Chime Whistle Publishing controversy

[yorkie]

It seems several well respected journalists, such as Richard Clinnick, Rich Wilcock etc are unhappy:

Graeme Pickering (@PickGS) on X

This guy misled his followers on Thurs into thinking he was the only journalist who knew about the TPE train order when in fact TPE had sent the press invites on Wed ahead of a commercially sensitive & embargoed announcement - and his response to being challenged was to block me.

x.com

[Chime Whistle Publishing] misled his followers on Thurs into thinking he was the only journalist who knew about the TPE train order when in fact TPE had sent the press invites on Wed ahead of a commercially sensitive & embargoed announcement - and his response to being challenged was to block me.

Welcome to the club. @RichFromRail is in here too. We don’t cause many problems…unlike our chum…

One of us. One of us. Unsurprising. He doesn't do well when confronted with the truth.

"Journalist" doing some heavy lifting there.

At least one TOC MD has questioned some of their reporting:

Steve White (@SteveWhiteRail) on X

@ChimeWhistle Sorry this is poor reporting. Railway colleagues have been thanked for their response, facts have been shared and we are all reminded not to speculate on cause. Bloody good comms.

x.com

Sorry this is poor reporting. Railway colleagues have been thanked for their response, facts have been shared and we are all reminded not to speculate on cause.

I know there are a lot of obnoxious accounts on Twitter, especially these days, and lots of unfounded claims being made, but all the above quotes are from well respected people. Anyone know what's going on?

The reason I ask is that we do often get threads on here that start with Chime Whistle as a source, so it would be good to know if it is a reliable source or not.

I understand several forum members have expressed concern, such as:

Ah, Chime Whistle...

... So probably something he has made up again trying to stir the pot.

Problem is, if Chime Whistle has posted that much rubbish over the years that when he does post something credible, people are very sceptic...

I'd take anything from Chime Whistle Publishing with a shovel full of salt.

I'll be blunt - this is absolute nonsense - subject to any unforeseen circumstances.

Any chance of a more realible source than that account?

As anything he says must be taken with an extra large pinch of salt due to all the lies he has told over the years. Believing him is like trying to use the daily mail as a source for Wikipedia.

(and many more)

Is this the same source that had the (now defunct) website railpicturelibrary.zenfolio.com and/or a digital magazine that was called Rail Announcement and was at railannouncement.com?

 

[pokemonsuper9]

My assumption (obviously could be wrong) is just that they were repeating whatever was DMed to them by someone claiming to have some knowledge, but anonymously.

And obviously people may just be wrong or intentionally malicious, so I always took whatever they said with a pinch of salt (and pretty much only saw their posts when referenced here, since I basically never look at Twitter anymore).

 

[AlterEgo]

It's really just a gossip account which has a wild hit to miss rate.

Some front line staff DM them possibly in order to feel important sharing a "leak" which is missing key context, or which ends up being little more than mess room rumour. I receive a fair bit of information which dribbles down to me in a variety of group chats and never talk publicly about anything confidential.

As a result I have been upwind of a lot of the information Chime Whistle posts and it is clear from what eventually gets posted that a lot of their sources are less than reliable. That said, sometimes they do get some hits.

Clearly claiming an privileged source when there has already been a press brief is a bit odd to say the least.

 

[Bald Rick]

I don’t know anybody in the industry in ‘positions of influence’ who pays the slightest bit of attention to them. Although tbf, not many know about them.

 

[styles]

Clearly claiming an privileged source when there has already been a press brief is a bit odd to say the least.

Being devil's advocate a bit though, they may well be telling the truth. They're not important enough to have received the press release, so I can believe they didn't. Then it's not too odd for someone at Alstom to report a purchase and the public event going with the announcement.

Obviously they haven't done a good job at reporting, and @yorkie's other examples show them to either mislead or make errors, but I can probably believe that their original Tweet on the TPE-Alstom deal was "accurate" in the sense that it is what happened. They got some limited information from some random person at Alstom a day after an embargoed press statement was sent to established journalists.

It would make more sense to just reply to the Tweet responses than block everybody though. I mean, how do you think you're going to maintain your rail journalism career if you block all the rail people? Especially more established journalists and TOC MDs!

 

[Tetchytyke]

Clearly claiming an privileged source when there has already been a press brief is a bit odd to say the least.

I can well imagine that he won't have been important enough to get the press brief but that someone will have sent it to him in a message. Of course all your sources are important and privileged people if you're trying to fluff your own ego.

Twitter is full of in-the-knows (ITKs) about all sorts of subjects and, 99% of the time, the ITK types are all just sad little Walter Mittys.

 

[Bletchleyite]

While I've stopped using X now, and my life is generally better without it, the impression I have is that this guy does have quite a few internal sources though it's often gossip, but he tends to be deliberately a bit cryptic about stuff which I think is just his style, he's not immune to getting all of it via a game of 20 questions.

 

[AlterEgo]

He isn't interested in being a journalist, it's just a gossip account which has a strong bias towards the views of front line staff because those are mostly the only people who DM him.

Someone who was a journalist would check the source and probably have the brains to understand that sort of announcement is likely confidential and market sensitive.

On the flip side of things, staff leaking stuff to him might not know that they won't get the same level of protection from him as they would from a proper journalist. Someone who leaked something which is share price/market sensitive who was then discovered could face dismissal. Why even bother?

 

[Bletchleyite]

On the flip side of things, staff leaking stuff to him might not know that they won't get the same level of protection from him as they would from a proper journalist. Someone who leaked something which is share price/market sensitive who was then discovered could face dismissal. Why even bother?

Probably sits there with "I know that but I'm not going to tell you". Just don't say anything!

 

[PudseyBearHST]

Never even heard of them

 

[tutacre]

It's an extremely pro-union account too - I am pretty sure it's simply a member of traincrew or front-line staff themselves, who is repeating rumours and gossip from other similar grades of staff, dressed up as journalism. Quite a few of their posts are downright wrong and easily disproved, or manipulated to such an extent that the grain of truth is unrecognisable.

Certainly not a reliable source, and as above, pretty sure they're not a journalist either.

The website isn't even legally compliant in the UK - I am not convinced it is actually a genuine association with the account on X.

 

[Liam L]

I've been blocked by them on Twitter after calling them out over the TPE Alstom stuff which was under embargo. It's seem if you disagree or call them out, they block you.

As others have said, there many more reputational journalists out there.

They upset quite a few rail staff in the past too from what I've heard by posting false news & gossip, often followed by them blocking the rail staff for calling them out on it.

 

[Megafuss]

I thought the account went totally off the rail over the LNER off duty staff thing at Stevenage... when the trains were made pick up / drop off. Extremely odd hill to die on as a "journalist"

 

[43096]

Known as "Chime Wibble" for a reason...

 

[Andyh82]

They seem to just go on constantly about supposed industrial disputes. If you believed everything they wrote, everyone would be on strike 52 weeks a year.