Could US libel work in the UK?

US libel laws seem to work fine alongside robust free speech protection. Why can't we have their laws in the UK?


Free speech is valued more highly in the US than it is in the UK. There is no getting away from it. In the UK, people's right to privacy, their right to a fair trial and their ability to protect their reputation frequently outrank others' right to free speech. In the US, free speech trumps all.

The increasing use of the English libel laws to stifle free speech has triggered a robust campaign for their reform. If you don't live in England, don't worry: our judges can still get you. If what you write is downloaded in England from a website anywhere in the world, the High Court in London will hear a case against you (I focus on England because judges in Edinburgh are no so keen on libel tourism).

Recently, I was asked to explain to some US journalists how the English libel laws might apply to them. Mostly, they were unprepared for the shock. It got me thinking.

In 49 out of 50 States they use the English common law system and, at heart, US libel laws are the same as those in England. The differences are in interpretation. But thanks to the US Constitution's first amendment guarantee of free speech, those differences are stark.

US journalists were mostly unprepared for 
the shock of the English libel law

Here is what I thought. The US has a modern, free-thinking libel regime, but it works within English common law. Can't we just adopt their libel laws in the UK? They seem to work fine in the US.

[Note: I am not so keen on how the first amendment interacts with people's right to a fair trail, nor am I keen on US citizens' second amendment right to bear arms. In the UK, one is far more likely to be sued for libel; in the US, one is more likely to be shot.]

Here are some of the ways in which US and UK libel law differ:


Strict liability

Most law in the US and UK operates under the strict liability rule. Ignorance is no defence. If you run a red light, it does not help your case to argue that you did not see the light, nor that you did not know a red light meant stop.

In the US, strict liability is lifted for libel in the interests of free speech. This means you can argue, for example, that you did not know, or could not foresee that what you wrote might cause problems for someone. Good intentions matter.

In the UK, strict liability still operates. This means your intentions don't matter. You are judged on how other people interpret your writing. It means you can be sued over a typo, or an inferred meaning that did not occur to you when wrote the piece.


o  In the UK, you are judged on the worst-case interpretation of your writing that someone else can reasonably make.
o  In the US, you are judged on what you intended to say.

Burden of proof

In both jurisdictions, truth is an absolute defence. The difference is in who has the burden of proof. In the UK, the writer is assumed to have got things wrong. If they want to use the defence, they will have to prove the truth of what they wrote.

In the US, the plaintiff (the person suing you) has to prove that what you wrote was false. In fact, US courts make a distinction between those who seek publicity (celebrities and big companies, for instance) and those who don't. If you are sued by someone in the first group, not only do they have to prove that you got it wrong, they have to prove that you knew it was wrong when you wrote it, or that you behaved with a reckless disregard for the truth.

o  In the UK, you have to prove truth.
o  In the US, they have to prove falsity and may have to prove you knew it was false.

Harm

o  In the UK, there is no requirement for the person suing you to show they have suffered as a result of what you wrote.
o  In the US, there is.

Pay walls: it's about the ads

Pay walls on magazine and newspaper websites are not about replacing advertising revenue. They are about winning it back.

True or false?:

Journalism is in crisis	True . False
The publishing industry needs a new business model	True . False
Pay walls are a stupid idea	True . False

There has been a lot of talk on these three subjects and on the last there has been a pretty broad consensus:  pay walls are a really stupid idea. Except, that is, for the people who actually own newspapers. Some of those guys think pay walls are worth a go (the latest, this week, being the New York Times). So what do they know that we don't?

The New York Times announced this week
that it would charge for some web content

The argument against pay walls goes something like this: the web is full of free information. If you charge, people will simply go elsewhere. The slump in audience numbers that results makes it hard to generate revenue from (among other things) advertising.

But I am beginning to think the argument is flawed, particularly when you consider the advertising.

The crisis in journalism is really a crisis of money. Advertising has somehow disappeared making it difficult to fund good quality journalism. Where has the advertising gone?

• Well, we are in the worst recession for a gazillion* years and advertising always dips during recession. But the recession will end.
  
• There are lots of new media for advertisers to try, so they are trying it all out. They'll be back when they realise how much of it was just fooling around.
  
• A lot of advertising never worked in the first place. The advertisers only noticed this when the new forms of media allowed them to measure better. Those guys are gone for now, but when they work out how to do it better, they'll be back.

So taking these factors into account, my new business model for the publishing industry is...

selling ads

I know. It sounds stupid. But I think that is what the pay wall publishers are counting on.

Imagine you are an advertiser in ten years time. All this new stuff that kept popping up when the web was new has died down. The media is stable, if different. So where do you spend your ad budget? Do you spread it evenly over the (by that time) gazillion* web pages? Of course not. You pick the places you think will most effectively reach the audience you want to reach.

And when some Uber-blogger comes to you telling you about numbers of unique users and bounce rates, you will know that they cannot tell you the difference between a committed reader and a cat snoozing on a keyboard. In that scenario, I think the following sales pitch will go down quite well:

Our stuff is so much better than anyone else's that our readers actually pay to receive it.

So pay walls are not really about making more money out of readers. They are about winning back the hearts of advertisers. There will be a short term loss of revenue, but long term it may turn out to be sound business strategy.

* That's a British gazillion as defined by the Royal Institute of Making Stuff Up.

Journalism and commerce

The crisis in journalism is really a crisis in advertising. The depth of recession has had a calamitous effect on publishers' revenues and that puts pressure on the creative side of the business.

There has always been a symbiotic relationship between journalism and advertising. Good journalism creates a good place to advertise. Commercially successful publications tend to breed good journalism.

But companies shouldn't just consider advertising as a way of preserving a marketing environment. Advertising during a recession works.

This from Direct Marketing magazine 1991:

[The American Business Press (ABP) analysed] the severe 1974 to 1975 recession. Relying on questionnaires submitted by advertisers, the study tracked the sales and profits growth of 173 industrial companies between 1972 and 1977. The companies were divided into two groups: those that reduced advertising during the recession; and those that did not reduce advertising.

The study found that the companies that reduced advertising achieved minimal sales growth in 1974, suffered a sales decline in 1975 and increased sales by 70 percent during the five-year period. For companies that maintained their ad budgets, sales suffered no slowdown during the recession and grew 150 percent for the entire period. Profits showed a similar pattern. Most notably, the momentum gained by the steady advertisers during the recession helped them to grow at a faster rate in 1976 and 1977.

The original article can be found at Allbusiness.com.

How should a journalist look?

Picture bylines are a trick to make journalism more human. If you know what the writer looks like, the theory goes, you are more likely to relate the the writing. I prefer the reader to be thinking about the subject rather than the writer's dress sense, but that's me: I am old-fashioned.

