How tabloid journalism works (pt 934)
It’s the silly season, it’s a Sunday, and you haven’t got anything approaching a front page story. Do you: (a) put in the effort and attempt to find a new angle to the problems facing Gordon Brown? (b) continue to go on alarmingly about the moral decline in society because a rich man who enjoys being spanked has won a court case or (c) turn the most innocuous addition to a social-networking site which just happens to be a rival to the one owned by your own proprietor into a super splash?
There’s just no contest if you’re a Sun “journalist”, is there? I’m not on Facebook as I don’t have any friends, but even I know there’s a whole plethora of “poke” applications, such as giving one of your friends a virtual sexually transmitted disease, as well as literally dozens of similarly hilarious things. There isn’t however at the moment a moral panic about STDs, but there certainly is about knives.
Libel and legal harassment cases across blogs
Well, it’s certainly been a while since libel suits were being waved around, whether by Uzbek billionaires or pompous bloggers.
And now a whole bunch have come along at once. So here is an update on what’s been going on in the blogosphere.
Apologies for the lateness on some of these.
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Burnham on Basic Principles
Culture Secretary Andy Burnham calls for regulation of the Internet to protect the “vulnerable, the poor, and the weak.” From the title of the article, “In a Lawless zone, we must protect the vulnerable” one would think he is talking about paedophiles in chat-rooms, or the 180% rise in phishing, but in fact he is talking about copyright theft.
It is also contentious that the poor are being disadvantaged by the ‘lawless’ internet – One great advantage of the medium is that it reduces the financial barriers of entry into any given business. Putting online regulation in place will surely restore those barriers. Indeed, the proposals to introduce some kind of licence fee to download music looks like a revenue generator for record companies, rather than a measure to help young and creative people who are just starting out, and giving away their music free on MySpace.
But for entirely different reasons, it was the following quote hat caught my eye:
Nothing can be accepted as inevitable. Though technology moves quickly, we can’t abandon basic principles that have stood society in good stead for centuries.
Wasn’t this the precise argument against 42 days detention!?
Not supporting Iain Dale’s top blogs competition
Tory blogger Iain Dale wants to do his annual ‘which are the top political blogs‘ competition again and is inviting submissions to through this post.
He’s asked us to link to it naturally, but this year I won’t be submitting a list of my top blogs. Other liberl-left bloggers are welcome to make their own submissions but I would also urge them to boycott this exercise.
Now, I have nothing against Iain Dale personally – he’s a lovely chap and I was invited to the Total Politics event and we had a good chat. But Iain Dale is trying to position himself as the granddaddy of the entire British blogosphere by doing these lists and I think his editorial approach to blogging makes me hard to take that seriously.
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Here Go MY chances of ever being Blog of the Year…
Iain Dale wants your votes for political blog of the year. I’d be very amused if nobody at all voted, but there’s little chance of that, and I’d probably be more amused if lots of liberal and leftie blogs made it into his charts. Vote Mortimer! Of course, for your vote to be eligible, it has to be for a blog that’s already on the TP blogroll. You can submit blogs to the blogroll here.
Pee Zed Tee, meanwhile, has reviewed La Dale’s Total Politics magazine, and found it high on gloss, but light on meaningful content, and slightly parochial. How Cameronesque…
Political Betting deconstruct the idea that Gordon is better off than John Major was at a comparable point in the parliament.
Rhythmaning reviews Channel 4’s documentary on The Qu’ran.
Adrian Sanders MP has news and comment on the MP’s expenses saga.
James Grieves indulges in some churchly point-and-laugh at Scribo Ergo Sum.
A nine-word summary of what’s wrong with our journalism
“Now Labour plans to bar white men from jobs” – just one of the recent screaming tabloid headlines about the Equality Bill.
What a fantastic nine-word summary of what is wrong with so much of our tabloid journalism: whipping up fear and division based on a fairy tale.
I’m not sure what is worse – believing that the person who wrote the headline was so ignorant of the story they thought it was true – or so cynical they were happy to write it knowing it wasn’t.
