While I’m online I thought I’d pass on the following gripe.
\begin{gripe}
Some months ago I saw a message going around on Twitter that the Guardian was looking for new science bloggers to cover a wide range of disciplines for its website. After thinking hard about it, I decided to submit an application basically so I could find out more about what was involved and see if I really wanted to do it. Anyway, I’ve already written a commissioned piece for the Guardian website, so I thought it was an idea worth pursuing.
My idea wasn’t to scrap In the Dark or move it all to the Guardian, but to post less frequent and more sciencey pieces there and keep this as a personal ego-trip blog. The advantage of that being that they pay, whereas this blog doesn’t make me any dosh at all, and also presumably generates significantly wider exposure. As well as making a pitch for the content of the proposed blog, I had to think of a new title if In the Dark was to carry on, so I came up with Across the Universe, which seemed to me to emphasize nicely the cosmological slant of the pieces I would be likely to write. It’s not a new coinage, of course. It’s based on a Beatles song I have posted about previously.
So I filed the application and waited. Then I was contacted by Alok Jha, who looks after the Science blog network at the Grauniad, who initially made encouraging noises, explained that there would be minimal editorial control and I would keep copyright of anything I wrote for them, etc. Most of my questions having been answered I awaited further developments. Then Alok Jha contacted me again and explained that the editorial team wanted me to jump through several extra hoops if I wanted to take the idea forward. I sensed cold feet. For a number of reasons, the timing of these new phases of the process were also very inconvenient, so, after mulling it over, I contacted Alok Jha and politely withdrew my application.
I’ve no regrets about that decision, and thought no more about it, until last week when the Guardian started to roll out its new blogging team. I was delighted to see neuroscientist, comedian, and fellow Cardiff University chappie Dean Burnett among the bloggers. Their new blogger for matters astronomical is Stuart Clark, a well-known and respected science writer who I’m sure will cover a wide range of interesting topics (as he has already started to do).
What I’m peeved about, however, is that Stuart’s blog title is Across the Universe, exactly what I had suggested in my proposal! Coincidence? I asked Stuart via Twitter and he told me that the name was suggested to him by none other than Alok Jha.
Of course the title isn’t copyrighted by me, and wasn’t even original, but it was my suggestion and I do think it’s very poor form to have appropriated what was on my proposal without asking or giving acknowledgement. I’ve no complaints about Stuart Clark, of course. He didn’t know what had happened, and I wish him well with his new blog – which I shall certainly be reading. But I’m not at all chuffed about the way this was handled by the Guardian.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should point out Alok Jha recently contacted me to apologize and say that he had “forgotten” that Across the Universe was the title I gave on my proposal.
\end{gripe}
Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I’ll be keeping In the Dark going pretty much as it is for the foreseeable future.
Health willing.
In the Dark 