Jay Rosen says that “‘I’m there, you’re not, let me tell you about it’ is the headwater for a whole system of authority in journalism.” By that standard, Martha Payne, who’s 9 years old and lives in Scotland, is an authoritative journalist on the school lunch beat. With the approval of her school and her parents, she photographed and wrote about the (awful) lunches she was getting at her blog Never Seconds. Her writing spurred a change to more healthy food in her cafeteria. And she’s raised £11,000 for a charity that feeds school kids in Africa. So, of course, her council (I guess that’s like the county government) banned her from taking pictures of food in school.
arguingwithsignposts
Apparently, nobody on the council has heard of the Streisand Effect. I expect they have now.
Raven
No deep fried Snickers?
Nemesis
Mmmmm..congealed bacon fat rocks!
Patricia Kayden
Good for Martha. She has a future in hard-hitting journalism. That plate looks a little blah, but perhaps the school has to cater to children with food allergies, so they make overly bland food.
Punchy
Police departments videotaped beating innocents have forced laws that ban videotaping of innocents getting beaten. SS, DD.
Culture of Truth
Of course they did.
Really, this is all good preparation for a career in the Michigan legislature.
lamh35
Since we are talking about students figured I’d post this breaking nees
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/06/15/500227/obama-to-protect-undocumented-students/
BREAKING: Obama To Stop Deporting DREAM-Eligible Youth, Protecting 1 Million Undocumented Students
redshirt
It’s just like Vietnam.
BGinCHI
OT, from today’s Publishers Marketplace:
“New York Daily News writer Christina Boyle’s AN AMERICAN CARDINAL: THE BIOGRAPHY OF CARDINAL TIMOTHY DOLAN, the story of Cardinal Dolan’s rise from simple parish priest to the most prominent Roman Catholic in the United States, leader of New York’s 2.6 million Catholics and, arguably, a man within grasp of becoming the first American Pope, to Michael Flamini at St. Martin’s, by Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic (World).”
I guess the title American Psycho was already taken.
Violet
That is just stupid. They could have supported her and looked like heroes. Instead they just confirm people’s worst fears about government. I hope she continues to write but without the photos. She could put a disclaimer on each post saying, “I would post a photo but the local council has said I can’t.”
Edited because FYWP, that’s why.
Dork
Clearly, the photo is doctored. The jello hole is waaaay too big for that small amount of orange coagulated collagen, indicating she’s removed the healthy items from the shot. Secondly, there’s no bevy in the drink hole, so I suspect something (milk, Tang, yellow well-water) was photoshopped out. And there appears to be a knife in the tray, which are banned in schools, so this kid is already a scofflaw. AND LOOK AT THAT COUNTERTOP! IT LOOX LIKE MARBLE! PHAKE! FONY!
arguingwithsignposts
@Dork: You may be right! I’ll have to go back and check the kerning on her blog!
Face
Somewhere right this minute, Michelle Malkin is buying a ticket to England while she packs a camera (with telephoto lens) and Googles “Martha Payne’s address”.
Violet
The council is reconsidering:
Comrade Mary
The council caved.
Comrade Mary
Ha! That was fast, eh, Violet?
(I want to say that in a Lancashire accent SO BADLY. Which it would be.)
ThresherK
Wondering if a Scot striving to feed schoolkids in Africa is called a saint, yet campaigning to upgrade school lunches in Scotland is called a communist.
Violet
@Comrade Mary:
My favorite part is the “School Meals Summit” that is supposedly happening later this summer. Makes it sound like NATO is getting together or something.
And this part is a dead giveaway:
They’re so concerned about her photos and how bad the lunches look that they’re putting “attractive” as a goal for their lunches. She’s made them look bad. That’s the real issue.
