Today - May 6 2010 - Steven Raeburn, the editor of Scottish legal magazine, The Firm, announced he had led a management buyout of the title from The Carnyx Group, publishers of The Drum media and marketing magazine.
1. Is this your first venture into publishing? Have you previously worked only as a journalist?
I worked in residential and commercial conveyancing for nine years first, and drifted into journalism as a freelancer for a few years, before making the switch full-time. So my background was in law. Journalism happened gradually, but quickly took over. I've been doing it now for seven years. It seems to be what suits me best. (...)
6. The Firm attracted its own headlines recently, for an article which the Lord Advocate appeared to take exception to, including complaining to the Press Complaints Commission (complaint not upheld). To what extent was that a factor in your decision to proceed with a buy-out?
It had no connection. I was delighted at the time (the issue arose in November last year) to have been backed and supported so fully by Carnyx, and I was proud of them for having the conviction to maintain their principled position against a pretty intimidating situation. But Carnyx and I stood united in that particular challenge, and I had full confidence in the stance of The Firm. The Firm will continue to probe the difficult issues when they arise.
7. So, you will remain editing the magazine. Any other recognisable names involved in the buy-out?
I am staying in post as editor, and I am lucky to be able to have a team supporting me in the key production, advertising and printing roles, as well as the other areas, but I am the sole participant in the MBO itself. (...)
9. Proudest journalistic moment?
It's hard to say. In many ways, the things I am proudest of in this job don't get published. The Firm has taken a solid stance to back trainees in law firms if they are vulnerable, for example, and I have been humbled by some of the private feedback we have had from that. Journalism is only words, but words can change things. That kind of response tells you that you've done something right. Recently, the UN Lockerbie observer singled out The Firm's coverage of the ongoing Pan Am 103 issues for praise, which is certainly something.
[From a report on the allmediascotland website.]
I believe I have offered a copy of my thin thesis called the "green AOTA" or "green "A tale of Three Atrocities" to Mr Raeburn, but he declined to use it, without offering an explanation why.
ReplyDeleteThis is the story I only distribute as hard-copy and is available on application to any genuine seekers of the truth, of which there are very few. You have been warned: it is long on hypothesis, and ignores facts on the ground as far as possible, because these have been corrupted beyond belief.
Example: If the CIA managed to locate Mr McKee's suitcase on the ground, hours after the atrocity and deliver it to the temporary HQ of the Lockerbie Investigation, a story asserted to by David Johnston of IRN, and when it was received by the LI, it had a hole cut in its side, why did this occur? There is one straightforward explanation that does not require the CIA to have telepahic or psychic powers, but the matter is beyond a full accrediterd story until operatives do so, for the other man who could tell us why it was necessary to cut a hole in the side is dead.
I don't think it requires a great deal of imagination to work out what happened at Lockerbie, but the CIA was deploying its battery of techniques to the uttermost, including a making a Bayesian plot of the wreckage of the aircraft, which they used to find the remains of AVE4041 PA, after they had located Mr McKee's suitcase, a technique that had been developed to help recover H-bomb warheads lost over Palomares Spain, about 30 years before.
A new thesis from Charles with the unintelligible title "green AOTA" "long on hypothesis which ignores facts on the ground"? That is going top of my letter to Santa!
ReplyDeleteIn trying to understand Lockerbie, Baz, as usual ignores the fact that "facts on the ground" are almost entirely misleading. I never understood the Spiro matter either, about which he has become mysteriously silent.
ReplyDeletePipe down, Mr Williamson, about things you don't seem to know anything about. But there's an improvement - you know the difference between "its" and "it's", by not using the word or phrase.
Or are you employed by some deep Langley operation? That's a question not a libel!
I have raised genuine issues such as the undoubted second explosion on the Maid and you have not replied to them.
Slimvirgin has contributed as an MI5 agent and latterly as for the CIA for years to the disinformation operation. Are you a possibly unknowning close colleague of hers?