Mrs Casey and I went to the Curzon Cinema in Shaftsbury Avenue yesterday to see the documentary film Catfish. A New York photographer is sent a painting of one of his photos by the proud Michigan mother of an eight year old prodigy. Soon, he becomes Facebook friends. The film centres on whether people are, who they say they are, on social media sites. It is a fascinating tale and I am trying very hard not to spoil the ending.
We use Facebook on YourThurrock as a marketing tool and a research tool. There have been a number of stories that have started as seed on Facebook. We have also come across a number of Facebook profiles that are false and have led to other stories.
I was in two minds to write a piece about it. That is until the arrest of Chris Jeffries on suspicion of murdering Joanne Yeates in Bristol. Obviously we watch the coverage from a journalists perspective, seeing BBC play it by the book and Sky are treading a fine line.
However, no such rules apply to the world of Twitter where many people under the cloak of anonymity have the poor man hung drawn and quartered with the fact that he has a ropey haircut as damning evidence others are more vicious and damning.
The papers have to compete with it.
The Guardian have a full profile, documenting his love of the poetry of Christina Rossetti to his support of the Lib-Dems (yep..insert satrical comment here). The Daily Mail have a photo of road maps in his car. The papers lawyers have all looked at the key tenets of the contempt laws and given the green light. The Mail have disabled the comments page. Shame they didn’t proof read the article as it states:
“Mr Jefferies taught at Clifton College from the early 1970s and rose to become head of England.”
(He who is without sin…cast the first stone…….Ed)
One man’s free speech I guess. Try telling that to Robert Murat who was apparently guilty of being too interested in helping out at the scene of Madeleine McCann’s abduction or Stefan Kizko who spent decades in prison for a murder he hadn’t committed on the basis of being a bit odd looking that way.
I guess we are never surprised at the people who sit there making malicious comments on websites. Once there was the garden fence and bar at the pub. Now, there is the comments sections of websites. It is the preserve of very unhappy people. The cliche is of the solitary man in his bedsit Some time ago, an article I wrote for another newspaper had two “angry” comments as part of a thread. One written at 2345hrs on Christmas Eve and the reply at 0629hrs on Christmas Day!
We are fortunate at YourThurrock. We don’t entertain such people. Our commentators (all 1330 of them) are more considered (even Lambo!). We do have fun looking at those on other sites, mainly because we can spot the council officers and councillors who go on under assumed names.
This is not us taking a high moral ground when it comes to reporting. Sometimes, we do go all tabloid and our articles go national or indeed global.
I guess the test would be if a major murder happened in Thurrock. We have a murder trial next month (Darnley Road). If that had been of national interest would we have reported it differently. I guess at YourThurrock our style is to report on cover ups not comb-overs……………….
