The media love libraries – let’s make the most of it!

Don't let the opportunity go to waste! Image c/o Robbt on Flickr

One of the fascinating aspects of my involvement in Voices for the Library has been working with Lauren and the rest of the team in developing strong links with the media (both local and national).  As time has passed, I think we have all realised that there are a lot of media types who have a great deal of affection for libraries.  Certainly, my interactions with various journalists have been very positive.  Every single one has been supportive and keen to find out more about the situation facing public libraries across the country.  Ok, sometimes these interactions do not always necessarily lead to stories in the national press or on the TV, but it isn’t always about getting a story out there (much as we would like it to be so), sometimes it is simply about building a relationship – the importance of this for the campaign cannot be underestimated.

I have been lucky so far in that a few things I have brought to the attention of various media outlets have been picked up (like my financial analysis of the libraries vs internet debate – picked up by The Guardian).  However, most stuff tends to go nowhere – again, whilst this can be frustrating, it is worth remembering that not everything can be published (space is finite after all) and the creation of relationships will lead to greater benefits in the long run.  That said, sometimes you push something, a story about a particularly authority or campaign, and it can pay off in spectacular fashion.

Let me give you an example a little while ago I was invited to a lunch hosted by a certain satirical magazine.  The lunch provides an opportunity for politicians, newspaper columnists and journalists to network and share stories.  I have already witnessed how one news story seemed to grow and flourish in the days and weeks after the lunch (the so-called ‘super injunctions’).  I perhaps didn’t truly appreciate it at the time, but they are great opportunities to develop relationships and plant seeds.

One of the people I got talking to was (I later discovered) an important figure in national broadcast news.  We talked extensively about the situation facing public libraries, the closures and their potential impact on local communities.  Again, as mentioned above, there was a great deal of sympathy in terms of the plight of public libraries, not least in terms of the impact on those that use them.

After a long and engaging conversation, I was handed their business card and told to get in touch if anything of interest crops up in the future.  Realising the importance of gaining such a key contact in the media, I resolved to make use of this new avenue wisely and sparingly.  There was no point sending them every story that came along.  It was important to choose a story that would be significant and highly newsworthy.  And then a story emerged that fitted the bill perfectly.

Johanna Anderson and the Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries have been fighting a long and difficult battle with their local council over the future of public libraries.  Despite garnering widespread local support, the campaign was continuing to face an uphill struggle in convincing the local council that their proposed cuts to libraries should be rolled back.  The disregard shown by the council leader for his electorate was breathtaking.  Contempt for both library campaigners and library users seemed to be his default position.  In such circumstances it is hard to imagine how Jo and FoGL had the strength to continue to take on the council.  Many would have conceded defeat and walked away.

But there then emerged a glimmer of hope for library users in Gloucestershire.  The High Court had issued an injunction (pending a hearing earlier this month) against Gloucestershire County Council calling a halt to their proposals for the future of the library service in the county.  This was unprecedented.  It was also just the story I had been waiting for.  Not only was this about library closures, but the legal aspect made for an added dimension to the story, one that may have implications for other such battles against both central and local government cuts.  This story had scope for expansion and, therefore, had the potential for coverage by a national broadcaster.  So, I tipped them off and, with the help of Jo, put them in touch with someone involved in the local campaign.  This was the result:

I was chuffed to bits that this kind of coverage had been secured.  It demonstrated to me, once again, that there is a willingness to engage on the library closure issue and, furthermore, that if a particular story can be shown to have wider implications, it is more than likely to gain exposure.  It is no good just trying to engage with the media simply about libraries, if you can link it into something bigger you have more chance for success.

I guess this is the biggest lesson I have learnt since getting involved in Voices for the Library.  It has taken just under a year to learn it, but I have come to realise that it is important to think strategically about all interactions with the media.  It is easy (and very tempting) to just go ahead and send everything that crops up, no matter their significance.  It is, however, far more sensible to wait for that significant story to crop up and, when the time is right, hit ‘send’.  It’s a lesson I am still learning (there are still more ‘misses’ than ‘hits’) but it is without doubt the most important lesson I have learnt from my involvement in Voices for the Library.  Well, that and learning what can be achieved when you work with a bunch of passionate, talented people who give everything to keep this campaign running.  I really am very lucky indeed.

* Incidentally, permission was granted for a High Court judicial review of GCC’s library cuts.  Hopefully this will lead to bigger and better good news for the dedicated and hard-working campaigners in Gloucestershire.

Injunctions and the restriction of information

Injunctions - unfairly restricting the flow of information?