The question arises, what should journalists look like. Should they be themselves (or does that risk alienating the audience)? Should they reflect the public's prejudice about what a journalist should look like (press card in the trilby)? Or should they look like they know their subject?

The Telegraph seems to have a jacket and tie policy, but Political Editor Andrew Porter goes one step further and actually looks like a politician

Richard Edwards is the Telegraph's Crime Correspondent and looks a little like a policeman. Well done, Richard. Spot on.

The Guardian seems to have a more casual photo dress policy which allows Music Editor Tim Jonze  to look like the musos he's writing about.

Steve Busfield is Head of Hedia and Technology for the Guardian and . . .  erm . . .  Sorry Steve, that shirt is not really saying Head of Media and Technology

Pressure to reform libel

Reforming libel is urgent in the interests of free speech according to campaign groups English Pen and Index on Censorship. They have produced a report which recommends changes to the UK libel laws to make it easier to defend a libel action, and to reduce the costs.

These are their recommendations (with my commentary):

• Unreverse the burden of proof. It would be up to a claimant to prove a story is false. Currently truth is the main defence to libel but the defendant is required to prove the story is true.
• Cap damages at £10,000. Currently there is a £200,000 cap.
• Change the multiple publication rule: currently each repetition is a fresh cause for action. This includes each time a piece is downloaded by a web visitor. The report recommends a single publication rule.
• Only allow English courts to consider a libel action where at least 10% of a publication's circulation is in England. Currently only a few copies need to be sold in England for the courts to claim jurisdiction.
• Establish a libel tribunal as a cheaper alternative to a full trial. 
• Strengthen the public interest defence. Currently stories where truth cannot be proved rely on the Reynolds defence. This is only available for stories of the most serious public concern.
• Entitling people to their opinion in a broader range of circumstances. The current fair comment defence comes with a raft of conditions.
• Cap base costs in libel cases. Currently the loser usually pays most of the costs of both sides and the sum is unlimited. The McLibel case is estimated to have cost £10m.
• Create special exemptions for some parts of the internet such as chat.
• Currently limited companies and PLCs have the same rights as individuals to protect their reputation. The report recommends removing libel protection for medium and large companies.
 

Libel in the news

• Libel stains Britain's good name says the Index on Censorship 
• The Times reports that US publishers have threatened to stop publishing in the UK because of the risk of libel action
• Simon Singh, writing in the Guardian, says that UK libel law is out of kilter with the rest of the democratic world, encouraging 'libel tourism' and the erosion of free speech in other countries
• The Index on Censorship and English PEN hope their report will stiffen the resolve of the current parliamentary select committee on press standards, privacy and libel, said Ken Macdonald QC, former director of public prosecutions, quoted in journalism.co.uk
• The BBC quotes the Ministry of Justice saying it will "carefully consider" the suggestions 

Journalism: truth vs the big story

Journalists miss the truth, too often, because they seduce themselves into writing the story that readers want to read.

Journalism is about truth, right? The whole point of it is to report what's going on in the world, and if we make stuff up, it rather defeats the object.

In the internet age, truth has gained a new importance. So much of what we read is suspect, that journalists are looking afresh at sourcing, independence, transparency. To stand above the static of more than a trillion pages of information, journalists must (simply must) be credible.

So journalism is about truth. And yet, if I tell you I am badly in need of a haircut, it's true, but it's not really journalism, is it? The number of things that are true is enormous. The number of things that anyone would care to read about is smaller.

The truth is in here somewhere

Selecting and prioritising information is also a vital part of the journalist's job. Never more so. Using the web is like being invited into a giant warehouse full of identical boxes and being told that what we need is in there somewhere. (Thankfully, Google does a pretty good job of checking out the contents of all the boxes). Some journalists seem (to stretch the analogy beyond its limits) to work flat out filling boxes with random stuff, just to make it more difficult to find anything useful.

It is simplistic to say that we prioritise the most important information. In fact, good journalists are looking for the biggest story. Herein lies the danger because stories don't have to be true.


What makes a big story

• New and factual (it's news)
• Human element (how much will our audience care?)
• Scale and impact (how many died (for example) +
  what effect does that have on our audience?)
• Triggers a strong emotional response
• Dramatic
• Visual (good pictures but also stories that, in the telling, are easy to visualise)
• Quirky, surprising, downright weird

In practice, there is another, subtler element at play. We all deal with the randomness of life by trying to force things into categories or shapes. Sometimes information falls into a pattern and we think: "yes, I get that". It makes the world easier to deal with (particularly if the news is bad).

This week's tragedy at Ft Hood, Texas, is a good example of the phenomenon. Right from the start, the authorities were anxious to dampen speculation surrounding the fact that the shooter was a Muslim. Why did they do that? Because there is an instinctive, almost primeval, urge to fit the facts to a story. A big story. If he was a warrior for the forces of terrorism living secretly among us, that is a huge story that fits the big facts. And it is a story that is easy to retell.

The story fits the scale of the
events too well to resist

But if he was a confused man, frightened of going back to war, that is a more muddled, smaller story. It does not seem to fit with the outrage of what he did. It is more difficult to see how the facts might lead to the consequences.

At the time of writing, it is impossible to know the truth. It could be either of these scenarios or something else entirely. However, it is already possible to see the first story forming in the pages of newspapers and on the web. There will be people who believe it, even if it turns out not to be true. The story fits the scale of the events too well to resist.

Brave journalists will, of course, go after the truth despite the enormous pressure to tell the story their readers want to read. Others will succumb and the truth will dissolve into a collective false memory.

The conflicting draws of truth and the story are understandable in reporting big, complex events. But too often, journalists are distracted from the truth in day-to-day reporting. That damages credibility.

For example, your readers may very well think that the diet of children today is so bad, it is surprising they don't get scurvy.

Does the story get precedence over the truth?

Everyone knows about scurvy because there is a story connected with it. It is caused by lack of vitamin C and is associated with the exploits of great explorers like Captain Cook. Any modern story including the word scurvy brings with it associations of dramatic deeds, romance, the smell of salt air. At a push, a writer could use one of those special words guaranteed to get a response from any audience: pirates.

So when the Daily Mail discovered that cases of childhood scurvy were on the increase, they may well have felt they had the dream story. Sick children, pirates, adventure. And above all, it fits with their readers' preconceptions.


But is it true?

There has been an increase in the number of children admitted to hospital with scurvy but:

• The increase is from 61 to 94 over three years. The numbers are so small (relative to the total number of sick children) that it is dangerous to draw conclusions.
• The Mail says straight out that it is due to poor diet, but there is no evidence for that. If you read past the bit about the pirates, the Mail quotes Ursula Arens of the British Dietetic Association -- the only person they talked to who is qualified to comment. She said: it was not possible to say how the children were getting scurvy: whether it was from a poor diet, or as a by-product of other diseases such as cancer.
• I am indebted to EvidenceMatters who points out that the figures could be explained by the increased survival rate of children with cancer or short gut syndrome. Scurvy can be a side effect of these diseases, and if fewer children die from them, then more will exhibit symptoms of scurvy.
  

