S**tposting: Facebook's anarchic meme playgrounds

The internet is, essentially, a horrible place. The last great frontier of humanity - the deeps of the ocean, of space, of other worlds and dimensions can all be traversed - and probably will - by highly trained professionals.Conversely, the internet can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection and requires no training at all. It's all but ungovernable, with only the strangest of government legislation, like the Investigatory Powers bill, that will permit the Security Service to flick though your sexts in the name of protecting freedom. It's a churning well of bizarre cultural mashups, beyond-the-curve trends, sexual disinformation, unfiltered violence and microtransaction mobile games.

The bizarre meme-size mashups of the Left.

And of course, the memes. The often surreal graphical snapshots that convey an often extreme concept in a crudely enhanced manner. They were suddenly potent weapons deployed in the high level political skirmishes of 16-17, a conduit from the crazed fringes of the internet right to the heart of mainstream culture. We're suddenly up to our shoulders in incomprehensible mutated comedy, a world where the Right Honorable Jacob William Rees-Mogg, the stereotypical Home Counties Tory's stereotypical Home Counties Tory, has his own #Moggmentum, a meme-producing teen online machine.

It is Facebook, ironically enough, that is the great incubator for this insanity. Zuckerberg's advertising hothouse, where your parents learn about emojis and share incoherent hatred from MailOnline and the Daily Express, doesn't immediately strike you as the oven for half-baked political ideology masquerading as a poorly-drawn smirking frog. But it's that huge audience set up with sharing tools that enables chain-reaction content to launch itself halfway around the world, whilst 4chan squats solitary at the bottom of the barrel and Reddit is left eating its own tail. Even Twitter, at times feeling like a tap on an ocean of ill-informed and badly-spelled hatred, still has some internal braking system, its very architecture allowing forces to marshal rapidly and as a group boost a signal or beat down a message.

Not so with Facebook, the central nervous system of the 'normies', the vast crowd of humanity for whom life isn't actually a quest for OC and screaming at strangers in another country at four in the morning. Yet it is so very easy to fall into that world, and nowhere are the barriers between one reality and the next thinner than in Shitposting groups.

There's one for every conceivable entertainment project, from Star Wars Sithposting to The Office (US) to America's first family, The Simpsons. To step into one is to enter a crass and crude hall of mirrors, with every reflection an incomprehensible distortion of some vaguely familiar joke. Memes whirl, collide, mutate and recycle in a never-ending merry-go-round with updates several times an hour, constantly as members from around the world log on to post updates, bicker, insult, fight, block and post memes at each other. Rock Bottom is another Simpsons group and they have a contentious relationship with their bigger brother - users are accused of 'spies', battle lines are drawn, and the ban hammer often descends from the heavens.

This refers to admins in Rock Bottom.

Who indeed would play ringmaster in one of these insane circuses of awkward adolescent amusement? The Admins in shitposting fall into one of two groups I feel, silent masterminds who either police their fiefdoms with draconian severity... or public spectacles who become one with the meme machine, the strangest of all mutations in a world where comedy is measured by the obscurity and subsequent random alterations a joke, character, scene or phrase can go through.

They no longer make the memes, they are the memes. With hundreds of thousands of fans packing out each and every community this weird wave continues to rise and may never crest, for as long as Facebook - with its own inability to   police itself properly - allows them their voice, they will continue to shrill at the top of their surreal voices. This is the generation that has suddenly turned out in droves for the latest general election, this is the generation that will start setting the political agenda, and this is the generation that communicates every concept through a filter - an instagram filter - of chaotic comedy.

A Storm in a Puddle: #DrummondPuddleWatch

It's spontaneity, the elusive spark of creation that fires an insane idea right around the world, leaving professional communications and marketing professionals gnashing their teeth and turning green in envy.
So it was with #DrummondPuddleWatch, where a Newcastle-based media strategy company decided to livestream the efforts of commuters to navigate a large puddle outside their offices.

The internet latched on with all its explosive and unpredictable enthusiasm. By the time twenty thousand people were streaming the feed through Periscope, it attracted the attention of the press and social media.
Between them, they magnified the experience - more and more people signed in to see what the deal was. Chain reaction, triggering ever more social media posts exclaiming surprise and confusion (like shock and awe, but less dangerous), ever more media coverage, and ever more visitors to the feed.

I have a few theories about the success of the Drummond Puddle. I think I spoke to the intrinsic nature of the British, an entire nation fixated on our temperamental weather system, especially after the rigorous storms and destructive flooding recently.

Note also the popularity of memes when snowfall disrupts the British transport system so effectively each time; if any nation on the world can cope with heavy rainfall, surely it should be Britain!

Ultimately, it typifies that British stereotype of reservation, fussiness, our passion for the passionless. "So British!" came the cry again and again, across every social media channel as they observed our endless battle with the slightly annoying elements of a few more inches extra rain.

#DrummondPuddleWatch is the most British thing to have ever happened on the internet.

— Dean Burnett (@garwboy) January 6, 2016

The company at the heart of it all, Drummond Central, insisted to the world's media they weren't in fact staging a massive PR coup. I believe them - they were coy via their own social media channels, retweeting the best bits only.
Not so every other major band, latching onto the passing coattails and ultimately dragging the Emperor's New Clothes down in the muddy puddles. Mashable posted a great digest of some shameless cashing in from huge brands that, many claim, were second only to the spambots for ruining a good hashtag!

Yet that is their job - or, more accurately, their job is to somehow anticipate these kind of phenomena and if possible co-opt them for their clients. That can be the ultimate kiss of death to something that thrives on spontaneity - remember flash mobs? Before they were used in cringe-inducing adverts set in train stations?

There was no future in the Drummond Puddle of course. Well, I mean, it's still there and probably will be for some time, based on the forecasts. But the madness, the inmates running the asylum, the whole social media furore had to pass, like a storm in a muddy puddle. I was lucky enough to stop by and see the triumphant last minutes.