BGK
Wow, if you think this girl’s lunches are awful, you would’ve been rendered incoherent for life by what got served in my Florida public high school cafeteria 1985-1989. I know from those years where the USDA sent its bulk price-support purchases. These pictures look like glamor shots from Le Bernardin by comparison.
dmsilev
@BGinCHI: On the other hand, professional Catholics are having a sad over events here in Illinois. From the Trib:
The print version of the story was longer for whatever reason (apparently the Trib has a shortage of e-ink?) and included several wailings from local versions of the Catholic League about how rains of frogs are imminent.
Culture of Truth
“McCuish blamed the council’s lapse in judgment on a severe vowel deificency.”
Forum Transmitted Disease
The Western approach to solving problems in the twenty-first century is proving to be somewhat lacking. But very consistent, both in approach and results.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Slightly off-topic I know, but– Speaking of assholes, here’s a solid example.
Can some rational white person please explain Bob Lutz’s attitude to me?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@lamh35:
The cannibals at Redstate are upset at their baby, Marco Rubio, and his comrades in crime in the Senate because they are talking about bringing out their version of the Dream Act right before the election.
Redstate is warning them that it’s a losing issue but Rubio & Co. aren’t listening to the warnings from the rednecks.
BGinCHI
@dmsilev: So Orr is a Catholic who won’t issue them?
Shit I probably voted for him three times.
Culture of Truth
Henceforth haggis will served 5 days a week. I hope yer pleased, missy!
BGinCHI
The Scottish authorities should have just replied:
Of course the school lunches are shite! The food everywhere is shite! We’re the lowest of the low! We were colonized by wankers!
/trainspotting defense
J.W. Hamner
Here blog is super cute… I picked up on it like many when it started getting mainstream press a week or two ago. It looks like the council is already backing down though.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
He’s a conservative who was saved by a Democrat, thus he has to vote Republican to show his appreciation. Obama should have demanded his replacement as a condition for the bailout, getting rid of the incompetent management that led them into disaster in the first place.
The corporate jet into D.C. to beg for the bailout would have been a good enough excuse, IMO.
Culture of Truth
You’re some tiny city council. She has 2 million followers. Yer Scottish. Do the bloody math.
quannlace
Ugh, looks like grade-Z Kraft mac and cheese there on the right, with most of the color drained out of it.
dmsilev
@BGinCHI: There wasn’t much about the Clerk’s position, just this:
Sounds like Orr’s position is that he’d like to issue same-sex marriage licenses but current law doesn’t yet allow him to.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Two words: tax cuts.
Yutsano
@arguingwithsignposts: TEH KERNING! TEH KERNING!!
Countertops. Also. Too.
gelfling545
@BGK: At our school we called the lunches the “patty of the day.” Hamburger patty, breaded chicken patty, ditto pork and fish all served on bread. For a change of pace there were chicken nuggets (breaded). Once a month for a treat there was a rather nasty pizza or a “cold cut” submarine with unidentifiable lunch meats but they looked like gourmet food compared. The rule for vegetables appeared to be boil them until unrecognizable. That way if a kid says he doesn’t like peas, for example, they could say “Hah! That’s not peas!” and no one would really know. If a student turned down these tasty treats he could get a pb&j that was premade & packaged by Smuckers and was the greatest perversion of a noble food combination known to man.
Original Lee
I love how it looks as if the veggies were plated but the mac’n’cheese and the Jello were just slopped on any old how.
Good for this young lady!
Schlemizel
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
Bobby is counting on the fact that a President Rmoney will of course get him the money he needs when he needs it. Plus he will see to it that the destruction of worker rights and environmental protection will accelerate even further.
Tied to more tax cuts for him that makes Bobby a few million extra in his already obscene bank account.
Coco Laboy
As usual, Mark Twain said it best: In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards
Joel
Their lunches look a whole lot better than the shit that was put in front of our faces in K-12. Even college, for that matter.
And people wonder why the high school kids were skipping out on lunch (me) or serving themselves some double orders of french fries.
Virginia Highlander
The BBC reported that the lunch workers feared for their jobs, apparently after some idiot at The Daily Record called for their heads.
