A newspaper story which resulted in an assistant head teacher being investigated after tweets from her personal Twitter account were published has sparked a massive backlash from readers.
The Billericay Gazette ran the story about 42-year-old Charlotte Berry after reporter Sam Smith noticed what the paper called ‘lewd comments and bad language’ on her @talktoteens account.
However since the story was published last week, readers have responded in droves in support of the teacher, with some lambasting the story as ‘gutter journalism’ in comments on the paper’s website, thisistotalessex.co.uk
Although the original story is still online, all the comments have been taken down along with a page which asked readers for their views on the issue.
The page read: “Following our story about the assistant head now facing investigation over lewd comments and bad language on Twitter, should we be taking care what we put “out there” into the wilderness of the web, or should employers respect freedom of speech and opinion, and our rights to put whatever we want on Twitter?”
One reader responded: “This is a complete non-story, picked up on because they obviously have nothing else to talk about. Oh hold on, Dale Farm maybe?”
Another reader branded the article an “utter disgrace,” while another said the newspaper’s journalists “should be ashamed of themselves after this lazy and unethical piece of work.”
Some of the comments about the story on the Gazette's website before they were taken down
As well as the numerous comments a number of people have also taken to writing online articles in support of the teacher. One blog post entitled ‘How to ruin someone’s life for no good reason’ has been read more than 28,000 times.
HTFP contacted Alan Geere, editorial director of parent company Northcliffe South East and editor-in-chief of the Gazette, but he declined to comment.
A statement on the website underneath the orginal story reads: “Reader comments on this story have been removed as too many of them did not comply with our house rules. If you wish to continue to comment on stories, please follow the rules.”
The paper became aware of Mrs Berry’s posts when she sent a tweet to the paper’s account commenting on a story about her school.
School governors subsequently said they would investigate the matter.
Head teacher of The Billericay School, Sue Hammond, told the newspaper: “The school actively discourages staff and students from participating in social networking sites as statements are constantly taken out of context.
“The statements highlighted will, of course, be investigated fully and if necessary, action taken. However, no complaints about Twitter activity have ever been received by the school.
“The member of staff’s Twitter account appears to have been individually targeted, accessing conversations with friends unconnected with the school and taken completely out of context.
“The school is saddened that the decision has been taken to print these individual, unrelated comments, however indiscreet, in a newspaper medium to an audience for whom they were not intended.”
The paper had previously carried stories about Mrs Berry, a teacher at the school for 12 years, including one about her running the London marathon for charity.
Mrs Berry removed the Twitter account as soon as she was contacted by the newspaper.
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I started to agree with this outcry, until I read Mrs Berry’s comments. She is overly explicit and inappropriate, bordering on offensive and these comments were made IN PUBLIC on twitter, so what does she or anyone else expect?
They weren’t taken out of context, it’s public information that she is a teacher and effectively a public servant. If she didn’t want people to see that she had made these classless remarks then she shouldn’t have written them and posted them on the internet for all to see.
It really doesn’t matter who the “intended” audience is, everyone could see the comments and many people will have come to the conclusion that the person teaching their children is incredibly vulgar, whether she intended that to be the case or not. That’s the point.
Everyone, particularly people working in the public domain, should take a fraction of a second to think about how they come across to ANYONE who can see what they are writing/posting etc.
The only way her supporters comments would stand up to argument is if she wrote this stuff in a private email or message which was never supposed to go public.
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Hannah what planet are you on?
It may indeed be inappropriate what she wrote but that doesn’t mean a newspaper should attempt to smear her and ruin her career. That is totally out of proportion and is not in any way in the public interest. Certainly not to Joe Bloggs who lives 20 miles away and has never heard of her school but now knows everything about her.
A quiet word with the head at the school, a rap on the knuckles and a reminder of her responsibilities would have been enough.
To splurge on it like this is outrageous and symptomatic of the decline in standards. It’s cheap, easy and straight out of the gutter. It’s taking advantage of someone who has been naive (at worst). It’s a typically hamfisted attempt to tap into something which is killing newspapers and which people in the industry feel has to be harnessed in some way to bring newspapers up to date.
Words start to fail me on this. And you want the industry to regulate itself? Scandalous.