It's all over. @drummondcentral just came out of offices to film the puddle and say goodbye #DrummondPuddleWatch pic.twitter.com/xdsNuqGBUD

— Tim Hood (@thehoodedhack) January 6, 2016

Afterwards, a Drummond Central employee hastily scraped some water into a bottle. "You aren't going to put it on eBay are you?" I asked wonderingly. "No," he laughed. "Just a memento from the day we broke the Internet!"

Well, Newcastle's insufficient drainage did, for a few hours anyway, achieve second-highest worldwide trending topic on Twitter and level pegging with the gleaming buttocks of a Kardashian. You can't break the internet with content like this, of course. It's the fuel the internet needs to grow, baffle, amuse, entertain and - ultimately - to advertise.

Sir Terry Pratchett - Professional and Personal Grief

My plan had been to write about a recent project launch I helped with the media on, which has some painful bearing on this article.
It kept sliding as these things do - and then was utterly derailed by today's heartbreaking, if not surprising, news that acclaimed writer Sir Terry Pratchett has passed away.

Pratchett started work as a journalist, then became a press officer before his books exploded in popularity - and now, we learn that the beloved author has finally succumbed to the encroaching, indefatigable and unusual variant of Alzheimer's Disease that plagued him.

A lot of Sir Terry's books are on my shelves, and I can appreciate the similarities now that I am a trained journalist, who works as a press officer - for the National Health Service's research department specifically tasked with looking into dementia and Alzheimer's Disease.

Just a few months ago, I was floating the idea that we might approach Sir Terry for some patronage, but he was already involved with the massively successful Dementia Friends campaign. Professionally, I regretted not being able to net such an influential and passionate patron. The awkward gangly boy who still lurks in my memory regretted missing what could have been a golden opportunity to meet a hero.

Even so, I do have a copy of The Last Continent, when the awkward gangly boy gangled up awkwardly to a tired man still dutifully signing books, a long, long time ago. The memories of that encounter are hazy - ironically enough - but the goose pimples and awe I recall feeling have remained indelibly marked on my mind. Here was someone who had shared the most valuable and incomparable gift of all with us - an entire world!

So, I hope Sir Terry will forgive me today, when I used the work account to mourn his passing - and mention how people could help contribute to research into dementia conditions like his. I hope he will appreciate how we can in some way benefit from what has happened, and work towards - hopefully - preventing such things in the future.

That was what the professional press officer did with Twitter, anyway. The gangly, awkward boy read the last tweets sent from Sir Terry's account, and grieved and mourned. 

These two very unalike halves are nevertheless utterly appropriate for discussing the Discworld. It's where wizards and heroes, dragons and elves, vampires, werewolves and Corporal Nobby Nobbs - all fantastical and unreal creatures - nevertheless had a beautifully human, down-to-Disc side, that allowed Sir Terry to spear our world with such acidic, satirical brilliance. That's the side of all of us that grieves the most. 

Much can be said about your work living on after you, that no person is gone until their creations are forgotten as well - but at the heart of it, the creator of those magical words, the living human responsible for an impossibly huge amount of work has gone.
Each of us felt a connection, through this vast and shared fantastical universe, and probably none more so than Neil Gaiman, an equally brilliant creator who collaborated frequently with Sir Terry. The tweet from his wife, multi-talented performer Amanda Palmer, struck a very deep chord with me.

woke up early, checked my Patreon feed & someone had posted the sad news about Terry Pratchett. went to bed, held neil, told him, held him.
— Amanda Palmer (@amandapalmer) March 12, 2015

My heart goes out to every person today who needs to be held - because we've lost more than just an author. A world-maker, a brilliant and funny and kind and wise man who invented an entire world that so many of us lived and breathed in.

Dylan Sharpe's Ironic Justice

Like many opposed to The Sun's Page Three feature, I was part of the mad rush to dance on its' supposed grave on Wednesday. Then, when the tabloid pulled the rag out from under us all, I was smarting and bitter at their - non-existent - duplicity!

@thehoodedhack When did they lie, Tim? Refused to confirm or deny, not the same thing. Wishful thinking did the rest.
— Richard Horsman (@leedsjourno) January 21, 2015

I was wrong, I'd committed a cardinal sin of journalism by making an assumption, a leap of faith without the evidence to back it up. Call it a valuable lesson, and hopefully all of the media commentators who made the same mistake will also come away wiser and more cynical.

What they didn't need is Dylan Sharpe's superior tweet to some of the most well-known journalists, as well as a sympathetic politician who sincerely hoped her campaign had made a difference.
Even Sharpe, in his apology - published on Buzzfeed oddly, not The Sun itself - acknowledges a pot-shot at Harriet Harman was unnecessary. "Guilty of gloating", he conceded.

In reality, he has done a fantastic job of Public Relations. Not only has The Sun pulled off one of the greatest bait-and-switch moves in journalism history, Sharpe has stoked the fires by taking to that great media battlefield and throwing oil on the inferno. There's no such thing as bad publicity!

I fully expect the entire operation has galvanized the legions of otherwise apathetic white van men, who feared for the loss of the morning totty, and whose brand loyalty can only improve with this swerve towards cancellation.
I expect the increased polarisation of discussion about Page Three online will keep The Sun riding high in press coverage and media discussion.
I believe that Sharpe's jibing swipe at his detractors eggs the argument on, creating a vortex of ardent conversation that this article itself is just one bubble of.

It all contributes to a major PR coup for Murdoch's flagship tabloid, back from the dead more than Vlad Dracula. What did interest me was Sharpe's closing wish...

So there it is. I continue to be told I’m a c*nt by people who know my name, my job and one tweet I sent. Guilty of gloating I most certainly am. Icarus has well and truly plummeted to earth. But I never meant to offend and I want to apologise to all those I @’ed in that tweet. It was supposed to be funny but clearly I misjudged that one. Now I see if Twitter can forgive as quickly as it can hate….

Really. A white male employee of a sexist British tabloid, asking for forgiveness from Twitter. If this isn't a delightfully ironic parallel to the entire concept of media self-regulation, of toothless press watchdogs forgiving one another their myriad sins, then I don't know what is.

