Manager of British Championship

[Sean Hewitt]

They're worried about its impacting on sales of printed bulletins, and the quote they give for doing the game-inputting factors in an expected number of bulletin sales.

So let me get this straight in my mind. The British Championships pays someone to input the games, incl the Major Open. Those people also produce the bulletin, from which they get some or all of the sales revenue. Because of this, they refuse to release the pgn files to the British Championship organsiers who employed them to input the games in the first place.

That appears to be what you're saying. That also appears to me to be complete madness.

Please tell me I have this all wrong.

[Adam Raoof]

They're worried about its impacting on sales of printed bulletins, and the quote they give for doing the game-inputting factors in an expected number of bulletin sales.

So let me get this straight in my mind. The British Championships pays someone to input the games, incl the Major Open. Those people also produce the bulletin, from which they get some or all of the sales revenue. Because of this, they refuse to release the pgn files to the British Championship organsiers who employed them to input the games in the first place.

That appears to be what you're saying. That also appears to me to be complete madness.

Please tell me I have this all wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_sU0pAE-fE

[Mike Gunn]

Speaking as a competitor in the Major Open for the last 3 years I would certainly have appreciated having the games available as pgn files, on the same basis as the Championship games. All the 2009 Major games were available online, but only some of the 2010 ones, so I took the 2010 printed (daily) bulletins with me to Sheffield. Even if the games were available online, I would still buy the daily bulletin for the annotations (but not the final bound copy as I have already bought all that once). Some rationalisation of the offer to competitors and spectators needs to be made in the future.

[Alex McFarlane]

I have posted the decision of the Press Complaints Commission in ECF matters. Sorry it's so long but to edit it would have been wrong. The reason for the rejection of the complaint makes interesting reading.

[Andy Howie]

Just to be clear that I am reading this correctly, are they actually saying that the reason for the rejection is the complaint is that the report is a true reflection of the claims made by CJ in their interview with him?

[Jonathan Rogers]

I think so - and what is extraordinary is that they rule that the Times did not breach its duty to take care not to publish anything inaccurate (from de Mooi) even though the PCC accepts that the Times only contacted de Mooi and AF and made no effort at all * to contact AM or LB for their comments.

So our preconceptions about the independence and effectiveness of the PCC have been proven right, unfortunately.

* As originally written. As Simon points out on the next page the PCC actually left this in the air, but it mentioned no evidence of any attempts by the Times to contact AF and LB. Why it should leave this very important matter "in dispute", as if it were of little importance, is a mystery to me as it is to Simon - save to reiterate the point that "Independent" Commissions are rarely truly independent. (The IPCC is even worse).

[Andy Howie]

I'm wondering if this is why the ECF board was waiting for the PCC statement before making a comment

I have just gone back and read it again

"and the Commission had not received any complaint from Mr de Mooi that he had been misquoted. In the absence of a complaint from Mr de Mooi or his representative, the Commission could not comment further on this point."

CJ did not even object to it!

[Thomas Rendle]

CJ apologised shortly afterwards on the forum and I believe the apology was accepted both by the board and AM. The issue of manager of the British Champs. is a different matter and hopefully it will be resolved ASAP. Until then it would be nice if we didn't have to put up with more 'someone needs to resign' nonsense - we need people like CJ who actually get things done in the ECF - don't forget that it was the strongest British in many, many years - and it's a shame that it was overshadowed.

[John Upham]

The 2009 and 2010 sites appear to have dummy content. The 2010 is owned by a company is Japan and has been since August, whilst the 09 is owned by a Japanese individual. This suggests that both sites have been allowed to lapse and snapped up by sandbaggers.

It is worth noting that the Twitter feed http://twitter.com/#!/BritishCh2010 continues to promote http://www.britishchess2010.com/.

I (well Google actually) have translated the first sentence on the site from Japanese to English as follows:

As for having got to know with the M boy who was an instructor of the aerobics of the gym in a free Internet dating site, you former for half a year.

Whoever manages that Twitter feed (Lawrence?) should possibly remove that link.

[LozCooper]

Whoever manages that Twitter feed (Lawrence?) should possibly remove that link.

