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Bloggers Specials this week

11 replies

HandDivedScallopsrgreat · 06/01/2012 13:52

Hi MNHQ,

I wonder if you could tell me the reason behind endorsing/promoting a blog regarding a wife who believes her husband, a convicted rapist, is innocent. I was quite shocked to find it in the weekly parenting news e-mail.

There are a lot of women on MN who have been victims of rape and whose attackers will never be brought to justice. It is incredibly hard to get a rape conviction due to all the rape myths, one of which is women lie and the man didn't do it. I feel it is insulting to the victims of rape and could be triggering.

A couple of months ago you were asked to support a campaign to help dispel rape mytha which you looked on favourably here but endorsing this blog seems to fly in the face of that.

Thanks

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MNHQ

HelenMumsnet · 06/01/2012 17:26

Hello all. We've just spoken to our Bloggers team, and they've asked us to post up this reply from them

"On the Bloggers Network, we aim to promote great writing and share the voices of our bloggers. We do not select or reject bloggers on the basis of their personal lives, and we would be wrong to do so.

"We promoted this blog because it provides an unusual perspective on the justice system, and sheds light on what it's like to be a family member or relative of a prisoner. We thought this was an important and underrepresented perspective, since we often hear about the people who go to jail but not about the families and relatives they leave behind. We didn't promote the blog to condone or reject any particular point of view on rape; indeed, the rape and the case itself is not discussed in the blog. We invited people to read the blog because we think it's well written and unusual.

"Having said all that, we agree with many of those who posted here that the way we promoted her blog both in our Parenting News email and her Bloggers Network News email did give the impression that the focus of her blog was her belief in his innocence (which it isn't). And for that we do apologise. We will be careful to pick our words more carefully when we promote our Blogs of the Week in the future. Thanks for all your comments."

MNHQ

HelenMumsnet · 06/01/2012 21:37

Evening. Thanks for your further comments.

There's no one here from the Bloggers team right now, so I'm afraid I can't answer your detailed questions about how the blog was selected - other than refer you back to our earlier post on this thread.

As for the way the blog was promoted, we have already apologised for that. And I can only do so again. Our wording in the Bloggers Network News email was poorly chosen, and our wording in the Parenting News email was particularly crass - but definitely a case of unfortunate editing by someone who hadn't read the blog, rather than a deliberate decision to call her situation "inspiring" (ie cock-up, not conspiracy). We are all, truly, very embarrassed about this - and very sorry.

We'll pass your comments about the blog selection on to the Bloggers team and come back to you as soon as we can. Please bear with us till then.

MNHQ

HelenMumsnet · 06/01/2012 21:46

@LRDtheFeministDragon

Thanks Helen. Can we ask again who the bloggers team are? Like whoever else said it, I had no idea they weren't you.

Well, they are us. But we are more than just me, obviously!

Our Bloggers team are based at MNHQ and we do talk to them and share biscuits and things - but they concentrate on Bloggers stuff and we concentrate on Talk stuff, and it's not always possible for us to know all the details of every single thing they're doing - or indeed for them to know all the details of every single thing we're doing.

MNHQ

HelenMumsnet · 06/01/2012 22:00

@LRDtheFeministDragon

Sorry, the more I think about it the more this upsets me:

Surely, especially when lots of women on here have talked about their rapes and when MNHQ has previously been supportive of campaigns for rape victims, whether or not rape victims should be supported or traumatized should not be a 'detail'.

That was crass.

Just to be clear, LRD, I was talking about the details of the Bloggers team's daily work, not the details of this blog. Wouldn't want you to misconstrue.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 06/01/2012 22:03

Evening all,
I'm really sorry about this - it is, as you rightly have identified a cock up on our part. We shouldn't be promoting a blog which protests the innocence of a convicted rapist and indeed we shouldn't really have accepted this blog into the network at all in the first place and won't be promoting it again.

