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NOTICE – The petition appears to have been removed because of some action/error by the US-based provider (and at the worst possible time; just after everybody went home yesterday). It’s 9am GMT on 20/01/2010 and it’s still going to be a few hours before I can hope to reach anyone at ipetitions.com. Please bear with us and come back to see what’s happening later today. Cheers all.

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Below are some graphics you may wish to use for talking points on your blog. They’re screen captures from the animation I’ve made to promote the PCC (Press Complaints Commission) Submission/Petition, which launches… well, now:

A letter to the PCC (space invaders edition)

The music is Media Messiahs by Eddie & the Hot Rods and, as usual, I encourage you to buy it if you enjoy it.

Cheers to longtime comment contributer Scotch for introducing me to this song, BTW; the first time I heard it I knew I wanted to use it to comment on the current state of media, either new or old. It’s a great song, and as relevant today as the year it was first released.

That year was 1979, which also happened to be the year that Space Invaders were turning up everywhere you looked. I doubt I’ll need to explain the concept further. Enjoy the video, and don’t forget to plug the petition when you do. Cheers all.

First of all, I want to make it clear that I’m making no judgements here about what Rod Liddle said as ‘monkeymfc’, and would even point out that some (but not all) ‘monkeymfc’ comments have been taken out of context (especially in those neighbourhoods – *cough*DailyMail*cough* – where people do not link to evidence and have a track record of using material out of context, especially when it comes to identifying proof that they themselves are not the real racists/liars/etc).

Second, I think it needs to be said that there is no evidence that Rod Liddle was sock-puppeting as ‘monkeymfc’.

(For examples of sock-puppeting see Steve “leave my family out of it” Grover, Phil “I only did it that one time I got caught” Hendren, Andrew “my ‘partner’ did it” Gilligan, and Grant “someone guessed my password” Shapps.)

I’ve looked at the posts made by ‘monkeymfc’ on the relevant forum, and it is clear that Liddle’s identity is no big secret within that community… but, while counting in his favour on one front, this presents Liddle with his main problem on another…

Liddle has been making vague/one-off comments about his account being compromised. These accusations began as a claim that his account was ‘hacked’. I’ve checked with the site administrators and there’s no evidence of this, but to be fair we can put this down to the poor wording of a layman; later, Liddle made it clear that what he was claiming was that his account was accessed without his permission when someone guessed his password; this is not ‘hacking*’ but ‘password cracking’.

Sadly for Liddle, the administrators do not appear to recall any complaint/discussion about this, which casts doubt on his earlier claim that a site admin told him his account was accessed by “a different computer to his”.

In short, Liddle has been left looking like a liar on a crucial specific, and it looks no better when you step back for an overview:

Liddle claims that an unknown party with an agenda used his account to pose as him and make untoward comments in an effort to make him look bad.

We are expected to believe that a community broadly aware of Liddle’s identity did nothing to alert him about comments designed to compromise his credibility; comments that, by their very design, one would expect to be out of character.

We are expected to believe that Liddle didn’t notice these himself in the months that followed, and that he did nothing to delete/moderate them, even though he still had complete control over his account (regardless of any unauthorised access that may or may not have taken place).

We are expected to believe that Liddle complained to site administrators about this (even though they cannot recall any such conversation taking place) and that comments falsely made in his name were still left untouched after this.

All of these circumstances raise serious questions, but I want to show you where Liddle lost the benefit of the doubt from me.

Regular readers of Bloggerheads will find this comment depressingly familiar; here’s Liddle responding to much of the above under Roy Greenslade’s Guardian piece, and (tellingly, I think) refusing to use the opportunity to prove what he claims/implies is ‘provably so’ in a very dishonest fashion:

I’m glad you accept I’m not racist or any of those other things, Mr Greenslade. I did publicly refute one of the posts quoted in the Mail on Sunday, and which was certainly not me and provably so. But if you think I am going to waste my life tracking down every single thing you claim I’ve said, try to remember if I;ve said them, ask admin to check urls etc etc, just so you can pursue this odd little vendetta, you have to be kidding, mate. And why should I insist the site take down everything in my name, just to make you happy? Who do you think you are? And who the hell am I, for that matter? (link)

‘Vendetta’ is textbook, as are the false thresholds; no-one is asking Liddle to account for (or delete) everything he’s said. This looks like the last refuge of a lying scoundrel to me.

