1. No more generic digest
Instead of a daily email digest, you can see all of the submissions here: http://delicious.com/bloggerscircle
These will be tagged with keywords so that you can filter the submissions according to what is most relevant for your blog. I hope this can help grow the circle whilst keeping it relevant to your interests.

2. A discussion group
We’ve created a discussion group to debate ideas and posts and so you can collaborate with other bloggers more easily. It’s all available here: http://groups.google.com/group/bloggerscircle where you can submit your posts to the monthly digest, discuss themes / ideas for new blogposts and share ideas on how to improve your blog. I hope this will lead to a better sense of community rather than shouting into an email blackhole.

3. Blog of the week
We’d like to try a ‘blog of the week’ competition. To vote, just email your favourite post, putting the web address in the subject of your email, and email it to debate@bloggerscircle.net. The blog of the week will receive a small prize and be circulated to all the members. I hope this will encourage people to continue to take part.

So, what do you need to do?
1. If you want to submit your post, you can email me as before or post it in the forum: http://groups.google.com/group/bloggerscircle

2. Please vote for your favourite post of the week

3. Add http://delicious.com/bloggerscircle to your favourites so you can keep abreast of the debate

. . . . And if this doesn’t work for you, let me know.

Related posts:

1. Bloggers Circle 2 months on
2. Bloggers Circle: week one assessment
3. bloggers circle: month 1 assessment

Confessions of an Ojibwe
A member of Sagkeeng First Nation, Manitoba, Canada, Made a pledge of the Ogichidaa to help Indians in a manner that I can, I am currently trying to climb out of the black hole of depression, for now I pretend to be happy, funny, I am happy to be a Dad a Granpa, a Husband, a Son, a Relative, a friend and not least an Indian.

The DYDA DISPATCHES
Lots of graphics and video. Simon Dyda: A member of Plaid Cymru and EFA, I make superficial and sarcastic remarks about Welsh and EU politics. Superficial sarcasm is the new Zen.

Jennie Rigg
My motor is stalled, but my wheels are still spinning. You’ll notice that there isn’t much biographical detail in my profile. That’s because I’m firmly of the opinion that I am too fantastic and amazing to get to know in a few little soundbites. I’m thirty-one years old, mother to amazing_holly ? and engaged to be married to matgb ?, Press and Communications officer for my local Lib Dems, an inveterate blogger, and I have LOTS of things that I like to geek about.

Duncan Stott
Intermittent headblurts, mainly about liberalism and democracy. I get particularly wound up about immigration, drugs, and unfair elections.

Eric Joyce
I am an MP and I like to share my ideas: I blog about stuff in the House of Commons

Chun Han Wong
An attempt at satirical commentary on current affairs and the media.

Nick Barlow
I write about whatever happens to catch my magpie-like attention, be it politics, books, TV, or anything else going on that’s interesting. I’m a Liberal Democrat councillor for Castle Ward in Colchester, so I throw the occasional bit of local politics into the mix too.

Jeremy Swain
I’m the Chief Executive of a major homelessness charity and my blog is intended to show the human side of being a CEO as I try and wrestle with leading an organisation with a turnover of £20 million in a business-like way and stay true to the 5,000 homeless people we support. Humiliation and mistakes as well as more general musings are part of this blog which is now syndicated to Charity Finance magazine.

Catherine Shovlin
The Thinking Tank is a thinktank turned on its head. Drawing on wisdom of the crowds theory to give volume to the voice of the people

Luciana Berger
My blog is about all things political, Labour, co-operative, St Pancras and Somers Town, film and other musings.

Related posts:

1. New members join the Bloggers Circle
2. Bloggers Circle 2 months on
3. New joiners to the Bloggers Circle

So what will happen next? I examined the PCC’s precedent in the handful of similar cases over the last 13 years. My prediction is that Jan Moir and the Daily Mail will escape any disciplinary action.

The PCC always acts through the newspapers, rather than the individual journalists. Only once has a journalist been named by the PCC: Matthew Parris, for an article which attracted the previous record number of complaints. That article offended cyclists. He wrote: “A festive custom we could do worse than foster would be stringing piano wire across country lanes to decapitate cyclists.”

The PCC will not necessarily act against the Daily Mail on the basis of the number of complaints that it received. Regulatory bodies and complaints ombudsmen do not work like that. The PCC did not uphold the complaint against The Times for Matthew Parris’ article.

The complaints against Jan Moir were focussed around a possible breach of three clauses of the press code of practice: clause 1 (accuracy), clause 5 (intrusion into grief or shock) and clause 12 (discrimination).

The Daily Mail should not be able to justify the article as being in the public interest, despite the definition: “There is a public interest in freedom of expression itself.” The public interest defence is not available for breaches of clause 1 or clause 5.

