The move, which has the support of the existing UK CPBF, will be discussed immediately after the Glasgow branch meeting on Thursday 9th October.

The CPBF is an independent organisation, championing media reform, specifically with reference to democracy, diversity and accountability.

Crucial to these aims are resisting concentration of media ownership, and defending the rights of journalists to report freely and citizens' rights to a means of redress for unfair coverage.

Welcome to the third edition of Mousemat, the email newsletter for online journalists.

Ah, go on

The Online Media Joint Council is conducting a survey into the work undertaken by NUJ members in new media. The questionnaire was sent out with this month's copy of The Journalist, and so far the response has been great.

If you haven't replied to the survey yet, it only takes a couple of minutes to fill it in! Your responses will help to shape the union's future work with new media journalists, so this is your opportunity to make sure we're helping you through our work.

If you haven't received a copy of the survey, or have lost it, then you can fill-in the survey online at www.nujtraining.org.uk, and click on the "SURVEY" button.

As yet the NUJ hasn't formally got an agreement with a stand-alone new media company to negotiate on behalf of journalists to improve pay and conditions, but all that may be about to change.

The chapels at Ananova and AOL are now organising themselves to gain recognition (the legal term for being able to negotiate over pay and conditions). AOL members have been having talks with the management, which it is hoped may lead to a voluntary agreement, despite the company's reported anti-union stance.

Ananova members, who had made attempts to get a similar arrangement with management, are now having to apply to the government body (the Central Arbitration Committee) to gain the right to negotiate. Mind you, Ananova, who are owned by Orange and thus France Telecom, have no excuse not to recognise the union because they are forced by law to work with unions in France.

Are you recognised?

If you are working in place where the NUJ isn't recognised , and you would like us to help you set up a chapel (the NUJ's workplace branches), then drop us a line.

In the past couple of years, NUJ members, who wanted to change the culture of intimidation and low pay, have organised themselves to achieve real change, and you can easily do the same.

Journalists have tackled bullies, and won significant pay rises by acting together to challenge management.

Contact us

If you want us the put something in Mousemat; be put on the email list, change your email address, or just get in touch then contact the NUJ Manchester office.

Ring 0161 237 5020, fax 0161 237 5266, write to Fifth Floor, Arthur House, Chorlton Street, Manchester, M1 3FH or email nujmanchester@nuj.org.uk

By Mike Holderness

Jeremy Dear, General Secretary of the NUJ, noted in opening the meeting that a key witness in the Gongadze investigation, Ihor Goncharov, died in police custody on 1 July. Goncharov was due to testify about death squads in the Ukraine, including that suspected of killing Gongadze. So "We have not only this journalist being killed with the apparent encouragement of senior politicians, but a main witness being killed."

Around 5000 people took part in a candelit protest in Kiev that night. NUJ members in Ireland are approaching senior politicians there. NUJ members in the Netherlands have handed a letter to their Ukrainian embassy, and members of the Italian journalists' union FNSI have done the same.

Other messages of support came from journalists' unions in Greece and Iceland. The Hungarian journalists' union is calling for solidarity commemorations in workplaces.

John Barsby, the immediate past NUJ President, described his fact-finding trip to Kyiv with Aidan White, General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists. There they saw the Minister of Justice, who admitted that mistakes had been made and evidence had been lost. "We informed them that we were not satisfied and we would return again and again until we were sure that everything had been done."

Robert Shaw, safety officer of the IFJ, quoted Aidan White: governments must "crack down hard on censorship by violence". The IFJ is calling for a thorough review of the investigations so far, of evidence that has been just left by the wayside and of the hugely disappointing report from the Council of Europe.

Alla Lazareva, of the Institute of Mass Information in Kyiv, noted how the restrictions of the Soviet era had been followed by a concentration of media ownership that led to the same lack of freedom. The only independent source of information in the Ukraine now, paradoxically, are internet sites - like the one that Gyorgi worked on - and Western media.

