Insight - Stormont Security Breach

A loyalist killer armed with a knife and gun entered Parliament Buildings, Stormont today during an Assembly sitting billed as a significant moment in the history of Northern Ireland.

Two civilian security guards managed to pull Michael Stone to the ground and disarm him. These security men did not have guns or any other devices which might help them bring an armed criminal under control.

Despite Northern Ireland's recent past and ongoing threats from dissident republicans and people like Stone, police are never deployed to Parliament Buildings. I worked in Stormont for a significant period of time and I always considered security to be lax, not just for Northern Ireland, but for any seat of government in the UK. When you enter the building you go through airport style scanners, but unlike Westminster or the Welsh Assembly there is no physical barrier preventing access to the main building or indeed the chamber, there is simply a red rope. It is also very easy to drive into the Stormont Estate in fact you can get a vehicle to the bottom of the front steps without it ever being checked.

The police response today was slow and it highlighted the woeful inadequacy of the current security arrangements. Lives were saved by very brave security staff whose actions went far beyond what should be required of them.

Not Northern Ireland Again!

Someone, who shall remain nameless, said to me the other day, "Oh no, not Northern Ireland again!" in reference to my blogging. I can sympathise with that attitude to an extent. For many people this side of the Irish Sea, 'the province' is like a different country. They don't really consider it part of the UK and know it not for its breathtaking scenery or friendly people, but for the bombs and bullets which defined it for 30 years.

Among my peers this attitude is not quite as prevalent. The first ceasefire was in 1994 when I was 10 years old. The problems didn't end then of course, in fact the single biggest loss of life happened after the second ceasefire with the Omagh bombing in 1998. But on the whole it is now somewhere that people my age want to visit.

Today Michael Stone, a loyalist killer, broke into Parliament Buildings with a knife, a gun and several crude explosive devices. Due to the bravery of two civilian security men he caused no harm, succeeding only to stop proceeding within the building for the day. Stone killed 3 people at an IRA funeral in 1988. He was released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. But people like him should never really have been released. Some would say the only surprising thing is that more of the terrorists released have not ended up back behind bars.

Stone's actions today are simply inexplicable. He had no political motive and demonstrated only that he is a psychopath, unable to adjust to life in a normalised society.

He represents all that is bad in Northern Ireland, a small group of thugs that for years have stunted Northern Ireland's development and tarnished its image. Undoubtedly many will look at their TV screens this evening and think, "look, they're at it again over there", but today's dramatic events smoke-screen something far more significant.

Ian Paisley today officially accepted power sharing with Sinn Fein (with conditions). That is the real top story and its implications for his party are unclear. Stone's actions are totally insignificant.

Newspaper Journalist, Online Journalist, Video Journalist and No Sleep Presumably!

Sarah Radford is an online journalist for the award winning Newbury Weekly News. She trained as a print journalist but has quickly had to adapt to the world of new media.

The Newbury Weekly News has embraced new media and it is leaps ahead of many of its competitors. The paper provides daily 2-3min news bulletins and many stories throughout the day are posted as video as well as text. This requires the journalist be able to write a story while also recording it for video. The journalist must then be able to put the story online, edit and put the video online and also provide the story for the paper if needs be.

Sarah admits that this new approach can make you a 'jack of all trades' and a 'master of none'. She said she very often feels guilty that she can't give longer to her stories.

So is this new approach good for journalism?

Typically, most local newspapers will want to employ the least possible amount of people in order to get the paper and online content produced. The result is that everyone is constantly under pressure and the standard of the journalism must automatically decline. If local weeklies or nationals are to embrace new media but maintain standards, then they need to realise that this will cost more, require more people and will, in the short term at least, probably have little financial reward.

*Online Life – Feature Idea

Take a step back and observe the world around you today and it is quite shockingly different from the world we lived in only 10 years ago. Mobile phones, PDA’s, laptop computers and easy access to what Al Gore coined the “information superhighway”. The thing is – it isn’t just information we get on the internet anymore. It has insidiously invaded all areas of our lives and increasingly we are dependent on it.

Parallel universes, once the stuff of Sci-Fi movies, have become a reality through the internet. Online communities are more active, coherent and accessible than the communities on our doorsteps. Reuters have even assigned a journalist to an entirely fictional cyber world called Second Life.

Second Life is a 3D virtual world which is built entirely by its own residents. It is currently inhabited by about 1,585,711 and is growing by the day. In this world, you can build a house, start a business, it even has its own currency, the Linden Dollar, which can be converted to US dollars. (as I write this $652,346 has gone through Second Life in the last 24 hours) This world is created and maintained by San Francisco-based Linden Lab.