And it’s on that basis that I judge Rod Liddle and find him wanting; I expect more of anyone who edits any publication/programme that’s specifically designed to hold others to account.

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See also: Liberal Conspiracy – Exclusive: EDM against Rod Liddle; admits to nasty comments; more emerges

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*UPDATE (05 Sep 2010) – I will happily update this post with a note about my passing mention of hacking/cracking; as far as public perception goes, the majority of people will hear the word ‘hacking’ when used clearly in relation to a specific electronic account and will understand its intended meaning and I could have let this go, but in this instance Liddle was making very vague claims (for reasons that are easy to guess at). Specifics were required in this case because Rod Liddle’s vague accusations could be read as the site’s general security being compromised, not just his own account, and this was unfair on the webmasters. However, in this case a pointless semantic deceit is being used to muddy the waters in defence of Andy Coulson.

NOTICE – The petition appears to have been removed because of some action/error by the US-based provider (and at the worst possible time; just after everybody went home yesterday). It’s 9am GMT on 20/01/2010 and it’s still going to be a few hours before I can hope to reach anyone at ipetitions.com. Please bear with us and come back to see what’s happening later today. Cheers all.

[NOTE – It’s probably something to do with the sudden popularity of our petition, but ipetitions.com have now started displaying a donation page (instead of a ‘thank you’ page) after you submit your details. I understand why ipetitions.com have done this – and Dog knows they deserve a donation or two for providing a superior petition service – but I’m less-than-impressed by the way they’ve gone about it. At this stage, I can only apologise for this unexpected feature and provide new people with advance warning; you do not have to make a donation for your signature to register.]

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I am about to spend the next couple of weeks calling the PCC to account and I invite you to join me.

This is the main URL to remember (and plug, plug, plug until you can plug no more):
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pcc/
UPDATED LINK: https://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2010/01/pcc_petition.asp

Petition+

This is more than just a petition; it is a group submission to the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee for their annual review of the PCC’s Editors’ Code of Practice, and it allows anyone who endorses it to add a suggestion of their own (or more, if you wish):
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pcc/
UPDATED LINK: https://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2010/01/pcc_petition.asp

[MINI-UPDATE – We will also be submitting our suggestions to the Independent Governance Review in time for the 25 Jan 2010 deadline. We have slightly longer for our submission to the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee, which has a 31 January 2010 deadline.]

In other words, it is a petition that (a) is pretty much guaranteed a group response, and (b) warrants/enables individual responses, too.

Here are the suggestions I am asking you to endorse (and add to, if you wish):

SUGGESTION ONE: Like-for-like placement of retractions, corrections and apologies in print and online (as standard).

SUGGESTION TWO: Original or redirected URLs for retractions, corrections & apologies online (as standard).

SUGGESTION THREE: The current Code contains no reference to headlines, and this loophole should be closed immediately.

SUGGESTION FOUR: Sources to be credited unless they do not wish to be credited or require anonymity/protection.

SUGGESTION FIVE: A longer and more interactive consultation period for open discussion of more fundamental issues.

These suggestions were drafted in conjunction with Kevin Arscott, Adam Bienkov, Dave Cross, Sunny Hundal, Jack of Kent, Justin McKeating, MacGuffin, Mark Pack, septicisle, Sim-O, Jamie Sport, Clive Summerfield, Unity_ and Anton Vowl, who will all be promoting this submission/petition and contributing to the debate in their own ways in the coming days/weeks.

Personalisation

I chose ipetitions.com because it will allow us to download all names/nicknames, email addresses plus their corresponding comments and deliver them in a format (CSV) that allows these bodies to answer not only the group submission, but also any individual suggestions made under it.

So, please, if you decide to join us and sign the petition, consider carefully what you might like to add under ‘comments’ because a well-thought-out submission/suggestion warrants a response and ‘OMG! GFU PCC! LOL!’ does not:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pcc/
UPDATED LINK: https://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2010/01/pcc_petition.asp

It doesn’t mean you have to add a suggestion of your own, of course; you may instead voice an opinion about the existing suggestion(s) or which you regard to be the highest priority. Or, you may simply leave a generic comment of support for others to read. The choice is yours:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pcc/
UPDATED LINK: https://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2010/01/pcc_petition.asp

Privacy

And now, I have a little surprise for the people who normally shy away from petitions (that, typically, require full names and addresses if they’re of any merit)…

Because the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee invited submissions by email and we will be providing them with email addresses as the point of contact, you can support this petition and expect a general and/or individual response without having to reveal your name to the general public or surrender your address* to anyone!

