It’s easy to become on overnight celebrity when you’re at the oldest Internet mag in the country and everyone wants to interview you for a quick comment. Many journalists seem to suspiciously view the Net as an omnipotent, hypnotic force, inexorably sucking people into its black hole-ish vortex and compelling them to do things against their will.
+ “Hi. I’m a researcher for the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World, and I’d like to know if you have any contacts for people who’ve got married in cyberspace.” Yes, here they are. “Also, I’d like to know whether it’s OK to get married in cyberspace – like, is it legal?” Yes. “But how – they’re not at a registry office – they’re in cyberspace. What country is that?” It’s just like television space, I tell her, speaking slowly. Though the ceremony is broadcast via the Net and the participants may be in different countries, they are still present in a physical location, and the local laws apply.
+ My desk is covered in yellow sticky notes asking for information about the 39 Web designers in San Diego who suicided to join an alien spaceship that’s trailing behind the Hale-Bopp comet. ITV, the BBC, Channel 4 and local TV stations want me to ring back. “Do you know of any cults who find new recruits via the Internet?” all the reporters ask. Yes – racial supremacists, the Church of Scientology, the Tory Party. They aren’t happy with this response. “Have any suicided?” Not that I know of. I mention the story about the woman who travelled 500 miles to be killed by a weirdo she’d been corresponding with via email for months and they’d both been fantasising about S&M and murder. The researchers aren’t interested, and I tell them to ring the Fortean Times for cult information. None of them has ever heard of the FT.
+ Someone from BBC Bristol radio rings and wants me to provide statistics about how many British people use the Net.
+ The BBC Today program wants me and another Internet magazine editor to discuss American cultural imperialism on the Net. I said I thought it was a prevalent problem, and the other editor agreed. We turned up the next morning at the studio and, having considered our stances overnight, changed our opinions completely. I said I didn’t think the British were put off, because there are many cable TV subscribers who pay to watch US programs. The reporter wasn’t happy and insisted we stick to our earlier stance. “Are you trying to tell us what to say?” I asked. “No – I just want you to repeat what you said yesterday,” he replied. We didn’t. But I learnt a lesson – tell the media exactly whose side you’re on and stick to it.
+ Danny from the News (“Screws”) of the World phoned. Could I please put him in touch with padeophiles selling porn over the Net? “I need to find someone by the end of this week,” he said. I was amazed he thought I knew these people personally. He didn’t even have Net access, so he couldn’t research the subject. “We’ll give you up to £150 for a good tip off,” he said, leaving his phone number. Two weeks later, I was reading The Screws and there was a story about an English bloke based in Amsterdam who’s advertising porn vids starring 12-year-old actresses over the Net. It’s all legal in Amsterdam, but British pervs are jerking off to them.
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+ Our PR women have been trying to develop a relationship with a TV production company for ages and they want me to try to score a weekly five-minute slot on the Computer Channel, a two-hour daily cable TV show. I have to appear on the show next Friday.
+ An Internet Enthusiasts’ Club invited me to debate the question of censorship on the Net. The other two speakers include a Freedom of Speecher and a bigwig who’s in charge of a large group of Internet Service Providers. Only two days before I’m due to attend, I get a phone call from the ISP bigwig’s PR officer, who warns me her boss isn’t attending because he suspects we’ll be ambushed. “Did you know the enthusiasts are linked to an anti-censorship campaign Web site?” she asks. “I don’t think it would be wise for him to go along. Or you, either.” She says she’ll ring back to tell me if he’s attending, but she doesn’t. I take along a beefy 6ft male friend and am prepared to be lynched. I’m shit scared, but it’s a break from being behind a desk all day. I’m also curious to know how some of our readers truly feel about my pro-censorship stance. Maybe they’ll sway me with some startling new facts. I’d already received several emails criticising my branding of anti-censorship campaigners as going around in circles over poncey citizens’ rights meant I was “flippant and irresponsible, if not overtly dangerous”.