So what would you do? Run a complex story about inconclusive stats or a more definite one about pirates and child poverty?

There is a third option. Resist the urge of the great story altogether. Because the truth is there wasn't much of a story in the first place.

Pro journalism must stand out

If pro journalists want to have a job in the age of information overload, they need to play to their strengths.

This week a journalist told me he didn't have time to write better, and the BBC published a press release as news without any analysis or context.

It was also a week the Times gave us a completely one-sided story to suit its own purposes and the Guardian printed a profile whose angle was how difficult it is to write celebrity profiles.

Let's be clear: journalism is in crisis. The reasons are various but the scary thing is how many journalists seem determined to make things worse.

Some journalists seem driven to try and fill the web

Rushed, badly written copy and regurgitated press releases seem to be symptoms of the internet age. We should have moved beyond sisyphean journalism where writers are driven to try and fill the web. But sadly, it is alive and well inside some publishing companies. Journalists are still given targets for quantity but not for quality.

I can just about understand it when you have ad reps who like to talk to clients about volumes and page impressions. But there seems to be no excuse for the BBC to be caught in this trap.

Biased reporting, lacking in authority, and me-me profile writing are old-school crap. But they seem to thrive online.

The days are gone when, if you worked on Pencil Sharpener Today magazine, your main competition was Pencil Sharpener World. Thanks to Google, you now compete with anyone who puts the words pencil sharpener prominently on their website.  Among these will be some pretty talented amateur bloggers.

And the nature of the competition has changed too. Readers no longer decide between two print magazines and stick with their choice. If they care about a subject, they might look at 15 websites and the pro-journalist's will only be one of them. Having a brand is no longer enough to stand out from the crowd.

Bloggers have advantages over pro journos. Sometimes:

• They react more quickly.
• They are more passionate about their subjects.
• They are more expert about their subjects.
• They tend to communicate in a more direct and personal way.

But few pros (at least few of those I talk to) seem to think about playing to the advantages they have over the amateurs:

• Better contacts.
• Access to authoritative sources.
• Better writing skills (if we concentrate).
• Cross-fertilisation within teams and across publications.
• Budgets for photography, freelances, illustrators (sometimes).
• Access to technology specialists (in theory we can create technically better websites; in practice many of us are having to use outdated CMSs and practice a form of warfare with the IT department).

When journalists create the crisis

• A highly researched story from the BBC and by coincidence, a similar press release from Morse. Surely there has been some mistake.
• A Telegraph story on car insurance whose only source was an insurance comparison website. Their source (PDF see editor's notes) is quoted as data analysis. 
• Sunday Times libel tourism piece makes valid points but lacks authority or balance (and so weakens its case).   
• I could write about John Cusack or I could make it all about me and how difficult I find it to write about John Cusack. This Guardian profile is fine but doesn't stand out from the noise because it focuses on the writer and his difficulties.  
• I could sit and watch Twitter and then come up with an unexpected way of looking at things (because no-one else could do that). Another okay Guardian piece that doesn't stretch the reader.

Notes:

1. This story was entirely sourced using the internet -- feel free to shoot me down in flames.
2. Apologies to journalists whose pieces I mention. Your were not the worst and they were by no means the only examples I could have chosen.

New model journalism

One freelance journalist has met the credit crunch head on by adopting a new business model for his journalism. Roy H Rubenstein guest blogs about the launch of gazettabyte.

I was recently promoted from freelance to publisher. There is no company car nor have long lunches replaced copy deadlines. Instead I’ve decided to publish my own online magazine -- gazettabyte, a website covering optical developments in the datacom and telecom industries.

In July 2009, the UK’s Institute of Physics closed FibreSystems Europe, a magazine I had been writing for since 2003.  But when I approached other titles looking for replacement freelance work, I was either ignored, or told there was no freelance budget.

Moving from freelance to online publisher

So I decided to launch my own publication. But to make it work I needed to be paid.

I came up with the concept for gazettabyte, put together an editorial calendar and approached several firms within the optical industry to see if they would back the venture. It certainly helped that I have covered the optical industry as an analyst and journalist for the last decade — these were companies I knew and had worked with.

The response has been hugely encouraging. I now have nine sponsors whose backing gives me a year to establish the site.

I plan to write eight in-depth (3000-word) articles on industry trends, some company-specific features and  a range of shorter pieces - gazettabits (yes, I really do have such a tag category on the site).

No more surprise phone calls telling me to stop writing as the magazine is about to fold

One concern I have is that with eight features spread over a year, will the regular copy make readers return? Another issue is how much time the site will require. I want to remain a freelancer and cover other topics too. However much time I estimate, I expect the site will require more. Even the writing bothers me – I no longer have talented editors to improve my copy.

But I do feel privileged. I now have my own title.  No more surprise phone calls telling me to stop writing as the magazine is about to fold.

Roy H Rubenstein

http://www.gazettabyte.com
http://twitter.com/gazettabyte

Tweaking sports news

Good writing is both visual and human. Small tweaks can make all the difference, particularly in the intro sentence.

Ferrari has confirmed that Fernando Alonso will drive for the team from 2010, replacing 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen, in a move that follows months of speculation.

I like the main verb to be visual. It makes the story more dramatic if the reader can picture what's going on. The word "confirmed" is not one that instantly conjures up an image. Could we re write so that "drive" is the main verb? It seems like the obvious word to use.

The writer of the original intro, wasn't sure about the change. There have been rumours this was going to happen for weeks. The reader probably already knows that Alonso will drive for Ferrari. It feels like the confirmation bit of it is the news.

If the reader cares about the actors in your story, they are more likely to read on. In general, people care about other people more than organisations. Could it be about Alonso first and then Ferrari?

It could be written more simply as

Fernando Alonso will drive for Ferrari from 2010,

but the writer worried that this misses the main part of the news out - the confirmation.

The important thing is to grab the reader's attention in the first few words. When you have them, you can tell a more complex story. What comes first should be as attractive as you can make it. Other information can always come later.

Focusing on the human interest and visual, obvious words gives us:

Fernando Alonso will drive for Ferrari from 2010, the team has confirmed, ending months of speculation.

What do you think? It is more or less the same sentence, but by moving some of the words around we have given it more punch. It is more likely people will read on.

Libel: six options for reform

When Richard Dawkins talked libel to the LibDem conference on Sunday, he was preaching to the converted. The party has already proposed radical change to the law in light of Simon Singh's infamous legal battle with the British Chiropractic Association (BCA).

