An open letter to forth readers
Wed 05 May, 2010
JASON WALSH responds to SpinWatch
TODAY IS Karl Marx’s birthday. In honour of the old dead German here’s a misquote: “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of other people’s battles.”
Or so it appears to me, anyway.
Yesterday forth published a ‘right of reply’ piece by David Miller and Claire Robinson of SpinWatch. As editor of forth I am happy to do this because SpinWatch was – tangentially – the subject of a story I published, after all.
(In fact the story was actually about the largesse of Zac Goldsmith, a multimillionaire businessman and Conservative Party candidate in Richmond, Surrey.)
Nevertheless, when it comes to forth Miller and Robinson are wrong and must be corrected. They have asked questions of me which I will answer this one time, but only because someone needs to draw a line in the sand.
As SpinWatch’s modus operandi could best be described as finding out who ‘pays the piper’ I would first like to categorically state that forth has never received nor solicited a single donation or other payment of any kind from any business, think-tank, NGO, charity or other organisation of any kind whatsoever – which is more than can be said for, for instance, SpinWatch.
Not that it matters, though. Funding does not necessarily make people paid shills, not SpinWatch, not Spiked and not the Daily Mirror. And certainly not forth which has published over 700 articles since launch on October 8 last year without seeing a single penny donated by any body corporate be that capitalist, state, charitable or otherwise. Not one penny.
The only funding forth has ever ‘enjoyed’ is direct subscriptions, a few donations from readers (totaling less than €1,000 in the seven months of its existence) and around US$100 from a, frankly, useless experiment with Google Adverts on pages.
Miller and Robinson’s complaint centres on what they call the ‘LM Network’. This is a group of people once associated with LM magazine (née Living Marxism) who are portrayed as representing a curious (I would argue incomprehensible) blend of ultra-orthodox Marxism and a pro-business agenda (that SpinWatch insists on calling ‘far right’ despite the fact that such a moniker is traditionally used to describe not capitalists but fascists).
Living Marxism was the monthly review of a British Trotskyist outfit called the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) that wound itself up in 1996, having decided it was a waste of time to continue harping-on about the miners’ strike forever.
In case it needs to be said, here is my ‘house un-American activities committee’ statement: I am not and have never been a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
I am deeply uncomfortable writing about myself in this way. I am a reporter and social commentator; what I am not is the centre of the universe. Journalists would do well to keep out of their own stories but as I am being asked direct questions by SpinWatch I shall answer them directly, and the only way to do this is by writing personally and at the risk of narcissism.
forth is not an ‘LM front’ as Miller and Robinson raise the concept (while themselves admitting it may not be so). The extent of my links to LM magazine are this: I read it from 1997 until 2000 and wrote two letters to it (both criticising articles, not praising them). That’s it. At the time I also read other current affairs magazines including New Times, the Irish Political Review, Magill, New Statesman, Red Pepper (edited by a SpinWatch advisor) and, on rare occasions, the Spectator. I also read (and continue to read) the Irish Times, the Irish Examiner, the Guardian, the Independent, the Times of London and the Daily Telegraph. I’ve even become reasonably fond of the Saturday edition of the Financial Times, whose magazine is edited by John Lloyd, another ex-communist (from a rather different, and much grimmer, tradition than the aforementioned Trotskyists) though Lloyd seems to not have to answer to anyone for his youthful exuberance.
I have indeed written many articles for Spiked (a fact I am proud of). Most of my articles have been about Ireland and I do wonder if Miller in particular would disagree much with my analysis in them – I suspect he would not.
SpinWatch is not the first publication to have a go at me. Recently the right-wing Sunday Independent newspaper in Ireland misrepresented an article I wrote for forth about depression. The Sunday Independent article hinged on a personalised and subjective view of medicine and I could have responded to their calling me ‘ignorant’ et cetera by writing a similarly personal response. I didn’t.
Why?
Because my private life is no-one’s business but my own – I am not a public figure. Moreover, my entire point was that our subjective experiences are just that – subjective – and therefore unhelpful when it comes to making useful social generalisations which we may use to serve as a basis for action, in this case helping people to overcome problems. The coherence of the argument being made is all that matters. This point is worth remembering.
Nevertheless, SpinWatch, whose advisory board includes the legendary journalist John Pilger and Hilary Wainwright, editor herself of a Marxist-inspired publication Red Pepper, has made accusations linking me to an incoherent vision of a Marxist pro-corporate libertarian ’network’ that threaten to destroy my career as a journalist. What follows is my answer.
