clawsfour

Look after the pennies

From time to time I get really worked up about the media and their role in propagandising the reporting of news. Today I just sigh at the way two newspapers report, untruthfully, an unimportant media event watched, I guess, by a couple of million people.

Antiques Roadshow, a TV show which examines the bits and bobs brought in by the public to see if there is any value (historical and family as well as financial), reviews an item in the care of the local authority. This was a large trial piece by Anthony Gormley for his imposing 'Angel of the North'.

It was no real surprise that it was valued at £1m.

Now here is my tiny niggle with the media. This story had been built up in advance. Some of the details had been trailed to boost the viewing audience. But in the event it was mildly interesting and with no real shock and awe.

The Councillor who acted as spokesperson for the local authority did his best to appear interested in a fairly uninteresting review of the piece. And when the final valuation was given he received that information as he probably did the weather forecast - interesting for the moment, but not to be considered an absolutely fact. Yet today the Times and the Guardian have him 'stammering' and 'speechless' respectively. Despite the fact that millions of people saw evidence to the contrary.

OK this is very small pennies. It is not the state newspaper saying no-one was killed in Tianaman Square. But it is just another tiny nail in the coffin of news hammered in by the heel of comment.

Or maybe I'm just Grumpy Monday.

BBC off target again

The Today magazine programme (for it is surely no longer worthy of being part of the world respected News team) on the BBC has plumbed even more banal depths this morning.

A baby, Baby P, died 15 months ago whilst the baby boy and his home life were under the inspection of a local Social Services Department. The Today magazine programme, instead of dealing with the important issues surrounding this case - whether social care can ever take responsibility for the well-being of every person in the country - kept coming back to the same question "Who was responsible for the child's death?"

In a pointless interview with the head of the body which regulates individual social workers, about correspondence which he hadn't seen, from someone he didn't know, to people unidentified, the interviewer returned time and again to question of responsibility. The clear agenda was that someone, preferably a Government Department, or - even better - a government minister - should be responsible for the death of the child.

Clearly the Today magazine hadn't been watching the BBC's news broadcasts over the past few days of they would know that the boys mother, father and their lodger were found not only responsible but guilty in a court of law, convicted of "causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable person". They will be sentenced soon.

Of course, the inquiries that the government have established will identify whether there were any errors of systems or by individuals in the particular case. The BBC would do well to wait for those inquiries to report before rushing to comment.

In the meantime, perhaps a better question for them to peruse would be, "How many children are still alive thanks to the intervention of social services?"

Branded

Is it just me or are we seeing the same (albeit on a much smaller scale) mass hysteria that greeted the accidental death of a princess over the rather infantile and offensive radio prank by Ross and Brand. 

One complaint escalated to 18,000 as competitor light entertainment shows - ie newspapers - lead the witch-hunt. At the same time, unreported, young people in particular were showing their support for the pair through other media by up to six to one. 

I don't think what the pair did was particularly clever or funny. I think the editorial team aren't up to much for not spotting the inevitable outrage from Folkestone. 

But for Yasmin Alibah-Brown to say that this is some perversion of the great British tradition of freedom of speech is complete fucking bollocks. 

It offended against the good taste of some and the good manners of others. And caused real offence to one person. One too many maybe. But a good deal less offence than a less funny comedian like Jim Davidson causes on a daily basis through his racist and sexist xenophobic humour(?). 

For the one person really offended there is a proper apology. For the others there is the off switch. For Y A-B there is no hope.