Words Dept.

There have been a couple of interesting developments on the local web publishing scene in recent days. Firstly, it looks as though Manchester Confidential’s paywall model has rather sheepishly fallen over after three months because boss Mark Garner finally realised some time after everyone else that it never had a hope of working.

Commenting on a post on this blog in January, Garner said he wanted ManCon to “stick out like a sore thumb” – as though this is the key criteria for success in online publishing. He has since presumably realised that much, much more is needed to sustain a subscription-based model, and he has been unable to provide it. As another commenter wrote here back then, all ManCon managed to do was to cull its readership, thus alienating advertisers. Was this really so difficult to predict?

Over at How-Do, the sentiment seems to be that everyone should salute Garner for his boldness and for admitting it didn’t work. Fair enough. I’m just curious about those subscribers who signed up for ManCon for a year, paying up to £100 each. Will they be getting a refund?

Elsewhere in the world of Manchester-based online publishing, a new “hyperlocal” news site called Inside the M60 has launched. (Hyperlocal, in case you hadn’t realised, is the new word for “local”. Just as “binge drinking” is the new word for “drinking”, “hyperlocal” sounds zeitgeisty and now-ish and everyone is getting terribly excited about the concept.)

Inside the M60 was created by journalists Louise Bolotin and Nigel Barlow. According to its own “about” page:

As a result of cost-cutting measures, local papers have by nature become more insular, relying more and more on “churnalism” and breaking that crucial relationship with their readership and their customers, the advertisers. There are, therefore, opportunities for niche journalism projects with a small cost base that take advantage of the low cost of entry and can act as the voice for these communities.

The site has was only properly launched yesterday, so it will be interesting to see how it develops. It wants a range of contributors from different areas of the city to become “community reporters”. Once these slot in, the potential for genuine scoops seems realistic, particularly since the Manchester Evening News closed its local offices last year and now makes all its local reporters work out of central Manchester.

Presumably Inside the M60 is not expecting to recruit an army of NCTJ-trained hacks to man the bureaux in Crumpsall and Beswick and so the mysterious people who constitute “the general public” will be relied on to provide content. Michael Taylor has highlighted what he sees as the “chasm between the present reality of bloggers and the needs of a well-informed society”, using a crass question about Sir Richard Leese posed on Inside the M60’s Twitter stream as the basis for his argument.

I’m not so frosty towards the  idea of “amateur” news bloggers providing a useful service because I don’t believe that only journalists can do what journalists do. After all, some journalists aren’t very good at their jobs and there’s no reason why a moderately intelligent person with good contacts in a local community can’t break decent stories. But, on the other hand, some form of quality control will need to be put in place in order to retain accuracy and, ultimately, credibility. A dispassionate approach to an issue is often the best way to expose it. Nobody listens to a (hyper) local ranter with a chip on his shoulder, and that sort of approach is something that will need to be avoided.

I’m reluctant to be too critical of Inside the M60’s content given the site’s tender age but since its creators are ready to criticise what they see as the weaknesses of other local media, I reckon a little constructive criticism is justified. Firstly, I spotted a lot of typos on the site, including Harpurhey being misspelt, lots of mis-spaced, glitchy commas and the odd half-written paragraph. There also seems to be a bit of an over-reliance on press releases and surveys, which, of course, fall into the category of “churnalism” that the site is railing against. For example, of the ten stories on the front page, three start with a statement summarising some survey or official report, followed by a second paragraph starting with the words “That’s the conclusion of…”

Still, it’s all free to look at and, once the community reporters bed in, perhaps there will be a change of focus. As we have all learnt today, credit should be given for trying something new. So I wish Inside the M60 the best of luck.

Following my earlier post on the subject, radio DJ Steve Penk has this week received a justified bollocking from Ofcom over his decision to play the song “Jump” in reference to a woman threatening to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge over the M60. Unfortunately, they’ve not fined him or his radio station a penny.

According to the Ofcom ruling, former ITV prankster Penk said

Just get on with it!

before playing the track on his Alan Partridge-esque local radio breakfast show at 8.28am on 14 January. He’d also suggested someone could

Video it and send it to Harry Hill

and whinged on-air about how the woman was “inconsiderate”, since her actions had led to a motorway closure through the “peak rush hour”. (Incidentally, a transcript in the Ofcom report also mentions in passing someone called Tony texting in to complain that he is “fed up” with “health and safety jobsworths” and “do-gooders”, to which the DJ replies: “I’m with you there, Tony, 100%.” Quite right, Steve. These do-gooders eh? I don’t know. I’m so fed up with people, y’know, doing good.)