There has obviously been a lot of chatter in the past few days in the light of the recent revelations regarding a certain well-known personality (I’m not going to name names given that the injunction is still in place).  Unfortunately, due to the nature of the injunction that is in place, the main focus of the discussion has been the kind of prurient revelations that are manna from heaven for the tabloid press.  Their rabid attempts to reveal the name of the individual involved have caused many to question any attempt to break an injunction.  However, not all injunctions are in place to protect celebrities from the tabloid press.

Previous to the recent revelations, John Hemming MP had revealed to the House of Commons a case that was particularly disturbing.  From The Telegraph:

Politicians criticised the injunctions as an “affront to democracy” after John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, disclosed details of one on the floor of the Commons last week.

…

The hyper-injunction goes a step further. Mr Hemming told the Commons that the order, which was obtained at the High Court in 2006, prevents an individual from saying that paint used in water tanks on passenger ships could break down and release potentially toxic chemicals.

It specifically bars the person from discussing the case with “members of Parliament, journalists and lawyers”, along with the US coastguard and any ship owners, and also forbids any speculation linking chemicals in the paint with the illness of any individuals.

It says: “The defendant must not communicate to the third parties any speculation that the illness of any individual (including without limitation the collapse of H) was, has been or will be brought out by the chemical composition or the chemicals present in the coating of the potable water tanks.”

This is a particularly disturbing case.  To prevent an individual from even discussing a case with his MP is a gross violation of their democratic rights.  The ability of a corporation to restrict this information is also deeply troubling.  I am not going to pass judgement on the nature of the allegations (obviously), but the individual concerned should at least have the right to discuss the action that has been taken against them with their MP.  One wonders how many other such injunctions have been issued.

It is a shame that one sexual scandal has overshadowed the issue of injunctions.  Their use isn’t always restricted to personal matters between two individuals, they’re also utilised to stop the public gaining access to information which is very much in their interest (a case of public interest rather than in the interest of the public).  As someone working in the information field, any restriction on the flow of information is troubling and the aforementioned case especially so.  Of course, the woolly legislation around injunctions and privacy needs to be resolved by the judiciary and politicians as soon as possible.  And resolved in the best interests of the general public, not the media or wealthy individuals who can afford to take out such injunctions.

It is a shame that it was the tabloid baiting injunction that was revealed to the public, but it is entirely understandable why.  I don’t know if it was foremost in Hemming’s mind (I think events involving the attempts to gag Twitter users and imprison a journalist were possibly uppermost) but you can be assured that if the individual referred to in the Telegraph’s piece was revealed, there would barely be a murmur in the media.  It is a rather sad indictment of our celebrity obsessed culture that the only way to ensure publicity of such injunctions was to refer to the case of a renowned sportsman rather than that of a potential public health issue.

Whatever the motive and whatever the reasoning, the flow of information that is genuinely in the public interest should be protected at all costs.   This is the issue that should be central to the debate, not the private lives of so-called ‘celebrities’.

The Media and the Public Library Narrative

So that’s that then. The narrative has been set – libraries are in decline. Never mind that the argument has been framed around a deeply flawed survey that in no way reflects actual library usage. Never mind that loans were actually up last year. Never mind the evidence that library use is changing. It’s just a blessed relief that there were so many voices out there prepared to speak up for the service and underline their importance to society. Not only the wonderful Phil Bradley and brilliantly passionate Lauren Smith, but also a range of people young and old who rely on their local library service to deliver services that meet their needs. Indeed it was a pleasure to hear many older users accepting that there is a place for computers in libraries and that the library service has to adapt. If only the narrative of ‘libraries in decline’ more accurately reflected the views of the communities that are so passionate about their service.

One of the critical factors behind this narrative is the belief that libraries are about books on shelves, nothing else. Not housebound borrowers, not information access, not online services, not local studies materials….in short only a small proportion of the service is worthy of discussion. That this has been led by campaigners who fail to even question the report, makes this even more depressing. No wonder pubs and supermarkets are suggested as alternatives…if it’s just about issuing book stock why bother with expertise in other areas? Clearly that is a waste of resources that can be ploughed into more book stock. More book stock in a commercial environment, subject to the whims and, dare I say, censorship policies stock selection of corporations. It could make a grown man weep.

The question is, what to do next. Those who follow me on Twitter know that I am quite keen on setting up a blog that can act as a rival (if you want to call it that) to the Good Library Blog – something that can share positive experiences of libraries, campaigns across the UK, examples of the things libraries do aside from book provision all the stuff that is missing from the debate as framed by the usual suspects. Ideally it would be a place where librarians, library staff, users and advocates can blog about the great things libraries do and highlight threats to the service (such as closures etc). This is a lot for one person to take on though, so I’d really appreciate ideas, suggestions, blog titles, hosting options, design ideas and volunteers to help set up and administer. Maybe I’ve not thought this through and I won’t have the time to commit as much as I’d like, but it’s got to be worth a try right? I’d really appreciate any thoughts/suggestions on this below. It would be great to take this forward and challenge the so-called ‘decline’ that is currently being propagated.

