13 Aug 24 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, United Kingdom
The race riots which erupted this month in the UK in response to disinformation about the knife attack at a Taylor Swift dance class in Southport, took many people by surprise.
But not Joshi Herrmann, the founder of Mill Media, whose company has a new approach to local journalism. What began as The Mill in Manchester, now has outlets in Liverpool (The Post) Sheffield (Sheffield Tribune) and Birmingham (The Dispatch).
Two and a half years ago, Herrmann’s reporters first noticed that far-right individuals had begun mobilising on social media.
“We felt a big concentration in the North West [of England]. They were turning up at hotels, demonising the people inside and harassing the staff,” Herrmann told Index. “It was a new way for the far-right to get attention.” He said social media acted as a motivating factor: “Turning up at hotels was a good way of building a following.”
For Herrmann, Reform leader Nigel Farage played a central role in this growing movement targeting asylum seekers. “In the summer of 2020, Farage did three separate videos where he turned up at hotels trying to put them on the spot,” said Herrmann. “This tipped from legitimate inquiry into rabble-rousing. He said they could be ISIS. This is bad faith speculation.”
The videos got millions of views and thousands of comments on YouTube – some very dark and threatening.
“A significant part of the blame for getting these hotels into the public eye needs to be shouldered by Farage,” Herrmann added.
Herrmann’s newletters are distributed via the Substack platform and around 8,000 subscribers pay a monthly or annual fee. Some 100,000 have signed up for a limited free version.
The sheer volume of subscribers is a testament to the vital importance of local journalism to many people – and local journalists are able to spot movements and trends beyond metropolitan London.
As Herrmann said: “When I saw these people… I was less surprised than some because this has been building.”
Mill Media’s work has attracted plaudits from high-profile media figures such as former New Yorker editor Tina Brown and Sir Mark Thompson, the CEO of CNN. The bold claim is that Herrmann and his team are “redesigning old-school journalism for the digital age”. There is a genuine belief that the corpse of local journalism can (and must) be revived.
Herrmann is evangelical: “It is true that the business model has collapsed. Local media advertising has collapsed. There are fewer jobs in local journalism. But people really care about what’s happening on a local level. In most cases they are just not being given good local information. There has been a tendency to make local news mundane. We thought there might be a way to do local journalism through storytelling that was in depth and surprising: local journalism that doesn’t seem like local journalism.”
The Mill Media model has come into its own over the asylum hotels story enabling the network to identify a nationwide phenomenon.
The operation will shortly extend its reach north of the border to Glasgow and, in its biggest challenge, to London. If local journalism is dying, then no one has told the 267 applicants for a single reporting job on the new publications.
“Journalism is not just about information,” said Herrmann. “It is about transporting you to that place when you are not there.”
Subscribers to The Tribune can read an account of the attack on the Holiday Inn housing asylum seekers near Rotherham and judge for themselves. In a long read headlined “The Boy at the Window”, reporter Dan Hayes gives a very personal account of events at the riot.
“While I was stood near the reception, a young boy in the hotel of around seven looked out of a window right at me. I would love to think he knew I wasn’t one of the hate-filled people I was surrounded by, but there’s no way he could have. I can still see him in my mind as I write this piece. The confused stare of a young boy who has no idea what’s going on and why these people seem to hate him so much.”
This is rough-and-ready, heartfelt reporting. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste, but it’s certainly not mundane.
10 Feb 22 | Opinion, Ruth's blog
Last weekend I made an error. I posted a photo on my personal social media account of some political campaigning I’d done. As a former MP, it would have surprised no one. It was the very essence of unremarkable. Yet the response this picture of six smiling friends generated was extraordinary, both in its ferocity and deeply hateful nature.
I’m not going to use the privilege that my role gives me to list the attacks in any detail. Index is not my personal hobby horse; we aren’t party political, and work with stakeholders across the world who share our commitment to the liberal value of free expression, regardless of their personal politics. This of course means that people have the absolute right to express themselves as they see fit – including their views about me.
But here’s the rub. Because just as someone has the right to say something, or more often than not type something, doesn’t mean that the target of their comments is obliged to hear it – or read it. People have the right to speak; what they do not have is the right to be heard by the target of their ire.So when people exercise their right to criticise those in the public eye, it’s important for all those involved in the conversation to understand that when a line is crossed and abuse becomes threats, laws are being broken. And this has consequences.
The furore my innocuous tweet generated was a timely reminder of quite how horrible online discourse can become, and quite how quickly. A pile-on sees “banter” morph seamlessly into abuse, from which seep the inevitable threats. It is a pattern as old as social media itself, and is all the more common for women in the public eye, especially those who come from a minority community.
Rarely a week goes by when I am not tempted to shut all my accounts down, turn off my access and with it, mute the hate. But I am then reminded of the good that can come from social media – knowing that your friends and family are safe in the midst of a crisis, being able to reach out to former friends and colleagues, and of course being able to seek help when you need it. For Index, it is also an invaluable tool in not only shining a light on the actions of repressive regimes, but of amplifying the stories of dissidents with stories that demand to be heard. it is also a literal lifeline when communicating with correspondents and sources when no other platform is available.
All of which makes moves by governments in the UK and further afield to regulate our online space a minefield unlike any other. The British government is currently legislating to make our online world “safer”. The Canadians and Australians are doing the same, as is the European Union.
My overriding concern is that we are witnessing governments trying to legislate for cultural change. And this is a recipe for failure before any law makes it onto the statute books.
