Wordblog

The story of News International being awarded more than £30,00 in damages and more than £40,000 in costs against the owners of a celebrity news site which had lifted pictures, attracted my attention this morning.

A report in Press Gazette says the costs were awarded against "Robert and Judy Douglass, who own and operate a website called Robb’s Celebs, which offers a mix of celebrity pictures and videos and pornography".

What sort of business was it and what were the Douglasses like? The next few minutes showed the power of the web as a research tool for reporters.

Very quickly I was looking at an aerial photograph of their remote farmhouse home on the Welsh border near Knighton, their CVs — including photographs — and the company house registrations of their companies.

The first step was to do a Google search for the website. Then a Nominet WHOIS search provided an address. A search on 192.com confirmed the address and the name of one of their companies at the same address.

Then a companies house search produced the names of two companies. Another Google search revealed the CVs of the couple, neither of which has been updated for several years. They showed a couple who both have years of experience in computer consultancy with leading organisations.

What happened? It looks to me as if there may be a fascinating human story here. Internet research is a tremendous way to follow up hunches which may lead to a story. But there is always a point when the reporter has to talk to people.

I will be fascinated to read their story if someone gets the Douglasses to talk (the web research produced a phone number but I sense chance of success would be greater knocking on the door). And I am going to keep this search as an exercise for students.