A fire ripped through the Thomas Cook store on Frederick Street yesterday afternoon. The fire was reported at 15.05 and at the height of the fire there was 60 Firefighters in attendance. The Fire Service were at the scene for the remainder of the day. Its not thought that anyone was hurt in the incident.
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NEN has failed to advise (a) if Thomas Brown will attend the next board meeting (b) if it is open to the public (c) if Thomas Browns’ consultancy has financially benefitted from the public funding given to the publication. This is a scandal and those responsible ought to be identified and held to account. The whole thing stinks!
Where exactly is this shop? Hannover St as the headline says or Frederick St ? Hannover is spelt wrong, “there were 60 firefighters…”,not was and “its” needs an apostrophe. Does the NEN area stretch to the city centre or is this just a showcase for Thomas Brown’s photos? Someone needs to come clean and every penny of funding needs to be accounted for.
I fully agree with all of the above. It is very telling that the NEN has not been above to comment as invited to above. It looks perhaps like a lot of back-covering is going on with the powers that be.
P.S. how come Thomas brown is out and about taking photos and reporting for NEN while supposedly on sick leave from his council job? taking the proverbial …
This is NOT journalism, it is comment passing itself off as reporting and you need to state in large letters that the people writing this have NO PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS WHATSOEVER . It is a community paper written by AMATEURS and that’s fine fine fine but it is an offence to pass this off as fair and unbiased , particularly when one of the individuals is abusing this paper to present favourable articles for organisations which he works for privately. I can’t believe these people are creaming off money to big up organisations they work for privately. Another shining example of council corruption and sickening cronyism?
Reading this and very disappointed in NEN. It all sounds totally corrupt and i wonder if the council who has supported this group has any comment. the chairman is married to councillor hinds, chair of the local NP, which is a concern given the failure of the paper to deal with the Thomas brown abuse of power. i think there should be an indepentent enquiry as to the misuse of public funds.
NEN (not Thomas Brown) can you comment on the questions 2, 3 and 4 above?
The NEN is still listed as a client of Thomas Brown Consultancy, but the entry has been amended to say that he is a non-paid director. So the NEN is still a client of this consultancy? That is just not right surely? Again, it would be helpful if someone other than Mr Brown answered this on behalf of NEN.
Looks like someone has far too much time on their hands.
Martin, thank you for your reply. The concern is how on earth this journalist can be regarded as independent given his various other interests? Furthermore, an internet search shows that Mr Brown cannot be trusted to declare his interests at meetings as you suggest – http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/meetings/id/34208/minute_11-10-2011 – the Blackhall Mosque was discussed at this meeting of the Inverletih Neighbourhood Partnership. A Thomas Brown was at this meeting (representing, on this occasions some “voluntary forum”). Mr Brown was, at this time, a consultant for the Mosque. The Mosque is discussed at this meeting but no declaration of interest was offered from Mr Brown.
Even if Mr Brown’s consultancy had not received any payment from your publically funded newspapers, then it is quite wrong for him to be able to use his connection in any way – the “misleading” reference to it on it website is a good example.
It is, in my view, quite wrong for your newspaper to have any board member who operates an independent consultancy which would stand to benefit from this association. Even if he does not directly write matters of interest to the clients that he is paid to represent as a consultant, then the assumption has to be that other reporters are called upon to do so. This is a most unhealthy situation I am sure you will agree.
Will Mr Brown be at your next board meeting when this issue is discussed? Is the meeting open to the public?
As a point of clarification, here is the report in which Thomas Brown “reported” on the fire at Edinburgh Blackhgall Mosque (which retains him as a consultant): https://nen.press/2012/06/23/mosque-fire-accidental/
The wonders of an internet search! On the http://www.thomasbrown.org.uk website the NEN is listed as a “current client”. Surely some mistake? The NEN also got public funding from Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership where, according to the minutes which are on the council webiste, a Thomas Brown often sits.
NEN please confirm what on earth is going on in terms of independence / conflict of interest here?
By the way, it would be more appropriate is someone other than Thomas Brown from the NEN commented upon this.
The reference to ‘current client’ on Thomas’ web-site is slightly misleading and will be removed. Thomas has advised NEN regarding funding applications, but only in his role as a voluntary Director of the company. Thomas is a member of the Inverleith NP as a delegate from a separate organisation. If NEN were to be discussed, he would declare an interest as a Board member, and he has done in regard to the most recent grant application. Your comments, however, will be raised for discussion at the next Board meeting.
Martin Hinds
Chairperson
Just for a point of clarification – the article written on the 20th June was written by Mr David Pickering and not myself. I am also not employed by NEN I am one of the Directors of NEN. Hope this clarifies things. The aricle from the 20th of June can be found here: https://nen.press/2012/06/20/mosque-fire-investigation-under-way/
What is disappointing is that this is not the first time that this so-called journalist has published misleading stories. A simple google search shows that on 20 June 2012 he wrote about another fire and this story caused adverse comment. However another simple search will show that Thomas Brown (assuming it is the same person – apologies if not!) is also an employee of the Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre and operates his own consultancy service, a client of which owns the building that was affected by the fire on 20 June.
NEN – there are serious issues as to the “independence” of this journalist, if it is the same chap. If there is any element of public funding, as the previous poster suggests, then is this not a problem? Also, if it is correct that Mr Brown is an employee of EDC, then how can he be employed by NEN? I assume that he played no part in securing public funding for your publication?
NOTE – If, as I said I have got my Thomas Brown’s mixed up, I apoligise.
Pity it can’t be removed off the official twitter feed https://twitter.com/northedinnews
#irresponsible #gutterjournalism
I hope the publicly-funded trainee journalist(s) at NEN is not being mentored by Thomas Brown and that the editor gets a better handle on copy. NEN got £4860 from EDC to develop community journalists in 2012. Ref: http://www.edinburghnp.org.uk/neighbourhood-partnerships/inverleith/about/community-grants-fund-info/
Dear All,
Apologies for the headline, it wasn’t meant to cause any offence to anyone.
The headline was in poor taste and clearly caused offence to a number of readers. It has subsequently been changed and NEN apologises for any offence or upset caused by the headline.
As the author of one of the comments I can assure you that is complete rubbish!! Why can you not just accept responsibility for the error made and apologise? Have you any idea of the upset that your headline caused? The North Edinburgh News has to take a serious look at itself. I will also be making a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission first thing on Monday morning.
As an employee of Thomas Book I agree that the headline that was originally picked for this story was completely offensive. I will be making sure that it is followed up by a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission.
I also find this article completely offensive and call on NEN to remove or at least amend the headline. I hope that appropriate action is taken against the journalist who needs his head looked at if he considers that it is in any way acceptable to publish this. I am shocked.
This was obviously a serious fire and it is “thought” nobody was hurt. To sensationalise the fire as you have done in this article, with the headline “Thomas Cook get cooked”, is one of the most disgraceful things I have read in a long time. I will never read the north edinburgh news again
Given the risk to life that this fire posed, leaving aside the significant damage to property, the wording of this headline is disgusting.
I would be interested to know if the council or the Lothians and Borders fire department find this sensationalist and quite frankly insensitive headline remotely amusing given the severity of the fire which resulted in 60 attending firefighters. Maybe next time the reporter requires the services of the fire brigade they might not be as quick or keen in attending given the lack of respect shown towards them!
This is a disgraceful “headline” for a serious fire. The person responsible ought to be ashamed. Shame on NEN.