After Hackgate – towards a more citizen-led media

From out of the wreckage caused by Hackgate, which has rocked Westminster, Fleet Street, and Scotland Yard alike, it is clear that a long-overdue programme of media reform must arise. What is unknown at this point, at the start of a process that will undoubtedly drag on for years, is how the relationship between citizens, the media, and public figures will change.

Because it has invariably been both too cosy, and too fear-driven, and above all too centralised. I personally experienced this during my time in government, my internship as I now call it, in developing and seeking to launch policies relating to the Big Society. The first time I came across it was when it became apparent that part of the reason that some journalists resisted the idea of Big Society was that it actually meant focussing less on what was going on in Whitehall or Parliament, where it is easier to pick up or blag your way to a story, and more on what is going on in real communities – breaking out of the bubble. The second was when a left wing journalist presented me with two potential stories she would run on me and essentially threatened me with running the worst of the two (for the record, relating to unfounded rumors about my ability to do my job), unless I gave her information which was eventually spun into the story that broke about my work life balance. That fear which all politicians feel at the hands of journalists where you have no recourse or way to correct the first story, led to much pain and difficulty for me and my young family, despite years of charitable service. The third was when I realized that the very business model of modem media itself now makes it almost impossible for new and innovative policy to be understood and piloted well, because resources are too constrained for journalists to get out into the country to find out what is going on and what is working. This is what I have previously called news by press release, where the same story is regurgitated from one news desk to another with lots of opinion and spin heaped upon it, not always sadly backed up by many facts. It too often stops the right ideas being turned into reality and breeds instead sadly cynicism and inertia.

So what now, now that we have arrived at the point when our politicians, media and increasingly even our judicial and policing system have suffered such a loss of trust? Well, we are likely to see increased regulation. I defer to Lord Mandelson on this who has already written articulately on how it needs tightening up. How can we have different regimes for television and broadcast media (which is incidentally more trusted than other forms) from print media which is essentially self/non/un-regulated? But as Mandelson also hints at, there is a role for technology, whether in more models such as iCorrect where people can correct mistaken articles written about them, to a place where media interviewees – whether celebrities and public figures or ordinary citizens – can upload recordings of interviews they have given so the public can compare how accurate articles are that were based on what has been recorded, to a site where individual journalists can be rated (who has the domain for ratemyjournalist.com?) based on how accurate, entertaining, and balanced their articles are (one may need to rate raters as well to avoid abuse). Beyond this there is a need for a different business model, one in which citizens actively help to generate news content, in partnership with professionals, and co-edit that content so the best filters up, and get rewarded financially or reputationally for their stories or receive donations or tips to encourage them to continue their citizen journalist careers. Twitter and blogging in a way is therefore just the start. Models such as blottr, with the right backing from us all, may represent a more sustainable, more humane, and dare I say it more Big Society way of doing media in the future.

UPDATE: of course politicians can be just as susceptible to spinning as well; when I left Labour politicians and their civil society representatives such as Peter Kyle claimed I worked less than a year in government, which is clearly not from the case from my original appointment and resignation letters and the PM’s acceptance letter of my resignation – which I am now putting into the public domain – showing I worked from the 18 May 2010 until the 1st of June 2011 at which point I switched to advising the Community Foundation Network

Discovering Shoreditch past and present

Boundary Community Launderette

A few months ago I moved into the Shoreditch area from neighbouring Bow having lived in East London for nearly ten years. I’m attracted to it for many reasons: it’s an artistic, entrepreneurial, and technological hub, has a lot of social problems alongside tremendous wealth, and is a place where a lot is going on that feels quite big society in many ways, even though politically it is heavily dominated by Labour (which as I have argued before has roots in social action which are well worth reviving by its new leader).

In the past Shoreditch was also a hotbed of citizen-led social reform. Shaftesbury worked with others here to establish education for those on low incomes such as the Ragged Schools here. This was also close to the birthplace of the settlement movement in which those connected to universities settled students in slum areas to live and work alongside local people through whose efforts according to Wikipedia “settlement houses were established for education, savings, sports, and arts”. Octavia Hill was also active in and around the area, pioneering reforms that lead to the establishment of Royal Parks and social housing all over the country. Shaftesbury also started social franchises for ex-chimney sweeps and beggars called the Shoe Black Brigade in and around the area to help them make an alternative living.

Today there are tremendous challenges as well as opportunities. Hackney and parts of Shoreditch are known for their high levels of poverty, there are problems with gang violence and shootings, and high levels of turnover in the population and over-crowding among both the immigrant and white population relating to housing shortages, and while the council has clearly improved services over the years since it had to be taken over, there is still a huge amount to do. But once again there are examples of social reform from the Mayor’s Fund backed City Year initiative, to the Headway head injury charity’s centre whose Timebank I have recently joined (see this Guardianarticle on the potential of time credits to transform public services), to the work of Citizen’s UK who have recently hired a community organiser to work in the area funded by the Mayor’s fund which also supports the Playing to Win initiative led by Greenhouse schools with Street Lead, London Youth, working with schools and youth clubs to tackle social problems using sports and games;  to faith-based initiatives led by local churches with the support and interest of organisations such as Street Pastors.