Because the truth is there is no provision like that in the Equality Bill. Nowhere. All the Bill proposes is that if two different people are equally qualified for a job (and that is a very big if!), it should be ok to choose between them on gender or race grounds.
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If Tuesday is Soylent Green Day, is Sunday Hangover Day?
Spirit of 1976 has found a secret video exposing the Gay Agenda to Take Over the World.
Steph Ashley can’t understand why everyone quotes Iain Dale as if his views actually matter. I share her mystification on this.
Alix Mortimer compares Lib Dem and Tory campaign slogans and (surprisingly!) finds the Tory one somewhat wanting.
Dreaming of Simplicity wants to pee on Aaron’s bonfire in linking to this article on Digital Spy about the BBC’s commercial impacts.
Aberavon and Neath Lib Dems examine the Tax Credit train wreck.
And finally, Lady Mark Valladares has been up in my neck of the woods. He (and Ros) will be in Bradford today and I shall, if I can drag myself out of bed, be going to have a cream tea with them. The perils of Lib Demmery…
Casting the Net and bringing in LJ-shaped Fishies
Aaron is leeeeeaaaaving onna Jet Plane this morning, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. Tips to the usual address if’n you’m got any, and away we go:
Anna Jane Clare meant to post about Henry James, but ended up devoting most of her post to how the feral underclass is created (NSFW warning: may contain swearing).
Lynne Featherstone has been on t’wireless.
Love and Garbage has less a post and more a treatise bemoaning the MSM’s failure to examine Cameron, especially his speeches to the CBI.
Nicholas Whyte has decided who he’s going to support in the race for Lib Dem party president, and reveals that it won’t be the same person he voted for last time. Despite my detesting the slogan, I’m 4 Ros too (see sidebar). Huzzah for the Blogging Baroness!
Matt Wardman has a challenge for Unity and other bloggers who like to dig for obscure things. His post comparing webstats for newspaper websites and blogs is worth looking at too.
Lizbee has discovered an early Fandom Wank and relates a Tom Baker anecdote. I link to these for those of you who still labour under the delusion that Doctor Who fans, like bloggers, are (and always have been) male.
And finally, those philistines of you who still don’t read Livejournal blogs? Have a look at Livejournal Aqua. The post titles float past as they are posted, hover over them and you get an excerpt; click and the post will open in a new tab (assuming that you’re using Firefox like all sensible persons)
Journalism of denial
Naturally, “London’s Quality Paper” highlighted the bits that could be used to vindicate its dismal conduct during the election campaign and ignored any that didn’t. Predictably, the chief offenders seized on the report as an opportunity to attack Ken Livingstone again rather the face the fact that even this profoundly partial “audit” acknowledged that in many respects the LDA has done good work.
Never let reality get in the way of a good persecution, especially when you’ve invested so much of your collapsing credibility in it.
For the record, I’ve long been perfectly persuaded that the relationship between mayoral advisers and the LDA needs to be clarified. Indeed, it was the Standard that persuaded me. I’m also quite satisfied that Lee Jasper displayed poor judgment over some LDA grants and in one case hid from the consequences. He wouldn’t be my choice for equalities adviser either (though even his enemies applaud his work with the police.) But these were never grounds for a hard-right newspaper to smear the individual and an entire Labour administration, which is what the Standard and its political assassins did.
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Drop the word ‘chav’
Ziauddin Sardar, an Equality Commissioner, made a common sense plea in yesterday’s Guardian for a “sensibility for civility” in the way we treat others. It was an attempt to acknowledge how “derogatory words make way for degrading treatment” while seeking to sidestep the flame wars, and backlash, generated by an excessive policing for ‘political correctness’.
Our experience with PC language argues this is not something we can, or should, police. But that does not mean being indifferent and taking no action to promote civility through language that is neither jargon nor the ungainly, unspeakable invention of impersonal committees. What we need is common sense and a commitment to a sensibility that values the dignity of all.
This is well argued and sensible, though it is probably true that, in Britain at least, ‘political correctness’ has largely been a caricature (a “straw person”, as it were), rarely used other than to complain about ‘political correctness gone mad’.
But attempts to promote this approach may still face that kind of backlash.
