If you have an internet enabled mobile phone, then this is a quick way to Tash on his shiny new Facebook pages.

This is a QR code, that allows you to ’scan’ using the camera on your mobile phone. It is simply a way to enter a long’ish URL web addresses into your mobile phone

I am one of those representing Nottingham branch to the NUJ Annual Delegate Meeting [ADM] this year. It is Southport.

They can be a bit lefty, for this anarchist But I note this year, that the NUJ and journalism collectively, are catching up with modern electronic communications, networks, Indymedia, and the interweb. About time really.

And so, the annual National Union of Journalists (NUJ) delegate meeting (ADM) draws near; with a variety of motions and amendments up for debate on November 19-22 (final agenda available at this link – PDF).

Among them, many issues that directly concern online media: both in terms of how the NUJ communicates through the internet, and how to engage with online journalists.

How to attract new blood?

For the New Media Industrial Council (NMIC), member recruitment among the digital community is key. For this purpose, it commissioned freelancer and former newspaper journalist Vivien Sandt to research digital media, looking into employment patterns in the UK and Ireland to help the council form a new strategy. Sandt will present some of her findings at the ADM 2009.

How should the Journalist handle its web presence?

Another topic up for discussion is how campaigns and The Journalist should be managed online. As the fight for The Union publication’s editorship rages (see the Journalism.co.uk forum for some lively discussion), the Press and PR branch proposes this motion [excerpt]:

“(….) Union rules allow that [the Journalist] editor has editorial content only over online content taken from the Union’s journal. ADM believes this is insufficient for the editor’s new role (…)

It proposes a motion to change the rules to allow that ‘the editor shall have additional editorial control over union and other website pages holding content taken from or associated with the union’s journal written or commissioned by the editor’.

Leeds branch wished to clarify this: ‘that all editorial content on the NUJ website shall by under the independent control of the editor of the union’s journal, unless the editor agrees to cede control of specific content for a specific purpose and for a specific amount of time’.

That is bound to raise some questions over the relationship between the Journalist and other parts of the NUJ, especially with its support of another motion proposed: ‘ADM further instructs the NEC to implement, without further delay, the integration of the Journalist’s editor into the Union’s Campaign and Communications department’.

North Wales Coast branch, which proposed the original motion, claim that the mixture of internet strategies has pushed the Journalist ‘into becoming a cross between a picture led kind of OK magazine and Agony Aunt Letters column’.

[See what the editor hopefuls suggest for the Journalist website at this link to the Journalism.co.uk forum.]

How should the NUJ engage with social media?

This motion proposed by Magazine is bound to create some discussion: the last para has already been recommended as void by the Standing Orders Committee (SOC) for ‘uncertainty of meaning’”…

This ADM notes that:

1) Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and blogging are irrevocably changing the face of journalism.
2)That many of this new wave of journalists believe the NUJ’s attitude towards them is out of date.

This ADM instructs the NEC to address this problem by working with the blogging community and Twitteratti [sic] to bridge this gap and create a framework that embraces the NUJ’s journalistic principle while maintaining the press freedom enjoyed by bloggers and twitterers.

London Magazine further suggests a survey should be carried out, organised by NMIC.

Want to get involved?

The New Media Industrial Council is currently seeking NUJ members to represent these areas: London (1 out of 2) Midlands (1) Black Members Council (1) Disabled Members Council (1) North East (1). The non-geographical seats have to be nominated by the bodies concerned, and all NMIC members must be NUJ members working in new media. Those interested can e-mail the council’s chair (Gary Herman) in confidence on this address: gary.herman [at] gmail.com.

Judith Townend is a member of the National Union of Journalists (Brighton & Mid-Sussex branch) and is co-opted to sit on the New Media Industrial Council – beginning after the ADM 2009.

Online journalism at the NUJ ADM: The Journalist, Twitter and new blood

I’m, not really interested in this movies subject …. but this is the second police campaign i know about in recent times, to try an stop contentious movies been shown to public audiences. The SchNews movies film on the EDO arms factory and protests in Brighton, being the last.

A worrying trend.!!!

Police try to stop gangland movie being shown

A lone policeman took it upon himself to visit local cinemas advising them not to show a movie film about a gang in the west midlands.There was a recent screening planned at the International Black Festival in Birmingham. Again no cinema would let them show it because the West Midlands police had warned them against it. Penny the director finally screened it in a place called the Custard Factory on a dvd. Police arrived 15 minutes into the screening and stopped it, turned on all the lights and came in to “count” the audience (all quietly watching the film). They also took the film crew’s details.

When the police superintendent was challenged by Penny on Radio 5 Live the next morning, the superintendent claimed that her officers had attended “because we heard there were problems with the projector” (a startling claim in its own right, no less when there was actually no projector…).

No-one can really figure out what has happened. It is deeply alarming that the police have suddenly switched sides and decided to actively censor the film by persuading cinema owners that public health and safety is at risk.

For a £750k small independent British film, perhaps the police will wreck its chances of getting a big enough audience to stay in the cinemas. It’s hard to say.

I’ve just watched C4 news tonight which has picked up the story. The same superintendent is now claiming that there has been ‘no co-ordinated actions’ by the West Midlands police to ban the film.

At any rate – the film as still been pulled from Birmingham, Walsall,
Wolverhampton and Coventry.

If you are free on Friday night and live in an area where the film is
playing, I really encourage you to check it out.