Couldn’t really be any more Partridge-like if he tried, really. The bewildering response of Revolution 96.2 to Ofcom, following complaints from 57 people, goes like this:

According to The Revolution, Steve Penk “thought very carefully about [these requests] and took the view that playing the track – and making a point of it – would have been insensitive, cheap and likely to cause offence”. However, the broadcaster continued “Steve’s intent was to ‘subliminally’ demonstrate to [the listeners] and [their] fellow sufferers that he had empathy with their predicament without causing widespread upset amongst the wider audience”. The presenter therefore played the track “Jump” at 08:28. However, The Revolution said “no obvious reference was made to its significance”.

Except for the phrase “just get on with it”, of course. Not very subliminal.

A-ha!

I’m currently working on a film about the general election campaign in Salford. It struck me as a good idea for a documentary after Salford MP Hazel Blears got embroiled in the expenses scandal last year. The film isn’t really about that, though. It’s about how ordinary people respond to politicians and the candidates themselves, particularly 26-year-old David Henry, who is standing on a “Hazel Blears Must Go” ticket.

It’s not especially likely that David is going to win. Despite the problems Hazel Blears has faced, Salford is an extremely strong Labour heartland and the latest odds from Ladbrokes rate a Labour win in Salford at 1/12. Still, I’m hoping that there will still be some drama in this David versus Goliath battle. Either that or we will end up with quite a pessimistic film in which, despite the ingredients for change being very much present, everything eventually ends up being the same.

From what I’ve seen so far, apathy and disenfranchisement from the political process seem to be a major problem for all the candidates. Among the few issues voters really want to talk about is immigration. Where disillusionment with Labour is to be found on the doorstep, people admit that they are considering voting for the BNP, whose candidate, Tina Wingfield, is Nick Griffin’s PA.

We’re going to be filming for the whole of the campaign in an observational style. It should be an interesting process.

This table shows how MPs in Greater Manchester voted over the Digital Economy Bill. The only Manchester MP who voted against was Liberal Democrat John Leech, MP for Manchester Withington. Of the 28 MPs across the city region, more than half (17) didn’t actually bother to vote. Of those who voted, all the local Labour MPs voted in favour. The Liberal Democrats are against the bill but local LibDems Andrew Stunnell, Mark Hunter and Paul Rowen did not vote.

If any of these people come knocking at your door in the next few weeks, you might want to cut this out and wave it at them accusingly.

The information is taken from Hansard here.

If you live in Manchester, you cannot fail to have been swept away in recent weeks by the hot topic de jour of the day. Namely: Which one of them two fast food places in town that specialises in burritos does the best burrito? I speak, of course, of Barburrito and Pancho’s and will now analyse the merits of each before arriving at a definitive answer.

Barburrito

This place opened a few years ago at the Piccadilly end of Piccadilly Gardens and is, to my view, a bit pricey for everyday fodder. Last week I went in there and had a chicken burrito and Diet Coke that cost £6.20. Your burritos in Barburrito are available with several extras, including guacamole at 50p, which I ordered but I can’t really say added much to the overall experience.

Although I’ve been in there several times, I always find the choice a bit intimidating and I have to clarify what’s included and what’s charged extra, which is a bit embarrassing. The salsa comes in four levels of hotness. I went for the hottest one, which has quite a daft Disneyland-ish name that I can’t remember.

Taste-wise, it was rich and delicious. Not mind-blowingly hot but certainly very tasty. I particularly enjoyed the beans and it was very thoroughly filled. The soft drink is £1.50 but for that you get unlimited free refills.

The ambience is quite pleasant, sort of like a posh KFC but with more tasteful fonts, some kind of wood and floortiles that nod towards the Mexican. Overall I would give it a rating of 7.5/10. The plasticky, chainstore-type ambience and excess of choice may annoy some but the burrito was delicious.

Pancho’s

Pancho’s is located in the unfashionable end of the Arndale Centre near where they sell crabs. What initially pleases about Pancho’s is that it is extremely unpretentious. In fact, it’s just a stall near a fishmonger on the Arndale Market. It’s run by what appears to be Mexican bloke and his girl assistant, who has an interesting hairstyle.

There’s not as much “confusion on entry” as at Barburrito. Various Mexican dishes are scrawled on a blackboard and priced at a reasonable £3.75 or less. They also stock a wide range of Mexican foodstuffs for home cooking purposes, which is a definite bonus if that’s your bag.

