Goodnight NightJack
Tweet Written by Danny Whatmough
There’s lots of digital news going on today and so it would be easy to miss a blogging story that should really be given more attention. The Times has reported that it has won a landmark verdict in the High Court allowing the paper to reveal the identity of police-blogger NightJack.
The verdict has forced the blogger to close the site and delete the content.
The NightJack blog describes described, worts and all, on-the-beat policing, featuring some stinging attacks on the organisation and the government. But it was the insights into everyday policing that lead the blog and the blogger to be awarded an Orwell Prize in April. As a Guardian editorial put it:
“This is life as the police see it. Read it, even if only to disagree.”
Well, disagree The Times did and reporting on the case it disclosed:
“In the first case dealing with the privacy of internet bloggers, the judge ruled that Mr xx had no “reasonable expectation” to anonymity because “blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity”.”
Blogger Zoe Margolis who was also unmasked by the same newspaper blogs:
“There will be others, of course, who’ll applaud this judge’s ruling for upholding “freedom of information” and “openness and transparency” for the “public interest” stories covered by journalists. But those of us who have chosen to be anonymous online, have done so with good reason; so after losing my own anonymity, and experiencing first hand the ruthless behaviour of some elements of the press, I will continue to fight for the right of other bloggers to keep their identity hidden.”
For some anonymity empowers them to say and expose things they might not otherwise say or expose, as Jemima Kiss states, “there are occasions when anonymity is a powerful and necessary tool and a right that protects whistleblowers and brings important issues to light. A blanket ruling that disregards that right is very bad news indeed.”
I’m not au fait with the political and legal ranglings of the case but I do know that at a time when bloggers are exposing great injustices in the world, it is sometimes necessary to write behind a veil in order to reveal what is really happening.