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00:00Matt Stubbs and Phil Buchanan are with us to talk about their brand new online newspaper
00:11The File. Matt spent most of his career working in the mainstream media and Phil is a business
00:16consultant that's worked across several different sectors. The idea behind The File is to be what
00:22newspapers used to be. Both of you, welcome to the show. Matt, I'll start with you. You worked
00:27in the mainstream media. How has the media changed from when you started out?
00:35Almost beyond recognition. I started, just so your viewers know and you know, I started
00:40with The Sun under Calvin McKenzie. You can either regard that as a good thing or a bad
00:45thing, but it was certainly a very good training ground for national journalism. Okay, your
00:51opinions were taken seriously and we had a huge readership of four and a half million
00:56per day. We're a very influential newspaper. That is no longer the case. They now only sell
01:01about 700,000 a day because the world has been taken over by social media. That is the biggest
01:11change that there has been. Along with that, talking particularly about The Sun, if you want,
01:16it has changed because everything is about clicks and likes and emojis or whatever you want to call
01:24them, as opposed to true reporting of news events going on or opinions. And there's more coverage
01:31in The Sun and across other tabloids now about things like who's doing who in Love Island than there
01:38is about exposing or holding to account politicians. It's very, very sad, to be honest with you. The state of
01:46the media in the world is very, very sad. Subjects that they're covering, namely, as I say, soap operas or
01:56reality TV shows or things like that, go in no way to do what a newspaper originally did, which is
02:03expose hypocrisy and holding authority to account. That was what we were supposed to do back in 1982.
02:11It seems like nobody's really expected to do it on tabloids now. The broadsheets, like The Telegraph,
02:20The Times, are still giving it a go. But mostly the tabloids have become, literally, as everybody
02:27thought, disposable comics. Yeah. Views, not news, basically. I think that's a lot.
02:34Yeah. I mean, it comes to something when actually the biggest story is reporting on what's happening
02:44on social media. What do these people actually do? Spend their lives looking through TikTok,
02:49seeing if there's a decent story, seeing who's shagging who. Excuse my language, but who's shagging
02:55who on Love Island? I mean, it's utterly factious, isn't it? A facile. I mean, you couldn't believe it.
03:02Back in the day, nostalgia, it's lamenting to say it is now, really, is reporters like I was,
03:11were charged with the responsibility of going out and working a certain story, whether it be
03:16sometimes undercover with politicians. But going for stories actually meant things to people,
03:22meant things in terms of influence and power. Now, you know, who's Tommy Fury's fallen out
03:30with Maura Higgins? That's the story. That's a front page story.
03:35Wow. So, Phil, you come in from the more, you know, business side of things. Do you think
03:41that there's an appetite now, with obviously what Matt said, the fact that the media has become
03:46more about views than news? Do you think there's an appetite for what you guys are doing with
03:51the file, where you're going back to the old school?
03:55Yeah. In our experience, in a very, very, very short period of time, the last few months,
04:04you can see there's an appetite. There's an appetite for the truth. What Matthew says at the
04:09very beginning, when we first met, was there is only one version of the truth. Now, reporting the truth
04:17is not always easy, because reporting the truth will hurt people's feelings, it will hurt people
04:22that will be against the views, against the print, against everything that we are currently trying
04:31to do. But it's that, or tabloids, it's that, or, you know, what we're currently exposed to
04:38if you buy a newspaper. So I feel definitely, and certainly in the more recent stuff that we've
04:45been involved in, in looking at real stories, and looking at the backstory behind the real
04:51story, the effects that the truth has had on people, their lives, their families' lives,
04:59everything that surrounds the story, and digging back into it, and looking at it, as we are only
05:09reporting the truth, but there's an awful lot more behind the truth. And that's been very enjoyable,
05:15people getting involved in that. And so the answer to your question is, yes, definitely.
05:21Well, that's the thing, Phil. I think, you know, people forget about the context behind
05:25certain stories. So it's just, this happened, and it's like, well, yeah, but what led to it?
05:30And so like you're saying, if you're going into the backstory...