Trying to limit debate and sanitise our online lives through regulation simply masks the tensions, divisions and prejudices that exist in our societies rather than tackling the underlying causes. This is not a counsel of despair, nor a position that says regulation shouldn’t exist. Of course more can be done to make us all safer online, but we need to find the right balance in order to protect ourselves and those that we care about. We need to learn how to use the platforms properly, harnessing the indisputable good of social media while limiting our exposure to the bad. We also need to decide as citizens how we want to manage this space and – perhaps most crucially of all – who should do it. If we decide collectively that our online conversation needs more regulation than a visit to the pub (hint– it shouldn’t), then I for one would like our democratically elected politicians to determine where those lines are drawn, not an algorithm written by a Tech giant or an anonymous regulator.
Which brings me back to the weekend. My mistake wasn’t campaigning, or even tweeting about it, but rather not using the tools available to me to manage my social media and how I wanted to use it. I failed to protect myself. In an ideal world I shouldn’t have to – but my reality online is far from ideal, so going forward I will be limiting how I use social media (again) and how I engage with people. The reality is this doesn’t limit anyone else’s free expression, only my own. Which is my choice.
I run one of the oldest free expression organisations in the UK. We are 50 years old next month. I spend my professional life campaigning to make sure that the persecuted are heard – that people are not silenced for expressing themselves, protecting people’s right to have an opinion regardless of whether it is popular or not. I won’t spend my time defending the indefensible – the bullies, the racists, the misogynists, and the trolls. They have a right to speak but I have the right to ignore them, which is what they deserve.
23 Jul 20 | News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”104009″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]There are so many ways you can infringe on someone else’s free speech and obviously some examples are much more egregious than others. Some instances undermine the very premise of this most basic of human rights whilst others are so personal that they create a chilling effect on people’s ability to participate in their own national conversation.
This week, we’ve been able to witness everything on the spectrum from people being trolled for taking a stand against racism to Maria Ressa facing yet more legal action in the Philippines. There is also the awful case of one of the key witnesses in the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder trial being found with a slit throat on the morning they were due to give evidence.
Each of these issues demands their own platform, their own space to explore what is happening and what it means both for the individuals concerned and for the societies we live in, whether they be physical or virtual. Context and analysis are key; collectively we need to understand what each of these cases mean for our society and where they fit into the current debate on free speech.
Index was launched, nearly half a century ago, to be a voice for the persecuted, giving space to those people who could not be published elsewhere. We were also tasked with shining a spotlight on repressive regimes, exposing authoritarian attacks on free speech and celebrating those people who were brave enough to speak out. And just as importantly we were established to ensure that the UK remained a bastion of hope for those people who lived in societies which didn’t respect their core human rights. These three pillars remain at the core of what we do and who we are.
Index will always be a home for people who want to be heard. We will always stand against authoritarian and repressive regimes to protect our collective free speech. And we will stand against anyone who seeks to use their power to silence those less powerful. Our role is to expose, to listen and to stand with some of the bravest people in the world so that their voices can be heard. So that you can hear directly from them
To do this we need your help – please take a minute and, if you can, donate to Index so we can keep doing this vital work.[/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”DONATE” color=”danger” size=”lg” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2Fdonate|||”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][three_column_post title=”YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE TO READ” category_id=”581″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
15 Jun 20 | Press Releases
Index on Censorship has today (Monday 15th June) announced the appointment of Ruth Smeeth as the organisation’s new chief executive.
Ruth Smeeth was the MP for Stoke-on-Trent-North from 2015 to 2019, and prior to that was deputy director at HOPE not hate.
Ruth Smeeth, chief executive, Index on Censorship, said:
“I’m excited to be joining Index on Censorship at a time when the organisation’s work to protect free speech is more important than ever.
“As governments and citizens seek to navigate increasingly complex and intimidating global issues – from Covid-19 to systemic racism – we’ve seen just how easily our fundamental right to freedom of expression can be threatened.
“From the arrests of journalists covering Black Lives Matter protests in America to the silencing of medics in China who sought to inform the world about the effects of Covid-19, it’s clear that the fight to enshrine and protect the right to free speech across the world has not yet been won.
“And this is not just an issue to be tackled abroad. Here in the UK, we’ve seen increasing threats to journalistic freedom as individuals are hounded and attacked simply for doing their jobs.
“Too often, free speech is portrayed as a fringe or foreign issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. Freedom of expression should be a mainstream concern, and it is time for a proper debate and discussion about its importance – and its limitations – in a rapidly changing world.
“Index on Censorship is uniquely placed to lead this discussion, alongside the campaign to protect freedom of expression here in the UK and abroad. I look forward to working with stakeholders and supporters to do just that”.
Trevor Phillips, chair, Index on Censorship, said:
“Ruth brings a wealth of relevant knowledge, experience and above all, courage to the organisation at a pivotal moment for Index on Censorship. Her independence of mind and non-partisan approach to freedom of expression is exactly what is needed at a time when the voices of people from all backgrounds need to be heard – not least those from minorities.
“Ruth’s experience, both as an MP and as a campaigner against fascism and racism, will enable her to champion our cause as we seek to tackle ever more frequent challenges to freedom of expression both across the globe and in every medium”.
Kate Maltby, deputy chair, Index on Censorship, said:
“I could not be more delighted to welcome Ruth as our new chief executive at Index on Censorship. Ruth has a proven record as a campaigner, unwavering in her principles and exceptional in her ability to build cross-partisan coalitions that make substantive change.
“Index on Censorship was founded in 1972, and in its first decades provided lifelines to dissidents as they endured harassment in Soviet regimes. As Index approaches its fiftieth birthday, it can sometimes seem that both progressive and conservative forces forget the lessons of those years.
“With Ruth at the helm, I am confident that Index on Censorship will play a central role in rebuilding an open, civic and intellectually diverse public sphere. Freedom of expression needs tough defenders, and in Ruth we have one.”
Media enquiries: Luke Holland, 07447 008098, [email protected].
