Earlier this week, the New York Times introduced social media guidelines for its journalists. The rules were designed to ensure the paper’s ‘reputation for neutrality’ isn’t damaged by anything its writers might say on Twitter. Is it time for the Economist to do the same? Mr S. only asks because one of the magazine’s Brexit-bashing writers appears to have taken it upon himself to launch his own pro-EU political party overnight. Jeremy Cliffe, the Economist’s Berlin Bureau chief, tweeted late last night to say he was considering balancing his day job with a new foray into politics:
The result was ‘The Radicals’, a party with the electorally questionable commitments to ditch the immigration cap, share Trident with Germany, stay in the single market – and make Manchester Britain’s capital city.
Alas, it wasn’t to be. Just 12 hours after it was launched, the party has already lost its leader, with Cliffe having apparently come to the realisation that leading a political movement might not be compatible with his day job as a journalist:
The New York Times’ guidelines warn its journalists not to ‘express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates…or do anything else that undercuts The Times’s journalistic reputation’. Wise words…
Middle-class shoplifting is pushing up high street prices, according to Dame Diana Johnson, the policing and crime minister. Can she be right? If my own middle-class acquaintances are anything to go on, the answer is clear: yes. Many of those pilfering from our shops look just like you and me OK, we know shop theft
Steerpike
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