QUOTE OF THE DAY - Weasel words

It's Friday, so I have been surfing a bit off track.

So I came across this:

Reporting on comedy's new offenders wasn't intended to offend

As it's a 'luvvie on luvvie' spat, in the Grauniad taboot, and even better about racism, there are all the elements of good spectator sport.

But, fresh from po-faced 'defences' of jounalistic opinion poorly disguised as objective commentary across the print and broadcast infirmament, I have to treasure this:

I took care to use words like "purported" hatred of Pakistanis, and "claims" to support the BNP, to distance him from these actual sentiments

I do rather wonder if such sincerity of intent is to the fore in most headlines I see these days, with key words in "quotes".

And the swine of it is...

An employee at a Swine Flu call centre speaks out…

I have no reason to doubt the veracity of this tale.

As an encapsulation of UK governance and the rigour of media oversight that acts as a check and balance, it really is....[insert here]

A new term - Pravda Press

Gilligan launches attack on Pravda press

Hard not to crank an eyebrow.

QUOTE OF THE DAY - If they say so

BBC executive says corporation should foster 'left-of-centre thinking'

Two for the price of one:

'He wrote: "If we didn't all think differently, have different ideas of what works and what doesn't, wouldn't our lives, and more importantly, our TV screens be less interesting? We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking."

He later denied that he had meant the comment to have a political meaning.

"Like 'left-field', it is a phrase that I use with frequency when talking to the creative community to encourage them to develop and approach their ideas from a completely new perspective," he said.

A BBC source said that executives believed that their casting of Boris Johnson, the Conservative Mayor of London, in an episode of EastEnders, proved that they did not have a left-wing bias.'

Bless.

All roads lead... er... that way... no... that way...

Leadership for the Nu Age: The definitive answer is Yes... or No.

Just watched on BBC Breakfast Mr. Burnham's on-air 'advice' regarding swine flu. If what he... er... 'said' is anything to go by, I don't hold out much hope for the value of his much vaunted swine flu 'advice line'.

Despite the interviewer's best efforts, he committed to, and hence said nothing of substance or value. Pure fudge when discussing the nation trying to get clear direction.

Which begs the question of what a Secretary of State is for, and why they bother with such appearances.

I am sure lessons have been learned, though.

And I'll bet Mr. Brown is just 'furious'. Again. Management by reactive anger. New Nokias, please, Ball-boy!

I asked the missus how we should 'consider our going into public places'.

She asked me what on earth I was talking about. Indeed. I said a senior member of Gordon's GOAT herd had shared this pearl of well-directed leadership.

Bless.

Us.

ps: How well qualified/trained for this role is the young Mr.B, in light of our country's Home Secretary role being entrusted to another such competent and confident a GOAT in recent times.

Maybe Sarah Brown as Minister for Tweeting, and then over to Climate Change and on to Defence by the end of the year before her Jimmy Choos get too troubled by all this knowing a blind thing about the department you run and its responsibilities?

Guardian - Conflicting swine flu advice for women causes chaos -

Those awful bloggers

Defensive, toi?

The End of Fortress Journalism

Mr. Horrocks is not one of my favourite senior media paragons.

And having watched awhile, I had eventually to leap in to what is a naked, doomed yet worrying attempt by some to set 'professional' journalism apart, and above, from other forms:

The problem is most people seem to be under the mistaken understanding that the likes of Twitter and blogs are actually news. They're not - they're nothing more than commentary. Each posting is simply one person's view of an event or issue... Unless the rules are changed to level the playing field the choice of news media will be a publicly funded broadcaster (the BBC) or inane one-eyed tweeters.

I have to say that I have used tweets that link to very valuable objective information. And I have, on more than one occasion, felt that news, even from the BBC, has been a combination of narrative-enhancing and/or interpretation of events that hardly makes it a balancing choice to the outlaw blogging Wild West that some are trying to claim.

