UK UK Newswire Archive
Prison Was Created For The Poor pdf
17-03-2012 12:56
Poverty Games Torch Relay Comes to Glasgow: Full Story!
17-03-2012 12:55
End Poverty. It's Not a GameTSN brings its Info Night to Sheffield
17-03-2012 12:50
This Monday (19th March) members of the Traveller Solidarity Network are coming to Sheffield to hold an info night on the issues effecting Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller (GRT) communities. The tour hopes to bring together grass roots activists, human rights groups, and those from travelling communities with the aim of building the GRT civil rights movement.Traveller Solidarity Network Info Tour
17-03-2012 10:55
The Traveller Solidarity Network (The direct action Network formed out of the Dale Farm Eviction Resistance) are doing a series of info nights across the country to share their experiences, bring together different activist and Travelling communities and to try and build the work of the Network.Issues arising from police confiscation of evidence
17-03-2012 08:55
The Police' sforceful confiscation of photographic eveidence from journalist Lewis Stainer raises some important issues that should not be overlooked.
It was reported on Notts IMC (16th Mrach) that the NUJ intends to pursue the case of the student journalist who had his photographic evidence of a police arrest taken from him against his will by Nottinghamshire Police.
It is to the credit of the NUJ that they are doing this although some aspects of thier language is worrying:-
Diana Peasey, the chair of the Nottingham NUJ branch said: “Legislation recognises that journalists have ‘rights’ under Special Procedures and the tape should never have been confiscated in the first place.”
This statement further reinfiorcesed the dangerous attitude that the Police (and other authoriites) should be permitted to do as they please unless we can point to evidence of a 'right' the people have to stop them. Bearing in mind that such right are conveyed upon us in any case by those in power this is a circular arguement perpetuating the subjugation of the people.
Further, it is to be hoped that the NUJ (and I have not evidence to suggest otherwise) would be equally supportive of any member of the public who finds themselves in this position, given the increasing use by the media of bystander images (often the only availbale in fast moving situations).
But, perhaps, or greater significance is the issue of police tampering with evidence. By quickly removing the evidence from an independant witness at the time of the incident the police potentially denied the defence evidence which may have been important to them. This serious breach was compounded by the later tampering with the evidence by officers unknown prior to returing it to the photographer.
Now, I am just a member of the public and no lawyer, but I had always believed that tampering with evidence relating to a suspected crime was a very serious matter. People do get custodial sentences if convicted for such offences.
I will not hold my breath for justice in this case: I suspect another criminal will walk free because he is in uniform.
Montreal, QC: March 15 Fuck the Police demo communique
17-03-2012 08:26
http://waronsociety.noblogs.org/?p=3842
The Stand @ The Wilderness
17-03-2012 02:55
The RtF Gathering went very well against the odds, against the will of the authority, in the wonderful sunshine of spring and beautiful surroundings of the forest. A full feed back will follow.The gathering is still open for another lunar cycle, we will be conducting workshops every day from now on with a variety of skills on offer, all of the usual old school stuff and some more for the mix.
Open days for the public on saturdays with lots of fun, tea, workshops and family friendly atmosphere in the sun.
Remotely living Australian Aborigines to be stripped of all rights
17-03-2012 01:09
The imminent vote in the upper house, the Senate, on what is derisively called “Stronger Futures legislation”, will extend for 10 more years draconian restrictions on Aboriginal people who’ve already suffered five years of them.
