Tag Archives: guido fawkes

Is This The Beginning Of The End For The UK Headline?

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Until recently a journalism trainer in the UK could safely berate a trainee for Writing Headlines Where Every Word Began With A Capital.

It is a style of headline writing common in US publications, but non-existent in the UK, where newspapers have traditionally fit into one of two camps: the SHOUTY SHOUTY REDTOPS and the broadsheets who Only make the first letter uppercase unless there’s a proper noun.

(The mid-markets, as might be expected, took the best of both worlds, reserving shouting for the front pages and lower case for the inside pages).

So a journalism trainee who Wrote Like This had likely never paid much attention to newspapers, or only when they appeared in Hollywood films.

Or perhaps they just read Guido Fawkes, who, for whatever reason appears to have followed the Hollywood style of headline writing:

Guido Fawkes headlines

Guido Fawkes’s headlines adhere to the US style

 

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The £10,000 question: who benefits most from a tax threshold change?

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UPDATE [Feb 14 2012]: Full Fact picked up the challenge and dug into the data:

“The crucial difference is in methodology – while the TPA used individuals as its basis, the IFS used households as provided by the Government data.

“This led to substantially different conclusions. The IFS note that using household income as a measure demonstrates increased gains for households with two or more earners. As they state:

“”families with two taxpayers would gain more than families with one taxpayer, who tend to be worse off. Thus, overall, better-off families (although not the very richest) would tend to gain most in cash terms from this reform…””

—

Here’s a great test for eagle-eyed journalists, tweeted by Guardian’s James Ball. It’s a tale of two charts that claim to show the impact of a change in the income tax threshold to £10,000. Here’s the first:

Change in post-tax income as a percentage of gross income

And here’s the second:

Net impact of income tax threshold change on incomes - IFS

So: same change, very different stories. In one story (Institute for Fiscal Studies) it is the the wealthiest that appear to benefit the most; but in the other (Taxpayers’ Alliance via Guido Fawkes) it’s the poorest who are benefiting.

Did you spot the difference? The different y axis is a slight clue – the first chart covers a wider range of change – but it’s the legend that gives the biggest hint: one is measuring change as a percentage of gross income (before, well, taxes); the other as a change in net income (after tax).

James’s colleague Mary Hamilton put it like this: “4.5% of very little is of course much less than 1% of loads.” Or, more specifically: 4.6% of £10,853 (the second decile mentioned in Fawkes’ post) is £499.24; 1.1% of £47,000 (the 9th decile according to the same ONS figures) is £517. (Without raw data, it’s hard to judge what figures are being used – if you include earnings over that £47k marker then it changes things, for example, and there’s no link to the net earnings).

In a nutshell, like James, I’m not entirely sure why they differ so strikingly. So, further statistical analysis welcome.

UPDATE: Seems a bit of a Twitter fight erupted between Guido Fawkes and James Ball over the source of the IFS data. James links to this pre-election document containing the chart and this one on ‘Budget 2011’. Guido says the chart’s “projections were based on policy forecasts that didn’t pan out”. I’ve not had the chance to properly scrutinise the claims of either James or Guido. I’ve also yet to see a direct link to the Taxpayers’ Alliance data, so that is equally in need of unpicking.

In this post, however, my point isn’t to do with the specific issue (or who is ‘right’) but rather how it can be presented in different ways, and the importance of having access to the raw data to ‘unspin’ it.

NUJ's making journalism pay online: five points

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NUJ logoThe NUJ’s New Ways to Make Journalism Pay conference on Saturday brought together a group of journalists and entrepreneurs who are making money through online journalism in the UK. Many of the speakers had toiled to build brands online, and those that had were now running sustainable businesses. If the future of journalism is entrepreneurial, then these speakers are evidence of it.

You can read a breakdown of all the speakers’ points at Ian Wylie’s blog and if you scroll back on my twitter account @Coneee. Here are five points from the conference that jumped out at me.

1. Getting to a sustainable position is difficult.

David Parkin, founder of Thebusinessdesk.com, took two years to raise the £300,000 he thought he’d need to survive an estimated 18 months of operating at a loss. In the end it only took 9 months after an expansion into the Northwest, but it was still very “hairy.” He had to “make noise”: put up posters, give away coffee on the street, and branded mints to posh restaurants where businesspeople dined. Daniel Johnston, founder of Indusdelta.co.uk, had to live off his savings for the first 18 months. The site is now profitable, and supports the salary of another staff member.

2. The rules of the journalism game aren’t changed by the internet.

Paul Staines of the Guido Fawkes blog gets up at 6.30AM, and is still up when Newsnight is on in the late evening. He hasn’t got any ins with big politicians, and most of his news comes from disgruntled interns. No wonder! David Parkin found that for him, starting a successful venture was still “very much about contacts.” Daniel Johnston, although professing to not know whether he was a journalist, borrowed the principle of independence from good journalism: providing a counter point to the Government view (which he said was “gospel” before he came along) of the welfare-to-work industry also allowed him to build a sustainable business.

3. Traditional media doesn’t do investigative journalism.

Gavid MacFadyean, director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, said 75% of investigative journalism is now done by foundations or NGOs. This is because of cost cutting at newspapers and in TV, but also because foundations offer a far more effective environment for investigative journalism. Gavid said: “Foundations say just do your worst, and we’re trying! It’s no strings attached money,” which seems to be bliss compared to less independent advertising-supported models.

4. Email is important.

Many of the speakers had collected the email addresses of their readers in the tens or hundreds of thousands, allowing them to quickly notify readers of news, while also opening up possibilities for making money. David Parkin recalled success with sending emails when the interest rates changed. By providing this information within 2-3 minutes (speed which the BBC and “big media” don’t bother with) after it had happened, businesspeople could be more informed. Angie Sammons of Liverpool Confidential said having an email list of interested individuals means you can directly provide them with sponsored offers, making you money and also helping your readers.

5. Local freelance journalism is dying.

Since this was an NUJ conference organised by the London freelance branch, it’s not surprising that the room was full of freelance writers, many of them used to pitching stories to editors of local newspapers. Note that many seemed to be “used to” doing this. A combination of a crash in rates, an unwillingness for local editors to commission work and the virtual impossibility for newcomers to get their first (paid) start gave me the impression that it’s never been harder to get work as a freelance local journalist. Fortunately, the overriding message from the day was it’s never been easier to make it online.

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