Andrew Calcutt, James Heartfield and Pauline Hadaway are personal friends of mine and I know them separately, not as part of any group or ’network’. I met Pauline entirely independently of LM magazine in her professional capacity and, in fact, I am not aware of her writing for LM. Likewise I know Andrew as an academic and author, though I was well aware he wrote for LM (he certainly made no effort to disguise this fact). James I do know, vaguely, through LM. I sought him out because I had read his writing on the shaky economic foundations of the so-called ‘creative industries’. I quoted James in an article on working in graphic design outside London. Politics doesn’t come into it. (James’s material on the creative industries is superb, by the way).
I know a lot of people and I couldn’t necessarily pin down their political views other than a general impression. I’m a journalist, I get around. God help me, I’ll even be friends with conservatives and liberals – how’s that for magnanimity? I actually even know some people with an even more visceral hatred of the old RCP than SpinWatch.
Brendan O’Neill and Rob Lyons I know because I have pitched work to Spiked. I have met Brendan precisely once in my life (and liked him very much, for the record). Rob I have never met but he has been helpful to me with learning the ins and outs of the web design technique CSS. Again, I like him and make no apologies for it.
Michael Fitzpatrick and Philip Hammond’s contributions to forth consist of a couple of articles from Spiked republished with permission.
Need I point out that a cursory look at forth will indicate over 50 contributors? Not bad for a publication just over seven months old.
I would now ask SpinWatch how, precisely, its accusations differ from the McCarthy episode in the United States (except that SpinWatch does not wield state power)? ‘Are you now or were you ever associated with a group of people that we don’t like?’
In seeking to ‘uncover’ links between individuals SpinWatch can’t see the wood for the trees. forth as an entity is me. Currently I am a sole trader in the process of founding a limited company. As I am forth’s sole ‘employee’ (if its miserable payment which doesn’t even cover costs could be considered employment) it relies heavily on the goodwill of those I can persuade to write for it. Unsurprisingly it is therefore mostly written by journalists and academics, that is to say people who already write for a living.
forth has published a range of views from across much of the political spectrum from (the very occasional) libertarian right through centrist to libertarian left and everything in-between. In an Irish context it has been equally heterodox, attacking and supporting the government composed of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party (depending on the issue and the author) and publishing both unionist and republican voices. As I am by sheer necessity forth’s most frequent contributor, many of the articles reflect my own analysis which is, broadly, left and libertarian – but not in the sense that SpinWatch uses the term. This is not a bias – it’s a viewpoint. I have certainly never given a free-ride to any corporate interests and am sure that even SpinWatch will agree with me that forth’s editorial policy is a broader church than that of any other current affairs magazine in existence, including the aforementioned Red Pepper magazine. In fact, I have both published and written criticisms of newspapers that I contribute to. Perhaps I am all too willing to shipwreck myself to make a point but some things need to be said.
As for me myself, well, as I have stated in public: “If you put a gun to my head I’d probably say I was a socialist but what does that mean today?”
My point, then and now, is that the world has changed whether we like it or not. Where is the traditional left response to the recession, for instance? Why has the left become associated with state action despite the history of traditions such as anarchism and left-libertarianism represented by the likes of Mattick and Chomsky?
This is not the same thing as saying ’there is no alternative’ to the current economic impasse, an idea that forth has robustly countered. One of forth’s most persistent themes has been that business has been greedily gorbing-down public money it has no right to and that business ideologues who preach ‘don’t regulate me’ seem to love being bailed-out by the very same states they spend so much time carping about.
As it happens I think, in Ireland at least, mass unemployment may again become a political issue but, until now, it has been off the radar for at least two decades. I didn’t make this so but I’d be an idiot to ignore it.
forth is open to anyone who contacts me with a good idea as well as, obviously, those I contact requesting – some would say begging for – material. As an example, Bladerunner star Rutger Hauer has contributed a poem to forth as a response to my urging. By any standard I can imagine he has more ‘links’ to forth than Fitzpatrick and Hammond. For the record, Hauer has no ‘links’ to me – I contacted him through his PA because he is a poet and noted poetry lover. All I can say about him is that he is gracious and generous – and that Bladerunner is still one of my two favourite films.