The LibDem solution is to change the burden of proof -- claimants would have to show a story was false to sue. Currently, the publisher must prove their story is true if they want to use the defence of justification (truth).

Prof Dawkins says British libel laws are stifling scientific debate. When Dr Singh criticised the BCA he might have expected -- welcomed, even -- a robust defence. What he didn't expect was the difficulty and expense of a libel suit, launched before the BCA issued any repost to his criticisms. Libel certainly doesn't encourage debate, and that is unhealthy for science and for society.

So how could the libel law be changed to allow scientists and others more freedom to discuss ideas in public? Here are six options:

1) Un-reverse the burden of proof

Pros: the LibDem solution brings libel into line with other law where one is innocent until proven guilty
Cons: may be politically difficult to put into practice. The same law protects celebs and innocent little old ladies from tabloid smears.

2) Give scientists special privilege

Pros: privilege already exists for MPs and lawyers to allow them to do their jobs. Why not scientists?
Cons: special conditions could make defending yourself against libel even more complicated.

3) Make fair comment unconditional

Pros: fair comment allows critics to give their honest opinions about films, restaurants, politics. The courts already distinguish between opinion pieces and news stories, but there is a condition that you do not pass off as comment allegations of criminal or immoral behaviour. Removing that condition would give everyone free speech as long as the context is opinion.
Cons: could result in blogs becoming unbridled slanging matches.

4) Different rules for different claimants

Pros: already works in the US where companies and people in the public eye must show that a libel was intentional or negligent. Ordinary people get better protection.
Cons: potentially makes libel more complex.

5) Mandatory repost

Pros: by making claimants show they took all reasonable measures to put their side of the case, you would make flaky claims more difficult. Also: the law is supposed to be equitable. Publishers no longer have a special position. In the internet age, anyone can put their case to the public.
Cons: the courts would have to establish what reasonable means in this context.

6) All the above?

Pros: we get free speech.
Cons: bit radical, maybe?

Good journalism from the master

Keith Waterhouse, probably the best writer in journalism of his generation, died earlier this month at 80.

Among his accomplishments was Waterhouse on Newspaper Style, a manual for good writing. Most of what he says there is as valid in the digital age as it was when he wrote it. Here are a few snippets:

• Journalists with flair write in the language of their readers  
• If a news story is dramatic, drama should come out in the telling. It is not enough simply to assure readers that the drama was there  
• Deadline fever encourages taut, crisp writing. The truly awfully written story demands time
• To use outsiders' jargon is to take their own evaluation of themselves on trust  
• An interesting story does not have to open with a war-whoop  
• Despite the invention of the tape recorder, many newspapers have a tin ear for dialogue  
• Few journalists realise that the ground-rules for the human-interest story were laid down in Cassel's Book of Indoor Amusements, 1881  
• It is the tendency of cliches to generalise, approximate or distort

End free news the Murdoch way

News International will close thelondonpaper in September, the Guardian and others reported today. It will end a phase of UK newspaper publishing that people have called the "free-sheet wars".

James Murdoch (CEO of News International Europe and Asia) talked about "streamlining operations" and "focusing on core titles" which some commentators have taken to mean it was losing too much money (£12.9m in the year to the end of June).

But the closure is part of a bigger shift in the news business. When it launched in 2006, thelondonpaper was one element of a complicated strategy to take on competitors: the Evening Standard and Metro. Both made money in a market which News International had no presence. Phase 1 of the strategy was successful: profits at Metro have slipped and ES has been sold.


But phase 2, making money out of this sector, has been abandoned. The problem with free news is you rely on ad revenue and (for those of you with your heads down a hole in the last year) ad revenue has all but dried up.

Readers must pay but there is an oversupply of information

It is no coincidence that the free paper's closure comes only weeks (NYT reports) after James's dad Rupert Murdoch announced he was going to make readers pay for web news. At one level, it makes no sense to argue that readers should pay for news online while you are giving it away in print.

But I suspect a more complex strategy. The new business model is that readers rather than (or more accurately -- as well as) advertisers must pay, but there is an oversupply of information. The preface to Murdoch's scheme must be the elimination of as many sources of free news as possible.

The easy part is removing the free news that News International controls: shut down thelondonpaper, put the Sunday Times behind a pay wall. Next we can expect:

• Deals with other publishers (many of whom also hope to make readers pay)
• Tactical moves to weaken or eliminate free competitors
• Lobbying the government to put limits on what the BBC website provides for free

If it works, it won't be the first time that ruthlessness and determination saw an unlikely Murdoch strategy winning through. One way or another, I think we can expect changes in the news landscape.

More on Twitter editing

Using all 140 characters on Twitter does not kill the re-Tweet.

Fewer than 120 characters should be your target for a Tweet, a couple of commenters said on my post about editing for Twitter. Maybe 110 if you want to include hashtags.

This allows people who want to re-Tweet a few characters to credit you as the source and if a sufficient number of people do that, then you go viral and your life improves in unfathomable ways.

Of course, someone might re-Tweet the re-Tweet, so let's say 100 chars, and if one of the re-Tweeters has a long name then maybe 90 is all we should allow.

I'm stubbornly sticking to 140 characters against all advice, and here's why. I find the Tweets containing the most information are also the most likely to be re-Tweeted (interested to know if other people have the same experience). I note that most information is not necessarily the same as the greatest number of characters.

And, the good news is that writing 140 character Tweets does not seem to stop me going viral (in a modest way, at least). Here is an example:

Huffington Post wrote:
Enter the news literacy movement. Situated in the School of Journalism at Stony Brook University and the DC-based News Literacy Project, these entities, according to Stony Brook Dean Howard Schneider, seek to nurture "a generation of news consumers who would learn how to distinguish for themselves between news and propaganda, verification and mere assertion, evidence and inference, bias and fairness, and between media bias and audience bias--consumers, who could differentiate between raw, unmediated information coursing through the Internet and independent, verified journalism."


On Twitter I wrote exactly 140 characters:
News literacy movement seeks to nurture news consumers who can distinguish between verification and mere assertion. HuffPo http://tr.im/uFgs

It was picked up by @EvidenceMatters who wrote (138 chars):
rt @AdeMacLeod: News literacy movement nurtures news consumers who differentiate verification and mere assertion. HuffPo http://tr.im/uFgs

This was picked up by @murzee who wrote (137 chars):
RT @EvidenceMatters: rt @AdeMacLeod: News literacy : consumers to differentiate verification and mere assertion. HuffPo http://tr.im/uFgs


One could argue about the different meanings of the three Tweets (@EvidenceMatters gets my vote) but that's not the point. The point is that 140 characters did not kill the re-Tweet.

Why typos matter

Standards in writing have never been more important because users are judging your credibility

Every web user knows that fake and malicious sites exist and many have strategies (conscious or not) for deciding how much they should trust what they read. Even reputable sites get it wrong -- users know this too.