Lazareva noted the cases of three other journalists who have died in the Ukraine since Gyorgi's murder. In the case of Ihor Alexandrov, his family accepted the official conclusion that he had committed suicide; but the facts of what happened to his press agency after he died point to more than that. Another journalist, Volodymyr Yefremov, died in a car crash. This happened in a remote area, so how did it happen that there two videos of the crash?

Dennis McShane, Minister for Europe in the UK government and a sometime President of the NUJ, had sent apologies on the grounds that he was in the Ukraine, and promised to raise the case with officials. He was in fact recalled to London on the evening of the meeting for a parliamentary debate on Europe.

Simon Butt had accompanied McShane to Kyiv as head of the Foreign Office Eastern Section. He spoke for the FCO in McShane's absence. He read a message from the EU remembering Gyorgi and deploring the lack of press freedom in the Ukraine. He quoted a speech by McShane to students, including journalism students, the previous day: "Your prosecutor-general is reported as saying that the clear-up rate of murders in Ukraine is 97.1 per cent. So we would have expected more progress in Gongadze's case, and that of Alexandrov"

In meetings with the Foreign Minister and others in Kyiv, McShane had linked progress in these cases with Ukraine's ambitions to join the EU and NATO. There were "no great revelations" in the responses.

Then McShane arrived - "we're going to hear the same speech again!" as someone resembling a General Secretary noted.

"The assault on journalists in the Ukraine is simply unacceptable," he said. "When I met the Deputy PM and the Foreign Minister I reminded them that these are cases to which the UK government attches high importance. Membership of the EU is clearly important to Ukraine: and the government has to understand that this means joining a community of shared values... and those include a free press."

Myroslava Gongadze, Gyorgy's widow, wished that the case was as much a priority for the Ukrainian government as it for people in London. The first days of his disappearance had been the hardest, not knowing what had happened - though she and their two children had their suspicions, knowing what he had been working on.

She named President Kuchma and other officials as the plotters responsible for her husband's murder. The problem is that the prosecutor's office is looking for the people who killed him, not for those who ordered this. She is afraid that the "nice manners" of politicians meeting Westerners will merely delay naming those actually responsible. (Her prepared statement is here.)

Questioners asked McShane whether lack of progress would block Ukraine's entry into the EU. He repeated the list of officials to whom he had stressed the importance of the European Declaration of Human Rights - and its guarantee of press freedom - "short of giving sermons in all the cathedrals of Kyiv I don't know how much clearer I could make it."

LFB committe member Simon Pirani took the opportunity to ask McShane to take an interest on the case of our member Besim Gerguri. He wished Besim well.

After McShane had left, Myroslava noted that he'd referred to the need for an investigation by the prosecutor-general. But as Pirani observed, this official had already announced how he was dealing with the investigation - "with the dead body of the main witness".

© 2003 Mike Holderness

Today marks the third anniversary of the disappearance of the journalist, Gyorgy Gongadze, who had been investigating corruption within the Ukrainian government. His headless corpse was later found in a ditch.

After Gongadze's death, an audio tape was released, which appeared to be of a conversation between Ukrainian president, Leonid Kuchma, and senior ministers conspiring to harm the publisher of the Ukrayinska Pravda website.

The NUJ has been campaigning for a full investigation and to have Gongadze's killers brought to justice. Tonight, in London, Gongadze's widow, Myroslava, will address a meeting of supporters.

The London Freelance branch website catalogues the story in full.

NUJ member and ITN reporter, Terry Lloyd, was killed on the way to hospital after being shot in the first of two attacks, it has been alleged.

The Daily Mirror reported, last week, that Lloyd was not killed in crossfire, as has been claimed, but died when the civilian minibus that was carrying him was strafed by fire from a US helicopter gunship. He was dead on arrival at the hospital in Basra.

Hamid Aglan, whose minibus was being used to transport Lloyd told the Daily Mirror: "The helicopter pilot killed him. It should not have happened. The journalist would have lived if I had got him to hospital."

The allegations have been greeted with grave concern by the International Federation of Journalists.

IFJ General Secretary, Aidan White, said: "It is shocking that six months after the event, the truth is slowly emerging of a scandalous incident that once again points the finger at military incompetence, or worse, for the killing of journalists.