The case against clause 1 is unlikely to stand up. Although some thought it cast doubt on the findings of the autopsy, it is not inaccurate to suggest that healthy people do not die in the night. And the article reported the findings of the autopsy correctly: “A post-mortem revealed Stephen died from acute pulmonary oedema, a build-up of fluid on his lungs.”

The newspaper clearly presented the article as a comment piece, distinguishing between comment, conjecture and fact – as required by clause 1. Finally, in the case of Anne Peck v Time Out the commission found that “Although some might have judged them in dubious taste, they would be recognised by regular readers as Mr Mosby’s own particular style.” Regular readers of Jan Moir know what to expect.

The case against clause 5 may also not stand up. In the case of Deidre Manchanda v The Independent the commission ruled: “It did not consider that the information was gratuitously graphic or out of proportion to what was already in the public domain, or that the tone of the account was insensitive or unsympathetic.” Jan Moir’s article did not publish anything that was not already in the public domain although the tone was insensitive but possibly not sufficiently one-sided to be considered unsympathetic.

The commission has only upheld one complaint about clause 12 in the last nine years. In that case, A woman v News of the World (Scottish edition) the PCC set two tests for the complaint about a reference to a person’s sexuality: was it pejorative; and was it relevant? In Jan Moir’s article his sexuality is likely to be deemed relevant because of the visit to a gay club on the night of his death.

However, the article may be considered in breach of clause 12 for its references to Stephen Gately “we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy” may be in breach.

It is not likely to be in breach for the wider implications it drew for civil partnerships:

“Another real sadness about Gately’s death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships” is probably not in breach because the code allows the press to be discriminatory against groups of people.

So what will happen next?

The case of Kelliher v British Medical Journal may be the most similar. The editors codebook (the committee which draws it up is chaired by Paul Dacre) reports:

Although the Code does not cover the privacy of the dead, a critical obituary in the British Medical Journal, describing a doctor as “the greatest snake-oil salesman of his age”, brought a complaint from the man’s family. The PCC said it was not unacceptable to publish criticisms of the dead — but that the sensitivity of the family had to be taken into account. No adjudication was necessary as the editor offered to publish an apology for the distress caused.”

My best guess is that the Daily Mail will apologise for the offence caused, although not the article itself. The commission will not, then, be able to adjudicate so no offence will be recorded. The apology may even become a case study for effective self-regulation. This will all take several weeks in which time the heat will be taken out of the issue. And Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre appears not to accept that a resolved complaint can constitute a breach of the code – he only considers an adjudication against the paper a matter of embarrassment.

Few complaints ever make it to adjudication. Of the 222 Daily Mail articles which have attracted complaints since 1996, only three have made it to adjudication. That’s a similar proportion to the rest of the industry. On average, about half of all cases that go to adjudication are found against the newspaper. But of the three cases against the Daily Mail two were not upheld and in the other, the PCC ruled that the paper had already offered sufficient remedy. The PCC has not ruled against the Daily Mail for all the 13 years that it has put cases on its website. This is not correct – I apologise. The full data is available at www.pcc.org.uk

This is a challenge for the PCC, which is constituted only to resolve complaints or adjudicate on them when they cannot be resolved. It is not able to perform the sort of independent self-regulation that some complainants, and the wider public, might expect. This critical issue must be at the heart of the PCC’s forthcoming governance review or else public confidence in the industry will be weakened further.

This article first appeared on journalism.co.uk

Related posts:

1. The PCC got it right on Jan Moir complaint
2. Why Jan Moir’s apology shouldn’t be ‘case closed’
3. PCC adjudication against Scottish News of the World inconsistent and a threat to press freedom

An analysis of his blog during September, revealed the following issues and phrases most likely to emerge in his writing – a healthy mix of the things that really matter to the people of Bickerstaffe ward and the wider issues of interest to other bloggers in the circle.

And to quote Paul out of context, I found a number of delicious quotes on his blog, including:

• “It’s important, I contend, to set out the emerging debate within an appropriate epistemological framework, and to take a considered view on the extent to which the debate is ontologically ’real’, and to set this against the claim that it is a ’social reality’ effectively manufactured by the hegemonic forces of capitalism eager to ‘alienate’ the working classes from an appreciation of their true objective interests.”
• Just how stupid are rightwing bloggers?
• I just thought I’d stick up the content of this letter to Dickets Lane/Wigan Road residents as it’s not got indivudual information in, and is a bit too long to regurgitate in a leaflet, so i’ll just link to it with the clever tinyURL thigummy

Paul was also kind enough to answer some questions I asked, in order to get a better idea of how he does it.

1. Tell us about your blog in a soundbite
A blog about local politics in West Lancashire which keeps getting distracted by other matters

2. How long have you been blogging?
I had a false start sometime 2007, but finally got regular about it by about July 2008, and haven’t looked back since. Or is that looked up since?