Reputation, brand, design, physical interface are all important. But on the web, anyone can publish a professional-looking web site for free. Logos can be copied, sophisticated templates downloaded for free. A site may look reputable but it could be something else.

Guardian illustrates credibility problem with one letter extra

Imagine a malicious 12-year-old on his computer. How long would it take him to fake the Guardian's website? A few hours, probably, until he had something that looked and behaved as the Guardian site. But how long until it read like the Guardian? Maybe never. It is much harder to fake a professional writing style.

The thing that is hardest to fake is the content: both the quantity and the quality. Users know this and often it is the quality of writing they use to judge the credibility of a publication. If they spot a typo or poor grammar, then they trust the rest of site that little bit less.

Web values human news

The most popular news stories are rarely those considered most important by journalists. The instant feedback possible in web news shows us that apparently trivial stories are often most popular.

• Cats 'exploit' humans by purring is currently top of the most shared on the BBC
• Twitter is not for teens is top of the Guardian's most viewed
• Monster fish killed after terrorising swimmers and
• Photographer captures the moment a bubble bursts are two and three on the Telegraph's most viewed

Traditional news values would value other stories higher than these:

• Thousands honour repatriated soldiers;
• Elderly face £20,000 shake-up in social care;
• Swine flu vaccine months away.

Traditional news values used in judging the most significant stories include:

• Newness
• Relevance to reader
• Scale
• Impact

But web audiences seem to rank other factors more highly (although there other factors at play, including the fact that they are more likely to have already seen the big stories in other media):

• The visual (a picture of a bubble bursting)
• The (overly) dramatic (monster fish)
• The I've-always-kind-of-suspected-that story (cats exploit humans)
• That's someone like me (Twitter not for teens)
• The quirky, weird, surprising and downright bizarre (all the above)

Now that reader response can be measured, serious news providers are having to include stories judged by the second set of news values. They will never outweigh the big news stories but we shouldn't be snooty about them. They have their place.

Subbing for Twitter's 140 chars

The secret of a good Tweet is to cram as much information as will fit in your 140 character allowance.

This requires good old-fashioned sub-editing skills and some editorial judgement. In the example below, I was determined to keep the amusing quote which meant I had to be ruthless. You decide: did I go too far? (This is the actual process I went through: it may not be the most efficient way of getting there.)

253 chars (cut and paste original)
Swedish newspapers threaten to boycott Britney concert over photo restrictions. "The next step would be to tell critics they can't write anything critical." Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/10/swedish-newspapers-threat_n_229582.html

190 chars (trim link URL)
Swedish newspapers threaten to boycott Britney concert over photo restrictions. "The next step would be to tell critics they can't write anything critical." Huffington Post http://tr.im/rN8T

172 chars (sub down text)
Swedish papers threaten to boycott Britney concert over photo restrictions. "Next they will be telling critics they can't write anything critical." HuffPo http://tr.im/rN8T

160 chars (lose "threaten to" - changes meaning but within acceptable limits?)
Swedish papers boycott Britney concert over photo restrictions. "Next they will be telling critics they can't write anything critical." HuffPo http://tr.im/rN8T

145 chars (close)
Swedish papers boycott Britney concert over photo restrictions. "Next they'll say critics can't write anything critical" HuffPo http://tr.im/rN8T

138 chars (final)
Swedish papers boycott Britney concert over photo rules. "Next they'll say critics can't write anything critical" HuffPo http://tr.im/rN8T

Web news: 10 things on the BBC

Analysing a typical BBC News story reveals some important lessons for web writers. Many of us are so familiar with the BBC format that we don't realise how clever it is.

1. Limiting heads to 33 characters means they work for readers, for search engines, for news feeds. Everyone working online should do this, but it's hard work.
2. A single sentence intro in bold works on its own in a feed but also leads into the main story.
3. A pic or video adds visual interest. Often these show people which helps to humanise the story. Pics and videos carry a caption: important in enticing a visual audience to start reading.
4. An early quote, often by paragraph 4, makes the writing livelier but also adds credibility and authority to the story. The first quote usually justifies the head and the intro.
5. A balancing quote offering the opposing view or an alternative insight is also important in adding credibility to the story. Giving voice to several views may broaden their audience too.
6. Covering the story in as many different ways as possible also broadens the audience. Video may not be ideal for a reader who is in a hurry, but it will make the story real for those who browse.
7. Expert analysis helps readers understand the significance of the story. The personality of the analyst adds a human touch. It also adds a link to the blog section of the site.
8. More visual interest as readers scroll down. A second pic also has a catchy caption.
   
9. Encouraging readers to respond to the story helps them to become involved. News becomes more like a conversation than a broadcast.
10. Giving that itching mouse finger lots of things to click keeps readers within the site and adds value to the story.

The original story can be seen on the BBC news site.

Headline howlers

Classic headline howlers printed in the August issue of Word magazine included:

• Churchill flies back to front
• Prostitutes appeal to Pope
• Miners refuse to work after death
• Juvenile court to try shooting defendant
• Hospitals sued by 7 foot doctors

News: can you believe it?

Michael Jackson dies and teaches us that the new media is exactly the same as the old media.

When celebrity news site TMZ reported that Michael Jackson had died last week, we didn't quite believe it. The BBC, the LA Times and others reported the fact that TMZ had reported it but wouldn't confirm it. A number of serious news sites reported the story with inverted commas around the word "dies".

Who can blame them. The TMZ story, of course, turned out to be true. But so many others have not. Jeff Goldblum, for example, was reported dead the same night. This was a fake story. If you want to recreate the fake go to fakeawish and type Jeff Goldblum into the boxes. That's exactly how the story got started. Harrison Ford also didn't die that night, despite rumours.

It is heartening to see the news working exactly as it should. The Jeff Goldblum story got little traction because it could not be confirmed. The Michael Jackson story was huge. The truth outweighs the fake. (Although one suspects that for many outlets, confirmation involved waiting for the LA Times [whom we trust] to publish it and then going for it ourselves, which is not quite the same as getting a statement from the presiding doctor).

1. We don't run a story until we can confirm for ourselves that it is true -- the way it should be, the way it has always been?

The Guardian later described TMZ's story as "the scoop of the decade". Although it is a big story, and although TMZ undoubtedly got there first, it is difficult to accept it as the scoop of the decade. After all, what would have happened if TMZ had not existed? We would have read about Jackson's death about 40 minutes later than we did. Not quite Nellie Bly exposing New York asylums or William Howard Russell reporting from the Crimean War. They changed things with their scoops. TMZ really didn't (sorry guys, but you didn't).

