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Originally Posted by vitty
I wrote the story. Here's what happened:
I was having a regular phone chat with Brendan Shiel about Huncoat happenings.
He mentioned the background to this land and said flytipping and other activities were going on and that the council had agreed to put up a gate in October.
Yet the gate wasn't up, he said - so where was it?
He mentioned the site may have been referred to on the internet. I did a Google search, found the website and we quoted it in the article.
In the meantime, I got a council comment on their intention to put up the gate in the next few weeks.
I submitted the story, which included background on resident's/councillors attempts to get a gate.
The editor read it and asked me for more background. He asked me to have another go at it and to change the angle from the gate to the sexual activity, with a bit more detail from the website content.
Residents didn't have any involvement until I called one of them and asked for his opinion. He said it wasn't pleasant people were doing these things. We didn't use his quotes because of lack of space.
We got a police statement, and they advised us not to use the website content, because it may attract people there for the wrong reasons.
All content was included at the discretion of the editor.
I'm glad to see it's provoked so much debate and you all bought the paper.
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Thank you Vitty.
Interesting point that it was Councillor Shiel who came across the dogging information on the internet, regarding this non story.
Also interesting how the Editor went against police advice, and did publish nearly every salacious detail from the web site, such as people leaving video tapes under rocks, and the day that a couple went there to be watched.
Your comment about how you are glad your story caused so much debate, and how we all bought the paper is a little worrying. Are we to expect more sensationalist headlined stories in the Observer with no real evidence to back them up?
If I was to write on this web site that today I saw two ducks mating on the lodge at Foxhill Nature Reserve, could we expect to see the headline in next week's Observer-
'VOYEUR IN ANIMAL SEX STORM IN OSWALDTWISTLE'?