More importantly, though, I am principally a reporter. I report. forth is weak on reporting for one simple reason: it lacks the budget to pay for it (as the editors of the Guardian newspaper might say, comment is indeed free). I like to think that forth offers more than mere comment, providing insightful analysis but, yes, in the fullness of time I would like to see the magazine publish more straight reporting – if anyone wants to help rectify forth’s dire financial situation subscriptions and individual donations are welcome [see here for details]. In the meantime if I have a story I’ll sell it to a newspaper so that I can eat and put petrol in my car. Such is life.
In their response to Will Deighton, Miller and Robinson make reference to a forth article that has been ‘removed’. The article in question was headlined ‘Beware of Tory heir tax exiles bearing chequebooks’. In fact this story was removed (voluntarily) by me because, as I wrote to Miller, I don’t particularly want to engage in silly fights. I had only published it in the first instance because I was outraged by SpinWatch’s, as I saw it, accusations of guilt by association. Miller has assured me he is dealing with me in good faith and so I removed it. End of story. As far as I am concerned, what started out as a slanging-match has been resolved to at least some sort of understanding and far from giving me the ‘benefit of the doubt’ I suggest that Miller knows very well that I am dealing with him in good faith. My personal life is not up for discussion but my work most certainly is. It is up to SpinWatch’s advisory board to decide if attacking genuinely independent journalists is within it remit – a question on which I expect a response from Pilger and Wainwright.
For the record, the only other material forth has ever removed was a satirical column written under the name of a noted Irish conservative commentator prefixed with the word Fake (in the style of the infamous Fake Steve Jobs). I was threatened with court action over this. In fact, forth would likely have won any such courtroom spat but I lack the resources to pay for a lawyer so had to back down in this instance, much to my chagrin.
Miller and Robinson ask about pseudonyms. Here is a straightforward answer: forth’s policy on names is that it doesn’t have one. As editor I take full responsibility for what forth publishes and judge pitches and submissions on the basis of their content, not who wrote them. The idea that I have the time to trawl the dark corners of the internet searching for indications that someone has written under another name is ludicrous. If someone represents themselves to me as being called something why would I doubt that? I don’t live in a constant state of paranoia and I don’t have the time or inclination to demand a curriculum vitae from everyone who wants to write for forth – Miller included, as I would like to discuss with him media coverage of the conflict in Ireland.
Miller and Robinson ask about future use of pen names. If someone wants to write anonymously for forth I will ask them why and make a judgement call on an individual basis. If someone has a good reason to do so then I don’t see any problem but I won’t allow it for ‘hit-and-run’ hatchet jobs (which forth doesn’t run anyway). This is in-line with that of virtually every other publication in the western world. Some examples: Magill (which recently ceased publication) published the pseudonymous Sean Sexton, the Sunday Business Post publishes an anonymous columnist, Brian O’Nolan had four names (Brian O’Nolan, Brian Ó Nualláin, Flann O’Brien and Myles na gCopaleen) and Phoenix is edited by ‘Goldhawk’. If Irish examples are too parochial well, sorry, forth is Irish too.
forth has published my poetry under the name Maolíosa Breathnach. This is not a mere pen name. I publish non-journalistic work under this name but it is, in fact, my name in Irish. This is no secret. I have mentioned it in the Christian Science Monitor [here] and on my own web site. As the Monitor story has been published not only in the Monitor itself but also reprinted through syndication in other US newspapers and in Bosnia [here], the idea that it could be a secret or sinister (if, indeed, anyone thinks so) is ludicrous given that I have already told it to literally millions of people. Walsh and its derivations Walshe, Breathnach and Brannagh are the fourth most common surname in Ireland and are not actually a family name in the sense people recognise. It means ‘foreigner’ and was a pejorative applied to the ancestors of those who now bear it.
Tá sé seo neamhghnách in Éirinn. Ba mhaith liom tagairt a dhéanamh do léitheoirí John Reidy/Seán Ó Riada, Deasún Breathnach scríbhneoirí eile go leor agus cion cothrom de pholaiteoirí idir nua-aimseartha agus as stair lena n-áirítear Charles William St John Burgess/Cathal Brugha.
I also published a poem and essay under the name TP D’Invilliers. Literary readers will immediately recognise this name as the joke it is: Thomas Parke D’Invilliers was a pseudonym used by F. Scott Fitzgerald to provide useless advice in the epigraph to The Great Gatsby. D’Invilliers is also a character in Fitzgerald’s The Other Side of Paradise where he function as an avatar for poet John Peale Bishop. In case this is lost on anyone, I was taking the piss out of myself.
