Look who's talking - or are they?

Attribution can be a tricky thing for those practitioners who don’t take the cut-and-paste approach to journalism. So we should forgive the odd slip-up and if possible avoid trotting out the tired maxim that the best reporters never allow facts to get in the way of a good story (everyone knows it’s editors who say that sort of thing anyway).

After digging up figures which suggest that crowd control measures are needed for Assembly government staff, it’s natural that Martin Shipton would seek comment from the private sector. After all, a doubling in the number of civil servants makes reaction a prerequisite; preferably the more outraged the better.

A pity then that he chooses to quote, among others, one Wyn Price (or Pryce) of the West Wales Business Initiative when, as we’ve commented in the past, this almost invisible outfit has no business or website address and no accreditation with economic development departments in surrounding local authorities. Admittedly there is a glowing Wikipedia entry for the group but which also bears a clear disclaimer stating “This article may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards, as a major contributor may have a conflict of interest, it cites no sources, and does not use Wiki mark-up”.

The consequence is that most of Price’s comments and especially his allusion to effective HR in Ford in the 1970s – one of the UK’s most strike-ridden manufacturers during that period – need to be taken along with the appropriate seasoning.

Swansea’s Evening Post appears even less wedded to the principle of attribution when reporting instances of abject performance in the public sector. A recent front page horror story of theirs bearing the headline ‘Ambulance gridlock wreaks havoc at major city hospital’ managed to quote five different people on what appears to be a seriously life-threatening situation without actually naming any of them.

Strangely, several on-line readers’ comments that pointed out this questionable policy in favour of anonymous allegations, and which also suggested possible reasons for the blockage at A&E, were missing in action (presumed cut) when views were later reproduced in print, as is the paper’s practice.

Neither instance of creative selectivity mentioned here is particularly rare nor, for that matter, out of step with professional industry guidelines as advanced to its members by the Press Complaints Commission; who are quietly integrating themselves back into the community following their recent enema governance review. But such examples do nevertheless serve as a reminder that journos, editors and proprietors who reflexively hurl rocks at public-sector newspapers for printing partisan accounts appear to live and work in the same glass houses.