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The most remarkable thing about this story is that Alan Geere ‘declined to comment’. Is this a first? He’s not normally shy.
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Don’t worry the Daily Mail have given a balanced view of it too
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2051255/Billericay-assistant-head-Charlotte-Berry-investigated-expletive-filled-Twitter-posts.html
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Harold, the reason the media has always self-regulated is because the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.
As soon as a government begins to take active efforts to legislate the press (over and above the libel laws which regulate everyone) then you are on a potentially very slippy slope.
Even if done for the most innocent of reasons, it leaves things more open to abuses from those in power. This is why, despite some horrendous things from the nationals down the years, successive governments have avoided going down this road – they know what the alternative could lead to.
And, for the most part, self-regulation works. Think for a second how many hundreds of papers there are in the UK, and how many tens-of-thousands of news stories they collectively print each week – and you soon realise that the stories that draw public outcry are far-and-away a small minority. Not bad for a system which self-regulates itself, and definitely preferable to the chance that legislation could leave papers open to anti-democratic control from those in power. It may be a slim chance but it’s one slim chance too many for any democracy to consider.
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I completely agree with Hannah. I, too, initially took this teacher’s side until I read her crude, smutty comments. If these had been delivered to friends in the pub, after a few drinks, they would be excusable. But to put them online shows a degree of egotistical self-promotion. Basically, she was showing off in a very immature way. I think the paper was fully within its rights to highlight what was a serious error of judgment. What’s more, the teacher concerned has not lost her job but is merely being ‘investigated’ prior, no doubt, to suffering a small rap over the knuckles.
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I think everyone who engages in social media whether it is Facebook or Twitter has to accept that whatever they say is in the public domain, even if said ‘amongst friends,’ and if you are in a position of authority or social responsibility then you have to be accountable for your actions.
That’s what newspapers do, they hold people to account.
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The populous of Billericay don’t seem to think this was a valid and fairly treated story by the looks of things. Or do the readers not matter?
The paper was not fully within its rights to do this at all. It’s cheap and nasty and hateful and provocative. And ruinous. If the teacher said she wanted to harm her pupils, hated her school, picked on specific pupils then that’s a totally inappropriate use of Twitter. But a few fruity comments that really harm no one? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone (look up the original context of that) It benefits no one and achieves nothing. Is that what newspapers have come to?
As for self regulation, I agree that Govt intervention is wrong. But newspapers can’t be trusted to regulate themselves because their morals are different than their readers. Who surely are the only people who matter.
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I’m not sure about you Harold but having gained an insight into Ms Berry’s ‘private’ persona I don’t think I would want her teaching my children in a ‘professional’ capacity – good teacher or not. She should have kept her personal self private if she did not want to cause such a stir and Twitter is not the way to ensure privacy. It is a public forum. My personal view is that the reporter and the paper did the public and in particular parents a favour by highlighting the ‘unseen’ side of the person whose children’s future, ideas, beliefs and morals are in the hands of someone not quite so rosy.
What is questionable is whether reporters and newspaper should spend time publishing stories gleamed from social media. I think the days of getting stories from the pub are long over and Twitter and Facebook will only set the news agenda more as time will I’m sure tell.
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The paper is being subjected to mass hysteria from the ignorant wing of the web – and there are so many of them.
It is difficult though, and this perhaps explains Mr Geere’s silence. Once this gets up a head of steam, then anything he says will just be twisted to make it sound worse.
The paper had every right to do the story.
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‘The paper is being subjected to mass hysteria from the ignorant wing of the web – and there are so many of them.’
Who set you up as the arbiter on morality? And is it any wonder readers desert you in droves when you hold them in such contempt? Dreadful attitude. Maybe they just think the story is wrong. As I do. Are they not allowed to believe that, or are they hysterical? And would you sit there and tell readers their views don’t mean jack?
As for the ridiculous comment about not wanting this person to teach their children, do you know any teachers? Do you know any policeman, lawyers, civil servants – anyone trusted with responsibility? If so you’ll know most of them are normal people like this lady who have normal views and say normal things. Well, I think they’re normal.
Maybe it all comes down to the standards you set yourself. And as we all know, journalists have such high standards.
Am I a lunatic too?
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Slow news week? Teacher swears.
Shocker
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Don’t be deterred, Alan. You carry on.
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