Electric Trainer

Humanising Wikileaks

How is the British media coping with Wikileaks? As a broadcaster, journalist and trainer it's a good question to ask at the end of another fascinating week.

It's been difficult to remember at times that Wikileaks is not the same as Julian Assange. And as John Naughton says, the real story here is the former, not the latter. 

But for journalism to have an impact the story must be relevant and accessible. The best way to do that is to humanise it.  Assange has therefore become the face of Wikileaks. 

[I did a Google image search on 'wikileaks' this morning and half the images on page one are of Assange. Most of the others are rather dull screengrabs. Plus, bizarrely, one photo of Sarah Palin.]

This has been partly deliberate on the part of Assange and his co-workers. He has said it's better to be the organisation's front man than have journalists constantly speculating on who's behind it. 

He's also deliberately blurred two distinct issues this week,  calling Sweden "a cipher" for the US. Full marks to Will Heaven in the Telegraph for pointing out the difference. [For an outline of the Swedish charges, see the Daily Mail.]

So Assange has done little to dissuade anyone of the view that he and Wikileaks are the same thing. This no doubt benefits Wikileaks in the short term. With all the attention on one man, others can get on with their work. [For more on Assange promoting the Wikileaks agenda, read City University's George Brock.]

But does that help us understand what's going on?

Focusing on one man - who happens to look distinctive and have a foreign sounding name - no doubt helps sell papers and get viewers. But parallels with a Bond villain, and headlines about a 'fugitive', don't get to the bigger story about Wikileaks.

Any digital native will point out that Wikileaks is more leak than wiki, but its actions have certainly encouraged new ways for people to express mistrust of governments, and anger when commercial operations are leant on.

Hacktivists - a word I learnt this week - appear to come straight out of a Stieg Larsson thriller, adding to the intrigue around Wikileaks, and bringing DDoS to the news pages.

I suspect DDoS attacks on Visa or Mastercard are the digital equivalent of chaining yourself to the railings: a nuisance to the target institution, but probably more damaging to reputation than to daily operations. 

That's not to belittle the implications. Some admirable causes down the ages have successfully included railings. 

But Wikileaks is more an idea - even a philosophy - than an organisation. Very hard to pin down, and almost impossible to strangle. Equally hard to frame in a news story, not least as there are implications for journalism itself.

You simply have to engage with it. And we've hardly started down that road.

OMG- Not ANOTHER change to VAT!

Yes - you can't fail to have noticed that VAT's on the rise again. From 4 Jan 2011 the standard rate is 20% (up from 17.5%).

While the papers are talking about the cost to us as real people who buy stuff, it's worth pausing a moment to work out what it might mean for you as a small business, or freelance, or whatever you call yourself.

If you're not VAT registered it will just mean things you buy for the business are 2.5% more expensive.

[For some this might be the point at which they take the plunge - especially as getting a 5th of the cost back from purchases is not insignificant. Just don't take the plunge without considering the implications for your business.] 

If you are VAT registered, there are a couple of issues to be aware of:

1/ Any invoice with a tax point of 4 Jan 2011 or later will have to include VAT at the new higher rate. Invoices up to 3 Jan 2011 will charge VAT at the old rate of 17.5%, regardless of when you are paid.

2/ If you're in the flat rate scheme for small businesses (aka "VAT for lazy people"), the flat rate that you use to calculate how much you give to the VAT people will go up.

For example the 'Film,radio TV and video production' flat rate goes up from 10.5% to 13%.

Personally I will be ensuring that I have no invoices dated 1st-3rd Jan 2011, just so that it keeps the calculations simple. It will mean my Jan-Feb-Mar VAT quarter will be all at the new rate.

It might be a bit more complicated for you if you have a VAT quarter that runs, for example, Dec-Jan-Feb. In this case you'll have a mixture of rates across the quarter. Don't panic about this. Just do calculations up to 3rd Jan, and a separate calculation for the period from 4th Jan.

HMRC have some helpful documents here:

about the change in the standard rate
about the change to the flat rate percentages if you're in that scheme

Finally, if you are VAT registered and you use one of David Thomas Media's old income and expense spreadsheets, bear in mind that changing the VAT figure on the summary sheet will change the VAT calculation all the way through the sheet - in all the category tabs.

Ditto the VAT and flat rate figures on our cash flow spreadsheet.

Solutions? You can overtype the relevant parts of your records from 4 Jan, or do calculations manually until your next financial year.

Of course you could also do something clever with the formulae if you know how.

Let's hope it'll be a while before they fiddle with it all again. Anyone want to bet that the rate comes back down again just before the next general election?