Set in a 24 hour period of the Jonnson gang and the burger bar boyz, the movie has caused a storm of protest and controversy,especially in and around Birmingham where it is set. It’s a movie called “1Day” about a day in the life of black drug gangs in Birmingham, UK.

http://www.1daythemovie.co.uk

Photography Twitter List by Jack Schofield on Listorious

Posted using ShareThis

Tough and urgent action is needed in response to violence, intimidation and death threats targeting journalists covering far right demonstrations.

The call by NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear comes in the wake of specific email threats against photojournalist and investigative reporter Marc Vallée, and video journalist Jason N. Parkinson.

The emails follow verbal threats and intimidation aimed at photographers covering a march by the English Defence League in Leeds at the weekend and other EDL protests this year.

Professional journalists covering the events have filed reports with the NUJ detailing physical violence, including one being punched in the head, verbal threats, and attempts to seize cameras and smash equipment. The union is to file complaints to the police.

Jeremy Dear said: “In a week when yet more photographers have been targeted by right-wing hate website Redwatch, when out on the streets professional photographers are subjected to violence and intimidation by right-wing thugs, there must be tough and urgent action in response to these latest death threats.

“These are not idle threats made by kids – these are direct, named threats made by individuals who can be traced – in one case an individual already convicted of stabbing someone. They are designed to silence the media and stop photographers showing the true nature of the protests and protestors. The police must act now before a journalist is killed or seriously injured”.

Jason N. Parkinson said: “It is ironic the English Defence League claim they are protesting ‘peacefully’ against Muslim extremism. Then late Saturday night, after returning from covering the Leeds protest, I receive a threatening email from one of their Welsh and English division organisers entitled ‘Fatwa’.

“This is exactly the behaviour and tactics of extremism the EDL claim they are against. Someone should remind the EDL that the fundamental root of all democratic society, including in the UK, is press freedom. Intimidation, violence, Fatwas and death threats are not.”

Marc Vallée said: “I find it intriguing that only four weeks after attending a BNP press conference – at London’s City Hall – I’m targeted by Redwatch in this way. We should be free to go about our lawful and necessary work without such intimidation. I’m determined that when journalists are targeted in this way the only effective response is a collective one as well as journalistic one.”

http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=1406

Well, have finally done it. I am now on Facebook, and have spent a while filling it in. For those wot wanna know, I’m now also at:

http://www.facebook.com/tashuk

Originally, I signed up so I could view yet another anti-travellers [say no to travellers here etc] type site. Bastards had nicked one of my pictures. I contacted Facebook and issued a take-down notice. unless your a member, you can’t view their page.

Anyway, it sat there on the ‘back-burner’ for a while now, and more people kept finding it and lately i discovered 200 folks waiting for joining !! Anyway, apologies to all and have been approving them over the weekend. Adding content and links. And …. it appears the large job of integrating it all with flickr wordpress, vox, lockr, youtube, twitter and more…..

So, am sort of open now Drop by and join if you want.

I was prompted into action here by my son, Sam. Well you gotta keep up with the young’ans …. innit.

Since i started with this issue, we have just started a Facebook group:

” Say no to racist groups “

Please join that as well.

A charge of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass would have catastrophic implications for climate activists

Police today charged one more of the 114 people arrested at a Nottingham school in April, in order to prevent a suspected protest at the coal-fired power station. This brings the number of environmental activists charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass to 25 within the past month.

The move has left activists worried. Aggravated trespass is a summary offence, meaning it is always heard in the magistrates courts. It carries a maximum sentence of six months.

A charge of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass carries a maximum six-month sentence, too.. But it is an indictable offence, which means the case will be heard in front of a jury in the crown courts, which is an incredibly expensive and time-consuming procedure.

Sometimes these cases – such as the conspiracy to commit public nuisance charge brought against members of the “No M1 Widening” campaign in 2007 – are just thrown out by the judges. But sometimes, as in the conspiracy cases against animal rights activists and anti-arms manufacturing campaigns, they are treated extremely seriously. The impact on the lives of the accused is enormous, because under the terms of a conspiracy charge, you can be forbidden to talk to anyone involved, which can involve housemates, family, friends. Your possessions can be seized (Julie White of the M1 campaign had her door broken down by police, her computer seized and held for a year, and even items taken off her washing line) and held on remand for the duration of the trial.

So what are the police up to? Are they trying to put off activists like Climate Camp, who have been widely broadcasting their plans to shut down Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station this weekend?

Here’s what Climate Camp says: “The decision to use a conspiracy charge against 27 climate change activists shows how, despite the police’s attempts to brush up their image at this year’s climate camp, they continue to use draconian powers to clamp down on the growing grassroots climate justice movement. The fact that hundreds of ordinary people are planning to take control of Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station next week is proof that such measures will not succeed.”

Are they sending a wider message out to all activists? Nottinghamshire force, who made the arrests, says that it has no comment to make on the decision. But if this actually flies, if the court allows the case and convictions follow, it has catastrophic implications. Any activist involved with planning any kind of illegal direct action could be charged with conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass.

As White says: “You could pick up anyone you wanted. We’re getting into thought crimes now.” Is that what the police are after?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/oct/13/climate-activists-nottingham

Saturday 10 October 2009: The English Defence League (EDL) appeared on the streets of the UK again, this time in Manchester. A video by Jason Parkinson http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com

Please check out his latest video:

http://current.com/items/91161032_english-defence-league-unite-against-fascism-manchester-protests.htm

Saturday 10 October 2009: The English Defence League (EDL) appeared on the streets of the UK again, this time in Manchester. A video by Jason Parkinson http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com