Who cares if some low-wage earners lose their jobs in a massively depressed economy? There are bigger issues at play, folks.
Joel
@Virginia Highlander: This is going to be harsh, but, if lunch workers lose their jobs, it’s not like the job sits vacant. New people take their places.
We should have some minimal expectation of qualifications when it comes to employing people. Maybe it’s the training, maybe it’s the wages. But either the school boards live with criticism or learn to address the problem.
rea
@Patricia Kayden: The picture is an example of a lunch she liked.
J.W. Hamner
@Virginia Highlander:
Do you think shutting down a 9 year old’s blog is the way to protect their interests?
J.W. Hamner
@rea:
For the most part she likes her lunches! And it’s not like they’re serving endless fried food… I honestly don’t understand why the local papers flipped out.
Virginia Highlander
@Joel: No skin off your ass, right? So it’s all good.
Violet
@Virginia Highlander:
Shutting down the blog because some idiot in the press made a comment is not the way to handle the situation. If the lunch workers feared for their jobs, the council could have put out a statement supporting them, saying they are doing the best with what they are given and the council is reviewing school lunches.
The girl who wrote the blog could have written something supporting the school lunch workers, saying this was not their fault, and that the school provides the food, the workers just make the best of it.
The school could have put out a statement supporting the lunch workers.
The dad or girl could have granted an interview to a newspaper and stated they supported the lunch workers and didn’t want anyone to lose their jobs.
There are a lot of better ways to accomplish the goal of the school lunch workers keeping their jobs than what the council did. The council didn’t support the workers; they tried to stifle dissent.
Virginia Highlander
@J.W. Hamner: No, I don’t. I’m saying that, while the council acted in a ham-fisted and probably self-defeating manner, they did not act irrationally to squelch the free speech of a nine-year-old. They acted to shield their employees from attacks in the media.
LanceThruster
@Violet:
She should get stock public domain photos of unappetizing glop with a very large disclaimer about it not being pictures of the actual food as the cafeteria Gestaspo shut her down.
Virginia Highlander
@Violet: She ain’t Aung San Suu Kyi. Try to keep a little perspective.
Violet
@LanceThruster:
#NotIntendedToBeAFactualSchoolLunch
Joel
@Virginia Highlander: Maybe you should heed your own advice.
pat
The interesting thing about the blog is the pictures that were sent of school lunches from all over the world. And the fact that she raised a lot of money for a program (can’t remember the name right now, but it is featured prominently on her blog) that provides school lunches for kids in Africa. And most of the entries I read seem to have been posted after the lunches got better, she liked them pretty well.
One issue seems to have been the mistaken idea that the kids were limited in how much veggies and fruit they were allowed to take, and that was cleared up pretty early in the blogging.
And the council seems to be taking a page out of the Vatican’s handbook for how to deal with controversy.
But they backed down pretty quickly, it seems. Good for her, and for her dad.
I want to know how all those kids took perfectly focussed close up of their plates!
Violet
@Virginia Highlander:
What does that even mean? Whoever said she was Aung San Suu Kyi?
The girl’s blog had millions of hits. She raised a lot of money for charity. She got noticed and supported by big names in the food world. She’d already been interviewed and profiled in the press. She’s not a nobody, although she never seemed to expect that her blog would take off like it did.
If her blog made people fear for their jobs, as you said, then it – and she — clearly had some kind of perceived power. There are ways to harness that power to comabat the fear instead of just shutting it down.
jlow
@Virginia Highlander: There can be only one. And that is a good thing.
trollhattan
Aaaand, she’s back.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18454800
John M. Burt
@LanceThruster: A slight error there: It’s actually spelled “Gazpacho”.
John M. Burt
@Virginia Highlander:
Nobody imposes censorship for its own sake. There are always serious reasons for it, like national security, or public decency, or the dignity of the office . . . .
gelfling545
@Joel: Mostly (at least here in the US) it’s the poor quality of food provided, the budget and the directives they receive about menu & preparation. It’s mostly out of the hands of the actual food service personnel. The world’s greatest chefs would produce crap under these conditions.