05:32The file behind the story, in effect. I mean, you will know yourself, Gareth, that newspaper
05:44stories start somewhere, and they finish somewhere in print. There's an awful lot that goes on
05:48in between the start and the finish. And people really want to hear that. They want to know
05:53what was the catalyst, what got it going. And that's what the file's about as much as anything
05:59else. It's giving us room to tell the real story.
06:04The massive story at the minute, guys, is obviously freedom of speech. It's a major talking
06:09point across the world. And a lot of people are looking at England. I've spent the weekend
06:13with people all over the world saying to me, what's going on in England, man? So it's obviously
06:18getting out there. Now, I think people forget, including myself, that actually it's not just
06:23about silencing individuals, but actually this freedom of speech works for the media.
06:28How bad has that gotten in terms of people, you know, maybe wanting to get stories out
06:33there and across the line that actually there's freedom of speech blockages on them as well?
06:38Well, that really depends how rich you are, doesn't it? If you've got a gang order
06:42on somebody who's been used as a tactic in the past to prevent stories being published. And
06:48I've been involved in many of those where they've been before the high court and we've been put
06:52on gang orders. We're not allowed to write about it. We're not allowed to do this for fear
06:56of causing hurting feelings, okay, which is really what they amount to or damage someone's
07:04reputation. So that tactic has been used. That's mainstream media. I'm sure to an extent
07:12it covers social media as well. The file is very buccaneering. We don't care. We don't
07:19operate under those restrictions. And if you want to take us to court, then try and find
07:26us because there are stories that need to be told and the truth needs to be told and we
07:32will tell them.
07:33Absolutely. That's what we want. That's what the media's job is, you know, is to tell the
07:40people what's going on. Yeah, exactly. Well, I'm old school then, Matt, to be honest, because
07:45I think it should still be that way. And I actually don't think that the media should
07:48be partisan either. You know, when people say, oh, but they're a left wing outlet. So they
07:52say this or a right wing outlet. They say, well, just tell me what happened. I don't need
07:57you to put your allegiances on it. Phil, where can people read the file? And also, will you
08:04be looking for people to contribute to the newspaper at all? Or is it just you guys that
08:09are going to be doing all the journalism there?
08:11Well, that's not really a question for me, really. That's a question for Matthew. And if
08:19you don't mind me passing it over.
08:20Of course, you can read it on the file.online, the file, T-H-E-F-I-L-E dot online. That's
08:29every day. And there are news stories every day. In terms of outside contributors, we are
08:35very, very keen to have good writers. I'm not necessarily meaning like established writers
08:43or journalists that you've heard about, just good writers, citizen journalism, if you like
08:47it. There is an application form in the file that you can be paid for it as well, if they're
08:53good enough. There's an application form in a section of the file. I think it's in the
08:58about section where if you send us your details or you send us the article and it's good enough
09:05to publish, it will be published and you will be paid. So yes, I would be very, very keen to
09:11hear from anybody who's got a lively interest in anything. I get very passionate about this,
09:18Gareth, and Phil tells me that I rant too much, but that's the nature of the beast, really.
09:24I often feel when I read other media or see other media or listen to other media, it's
09:30a bit like, you know when you bang your head and it hurts because it's a bit too hard. It's
09:34not a tap on the head. You bang your head on a beam or something like that. And when I see
09:38a story that has been so diluted, whether it be factually or to take into account, not
09:46to say the wrong thing so it doesn't hurt anybody's feelings, it actually physically hurts me. It's
09:51like, it's like a sort of, oh God, why do they write that? Why didn't they tell the truth?
09:57Why didn't they present the opinion that clearly they wanted to at the start, but then gave up
10:03halfway through. That's how it is. It's physically, it's physical. So there you go. So physically
10:10hurts.
10:11I can just imagine you reading someone self-censoring and just having this kind of
10:15throbbing vein in the top of your head.