Real world companies are flocking to this virtual world. Toyota, Adidas and Sony have all invested but the biggest investor is IBM which has allocated $10 million to expanding its presence in virtual worlds over the next 12 months.

I have become Dai Sungsoo (he is a rather more handsome version of myself – cyber plastic surgery is very affordable!) and I am going to explore this new world, weigh up its potential benefits and negatives and report to back to you on my experiences in a parallel dimension. I hope to interview the Reuters journalist in this virtual world and also conduct interviews with other members of this online community.

Wish me luck!

Advertising Auntie?

More videos and more audio will be the future of online news. That was the message from Pete Clifton, Head of BBC News Interactive, when he addressed an audience of Postgraduate Journalism Students at Cardiff University.

Pete Clifton is in charge of possibly the most visited news website in the world and is responsible for other BBC services such as Ceefax, interactive services and broadband services. BBC news receives around 5 million unique hits a day.

Mr Clifton said that the BBC had a fair idea of what Sky News are working on at the minute for their new website and he said it has far more focus on the use of video. He also confirmed that the BBC is moving in this direction and that people will notice major improvements in this area with the launch of the new iplayer next April.

User customisation of the main page also seems to be a priority - allowing users to specify the type of stories, sports and other information they want to see when they open up the BBC News Interactive main page. Interestingly, Mr Clifton also said that it is very likely they will allow people to incorporate information or streams from other sites onto their own personalised BBC webpage. Making their BBC webpage a one-stop-shop for everything they want to see online.

The growth of such online services will have to be paid for and with the Beeb under pressure to show that it is partially trying to pay for itself, it is very likely that BBC pages viewed from abroad will soon incorporate advertising.*

*Currently, BBC News Interactive can be accessed globally, yet only British citizens paying the TV licence contribute towards it.

*Digital Storytelling - On the kitchen table?

Pioneered in the USA, Digital Storytelling allows ordinary people to make "mini-movies" using cameras, computers, scanners and old photo albums.

In 2001 Dr Daniel Meadows from Cardiff University took the idea of Digital Storytelling to the BBC in Wales, leading to the foundation of “Capture Wales”. Now, monthly workshops allow members of the public to tell simple stories about their lives.

The project is based on a belief that everyone has an interesting story to tell. Dr Meadows believes that everyone should be able to make their own media - "on the kitchen table if needs be."

We should be able to make our own media - on the kitchen table if needs be!

Is this sort of project another step in the so-called democratisation of the media and what does it add to society?

From the films you can view on the website it is obvious these are often stories that would not be told by the mainstream media. Therefore from a historical or social anthropological view the collection of these stories may be useful, but I disagree with the basis that everyone has an interesting story to tell.

More often than not the stories told in the "Capture Wales" project have no bearing on how I live my life and are of little value to me personally. I can however see some value in the project from the point of view of building communities.

We live in a world today where it is not uncommon to never have met ones neighbours and where there is little necessity to roam the local area. It is quite possible for people today to live in their own little self-sufficient worlds were once people relied on each other.

Perhaps these films go some way to providing conversations the modern world no longer allows.

Note: Dr Daniel Meadows teaches New Media and Photography at the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Stories in Cardiff University.

*Print Journalist with Broadcast Capabilities - Richard Burton

Redundancies and Telegraph are two words which have become synonymous in recent times.

The former editor of Telegraph Online, Richard Burton, left the paper a few months ago ahead of a round of redundancies. He did so because, in his own words, he was about to go from "manager of the first team to first team coach".

Burton however is a good example of a traditional Fleet Street journalist who embraced new media and saw the new world of possibilities for newspapers in Britain.

He realised that instantaneous publication gave a print journalist broadcast capabilities.

This made me think about how much the rise of new media will merge the broadcast and print industries. Online offers the ability to deliver text, the traditional stuff of newspapers, instantly without the delay caused by delivery lorries, overnight trains or even planes to the 4 corners of the UK. It also offers the ability to deliver video and sound at increasingly better quality. So it is a medium in which all journalists can work and it is a medium in which the reader also expects to be able to watch moving pictures and listen to audio.

Newspaper sales in this country are still strong, but many younger people prefer to get their news online, free of charge, where they can choose what they watch, listen to or read. (see Times Online TV - supplied by Reuters) As this becomes more 'the norm' it seems inevitable to me that journalists from both industries will work closer together.

Indeed, any journalists worth their salt will be able to turn their hand to a camera as readily as a keyboard.

