As noted by Journalism.co.uk yesterday (and before that, by the Guardian on its front page) LinkMachineGo [LMG] blogger Darren deduced Belle de Jour’s real identity as early as 2001.

But he kept quiet. Journalism.co.uk asked Darren why – and what he thinks of blogging anonymously. “I protected [Brooke] Magnanti’s identity because we were both early bloggers,” he says.

“I respected her blogging and realised that her real life and career might be ruined if I did not keep her identity a secret. Discovering her identity started out as a fun game but turned serious when I realised I was right. Especially after I saw how Zoe Margolis (Girl with a One Track Mind) was treated by the press.”

Once Darren guessed who was behind the Belle blog, he published a ‘googlewack’ on his blog (the words ‘Belle de Jour’ ‘Brooke Magnanti’ and ‘Methylsalicylate’ were published and available in Google’s index on a single page on the internet, on LMG). If someone googled ‘Belle de Jour’ and ‘Brooke Magnanti’, he would see it in his referrers for LinkMachineGo.

It was five years before someone did: “I don’t know who was behind the searches that arrived at my blog over the years. It was only two or three. I suspect other bloggers who had guessed (there are many who were in the same position I was re: guessing) or friends of Magnanti. All the hits came from Internet services used by homeowners (BT, Virgin etc).”

Then a couple of weeks ago he spotted that numerous people were searching the terms several times a day – from Associated Newspapers’ IP address. That’s when he alerted Magnanti. This, with other tip-offs, convinced her to go public on her own terms.

So what does Darren think about the mainstream media’s revelations? “The coverage has been generally reasonable apart from the Daily Mail’s. I’m very glad I emailed her after seeing what they reported.”

The incident is a lesson in online anonymity, he says: “You cannot remain anonymous or pseudonymous on the internet for long. It’s an amazing achievement she managed to last six years without being outed.”

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Journalism trainer and former journalist Russell Lyne has died aged 65, the Thomson Foundation reports.

Lyne, who had been in poor health for two years after suffering a stroke, joined the global training foundation in 1995, and later became a full-time project manager and training consultant, and eventually head of regional development.

He was ‘a cornerstone of the Foundation’s international success,’ the organisation said this week.

He worked in numerous countries: South Africa, Botswana, India, Vietnam, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Bahrain, Qatar, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Kasakhstan, Romania and Bulgaria.

Lyne’s career included time at newspapers, radio and television:

“After working as night news editor for the Western Mail, the daily newspaper for Wales, between 1976 and 1978, he formed his own freelance news agency before joining the BBC as chief news assistant for BBC Radio Wales in 1982. Russell went on spend a year as a producer for BBC Radio Four’s Today programme in 1983. He later became a senior producer for BBC Radio Wales, leaving to join HTV as news editor in 1987, where he eventually became programme controller of news and sport.”

Thomson Foundation CEO Janet Boston writes:

“Time after time I meet people  from Asia, Africa and the Middle East who tell me, quite unprompted, that he was one of the best trainers they ever had. Apparently Russell’s energy bounced off the training room walls either with pleasure that the group were responding or with complete irritation at their lack of enthusiasm.”

The foundation is asking for additional memories of Lyne. Contribute yours at this link.

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Twelve great new editorial and media job opportunities this week on Journalism.co.uk’s jobs board:

To sign up for free as a jobseeker, please go to http://www.journalism.co.uk/113/

To sign up as an advertiser, please go to http://www.journalism.co.uk/75/

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A team of student National Union of Journalist (NUJ) members are providing live coverage of the union’s ADM today and tomorrow.

Reporters will be covering key speeches and debates from the event on nujadm.org.uk complete with a section of liveblogs, motions news and speeches.

You can also follow the team’s tweets at the hashtag #nujadm or below:

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Journalism.co.uk unfortunately couldn’t make today’s Periodical Training Council’s (PTC) New Journalist of the Year Awards – good luck to all the runners and riders.

Fortunately, a group of Cardiff University students are tweeting the results. Follow the hashtag #ptcnewjournalist2009 or the stream below:

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Adam Westbrook looks at an ongoing project at Northwestern University in the US, where students under the leadership of investigative journalist David Protess investigate, fact check and data mine criminal convictions in their region.

Focusing on murder cases where the defendants have been sentence to execution, the group has to date freed 11 men through their work.