10:17Yeah, that's exactly right. Exactly. I'm sure it's aged me. But that's the nature of things
10:23everywhere. I mean, whether it be joke telling or whether it be, I don't know, things people
10:32say at concerts or stand up comics or whatever it might be. Everybody is self-censoring to
10:38the extent these days that the truth is never even in the right neighborhood, let alone the
10:45right country. And it's really sad. It's really sad because there's enough out there
10:52in the world, you know, there's enough that's sensational. There's enough that is interesting
10:57to keep our curiosity satisfied by telling the truth and not watering it down.
11:07Absolutely. I think people know, I've said it a few times, that people know the truth when
11:11they hear it as well. You know, it's like if you go to the pub and someone's there that
11:15you've not met before and they're talking to you and after a while they leave and then
11:18you go, oh man, that guy was full of crap. Like, but you don't know he was, but you just
11:23know, you know the truth when you hear it. Just finally, we've talked a little bit on
11:29Iconic about the case of Clive Freeman and the fact that he's been in prison for over 30
11:36years for a crime that he claims he didn't commit. There's a lot to that story. As I
11:41understand it, you, you were both, you both are involved with that as well.
11:47Yeah, we met Clive. Go Phil.
11:50Yeah, we met Clive about seven years ago and had a good chat with him in Bristol and ever
11:58since then we've followed it and followed it and we really, really wanted to make this
12:05one of our first contributions, the free Clive Freeman campaign. We've been very, very lucky
12:11and Matthew's been lucky enough to go down and interview a gentleman called Tony Thompson
12:17who is very, very at the forefront of the case as well. So yeah, the Clive Freeman case is
12:25very close to our hearts and Matthew is constantly looking for updates as we try and get him freed
12:32from prison. It seems at the moment that an appeal is coming, isn't it?
12:39Yeah, the process, I mean, he's been in prison for 37 years for a crime that he says that he
12:45didn't commit so that he's not been given parole because part of the conditions, it's like a
12:51sort of out of a Monty Python sketch, this. He's not been able to get parole because he won't
12:57admit that he did it, whereas he didn't do it so he won't get paroled. So he's been inside
13:00for 37 years. It's older than my son. 37 years. My son is nearly 37. But that's a ridiculous
13:09amount of time for someone to be in prison for a miscarriage of justice. The conviction
13:14was unsafe. He's gone through the CCRC, what's it called? The complaints, whatever it is.
13:22I can't review. It's the review. The police reviewed five times. On the sixth attempt, he was represented
13:28by a guy called Tony Thompson, who's ex-police himself. And the procedures, the forensic procedures,
13:36the court procedures that the police took at the time were all completely wrong and have
13:43been proven to be wrong. Yeah, he still remains inside because all this is, is approval by the
13:50CCRC to refer the case to the official appeal court. Now, at that point, he should be on bail,
13:59of course, but life doesn't work like that. He's got to remain inside until his actual appeal
14:04comes up. So there you are. We've covered the story because I believe him and I like him.
14:11He's an incredible gentleman for somebody who's been inside for that long.
14:14And hopefully, hopefully, within the period of the next 18 months, he'll get to see some
14:24fresh air. Hopefully.
14:27Read about it. Fingers crossed.
14:28Read about it in a file.
14:30Can I just say, Gareth, that Matthew and I have travelled the length and breadth of the country
14:35down to the south coast, up north, looking for good stories with backdrops, with information
14:43to surround them. So if anybody's got a story, you know, anything at all, not one that they're
14:49particularly writing themselves, but it's a good feature of interest that we can present
14:56properly in the file, we'd love to do that.
14:59Fantastic. So people, so people watching just need to head over to the file.online and they
15:05can get hold of you both there.
15:07Yeah.
15:08Magic. Magic. Well, thank you so much for joining us. It's been great to talk to you. And I hope
15:12Clive gets out. I mean, the point you made there, Matt, he was sentenced to 13 years
15:17imprisonment for something he claims he didn't do. He's been in there for 37 years because
15:21he refuses to admit he's guilty and so therefore isn't eligible for parole. Yeah. Monty Python's
15:27sketch is a pretty good description for that, Matt. It's extraordinary. But thank you again
15:32for joining us. And I'm sure we'll cross paths again in the future.
15:36Thank you for having us. Thank you.
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