I honestly can't tell if Sharpe is concealing another 'cheeky swipe' in his apology, fully acknowledging the hypocrisy of begging for mercy from Twitter for giving the MRAs and trolls exactly what they wanted. Compare his two days experience to what someone like Caroline Criado-Perez has endured for years, and try and accommodate how disingenuous it is.

Caroline's twitter feed included this retweet that I particularly like, and find very appropriate.

The Sun's PR Dylan Sharpe's 'apology' after death threats(?) http://t.co/Mon8rBVqJY reminds me of this pic.twitter.com/OJSIbpbPCI
— Sophie Wilkinson (@sophwilkinson) January 23, 2015

However, we must resist the urge to relish Sharpe's experience of mistreatment at the hands of Twitter. As tempting as it is for an evident supporter of patriarchy to suddenly be on the grim receiving end of that institution's crude online 'justice', we should not wish that punishment on anyone.

That punishment should not exist. Nobody, no-one at all should have to endure threats of harm, death, and violence online. We should condemn those who threaten Dylan Sharpe with all the fire and fervour we condemn those who threaten Criado-Perez, or Anita Sarkeesian, or Brianna Wu, or anyone else who has dared come out and state that women are treated as second-class citizens.

Nobody is a second-class citizen - and the last person who should be regarded as so is Dylan Sharpe. Even if it seems like he doesn't agree with the concept.

---

One closing thought - much of the debate about Page Three swirls around rendering the models as mere objects, objectification being a major plank of feminism, I believe. To counter that, Channel Four conducted a brilliant interview with author Germaine Greer, Harriet Harman MP, and model Chloe Goodman - you can watch it here.



I'd be curious to know what Nicole, 22 from Bournemouth thinks about the debate swirling around her decision - and it is hers - to appear on Page Three.

Me, My Selfie and the World

The Holy See's himself

It's a worldwide phenomenon that has catapulted many to the front page - from former unknowns (who is probably now missing that anonymity) to the President of the United States of America, the Prime Minister of Denmark, and a man with the paranoid delusion that he runs England. All are united in being condemned for partaking in what is increasingly seen as the adolescent masses' most narcissistic act yet - the Selfie.

Except that it isn't the new Moral Panic the papers are making it out to be - first prize, of course, must go to Dacre's gutter-press rabble rouser, the Daily Mail - headline:

A photo that makes me tremble a little for the future of the Free World

I'm not linking to the story, of course. Who wants to feed even more clicks to the biggest news website for the most despised newspaper? The point is it's a nothing story. Selfies are just 'MySpace' profile shots redone for the 21st century - and the only thing MySpace has been a danger to is Rupert Murdoch's accountants.

Neil almost always looks like this

Selfies are just annoying, facile pieces of jetsam that clog the Internet pipes, and only gets noticed by the mainstream media because it's jumped the generational gap and adults have started doing it.
Notably, famous people - because it fits so well with Twitter for building a one-to-one relationship with fans, like Lady Gaga persistently tweeting pictures of her in bed relaxing after a gig. Clearly we have different definitions of relaxing, but at least it keeps large sweaty alarming men called Barry from climbing her walls to peer in her window. Now he can do it safely from his parent's basement.

Except of course, I'm a humongous hypocrite. I nearly went into fan overload when cherished counter-culture author (who also wrote a naff Doctor Who episode but we'll let it slide) Neil Gaiman tweeted a selfie of him and supernaturally young-looking antipodean rock renegade Nick Cave. Between Gaiman's atypical 'Englishman abroad' look of adorkable perplexion and Cave's stock expression of pensive, universal malaise it's a beautiful and hilarious and unique moment for fans of both, of either, or of clever individuals in general.

Ground Control to Major Tim

...

The selfie, ironically, cuts two ways - for every smouldering expression that brightens your partner's mobile, there's a duck-faced pout that ends up shared on 4chan. It's a surprisingly persistent piece of internet nonsense, and I suppose it fills the blank spaces of the world's media that we'd only be wasting on more wars in the Middle East, more corruption in America's boardrooms, and more taxpayers money avalanching into ramshackle banks.

Because the real threat to the future is an annoying social-media trend...

Doctor 'Joan Smith'

I have a shameful admission. When a friend first directly asked me “How would you feel about a female Doctor?” my gut reaction was opposition. The Doctor has always been a fatherly – or grandfatherly – figure to the entire Universe, not to mention wide-eyed young me who devoured novels and the shows equally. He ranks amongst other worthy fantasy Elder Statesmen as Gandalf, Captain Picard and Sherlock Holmes, all wise old men.

But then I decided to approach it as I do most issues in the Whoniverse – by assessing the canon qualifying. With thanks to Neil Gaiman, it is now canon that Time Lords can regenerate across the genders. So, it can happen!

Mary Tamm as Romana I

Should it, then? I got to thinking about the Female of the Species – Time Ladies, as they can be distinctly known. The most distinctive to my mind is Romana, the Fourth Doctor’s assistant during the Key to Time quest – Series 16, 1978-79. She was introduced as more than just the ‘damsel in distress’ that has so plagued Doctor Who – Romana was a Time Lord like the Doctor, but unlike the Doctor had qualified much higher in her training! The unlikely pair eventually bonded when the Doctor’s greater experience and improvised successes melded with Romana’s book-smarts and relative stability...

Lalla Ward as Romana II

Sadly, Mary Tamm would decide that the scriptwriters still couldn’t extract themselves from the premise that the Doctor’s assistant was basically a plot device to be captured or threatened and du jour.
handed – a fact which is arguably correct. Lalla Ward would take over as the second incarnation of Romana, only to be equally menaced by the villain

After their exit, Romana would be redeemed in the novels and audios that comprise that forgiving crucible of characterization, the Extended Universe. Romana would become Lord President of Gallifrey, and have entire stories revolving around her adventures on the Doctor’s homeworld which crucially didn’t involve the fact that she was a woman!

Gallifrey, it seems, was very progressive. Thalia and Flavia were both politically powerful, holding seats on the High Council; Thalia was a Lord Chancellor during the Second Omega Crisis, and Flavia would later ascend to the position of Lord President herself after another of the Doctor’s reluctant adventures back home. The Sixth Doctor would be menaced by the determined Lady Inquisitor, even if the script did call for her to flounder a bit with what was going on – and also wear a novelty birdcage on her head.