It isn't appropriate for Mumsnet, especially given the number of victims of rape and domestic violence who post here, as evidenced by the informal survey that ChristinedePizan ran and posters took part in last year and the many threads we see on this issue.

We do run the bloggers network from MNHQ and I can only apologise for very poor judgement on our part on this one. Thanks for raising it all who have.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 06/01/2012 22:16

@StewieGriffinsMom

Thank you Justine.

Will you be firming up guidelines on who and what blogs are chosen for the network? There are some incredible and passionate women bloggers on there who should be prompted.

Yes for sure we will look at the way we select blogs and promote them and make sure we have a few more checks and balances in place - am confident that this won't happen again.

MNHQ

HelenMumsnet · 06/01/2012 22:31

@Prolesworth

I hope the link to the blog can be removed from the 'Specials' page ASAP.

Tis done Smile

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 06/01/2012 23:33

@BasilRathbone

Sorry Isla but I think the ethos thing hasn't been dealt with and needs to be. It's not just about procedures, it's ethos too. I just wanted to flag it up, because it hadn't been acknowledged. But as I've flagged it, I'll shut up now, I promise. Smile

I too, hope that the blogger gets the support she needs. That's where MN is invaluable and I hope she name changes and continues to post and get support here.

I don't accept that it's about ethos at all really. This was a mistake. Human error. Poor judgement. It can happen.

It has highlighted that we need to tighten up on editorial checks and balances with regard to the Bloggers Network too. I can't promise something like this won't ever happen again because mistakes do occur particularly when folks are pressed and busy, as we often are, but it's not because of the ethos - the ethos is as it always was - we are here to make parents' lives easier and we are anything but cavalier about these kind of issues, honest.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 06/01/2012 23:34

@IslaDoit

But it's completely against the MN ethos. I think that's why there was so much shock and such a grovelling apology from Justine (sorry Justine but tbf you did need to grovel a bit).

Yes, quite. Hence the grovelling apology. [grovel, grovel]

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 06/01/2012 23:45

@BeerTricksP0tter

I don't think it's an isolated mistake. I think it's part of the whole inexorable slide towards Take-a-break-ified commercialism.

Jently and anyone affected by the issues raised have been caught in the crossfire. Just not good enough imo.

Well it's a shame you feel that way and I'm not quite sure how I can change your mind other than to say that the Bloggers' network is certainly not a particularly commercial venture (that's not to say we wouldn't like it to be one day but it's quite hard to see how at this point) and as you probably know Mumsnet has been a labour of love rather than a commercial success for most of its short life. But we are certainly not infallible or immuned to poor decisions. I'm not sure the Take-a-break charge is fair, though. I'm not sure I've ever even read a copy of Take a break...

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 07/01/2012 10:50

@LRDtheFeministDragon

I think what you are saying makes a lot of sense, Justine, and I agree with BOF that it takes guts to apologize for an error like that.

I would say, I'm a bit concerned that the initial reaction to the thread, and the subsequent reactions some hours later, from HQ, were not to pull the blog immediately. So clearly the decision to promote it wasn't something that everyone could see was obviously wrong, and that did surprise me TBH. I am sure it would not happen twice, though, and it's been really good to be on a thread that didn't end up kicking off, despite the subject being so sensitive.

I really hope jently is ok too, and I hope she knows this is not about her.

It does sometimes take a little while to get to the bottom of things and make a decision. Pulling a blog from the network is not an everyday occurrence and in this instance we had to consider the position and feelings of the blogger involved and talk it through with Elinor, the network editor too. It wasn't that people were thinking there's nothing wrong with this, just that not everyone is available instantaneously.

There's a tendency I think to assume that we are all sitting round a table at MNHQ following every move on Talk and caught in paralysis when it comes decisions (or worse are being blind to the bleeding obvious) whereas the truth is we aren't following everything all the time - there's just too much discussion going on - and often we have to start from scratch on an issue which means to carefully read all the posts, do the background checks on posters before acting. On balance I think it's better to take a few hours and get it right.

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