They were charging a £3 entrance fee, though I wasn’t paid, and only 13 people turned up. An elderly woman slept in the corner. We had spotlights shining on us and the audience was in darkness. The other bloke gave his speech first, and he was confident and had conviction. I was very jealous. I did OK, got a few laughs and was asked 90 per cent of the questions. I said I was fed up with people rambling on about “what’s the definition of pornography” and never reaching a solution. Yet when I see kiddie porn pics all these freedom questions go out the window for me, and I just want it stopped as soon as possible. I’d begun by saying my thoughts were full of contradictions and I didn’t have any solutions, and they kindly pointed out all the inconsistencies. “I’m a journalist, not a politician, and I don’t need to have a cohesive policy,” I said. They were all friendly, though afterwards I didn’t stay for drinks. Beneath the chumminess, we were still on opposite sides of the fence.
+It’s Wednesday morning and a researcher from The Time, The Place rings to ask if I could be one of their experts in a debate about “Internet porn: harmful or harmless?” They want me to be at the ITN London studio on Friday by 8.45am. “Our audience is mostly female, from the lower socio-economic class who are watching telly while they’re doing the ironing. The sort who don’t own computers, so we don’t want too much jargon,” she requests. The program was discussing a case in Wales where a 34-year-old Dad was addicted to downloading porn pics from the Net and he and his wife, 32, had abused their five children. He was sentenced to life for grievous bodily harm, indecent assualt, rape and child cruelty and the Mum was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. The judge said the house was completely squalid except for a comfy computer chair and the pristine sophisticated equipment.
The next morning I got up at 5.15am and travelled in from Bath on the train. The idea of taking part in a live debate is nerve-wracking, but .net takes the stance that Internet pornography should be censored according to the same criteria as other media, so I know the housewives watching at home will probably be on my side.
I arrive early and am ushered through to the Green Room where two anti-porn activists are stalking around, pumping up their adrenaline and spraying machine-gun patter about “filth”. One, who used to work in the sex industry, asked me whose “side” I was on, as she liked to identify her opponents. Both had been on the show before and had extensive media experience.
There were about 10 invited guests, and we could help ourselves to the plastic-wrapped sandwiches with combinations of cottage cheese and pineapple and mashed egg and fruit chutney. There was tea and coffee, but no alcohol. A 50-ish overly made-up makeup lady kept whisking guests away. She splashed dark liquid eyeliner over me and heaps of blush with a huge brush and tons of powder. Then she added lash-fattening mascara and deep red lippie. John Stapleton, the host, asked me lots of questions and said he had no idea how to use the Net. Dunno if that was just a stance or not.
He was extremely genial and said the show was commissioned to run until December 1998, and the main opposition, Kilroy, had recently been strategically rescheduled from 9.30am to 9.45am so they’d overlap. Suddenly he was called out to “sort out a legal problem”.
We were handed forms to sign which granted “the rights to use any part of any recordings for television broadcast and re-broadcast in all media worldwide in perpetuity”. The flip side of the form urged us to “please get involved and remember to shout up with your comments”. The producer warned me that Stapleton may not remember to ask me a question, so I had to put up my hand.
Then a researcher gave me a pre-interview dry run with a couple of general questions. The most vocal anti-porn campaigners and pro-porn advocates were seated opposite each other along the two aisles. My name was written on masking tape stuck to the floor next to my seat. “We’ll have a lot of viewers, we’re only competing against The Style Challenge today,” Stapleton reassured us. He then asked audience members to explain what they thought about porn and if they had any experiences to share. One of the women said it was outrageous that erect penises couldn’t be used in porn mags. Stapleton paused, listening to a tiny device in his ear, then said: “I just got a message from the director upstairs – this show goes out at 10am and there could be fathers and their sons watching this program and we don’t want to use strong language.” The audience groaned, as this seemed an impossible request in a debate about porn. “We’re all adults and we know what we’re referring to,” Stapleton said. “Can we use the word masturbation?” a bloke asked. “Yes, masturbation would be OK, but try to think of another around it,” he unhelpfully suggested. There were many vehement lobbyists and Stapleton flapped his jacket coat open repeatedly, saying: “It’s going to be a hot debate today.” A woman seated about 10 feet away from the rest of us, with her back to the camera because of a “legal problem”. She later revealed her formerly wonderful Prince Charming boyfriend had a hidden stash of porn mags and had stuck a picture of one of her close relatives on the body of these porn models. She dumped him immediately.