"If true, this incident is a war crime and those responsible must be brought to trial."

ITN management have demanded a "comprehensive explanation of the course of events and reasons the minibus came under US fire".

The IFJ claims that US soldiers implicated in the killing of journalists and media staff have been acting with impunity.

Last month, the US cleared its troops of any responsibility for the tank attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad in which two journalists died, a judgement the IFJ described as "a cynical whitewash".

"From the beginning there has been a policy of lies and misinformation," said White.

"If the Pentagon will not come clean then an independent international process of investigation should be established."

19 journalists and media staff have died in Iraq since the war began and two are missing, presumed dead. Seven of the killings have involved journalists being fired upon by US troops.

Word has reached us that the three Archant newspapers, based in Glasgow; The Extra, The Courier and the Weekly News; have recently lost an NUJ member as a reporter.

That, in itself, is nothing unusual. After all, we recruit skilled journalists and offer members high quality training at exceptionally reasonable prices.

But could it be true that the papers have decided to fill the gap by "employing" two would-be journalists, unpaid, on a work experience basis with the vague chance of a job for one of them?

The group's editor, Alan Hodge, is already known to have chastised one sub-editor, who having been invited to work on a supplement, had the temerity to submit an invoice, saying: "You should have spoken to me first. I like to talk to people before I pay them."

The member insists that he was as respectful as possible when responding: "If you didn't intend to pay me for the work, then it is you who should have been clear about your intentions."

He was paid but, strangely, never invited to return to the workhouse at Gower St. Business Park.

However, it would appear that young aspiring journalists continue to join the production line, believing that they must "show they're keen" by filling papers free of charge.

We trust that this gladiatorial battle will prove fruitful for one of the recruits.

And we hope that both will find the experience to be educational:

"All publishing houses require a strong and active union."

Discuss.

NUJ General Secretary, Jeremy Dear, has taken the opportunity afforded by the Trades Union Congress Conference 2003 to highlight the twin issues of journalists' conditions and media freedom.

Recently re-elected to the TUC General Council, Jeremy said: "Working life has been characterised for too long by low pay, long hours, increased stress and illness.

"We know of a profitable newspaper where journalists earn £8,750 a year. They can supplement their incomes by cleaning their own office after work."

In a stirring summons to action on journalists' pay, he went on: "Many of our members end up working 45, 50 and 60 hours a week….

"We've seen record numbers of cases of bullying, of stress at work. Three of our members have committed suicide; at least one directly blamed by their families on stress at work.

"If this was happening under a Tory government we would not be surprised, but the fact that it still happens after more than six years of a Labour government should rightly anger us."

But, remembering the NUJ's commitment to defending media freedom he also rallied a vigorous defence of the independence of the BBC, which he said was "under the most co-ordinated and sustained attack it has faced for many years."

He also warned that the BBC was being "undermined by those who hate the values behind the BBC; who hate the independence of the BBC and who hate the skills and professionalism of our members at the BBC."

And touching on issues that have recently been the subject of debate within the union, he said: "The BBC remains, in the words of Director General Greg Dyke, 'hideously white'.

"There is a culture of bullying in some parts of the corporation that we are campaigning to expose and end. Two of our members have been sacked by the BBC's Arabic service without an investigation or a hearing and with their rights to union representation ignored.

And, as one of the recognised up-and-coming figures in the UK Trade Union movement, he urged his fellow members to "send a clear message to government. Renew the charter. Support the licence fee. Hands off our BBC!"

Scottish trade unionists, politicians, human rights campaigners, and Chilean exiles will gather in Glasgow today to mark the 30th anniversary of the overthrow of Salvador Allende's democratic government.

Allende was the socialist president of Chile before a US-backed military coup installed the notorious dictator, General Pinochet as supreme leader of the country.

His regime and the infamous "caravan of death" would go on to torture and kill thousands of Chileans suspected of being socialists or trade unionists. Many more would disappear while others were forced to flee the country in terror.

In anticipation of the events, STUC General Secretary, Bill Speirs, said: "The STUC urges all to commemorate September 11th. The date marks an important milestone in the history of Chile.

