmm, some might say that is also what has happened to Turkey’s application to join the EU.

But a bit of controversy isn’t always a bad thing. Owen told us Entropa had brought more visitors to

By Brigitte Istim

Davies and MacKenzie discussed with Jennifer McDermott, Head of Media and Public Law and partner at Whithers and Jonathan Coad from Swan Turton solicitors, the potential impact of recent court judgements on journalism.

The main questions that were raised during the session was whether responsible journalism will become more difficult and whether the current system of self-regulation should be reformed.

Nick Davies, left, speaks at Journalism In Crisis as part of a the Privacy And The Press panel. Listening are panel members Jennifer McDermott, Robin Lustig, and Kelvin MacKenzie

Jennifer McDermott

With the scandal around the MPs’ expenses reaching heights, Jennifer McDermott reminded during this debate how MPs asked a few years ago for the Freedom of Information Act to be amended so that they could hide their expenses. She said that details about someone’s private life should only be published if it is of public concern.

She also mentioned that the privacy law can go too far in protecting private lives, such as in the case of princess Caroline at Montecarlo, but that this was “more an exception than a rule”.

Kelvin MacKenzie

MacKenzie, targeted Justice Eady throughout his speech labelling him as “overprotective of privacy” and “biased against the media”. He argued that privacy law is ludicrous and added: “It isn’t true to say that what you get up to in your sexual life does not have an effect on the outside world.

“As Eady is fighting a one man campaign, I am rather interested in his private life. I’d like to ask him ‘Do you wear French knickers? Thongs?’”

McDermott defended Justice Eady, saying he “weighs up all factors” when issuing an injunction to stop stories being published.

MacKenzie said that the theory against the PCC was “made by conspiracy theorists who only want to get more money”.

Kelvin MacKenzie, right, addresses audience questions during Journalism In Crisis as part of a the Privacy And The Press panel. Listening is Robin Lustig.

Nick Davies

The famous journalist was at his usual passionate best, launching a broadside against the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) and criticizing MacKenzie’s stance along the way.

“The PCC is a structurally corrupt body,” said Davies, emphasising that Fleet Street has been embroiled with phone hacking scandals and tapping into private banking data of everyday citizens without reprimand from the commission.” He said that too many claims are rejected upon technical reasons and that the system was “ludicrous”.

He “profoundly disagreed” with MacKenzie, saying “there is no reason for you or anyone else to be filmed while having sex unless it is a crime, and even then you shouldn’t film it, but try to stop it.”

Nick Davies declared that the reason why the press is getting so much into people’s private life is because of the relentless commercial pressure on journalists to give stories. He added that “technologies enable people to pirate emails and hack into mobile phones, something we could not do a few years ago and that give more opportunities to journalists for getting information illegally.”

“Unfortunately, Davies argued, “newspapers are now competing with the internet where there is no regulation at all.”

Jonathan Coad

Jonathan Coad further exposed the PCC as corrupt, and pointed out its “rank hypocrisy when running its own affairs”, in light of the recent MPs expenses scandal. “Parliament make their own rules, but so do the PCC”.

He presented the results of a research study showing that the PCC code is incredibly weak. “We have had a law of breach of confidence, breach of privacy for well over 100 years. The real issue is where should the line be drawn and who should decide where the lines are drawn?”

Q&A

Questions were opened to the floor, and heated debated on whether stories should be published if they cause “harm” to third parties followed.

Kelvin MacKenzie stated he had never considered the potential for harm when publishing a story, and MacDermott went as far as saying that the PCC should become a part of OfCom, explaining that it would enable the same regulations to be applied to all media.

Davies and McDermott agreed that people should go straight to court instead of contacting the PCC since requests are too often rejected and for very questionable reasons.

Journalism’s paradigm shifts: a model for understanding long-term change

Colette Brin, from the Universite Laval, Quebec, opened the discussion with a presentation on the patterns of change in the journalism practice.

“The current context of intense and rapid changes is a cause of great uncertainty and concern as to the future of journalism, mostly among journalists themselves, but also among educators and scholars.”

Colette Brin presented a theoritical model of long-term patterns of change in journalistic practice. She demonstrated how the crisis journalism is facing today actually began around the 1970s and has progressively replace the “information journalism” by an emerging “communication journalism paradigm, characterized by intersubjectivity, intense information flow and a hypercompetitive media market”.

She explained her theory in further details by introducing the example of Quebec’s first tabloid newspaper Le journal de Montreal who recently created a website called Rue Frontenac, which illustrates this new “communication revolution”.

Benedetta Brevini came to JIC last Tuesday to introduce an interesting comparison between the English and Danish model of Online News websites.

“People are more and more able to personnalise their news consumption according to their interests and preferences,” she declared.

Many news websites have introduced a system of “news recommendation” and widgets produced according to target groups so that “the users can not only get faster to the news they are interested in but also aren’t shown the news they don’t care about”.

Mit DR is the new website for Denmark’s Public Service Broadcasting. The original idea was to make Mit DR an interactive platform where people could personalize their news page.

The BBC news website, as for it, does not provide full personalization of their news page and quoting Sophie Walpole, senior staff from the BBC Online team, Benedetta Brevini added: “This certainly does not work for us. I think we will never provide a full personalization of our content. It is very important to make sure that all the content we produce is fully available to people.”

Being able to personalize your news page is a really interesting option and proves how technologies can help journalism evolving, yet it raises concerns. “The adoption of news recommendations could undermine the PSB original role, Brevini argued, and I am not sure that putting the audience “under surveillance” is a good thing.

Journalism’s crisis, journalism’s opportunity. A comparative appraisal of the state of the news business in the United States and the Middle East.

Philip Seib, from the University of South California, then delivered a speech on the crisis journalism is facing today in different countries.

Seib blamed the Western news media for not adapting to new technology faster: “Many people say that journalism is in crisis, but it really depends on where you are. In the West, we witnessed media organizations failures to keep pace with the development of new technologies. In the developing countries, they learned a lot from it.”

He then focused on the news business in the United States explaining how much it changed in the past few years. “Before it was a one way communication, then CNN introduced all-day long news bulletins.

“The newest technologies changes this relationship much more. You are not just glancing at some paper or television, you participate. If you see something that you think is newsworthy, you ‘tweet’, take pictures and share.”

Most of Seib’s students never read newspapers for news, they go online: “The rising generation will mark an even more pronounced shift to technologies.”

New technology was thought to supplement the original model and not replace it, “that is not the case for the US,” Seib argued. “It amaze me how some news organizations are slow to keep up on these new technologies.”

“There is no reason to pay $50 every month to get your favorite paper on your doorstep every morning when you can get it for free online. And the public is getting used to get things for free.”

Philip Seib believes that news organization should gather and come up with an economic model to handle this problem. They need to agree on what the viewers should pay for and what they can give for free. “Otherwise people will all go on the Washington Post’s website which is totally free instead of paying a premium fee on other websites.”

“Journalism is facing a number of issues. When you add the economic crisis on top of that, you get a real storm. Many news organizations will suffer from this.”

Seib then tackled the topic of citizen journalism, arguing that “anyone can be a journalist today” and reach millions of readers. “It is free press in its true essence.”

The academic from South California then referred to the CNN effect by introducing the “Al Jazeira effect”. Al Jazeira is a famous arabic news channel. “Its recent coverage of the Gaza war had a big political impact,” Seib revealed. “It was condemning governments of countries such as Egypt for not coming to help.”

“When a crisis breaks out, everybody is watching Al Jazeira,” he said. This proves how much political power news television channels can have.