Adam Curtis has an interesting post on his BBC blog looking at Rupert Murdoch, with excellent use of BBC archive footage:
Rupert Murdoch doesn’t like the BBC.
And sometimes the BBC doesn’t seem to like Rupert Murdoch either.
Following the principle that you should know your enemy, the BBC has assiduously recorded the relentless rise of Rupert Murdoch and his assault on the old “decadent” elites of Britain.
BBC – Adam Curtis Blog: RUPERT MURDOCH – A PORTRAIT OF SATAN.
via We Study Media
Fascinating article from Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times about how the NYT handled the wikileaks material and Julian Assange. Well worth reading if you have any interest in the procedures and ethics of journalism in the age of the internet. Particularly interesting is the way they worked with The Guardian, and the different interpretations of the material each paper made.
Throughout this experience we have treated Assange as a source. I will not say “a source, pure and simple,” because as any reporter or editor can attest, sources are rarely pure or simple, and Assange was no exception. But the relationship with sources is straightforward: you don’t necessarily endorse their agenda, echo their rhetoric, take anything they say at face value, applaud their methods or, most important, allow them to shape or censor your journalism. Your obligation, as an independent news organization, is to verify the material, to supply context, to exercise responsible judgment about what to publish and what not to publish and to make sense of it. That is what we did.
via The Times’s Dealings With Julian Assange – NYTimes.com.
The current furore surrounding the WikiLeaks release of the US Embassy cables is fascinating for anyone interested in news or journalism. It poses all kinds of ethical questions, many of which are raised in this excellent article from Dan Gillmor:
For journalists who get the documents directly from WikiLeaks:
- You are treating WikiLeaks as much as a partner as a source, no matter how much you might deny this. How comfortable are you in this bargain?
- Why does it take WikiLeaks to get the information you agree is so worthy of public exposure? Why aren’t you doing your own jobs better in the first place?
For the U.S. government:
- When it comes to invading other people’s lives, with increasingly oppressive security and surveillance, your mantra is “You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.” Will you give that a little more thought in the future?
This is essential reading.
A few questions about the WikiLeaks release – Dan Gillmor – Salon.com.
via Boing Boing
Website used by woman who stabbed MP encourages further attacks – Telegraph.
A2 Media: Topic – The representation of British Asians
Read this article & follow some of its links & respond to the following tasks:
1. Briefly outline the events of this news story. What happened? To whom? When? Why?
2. What has the US website got to do with it?
3. Does this article in any way challenge or reinforce existing stereotypes of Bristish Asians that might be held by Daily Telegraph readers?
A YouGov poll just published shows that 76% of British people trust teachers. Obviously, as a teacher, I’m pleased to hear that. However, I’d be less pleased were I a journalist, particularly a tabloid one – red-top writers are trusted by just 10%. Those who write for the mid-market papers are distrusted by 71%, but BBC news journalists are trusted by 60%:
via Tabloid Watch, who notes that trust in all the media has declined significantly since 2003 – even that 60% trust for BBC news journalists looks bad compared to the 81% it was 7 years ago.
The Daily Mail is well known for running many articles stating that particular things cause or prevent cancer. In some cases, such as alcohol, they apparently do both.
Someone has kindly produced a database so we can be clear on just what does and doesn’t cause cancer according to that newspaper.
What does it mean to have no ethnicity? By 2051, four out of every five people should be able to tell you. This post from Tabloid Watch considers issues of representation of race in Richard Desmond’s newspapers:
Do you think Richard Desmond, the owner of these two rags, is trying to telling us something?
Anton at Enemies of Reason has blogged about the Express’ front page. He says:
Leave aside that we’re all ‘ethnics’ of one mongrel sort or another; this makes it quite clear what’s going on. There are whites and there are ‘ethnics’. How much more explicit does it have to be before we start calling it what it is?
As Anton points out, the Express illustrate this ‘vile story’ with this image of Muslim women:
Yet the article, based on population forecasts from the University of Leeds about what might happen in 2051, clearly says:The White British and Irish ethnic groupings are expected to grow very slowly, while the Other White category is projected to grow the fastest, driven by immigration from Europe, the US and Australasia.
Funny how they don’t use pictures of French, American or Australian women, isn’t it?
Tabloid Watch: Richard Desmond attacks ‘ethnics’ and ‘asylum scroungers’:
Media faces stong criticism from within over Raoul Moat coverage | Journalism.co.uk Editors’ Blog.
This is an excellent article to further the debate about the Media’s role in the Raoul Moat “spectacle.” It questions us as the audience – why do we act as ghouls, tuning in for every last second of this grisly showdown? Barbara Ellen of the Observer is particularly worth reading & thinking about:
Homicidal sprees as another form of spectator sport? Just another button on the remote control, perhaps labelled “Homi-tainment”, with a helpful skull and crossbones motif? The whole thing was reminiscent of iconic scenes from the US. “Homi-tainment” was definitely there when OJ went off on his car chase, Waco went under siege, even in those candlelit vigils outside prison executions. Didn’t Brits used to think we were rather above this kind of thing? Well, seemingly not any more.
The Raoul Moat case gathered a massive amount of coverage last week, providing an excellent opportunity to consider the way such stories are covered in the mainstream news media.
3. Did you interfere with or distract the Police?
The picture below shows an officer holding a taser pointed at Raoul Moat while his gaze is distracted towards a photographer. It provides a stark illustration of the profound ways in which the media (and those they incite) can interfere with a police operation. The officers here don’t look pleased, as you would expect, yet this picture has been repeated endlessly through-out the news without a single presenter stopping to pause and wonder just what the hell the photographer thought he was doing in such a sensitive position, putting lives at risk and for what?
More disturbing still is this tweet from Sky Reporter James Matthews, pointed out to me today by@a6ruled on Twitter:
“Was listening to negotiations till armed cop found us. Crept up silently,first i knew was when i felt his breath on my cheek.”
Or this gem from Alex Thomson at Channel 4, via @MindInFlux:
“sorry lots of Bberry tweets in dark running thru peoples, gardens evading cops – some spelling may have gone astray”
What on Earth did they think they were doing?
Raoul Moat: Seven Questions the Media Should Answer » Martin Robbins:
An interesting post-colonial look at the continuing essentialism of Muslims in the British Press.
Tabloid Watch: Non-story about local pool forces journalism black out.