Left to Right: Lord Chancellor Thalia, High Chancellor (and later Lord President) Thalia, and Inquisitor Darkel

Kate O'Mara as The Rani

In time as well, Colin Baker’s incarnation would succumb to the more deadly gender – the Rani, a renegade like himself and played with overly-exagerrated hateur by Kate O’Mara, one of TV’s most favoured villains.
Just like our hero, she stole a TARDIS and used her superior intellect to carve a life for herself out in the universe – only she was unencumbered by petty morality. Thankfully this would frequently be her undoing!

All of these successful Time Ladies prove irrevocably that a female Doctor would be no bad thing – the real risk, I feel, is from bad writing, just like it plagued Romana so long ago.
Moffat and his script writers have made a few lurches away from the confused, screaming assistant – how would they cope with the confident, intelligent, alien Doctor contained within a woman’s body?
Of an equal risk is if Moffat pulls one of his famous surprises and switches the Doctor’s gender merely to spice up the show, or as a sop to the growing chorus of complaint from the ‘right-on’ crowd.
The show suffers from weak writing frequently enough now, let alone hamstringing it with an ill-thought shark-jump.

Done right though – with someone like the stark Tilda Swinton who recently acted as an equally alien figure as David Bowie, or the sinister Fiona Shaughnessy who excelled in bleak Channel 4 drama Utopia – there is no reason the Doctor couldn’t join the ranks of so many other Time Ladies who have excelled within this traditional, patriarchal, even misogynistic institution. Gallifreyan society? No, I mean the BBC! What an irony!

* * * * * * *

NB: I have purposefully avoided references to Lady Iris Wildthyme, the infamous and popular star of her own audio series from the Big Finish team. I’ve never heard them and thus feel I can’t do her justice.

Suffice to say I’ve heard good things about a post-middle-age, vodka-loving good time girl who just might be a parallel universe lush version of the Doctor – fit that into your arguments how you like!

Katy Manning as the irrepressible Lady Irish Wildthyme

Has Leveson Logged Off?

The blogosphere is unsurprisingly swamped with responses to the publication of the report from the Leveson Inquiry - that Sword of Damocles suspended over the head of British media. 

Or, more accurately, the PRINT media. 'Dead Tree' journalism as it is routinely and scornfully referred to by disciples of the other mediums of communication - yes, even in this so-called 'multiplatform' age. The divides between television, internet, radio and broadcast journalism have never been more keenly felt than when the knives came out for the pariahs of Wapping and Fleet Street. 

Indeed, many commentators - such as the Wannabe Hacks - have observed Lord Justice Leveson's failure to include the quasi-press entities online in his recommendations to the government for media regulation. George Berridge of WH expressed his surprise thus:

True, the inquiry was set up to look at the print press but, Hell, when we’re spending £5m why not at least try and cover the web?

There are two responses to this. Firstly, web journalism - blogging, tweeting and social media reporting - was simply not on the stand. The catalyst for this Inquiry was the scandal exploding out of the News of the World, illuminating dodgy practices across News International even as the editors and executives desperately tried to bail out the dirty water.
At fault were some of the flagship titles of the British print media, which still remain the greatest source of news for consumers, which can influence government policy and practice (never the same thing), and which have become traditional institutions which command respect far and above the sort of work that, say, Guido Fawkes does. 

This isn't to condemn Paul Staines and his work, which certainly has its place. Indeed, he was a witness at the Inquiry, but his input was of a sideline commentator, describing the action as it happened on the field Leveson was judging - that of newspaper journalism. 
Staines wasn't being accused of hacking voicemails, blagging personal details, or any of the crimes laid at the Murdoch's door. So - for the moment, anyway - online journalism simply doesn't deserve the Leveson gunsights training on it. 

Secondly - the attitude of 'try and cover the web', with the remnants of the £5m spent on Leveson pursuing the world-famous publications which led to a 2,000 page report, indicates a dangerously optimistic opinion of success. Or a dangerously simplistic idea of how the internet actually works. 

To try and tackle the concept of legislating, even trying to control and corral the vast, chattering, rambling masses of online news producers, will be a herculean task. I cannot even imagine where to begin with such a task - but if it is to succeed, it will signal a landmark legal, cultural and social turning point in our online history. 

The internet is a vast, vital, lawless, perplexing, intimidating and invaluable place. Deciding how we proceed in this entirely new world is not something to be tacked on carelessly to the side of an equally crucial Inquiry into 'dead tree' journalism - which as we've established, is far from being woodchipped just yet. 

Let us concentrate for now on how best to regulate print media, how to put the old house in order, before we even consider the challenge of controlling the new.

The News They Want

A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. -- Attrib. to Mark Twain, but more possibly Charles Spurgeon

Everyone has that person on their Facebook feed who passes on 'news' stories that are full of hilarious unlikelihoods, righteous judgements or disturbing xenophobia. To any half-trained journalist, such writing should trigger warning signs all over. 

Howerer, these 'stories' - formerly the province of chain e-mail forwardings - are starting to slip through the undefended borders of traditional media. Of course, since the watershed of Nick Davies we all know that overworked journalists don't have the time to verify the stories they're printing. But in turn, they're validating hearsay and hoax by including these tall tales in print media outlets.

This picture turned up on my news feed recently, and immediately sent me across to Snopes, the definitive fact-checking website for all these urban legends - and journalists should immediately develop a weather eye for an article written in this style.

Indeed, this very story had been flagged before, and explains baldly that it is a mixture of truth and fiction, with the final - suggestive - paragraph, a later addition. Of course, it chimes with people because of its instant karmic conclusion to a heinous act.

Therein lies the greatest failing - that make-believe stories like this will continue to spread because, and I quote people whom I've told are passing on fake articles, "I'd like it to be true."

People are a willing audience, ready to be engaged. The onus is on the journalist to see this story, immediately reject it as false, and go out and interview the Marine involved, get the truth, and write an equally engaging story that doesn't tarnish the whole process of newsgathering.