Elba squat (Warsaw) attacked
16-03-2012 22:53
Word is coming in of an attack by police on the Elba squat in Poland :[ one of Poland's largest squats - but the latest news is it hasn't been evicted!A not so peaceful protest in Palestine
16-03-2012 20:58
A short write up from a protest in Palestine that ended in violence and arrests.Crisis of Civilization Podcast: Episode 1 – Syria, Libya, Iran
16-03-2012 19:19
An invitation to multiply the attacks in solidarity with our brother Tortuga
16-03-2012 19:08
http://waronsociety.noblogs.org/
A Week of Action Against Ryanair's Great Plane Robbery
16-03-2012 19:01
Full article | 1 addition | 3 comments
Interview with PCT occupiers
16-03-2012 15:52
Interview with occupiersCamp and Demonstration at Sizewell nuclear power station April 20th to 22nd
16-03-2012 15:46
Anniversary of Kurdish town poison gas attack
16-03-2012 15:27
The 103 thousand pound eviction of st pauls cathedral
16-03-2012 15:10
a recent freedom of information request against the city of london police has shown the true extent of the city's might against st paul's occupy lsxsuccessful resistance of eviction - this am in easton
16-03-2012 14:55
a disabled man was under who was under threat of eviction today found good support from locals as baliffs, police & battering ram was no match for neighbourly solidarity. he remains in the flat. more details when we get them...Report and pics from Jock Palfreeman protest
16-03-2012 14:43
The demise of the Nottingham (Evening) Post
16-03-2012 12:55
The beginning of March saw the publication of Audit Bureau of Circulations figures, which showed the sales of regional daily papers. Nearly all of these papers are suffering from falling circulation, but the biggest faller is local rag the Nottingham Post.
This continues a long-standing trend for the paper which in the second half of 2010, saw circulation fall 11.6% year on year to 40,974, a 3.7% fall period on period. This compounded a 14.6% fall in the first half of 2011.
The paper’s difficulties have not been arrested by the decision to redesign the paper and remove the "Evening" from the title in April 2010. A further redesign at the beginning of this year is unlikely to have made much difference either.
Nearly all newspapers (local and national) are struggling to maintain readers and this is often attributed to the ability of potential buyers to get the news from the internet, where papers often distribute their content for free. While there may be some truth to this it is noteworthy that the Post website fell by 2.0% in the last six months of 2011. Its recent and wildly unpopular website redesign cannot have helped.
The paper’s demise is in large part attributable to its reliance on what Guardian journalist Nick Davies dubbed "churnalism." In his analysis, proprietors with a single-minded focus on profit had driven an increase in the quantity of content in papers, while vastly reducing the number of journalists. This meant that journalists were "reduced to passive processors of whatever material comes their way, churning out stories, whether real event or PR artifice, important or trivial, true or false" (Flat Eart News, p.59).
A quick perusal of the Post on any day will inevitably turn up a bevy of articles virtually indistinguishable from the press releases on which they were based. In some cases this can help campaigns, who are able to get their message in the paper with minimal difficulty. Compare for instance, this article in the Post with the original press release. Nevertheless, it is not good for journalism.
The nine councils in Nottinghamshire are responsible for budgets adding up to hundreds of billions of pounds. The various NHS bureaucracies control similarly vast sums and the lives of thousands of people can depend on them. Add in the police, other public sector bodies, local companies and it is clear that there are many organisations locally who need to be held to account. Simply reprinting press releases is not good enough.
It is tempting to look to blogs and sites like Indymedia to take up this role and in some cases they can do, but investigative journalism is difficult and takes a long-time. Even the excellent NCC LOLs - the paradigm example of an well written, well researched "hyperlocal" blog - often relies on information uncovered by the Post. It isn’t unreasonable that people spending hours making their way through council documents and doing battle with spin doctors should want to be paid for it, just like any other job.
People were seeing the writing on the Wall for the Post last year and its future as a daily is surely not good. The paper’s offices have recently been reduced from three to one floors with the others to let. A while back there were rumours of the paper being given away free (like the Metro), but this seems to have been dropped.
A plausible scenario is that the paper will go weekly, as its Northcliffe stablemate the Lincolnshire Echo did last September. Done well this might actually be good for the Post. It would allow them to to ditch the filler and focus on less, but better quality news. Add in some decent inserts and they might even begin to reclaim some of their readers.
The future of the Post as we know it is clearly not great. A paper with few fans, many would no doubt welcome its demise or at the very least revel in the schadenfreude, but with nothing to replace it, the long-term effects could be serious.
The problem of funding investigative journalism in a capitalist society are not new and not limited to Nottingham. If and how we manage to deal with this issue may have a serious effect on the kind of society we find ourselves living in in years to come.