I find my only hope is to try and gain exposure to a fair spread of 'fact' and 'opinion' - from individuals to uniquely-funded corporations - in coming to something approaching what is as opposed to what many would like to persuade me it should be to satisfy their often elitist, exclusive (and excluding) agendas and/or world views.

Addendum:

An 'interesting' view on how you take on board news and views vs. how you broadcast it without troublesome contrary opinion:

The Blog Is Dead.....oh no it isn't, oh yes it is...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/digitalrevolution/2009/07/the-blog-is-deadoh-no-it-isnt.shtml

Our own Nick Robinson has recently confessed that he's stopped reading the comments on his blog

As the politicians some 'reporters' so like to wallow with, if you only set to transmit and never on receive, you might get unpleasant surprises if those you think are meekly absorbing your missives actually react to just being talked at as opposed to being engaged with.

We seem to be at an odd stage where those who used to dominate the news agenda are not liking the erosion of their (often less than objective, or benign) influence, and are trying to get back to the 'good old ways'.

Good luck with that.

QUOTE OF THE DAY - So little rare...

From BBC Editors thread:

There are 'news' pages and there are 'opinion' pages. The first should inform the second. The second should never inform the first.

'Should' kind of puts today's situation in context.

Them and wuss

The End of Fortress Journalism

Some very insightful comments.

Days of the Jackals

Gordon Brown in the firing line

Just watched the clip.

As far as I could ascertain, every question posed was met with an evasion, a damned evasion or a pointless statistic, skipping from meaningless totals to equally sly percentages, and from specific instances to broad timeframes depending on which might seem less awful. The clown even tried to cite an opposition concession on the facts of one incident to try and apply to the totality of the overall conflict provision.

I don't know if our troops are being led by donkeys, but at the very top the decisions on where they get sent, why and with what, seems to be in the hands of bean-counting, box-ticking jackals.

A bit like the rest of the country's interests. I was going to say that at least our lives are not at stake, but even then in some areas one has to wonder what such self-serving ineptitude will inflict.

I hope they enjoy their hol... sabbatical.

Getting the results you want...

Why are we in Afghanistan?

A poll carried out for BBC Newsnight and the Guardian

As a matter of interest, as my experience is that polls often tend to reflect the views of those who commission them, how often has our objective national broadcaster shared itself in this way with the Guardian, and how often with other major national dailies? In the interests of balance, that is.

It sort of becomes pertinent when such as the Guardian rather defensively point at extensive coverage of one their pet campaigns across the BBC as justification for the rest of the media firmament (and, or perhaps with a hint of why, the public) not being quite as excited as the sisterhood has managed to get itself. In fact I'm rather expecting this coverage being covered back and forth enough on the basis that if it gets repeated enough...

After the last horro show that was the Politics Pen, might it not be an idea to stay away from any possible suggestions of pre-determinancy?

I would love to know if (and if so, how) Aunty has ever shared herself with, say, the Daily Express. Or, maybe more appositely, the NoTW. A slightly larger readership than the Guardian (in fact at either end of the ABCs' I believe) and, possibly, more empathy with the squaddies on the ground perhaps?

There are polls, damn polls, and 'Tonight, polls show...'.

We've dug up something from our Berlin correspondent...

... along with him:

The biggest media story in years - so why the silence?

I rather suspect they are in the process of answering their own question.

Junkketeer
13 Jul 09, 12:19pm (1 minute ago)

...the story went to the top of the BBC's bulletins and website. Andrew Neil, former editor of the Sunday Times...

And now presenter with...?

Not sure that quoting the heft accorded by another complementary media source works any better than trying to make a story out of something a bloke told you another bloke might have said.

Mind you, we might end up with Aunty quoting you quoting them so that, in the end, if it gets repeated enough it ends up true.

It has worked before.

Light vs. fire

The Press TV pantomime

In a world dominated by US news organisations terrified of upsetting the Israeli government, particularly TV (not to mention our own timid BBC) it is hard to work up much angst in the case of Press TV.