Shoreditch is undoubtedly very different from many parts of the UK, particularly compared to rural Cumbria which I visited a few months ago hosted by MP Rory Stewart. In Penrith, the concerns were more about access to broadband, and more control over planning to create homes for young people who would otherwise leave for the cities, and community transport since public transport could often be quite limited. In Shoreditch, the issues are more to do with people not knowing each other, crime, and unemployment particularly for young people and men. But there are similarities as well: from a desire in both places for more multi-use community spaces through which local services can be delivered by a mix of the people themselves, the state, and voluntary and community enterprises; to an interest in sustainability whether it be in anaerobic digesters in the one, or city farms and guerilla gardening in the other. Above all there are paradoxical similarities to how poverty may need to be approached in both places, which is surprising given how one is extremely low density and the other extremely high density compared to other parts of the country. I was shown in Cumbria the farmhouse of a lady who was a widow on state benefits and one of a million people who are classed as in rural poverty. Recently, my church leader told me about a man he helped in Shoreditch who had racked up thousands of pounds in debts having been repeatedly sent warnings and notices because a) he had been misdiagnosed when getting his benefits such that his dyslexia was not picked up and support not provided to help him cope with it, and b) because the energy company had mistakenly read the wrong meter and charged him instead of his neighbour for the energy used. In both cases, a local neighbourhood group is able to do far more and at a more human, granular level, than the state ever could, no matter how much non-existent money we pump into it. In the case of the rural widow, she would not have been picked up by the state’s statisticians since super-output level data in her area does not identify her (the farmland and property around her tend to be inhabited by wealthy farmers or second-homers). In the latter case, the managerialist approach taken by the state using databases and call centres and tick-boxes failed to ensure enough time was spent observing the man’s life and the difficulties he faced, which would have been easier and possibly lower cost had he been part of a group of citizens, encouraged to get out and about rather than isolated at home. This is why I am passionate about groups, particularly those with a range of people from different backgrounds in them, supported by the voluntary, government, and business sectors, but not dominated or bypassed by them unless a high level of professional skill and interaction is genuinely needed. This is why I am working with others to establish the Shoreditch Group, a bunch of local citizens, philanthropists, and neighbours who want to help to bring change and improvement to the area, meeting in the pub once a month (if you think you are one of them, get in touch via #NatWei and let’s meet up!).

Unlike in moderately dense areas, where aspects of Big Society have often been in existence through local assocations, neighbourliness, and public services funded through taxation as well as local fundraising*, our most dense urban areas or peripheral estates and most rural areas are having to create new forms of Big Society which are interesting and often novel and present potential glimpses into the future as we seek to reinvent the welfare state and re-empower the citizen and citizen group in the face of technological, demographic, and economic transition. It does not seem an accident that Hackney and Shoreditch is seeing and has seen for many years a bewildering amount of lifestyle transformation, with the rise of the organic and sustainable urban farming movement and services (see Hackney City Farm), the harnessing of web-enabled community arts to bring people together to regenerate run down areas (see I AM HERE run on the Kingland and Haggerston estate), and multi-use community facilities such as the Boundary Community Launderette (a not-for-profit community business run by volunteer directors that washes clothes, lends books, acts as a gallery and raises money for charity). Groups like these are showing us how to draw communities together and unlock the potential that exists in them. There is furthermore a curious obsession with bikes (I have to admit I tend to walk more than cycle since the drivers round here terrify me!), and a profusion of the kind of fascinating slightly anarchic social media driven citizen-led movements and hyperlocal activity that Tessy Britton writes about, as well as the kind of more “old-fashioned” neighbouring which often faith groups in the area are starting to rediscover which John McKnight calls us to live out in Abundant Community.

This is an environment which has fostered the rise of social movements for centuries, and seems increasingly a difficult place for Big Charity and Big Government to penetrate or transform for the better. But I agree with Bubb that there are opportunities here for partnership between larger and smaller charities, the state, and citizens and citizen groups to help widows and the isolated, and everyone else alike and empower them in turn to help themselves and others around them. There are ways that Big Government, Charity, and Business can harness models to do this more effectively such as social franchising (see Foodbank and the People’s Supermarket), the “freemium” model (give your IP away for free and provide value added support, a model which Alcoholics Anonymous kind of follows), and classic joint ventures to reach the unreached and connect them with supportive local groups and services.