An Audience with...me?

Yesterday I was covering two stories in Barry, South Wales.

The first was the launch of the Welsh Conservatives 'mini-manifesto' in which they have pledged to regenerate neglected seaside towns across Wales. The party thought it would be a novel idea to launch this part of the manifesto in a seaside town. Nice idea maybe, but I was the only journalist who bothered to attend. Nevertheless they continued with their presentation.

It did rather feel like the tables had turned and the Welsh Conservatives were having an audience with me. Very strange!

That said, I was very grateful to the Assembly member who gave me a lift to my next destination, Ty Hafan Children's Hospice.

The Ty Hafan Hospice has been running 7 years, it provides respite and palliative care to 300 children and it has been ranked 15th out of 500 children's charities in England and Wales.

The Chief Executice, Ray Hurcombe, said he believed the hospice, which is 90% funded by charitable donations, would greatly benefit from this recognition.

NI People Want Deal: BBC Poll

A poll produced today shows that most people in Northern Ireland support the St Andrews Agreement as a means of getting devolved government up and running.

The BBC Attitude Survey 2006 showed that while the majority of people want to see devolved government up and running, most people think it is unlikely that the Assembly will be restored by next March.

Crucially, the survey showed that less than half the DUP support the deal currently, but 46% of the party's supporters would be prepared to share power with Sinn Fein when they accept the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI.)

A minority of Sinn Fein member said they would never support the PSNI. But over half of the party's supporters interviewed said they would accept the PSNI after approval from a special conference or Ard Fheis.

So what does the poll tell us:

Both the Unionist and Nationalist communities can accept St Andrews, but the DUP has not convinced its electorate.

Sinn Fein members are prepared to sign up to policing.

A large proportion of DUP members recognise that sharing power with Sinn Fein is inevitable.

Most people want devolution up and running but don't believe that will happen by next March.

Garden of Remembrance

In the run up to Remembrance Sunday, a garden of remembrance was opened in Cardiff today.

First Minister, Rhodri Morgan said it was important to remember those who had sacrificed their lives for others freedom.

I asked Mr Morgan, who has kept his views on the Iraq war private, if he thought todays wars would be remembered in a similar way in 50 years time, he said:

"They won't have the same impact - but war didn't end in 1945, death in service didn't end in 1945. Whatever you think about the politics of Iraq and Afghanistan - that doesn't matter. What you are talking about is people who have led their lives down and the impact of that, the traumatic impact of that on their families."

The garden will be open for viewing until Sunday.

Government Puts Pressure on NI Politicians

NIO minister, David Hanson has told Northern Ireland's politicians that they will only secure a cap on domestic rates and a 50% relief for pensioners if they get devolution up in running.

Northern Ireland's politicians have to let the British and Irish governments know their response to the St Andrews Agreement by Friday.

St Andrews Slipping Away

There is a danger that this blog entry will sound familiar to you. It will sound familiar because I am going to tell you that it seems very unlikely that St Andrews is going to be accepted by the DUP in its current form. In other words the DUP will be saying "No" yet again.

It is not certain, but highly likely that the DUP are going to put the current political process on hold in 5 days time after consulting their electorate.

The Party has stressed that the Agreement reached at St Andrews is not its agreement, but the agreement of the British and Irish governments. Yet the agreement was drafted with their input and in their public consultation document they have tried to sell the agreement by comparing how much better it is than the Good Friday Agreement.

The truth is that many party members find it incredible that the DUP leadership appears to be on the verge of sitting in government with Sinn Fein. In fact Bob McCartney, leader of the small United Kingdom Unionist Party (UKUP) claims that disillusioned Unionists have been getting in touch with him to mount opposition to the agreement. It is questionable how many unionists will have been calling Mr McCartney, but this public statement is undoubtedly intended as a rallying call.

Nigel Dodds, a DUP MP, attempted to reassured disillusioned party supporters this week by claiming the DUP won't be rushing into anything, he said:

"Even if all the major elements of a fair deal are in place our position on Sinn Fein’s fitness for office remains unchanged and unchanging. It will require
a complete end to paramilitary and criminal activity, support for the police
and all the other requirements of being committed to exclusively peaceful
and democratic means. All of this has to be delivered and tested over time."

Mr Dodds will have calmed some nerves, but many in his party will want to see other key players taking a few more steps away from this agreement.

It is likely that the governments' solution will be to give the parties more time, but the DUP know they can't bet on this. The alternative of joint sovereignty and little political control is another nightmare they don't want to contemplate.