"It was on that day, 30 years ago, that the Chilean military overthrew the constitutional government and installed a brutal dictatorship that lasted almost 17 years and resulted in thousands of deaths and 'disappearances', widespread repression and exile."

Two major commemorative events in Scotland are jointly sponsored by the STUC, Amnesty International and Chile Democratico (Scotland).

Today, (Thursday) at the City Chambers in Glasgow a symbolic candle will be lit in remembrance of the dicatorship's victims and to celebrate the solidarity offered to Chilean refugees who came to Scotland during the 1970s.

The second public event at STUC Centre on Saturday, 13th September will be an evening of song and remembrance with live music from Chilean and Scottish musicians. Admission will be free and all are welcome to attend.

We are pleased to announce that the NUJ's General Secretary, Jeremy Dear, has been re-elected to the General Council of the Trades Union Congress.

Jeremy polled 399,000 votes. The full results are available on the TUC website.

Members across Scotland will be delighted to hear that the appointment of Glasgow branch member, Jim McNally, as a new Assistant Organiser has now been confirmed. Jim has been operating in the role for more than a year but will take up the post permanently on 1st October.

Online Media Joint Council meeting - 3rd September 2003

The Online Media Joint Council met on Wednesday via internet chatroom, in a move that saved the NUJ several hundred pounds, if not more. So far, the OMJC is the first council to meet in this way but the practice will certainly be followed by other bodies, allowing far more efficient use of union funds and members' time.

Some participants did experience technical gremlins but, overall, the discussion was productive and even heated at times.

Graeme Smith and Bernard Thompson represented Scottish members.

Feasibility Study

The council's servicing officer, Jenny Lennox revealed that the National Executive Council had agreed that the OMJC should be responsible for a feasibility study on the subject of setting up an industrial council for New Media. Questionnaires should be included with the next copy of The Journalist.

This survey of all members will seek to establish what work the union members are currently undertaking in New Media.

Jenny also updated the council about recent activities.

Ananova.com

The NUJ is to apply to the Central Arbitration Committee for union recognition.

Orange

The company has refused to recognise the union and statutory procedures will now be instigated. However, the signs are hopeful that the NUJ's first new media recognition deal will be achieved at the company.

AOL

The Chapel at AOL has gone into voluntary recognition talks with management. However, the anti-union stance of parent group, Time Warner, suggests that these discussions are unlikely to produce the desired outcome.

Scotland

Graeme Smith told the council that S1now Ltd, publishers of S1jobs.com, S1homes.com and S1play.com, has made him and the former head of content redundant since being bought over by Newsquest.

The sites will apparently be radically reducing editorial content but plans for its replacement have not been specified. It would appear that repurposed material from The Herald will be used heavily.

The council also heard that only one journalist now remains at S1 - previously the most junior member of the editorial staff - who is now the editor.

There was also a discussion on the use of free content and photographs by online media outlets.

Some commercial websites, such as Footymad.net and Soccerage.com, are already making extensive use of hobbyists at the expense of professional journalists.

There was also discussion of BBCi, which has been asking users to send in photographs, taken by picture messaging, and to allow their use, royalty-free, in perpetuity.

There was debate about the seriousness of this issue. Some members felt that the pictures sent in so far were largely unusable as feature content, were only used as an enhancement, and, in keeping with the nature of the web, allowed users to interact with the site.

However, Bernard Thompson insisted that a dangerous precedent was being set and that, if the NUJ accepted the principle that amateur users could be asked to submit photographs or written content, free of charge, then that principle could be used to extend the use of such material in future.

He speculated that increasing popularity of picture messaging and the increasing quality of the required equipment could eventually lead to amateurs sending interactive reports when they happen across a news story, with serious implications for journalists.

He also insisted that unions existed for the protection of members interests even before the promotion of the culture of the industries. However, the matter was referred to email discussion, which will be extended to the next OMJC meeting.

There was some discussion of a very interesting report by Mindy Ran, on how new media industries are being approached by unions in the Netherlands. However, some members had not had a chance to study the report and requested fuller discussion at a later time.

