Journalist, editor, analyst and trainer on computing, government, climate and data
The UK uses surveillance cameras like a comfort blanket, with some care homes for the elderly planning to install them in bedrooms. Rather than arguing about security versus privacy, we should be more discriminating.
Originally published on Beacon. Continue reading “Britain’s CCTV cities: we need a clearer view”
This is a guest post for Paul Bradshaw’s Online Journalism Blog. I recently spoke to media students on Birmingham City University, where Paul leads the MA course in online journalism; this post is based on research for that talk.
While in the city I also visited the Library of Birmingham, covered here on Beacon.
The Columbia Review of Journalism recently reported that the Financial Times now has nearly twice as many digital subscribers as print ones, having added 99,000 online customers in 2013.
They pay significant amounts for access: the cheapest online subscription to the FT is £5.19 a week. A free registration process does allow access to 8 articles a month – but try to access a ninth and you have to pay.
The FT was earlier than most to charge online, but many publishers have followed suit. Only a few – such as The Times – lock up everything, but titles including the Telegraph, New York Times and Economist all use metering, allowing non-paying readers access to a limited number of articles before a subscription is required. They have been joined by increasing numbers of trade and local publications.
This isn’t just an option for established titles: as a freelance journalist I write for Beacon, a start-up used by more than 100 journalists in more than 30 countries to publish their reporting. It has “more than several thousand” subscribers after five months’ operation, co-founder Adrian Sanders told the New York Times recently.
Continue reading “Charging for journalism: crowdfunding, paywalls, metering and Beacon”
It’s an interesting read, and Mr Pariser – who among other things has been executive director of the online campaigning service MoveOn.org and is now co-founder of viral-with-a-purpose social media firm Upworthy– has civic-minded concerns about people becoming ignorant of hard news, particularly from abroad, as the likes of Google and Facebook serve up only what someone is likely to click on.
However, while it’s good that The Filter Bubble
My big journalism project this year was co-editing ‘Ring of steel’ for MATTER, on police use of ANPR, published in August. It is now available to read for free on Medium, where you can also read further commentary by me on the subject. In ‘Ring of steel’, writer James Bridle explored the subject widely, partly through drawing on the wealth of material released by Devon and Cornwall Police in its successful defence of secrecy over the location of its 45 automatic numberplate recognition cameras. The main points had first appeared in the Guardian news article I co-wrote in August 2012, but the MATTER article allowed the evidence to be explored fully. Continue reading “2013: ANPR, Scotland’s IT, NHS whistleblowers, ID cards… and Thatcher”
I’ve had two more features published by the Register. The first uses Freedom of Information and open data to analyse which IT suppliers earn what from government, while the second provides a guide to what to expect if you’re exiting, courtesy of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, better known as TUPE. Continue reading “How much big firms get from government; what to do if you’re TUPE-ed”
