Re: Re: +1
"The thought of the El Reg hacks sitting in the pub/office thinking up lines like this makes my day."
:-) It's sorta like the way the New York Post is portrayed in this vid.
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3496 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Sep 2011
"The thought of the El Reg hacks sitting in the pub/office thinking up lines like this makes my day."
:-) It's sorta like the way the New York Post is portrayed in this vid.
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"Given the mess it was before"
How long ago was that? The Windows 8 (shush at the back), iOS and Android apps should be all right.
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"Please, lose this term"
No. It's a term of endearment. Of course, if this ridiculous UK publishing regulator ever emerges in its proposed form, no doubt you can pester us to death with complaints about :-(
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The 1.5% is the "average monthly churn rate of total contract registered customer base", according to H-W's books (PDF, page 26).
Make of that what you will.
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"Do you mean thermionic valves?"
Ah, the pedantry is strong in this one. Perhaps too much, though. There is no doubt that there is a flow of electrons from the filament, modulated by the grid(s) between the cathode and the anode. I used "electron valve" for anyone unfamiliar with the technology, to make it clear we're talking about controlling electric current rather than fluid or something else associated with valves.
To keep old-timers happy, I'll change it. I just fear you may have spilled your coffee over your yellowed pages of Practical Electronics magazine.
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"The press should not have hounded her."
The Lucy Meadows case is, indeed, tragic. And the press coverage was rather unpleasant. But not every journo is a monster in the same way not every doctor is a murderer like Harold Shipman. And the Samaritans note that suicide should not be linked to one problem.
I've worked on a newspaper within the Daily Mail Trust empire that had exactly the same story a year or so ago: a teacher ended a summer term as a man and started the autumn term as a woman. Letters were sent to pupils and their parents at her school explaining the change. Her local paper obviously found out and reported it - on the front page, no less.
The editor-in-chief didn't name her, picture her "before and after", and (IIRC) didn't draw comment on her abilities, precisely to avoid the above mess. Not every hack is an unfeeling bastard.
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"and every EU and other country cut off our gas supply, we'd only have a fortnight of gas rather than a couple of months. Which, on the face of it, seems incredibly unlikely"
"Why is it that commentards are allowed to be fairly nasty and impolite to each other, but professional journalists, whom one can reasonably expect to be a bit more thick-skinned than the average person, are beyond politely phrased criticism?"
You guys can do what you like to each other, within the rules. We try to keep discussions civil but that's not always possible when comments are auto-moderated an d thousands are flooding every month. The report button is there if things get out of hand.
As for criticising staff, again: attack the points raised, not the person. There is no point in allowing a thread to descend into baseless personal attacks. That applies to everyone. There's some leeway, I admit; for instance, if a writer has a pop at someone's dress sense then I don't mind a bit of backchat in the comments. It's only fair.
But mouthing off about bias with nothing to back it up just because the writer wrote something you don't like is pointless. Calling for a writer to stop writing about a topic is tantamount to supporting censorship. It won't happen.
In the example of Andrew, you cannot, for instance, accuse him of bias against the BBC when he's heaped praise on its output, investigated how the BBC news website was built into a success story, worked as a producer for the broadcaster, and so on. Criticising certain parts of the gigantic public-funded organisation isn't bias, it's journalism.
I can't enter into any more correspondance about this because a) I'm just repeating myself, b) moderating comments is perhaps 10% of job as a sub-editor, and these headlines won't write themselves.
So to sum up, once again: play the ball - not the man. If you can't grasp that, mate, then I'm not surprised you're getting rejected.
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"I'd be allowed to post about suspicion of bias here?"
As long as you can back it up, fine.
I just don't like meta-discussions getting in the way of on-topic discussions. You may argue that bringing up accusations of bias is on-topic, but these accusations are so wrong the vast majority of the time that I just bin them.
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"aren't we allowed to ask for some balance?"
Drop us an email or post here. Don't ruin threads by tossing in baseless accusations of bias (or worse). I wouldn't turn up at your place of work and wildly accuse you of incompetence to your boss; try not to do it at ours. Please.
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"I've had about 5 posts, generally polite & civil ones, rejected merely for saying things like 'Could El Reg please find someone without an anti-$X bias to cover $X?' Are we not allowed to criticize the authors, even politely?"
I'm sure you were polite and civil, and that's appreciated, but I'm minded to reject comments that, to be blunt, just don't add anything to the conversation. It's not policy to take a writer off a beat just because they upset a few readers; thus, your post is as effective as hanging around outside our office shouting at the tourists.
Please, challenge our articles all you like. Just play the ball, not the man. I don't see the point in turning the comments section into a boring complain-a-thon about certain writers.
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[ this post won't have my Reg badge for various boring reasons ]
"My understanding is that defamation..."
Yes, brilliant. But I'm not talking about defamation. We already have a law for that. It may be harsh but at least it's more or less stable. I'm talking about non-defamatory, non-prejudicial reporting that is suddenly being controlled outside of a court room.
"A vexatious person could bring to Court under the present system"
Yes, indeed. It's a risk we take whenever we publish. But at least courts know when to throw things out for being frivolous; a CFA lawyer will know that too. But this, again, is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a regulator that's wildly emerged with the powers to really cock things up as I've previously described.
