Tim Dawson

We must save initiative that gives adults with learning disabilities a voice

By timdawsn Posted on January 4, 2023 Posted in Culture

Lewisham Speaking Up supporters at a People's Parliament event

People’s Parliament unites and empowers people with learning disabilities to fight for change – we must ensure its survival Article originally published in The Independent, 29 November 2022. Here is a chilling statistic. During the pandemic adults with learning disabilities …

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Info Tsar promises journalists’ fast track

By timdawsn Posted on December 12, 2022 Posted in Culture

John Edwards, Information Commissioner

It is reassuring to witness John Edwards and Maurice Frankel share a platform and nod over shared understandings. Edwards is the recently-installed Information Commissioner, responsible, among other things, for regulating provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (2000). Frankel has …

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Better value journalists for a thriving news media

By timdawsn Posted on November 12, 2022 Posted in Culture

Striking NUJ journalists picketing the Hull Daily Mail on 31 August 2022.

Originally published in the October 2022 edition of InPublishing magazine. A bright future is within the grasp of the UK’s news media – but it is not assured. It requires imaginative cross-industry effort and resources: fail at this and a …

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Fight for all our pay

By timdawsn Posted on August 30, 2022 Posted in National Union of Journalists, The practice of journalism

I have just made a contribution to the Reach strikers’ hardship fund. I would encourage everyone else who cares about pay in the media to do the same, whether or not you are a member of the NUJ. The NUJ’s …

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Don’t outlaw free speech

By timdawsn Posted on April 12, 2022 Posted in Culture

Chris Mullin outside the Old Bailey © Tim Dawson

Union pressure is critical to keep journalists free from legislative binds… Read the 9,887 words with which Judge Mark Lucraft upheld Chris Mullin’s right to protect his sources, and one thing shines through. The case law cited will be very …

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Pub-bomb probe could jail journalist

By timdawsn Posted on March 7, 2022 Posted in National Union of Journalists, The practice of journalism

Chris Mullin outside the Old Bailey © Tim Dawson

On Friday (25 February 2022), Detective Constable Darren Sutton cut an uncomfortable figure in the witness box at the Old Bailey. Little wonder. At the behest of his employer, West Midlands Police (WMP), he was attempting to undermine a journalist’s imperative undertaking …

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Truths revealed by the camera’s lies

By timdawsn Posted on January 17, 2022 Posted in Culture, The practice of journalism

Opinion column originally published in Amateur Photographer 5 October 2019 Photojournalism succeeds because of its apparent veracity. That ‘the camera doesn’t lie’ is at the heart of the reportage captured through the lens. Of course we know that images can …

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Fruit Of The Zoom

By timdawsn Posted on June 7, 2021 Posted in National Union of Journalists

I was sceptical that a gathering over video could replicate an actual trades union conference. How happy I was then, to find my fears misplaced. A version of what follows appeared in the June 2021 edition of NUJ Informed. The …

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English customs reveal Dutch lorry driver’s hidden depths

By timdawsn Posted on June 4, 2021 Posted in Culture

Reporting for Dutch tv station Omroep Flevoland, I chronicled lorry driver Jelle Post’s, successful bid to explain away the £25 million worth of cocaine and ketamine that found amongst his cargo in July 2020. In Dutch law, the surname of …

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The Letraset Insurectionary

By timdawsn Posted on February 9, 2021 Posted in Culture, National Union of Journalists, The practice of journalism

Review of David King Designer Activist Visual Historian, by Rick Poynor Like many1970s teenagers, a postal order dispatched to Finsbury Park, London initiated my engagement with politics. I received by return several sheets of lapel stickers, a poster and some …

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