One proposal of major interest arising from the report was the suggestion that the issue of fitting members into an online sector could be resolved by allowing membership of more than one sector as is currently practiced by the Netherlands journalists union, NVJ.

This would circumvent the difficulty in categorising journalists who consider themselves to be members of an existing sector but whose work is increasingly used online e.g. in broadcasting and newspapers.

The suggestion was greeted enthusiastically and Miles Barter followed up on the discussion, by email, pointing out that this would pose few logistical difficulties for the union. He drew a loose comparison to the example of a black disabled member, living in London and working for BBC online, who would already be able to vote in four NEC elections (black, disabled, broadcasting, London). In principle, then, he suggested that being a member of more than one professional sector should not pose any problems.

Further discussion will take place at the next online meeting.

In other business, it was revealed that work at Edexcel and TXU is ongoing but at an early stage. It is also hoped that the union will soon be in a position to make inroads at Amazon.com. Further information will be provided at a future meeting.

Four months after NUJ member, James Miller, was shot dead in Israel, his family is still awaiting an explanation as to why he died.

The NUJ is supporting the Justice for James Miller campaign, which has been set up to ascertain the precise circumstances in which James came to be killed.

Initial Israeli statements claiming that he was shot by Palestinians or during crossfire have been shown to be untrue.

And, to date, the Israeli Defence Force, which has neither apologised nor brought any charges, has failed to produce a promised internal report into the killing.

James's brother, John Miller, said: "We are calling on the Israelis to let us know when the IDF report into James's death will be published and to demand a criminal investigation.

"There is compelling evidence from eye-witness accounts and independent ballistics experts that James was deliberately targeted by the IDF. This was an unlawful killing and we need to get justice for James."

Action over hours didn't take long

Johnston Press managers in the north east have offered cash compensation to journalists forced to work long hours after NUJ members threatened to work to rule.

The drama began last week when reporters on the daily, Shields Gazette, told their bosses that regular working weeks in excess of 50 hours were making them ill, and that they would stop work at 4.30pm from then on, regardless of the readiness of the paper.

The firm claimed that would be unlawful industrial action and issued a veiled threat of sackings.

So the journalists joined the union and immediately voted to have a ballot for lawful industrial action!

They were joined by colleagues at the Sunderland Echo who were also at the end of their tethers because short staffing and a new computer had lead to long working weeks.

Within a day of the Sunderland chapel voting to ballot, union reps were called in and told that the people most affected would get £200 in compensation, that the company would acknowledge the problem of long hours and look for a solution.

We understand a similar offer is to be made to journalists in Shields and on the Hartlepool Mail. I suggest they hold out for a few quid more.

The Sunderland chapel has agreed to take the cash but is continuing to ballot in case the problem persists in a month's time.

Sheffield steel

NUJ members on the Sheffield Star have voted for industrial action in a ballot over pay. 80 per cent voted for a strike and 88 per cent for "action short".

After a slightly improved offer was made yesterday at talks supervised by ACAS, the chapel - workplace branch - agreed to call limited action as required by law to keep the ballot valid.

They will be telling management tomorrow that they plan to hold union meetings in works time in the week beginning 24th September, if an agreement has not been reached before then.

Sheffield Newspapers made a profit of £8.8 million in 2001 - the last year for which figures are available. For the last ten years the company has made an average profit of £14,400 per day!

The latest offer stands at a rise of 2.75 per cent or £640 - whichever is the greater, a new minimum rate for two year seniors, a rise of 5 per cent on the two lowest senior bandings (making the newly-qualified senior minimum £17,850) and £640 on the others, a rise in the revise desk support staff rate from 75 per cent of the senior minimum to 80 per cent.

All this is to be back-dated to 1st June 2003. From 1st April 2004, there will be a further 2.75 per cent or inflationary increase up to 3 per cent and the revise desk rate will go up to 85 per cent.

The chapel needs a fighting fund to give them the confidence to stage stoppages if necessary. Please make donations payable to NUJ Manchester and send them to NUJ, 5th Floor, Arthur House, Chorlton Street, Manchester, M1 3FH.

Send messages of support to Julia Armstrong at andyjools@hotmail.com.