I'll be the one person on your news feed who is posting links to Snopes articles, just trying to turn that tide.

Trust, The Media, and the Journalists Of Tomorrow

An interesting first lecture for the Level Five students, in the Journalism in Context module, looking at Media, Power and Democracy. I've wondered over the summer what effect the phone-hacking scandal and the Leveson Inquiry would have on the teaching of journalism to the next generation. Unfortunately, I failed to take into account problems that only exist within the lecture theatre.

When the lecturer polled a room of about fifty students on who was interested in 'politics', about three hands went up. The disconnect from the byzantine and brutal struggles of Britain's political elite has never felt stronger than in a room with the future gamekeepers of the so-called 'Fourth Estate'.

Failing to engage the 16-24 age gap is either a crucial error of disenfranchisement or a cynical masterstroke by a political process that strives to focus power in the hands of the few, ensuring power is inherited down controlled lines. That's a cynical topic for another blogpost. The concern here is how to not only instill in students a respect for, and interest in, the maneuverings of our administration - but also to educate them against the unethical practices employed in Murdoch-dominated newsrooms.

The lecture was given by Catherine O'Connor, who is Head of the Centre for Journalism as well as lecturing on several modules, an NCTJ Examiner and a former print journalist and deputy editor on regional papers. The introduction was a quote from Lionel Barber's address to the Fulbright programme which described the "conspiracy of silence" colluded in by Scotland Yard, Downing Street and Wapping. What followed was a discussion of the PR-centric motivations of each power group, and why they either broke the law - or ignored those who were. The group was shown how a culture of permissiveness can exist, especially in the quasi-dictatorial proprietorship of News International.

It became clear that we were being shown the exacting nature of the newsroom, and the vague ethical lines it operates along, in the 'safety' of the lecture hall. Here, the green hacks of tomorrow can be introduced to the mechanics of newsgathering, editing, and producing, without being exposed to the clearly toxic moral code that has permeated much of modern British journalism.

More than that, was a clear hope that we would be the journalists operating with true transparency and impartiality. The closing statement of our lecture was a quote from Jeff Jarvis' article in the Guardian where he suggested that "Now, at last, is our opportunity to reverse that flow and to recapture our public sphere."

We might not be the generation that fights this battle against the monolithic News Corp - discussion of the Leveson Inquiry and regulatory framework comes next - but we could be the first journalists of the potential brave new media world.

Twilitics, or, the Language of Online

Has anyone named the process of creating a portmanteau between 'twitter' and another word, usually a verb? I just combined twitter and politics - and apart from feeling like a new-wave Sun-esque headline hack, I am honestly curious as the number of twitter-appended terms begins to rise.

There's no real thrust to today's post, merely that I was motivated by one of those interminable hashtag games that do the rounds on Facebook - this time initiated by the suddenly dynamic author behind @TheIPaper, twitter account for trendy supplemental i.

They'd run an excellent story by Steve Richards - available online here - where he discusses the atmosphere of hatred surrounding modern British politics. His headline was superb, a 'loathing' of politicians, and the twitterati - apologies, this will end soon - soon ran with the idea of coming up with a collective noun for our political masters.

You can view the results, and even take part, by pointing yourself towards #politicianplurals although you are up against some stiff competition, if I do say so myself.

Fallibility is a Human Condition

Kudos this morning to Stefano Hatfield, Executive Editor of the i, the funky cheap alternative to the Indy. Unfortunately I missed whatever faux pas they'd committed to require his dry apology, but I was assured that they might have a bit of a laugh putting the paper together.

Less amusing was the small but significant error made on the opposite page. In their Space Travel: Final Countdown graphic, detailing the last voyage of the shuttle Discovery, they included several famous spacecraft images - with the starship Enterprise included as a bit of light-hearted fun.

I'm cynical enough now that this type of forced humour just makes my skin crawl. However, as a Trek fan (not Trekkie, nobody uses the term after the nineties except jaded hacks), I noticed the artist had used a schematic of the USS Enterprise-B. That ship, under the command of Captain John Harriman, was launched in 2293 - or 1994 for us terrestrial viewers. Referring to Captain Kirk's 1966 maiden voyage indicates you wish to refer to the original USS Enterprise, as seen thirty years previously.

I understand that hordes of readers will roll their eyes, dismissing this nitpicking as the mark of the socially-inept fan. Who cares about distinguishing between pictures of made-up ships? The answer is - editors. They dislike getting letters of complaints, snide twitter messages, or blogs by fans pointing out their staff's mistakes. More importantly, it indicates a fallibility amongst the workforce that they've already had to apologise for on the opposite page!

Let's dig a little deeper into this error, and try and determine its cause, shall we? The first stop is that limitless boon to overworked, underappreciated journalists the world over; Google, and more importantly, its image search. A quick search of the term Enterprise unsurprisingly brings up a wealth of pictures from Star Trek. The very first picture is of Kirk's 1960s Enterprise, a curvaceous object that looks like some Habitat lamp. It's correct - but for the graphic in question, we need a schematic. Scroll down to the third page, and a perfect image shows up.


Never mind the fact that it says Enterprise-B at the top of the picture. Just rip out what you need, splatter a few lines of prose, and knock out another article. Job done. Except that it's blatant confirmation of all the criticisms that can be levelled at journalists - the laziness, the overuse of cliche, the lack of fact-checking.

What is even more disappointing is the evident attitude behind it. "Who'll care about the accuracy, except some spotty Trekkie anoraks?" Quite apart from the fact that it's a shocking attitude to take towards accuracy of any kind, it's also deplorable to pass judgement on someone else's interests like that. I can't recall the last time a train carriage full of drunk Star Trek fans assaulted anyone or destroyed any property, or the last time a Trek actor got paid fifty million pounds to kick a ball around for ninety minutes, cop off with another actor's wife, and drag the whole sordid mess through the tabloids.