To keep things fair, I ordered exactly the same as at Barburrito – a chicken burrito in the hot style. Pancho’s only seems to offer “hot” or “mild” sauces and the hot one was a fair bit spicier than the Barburrito equivalent. Drinks are not bottomless. Instead I went for the closest equivalent, which was a single can of Diet Coke at 85p, taking the grand total to a wallet-friendly £4.60. I forgot to order guacamole but I checked and it would have been an extra 20p. So the total would have been £4.80, or £1.40 cheaper than Barburrito.

It tasted good. Slightly creamier than Barburrito, certainly spicier but not quite as rounded or rich tasting. The ambience, as I say, is a bit earthier than Barburrito but I found that quite charming. Overall I’d say 8/10, with bonus points for cheap price, simplicity and heat.

Verdict

There’s virtually nothing in it I’d say but Pancho’s nudges it on the basis of price and “realness”. At £6.20 Barburrito is overpriced compared with the same thing at Pancho’s for £4.80, although Barburrito has free refills. Taste-wise, there’s not much in it. I enjoyed the punch of the Pancho’s burrito but the Barburrito one had a more pleasing texture and was highly flavoursome.

If you disagree I don’t really care but feel free to add a comment.

Today’s CashGordon fiasco has got me thinking about the point of a social media campaign and reinforces the point that simply getting your brand or campaign mentioned on Twitter is not an end in itself.

For Tories, the CashGordon strategy was based around creating something that would inflame people on Twitter, and then watching as the #CashGordon hashtag began to trend highly, regardless of the actual merits of the campaign or content of the CashGordon site (in this case, Charlie Whelan and the Unite union’s supposed hold over Gordon Brown and Labour policy). This much was admitted by Tory blogger Samuel Coates, who said on Twitter earlier:

Sitting back and marvelling at #CashGordon – we had an open hashtag policy, and have not changed that today, for a reason!

Other examples of self-satisfied gloating on Twitter earlier today came from the Tories’ in-house “online communities editor” Craig Elder, who praised Labour and lefty-types for drawing attention to the CashGordon site:

@psbook Such an own goal on your part, repeatedly drawing attention to our campaign. Please continue.

What was actually happening here was not any discussion of Whelan or Unite. Instead, there was lots of criticism for CashGordon. The Guardian had noticed that the site used a template that had been developed in the US as a campaign tool against US healthcare reform. The phrase also started to trend highly because people quickly realised that since the Twitter stream on the CashGordon website was unmoderated, you could write embarrassing things about the Tories (or indeed childish swearwords, or even adverts) and get them on to the CashGordon site in real time, provided they were tagged #CashGordon (see image, top left).

Then someone realised that the site could be exploited by script commands. Pretty soon, CashGordon was redirecting to a site saying “David Cameron is a c**t” in 48-point type, a Rick Astley video on YouTube and some OAP porn (link is safe for work). The site was subsequently taken down and remains offline. All in all, then, this was fairly obviously a total embarrassment, a mega PR fail and a terrible idea very poorly executed.

Yet, after a couple of hours, Elder and Coates reappeared on Twitter, still maintaining that all was well. After I sarcastically observed that CashGordon was “a social media triumph”, Elder replied to me like this:

@davidquinn Can’t disagree with that – it’s still trending in the UK…

How stupid do you have to be to think that just because a word or phrase trends on Twitter, that automatically makes it a good campaign? It obviously doesn’t, and to think otherwise is simply confusing the medium with the message.

I realise that as an employee of the Conservative party, Elder’s job is to talk up its “successes” against all rational logic but, really, does he actually believe that this idea was executed in a way that was positive for the Tories? His argument, and that of some other social media practitioners, seems to be that if you get something trending, you’ve automatically “won”. But in this case people aren’t talking about Unite, the BA strike or Charlie Whelan (the point of the Tory campaign). Instead, they’re talking about how a flagship Tory website has been forced offline in embarrassing circumstances – and having a bloody good laugh about it. How is this a win?

Using the Tory rationale, Nestlé had a good day on Friday, when the company’s name began to trend on Twitter following claims by Greenpeace about the slaying of orang-utans during Nestlé’s harvesting of palm oil, which was compounded by Nestlé’s disastrous intervention on Facebook, in which it told people to stop using its logo. In reality, of course, the brand has taken a dive and the thing is already a case study in how not to “do” social media.

Looking back, if it’s remembered at all, I very much doubt CashGordon will be seen as a brilliant use of Twitter as a political campaigning medium. Instead, it will be seen as a byword for total technical incompetence and a fundamental misunderstanding of the point of social media.

Footnote: In case you’re wondering, and since there’s an election brewing, this blog is not pro-Labour, nor is it pro- any other political party.

I’ve just got back from Bolton, where Unite Against Fascism have organised a counter-protest to a demonstration by the English Defence League in the town centre. I’m making a film about someone on the UAF side, so I was there as an observer.

