DrewWilson
June 18th, 2009, 07:29 PM
In April, an anonymous police blog written by a detective calling himself "NightJack" won the Orwell Prize for online political writing. And it deserved to, wrote one newspaper, "because it took you inside real life in a way you couldn't go by yourself".
But now you can't go inside real life with NightJack. Visit the site, and you read: "The authors have deleted this blog. The content is no longer available." Thishas been taken down in its entirety because the Lancashire detective lost a court case to stop his identity being revealed by The Times - the very paper that praised him to the skies when he won the Orwell Prize.
NightJack is Richard Horton, a detective of Lancashire Constabulary. Yesterday, he revealed how the paper had planned to end his anonymity. "One morning I heard a rumour that they had sent a photographer to my home. Later in the afternoon came the inevitable phone calls, first to me and then to Lancashire Constabulary asking for confirmation that I was the author of the NightJack blog.
"That was easily the worst afternoon of my life. I knew that it was serious and quite rightly my employers have investigated it as a matter of misconduct. With that under way, I went to court to stop The Times from publishing my name, my photograph or any personal details about my home and my family. Over the years, I have dealt with some unpleasant characters. I know that some of them have made determined but unsuccessful efforts to find me…
More... (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/5562056/NightJack-When-the-blogging-biters-bit.html)
I suspect this is some seriously appaulling conduct by the reporter who outted him. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about NightJack outside of this. Regardless, I think bloggers deserve to choose to be anonymous. In some cases, their life depends on it.
But now you can't go inside real life with NightJack. Visit the site, and you read: "The authors have deleted this blog. The content is no longer available." Thishas been taken down in its entirety because the Lancashire detective lost a court case to stop his identity being revealed by The Times - the very paper that praised him to the skies when he won the Orwell Prize.
NightJack is Richard Horton, a detective of Lancashire Constabulary. Yesterday, he revealed how the paper had planned to end his anonymity. "One morning I heard a rumour that they had sent a photographer to my home. Later in the afternoon came the inevitable phone calls, first to me and then to Lancashire Constabulary asking for confirmation that I was the author of the NightJack blog.
"That was easily the worst afternoon of my life. I knew that it was serious and quite rightly my employers have investigated it as a matter of misconduct. With that under way, I went to court to stop The Times from publishing my name, my photograph or any personal details about my home and my family. Over the years, I have dealt with some unpleasant characters. I know that some of them have made determined but unsuccessful efforts to find me…
More... (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/5562056/NightJack-When-the-blogging-biters-bit.html)
I suspect this is some seriously appaulling conduct by the reporter who outted him. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about NightJack outside of this. Regardless, I think bloggers deserve to choose to be anonymous. In some cases, their life depends on it.