“This isn’t so much an idea which has any business revenue potential obviously, although there’s a chance it could get a decent grant here and there. But what a way to get students engaged during their studies! And what a way to teach them the most difficult skill of all: investigation,” writes Westbrook.

Full post at this link…

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Addressing a conference in Barcelona, James Murdoch suggested a shift in the business model of the industry [what gives him that idea? - Ed] but perhaps more interestingly the emergence of a new market where journalism could be sold direct to customers at wholesale prices, particularly for digital journalism, the FT reports.

Paid-for content and copyright protection, echoing his father’s sentiments, would be crucial parts of this, he added.

Full post at this link…

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#FollowJourn: Rosie Dow

Who? Writer based in Greenwich, London.

What? Writes for hyperlocal.co.uk Greenwich site.

Where? Read her articles on Greenwich or find her on Twitter.

Contact? Send her a tweet at @welshrosie.

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

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Good round-up from PDA of a growing buzz surrounding local media and news projects with a look at AOL, Patch and eBay’s moves in the area – as well as how social media is getting in on the local act too.

Full post at this link…

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(via SCI FI Wire, Media Monkey and MTV)

According to reports and a tweet from the author, on Tuesday the Times printed a tribute to late actor Ed Woodward, originally written on his personal blog by director Edgar Wright, without permission:

An edited version of Wright’s blog piece was published with a byline and picture.

Twitter critics drew a comparison with Rupert Murdoch’s recent comments about search engines and aggregators as ‘kleptomaniacs’ when it came to newspapers’ content.

But today the paper has published a clarification online:

“We have been asked to make clear that Edgar Wright’s appreciation of Edward Woodward, which appeared in the paper on Tuesday, November 17, was abridged and the full version can be read here or at www.edgarwrighthere.com/2009/11/edward-woodward-1930-2009/“

Was this a response to online requests or did Wright have to go through the traditional channels? Will be interesting to know how responsive to social media commentary the Times is – we’ll try to find out.

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A ‘vulgar’ comment from a man on the St Louis-Post’s Dispatch website, STLtoday.com, resulted in him resigning from his job.

Kurt Greenbaum, online news director and director of social media at the paper, explains how he twice deleted the comment.

“[I then] noticed in the WordPress e-mail that his comment had come from an IP address at a local school. So I called the school. They were happy to have me forward the e-mail, though I wasn’t sure what they’d be able to do with the meager information it included,” explains Greenbaum.

“About six hours later, I heard from the school’s headmaster. The school’s IT director took a shine to the challenge. Long story short: Using the time-frame of the comments, our website location and the IP addresses in the WordPress e-mail, he tracked it back to a specific computer. The headmaster confronted the employee, who resigned on the spot.”

Full post at this link…

But as the site Awful Marketing asks, is this a violation of trust or a newspaper’s privacy policy?

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Any crumbs of truth in the so-called Biscuitgate episode, when Brown allegedly refused to reveal his cuppa accompaniment of choice? Short answer: no. (myth at this link)

Unless Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts was engaged in some bizarre get-on-the-good-side of Downing Street cover-up exercise.

It was quite some ago (October 22) that Roberts clarified:

“Now I can’t say I often find myself feeling sorry for politicians but I have to admit to feeling more than a pang of sympathy for the PM over the past few days. Because the truth is that Gordon Brown didn’t follow the live chat on the screen directly – he answered the questions grouped and fed to him by MNHQ and his advisors. He didn’t avoid the biscuit question because it didn’t cross his path (as I said on Radio 5 on the day, in fact).

“Why did we do it that way? Well, there were so many questions and they were coming in thick and fast on every subject under the sun, so we reasoned that the most effective way of getting as much ground covered as possible was to group them together for him, rather than him answering random ones that he happened to notice.”

But as David Cameron gets ready to step up to the mumsnet challenge, the truth hasn’t stopped people bleating on about blimmin’ biscuits.

For more pertinent comment, visit POLIS director Charlie Beckett’s blog:

“Mumsnet, in particular, has become the destination of choice for politicians who see it as the way to reach a large and significant section of the electorate. But are there other online forums who do a similar job?

(…)

“[I]s Mumsnet the exception or, as I keep saying, the new rule? And if so, are there forums for teachers, medics or even just men?”