It was my first time at a protest of this sort and it started quite amicably before getting a little bit unpredictable later on. There was some heavy-handedness on the police side. Its strategy of entering the square, arresting UAF leaders and moving a line of officers forward in an attempt to pen anti-fascist protesters into a small area seemed over the top. It struck me that the police were happy for the UAF to remain in Victoria Square but as soon as they started to march, they felt the need to crack down.

I also found it odd that the police had split the town centre into two, with a kind of Berlin Wall type arrangement running down across Victoria Square. Predictably, neither side was ever going to pay much attention to this and, at about 11am, the UAF lot marched off towards Knowsley Street, in the opposite direction from the blockade. I’m not entirely sure what happened after that but the police formed a line, there was a lot of pushing and shoving, and the UAF group got split in two, with a second group forming on Old Hall Street.

Around the same time, a number of coaches arrived and the group in the square swelled. The police moved officers into the square, which was seen by the UAF lot as an aggressive encroachment into an area of peaceful protest (I’m inclined to agree with them). The police then arrested a number of UAF leaders, which of course didn’t go down very well at all. The riot uniforms and dogs soon appeared.

I saw quite a lot of people getting dragged off by police, including a number of bespectacled women who, to be perfectly honest, didn’t look even slightly threatening. An old guy of about 80, clearly a pacifist who was holding a sign imploring British troops to leave Afghanistan, was bundled to the ground by an advancing plod (image, right).

We saw some smoke bombs and then, ludicrously, found ourselves on the other side of the police line at the northern side of the square, looking back at the anti-fascist protesters. It struck me at this point that there was a bit of pointless posturing going on. One minute I was on the protesters’ side of the line, the next minute I was on the other. I couldn’t work out the point of this police front line, which was made up of riot police and dogs, since there was nothing but other UAF and media people on the other side of it. Around this time I saw a young blonde police woman in full riot gear laughing her head off. Perhaps she found it strange, too.

After hanging around a bit longer we decided to leave. The subject of the film (I’d best not name him just now) had left after his mate got arrested and a couple of his friends sustained injuries. Police claim there were 2,000 EDL supporters and 1,500 anti-fascists in Bolton today. I would estimate that there were more anti-fascists (I’m not an expert on protests, as I say, but I’ve been to music festivals and football matches, and I know what a thousand people looks like). The only EDL group I saw numbered less than half a dozen numbskulls waving St George flags – although it could be that the bulk of the group had assembled elsewhere.

I’ve previously been a bit sceptical about UAF protests and it’s tempting to argue that if you just ignore the EDL they will eventually go away. On the other hand, why should racists be allowed to parade through the streets unchallenged? Either way, town centre businesses will have taken a big hit today. There isn’t a shop open and, away from the protest, it felt like a ghost town.

The BBC appears to have spent much of today debunking its own story about the National Bullying Helpline allegedly taking calls from members of Downing Street staff. I listened in amusement at lunchtime as a reporter on Five Live quoted several issues about this charity that were raised last night on Adam Bienkov’s Tory Troll blog, when it really would have made sense for the BBC to highlight these things in its original report, instead of completely ignoring them. The Five Live piece followed John Humphrys on the Today programme this morning, who managed to establish that complaints didn’t actually involve the Prime Minister personally. As such, the relevance of the NBH’s claims to the original story about Gordon Brown’s temper is sort of questionable.

There is a dismal lack of basic journalism at the heart of this story. What happened to the idea of corroborating facts with more than one source? Claims such as those made by the boss of the helpline, Christine Pratt, are unproveable hearsay, while the dubious state of the NBH’s finances, connections to a human resources consultancy business and links to David Cameron and Ann Widdecombe – none of which was mentioned in the BBC’s story – take us into obviously dodgy territory with a possible political smear campaign at its centre. Various bloggers managed to pinpoint these basic problems – why not the BBC?

Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor, attempts to justify the BBC’s approach on his blog:

We can’t, of course, verify the truth of her allegations – merely report them and Downing Street’s response to them.

Which may come as a surprise to those old-fashioned folks who believe journalism involves making sure something is true before reporting it. The logical approach would have been to ignore the batty Mrs Pratt on the basis that there is no way of proving whether or not what she is saying is truthful. A proper news story of the sort pedalled by the Sunday newspapers would involve speaking to a whistleblower before going public with this sort of claim. But there isn’t a whistleblower and the motivations of the charity are clearly suspect. Which maybe suggests the story isn’t true.

I’m generally not inclined to attack the BBC. But it should never have treated this story in the way it did. The fact that it has then filled the airwaves today with the sort of basic facts that should have informed its original story – but didn’t – just adds insult to injury.