Web 2.0 Technologies and the Media

As a long-time blogger, I have been a great believer in the positive impact they can have on the news narrative.  I have always believed that they can be a force for good, drawing people’s attention to the stories that the mainstream media overlooks. The growth of the blogging community could (finally) ensure that the stories that are normally ignored by the mainstream media would finally get the exposure they deserve.  They also had the potential to create stories in a new and exciting way.  In my opinion, blogs had great promise as providing a distinct news narrative from the mainstream media.  At least, that was my opinion, until the events of the past couple of weeks.

The revelations concerning the proposed establishment of a website designed to smear opposition politicians grabbed a great many of the headlines recently.  What made this story unique was that a well known blogger (Paul Staines, otherwise known as ‘Guido Fawkes’) was key to these revelations getting into the public domain.  Cue much excitement in the media about blogs coming of age and actually dictating the news agenda.  But was this such a great revelation?  Was there actually any real difference between these revelations and countless other similar such revelations in the tabloid press over the past twenty years?  Not really.  The blog at the centre of the revelations has hardly caused a revolution in terms of the style of reporting.  It has merely repeated tactics that have been used by the tabloid press for sometime.  The fact that it was on a blog rather than in the print media was the only thing particularly unique about the story. The real story over the past few weeks has been much more interesting than that.

When Ian Tomlinson died during the G20 protests, there was initially very little coverage of the incident in the mainstream press.  When it was mentioned, it was usually framed to imply that protesters had been the main cause of his subsequent death.  The central accusation that they had thrown bottles at members of the emergency services who were trying to resuscitate him. The story was sidelined by most of the media and little or no attempt was made to investigate the incident any further.  The version of events that was presented to the media was taken to be fair and accurate representation of events on that day, and there appeared no need to investigate the story further.  This was pretty much reflective of how the mainstream media have operated in recent years.  Investigative journalism is time consuming and, therefore, expensive.  In these times of increased competition, costs need to be kept low to ensure that the organisation is competitive.  Consequently, investigative journalism is a rare feature of the modern media (although obviously it still happens from time to time).  This is not a good thing for democracy as a whole.  As one professor in journalism has put it:

Investigative journalism matters because of its many contributions to democratic governance. Its role can be understood in keeping with the Fourth Estate model of the press. According to this model, the press should make government accountable by publishing information about matters of public interest even if such information reveals abuses or crimes perpetrated by those in authority. From this perspective, investigative reporting is one of the most important contributions that the press makes to democracy. It is linked to the logic of checks and balances in democratic systems. It provides a valuable mechanism for monitoring the performance of democratic institutions as they are most broadly defined to include governmental bodies, civic organizations and publicly held corporations.

The decline in investigative journalism means a decline in quality information ‘about matters of public interest’ – a concern for anybody working in the information sector.

Despite the failure of the mainstream media in investigating the incident in question, the story did still develop over the following weeks. However, this was not due to traditional investigative journalism techniques. Whereas the media had failed to fully investigate the death of Mr Tomlinson, the public and modern technology stepped in. Shortly after the initial reports had emerged, a witness had approached The Guardian with filmed footage of what appeared to be an assault on Mr Tomlinson by a police officer shortly before he died. Needless to say, this caused a media storm and suddenly questions were being asked when before a blind eye was turned. Over subsequent days, more evidence began to emerge about what really happened during the G20 protests. Photos such as this one were posted on Flickr. Video footage emerged on YouTube that also suggested that the police were less than even-handed in their dealings with protesters. Suddenly, the media agenda was being led by developments on web 2.0 technologies. Ordinary citizens armed with cameras were able to do what journalists had failed to achieve. This was radically different to anything that had happened before. This was providing a new, distinctive narrative separate from that pursued by the mainstream media. Whereas ‘Guido Fawkes’ was essentially repeating the tactics of many a red-top over the years, this was something new and different and highlighted the potential that sites such as FlickR and YouTube in disseminating information.

The funny thing is that, over the past few years, blogs and the mainstream media have become ever closer. The media mimic some aspects of blogs in order to maintain an audience (see the number of articles that now have comment threads) and blogs (such as Guido Fawkes) have mimicked typical tabloid tactics. In the near future, you will barely be able to distinguish between the high-profile blogs and the mainstream media, such will be the similarities between the two. The consequence of this (particularly in terms of decreasing funds in the mainstream press) is a distinct decline in the standard of information in the public domain. This would, in turn, lead to an ill-informed electorate without the information required to exercise their democratic rights. It could just be that web 2.0 technologies will become an even more important informational tool than was first thought.