The show began, and our host nimbly ran, stroked his chin thoughtfully, adjusted his tie, sat down and did a couple of deft dramatic turns along the stairs. The spiciest guests were two porn actresses and a couple of porn mag editors. They said they’d had wonderful experiences in the industry, made tons of money, were never abused, and had only simulated sex acts. The anti-porn campaigners began yelling and screaming, drowning out everyone. “Teen mags promote strumpet power.” “They teach girls how to be prostitutes.” “The Position of the Month is pornographic.” “Girls, girls… WOMEN!,” Stapleton shouted. “Only one at a time. I’m talking now and I’m in charge.”
There was a mid-way break with several ads for fish fingers and cleaning detergeants. Then Stapleton chatted to a 45-year-old ex-stripper who said the demand for hard-core porn had increased. Mid-sentence, he abruptly changed his tack, marched down the steps and sat next to me. I managed to make the audience gasp with my gee-whiz statistic of finding 700,000 porn sites within a second. Stapleton fed off the audience and theatrically repeated: “700,000!” He acted surprised, though I’d mentioned it to him previously in the Green Room. I also described pornographers can easily rename their sites after storybook characters, so they would evade censorship software and encourage children to discover these accidentally. My segment lasted 1 minute and 45 seconds. Not too bad. Another bloke then attacked me for explaining how easy it was to find porn on the Internet and the rest of the show degenerated into a free-for-all yelling match. The ex-porn queens were cheered when they accused the anti-porn crusaders of having non-existent sex lives. Stapleton put his fingers in his mouth to make a ear-piercing whistle in an attempt to regain the audience’s attention, and, although I put up my hand to make comments, only the shrieking campaigners got a word in.
In the aftermath, the guests assembled in the Green Room for about 10 minutes. I was cornered by the anti-porn campaigners, who pumped me for technical information. “In a perfect world, what if 100 per cent of peple wanted porn stopped on the Internet? Would this be possible?” they asked. “Not if one person was still producing it,” I answered. “It’s like monitoring every phone call in the world simultaneously and forever. Noone has the resources or the motivation.”
One of the ex-porn actresses asked Stapleton where she should send her invoice. I hadn’t been paid for appearing! My travelling expenses reimbursed, and we were offered a colour autographed photo of Stapleton, and quickly ushered outside to waiting taxis. Overall, I wondered what viewers gleaned from the program. Probably the thought that, yes, fish fingers would be a good idea for tea tonight.
My colleagues generously thought my TV appearance went well, though they said my trousers made my hips look huge and I looked better with makeup plastered on. My segment was placed on our mag CD, titled “Cotton on the telly”. We got a pointed email from a reader:
Subject: Cotton on the telly
From: Concerned reader
WIG!
B. Johnston
I immediately decided to grow out my platinum blonde bleached hair and get it streaked to look “natural.”
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+ I’m finally going to the Computer Channel. The producer, Helen, promised me lunch. Everyone at work’s jealous. I’ve seen a video of the show. The guests are mainly male and rotund. I have to talk about privacy issues and then join in a three-person debate about how the Net could promote online democracy.
+ Had some notes typed up, but didn’t really use them. Arrived at the Computer Channel Studio and Helen grilled me about several topics and what I was going to say. “You’re talking about privacy and taking part in a political debate,” she reminded me.
Thomas is a First Millennium advocate who believes we should be thinking long-term about colonising other planets. Helen asks whether his group had built an ocean platform to launch the first space ship. “No, we can’t afford it. The whole of society needs to be develop more wealth first, so we can spend it on research,” he says in a heavy Swedish accent.
A slim, blonde lady carefully pressed makeup over my face and pencilled in eyebrows – but my hair looked like an exploded pillow! The floor manager called us to go down to the studio within five minutes, and the two other male guests hadn’t been made up yet. “Don’t bother about them, do my hair!” I screamed. Fiona grabbed a huge rollerbrush and smoothed all the loose ends. Meantime, W, the presenter, was changing his trousers and kept teasing us: “Don’t look, don’t look,” hoping we’d sneak a glance. We didn’t.