:o)

You can use your real name and untick ‘Show my name in the online signature list’ (so only myself and the relevant committee bods will see this data), or even use your usual online name/nickname if you feel like it, and your submission will still warrant a response:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pcc/

So long as your submission is sincere and your email address is genuine, these bodies will have no good reason to reject your submission, and you should expect a response, even if you use a nickname.

I imagine that nicknames will be a popular option (many bloggers are widely known by nicknames, and will want to be seen to endorse this/their submission), but I do encourage you to use your real name if you can, even if you mark it not-for-display.

Please also be aware that I’ll be grateful for the inch this gives us instead of running a mile or two with it; I will delete signatures/nicknames that involve pointless profanity, and I will be using the ipetitions.com controls to restrict any attempts at astro-turfing and/or sock-puppetry.

(*I have included an OPTIONAL ‘postcode’ field for those who wish to contribute this level of data, although at this stage I have no plans to use it for anything other than a rough indicator of campaign coverage.)

Promotion

I’ve made a little video to help kick things along (and it’ll be with you shortly), but I’d like you to do your part, too.

:: Twitter ::

Here’s the link to use: http://bit.ly/P-C-C http://bit.ly/53tjmb

Here’s the tag to use: #pcc

You can work out the rest. Go to it.

:: Blogs ::

A link would be greatly appreciated, but perhaps you could also write a post endorsing the main suggestions, or outlining the thinking behind your own suggestion(s). Maybe you could even take a look back at some of the fun we’ve had in the past year (or decade or more) and point out to your readers how the PCC might benefit from a firm kick up the arse.

:: Forums ::

I would greatly appreciate it if any active forum members saw fit to introduce the petition to their community and put it into context; better press standards will benefit us all. That URL again:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pcc/
UPDATED LINK: https://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2010/01/pcc_petition.asp

:: YouTube ::

I don’t know. Film a dog eating its own vomit or something. Then segue into Richard Desmond.

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Back soon with more. Cheers all.

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UPDATE – This post and the petition have both been updated to better reflect the independence of the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee, which is a separate body that operates independently of the PCC.

Hello to you all, and Happy New Year.

It has now been a year to the day since this dire warning was issued by The Sun, based on the word of Glen Jenvey:

Happily, this “massive atrocity” didn’t take place in early, mid or late 2009.

Days after this report, The Sun went to print with the ‘Alan Sugar: terror target’ article that led to the end of Jenvey’s career as an amateur terror expert. And now, we have confirmation of what was first reported here at Bloggerheads in November:

The Guardian – Glen Jenvey, man behind Sun’s Sugar splash, arrested over religious hatred: A self-styled terrorism expert who was behind a fabricated Sun front-page story about Lord Sugar and other Jewish figures being on an Islamic extremist hitlist has been arrested on suspicion of inciting religious hatred against Jews.

There’s some fresh mitigation on a couple of fronts, and Richard Bartholomew addresses it in this, yet another great summary of events to date.

There’s a lot of detail to take in, so for those in a hurry, I should point out that it is not fair or constructive to monster Jenvey, or make him out to be monstrous (as The Sun did so readily in a pathetic effort to cover their blushes).

This story is bigger than Jenvey, and he is not the only person with a case to answer.

Speaking of such people, Conservative MP Patrick Mercer is still expecting to be taken seriously as Chairman of the House of Commons Sub-Committee on Counter-Terrorism and presenting himself as a credible spokesperson on terror matters (example: scroll to bottom), despite a series of shocking misjudgements and shameless lies relating to his work with Glen Jenvey and another former associate Dominic Wightman (more).

For those who are wondering; yes, I contacted Mercer yesterday, and yes, his response to public confirmation of Jenvey’s arrest was exactly what you might expect:

“I’m afraid I have no comment.” – Patrick Mercer (30 Dec, and most of the rest of 2009)

It’s no secret that Mercer’s been out of the shadow cabinet for a while, but it is not known at this time if David Cameron rates Patrick Mercer as a credible spokesperson on the subject of extremism and terrorism. Perhaps someone should ask.