Twitter….the new Facebook?

It would certainly appear that Twitter is fast becoming the next big thing in the world of social networking.  According to a number of reports today, traffic to Twitter has increased by an amazing 974% in the past year.  According to the director of research for Hitwise, the company that has produced these figures, Twitter was

 

…one of the fastest growing websites in the UK last year, and it shows no signs of slowing down.  If anything, the service is even more popular than our numbers imply, as we are only measuring traffic to the main Twitter website.

If the people accessing their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third party applications (such as Twitterrific, Twitterfeed and Tweetdeck) were included, the numbers could be even higher. Many people seem to find Twitter addictive: the average amount of time that people spend on Twitter.com has more than trebled from less than 10 minutes a year ago to half an hour now.

Pretty impressive stuff.  But what is Twitter and why is it being touted as the next big thing?

Twitter is essentially a service that allows account holders to update their status rather like the status section on Facebook.   Using the question “What are you doing?” as a starting point, Twitter allows users to do exactly that in 140 characters.  As well as updating your status, you can follow other people’s updates and read a feed of all the status updates of the people that you follow.  Now, that may seem that it would be useful only for pointless  meanderings and useless chitter-chatter, but it is also a useful tool for information sharing.  Instead of sending emails to a number of different people, you can just post to your Twitter page and save an awful lot of hassle.  Furthermore, as updates can be sent from your mobile phone by SMS, you don’t even have to access the internet to share info with your followers.

 

My Twitter Profile

 

 

Twitter has proven to be an extremely useful tool of late.  Take the recent terrorist attack in Mumbai.  During the attack, people caught up in the events were able to ‘tweet’ (the term used for updating Twitter) the events that were going on around them when the media was trying desperately to grapple with the events as they happened.  The same was true of the recent plane crash in New York.  Local observers were able to tweet before the media could even get on scene.  Although it lacks the authority of the media, these two events have demonstrated the strengths of Twitter as an information sharing service.

Personally, I have also found tweeting quite useful.  Recently my wife flew out to Spain to be with her family and I was left home alone.  During the course of that week, I had a lucky escape as there was a series of major road accidents on the way to work and I was held up for a couple of hours.  As I could just send a text from my phone, I could let my wife know via my Twitter page that I was ok (cheaper than texting Spain!).  It also came in handy when I was due to fly out to meet up with her.  The last time we went to Spain at this time of year, there were massive delays and we were stuck at Heathrow for hours.  The ability to tweet would have been very useful for keeping her family up-to-date with the latest regarding departures and arrivals.  Luckily it wasn’t so problematic this time, but at least I could keep her informed.

But Titter can also be useful from a business perspective.  It can help bring the business and their customers closer together.  It could be particularly useful in the library field as it would be easy for the library to update ‘followers’ on what is going on in their local library in terms of events etc.  It also enables users to post questions that can be answered via a tweet reply (using @username in the status window) and can also be used to post links to a blog or other useful resource (although it is necessary to shorten the address to a Tiny URL).

Of course, Twitter will also be used for bog standard pointless ‘twitterings’ and if that isn’t your bag, you might find it irritating, but you don’t have to follow people if they do have a habit of posting annoying updates.  If you are fascinated by celebrity, it might well be right up your street.  For example, I am currently following Stephen Fry, Graham Linehan (of Father Ted, IT Crowd fame) and Jonathan Ross (not because I am obsessed with celebrity, they are just interesting).  In fact, I even managed to have a short tweet conversation with Jonathan Ross about ebooks (he has a Kindle and a Sony Reader apparently).  So, if you are interested in celebrity, telling everyone what you are up to, or interested in sharing information, Twitter is certainly a very useful tool.

However, it does have some limitations.  It would be useful if you could tweet to a group rather than an individual or everyone.  That could make it much easier for those that wish to tweet for business and pleasure.  The other problem at the moment, certainly for me, is that there are still a lot of people who have not brought themselves to get an account.  Out of all my friends in my email address book, I am the only one with a Twitter account – which makes it pretty dull at the moment!  However, I am convinced that Twitter has a lot of potential and, alongside ebooks, could just be one of the big things for 2009.

If you want a more comprehensive explanation of Twitter, I found this YouTube video that explains all about it and how it can be used in the workplace (be warned it is over an hour long…..the first 5-10 minutes should be enough to explain what it’s all about)