Editorial policy and ownership machinations

I think it's worth mentioning this post.

Andrew Rawnsley has resigned from his position overseeing PoliticsHome.

Lord Ashcroft (yes, that one - the deputy chairman of the Conservative party and billionaire from Belize who is personally funding their marginal constituency campaign, while failing to declare his tax status and expose the legality of this) has bought a 57.5% stake in a new holding company owning PoliticsHome as part of his stated intention to use the site to create a new online newspaper with a specific 'centre-right' remit.

As Editor-in-Chief of the comment aggregator (and partial inspiration for my amateur local efforts at Reading List), Andrew Rawnsley was responsible for establishing the site's credibility and overseeing the consistency of non-partisanship throughout the content it provided.

It was precisely its' non-partisan nature which made PoliticsHome an invaluable resource and respected point for information gatherers such as myself. So I am particularly unhappy about this development.


Technical resources

But more worrying is what will happen with the data resources and information bank which the organisation's online polling activities was able to develop.

I was happy to regularly take part and provide my views in the PHI5000 surveys because I had confidence that they were not being interpreted through partisan spectacles. But this has changed at the stroke of a pen signing a cheque - I will reserve judgement on them until I receive that first email, so watch this space.


Rawnsley's raw deal?

Rawnsley must be feeling royally screwed over by the co-founder of the site Stephen Shakespeare, who lured him with idealistic noises about no ideological agenda, only to build the site off the back of Rawnsley's journalistic reputation before selling it from under his feet.

The timing of the announcement suggests Rawnsley had a slice of the pie to offload and in the process did pick up some loose change in exchange for getting his fingers burnt. It clearly adds to his CV and wins him bonus points from Conservative opponents, while also freeing up additional time to take on other projects (such as taking on a larger role at The Observer).


It also provides evidence to support the assumed case that e-reputations are becoming increasingly important and online authority increasingly valuable as the online media world proliferates - reinforcing the old truism that it is much easier to destroy than to create!

So let's just put the episode down as an illustrative example of how professional and corporate worlds often work against each other.

And in pointing this out let me use this matter as a means of providing reassurance that my struggle is to provide more balance, rather than less!

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Update: It appears prominent left-wingers are pre-empting any shift in political balance by voluntarily resigning their positions in solidarity and distancing themselves from association with Ashcroft's organisation.

Additionally, Sunder Katwala asks about the motivation for the purchase.

LibDems Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and Lynne Featherstone have also responded by resigning.