Six Degrees Of Confusion

Michael Hedges January 24, 2014 - Follow on Twitter

We are reminded constantly about the virtues of constant connectedness and that the digital world is more transparent because ones and zeros are pure. There’s no nuance to profit and loss, nor to corruption. But good reporting is all about what appears between the numbers. That makes journalism a very analogue pursuit. We should be glad.

The message from Dow Jones CEO Lex Fenwick’s departure this week, widely reported as “sudden,” is clear as the driven snow, once again covering New York City. There is no patience at News Corporation – meaning Mr. Murdoch – for lapses in meeting revenue goals. Mr. Fenwick arrived about two years ago from Bloomberg with a mission to vigorously compete for data hungry Wall Street bankers and traders. He raised the rates and changed the office plan.

Chief creative officer Will Lewis was appointed interim CEO. News Corporation acquired Dow Jones, with it the Wall Street Journal, in 2007 for an eye watering US$5 billion. Last year’s restructuring placed, generally, television and entertainment assets in one company, Twenty-first Century Fox, and publishing assets, including Dow Jones, in another, News Corporation. Mr. Lewis had been general manager of the UK publishing division, known now as News UK, and undertook the challenge of the company’s response to UK government inquiries into phone hacking and other dastardly deeds.

Those inquiries, fueled by a measure of public disgust, prompted the UK government to pursue legislative remedies to the alleged bad behavior of newspaper publishers, imposing a code of conduct with penalties. Newspaper publishers, not limited to those in the UK, dismissed the plan.

Last week a “mission” of big name publishers and representatives from trade association WAN-IFRA visited the UK to sort out the “general confusion.” The trials, literally, and tribulations from hacking and corruption charges were conflated with UK politician’s rough treatment of newspaper The Guardian for publishing, first, the phone hacking and corruption details extending to the political upper reaches and, then, publishing the NSA/Edward Snowden leaks. It’s all so confusing.

“Our mission confirmed differences of opinion in terms of how the introduction of legislation governing the press will impact press freedom,” said WAN-IFRA CEO Vincent Peyrègne in a statement. “It highlighted serious concerns regarding the independence from political involvement in that process, and how implementation of the legislation that underpins the Royal Charter could potentially be abused to restrict a free press both here in the UK and abroad.” (See WAN-IFRA presser here)

In the meantime, several former employees and agents of News Corporation owned UK newspaper News Of The World, now defunct, are in court. The trial judge ruled (January 17) that the Wall Street Journal, based in New York, could publish accounts of the proceedings, essentially prosecutor’s documentation, without limitations imposed on UK newspapers. However, Mr. Justice Saunders made clear that the devil is in the definition of “publication.” A trail reporter better not send a report to a UK bureau on it’s way to a country outside the court’s jurisdiction. So much for globalization in the digital age.

As an aside – there’s always one or two – another set of publisher and journalist associations warned of trouble for financial publishing and reporting from impending European Union rule making. Dow Jones, Reuters and Bloomberg are the best known financial data publishers. The LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) bank data abuse scandal prompted the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to rule an EU agency, European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), is better placed to regulate all that data flow. Committees of the European Parliament are voting on drafts of the Benchmark Regulation that would restrict the collection and transmission of certain financial data.

The European Publisher’s Council (EPC) and others are concerned that without an exemption publishers could be liable. “The media cannot determine what uses are made of the content they publish and certainly cannot tell their readers what to do with the content they receive, as the Benchmark Regulation inappropriately would require them to do,” said EPC Executive Director Angela Mills Wade in a statement. (See EPC et.al presser here) “We are confident that MEPs will understand the inappropriateness of-- for the first time in Europe-- extending financial service regulation to journalism and that they will instead vote to protect the vital role that journalists play in bringing transparency to financial and commodity markets.”

See also in ftm Knowledge

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Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation

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Press/Media Freedom - Challenges and Concerns

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