And, as you say and as Andrew touched upon in the story, the watchdog can grant its own powers. There are many things wrong with all of this, all for the sake of putting Murdoch in a bad mood for a couple of hours.
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(PS: you're right about CoCA, although it doesn't negate my point)
"The form of the regulator is entirely up to the press"
We'll see how that works out. As I understand it, members of the press are excluded right from the start in organising the regulator.
"The regulator is entirely voluntary"
And if you don't sign up, it's pay all costs if you successfully defend a libel case, and face huge damages if you lose. Now that's making an offer you can't refuse.
"the entire middle section of this article has changed"
No, that's overstating the mark somewhat. The first pull-out par in bold quoted the charter when it should have quoted the law; this was fixed up very soon after publication. The point being made wasn't derailed by this accident, but it's obviously a good idea to refer to the correct document.
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"The place is known as a court and the person who mades the decision is usually referred to as a judge"
No, you're confusing defamation with non-defamatory reporting. There's no law* that enforces accuracy in articles beyond defamatory statements precisely because outside of defamation, deciding what is true and what isn't is a nightmare. Show me the act of Parliament that makes saying something incorrect but not defamatory unlawful.
Let's say we describe a company's decision as a U-turn. That's not a serious libel. But the company's PR doesn't want it described that way. It's a strategic stroke of genius, they'll say. We'll quote them in the story to that effect. But they want the headline and the copy changed. We refuse. They can't go to court. There's nothing to sue for.
So they go to the regulator. The regulator then decides the truth, the narrative and what can and can't be said. Isn't that chilling? Or will you wait until your free speech is taken away?
(All IMVHO)
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* Actually, Contempt of Court Act slaps down inaccurate reporting of an ongoing case if there's a chance of prejudicing a jury. I'll grant you that.
"How's it going to cock things up?"
Because it will be down to a state-crafted regulator to decide what is true and what isn't. This isn't hyperbole. Putting aside defamation for a second, if you assert a fact or opinion that a PR or politician disagrees with, they'll take it to the regulator. That regulator will then decide what the truth is. Good luck doing that if the fact is based on protected but trusted sources who cannot be disclosed, or if the opinion is contrary to the panel's sensibilities.
We like to call the Dept of Culture, Media and Sport the "Ministry of Fun", and scientists "boffins". I can imagine the corrections on that. And this is the TRIVIAL stuff, let alone proper reporting. Every day we get PRs asking for headlines to be changed, and we resist because it's freedom of speech.
Yet now, the regulator decides what is truth and what is allowable opinion; it's state-licensed publishing by the backdoor. The watchdog will order you to run a correction and an apology if it deems so, and fine you up to £1m or 1% of your revenue.
Now, imagine struggling regional papers being bombarded with complaints from sniping PRs and pushy councillors who want the news told in their way. Imagine online outlets coming under fire from corporations who are already pissed off that you didn't just run the press release as written.
Ironically, the big boys - the media moguls this law was supposed to slap down - can easily afford this and may stick to soft celeb stuff more than they do now just in case. If you hate the press now for being lazy and ineffectual, you're really going to see some serious shit.
It's not automatically the end of the world; I don't think the publishing sector will collapse overnight. The regulator may roll over like the PCC. Everyone may boycott it and take up the ridiculous libel penalties to the ECHR. Paying all court costs even if you win doesn't sound like a fair trial to me.
But even so, yes, it will cock everything up. It will cock up complaints, apologies, legal bills, revenue, revenge, truth, facts, opinion, the works. Because this law is so vague and there are plenty of people with an axe to grind.
All IMHO. Views do not necessarily represent my employers'.
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"Parliament fudged a way to try and stop big newspapers from excercising uncontrolled power"
And completely cocking everything up for the hundreds of national, regional and online outlets that haven't done anything wrong and were well aware of existing laws, which have been used to prosecute tabloid wrongdoing. IMHO.
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According to the amendments, comments on articles are not "subject to editorial control" and thus not covered by the regulator. But I could be wrong, or a lawyer could argue it past a judge and make it so anyway. A huge number of comments are not moderated an go live straight away, but some are, ironically, for legal reasons.
This is going to end up as an expensive exercise for some, IMHO. It's a minefield.
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"Firstly, there are six national multiplexes, not five. There are five SD multiplexes and one HD. At the moment. "
Yes, you're right. God dammit, I hate it when this sort of thing happens. Can I make another plea for people to drop us an email via the corrections button; if you post in the comments, we may not get time to see it and it'll never get fixed.
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Yes, indeed. I used to live in the area (and visit quite a lot) and switching off roaming is just the obvious thing to do. You can also pick up French radio, zut alors, so I guess this is a multi-spectrum invasion of culture, communications and charges.
I was surprised to see it flare up in the headlines this morning. This article is a story about a story, and sometimes there's nothing wrong with that. Particularly if you can poke a bit of fun.
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It's been done! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/05/open_source_death_star_on_kickstarter/
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"The important details about the data gathered remain unseen"
It's a survey: why would someone downloading Linux ISOs say they were pirating? The report and links to the methods are here:
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