Please Note: There is an update/addendum to this story at the bottom of the page.

Being a journalist can sometimes be a thankless task. You are almost universally seen by the public as insensitive, intrusive, dishonest, cynical, and on a social respect level, only a couple of places below that of ‘politician’. That is until the members of the public want to publicise their charity, or business or cause, or air their particular grievance. Then the journalist is everyone’s best friend. Sometimes the general public, when they want a journalist’s help, can be just as cynical as some of the best reporters are.

Local newspapers, whether in print or online, are many people’s major window onto the activities of the local authority, local political parties and what is going on in the courts. As such, local media plays a vital role in a democratic society. Therefore when a local journalist and local newspaper ‘drops the ball’ when it comes to court reporting it’s something that we should all be concerned about, not just those who read the particular publication.

The reason for the preamble is that the Chelmsford Weekly News, from Essex, is covering a court story where they really do appear to have ‘dropped the ball’. The reporter has concentrated purely on a demonstration outside the court by the EDL and completely ignored the activity happening within the court, something that seems odd in a court report. Now many years ago I worked as a court reporter for a news agency, and I was trained by a couple of senior reporters who were obsessive fact checkers. I can still recall, with a shudder, years on, the rollockings I got as a junior employee covering Magistrates Courts, if I was either unsure about a fact, or had missed something out. This story (hat tip Joe Long on Twitter @long46927755  ) is a classic example of a story where there has been loads left out and the journalists seem to have not bothered to fact check and may even be showing overt bias in their writing.

Below is the full story from the Chelmsford Weekly News with as usual for this blog, the original report in italics and this blog’s comments in plain text.

The English Defence League staged a protest outside of Chelmsford Crown Court.

The far-right group were waved banners and flags in protest against “grooming gangs”.

Many would argue with the description of ‘far right’ to describe the EDL after all there are not many traditional ‘far right’ entities that have Black, Sikh Jewish and Gay supporters. I would most certainly in this section take issue with the fact that the reporter has put the words grooming gangs in quotes. It gives the false impression (well I hope that it is false) that the reporter doesn’t believe that the phenomenon of grooming gangs actually exists. Such an opinion may have been a tenable one to have 10 – 15 years ago, when there were only rumours about the existence of Islamic Rape Gangs but in the light of the Jay and Casey inquiries and reports in the Times newspaper such an opinion is grossly wrong. Grooming gangs do indeed exist and putting the words in quotes was in my view, a mistake.

The protest came as three men were due to appear in court on child sexual exploitation charges.

Why no names? If there were legal reasons, such as if the court was only engaged in pre-trial legal argument or the defendants are minors, or there is a linked case and there is the need to keep the other cases free from contamination, or there was the risk that naming the alleged perpetrators would assist in the jigsaw identification of the alleged victims, then why did not the reporter say so? Some explanation of why there were no names of defendants given would give clarity to this story and also assist in shutting down any speculation as to whether or the reporter or the newspaper has an agenda which is served by not giving defendants names.

Steve Collins, of United Chelmsford, said: “The purpose of their protest was to spread their message of hatred and racism to any who would listen.

Some background on this ‘United Chelmsford’ group would have been helpful as well. My own very limited research shows that a websearch for United Chelmsford only brings up one entry in the first six pages of Google, and that is from the story above but from the Essex Chronicle. Nothing else. A search for Steve Collins, if indeed that is the person’s real name, also appears to show someone who has as if by magic appeared from nowhere. However, I suspect that the ‘United Chelmsford’ group might well be a product of the local authorities diversity officers or it could either an SWP or UAF or HNH front group. We see these ‘United wherever’ groups set up with remarkable swiftness and with very little concrete history behind them. The one in Newcastle for example seemed to be made up of socialist activists, a few trade union leaders and ‘religious leaders’, probably mostly Muslim religious leaders and naïve interfaith wallahs.

“United Chelmsford strongly condemns the activities of the EDL and their attempts to spread racial tensions in Chelmsford.

Again no background to this organisation that the reporter is quoting as if they were some sort of authority.

“United Chelmsford stand in solidarity with all victims of domestic and sexual abuse regardless of the religion or ethnicity of the victims or perpetrators.

“United Chelmsford understand that cases of sexual abuse occurs in all community’s regardless of religion or ethnicity.

Up to a point Lord Copper, I’d agree with him, if it wasn’t for the mountain of evidence that certain types of sex crime, on street grooming and sex trafficking, does seem to be dominated by Muslim males.

“We have seen sexual abuse committed by TV personalities and MP’s and the Catholic churches history is now well known.

Note the diversionary tactics employed by ‘Steve Collins’ here.

“Yet the EDL remained silent during the prosecution of all these cases.

Probably because noncing priests and celebs and MP’s are individuals committing their offences alone, whereas with the Islamic Rape Gangs we have a proven modus operandi where Islamic gangs would specifically target non-Muslim girls. The Islamic Rape Gangs are committing the sort of racist and communal targeting of victims that the likes of ‘Steve Collins’ would be whining loudly about if the perpetrators had been non-Muslim and the victims been Muslim. The gang aspect, along with the extreme violence and the enslavement and selling of girls and young women, plus the preponderance of Muslims in these gangs, is what makes these cases so damn protest worthy.