Our harried hack signs off with a sly smile, mentioning the "countless bad catchphrases. Beam me up, Scotty..." With a sigh that could be heard on Vulcan, planet-wide hordes of fans will tiredly point out the line was never spoken in Star Trek, ever. So, the journalist's famous list of 'countless bad catchphrases' comes down to one - that was incorrect. So, zero, then.

Back to the countless bad cliches, Independent.

"I just do the best I can." - Brigadier A G Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney, 1929-2011

The world of Doctor Who has been rocked by the passing of a stalwart actor from its continuity; Nicholas Courtney, the actor behind Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, died in the early hours of 23rd February, 2011.

Mr Courtney's lineage with Doctor Who is unparalleled. He originally appeared in 1965 with William Hartnell's first Doctor, albeit as Bret Vyon who was a minor character in The Dalek's Masterplan. However, this would not be the last time Courtney and Hartnell would work together on Doctor Who, and the First Doctor and the Brigadier would encounter each again.

The next appearence of Nicholas Courtney was portraying Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, of the Scots Guards. He leads the battered British Army, attempting to defend London from being conquered by the insiduous Intelligence, and its memorable Robotic Yeti. He finds himself inexorably helping the peculiar little man known as the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, in the episode Web of Fear (1968). Having saved London, Lethbridge-Stewart was promoted and given command of the British division of UNIT, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce that was dedicated to protecting Earth from extra-terrestrial threat. UNIT would become a key component of the next several series of Doctor Who, serving as a backdrop for the Earth-bound stories of the Third Doctor - and would leave a legacy that would be resurrected thirty years later to work with the Tenth Doctor.

UNIT was called on again to defend London - conveniently for budgetary requirements, representing all of Earth as well - from a Cyberman threat in The Invasion (1968). It would be taken seriously enough in Britain, and by the scripwriters, that the Taskforce - and Lethbridge-Stewart - would return again in 1970, in glorious technicolour, to meet the newly regenerated Third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee. In the legendarily terrifying Spearhead from Space (1970), display dummies come to life and smash through windows to murder shoppers in an orgy of destruction that alarmed infamous moral TV watchdog, Mary Whitehouse.

The Third Doctor was stranded on Earth by the Time Lords, and became UNIT's Scientific Advisor, helping defend the planet against various alien invasions. Ironically, the Doctor and the Brigadier had a strained relationship at this time - the Doctor was frustrated by being denied his freedom to roam time and space, and being stranded on the comparatively-primitive Earth.

The Brigadier knew his ally was reluctant to co-operate with UNIT, and in one memorable instance overruled the Doctor, during Doctor Who and the Silurians (1970) when he authorised the bombing of a nest of Silurian aliens beneath the Earth's surface - where the Doctor hoped for diplomacy, Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT knew the warlike aliens would never countenance peace.

The opportunity to work again with William Hartnell - albeit in a detached sense - arose again with filming on The Three Doctors (1972), the first 'multi-Doctor' story where the time travelling Doctor runs into his earlier - or later - incarnations!

Along with th e Second and Third Doctor, the Brigadier was abducted to an anti-matter universe by Omega, an insane Time Lord and one founder of the Doctor's very society. The day is saved amusingly by the Second Doctor and his musical recorder, and the Brigadier and company are returned to our universe, having appeared with all three previous incarnations of the famous Time Lord.

Of his personal favourites, Nicholas reportedly recalls another universe jumping story, that of Inferno (1970) in which the Third Doctor travels to a parallel universe where he encounteres an Orwellian, 1984-esque version of our Earth. The Lethbridge-Stewart of this world is a deliciously-evil fascist officer called the Brigade Leader, sporting an eyepatch and a surly attitude. Fittingly enough, this twisted man is gunned down by a subordinate, the previously genteel Liz Shaw, and the Doctor returns to our world with greater suspicion of his host...only to end the episode stranded in a rubbish tip, asking for UNIT assistance!

Unique amongst characters in Doctor Who, the Brigadier is present in the first episode with Jon Pertwee, as well as his regeneration into Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor in Robot (1974).

With characteristic unflappability, as the Third Doctor begins his regeneration on the floor of his UNIT lab, the Brigadier remarks "Here we go again", now an old hand at the whole Time Lord regeneration business. However, the manic Fourth Doctor is a universe away from his erudite predecessor, and his adventures take place increasingly away from Earth. First though, he saves the world from nuclear devastation - how topical! - by defeating the eponymous menace of the episode, and as the Brigadier arrives at the Doctor's lab to extend a formal invitation to Buckingham Palace, the TARDIS dematerialises, leaving the UNIT officer to observe that Her Majesty will have to endure the delay. Nonetheless, the Doctor's relationship with the monarchy is as entrenched as any other British tradition...

The Doctor would co-operate only briefly with Earth and UNIT, most memorably during Terror of the Zygons (1975) when the Brigadier co-ordinates a battle with the impressive Zygons, and the Doctor tackles the Loch Nes s Monster as it attacks London from the Thames. Quite a resume for a single episode! The Brigadier, as befits an officer of the Scots Guards, serves in a kilt but unfortunately visual evidence does not remain!

The Brigadier's next encounter with the Doctor comes some time after his regeneration into Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor. In Mawdryn Undead (1983) whilst careening helpless ly through time, the Doctor must try and understand why the Brigadier cannot remember him at all after 1977. When a Brigadier from '77 meets himself from '83, they touch hands in surprise, causing the fantastically-named Blinovitch Limitation Effect, and save the day for all involved. All this, whilst retired from UNIT and teaching A-Level mathematics? Not bad work, Lethbridge-Stewart!

More time-travelling for our long-suffering officer occurs in legendar y multi-Doctor story
The Five Doctors (1983). Whilst attending a UNIT reunion, the retired Brigadier meets the Second Doctor - just as they are abducted through time and space to the Doctor's homeworld of Gallifrey. There adventures are underfoot as every incarnation of the Doctor is pitted against the safari-park of enemies the Time Lords have amassed - although the sadly departed William Hartnell is replaced by Richard Hurndell portraying the First Doctor, and Fourth Doctor actor Tom Baker

declined with (reportedly) some ill-grace, a decision he is recorded to have regretted. The Brigadier, an experienced hand at the confusingly-arranged world of the Doctor, takes it all in his military stride and after shaking hands and speaking warmly with the Third Doctor he clearly misses, comments "Wonderful chap...all of them!", a line delivered so delightfully that it embodies all the admirable qualities of the Brigadier, and Courtney's excellent acting.