It all started on Sunday morning, when I began one of my usual rants on Twitter about the terribleness of deathly Tim Lovejoy vehicle Something for the Weekend, which culminated in this tweet:

Unpredictably, this comment led to direct contact from Nicky Campbell and, since I’m not one to pass up the chance of wringing a blog post from the most meagre of material, I shall now analyse his tweets in order to make an assertion about his state of mind, personality, etc.

First contact was established by Nicky in the following tweet:

There are a couple of things to note here, the most obvious of which is Nicky’s use of “lol”. Since he’s a 48-year-old, often quite cantankerous Scotchman, I never thought he’d have used this kind of webspeak, which I tend to associate with floppy-brained twenty-somethings who rely on Facebook for their current affairs intake. I suspect he’s been taught it by a teenage family member. Or maybe he’s secretly a fan of I Can Has Cheezburger. The other thing to notice is that I never used the @NickyAACampbell username, so he must have some kind of alert set up for mentions of his own name. Perhaps all celebrities do this. Or maybe they don’t.

Obviously I wasn’t going to be deterred by Nicky’s lol-ing, so I followed up with another tweet:

On reflection, I can see why it might look as though I was pretty much begging for a follow-up response from the erstwhile Watchdog host, and the big man didn’t disappoint:

Fortunately, this is where the dumb, lolcatty Nicky takes a backseat and the frightening, sarcastic Nicky we all know and love makes a welcome return. Witness the heavy irony apparent in the “hugely relieved and grateful” part, followed by the possibly menacing “nice website” – which suggests he has looked at my website, knows where I (metaphorically) “live” and will be watching me carefully for future signs of insolence. (There is, admittedly, another “lol” in there but we’ll let that pass.) Others have interpreted this second tweet as a piece of reputation management, which is designed to disarm me and make me think he’s a nice guy.

I can’t make my mind up if Nicky Campbell is a nice guy, or if he’s essentially a madman who stays up at night scanning Twitter for signs of anti-Nicky Campbell sentiment. I kind of hope it’s the second one but unfortunately it probably isn’t.

Next Sunday: Watch in astonishment as  Tim Lovejoy launches a foul-mouthed attack against me on live television after I take the piss out of his tight sweater.

It’s transfer deadline day today. So, what better time to note that football journalism is the one area of the profession where it remains possible to make things up completely off the top of your head and still remain in a job even after the 300th time your byline appears on something that’s complete and utter bollocks.

According to the Daily Mail’s Joe Bernstein on Saturday, football fans would today enjoy a “transfer merry-go-round”. Robbie Keane would leave Spurs for Sunderland, Kenwyne Jones would depart Sunderland for Liverpool and Ryan Babel would be sold to Birmingham by Liverpool. Of course, none of this actually happened. A couple of weeks earlier, the same paper had reported that Jones would join Liverpool in time for the game between Liverpool and Spurs on 20 January. Again, total bollocks.

These are just a couple of examples from one newspaper but every day, particularly during the twice yearly transfer windows, the papers are filled with complete and utter claptrap, planted by agents and clubs and seemingly unchecked for even a microgram of credibility. This is particularly the case where big name players are concerned.

In October 2008, the Mirror reported that Fernando Torres had been offered £200,000 a week to move to Manchester City, while the Telegraph printed an immediate denial. A little over a year later in December 2009, the Mail reported that City’s hopes of signing the player had been “dashed”. Yet, just a month later, the People claimed City were lining up a £100m bid for the player this summer. Contradiction spawned from wild stabs in the dark are the hallmarks of football journalism.

The story in the People was bylined Steve Bates. That’ll be the same Steve Bates who reported in November that City would sign Spurs’ David Bentley in the January window, quoting “Eastlands sources”. Strangely, these same sources didn’t bother to mention that manager Mark Hughes would be sacked just three weeks later.

So to help Steve and his compatriots, I present the Words Dept. Football Journalism Bullshit Assistant. Simply print out the list of football-related names and phrases below, cut them out, rearrange them on your desk and a story will miraculously invent itself.

Words Dept. Football Journalism Bullshit Assistant (Patents Pending)

audacious

the San Siro

Vennegoor of Hesselink

smash

Anfield hierarchy

Kenwyne Jones

misfit

wage structure

come-and-get-me plea

Fernando Torres

unsettled

Hertha Berlin

Wayne Rooney

income tax rate

the Nou Camp

Guus Hiddink

Kia Joorobchian

Schalke

Paraguay international

£90 million

£150 million

£250 million

Younes Kaboul