“They have not protested outside any similar cases in Chelmsford since previous cases have not involved a member from an ethnic minority The EDL ran a concerted campaign in Rotherham during the prosecution of the paedophile ring there but the people of Rotherham refused to be taken in by the nazi groups message of division and hate.

So what? I’ve already pointed out the significant aggravating aspects of the various Islamic Rape Gang cases.

“United Chelmsford believes the citizens of Chelmsford and the people of Essex will not be fooled by the hypocrisy and blatant racism of the EDL.

“United Chelmsford stand for an inclusive and tolerant society free from race hatred and the scapegoating of minorities we believe the victims of these crimes deserve to be treated with compassion and respect and not used as pawns in the political landscape of fascist politics.

Standard lefty ‘boilerplate’ writing here, lots of guff about inclusivity, tolerance and racism, along with the obligatory accusation of ‘fascism’. So many left wing orgs turn out to protest against those who protest against Islamic Rape Gangs that one wonders whether the likes of United Chelmsford or other so-called ‘anti-fascist’ groups are more on the side of the rapists than those appalled by their actions?

“It was with this in mind we made the decision together with other anti racist groups in Essex not to counter demonstrate outside Chelmsford crown court.”

Which anti-racist groups? A listing of them would tell the reader whether this was broad campaign with lots of support or whether it was just the Socialist Workers Party with a different mask on.

An Essex Police spokesman said: “Essex Police were aware that protests planned to take place in Chelmsford on Monday. 

“Officers were deployed in the town from around 8am in anticipation of the arrival of protesters. 

“A small number of protesters gathered in New Street at around 8.30am and officers ensured the event was facilitated peacefully.

“The protest concluded without incident by 12pm.”

Not much to comment on here it’s just the usual bland press release that the police issue on such occasions.

The Weekly News has contacted the EDL for comment.

So what was the comment then? Did they respond? If they didn’t respond by the time the paper went to press, why was this fact not mentioned? The reporter was savvy enough to illustrate the story with a picture from the EDL’s Twitter page but not, it seems to chase up a comment from EDL in response to this story.

I get the distinct impression that the reporter was nowhere near the demo itself and this story has been cobbled together from a mixture of various press releases, an internet trawl and some local lefties pushing themselves forward and punching well above their weight. I smell lazy journalism here. There seems to have been very little fact checking along with an over-reliance on left wing groups such as ‘United Chelmsford’ without establishing who they are or what they are as well as giving this ‘United Chelmsford’ group a virtually unchallenged platform.

This could have been a good, solid, informative local newspaper story that linked a national issue to a local issue, in this instance a court case, but it’s not that, it looks like agenda-driven hackwork with only one ‘side’ allowed to put its case whilst the other side is ignored. To be charitable, this could be merely the sort of journalistic error that any writer could be accused of, we’ve all made writing errors, because we are all too human. But, the whole tone of the piece in the Chelmsford Weekly News looks like it is overly influenced by Article 9 of the NUJ code of conduct which states “Produces no material likely to lead to hatred or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age, gender, race, colour, creed, legal status, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation.” This clause is so broad as to mean that any journalist, who mentioned a person’s religion or culture in a negative way, even if, as in the Islamic Rape Gang issue, it is unquestionably relevant, would be breaching this particular clause of the code.

It’s fair to say that I found this article in the Chelmsford Weekly News, unsatisfactory but I’m going to offer the editor and journalists of the paper a right to reply, in this blog’s comment section, a courtesy that they have quite obviously failed to offer the EDL.

Link

Original story from Chelmsford Weekly News

http://www.chelmsfordweeklynews.co.uk/news/13361070.EDL_stage_protest_outside_Chelmsford_court/

Note:

If, like me, you are concerned about how this story has been reported and the prominence given to a Left wing group without much provenance such as ‘United Chelmsford’ then please feel free to avail yourselves of the editorial contact details below. Please keep your communication with these journalists legal, polite and firmly rooted in truth.

Gary Pearson, Editor, Chelmsford Weekly News

 gary.pearson@nqe.com
 01375 411502

Charlotte Austen-Hardy, Reporter, Chelmsford Weekly News

 charlotte.austen-hardy@nqe.com
 01375 411524

Reporter, Neil Hawkins, Chelmsford Weekly News

 neil.hawkins@nqe.com
 01375 411524

National Union of Journalists Code of Conduct

https://www.nuj.org.uk/about/nuj-code/

Update/Addendum

It has been pointed out by Suffolk Boy a poster at the Brietbart website that thes defendants were named at an earlier hearing. Suffolk Boy said:

“Steady on! There is a lot of ambiguity and missing information both in this blog and in the newspaper reports. The Chelmsford paper online report (as of 11:46 3rd July: was it updated?) does indeed name the three (or three of the four originally arrested) and that the charges actually pursued in court were drugs and passports offences. The alleged child sexual charge against a fourth (?) does not appear other than in the future sense: “are due to appear” and apparently was dropped(?) or de-linked from the drugs and passport charges.”

I did some checking back and the newspaper did amend the article to name these defendants in the piece dated the 30th June.  It does appear that the drugs, passport and child sex charges may have been de-linked.  However, that doesn’t negate the major criticism of the Chelmsford news piece which are that they should have named those defendants in the original piece along with not relying so much on local lefty big mouths.  It seems as if the paper has responded to criticism from myself and others and have amended the piece to include some of the missing information.