Placing the Brigadier's encounter with Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor is a little more difficult. Certainly, the only time they co-operated on screen was the deplorable Dimensions in Time (1993), produced for Children in Need, and featuring every doctor from the Third to the Seventh - being as it was made after Doctor Who's untimely demise in 1989. It's of debatable canonicity, and dismissive quality.
Instead, first encounters between the Sixth Doctor and the Brigadier would be described both in Gary Russell's Business Unusual (1997), one of the Past Doctor Adventures novels from BBC Books, and The Spectre of Lanyon Moor (2000) from the Big Finish Audios, who would count on both actors to produce many audio stories for years after the show concluded, and was rebooted in 2005.

Then, we moved into the closing days of Doctor Who, under the stewardship of Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor. The stage is set for a final battle between UNIT and Mordred's Knights of King Arthur's era (or the BBC and John Nathan-Turner's Doctor Who!) in Battlefield (1989). The Seventh Doctor calls for the retired Lethbridge-Stewart to abandon his gardening and wife Doris (mentioned previously in Planet of the Spiders, 1974) and come to take command of UNIT, which he does - with transport of the Doctor's own, his famous roadster Bessie.
The battle would be fierce, although the Doctor successfully foiled the evil sorceress Morgaine at every turn. However, she eventually unleashed the extra-dimensional beast known as the Destroyer on our universe, confident that the pacifist Doctor would find it difficult in the extreme to kill the Destroyer. In his stead was Earth's most dedicated defender, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - who knocked out the Doctor so he could confront the Destroyer without distraction! Armed only with a single revolver, filled with silver bullets, he single-handedly saves Earth...bringing down an entire castle on his head. A distraught Doctor is mourning the loss of his oldest friend, until the hardy soldier recovers and flippantly dismisses the Time Lord's fears.

Battlefield is one of my personal favourite episodes. There are so many touching moments between the Doctor and the Brigadier, such as the line "Ah. Women. Not really my field." to which the Doctor responds "Don't worry Brigadier, people will be shooting at you soon."
When he confronts Morgaine the Sorceress, she describes Lethbridge-Stewart as "Steeped in blood" and threatens to kill the Brigadier the next time she sees him. Which she does, in two thousand years, when Sara Kingdom (played by Jean Marsh, actress behind Morgaine) murders Agent Bret Vyon (Nicholas Courtney) in The Daleks Masterplan (1965)! It's that kind of circular story-telling and complex continuity that makes Classic Who absolutely engrossing...

That was the swansong for the Brigadier, the United Nations Taskforce and Doctor Who. Paul McGann's involvement as the Eighth Doctor in the abortive Doctor Who: The Enemy Within (1996) did not involve Nicholas Courtney. Nonetheless the Brigadier met the eighth incarnation of his old friend in the last Virgin New Adventure novel, Dying Days (1997) and the actors both co-operated on the Big Finish Audio Minuet in Hell (2001), sealing their relationship again. After the events of Dying Days, the Brigadier received a much-deserved promotion to General, but preferred to retain his older rank as a descriptive!

The Audios and Novels continued enthusiastically throughout this drought of televised Doctor Who adventures. By 2005 the show had been resurrected, with Christopher Eccleston portraying the Ninth Doctor. UNIT is mentioned and features in Aliens of London and World War Three (2005) but the Brigadier is not present. Probably for the best, as UNIT becomes even more cannon-fodder than it was in the show's previous incarnation.

The Brigadier was also not able to meet with David Tennant's Tenth Doctor in the show, but enthusiastic writers and artists had the two characters meet in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip The Warkeeper's Crown (2007).

By the following year, UNIT would return in force and in a brief, touching nod to the Brigadier's character, the Tenth Doctor muses out loud about the absence of his longest-serving human friend and ally in The Poison Sky (2008)...

Nicholas Courtney eventually returns to portray the Brigadier in 2008, but on Doctor Who spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures, ironically reuniting him with another 1970s staple of Who action, Sarah-Jane Smith as played by Elisabeth Sladen! With thanks to Steve Goble who blogged about the particular episode in question - Enemy of the Bane (2008) - and included two photos that make a beautiful comparison between the two eras, and reproduced below.

On a sadder note, according to writer and producer Russell T Davies' book, Courtney was considered a late alternative to having current companion Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) feature in the episode instead, but who could not be made available. Whatever the motivation, this inclusion of the Brigadier was hugely beneficial, hopefully inspiring the Sarah Jane Adventures' young audience to find out more about this elderly but vigorous ally of their hero, and discovering the hugely entertaining UNIT adventures of their parents generation.

We will never discover if the Brigadier had any place in the Eleventh Doctor's world, as played by Matt Smith. His sudden passing a few days ago robbed a whole generation of fans the chance to see him for the first time - or return, for those of us with longer generations.

Critics will note I do not make much mention of the 'extended universe' of Doctor Who, which features a much wider selection of encounters between the Brigadier and the Time Lord. Due to the immense scope of these novels, audio dramas, comics, computer games, fan stories, etctera, I would be overwhelmed immediately. Nor would I confidently talk about Nicholas Courtney as the actor, who was reportedly an enthusiastic attendee at the many conventions - as I was sadly never able to meet the man personally. I will leave such recollections to those with the delightful, funny and inspiring anecdotes of meeting him, which I have read with real enjoyment over the past few days.

Instead, I've taken us on a lengthy trawl back through one of the most astounding histories of a supporting character, in one of the most popular - perhaps the most definitive - science fiction television shows ever. The Brigadier's longevity and inarguable popularity stems from his relationship with the audience. We must never forget that the Doctor is a mysterious alien being, dedicated to saving our world from its many dangers and enemies, but ultimately a man of another time and space entirely.
Lethbridge-Stewart is the everyman we can connect with, a mortal human who risks his life even more than the Doctor, and saves the day time and again. It is his face and presence that has remained unchanging for forty years whilst the Doctor comes and goes - it is his unflappable, steadfast nature that always offsets the Doctor's madcap schemes, it is his virtue and dedication that often rescues our titular hero from whatever scrape he's landed himself in this week.