3. What do you think is your best ever post and why?
Tricky one.

I think I’ll have to go for my long post about now my local Conservative council develops an image of itself at odds with reality, and how an imposition of its own version of reality must be challenged, but must first be recognised for what it is.  I only started reading proper, serious books about 6 or 7 years ago, and it was the first time I really felt I had been able to bring my newly acquired theoretical perspectives around ‘critical realism’ to bear on a practical issue in such a way that I was more confident about what day-to-day political approach I need to take as a Labour councillor in a Conservative controlled area.  I was dead chuffed.  I’m doing a post at the moment on ‘The epistemology of decent journalism’ which calls on much of the same ideas, but develops them further, so what goes around comes around.

See Awards ceremonies, management beliefs, power relations, and the critically realist path of the righteous left

4. How often do you blog?
Pretty well every night, when everyone in the house has gone to bed.

5. Tell us how you find the time
Less sleep. I usually blog in the hours after midnight.  I used to read novels then.  I’ve stopped.

6. What keeps you going?
I find writing stuff down in a blog helps me clarify my own thinking about stuff, as well as – from a practical point of view – getting stuff down which is often cut and paste into newsletters and other local correspondence.

I also like to comment on other people’s blogs quite a lot, because I think it’s important that blogs engage rather than simply become rants from a small dark room.  I think there’s a lot of hope for the blogosphere generally as an alternative to the control exerted by the mainstream media giants, and I’m keen to support that in my own little way.

7. What’s a good day, in terms of traffic to your blog?
I’m afraid I have no idea.  I don’t bother with what I’ve seen referred to as ‘statporn’.  My mate Steve, who understands these things, did set up google analytics for me but I’ve lost it.

8. What would you like to achieve with your blog?
The success of the blog itself is unimportant, and in fact I’ve started to move a lot of my ‘wider’ writing to Though Cowards Flinch’ in order to ‘get back local’ with the Bickerstaffe Record.  Through my blogosphere engagement, though, I have come to realise (and have been told by friendly others) that I do know a thing or two about things, and can write reasonably well, and I can now see doors opening to making a bit of a living (though only a bit) in some kind of ‘engaged journalism’/'radical publishing’.  I’m quite old, and it’s a bit late for a career change, but engagement with people in the blogopshere (and especially engagement with young people who take my on my own terms rather than see me as a dull middle-aged fart) is potentially opening up some really interesting doors for me in my increasingly radical dotage.

9. What’s the best piece of advice you can give?
Always try to respond to commenters, who like to see comments back.  They didn’t just comment into the ether. They commented in order to engage and they deserve the courtesy of a response.  It also means they’ll visit the site again.

Never abuse people personally, and try to be as respectful to people as you would be if you met them in real life, however much you disagree with them. This applies to everyone except Tom Harris MP, who should be abused as much as possible for his writings, views, personality, and personal hygiene.

Am I allowed two? I am quite old and prone to handing out advice whether people want it or not.

10. Tell us how a blogpost gets your attention?
If it’s clear from the start that the post is either going to offer a point of view on something i’ve not seen before, or is going to give me new, originally sourced information.  Conversely, I’m put off by articles that simply link to other pieces of commentary and regurgitate/synthesize what’s been said there.  That’s with the exception of Vino S, who simply gives a two or three line abstract and invites the reader to look at the original, and doesn’t try to make his post a commentary about commentary.

Related posts:

1. Meet the blogger: Joe Nutt
2. New members join the Bloggers Circle
3. 3 changes to the Bloggers Circle

In September 67 posts were submitted, almost exactly the same number as in August. Of these 31 were debated on at least one other blog, although none were debated on more than two other blogs. That’s an increase in debate on last month – and I’d like to think this was partly down to the new format I’ve tried with the daily digest to give more prominent to blog responses. We have also added more than five members during the month.

I’ve also tried to improve the administration of the circle by introducing new members and getting under the skin of some of our most loyal members so that we can swap notes on how to blog.

There are a number of ways that we can improve the bloggers circle. We can better profile the posts which have been submitted to the circle, in order to help drive traffic to the sites of our members. We could do a weekly digest of the best posts, as voted for by members of the circle.

I have also surveyed those who have joined but not taken part. The key messages that came out of this were:

• people are still reading the daily email digest or the RSS feed
• those who aren’t submitting posts are hesitant because there aren’t enough relevant blogs
• there’s still enthusiasm for the concept

So there are some really positive elements of the Bloggers Circle. But I worry that it isn’t moving forward dynamically and isn’t sufficiently useful to any individual member that it’s a compelling thing in which to participate.

How should we take it forward? We are looking at improving our website – though things are inevitably slow when trying to do IT upgrades on the cheap and favours. I think there are three options:

1. Admitting that it was a nice idea, but not sufficiently compelling to make a significant difference to its members
2. Expanding the circle significantly, and creating lots of sub-groups based on specialisms
3. Trying a completely different approach (such as members voting on the best posts) for a couple of weeks and see what impact that has

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. bloggers circle: month 1 assessment
2. Bloggers Circle: week one assessment
3. Launching the Bloggers Circle