The Council are protecting themselves. Sooner of later one of those food service workers will start to talk rather than keep taking the blame.
Royston Vasey
Council leader has issued an updated statement.
Statement from Cllr Roddy McCuish, Leader of Argyll and Bute Council.
“There is no place for censorship in this Council and never will be whilst I am leader. I have advised senior officers that this Administration intends to clarify the Council’s policy position in regard to taking photos in schools. I have therefore requested senior officials to consider immediately withdrawing the ban on pictures from the school dining hall until a report can be considered by Elected Members. This will allow the continuation of the “Neverseconds” blog written by an enterprising and imaginative pupil, Martha Payne which has also raised lots of money for charity.
Additional reporting at The Daily Telegraph.
“Victory for Martha Payne as Argyll and Bute council backs down on school dinner blog ban”
View counter over 3.6million(!)
Royston Vasey
Here is the Lochgilphead Joint Campus website in Scotland. This is a 3-18yo campus, which is quite an age range.
And here is a Google Map of that part of Scotland, just in case you were wondering.
LanceThruster
@John M. Burt:
If the Gazpacho shut her down, it’s probably too thick (or too cold).
LanceThruster
@Violet:
Perfect!
LanceThruster
@Violet:
A-f#cking-men!
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
I wonder if the Argyll & Bute Council might find out that this sin’t the best way to deal with embarassing stories after all. It always amazes me when some Figure or Figures of Authority try to shut some Plucky and Attractive Small-Time Writer up when PaAS-TW broadcasts news the FoFoA would rather not be broadcast. It seems so obvious to me: when a cute 9 year old girl is blogging about bad food at school, local government is better off doing something to make the food better than gagging the 9 year old girl.
How many dumb People in Authority make this mistake? This isn’t some arcane, hard to follow scandal that hinges on whether person A got person B’s email before or after person J sent the registered letter to person K’s lawyer’s secretary. This is a cute 9 year old girl blogging about bad school food. You can’t win a fight like that. Why do so many supposably smart people screw up that way so often?
HyperIon
Thanks, MisterMix, for a substantive post that contained no po-mo bullshit. Just a brief and to the point discussion of a straight news story with a special bonus Rosen article (which also contained no po-mo bullshit).
I wish B-J had more posts like this.
Ruckus
That looks better than what I was served most of the time in the military. Veg all boiled to death and floating in the water, under cooked chicken about 75% of the meals. How about pale off white hot dogs floating in slimy red water? Jello? We would have killed for jello. That slimy crap is pretty hard to screw up more than it already is. I especially liked the saltine crackers with bugs to be washed down with vile coffee or “punch”. I do have to say it never made me violently sick, something I can not say about mcd’s.
Ruckus
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
Why do so many supposably smart people screw up that way so often?
Maybe not as smart as they are supposed to be?
Maybe not as smart as the 9 yr old?
brantl
@Virginia Highlander: You’re a doofus, you know that, right? Stiffing the little kid to “Protect the workers’? You knucklehead.
The Bobs
@arguingwithsignposts: It’s already listed on the wiki page on the Streisand Effect.
Barney
When I wrote an article in my (English) school magazine in the 80s dissing the school food, the kitchen staff threatened to go on strike if anyone wrote another article taking the piss out of their food. I can see their point, now – who wants a snotty-nosed kid saying “don’t sit downwind of the porridge” about your work (I did mean that, it always smelled vile). And so I was told to shut up, by the school.
But there we have the difference in 30 years – back then, workers could threaten to go on strike, in a private school, just for the sake of their reputation, and the school would make sure they got their way; there was no such thing as ‘fair criticism’ recognised. Now, the consumer is always right, and the workers end up fearing for their jobs when the media takes it over.