A regional daily spiked a story about a public official caught looking at pornography at work after consulting readers via Facebook.
The Derby Telegraph received a tip-off that a named public sector worker on its patch had been caught looking at porn on his work computer.
But editor Neil White was not convinced that the running the story would be in the public interest and decided to ask readers what they thought, using the paper’s Facebook page to gather responses.
After an overwhelming thumbs-down from the readers, Neil announced the story would be spiked.
The Telegraph said on its FB page: “We’re investigating a tip-off that a Derbyshire public sector worker has been caught looking at pornography – NOT child porn – on his work computer.
“Is it in the public interest for us to publish this story? Should looking at pornography at work be a disciplinary/sacking offence? We want you to tell us your views before we decide whether or not to name and shame this man.”
Among those who responded was Richard Cox, himself a former journalist with the Derby Telegraph and Nottingham Post who has since moved into PR.
He wrote: “This is nothing to do with a newspaper’s role. If this idiot is named and shamed then I want an absolute assurance that no employee of the DT has ever looked at pornography. ‘He who casts the first stone’ …”
Another reader, John Leach, responded: “No you should not publish the story. You are not judge and jury. Many folk look at porn on the internet so it’s not uncommon.
“His management should just discipline for time wasting if it was during working time. It’s no different to looking in on Facebook.”
Simon Randle said: “To even consider that this would be in the public interest doesn’t make any sense at all.
“All the chap has done is breach his employers code of conduct, breaching his contractual obligations and thus his contract was terminated. How he breached that is irrelevant.”
After 48 comments spread across a 24-hour period, Neil thanked readers for their contributions and gave his verdict.
He said: “We genuinely wanted some feedback from our readers before we pursued this story. You have confirmed what I thought. We will abandon it and move on.”
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Dangerous precedent to set!
Having said that, the web stats will demonstrate that the readers prefer to see videos of kittens being vacuumed etc.
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Sorry – but wrong from the start.
It is of public interest, because he worked in the public sector.
I know Facebook has replaced reporters having to actually talk to the public, now it seems it’s being used to guide editorial decisions.
Why not chuck the whole newslist on there, and let the decisions about what’s in the paper be made by committee?
Judean People’s Front….
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Probably a good call. The way the internet works at the moment it is sometimes impossible NOT to look at porn as so many harmless looking links often lead to something lurid and unwanted. I would add, however, that if the man concerned was a senior executive who had been sacked for repeatedly looking at ‘hard’ porn after several warnings, I would have run the story…and perhaps named him. It’s all a matter of degree and, if child porn was involved, the public interest consideration would be so much greater.
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The ‘shaming’ of this person for doing what millions do every day would be entirely disproportionate with the so called misdemeanour so I’m out.
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Well the Facebook request is a published story really, isn’t it? The paper has made the matter public without naming the individual and opened the issue up for debate. That’s about the right call in my opinion. Think I would also have published the story in paper and online as well, again without the name.
If the individual takes the case to an industrial tribunal, I presume the paper will then deem the case fair game to cover, name and all.
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A thoroughly bizarre (and wrong) decision for a newspaper to put this out for the Facebook jury to decide whether it’s a story or not.
The newspaper should have followed the story up itself and then used editorial judgement to decide whether it was worth publishing or not.
The public sector worker could have been a teacher looking at inappropriate material while working in a school. It could have been a police officer at a station while he should have been on duty. It could have been a high-ranking council official on taxpayers’ time and money. There are a multitude of ways in which this would have been in the public interest to publish.
Letting your Facebook users dictate your news agenda to this extent is weird, and surely a dangerous thing to do. While should the vocal minority speak for everyone when the majority of readers in both print and online would probably have considered this a good story for the paper to cover.
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In a London office not a million miles from Derry Street, the sound of lips smacking was heard as it was confirmed that editors are, indeed, superfluous and the paper can be handed over to the public to edit. Altogether now….it’s good to feel the greenfields project coming home….
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Journalists acting with integrity? I think this proves we can..
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Hmmm.. If i was a Derbyshire public sector worker, I’d be unhappy that I was tarnished with this…
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