Unsigned articles are the ‘voice of forth’ and are generally written by me. This practice is identical to newspaper leader columns and the entirety of the publication the Economist, which features not a single by-line anywhere throughout.
The point all of this misses, however, is that as editor I have decided something is worth reading. I may not agree with it but I at least think it’s worth kicking about.
On the whole question of the ‘LM Network’, I am flummoxed. Those individuals I personally know who are listed as somehow sinister on SpinWatch’s web site strike me as perfectly reasonable people and I like to think that I have excellent judgement in such matters. SpinWatch’s allegations amount to nothing as far as I can tell. SpinWatch concentrates on articles in LM and Spiked critical of environmentalism as if this was all they ever published. Certainly there is a gulf of opinion between the two, but so what? It is, of course, possible that I am a ‘useful idiot’ and am having rings run around me by a sinister cabal. I rather doubt it, though.
Sponsorship from various businesses doesn’t interest me. As I wrote in Village magazine last year, publications should never allow the commercial side of their business to influence editorial and those with so-called ‘ethical’ advertising policies are the worst offenders in breaking down the barrier between commerce and journalism. Once again though, just for the record, forth has never received nor solicited any commercial sponsorship (or non-commercial, for that matter).
forth did have a (failed) experiment with advertising, but that’s all. A few ads linger on the site because I’ve been too busy to remove them – my priority is on editorial matters, not housekeeping (in fact, there are other housekeeping issues in desperate need of being seen to). Unsurprisingly no-one wanted to advertise in a tiny Irish current affairs magazine that had a habit of countering conventional wisdom. I wonder why… If someone wants to pay to advertise in forth I’ll happily help them piss their money away but unlike every other publication in Ireland that I am aware of, they won’t get to suggest or alter a single word published in the magazine: there are no so-called ‘commercial features’ in the virtual pages of forth. If anyone thinks forth is a worthless publication that’s fine by me, but at least it’s free and worthless.
There is a broader issue at stake here. That of freedom of association. No-one has ever mistaken me for a Christian, unionist, conservative or liberal and yet I have written for publications that espouse precisely those values. Why? Because it’s my job. For over two years I worked for a sustainability magazine that (I presume) SpinWatch would heartily approve of and I stand over my work for it as I do for any of the others.
Corrections and clarifications to the original article that mentions SpinWatch will be made later today – and happily so.
As for anything else in Miller and Robinson’s article, it’s nothing to do with either me or forth and not for me to answer.
I confess I don’t really see the point of SpinWatch’s accusations against what they cheall the ‘LM Network’ (and what I call the old RCP). My personal opinion is that if SpinWatch is genuinely concerned with the role that money plays in the media they should spend more time looking at the likes of the liberal broadsheets than ex-communists who clearly failed to bring about a revolution. But that’s not my battle to fight.
The long and the short of it is this: I still don’t know what the source of SpinWatch’s dispute with the old RCP is – and I don’t care. I have no wish to refight two decade old internecine leftist fights from a foreign country. They have nothing to do with me and are not of any interest to me except as leftist train-spotting. (I further confess a personal morbid fascination with the history of the left – but I’m also interested in the history of the Catholic church and that doesn’t make me a Catholic, let alone the Pope’s vassal).
I am not happy about any of this. If I am forced to demonstrate my ‘open’ or ‘fair and balanced’ or whatever else credentials I will do so, but I will be very noisy doing it and will do so through the appropriate channels – which do not include forth.
The one small consolation I have is that every single journalist I know has congratulated me on forth and I will be discussing my experiences at a meeting of the National Union of Journalists this month. My advice to aspiring publishers will be simple: expect to have the shit kicked out you on a regular basis, metaphorically speaking, and the only way to become a millionaire publisher is to start off as a billionaire publisher.
Yours sincerely,
Jason Walsh,
Editor and publisher,
forth, May 5, 2010
COMMENTS
In the old days of usenet discussion boards, one of the guiding principles was “Do Not Feed The Trolls”. I know it can be aggravating being attacked like this, but I’d suggest your best bet is to ignore it. Responding any more than you have already comprehensively done merely gives them a credibility they don’t deserve.
By Gerard Cunningham on 2010 05 06
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