Hence the BBC seeing no real problem in wheeling on Press TV 'employees/commentators' to act as 'balance' I guess.

Fair enough, but it was rather odd t'other day to have a lady (I think Ms. Ridley) pretty much ranting in a debate, but with her status not billed as such by the national broadcaster who invited her on, and only having thus 'outed' by another guest... to much subsequent finger pointing all round as if two biases make things objective.

Is it not possible for major media to attract quality commentary more for illumination than the ratings of flames?

Now, here is the news..

Sunday, 12 July...

Guardian - Brown set to reinforce troops in Afghanistan
Two thousand troops could be sent to Helmand following a review after the bloodiest day

Indy - Revealed: Brown's secret plan to cut Afghanistan force by 1,500

I wonder which the BBC will go with?

Biter Bit

Journalists don't seem as able to take it as they like to dish it out.

I actually value this lady's missives usually, but then there is this:

Will blog commenters eventually leave journalists fragile husks of insecurity, sobbing in the corner?

What on earth did she expect, on a blog, by way of reply?

If commenters are complaining about lazy journalism, journalists have an equal bone to pick with lazy commenting.

Thing is, who owes who what?

I’m all for open commenting on blogs, but I every now and then I imagine a halcyon world where a bit of judicial editing leaves us with only the comments that are worth reading - negative or not.

Well, there is always that magical moderator’s delete facility, used every now and then for perhaps less than professional reasons, in the spirit of some speech being freer than others.

It would certainly save us all a lot of time currently spent scrolling through endless “First!” comments.

Forewarned, I will hence refrain from attempting to note the relative location of this comment in the current thread.*

Annoyingly, as I was penning my witty tailpiece, some other sod got in first and rather stole the thunder.

Sums

Culling the quangos (again)

Seems to me there are fewer and fewer folk actually generating money.

And more and more consuming it.

Now supplemented by a whole new bunch, also paid from the shrinking income generation sector, almost exclusively servicing the needs, demands, pay, perks and pensions of those consuming already. With near zero accountability imposed from any direction, especially when many voters do not bear fiscal responsibility for their actions. And of those that do, I defy most to understand, and hence affect what goes on in their names, and with their money, until it is too late.

Hard to see how this will end well.

Especially when we're already on tick for the next two generations.

Aunty, Irony and Me

Newsnight discusses quangos

"Cut the number of unelected quangos to save money and increase accountability"

These would be entities funded by the government and paid for by us (often via supplementary fees above and beyond various tax mechanisms), but with out of control empire-building aspirations, vast property empires, huge, expanding senior executive levels on vast, self-awarded pay packages, and less than clear, in theory objective remits, but often designed mainly to serve certain narrow interests, with secret internal reviews and near total deniability at every level, who can't even be voted out every few years as one can the representatives we choose to represent us on matters of life and death in Parliament... right?

Wonder who might get mentioned?

And who, as with their funding, may remain... unique.

Does Ofcom deserve it?

I am seeing a spirited defence of OFCOM in many quarters, often quoting its officers.

Quite right if only in response to questions solicited by the media.

Ironic if part of a well funded ad/PR budget.

I can't speak for OFCOM, but in the environmental sector I have serious issues, bordering on suspicions of conflict of interest, when public money is used on quango comms budgets that drive 'targets' that in turn reward bonus structures of boards signing off on the very comms efforts driving those bonuses.

Every quango in Britain

Speaking of troughers

Swine Flu Update

His daughter, and my dear old Mum.

Almost killed off by the system until I behaved very badly to get her into a hospital to be stabilised and then out asap into ’self-funded’ care.

I despair for all, and especially for the sandwich generation trying to deal with both. Then more so our kids as they inherit Gordon’s prudent legacy for mine.

‘Envy of the world’, we’re told, by various ‘trust us’ organs, from Guv to Aunty.

I. DON’T BELIEVE. ANY. OF. YOU. ANY. MORE!

In interestinf insight into political process

And which media say what about it (or nothing at all).

Talking Balls