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As confirmed by Alan Rusbridger last week, the Guardian’s technology supplement is to cease print publication in December (its closure was first reported by paidContent:UK in June 2009).

Today, Guardian Technology editor Charles Arthur reflects on the supplement’s 26 years in print, and outlines part of the economic reason for going online-only:

“In part it has been the internet that has hastened the end of the physical version of this section, as more classified job adverts have migrated to online job sites such as Guardian Jobs (jobs.guardian.co.uk, in case you’re looking); there have also been the arctic winds of the recession, which seems to be hitting the UK harder than many other countries around the world.”

Arthur’s article at this link…

Are other Guardian supplements at risk?

Journalism.co.uk recently reported comments by the Guardian sports columnist Martin Kelner that the paper could make its Monday media section online-only, a suggestion flatly denied by the paper’s press office:

“Monday’s Media Guardian is a must read for everyone in the industry. It is highly valued editorially and commercially – we have no plans to transfer it to online only.”

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Freelance Unbound has published a video of Reed Business Information editorial development director Karl Schneider talking to journalism students at UCA Farnham about the changes in a journalist’s working day. Schneider said:

“As they [journalists] come across pieces of information, if they think it would be useful for the audience to hear it, it’s trivially easy – you can do it in seconds. If they’ve got a bit of information, why hold on to it – why wait until they’ve got five more bits and constructed it into a complete story? Why not publish the bit of information now?”

Full post at this link…

The journalist’s day from Stop.Frame on Vimeo.

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Writetoreply.org, a site which allows users to comment on public reports, has uploaded (unofficially) the Ministry of Justice consultation, Defamation and the internet: the multiple publication rule (see Journalism.co.uk report here).

The consultation was published on the 16 September 2009 and closes on 16 December 2009. WritetoReply will send all the comments received on its site to the Ministry of Justice.

• A ‘Quick Start’ guide: http://writetoreply.org/defamation/quick-start/

• Full post at this link…

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Foreign bureaux may be shrinking, but that doesn’t mean it’s all bad for journalists, says Rob Crilly, formerly of Nairobi and now working in Jerusalem.

“The days of the linen-suited staff foreign correspondent are gone. That’s sad and probably means foreign coverage is getting patchier. But it means there are more opportunities for motivated, well-organised and professional stringers – reporters who file to multiple outlets.”

Crilly shares ten tips for making it as a stringer, covering how to learn it, bust it, read it, meet it, blog it, slum it, structure it and flog it.

Full post at this link…

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#FollowJourn: Jill Starley-Grainger

Who? Editor, travel journalist, green journalist and travel editor.

What? Specialises in luxury, spa and eco-travel, also has an interest in social media.

Where? On Twitter @uktraveleditor or blogs at http://www.stgr.net.

Contact? Email freelance [at] stgr.net or use this contact details page.

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

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The story of LinkMachineGo blogger Darren, who deduced Belle de Jour’s identity in 2001, realising her online know-how meant she probably blogged elsewhere too… A post by Brooke Magnanti’s elsewhere (about whiskey) finally convinced him.

Darren didn’t tell Brooke Magnanti he knew who she was till several weeks ago, when he spotted that Associated Newspapers were onto her…

How? Read Darren’s post in full, but here’s a quick extract:

“During this time I published a googlewack hidden in my blog – the words ‘Belle de Jour’ ‘Brooke Magnanti’ and ‘Methylsalicylate’ were published and available in Google’s index on a single page on the internet – my weblog. This ‘coincidental’collection of links could in no way reveal Belle’s identity. But I wondered if anybody else knew the secret and felt that analysing my web traffic might confirm my long-held belief. If someone googled ‘Belle de Jour’ ‘Brooke Magnanti’, I would see it in my referrers for LinkMachineGo.

“I waited five years for somebody to hit that page (I’m patient). Two weeks ago I started getting a couple of search requests a day from an IP address at Associated Newspapers (who publish the Daily Mail) searching for ‘brooke magnanti’ and realised that Belle’s pseudonymity might be coming to an end. I contacted Belle via Twitter and let her know what was happening. I didn’t expect to hear anything back.”

Belle confirms: “FWIW Darren *did* contact me to let me know, I’d already had another heads-up but his message convinced me it was serious.”

Full post at this link…

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