There is some debate about whether or not the Brigadier constitutes a 'companion' in the show's convoluted sense of continuity. When you consider the grounds for what constitutes a companion - and Amy Pond's cast-iron reinforcement of every negative stereotype that has applied to 'the Doctor's woman' - I would say the Brigadier is about as far from the category as you can get.

And rightly so, too. There have been, and will be, many companions. There has been, and never will be again, one Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.

With Thanks - The TARDIS Wiki, the Daily Mail website, the Internet Movie Database , and a whole host of blogs. No infringement intended, no hotlinking pre-meditated, please direct all queries to the Space-Time Telegraph!

Be My Guardian?

In a move that will probably become a landmark event for the Blogger's Age, an anonymous Guardian columnist is leaving the direction of his so-far wayward love life in the hands of his readers.

As a struggling Journalism undergraduate my first thought was admiration of the scale of originality being displayed to snag a regular column position. Credit me for my cold-eyed professionalism anyway.
My second thought was a bizarre stab of sympathy; I've suffered myself from an unsteady path through the world of relationships. I'm only just reconciled with my long-term girlfriend, and during the challenging times I usually went on bitter, sullen retreat from the whole world.

So perhaps our unlucky friend has decided to turn his personal woes into public entertainment; not a world removed from Endemol's Big Brother format, thankfully moribund after years of increasing reminders of the poor state of, well, poor Britain.

It's not clear if the author is a journalist; as a student hack, I am beaten regularly about the head with tales of level-headed objectivity and this seems to be a step beyond the docile diarised tales of staple column-writing.

Of greater concern is the responsibility the author is shedding for himself, his happiness and – of keener observation – his partner, the inevitably renamed 'Hayley'. Either he has told her of his plan to conduct his personal relations like a social experiment, which would be the death-knell of any relationship; or he hasn't, and she's labouring under misconceptions that will either lead to their parting, or her participating in a bizarre performance co-ordinated by silly names on the Guardian website. Neither outcome hints at future stability.

More importantly, we – and he – should be aware of the impact of the internet, like some omnipotent toddler, wielding a massive influence online with an immensely inverse sense of responsibility. Should the masses vote for a break with the erstwhile Haley, what guarantee the Author will even meet another woman in time for next week's thrilling instalment? Come the anarchists of the internet, his every chance at intimacy could be thwarted for the online equivalent of the child who pulls wings off flies.

Speaking of silly names, Twitter has yet to pass judgement on this journalistic experiment. Twitter, I rather grandiosely think, represents the high-water mark of intelligence on the web, currently unfathomable to the trolls and weirdos of Facebook or Youtube. Their commentary, and crucially their disclosure of involvement in the voting, will be a telling analysis of this tiny feat of social engineering. Of even more value to the social commentators of our age, how the fickle consumers of the web decide to dictate the author's private life will be a fascinating insight into the flexible morality of the digital age. I hope to comment on both as the scenario develops...

Stephen Fry on Doctor Who: A Measured Response

Stephen Fry commented on BBC Dramas like Merlin and Doctor Who at the Baftas yesterday, describing them as - in places - suffering from "infantilism".

The doctorwho Livejournal community is predictably going spare and I've not even approached Gallifrey Base, the leading DW forum online...mainly because it's the leading DW forum online and therefore a lightning rod for the insanity of the web coupled with the extremes of fandom DW inspires. I know, because Who makes me a little irrational myself.

The DW community here I watch with a kind of amused acceptance; I can't argue with the enthusiasm, passion, alarming obsession maybe, that these bloggers have for the show. They're predictably railing against Fry's comments - you can see the specific entry here - but I'm finding it so hard to take their furious denials seriously when it's couched amongst fresh-faced American tweens dressing up in the 500-odd Top Shop outfits Amy has worn so far and squeeing over their disturbing fanfic/slash between various characters and declaring their dreamy-eyed adolescent love for the New Series and its dreamboat lead stars...

That said, I am not so condescending as to ignore reality; DW is in reality a family show, and has been - more or less - since the beginning. The maturity has pitched up and down, often wildly crossing the path of Acceptable Taste (Mary Whitehouse's crusade, anyone?) but its main focus has been entertaining children, teenagers and young adults. I would argue that it still does that, remarkably effectively.
What has happened is the BBC and whoever is really pulling the strings, probably higher than Moffat, has begun to intentionally pitch the show in terms of writing and characterisation at a particular audience segment. Unfortunately, this is the segment of our population that still enjoys happy-slapping pensioners and has spent the past few years being criticised by business leaders for coming out of secondary education with precious few skills.
Conversely, I would argue that the popularity and influence of such characters as...Stephen Fry are leading a massive renaissance in overall intelligence and awareness of the young professional and older demographic. Turnout was up to 65% in the last election indicating a widespread resurgance of interest in the running of our country, and the debates people were having over the key issues were heartening.

So, there is a wide perception gap between the older and younger members of society; and for all the enthusiasm of mature collectors the real spending money on merchandising and the real viewing figures on RAJAR (the BBC's viewer-rating body) that make the target-chasing bureacratic Corporation so happy are coming from the youth. So the BBC will lean on Moffat, and he will lean on his script editors, who will slice and dice the fundamentally good scripts for Who into bitesize unchallening morsels for the thirteen-year-old viewer with the thirty-minute attention span and the disposable income that keeps the whole cycle turning.

Like one of the Doctor's plans, everyone has come out right. Stephen Fry is right, and Who scripts are shallower than they have been for decades. New Who diehards are right and it's an enjoyable family show beloved by millions. The BBC are right and their puppetmaster creative directions are paying bountiful dividends. Even I'm right, by thinking an old, hackeneyed, surreal British serial has been modernised to such an extent that I no longer recognise or like it. I just wish I could be wrong.