Why on earth would you suggest I'm the manager of a twitter feed for a tournament I've never had any involvement with?

[Jonathan Rogers]

CJ apologised shortly afterwards on the forum and I believe the apology was accepted both by the board and AM.

The sincerity of the apology might be undermined by his subsequent refusal to distance himself from or to criticise in any way the account he had given to the Times, which presumably would not have been known about when the apology was accepted.

The issue of manager of the British Champs. is a different matter and hopefully it will be resolved ASAP.

Agreed but we at the moment should live in hope rather than in expectation. Presumably the ECF Board now feels free to comment - if it could now condemn Keene's article publicly and unequivocally, that would help. Better late than never.

Until then it would be nice if we didn't have to put up with more 'someone needs to resign' nonsense - we need people like CJ who actually get things done in the ECF - don't forget that it was the strongest British in many, many years - and it's a shame that it was overshadowed.

Amen to that - but we are where we are, viz without any senior arbiters at all for next year's British, inter alia

[Simon Spivack]

... that the Times only contacted de Mooi and AF and made no effort at all to contact AM or LB for their comments.

(The Press Complaints Commission) noted that there appeared to be a conflict of accounts as to whether the newspaper had taken specific steps to contact Ms Barnes before publication, which it had been unable to resolve.

I concur with what Jonathan says in the rest of his post on page twelve of this thread save for this matter. The PCC is of the view that confusion over whether attempts were made by the The Times vindicates the newspaper. Were records even produced of emails written, or phone calls made, from The Times to Alex or Lara? If they were, were they evidence of someone going through the motions, or something more substantial? One thing that is apparent is that The Times did not get through to Alex or Lara prior to publication.

Given it is obvious that the target of such an attack would be subjected to vicious, unwarranted abuse, I find the position taken by the PCC to be bizarre in the extreme. It is strange that the PCC can come to the conclusion that the requirement that the press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information was satisfied. In cases where serious harm can result, the balance of doubt should not be weighed in the manner it was.

[Paul Dargan]

@ Simon. Indeed it would appear that violations need to be pretty "egrigious" to warrant any action at all from the PCC - of course if the twitter feeds were within their bailiwick things might have been different.

I doubt that any of the sources The Times spoke with would want to challenege what was printed - even if they believe it is inaccurate. The recollection of an individual often isn't too reliable and there is a serious possibility of the paper producing contemporaneous notes (or worse recordings) to show that the individual's recollection is faulty/incomplete. As the sources quoted are not the people damaged by the articles, there's no upside for them and a significant downside if their recollection is proved to be inaccurate.

As Simon states the burden of proof/balance of doubt doesn't feel right - especially given the resources/finances available to the respective parties if complaints end-up going down a legal route ... but on the other hand maybe the balancereflects the fact that an adverse PCC ruling might open publisher's up to civil claims for damages?

Paul

[Alex McFarlane]

The Times attempted to contact Lara's mobile WHILST she was controlling the play-off.

Despite the PCC knowing that Keene was aware of the playoff and that he had received incoming calls (and had therefore given out the number) the fact that no attempt was made to contact the Congress number has been ignored. Keene is given a bye-line in the story.

To suggest that contacting someone who was neither there, nor aware of the situation and publishing before he could reply is acceptable just sums up the PCC.

I'm considering where to take this next.

[John Upham]

Whoever manages that Twitter feed (Lawrence?) should possibly remove that link.

Why on earth would you suggest I'm the manager of a twitter feed for a tournament I've never had any involvement with?

One of the tweets was

BritishCh2010 BritishCh2010
International Round-Up – from Lawrence Cooper: World Youth Championships 2011 Caldas Novas, Brazil 18-26 Nov 2011 [websi... [ECF #Chess]

but I suppose you were merely being quoted. The tweets are currently coming from an ECF source I would think. Maybe the ECF Office? I don't know but it might be a good idea to track the source down.

The most recent one was

BritishCh2010 BritishCh2010
England Juniors Need Your Help!: A message from the Director of Junior Chess and Education Dear ECF Members, Plans for i... [ECF #Chess]

It is possible that any posts from the ECF web site auotmatically trigger a Tweet from BritishCh2010.