Privacy and Injunctions - Evidence - Parliament

Paul Staines, Jamie East, David Allen Green, and Richard Wilson—Oral evidence (QQ 326–
403)
whatever. The scale of the blog is largely irrelevant; what is relevant is the fact that it is a
blog.
Paul Staines: I used to think that Twitter was a fad that would not last, but I am very
enthusiastic about it now I have 50,000 followers. We have 50,000 to 100,000 daily readers
and impressions. At its peak, for instance during Smeargate and the Damian McBride emails,
it can go to 100,000 an hour. I think my traffic is comparable with that of The Spectator or
New Statesman.
Q337 George Eustice: You have intrinsically quite low levels of readership. Is it
fair to say that, when you get those big spikes, they are driven largely by mainstream media?
For example, in the case of Damian McBride, that was somebody on Sky News; it was run
on the broadcast bulletins and was in all the newspapers, and therefore that drove traffic. Is
it right that, in the case of a footballer with an anonymised injunction, the fact that it exists
creates a hunger you then step in and fill?
Paul Staines: I think search engines are the biggest source. People will search for
Damian McBride, or whatever is the story of the moment, and they will find it that way.
Google is very intelligent and knows where to go. When we have those kinds of spikes, it is
usually the keyword that is the cause. Sometimes the keywords may be “‘Guido Fawkes’
blog” because people have seen us on television and so on.
David Allen Green: In my experience, peaks arise when we cover stories that the
mainstream media are not. For example, in libel cases, where newspapers invariably go
silent, I will responsibly publish the materials relevant to it and will often be the only source
in a libel story. That is the same for other legally sensitive matters. It is the opposite of
what you suggest in your question. Some bloggers have peaks because of things not being
covered in the mainstream media, not as a knock-on effect of things being in the mainstream
media.
Q338 Chairman: Can you define the word “responsibly” in that context?
David Allen Green: Yes, of course. One has obligations under the general law of
the land. I have specific obligations as an officer of the court. When publishing court
material, I make sure that it is something that I have obtained, or could obtain, from the
Public Record Office. I publish within the laws of contempt and libel and, like many other
legal bloggers, we are extremely responsible about how we present legal material. We are
often more responsible than tabloid journalists.
Q339 George Eustice: Another point related to whether it is worth trying to
improve the regulation of newspapers is that, quite often, it is said that there is a pecking
order of credibility: broadcast media are the most regulated but also the most trusted by a
country mile; newspapers are not trusted as much, but they have the wild west culture and a
more flexible regulatory environment; and bloggers do not have any real constraints at all,
but the levels of trust are even lower. Would that be fair?
Paul Staines: It is not quite as low as for politicians, though, is it? My blog is not
Reuters, so we have a lower threshold for reporting some things. The nature of gossip,
which is what we specialise in, is that often you have to go with one source, but, to take
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