"Allegedly"

I don't know if you remember readers, but when I was starting out on my quest to become a journalist, I penned an article that said representatives of the media giant Sky had sexually harassed Gill?

My lawyers stepped in at that point and saved my bacon. But it was an expensive lesson. It effectively cost me my redundancy package!

As you can well imagine, I've been pretty careful ever since. Making sure that I check all my facts on Wikipedia.

More recently, though, when I gained my new follower David Coleman, I foolishly suggested it was the same one as the famous one. I was wrong. I can't be right about EVERYTHING!

Even so, I still found the following post on a web forum extremely hurtful. After I posted my review of Scientology, this site, made some seriously slanderous comments.

If you can't be bothered to click the link, basically, someone posted part of my Scientology blog and then someone else, calling themselves LronIsgonE_Snap in the West Coast of America, said (and I quote): "This blogger subscribes to the belief that you should never let the facts get in the way of a good story."

OUTRAGEOUS!!

I always check my facts. The thing is, as Steve pointed out when I discovered Wikipedia, not everything on the Internet is true!!!

It's for this reason that I am being forced to add a disclaimer to the bottom of my blog.

Disclaimers are used by organisations to effectively give them a Get Out of Trouble Free card if they say stuff that they shouldn't. It's a bit like when Private Eye's Ian Hislop used to say "alledgedly" on Have I Got News For You, after he'd just accused Sky's Rupert Murdoch of being a power-hungry manipulator, hell-bent on world domination, allegedly.

New media

Apologies blogosphere, I have only just managed to get home. Today has been just hectic. First up, I had a call from my lawyer, he started out telling me that he needs to speak to Gill - apparently he has been contacted by Sky regarding the sexual harassment incident. I said I didn't want Gill involved, but then he said why did I use her name in the article? I had to concede that was naive of me. There's more to journalism than simply writing stories, these stories affect people. Real people.

The thing is though, this shows that I've got them on the ropes dear readers.

My lawyer (fucking coward) advised me to drop the case, and disist from, GET THIS!!! "spreading spurious rumours in the press".

He then said some unrepeatable things, and could not understand why I'd added his contact details to the piece. I said, "what's the point having lawyers if you can't use them?". He said some more unrepeatable things, so I said I would no longer be using his services, he said I'd be receiving an invoice. An INVOICE! for his 'services' so far.

Whatever happened to the Freedom of the Fourth Estate??

Gill says I shouldn't really be blogging about this. But it's a free country right?

I have signed up to Twitter. I cannot seem to make it work properly though. I can't really see the point to be honest. But then, I said that about the Internet and it came back to bite me in the wallet.

I got home in a funk and so decided to call my mum. I love my mum, I'll make no apologies, she's stood by me through thick and thin. She wants to come and stay, but I've told her that London is no place for a lady. Where are the views?

She's made up about the redundancy money though, I said I'd send her a little bit so she could treat herself to something, but I haven't actually got the package yet. I've been putting everything so far on my credit cards, I'll pay it off when the redundancy package arrives. Mum said she'd best transfer some cash into my account. I told her I'd pay her back and WITH INTEREST!!

Right, I'd best go now. I've got a Frey Bentos in the oven, a few cans of Cobra in the fridge and a few games of Pro Evo lined up before bed so I'm fresh and ready for some more citizen journalism tomorrow.

First up, I'll be writing to the editors that I sent my peice to, I'm going to find out who ratted me to Sky - almost certainly one of the Murdoch rags. I thought journalists were supposed to respect their sources!!

I am FUMING!

Yesterday I was out doing more research – on the bus, this time. I’ve really got the bit between my teeth with this religion/public transport debate. Anyway, Gill had the day off to go to the doctors (women's problems) so I asked her if she could stay round at my flat. I'd ordered Sky with some of my redundancy package and I needed someone to be there to let the engineers in.

Anyway, things didn’t go so well on the research front. I got thrown off three buses. Twice on the 333 and once on the 419. The 333 goes to Elephant and Castle so I shouldn’t be surprised that the drivers are more aggressive.

I was feeling deflated when I got home. Gill was on the sofa watching Sky. I ran to the box to have a look. I asked her if the installation had gone ok.

“Yeah, it was fine. But one of the engineers was a bit weird,” she said.
“Weird how?” I said.
“Dunno, just a bit sleazy, I suppose.”

I got a funny feeling in my stomach when she said this but I knew from my sales training that the best way to get people to talk is to start with open questions, rather than jumping straight in asking if he’d tried to feel her up.

After an hour’s discussion, she confessed to me that he’d said she had a pretty smile and that he liked her dress.

Sexual Harassment!!!

I couldn’t believe it. Here’s a company like Sky, with a reputation, sending perverts into people’s homes to make suggestive remarks about their girlfriends. Or, even worse, if you look at it from Gill’s point of view, about people themselves!

Poor Gill. She seemed to be in some kind of denial; pretending that it was nothing important.

Half of me was consumed with the protective urge. I wanted to find out who this man was and dish out some punishment. I’m actually a black belt in Judo. It’s one of the purest forms of martial art, although some of the other ones get all the attention these days.

Anyway, the other half of me was thinking: News!!!

What a story? I could just see it all over the front pages of the tabs. Sky would be in disgrace. They’d have to sack the engineer and the head of customer visits or whatever. I might even get a free subscription. Murdoch might have to issue an apology!!

Then I realised a problem. Murdoch owns quite a few newspapers and I don’t want to get myself in trouble with the boss at such an early stage in my career. On the other hand, it’s my duty as a journalist to expose this kind of corporate misbehaviour. What a quandry.

I figured I would write this story under a pseudonym and submit it only to non-Murdoch papers. Then, when it became a huge snowball, I could reveal myself as the investigative reporter par excellence. What an opportunity. And how rewarding to realise that my news sense was already developing so keenly.

I was straight on the phone to Sky.

Unfortunately, I was in a queue for 40 minutes before I took a break to think about the best way to take down such a powerful corporate monster. I went for a walk around the block. One of my neighbours was putting signs on lamp posts beause her dog had gone missing. But I didn’t have time to think about that. It was me against the most powerful media conglomerate in the world.

Journalism is so rewarding! I feel like I’ve completely reinvented myself.