It’s Time To Call Out Rude Content Mining By The Media

News is a fast moving commodity which relies on using up to the minute content. The pressure is on to keep audiences both engaged and returning.

The industry has been decimated. There are fewer journalists than ever before who are now expected to be both reporters and media content creators. It’s a trend that started around 20 years ago with ‘new media’.

Usually, news outlets in Bristol are decent about crediting content they use that’s been created by other people – such as videos or photographs.

I know that saying this will likely and quite fairly rile up the professional photographers who need to make a living from their work. But, at the same time, journalists can’t be everywhere.

This is something that Bristol 247 has attempted to rectify in the past with their Community Reporter Scheme. Although they don’t get away scot- free because yes, I did see the St Jude’s foodbank story that I published rewritten by Hope Talbot.

That was an immensely privileged bit of pilfering. Something that will mean nothing to Bristol 247 or the Bristol University grad who slapped it out, probably on a bit of work experience.

Our local communities are not your stepping stone to privileged post-grad opportunities to help you sail around the world. St Jude’s – before it became the designated student playground of Frome Gateway – must have been one of the most deprived areas in Bristol with social issues that middle class journalists could never imagine.

Did it top the official deprivation index? No, but when it came to violence, crime and murder, it was right up there.

There are times when I have posted about something I have seen and subsequently received messages from journalists asking me where it is. I am happy to share it.

I am also happy for media outlets to post images or videos with a credit. This does not extend to The Sun or Daily Mail. The Sun being one publication that stole one of my videos to use in a hate article of theirs.

It does not go unnoticed when individuals or media outlets start taking your work, maybe changing the sentences around and publishing it as theirs. Or some of those ‘exclusive’ stories that were likely taken from a Twitter post. Or someone else’s article about the Bristol Christmas Market? It’s seriously shaming that some journalists have to resort to taking stories from Council Estate Mum instead of having the gumption to think of it themselves.

One Bristol publication that prides itself on being extremely ethical once reported on a council meeting discussing Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (Send) – but were not actually there. If there’s ever one piece of advice journalists should live by it’s don’t piss off Send parents, particularly Bristol ones.

The meeting was not live streamed or recorded by anyone other than myself. There was no one from any of the main media outlets in attendance. I reported on it because the Send crisis meant that someone always had to. The only way they could have used quotes from that meeting was through my own work.

If they had actually been in the meeting, they would have known that it kicked off at one point, leading to one of the instances of Bristol City Council spying on the city’s Parent Carer Forum.

Why does it matter? Because going somewhere, writing and producing a story about it, sometimes taking photographs or videos which need to be either edited or uploaded takes time and effort.

It is doubly hard when it comes to being a carer of children with SEND because one simply never waltzes out to do this kind of thing without military planning.

To then find someone who has been paid, holds themselves in esteem and publishes a story from that content is actually bang out of order.

The reason it does not go unnoticed is that all of our algorithms will be quite similar. We see it every time you do it.

What makes it really bloody rude is that journalism is a hugely gate-kept industry. There’s the lack of jobs for starters. Now the price of university tuition fees has priced out many young working class people from even applying.

There are other systemic barriers that affect participation in training and employment such as disability, Neurodivergence, Send, caring, being a young carer, race, poverty, care experience, sexuality and gender. This extends into intersectionality, further increasing disadvantage.

If you are able to overcome such barriers to get into training, those barriers are still there when competing against other people to get a job.

I have seen stories reported and published by other journalists in Bristol such as The Bristolian and Joanna Booth then published as ‘exclusives’ by mainstream media. Again, it does not go unnoticed. And no, it’s not an exclusive is it?

It was pleasing and incredibly surprising to see Bristol Live had this month credited one of my stories within the body of their own report that followed some days later.

An editor once cheerfully told me that their most engaged story on social media that week came from a Tweet I had originally posted that they jumped on. That’s fine. But just sometimes those working in the industry should take a hard look at the ethics behind their behaviour and realise that it does actually impact on people they think they represent.

Photography: Mister Smith

For What’s On In Bristol:https://backstagebristol.com/
Bristol Culture: www.tiktok.com/@chopsybristoltt
Bristol Theatre Updates: https://www.facebook.com/backstagebristol
Bristol Theatre Updates:https://www.threads.com/@backstagebristol
Bristol News and Culture: https://www.youtube.com/user/chopsybaby