Informed 03


again, we had the police targeting the messenger, hot on the heels of the recent case where NUJ members, Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney, were arrested by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) for their film exposing police collusion with paramilitaries responsible for six deaths at Loughlinsland in 1994. When they were exonerated in court,


Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan made clear that the work of journalists was essential in holding the state to account and that the authorities should expect that journalists would abide by the NUJ code of conduct. The decision was a significant vindication of the rights of journalists to protect confidential sources of information. It laid bare the Chief Constable of Durham’s unconvincing insistence that his officers, called in by the PSNI as lead investigators in the case, “acted in good faith, within the law and followed due process”. That case also raises significant issues about the treatment of our members by the PSNI and Durham Constabulary – something the NUJ has taken up directly with the chair of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, securing a meeting to discuss the issue further at the end of this month. Dragging journalists to jail in dawn


raids witnessed by their families, issuing draconian bail terms and failing to acknowledge the rights of journalists to protect confidential sources of information are issues of fundamental concern that need to be addressed. Trust and confidence in the police are only possible when the rights of citizens are respected.


Trust in journalists and journalism is


only possible when whistleblowers and sources can feel confident that they can come forward and share information they believe the public should know about, safe in the knowledge their identifies will be protected. Without that protection, we simply won’t have a functioning free press.


Diary


Shaken not stirred Te identity of the new 007 inspires much comment and speculation. No less interesting for NUJ members is the identity of the old 007. We are, of course, keenly anticipating the arrival of Paul Siegert, our new broadcasting organiser. His credentials as a distinguished on- screen reporter and an equally impressive BBC secondee are well known. Rather more surprising is that he used to work for MI6. Of course, he can share no details of his previous life and insists that “I wasn’t exactly James Bond” – but then, he would say that, wouldn’t he?


Trousering a pay rise Receiving her life membership certificate recently, Leeds branch member, Diana Muir, remembered how, when she joined the Yorkshire


Post in 1978, women reporters were banned from wearing trousers. Tankfully, gendered dress codes are a thing of the past, even in God’s Own County. Diane also recalled how a strike in her first week at work secured “a huge pay rise on our pitance of a salary” – evoking the brief moment when it was trade unionists who really wore the trousers. Diane also admited to burning her colleagues’ porn stash on the strike brazier.


Soho tales Te 90th birthday of retired Irish Secretary, Jim Eadie, provided occasion to celebrate a well-loved member of the NUJ family. Anecdotes flowed. One recalled his inaugural visit to union headquarters, then in Great Windmill Street, Soho. His induction to the staff completed by mid-aſternoon, general secretary, Jim Bradley, suggested a drink. Te two pounded the neighbourhood but


found that, consistent with the law in the mid- 1960s, pub doors were firmly shut. Eventually they arrived at the Raymond Revuebar – a legendary strip club advertised with a vast likeness of the kind of naked entertainer to be found within. “I bet you don’t get anything like that in Dublin,” said Bradley. “No, but at least you can get a bloody drink,” was Eadie’s retort.


Bovine bother Pity Martin Shipton, Media Wales chief reporter and chair of the NUJ’s Reach group chapel. An invitation to meet Digital, Culture, Media & Sport minister, Margot James, offered an apparently golden opportunity to share his beefs about the travails of modern news gathering with a government decision maker. Alas, a bovine incursion thwarted the great man’s progress. By the time the cows were cleared from Great Western’s tracks near Didcot Parkway and Shipton finally arrived in the capital, the NUJ delegation was trooping out of the minister’s office. He might have retrieved something from his day by filing an Udderly terrible rail service story – but even at that he was scooped by the Swindon Advertiser.


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