My privacy interview was scheduled first, and W said: “You’re much more beautiful than our ugly director, you know.” “Thanks – I’m sure she can hear you,” I replied, and I could hear chuckles from the upstairs control room. W then spent the rest of the time conversing with the director via an earpiece, so it seemed like he was talking to thin air. “I felt dreadful,” he says. Pause. “A bit rough, I think.” Longer pause. “No, it’s best not to get into that sort of situation.” I wondered what they were discussing. Then he abruptly gave me a last-minute tip: “Be animated or concerned, but don’t act.” The four-minute privacy section went smoothly.
The debate was a little confused. Andy had his model of a “virtual parliament” he’d designed, but it wasn’t working interactively and as soon as the interview began he affected a bizarre “authoritative tone”, permanently lowered his left eyebrow and looked like Timothy Dalton doing James Bond. Thomas lost it completely and W pounced on his general left-wing comments. Unfortunately he didn’t mention aliens, which would have turned up the heat. I got tongue tied and advocated online voting. “Surely we don’t have time to go through all the legislative detail that needs to be read?” W challenged. “We’ll get bureaucrats to handle mundane decisions,” I retorted, hopelessly backing off quickly.
I wondered whether I’d impressed the producer enough to get that weekly slot our PR department was angling for.
+ I got a call from the Computer Channel. They want me to do a regular weekly slot. But our publisher knows it’s not worth sending me to London for a whole day, just for five minutes of TV airtime. It seems a bit late now, since our PR department had been sucking up to Helen for ages. Maybe I gained a victory in vain.
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Cotton,
I’m from Future’s PR department and we’ve had a request for you to do a TV piece about the role of the internet for online democracy.
It would take place on 25 April between 5 to 7pm in Surrey. The programme will be made by a company for an IT network which goes out to hardware retailers.
Let me know if you can do this I’ll be happy to give you more info!
Thanks,
Claire
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To: Claire
Can we film this in Bath? Noone here can be bothered going to Surrey, since hardware retailers aren’t our core readership.
Cotton
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From: Claire
They’re insisting they’d have to film it in Surrey.
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To: Claire
Forget it.
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+ The Esther Rantzen Show rings. They’re looking for marriage bust-ups caused by a partner committing adultery over the Net. I can’t give them any, as all of my sources want to remain anonymous.
+ The BBC Today radio show is in a tizz because they’re concerned that more people had logged on to the NASA site in one night than had watched the BBC Mars TV special. Will the Net soon be replacing TV, a researcher fretted? I patiently explained that maybe it was because the BBC coverage ended before even one crummy pic from Mars was beamed through. Viewers were told the pics would be broadcast at 8am the *next day*. Outrageous. No wonder everyone turned to the Net.
+ The London Daily Telegraph’s royalty reporter asks for a comment about the Royal Web site, which claimed it had attracted 12 million hits within a month. I explained that figure probably included the number of graphics downloaded, so the correct number of visitors was more like 2million. My quotes appeared on page three.
+ Went to the Computer Channel again. They told me the day before I had to chat about four news topics. I picked email viruses, porn, chain letters and email being used for office gossip.
I sat upstairs with four computer software salesmen in blue suits. They talked shop about speedy computer processing units.
W put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head flirtatiously and quickly took his seat. The cameras rolled. “We had Cotton Ward on a couple of weeks ago, and due to the enormous number of your emails and letters, I was forced to recapitulate and have her back here again,” W said, tongue in cheek.
W didn’t seem to be listening to a word I said and simply repeated one of my sentences as a conclusion, then steamrolled on to the next subject. This meant my email virus hoax story was completely wrong, as he’d cut me short as I was explaining how a previously harmless program was now a destructive virus. Oh well.
“We know you spend a lot of time looking at porn, so tell us about it,” he said. I spouted my censorship spiel and W said he never lets his kids use the Internet, as “it’s too dangerous”.
The segment was finished in one take, then W held a piece of white paper up and pretended to kiss me behind it. “We must do lunch,” he suggested. “I’ve got another interview to do,” I quickly lied. “When?” “At 1 o’clock.” He insisted on swapping e-mail addresses. “I don’t want your business adddress – I want your personal e-mail,” he said. So I gave him fake details, he wrote his down in my black book, and I escaped in a mini-cab.
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+ After two weeks of gallivanting around doing media appearances, my bosses cracked down. I’d been invited to appear on a consumer program, The Really Useful Show, to discuss Internet shopping. I couldn’t have a day off every week for media appearances. But it was a bit of fun and frivolity.