On Ilkley moor bar cash

NUJ members at Newsquest Bradford have voted for strike action in three ballots in protest at their management's measly offer of a 2 per cent pay rise.

Action is off at the moment but the chapel has not accepted the deal and contacts between the union and the company are continuing.

See the chapel's website with its inspiring messages of support at www.geocities.com/bradfordnuj

Not so soft southerners (quite hard actually)

For the second year running the magazine journlaists at EMAP Healthcare in London have voted in a ballot to strike over pay. Messages of support to emapunions@hotmail.com.

Post it note

A regular feature of NUJ strikes in the past 18 months has been the willing refusal of most postal delivery workers to cross picket lines. Now it is time for us to stand up for the soundest group of trade unionists in the country.

If the postal workers end up striking over pay and job cuts I hope NUJ members will visit picket lines, donate to strike funds, and argue for the dispute to receive balanced coverage in the media.

Education, education, education

There are still places left on an NUJ course on representing members at Wortley Hall, the so-called workers' stately home, near Sheffield.

All expenses are paid, accomodation is on site; you'll meet some top fellow NUJ-ers, and, if the union is recognised in your workplaces, reps are entitled to paid time off to attend.

For more info, or to book, contact my colleague Debbie Smith on debbies@nuj.org.uk

New figures released by the NUJ show that membership levels are continuing to rise in every sector.

The union now has 26,392 full paying members out of a total figure of 35,651. That represents an increase of 938 since last year.

Provincial newspapers, where membership increased by 351, saw the greatest sectoral rise.

Subscription contributions are also now in keeping with the budget prediction.

While the Hutton Inquiry has been investigating the circumstances behind Dr David Kelly's untimely death and the row between the BBC and Downing Street, PressWise Director Mike Jempson has been working with journalists in SE Asia on coverage of suicide and governance issues.

In Sri Lanka, where suicide rates reached alarming levels as the economy slumped during the civil war, media reports have been ghoulish and distorted.

PressWise has been working with the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo which has been monitoring coverage and developing training programmes to encourage a more responsible approach to reporting of suicide.

Singhalese and Tamil journalists who attended workshops in Colombo and the beleaguered city of Jaffna last week, were anxious to ensure that their reporting would help to save lives rather than providing graphic details of suicide that might encourage other to follow suite.

However, as the leading national paper, the Daily News, made plain in an editorial, Sri Lanka lacks the psychiatric services needed to assist those suffering from poverty-induced distress.

Earlier, PressWise took part in a UN-backed conference in Delhi on reporting poverty and governance issues.

Attended by journalists from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the three day-event heard of the difficulties they faced in obtaining reliable information from officials at all levels of government. Those who had the temerity to publish critical stories often faced harassment and worse.

Meanwhile there are few media outlets for the poor. Apparently, between 1997 and 1999, as many as 400 cotton farmers in Andhra Pradesh killed themselves, mostly by "swallowing their overpriced pesticides", yet not a single English language newspaper, the medium of the Indian elite reported on this tragedy.

However, street and working children at the Butterflies Project in Delhi, whom PressWise trained in radio production three years ago, have now obtained a community radio licence, and plan to join up with street children from six Indian cities to create a national network of newspapers.

PressWise hopes to work with UN Habitat in developing resources to assist SE Asian journalists keen to see more grass roots involvement in local governance issues, especially in the promotion of imaginative ways of giving voice to the poor.

Here in the UK, PressWise is seeking funds to encourage dialogue between listeners, readers and viewers and the media professionals who act as a watchdogs of the public good.

The idea is that this should be an antidote both to the era of spin and the collapsing trust in journalism driven by prurience and the 'bottom line'.

Just to prove that the NUJ isn't backward when it comes to technology, the Online Media Joint Council will meet online tomorrow (Wednesday).

Meeting in this way will save the union hundreds of pounds in members' expenses, and will undoubtedly become a more common practice as the union attempts to make the best use of limited funds.

Scottish members with specific points to raise should contact Graeme Smith or Bernard Thompson before the meeting, which will be held between 10am and 12pm.