It is the same as it ever was. In our rush to break a story, we forget that the news is elsewhere. The only reason that someone dying is news (I hate to tell you, but many people die every day and don't make it on to TMZ or anywhere else), is because of its impact on others. The mass emotional response to Jackson's death is where the real story is.

This is why the BBC, despite much criticism, was right to send Emily Maitlis to LA to film young people moon walking. The fans and their response are real story. I must be right -- Boris Johnson agrees.

2. Journalism is more than writing a story. It is about how that story affects people.

Yesterday, the Sun had a scoop of its own when it reported that Jackson had been bald and emaciated at the time of his death. TMZ reported the LA Coroner's statement that the story was false:

The report that is being published did not come from this office. I don't know where the information came from, or who that information came from. It is not accurate. Some of it is totally false.

he said. This is the same TMZ which picked up and ran with the Sun story about two hours previously. So maybe other news sources were right to pause over the celeb site's original story.


One Twitterer on a commuter train out of London on the night Jackson died reported that people around him could not resist gossiping about the story. But the concensus was that they wouldn't believe it for sure until the saw it on the BBC.

3. You only become a trusted source if you get your stories right most of the time. Being first doesn't help your credibility.

When readers become users

Understanding web users and their day-to-day behaviour has never been more important


The New York Times has stopped calling its readers readers and started calling its users users, Advertising Age reports.

It reflects the venerable US paper's realisation that no longer do we passively take what we are given. The web has changed all that. Now we expect to interact. To click, to vote, to comment. To drive with our reading (sorry -- using) habits stories up or down the most popular ranking. To add our own pictures and stories to the melange.

This week I found myself, on the recommendation of a friend, using two web stories:

• The Interview with Alaa al Aswany from the Observer
• Show or Tell from the New Yorker

The first was 2200 words, the second 5600. No in-line links, no commenting, no video footage. There were admittedly pictures and, in the case of the New Yorker, cartoons. But as an experience, frankly, it felt a lot like reading.

Web writers are beginning to realise that rules they used to apply do not always work. Or, perhaps, that others are succeeding without adhering to the same rules. How can this be? The two examples above show us that our stories can work without fitting into an arbitrary word count. It is not true that every story needs a direct headline and a news-style intro. We don't always fail if our work is insufficiently loaded with multimedia gadgets.

"As an experience, frankly, it felt a lot like reading"

In discussions about the future of journalism, two concepts have caught my eye:

• Hyper-interest
• Context

These seem to me to be the keys to rule-free web writing. Hyper interest (I didn't coin the phrase but I have lost the reference -- apologies to whoever did) is the same as interest but accounting for digital language inflation (geeks exaggerate). It is neologism meaning that no trick or gadget is ever going to beat something that genuinely catches our imagination.

I think the two articles cited above are genuinely interesting, but you may disagree. This is the problem with hyper-interest -- so much depends on the user. It means that before you write something interesting, you have to work out who it is going to be interesting to.

Context means that the same user will find different things interesting according to what is going on in their world. If they are sitting on the sofa on a Sunday morning surrounded by toast crumbs and cats, the New Yorker may be the very thing. If they are on their way to work on Monday and just want to know whether we have the same prime minister so they don't look stupid in the 9:30 meeting, then maybe the BBC's news feed 31 character headlines are what they want.

"If they are sitting on the sofa, surrounded by toast crumbs and cats, the New Yorker may be the very thing"

For writers, hyper-interest means you have to model your reader more carefully than ever before, so you know intuitively what will grab and keep their attention. Context means you have to go even further and model their behaviour patterns. This may mean providing information in a variety of formats so that users can choose the one that suits.

Reader modelling is old school but it is more important than ever. Ironically, some writers freeze on the idea that because anyone in the world (not really) can read their stuff, they have to write for everyone in the world. In practice, the web loves specialism. Writing that focuses on a small group of readers and gives them what they want is generally the most successful.

Journalists thwarted by FoI delays

Journalists are being discouraged from using the Freedom of Information Act by the delay tactics of officials, according to a report.

A shock to the system [pdf link], written by the BBC's Jeremy Hayes for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism describes some notable successes for journalists using FoI. But it says the time government departments take to respond is limiting journalists' ability to be effective.

Hayes cites an investigation by Chris Hastings of the Sunday Telegraph into Formula One Boss, Bernie Ecclestone's donation to the Labour party and Tony Blair's involvement in F1's exemption from a tobacco advertising ban. It took two and a half years before Hastings was given the relevant documents and in the meantime Tony Blair had left office.

According to Hayes' report:

The evidence of the more contentious and disputed cases points to a standard gestation period of over two years before disclosure . . .

Examination of the decision notices by the Information Commissioner [shows] the propensity of officials to use exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act to prevent disclosure . . .

In case after case, the exemption clauses cited are many in number, applied blanket-style, and have the effect of creating layers of defence, each of which has to be considered in its turn, thus adding to the complexity of the process and the time needed to complete it.

Sight and sound in writing

Think about how your writing would work if you filmed it and what the soundtrack would be.

Media owners are launching a concerted effort to trumpet the power of their platforms as they attempt to ride out one of the deepest advertising downturns in decades.

This intro appearsat the top of a story in FT.com today.

The visual

If we were to film it, we would need a trumpet and something to ride -- a horse maybe. Then we'd need to find a rider who could play the trumpet while riding.

The phrases trumpet the power and ride out the downturn are metaphors -- there is no actual trumpet or horse in this story but they add visual elements to an otherwise abstract story. Metaphors are great. Cliched metaphors are less good because the reader is so familiar with them that they don't bother to conjure up the images (which was the whole point of the metaphor).

Mixed metaphors are bad too. Now the reader has to conjure up two images, but they are liable to get them confused, so they end up picturing a guy bouncing around on a horse trying to play the trumpet.

One metaphor in a sentence is plenty and if it could be original that would be even better.


The soundtrack

Writing is a representation of the way we speak. The sound of the words is an intermediate stage as the reader's brain processes language. Many writers use this to advantage -- repeating sounds to draw the reader's attention to certain words.

However, repeating sounds accidentally or for the sake of word-play can be counter-productive. Listen to the repeating sounds in the FT's intro.

Media owners are launching a concerted effort to trumPet the Power of their Platforms as they attempt to ride out one of the Deepest aDvertising Downturns in Decades.

The -p- and -d- sounds are hard, explosive even. The effect on the reader's brain is similar to someone rasping a washboard -- p-p-p. d-d-d-d. Not, I am certain, what the writers were going for.

Alliteration (repeated sounds at the beginnings of words) is a technique one should use sparingly. Save it for when it can really create an impact. Otherwise it may just be annoying.

Micropayment: the debate

Rupert Murdoch says his papers will start charging for online content, the FT and others report. His News Corp announced a 47% drop in revenues.