So to conclude, I’m excited to be here, excited to get to know my neighbours, and definitely up for learning and listening. There is going to be, given its political and social make-up, huge debate about Big Society or other participatory approaches to the relationship between the citizen, state, and voluntary and business worlds here as much as there will be all over the country and around the world in the coming decades. Julian Dobson’s point that there is still much to be done to build a consensus on the way forward is as true here in Shoreditch as around the country: how will we harness what can be fickle voluntary action, alongside what can sometimes be clunky monolithic state provision, together with markets that are not always moral? I think part of the answer is around understanding citizens, giving a voice to those who don’t shout the loudest, and empowering them to redefine a new settlement that fits best their individual and our collective circumstances. So here’s to the Big Citizen, to big citizens everywhere, and to Shoreditch – my new home.

Next post: Dealing with the Great Transition using big society participatory approaches in local government

* There are still many exceptions in moderately dense areas: I have been told wealthy commuter belts can be particularly alienating, where affluenza and social isolation, and the ability to purchase most of your services seems to coincide at times with high levels of family and community breakdown

Reform versus Revolution

In case you hadn’t noticed, I love social reform. I’m just not so sure about social (or political) revolution. The amazing thing about this country is that despite having gone through two dramatic technological and economic shifts over the past few centuries  (agricultural and industrial) and now as we experience a third (information) – all of which invariably tend to widen the gap between those that have and those that do not – we have a track record of finding ways to reform our society and politics, rather than resorting to physical and bloody revolutions. In other countries around the world, and still today, this was not always possible. Somehow the anger and sense of injustice here was channelled into solutions that more people could benefit from: electoral reform in the past, the rise of the free press, of steam power, education for all and the welfare state.

Great reformers, whether Wilberforce, Shaftesbury (my favourite), Gladstone and more recently Beveridge, knew that to effect long term change and achieve social justice, they needed to widen the net of support beyond their base of activists, and include among them the general public and those with the skills and resources to not only win the argument, but also to implement a different future.  So anger about slavery was directed towards enlisting public support through reasoning and ultimately legal and economic measures to move the country away from dependence on slaving as a source of growth, which paved the way for its eventual abolishment. So anger about about illiteracy was turned into a desire to establish the first non-governmental schools for the poor. So anger about the crippling poverty from unemployment and depression led via the war to the welfare state in its original, enabling form. All without the scale of unrest and bloodshed that dogged countries overseas.

So the real question, Julian, in response to your thoughtful and eloquent letter, is not whether I or others are prepared to engage with and accept anger at the coming cuts and the speed of them, but how we deal with the situation together. How we deal with it not just in government, but also at the level of affected and unaffected institutions working in partnership with those that have alternative resources to government whether from philanthropy, business, or direct from citizens. And how we ultimately figure out how to channel our anger into real local (and sometimes national) solutions.

I’m angry as well. I’m angry that the previous government led so many social organisations down the garden path which meant that when the inevitable reductions in public expenditure arrive, they have been left exposed and vulnerable – a result of Big Government style funding. I’m angry that the process has to be done so quickly because to not act now would mean things would be worse later when the country is forced overnight to act as it did in the past – but that it suits those who no longer have to make these painful decisions to cast blame rather than to share responsibility. I’m angry because what is happening affects my family too, with a number of local services we use being potentially affected here in Shoreditch.

But I choose to harness that anger and direct it to finding solutions. To looking in government at how we can smooth the transition where possible, encouraging philanthropy to support organisations at risk and bring in new skills so they can diversify their income away from government, and to finding ways longer term to join up budgets and make them more locally-led by citizens, reducing the waste and overheads that comes from overcentralisation and allowing funds to flow to social enterprises and other providers so long as they can convince people rather than Ministers that they can genuinely help them achieve their aspirations for their neighbourhood. That’s why I and others are working to build a long-term social investment sector that harnesses the tremendous wealth we create as a country and directs some of it towards helping to scale what works, so that sustainable funding is no longer totally subject to the vagaries of politics or elections or the IMF. And that’s why I’m engaged in thinking through with other citizens how we can save our local services innovatively, such as by co-locating services and raising local funds to run them more autonomously, and by going back to local government funders and landlords with alternative business plans and proposals that make sense and which allow more to be done for less.

To do all of this requires more than just anger and angry people. It requires a joined up movement at all levels first to get the angry and the “not particularly angry” to work together by showing the latter what life is like for those on the margins; second to team up those with resources with those that do not have any and harness not just their money but also their skills and networks; and third to recognise that we can aim higher and not just tackle the economic and financial challenges that this once-in-a-lifetime generational shift poses, but also build real prosperity which is not just about money but also about social connection and the poverty of isolation – which affects people of all classes and backgrounds. To just be angry (at government) and have no solutions is divisive and can alienate those in the mainstream who might otherwise get involved and help. To turn that anger to constructive reform is to follow a noble tradition which will invariably help lead us out of the crisis which we all face – a crisis which otherwise threatens to turn into a bitter, unforgiving, bloody revolution that will once again set community against community – the opposite of what Big Society is all about.