Tuesday 16 June 2009

Times outs Orwell Prize winning blogger

The Times has today named the Orwell Prize winning policeman who blogs as NightJack. It comes after the paper won a landmark High Court judgment that anonymous bloggers cannot use the courts to keep their identity secret.
Richard Horton, a detective constable with Lancashire Constabulary, is named as the author of NightJack, which gives an insider's view of the police and crime fighting.
Horton tried to obtain a High Court injunction to prevent The Times from revealing that he was the author of the blog, which the paper claims reveals confidential information about criminal cases that can be identified.
In April NightJack was awarded an Orwell Prize for political writing. Today the blog appears to have been deleated by the author.
Story via Adrian Monck

3 comments:

Paul Linford said...

I'd like to know what The Times thinks it has achieved by this in terms of advancing the public's right to know.

George Dearsley said...

I agree with Paul. If the bobby was not undermining UK policing or helping criminals by giving away operational secrets what's the problem? Is this going to help foster good Press-police relations in general? I think not. The entertaining blog is now down and the poor guy will probably be disciplined. Shame on the Murdoch rag.

Plenty said...

There needs to be some regulatory body with news and political blogging. It's a pretty sad affair when a blogger wins an award, and then the blog gets deleted. People often look down the noses at bloggers - but people don't realise that maintaining a blog, if done seriously and professionally can be a full time business. I've just written a series of short articles on how to blog for fleetstreetblues. And I can tell you, working on my blog has been a full time thing!

http://www.plenty2say.com