But a New Media Age survey found that 77 per cent of UK regular online readers were not prepared to pay for access to news websites. Many commentators doubt if online subscriptions are viable.

Micropayment is one solution on offer. Walter Isaacson, a former managing editor of Time says: a newspaper might decide to charge a nickel for an article or a dime for that day's full edition or $2 for a month's worth of Web access. Some surfers would balk, but I suspect most would merrily click through if it were cheap and easy enough.

Newspapers struggle to find an online business model that works

In today's Guardian, Frank Fisher says:

This needs a big player . . . Google already has the infrastructure and the reputation . . . Not only that, but they're touted as news content's No 1 enemy, via GoogleNews. They "owe" the press one.

Slate's founding editor, in a piece for the New York Times headed You can't sell news by the slice points out:

Newspaper readers have never paid for the content (words and photos). What they have paid for is the paper that content is printed on. A week of The Washington Post weighs about eight pounds and costs $1.81 for new subscribers, home-delivered. With newsprint (that’s the paper, not the ink) costing around $750 a metric ton, or 34 cents a pound, Post subscribers are getting almost a dollar’s worth of paper free every week — not to mention the ink, the delivery, etc. The Times is more svelte and more expensive. It might even have a viable business model if it could sell the paper with nothing written on it. A more promising idea is the opposite: give away the content without the paper. In theory, a reader who stops paying for the physical paper but continues to read the content online is doing the publisher a favour.

Talk of micropayments goes back 10 years, Stephen Dubner points out in a different article for the New York Times. He quotes Marshall W. Van Alstyne, an associate professor in the Information Systems department at Boston University:

Putting micropayments on news is like putting tollbooths on an open ocean. Internet users, awash in a sea of information, will avoid new barriers by navigating around them. And frankly, the interests of a free society are rarely served by building barriers between the people and their news.

See also Micropayments won't save journalism in TechCrunch.

Science writing: keep asking why?

Hubble gyros fixed after struggle, the BBC told us on Friday, but didn't explain what a gyroscope is or why it needs to be fixed.

Every journalist knows the importance of the who-what-why-where-when formula but so often the answer to the why goes missing. In fairness, it is generally the toughest question to answer. But it is also the most significant because, without it, the reader doesn't get the point of the story.

Astronauts have completed the most critical repair to the Hubble Space Telescope after a long struggle, the story goes on.

Why is it the most critical repair? The writer doesn't make that clear either.

A gyroscope is like a spinning top. As long as it keeps spinning it will stay the same way up. Spacecraft use them so they know which way they are pointing. They are critical to the Hubble Telescope because a telescope is pretty hopeless if you don't know which way it is pointing.

This is what a NASA gyroscope looks like by the way

In practice, gyroscopes are a bit fancier than spinning tops. They are precision machined and work like an electric motor to keep them rotating. They also have tiny sensors to detect their movement and tell the telescope which way up it is.

Herein lies the problem. Keep a tiny, precision motor running for 19 years and it is likely to wear out or break down. Hence NASA's mission to replace them.

There that wasn't so hard, was it? Source of the information . . . wait for it . . . NASA.

Space repairs make an exciting enough story without detailed explanation. But don't you think the reader deserves to know more about the science after they have read a story like this?

Beware the cliched intro

Writing in a way that is relevant to your reader is important right from the start. But some tricks are overused. Relating technology to sci-fi films, for instance . . .

Its not quite as advanced as Terminator technology. But a new concrete that can heal its own wounds may soon bring futuristic protection to bridges and roads.

Move over, Superman. The Man of Steel has nothing on the collapsed cores of massive snuffed-out stars, scientists say.

Cloaking devices, like the Star Trek technology that can make whole Romulan warships disappear, came a step closer to reality last week.

From National Geographic: three in eight days?

Simon Singh's bogus meaning

Science writer Simon Singh has lost a preliminary libel battle in the High Court with the British Chiropractic Association, the Guardian reports.

The ruling centred on the meaning of the word bogus. In a comment piece for the Guardian, Dr Singh criticised the BCA for happily promoting bogus treatments. Mr Justice Eady said this implied the association was being consciously dishonest. Dr Singh says he never intended this meaning.

The case highlights the dangers of certain words in libel. Dr Singh may have felt able to prove a lack of scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of the treatments the BCA advocates. But the High Court's ruling means that for a defence of justification (truth) to work, he will now need to prove that the BCA was consciously dishonest -- a much tougher thing to show.

The writer's intention does not matter in a libel case. The test is how the text would be understood by a reasonable person. Importantly, where there is more than one possible meaning, the court is allowed to consider the worst-case meaning.

The defence of fair comment may also be open Dr Singh -- he is entitled to his opinion. But this defence has conditions including that he cannot pass off as comment allegations of criminal or immoral behaviour. Whereas questions about a lack of scientific evidence may be considered fair comment, accusing the BCA of being consciously dishonest is likely to taken by a court as an allegation of immoral behaviour.

Conjecture creates libel

West Ham's manager and coach accepted undisclosed libel damages and costs from the BBC over speculation on Radio 5 Live that they were considering a move to Chelsea, AFP reports.

Gianfranco Zola and Steve Clarke signed contracts with West Ham running until 2013. Their lawyer told the High Court in London that an unfounded report on Radio 5 Live that they had been interviewed by Chelsea's owner may have damage[d] their relationship with their employers and with the players and fans of West Ham

The case underscores the difficulty under UK libel law for journalists reporting stories based on rumour or speculation. If the story is damaging to someone's reputation then the reporter may have to prove the substance of the speculation to have a defence. In this case, the BBC accepted that it could not prove the interview with Chelsea took place.

Note that since the intention of the reporter is not a factor in UK libel cases, it is no defence to have been unaware of Zola and Clarke's contracts with West Ham.

The BBC's apology.

SEO vs brand identity

The Sun's headlines are so important to its brand that they shouldn't be compromised for search engine optimisation, Peter Moore argues.

He quotes an example from today's paper the head to a story on the breakup of Jordan and Peter Andre:

Sex with Jordan? That’s out of the equestrian

Wikipedia: the single source

In their obituaries of composer Maurice Jarre, a number of writers included quotes which appeared only on Wikipedia. The Guardian's reader's editor comments in detail.

It turns out the quotes were fake but many serious papers were caught out.

Wikipedia is not the problem: they removed the fake quotes three times. The fake info was only visible for a little over a day. Wikipedia goes to a lot of trouble to reference sources and to draw it to one's attention when there is no verified source. The obit writers seem to have missed that the fake quotes were unverified.

The hoaxer is not the problem: he achieved his aim of highlighting sloppy editorial practices (although there was more wit in the hoax that BBC TV themetune composer Ronnie Hazlehurst had written the S Club 7 hit Reach which also appeared in several newspaper obits via Wikipedia).