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A liberal-left case for a subscription funded BBC
Sunder Katwala recent article on the BBC raises two issues: editorial bias and funding. Many of us have encountered what we regard as examples of BBC lack of impartiality.
Anthony Barnett on Our Kingdom lambasted the BBC’s coverage of the David Davis campaign. I have spent nearly six years trying to persuade the BBC to acknowledge, let alone make amends for, the worst breach of impartiality in its history (a documentary on the Mau Mau rebellion purporting to be objective but actually presenting a lone scholar’s highly tendentious – and subsequently widely discredited – opinions).
In truth, these concerns regularly arise, and for the most part the BBC is aware of its obligations, especially under the new governance structure, which was responsible for a recent report by John Bridcut on the whole question of alleged liberal bias in the BBC. For me, funding is a much more important long term issue.
There are those who would die in a ditch to defend on principle the present licence fee – what former BBC DG Greg Dyke regularly calls an unfair poll tax. I would have much less of a problem with the licence fee if it were equitably levied: on those who can afford to pay tax, in proportion to their taxable income. A BBC charge of 0.75% of taxable income, collected with each individual’s tax payments, would leave the BBC with roughly its present income, but excuse those too poor to pay tax.
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About that Obama ‘terrorist’ cover
When the weather gets warm (at least, that’s the rumour) and journalists & bloggers are stuck in a drought. Try as I might, I can’t find the rage required to get worked-up over this:
Seriously, if you can’t mock the mad right’s lunatic & racist portrayals of Obama in the archetypal liberal arts & current affairs magazine, when and where can you do it?
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Ken won’t be helping Patience Wheatcroft then
My dear little news story arising from Tim Parker’s Politics Show interview yesterday mentions that Mayor Johnson’s Forensic Audit Panel will be publishing its final report shortly in advance of Mayor’s Question Time on Wednesday morning.
It also mentions that Ken Livingstone was formally invited to meet the panel to help them with their work. There had already been an informal approach, rebuffed by Livingstone in clear terms. But last Tuesday Patience Wheatcroft wrote him this note:
Dear Mr Livingstone,
You will be aware that the current Mayor asked me to chair a Forensic Audit Panel looking into the operations of the GLA and the LDA. During the course of our work we have interviewed many members of the Assembly, LDA board and executives and GLA executives. It would be helpful if we were also able to talk with you. I know that an informal invitation to you has been extended and rejected but I would now like to issue a formal invitation to you to meet with the panel.
Livingstone has sent this reply:
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A Bit Eclectic Today…
SnapsThoughts has a photo essay on the fraughtness of union links with Labour. Each image is accompanied by some thought-provoking words. Highly recommended.
Douglas has news of a sexist Tory. In other news, bears are Catholic and the pope poos in the woods.
Spirit of 1976 discovers his inner Clarkson and feels DIRTY.
Sexual Intelligence Blog reports on John McCain’s reluctance to discuss sexual matters. Not in front of the children, dear.
Jonathan Calder is rather cross about curfews, and people who hail them as a success before they even start.
Lee Griffin has some praise for the home secretary’s plans on knife crime.
Feminist SF covers the finale of the most recent series of Doctor Who.
That’s all folks. Tips to the usual address, and I’ll see you Sunday.
This week’s think-tank roundup…
A weekly roundup of publications, reports, events & articles from the leading UK think tanks.
On the assumption that most people who read this are as sad and nerdy about politics as I am this week’s ‘must read’ item is ‘Taming Leviathan’ from IEA, more details below.
Other than that enjoy and as ever please flag anything I may have missed. Also if anyone would like to be included in the email version please let me know…
Reports & Publications…
- The Centre for Policy Studies have two interesting reports this week. Anthony Jay presents his view on the need for a much-slimmed down, self-financing BBC and Maurice Saatchi has a highly provocative paper called “Enemy of the People” – a mocked-up high court judgement on Labour’s 10 years in office.
- The Centre for European Reform have a briefing note by the CER analysts on the French EU Presidency – “France’s EU presidency was always going to be ambitious, with wide-ranging plans for climate change, immigration and defence. Now, however, President Sarkozy will have to focus on resolving the legal and institutional mess created by the Irish No to the EU’s Lisbon treaty.”
