Out With A Bang

Tomorrow I’m leaving my little Norfolk fastness and making this week’s foray into the Big Bad Smoke to attend this…

http://newsinnovationlondon.eventbrite.com/

Hosted by Martin Moore and the MediaStandardsTrust, it promises to be an interesting afternoon – not least for the fact that the words ‘media’, ’standards’ and ‘trust’ will be all the Twitter trending rage on the back of #murdochgate and the inevitable storm that is about to engulf News International.

Not to mention the PCC, the Metropolitan Police, David Cameron et al…

For a House of Commons that has itself just been put through the media mincer over the whole issue of MPs’ expenses, to be handed the chance to give at least certain sections of the media a good kicking back is heaven-sent.

As for the Media Standards Trust, you suspect Christmas has come rather earlier this year.

Martin and I first hooked up on the back of the 2008 Knight News Challenge where me in a MyLocalWriter.com/addiply guise joined Tim Hood of Yoosk fame and Paul Bradshaw of HelpMeInvestigate.com in the final 60-odd of that year’s 3,000-strong funding competition.

The fact that the prize-giving involved 48-hours in Vegas was, of course, neither here nor there.

In the end, all three of us were unsuccessful as Adrian Holovaty and his EveryBlock scooped the top prize, followed by our Martin and some bloke called Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

What they did was brilliant.

They started to offer an answer to the question that Andy Coulson – apparently – never asked.

‘Where, exactly Clive, did this story come from?’

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=73

Wittingly or not – and I suspect, given the nature of the gentlemen involved, it was more the former than the latter – Martin and Sir Tim banged a huge 2009 nail on the head with their winning entry in the 2008 Knight News Challenge.

Because they went for accountability, for transparency, for honesty, for openness… all the qualities that have been so lacking in the big banks (RBS, etc…), in big Government (MPs expenses…) and now big media (#murdochgate…)

They set out to develop a piece of thinking that was perfectly in tune with what shadow Tory minister Jeremy Hunt MP himself christened ‘collaborative individualism’ at RebootBritain on Monday…

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=307

… in the way that new technology has caught age-old ‘hierarchical institutions’ with their proverbial pants down; be it the House of Commons and moat cleaning or, indeed, News International and this apparent £700,000, ’shut-the-f*ck-up’ payment to PFA chief Gordon Taylor.

And now both individual institutions are being held to collaborative account; demands for transparency ringing ever louder in their ears.

For whilst the new technology that is the mobile phone – and the eavesdropping kit that now comes in tow – might have led to all sorts of goodies being unveiled, the fact remains that that same new technology could come back to haunt all concerned; that much of the evidence likely to flow forth over the next weeks and months will be of the digital record variety… and, therefore, open to scrutiny by the masses.

[As if by magic... or rather a timely Twitter from @MickFealty http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/pressreleases/2009/ico_statement_blagging_090709.pdf Names, addresses, times, places... Go help yourself, folks...]

We can all collaborate together in ensuring that an individual’s right to privacy is upheld and those that flout that basic human right in the quest for nothing more by way of ‘public interest’ than greater newspaper sales are duly held to account.

All of which underpins what Martin and Sir Tim were driving at; to empower not only Andy Coulson to find out where this story came from, but more importantly the rest of us…. give us the origin, the authenticity, the quote and ’source’ spring from which this story flowed.

Missing out on that Knight News funding in 2008 as we doffed our caps in Sir Tim’s direction did, of course, have one or two side-effects.

In our sudden need to shout about what we were up to, so this blog was born; a month later and via OutWithABang, we were introducing Addiply to the world. Or rather the very select band of brothers who had then stumbled across these musings.

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=58

Some 14 months later and addiply last night kicked into life on www.thelichfieldblog.co.uk – the aim, initially at least, to do no more than cover their monthly hosting costs.

At its heart -hopefully – lies the same kind of thinking that underpins where Martin and Sir Tim hope to go with their Knight funding in tow; to be open, honest, transparent and accountable.

Here’s our current list of publishers and here’s their numbers.

http://www.addiply.com/index.php?option=com_addiply&Itemid=69

Four big words in this Digital Age of ours… open, honest, transparent and accountable.

As everyone from Fred The Shred, to the Speaker of the House of Commons to Les Hinton and his ultimate lord and master beyond are fast discovering…

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