My question is this: what is the point of journalism if readers can get the same information direct from Wikipedia?

So, some rules for journalists:

• All facts should be checked with at least two reliable sources
• The origin of facts should be traced to ensure their veracity
• Everything you write should include a high proportion of original material -- otherwise you are just duplicating someone else's effort
• The best way to obtain original and reliable material is to talk to people. Any fool can browse the web
• Good writers have a network of contacts so they have someone to call even when they are up against a deadline

Amy Winehouse's paparazzi ban

Amy Winehouse has won a high court injunction to prevent paparazzi photographers from pursuing her, the Guardian reports. Similar protection was given to Lily Allen in March.

Winehouse and Allen used the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The act does not clearly define harassment but makes it a criminal offence to cause a person alarm or distress.

If someone feels they are being harassed, they can go to court to seek an injunction to prevent that harassment. Breaching such an injunction is a criminal offence with a maximum penalty of five years in jail or an unlimited fine.

Allen's injunction specifically restricts two photo agencies, Big Pictures and Matrix Photos. Winehouse's injunction also mentions Big Pictures but includes a ban on "persons unknown" pursuing her. This would appear to limit any reporter or photographer from following her.

Swine flu hype

Writing about media coverage of Swine flu in the Guardian, Ben Goldacre says:

...not only have the public lost all faith in the media; not only do so many people assume, now, that they are being misled; but more than that, the media themselves have lost all confidence in their own ability to give us the facts.

Twitter: pros and cons

The story so far . . .

For Twitter:
Headlines and dedlines
ReadWriteWeb
Online Journalism Blog


Against Twitter (I think):
Paul Dailing at Huffington Post
Brainz

Journalism by moving about

Journalists cannot give a perspective of a multi-lingual and multi-cultural country like India sitting in Delhi or Mumbai, BBC World News Assignment Editor Mark Perrow told The Hindu.

So he hired a train to take a team of journalists on a three-week tour of India to cover its elections.

Online news only 3.5%

Less than 4% of newspaper reading in the US happens online according the the Nieman Journalism Lab.

The Lab's Martin Langeveld has had to make some assumptions about reading habits to arrive at his conclusions but the result will surprise many who believe that internet has made bigger inroads.

A similar calculation for the The Guardian in the UK would suggest that online represents 20% of reading.

My Sums
Monthly impressions for guardian.co.uk: 228,136,292 (228m)
Daily print readership (3.61 multiplier on circulation): 1,264,000 = 910,080,000 (910m) monthly page impressions (if you assume each reader looks at the equivalent of 24 pages [1.264m x 24pages x 30 days]).
Total web and print = 910m + 228m = 1138m
Web % = 228m/1138m x 100% = 20.04%

See also Inksniffer's take on web metrics

Ode to the sub-editor

Sub-editors are a dying breed thanks to the internet. There are all sorts of reasons given but the real reasons are these:

• Money
• Money
• erm... money

The truth is that the web is causing many publishers to re-evaluate their processes and when they stop to think about it, they cannot work out why they ever had subs. They are forced to rethink production for new media but while they are at it, they think, let's save some money.

In case you need reminding, here is what a sub-editor is for:

• Reduces the chances of your being sued
• Stops your writers looking like fools (when they cannot spell accommodate or get the name right of the person they spent four hours interviewing)
• Removes the waffle and pretensions that afflict all writers
• Sells the story (so people actually want to read it)

The change of medium does not dilute any of these reasons. In fact, since it is a vastly more competitive arena for information, the last of these is more important than ever.

One spurious reason increasingly cited for doing away with subs is that idea that somehow they get in the way of the real-time, dynamic dialogue that can exist between journalist and reader on the web. In its finest hour, the conversational tone of the web creates astonishing tendrils of communication.

But in practice, mostly what it does is encourage some perfectly good writers to become waffley and self-obsessed.

So let's hear it for a return to pith rather than taking the . . .

The sound of writing

The secret of good writing is to listen. Philip Eales and Alan Whicker taught me this. Good writing has to sound good. Write something and read it back to yourself in a Whicker voice. If it sounds right then it generally reads well.

Of course, if you have no idea who Alan Whicker is, this approach may be problematic.

Philip Eales gave me the idea. When we were at school together he went around for some weeks imitating Whicker saying:
The gay cops of San Francisco. A world within a world. A community within a community. Where good is bad and bad is about as good as you're going to get.

I've no idea if Whicker ever actually said this (he did do a programme on the gay cops of San Francisco) but it has his cadence and the joy of repetition and balanced sentences. The point is that Whicker's writing had to sound good because his audience listened rather than read.



Here is how the approach can be used to improve (I hope) some copy:

Version 1
A quiet revolution is taking place in wireless that promises new operational and cost efficiencies for cellular base stations and handsets. Dubbed software defined radio (SDR), the development involves implementing radio functions in software. A simple enough technology trend, you may think, but with it comes significant ramifications for the wireless industry. And its biggest benefit is still to come: software defined radio is an important enabler of dynamic radio spectrum allocation that will benefit service providers and end users alike.

I like quiet revolution but it is kind of lost because the first sentence takes you down the garden path.

What about a full stop after wireless to give it more punch (you could even delete "in wireless" because it will probably be obvious from the context).

Could new operational and cost efficiencies be cheaper and easier?

Version 2:

A quiet revolution is taking place. The development, dubbed software defined radio (SDR), promises to prolong the life of cellular base stations while simplifying the design of smart phones. Implementing radio functions in software is a simple enough technology development, you may think. But with it comes significant industry ramifications. Indeed the biggest benefit is still to occur: SDR will help open up new spectrum once mobile operators' own exclusive bands become choked with data.

Now listen to the sound it makes. Try, for example, saying implementing radio functions in software is a simple enough technology development out loud.

Version 3:
A quiet revolution is taking place. Software defined radio (SDR) promises to prolong the life of cellular base stations while simplifying the design of smart phones. But the biggest benefit is yet to come. Mobile operators' own bands are fast becoming choked with data and SDR will help them open up new spectrum.

Short-long-short-long (like dancing) works quite well for flow. We could really do with another short at the end to tease people into starting the next par. Something like:
The challenge is getting everyone to agree.

The second sentence gives us an the opportunity for a balanced sentence of the type Whicker might use:
(SDR) promises to prolong the life of base stations and shorten the design-cycle of smart phones.

Version 4:
A quiet revolution is taking place. Software defined radio (SDR) promises to prolong the life of base stations and shorten the design-cycle of smart phones. But the biggest benefit is yet to come. Mobile operators' own bands are fast becoming choked with data and SDR will help them open up new spectrum. The challenge is getting everyone to agree.

Not quite the gay cops of San Francisco but getting there, I think. Many thanks to the anonymous donor of the original copy.