- The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has an interesting report on how free-market liberal think tanks can influence public policy the world over – drawing on insights from 13 authors from think tanks around the globe it observes that “though the ‘war of ideas’ has been hard fought, it has been only partially won. New threats to freedom have emerged, including environmentalism and big-government conservatism. In some countries the burden taxation and regulation has never been greater” – the report is called ‘Taming Leviathan’ and you can read it here.
- IPPR North released a paper on the Barnett Formula arguing that “current disparities in funding across the UK is becoming an increasing source of tension between the four nations, especially between England and Scotland, and that unless addressed it could have implications for the union”
- The Joseph Rowntree foundation published a report by Andrea Waylen and Sarah Stewart-Brown called “Parenting in ordinary families: Diversity, complexity and change”. The report ‘examines parenting in Britain during early and middle childhood within different social and cultural groups and looks at how parenting develops and changes over time’.
- The New Local Government Network offer up a collection of essays on ‘Next Steps for Local Democracy: Leadership, accountability and partnership’. The collection “brings together the reflections of leading thinkers within local government, setting out a range of ideas on future service delivery, leadership, citizen interaction and rebalancing the relationship between central and local government”
- The Policy Exchange have produced a report on gun & knife crime which, according to the Sunday Times, is getting some attention in Downing St. I’ve spoken to Policy Exchange and the report isn’t actually online at the time of writing (Friday 11th am) but will be later today – their publication area is here.
Investigation launched into Boris’s team
After two months of bungled appointments, lost salaries, and enforced resignations, the London Assembly have decided to launch a formal investigation into the way Boris Johnson has appointed people at City Hall.
The decision to launch an investigation came after the assembly were told that the current appointment procedures were ‘adequate’ by Boris Johnson’s First Deputy Mayor.
Should we take a stand on the BBC?
There probably aren’t that many ways to spark a revolution in Britain. But Sir Antony Jay, of Yes Minister fame, may have alighted on one of them in his proposal to cut the BBC down to one TV channel and one radio station (which would be Radio 4).
His pamphlet for the Centre for Policy Studies was intended to be well timed, coinciding the with the publication of the BBC’s annual report today. But it was also, perhaps, ill timed as it comes at the end of what seems to have been (for this viewer anyway) a pretty good week for the BBC.
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Both 50 Cent and Paul Dacre corrupt the youth
Other than being the Big Swinging Dicks in their very different respective ‘hoods, there might at first sight appear to be little in common between a rap superstar and the editor of the Daily Mail.
But following on from a comment in a Shakilus Townsend post I wrote on my blog, I am rather taken with a possible parallel between 50 Cent (pictured) and Paul Dacre, namely the role they wittingly or otherwise play in popularising ‘knife culture’.
Fiddy, of course, routinely glorifies violence for commercial reasons, because that’s what sells records. For his part, Dacre regularly ramps up the reportage of the latest moral panic, becauses that’s what sells newspapers.
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Can the British left learn from Americans?
Imagine a left-of-centre political party without much electoral support, chided for not having enough bold ideas, facing a grumbling bunch of institutional backers that accuse it of betraying its ideological roots. Sound like New Labour? You may not be surprised to hear the same being said of the Democratic Party in the United States.
This is the picture painted by New York Times journalist Matt Bai in The Argument. Away from the day-to-day concerns of most Democrat politicians and voters, Bai delves into three tightly-knit and politically-charged worlds seeking to influence the Party and its agenda: billionaire donors, radical bloggers and activist groups such as MoveOn.
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Dishonesty Dorries Rides Again
If there’s one thing worse than a cover-up, its a badly executed cover-up, and you’ll find no better example of the latter if you take the time to visit the website of Nadine Dorries.
To give a quick recap of the story so far, a short while back, Sunny put forward a formal complaint to the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards in regards to Dorries’ ‘blog’ – i.e. the bit of her website that used to have a comments facility until she got caught making false allegations about Ben Goldacre in a parliamentary committee report.
The complaint, itself, raised two basic issues.
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You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or rss feeds.
» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civil cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
» Is this the end for the socialist left?
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