Spitting Image
21/05/04 11:47 Media
issues Permalink
The news that Spitting Image is to return is of
course excellent for those of us who enjoyed (and on
one occasion wrote for) the original. But I do detect
a certain trend going on here, and one day there's
going to be one too many. Think about it: Parkinson
cancelled in the eighties, then comes back 16 years
or so later. The Two Ronnies, back for a new series
in January. Doctor Who, Captain Scarlet, all dusting
themselves off and ready for a return.
I love all these things and I hope they come out well. But do we really want this decade remembered as the time of the revamps in which original programming died the death completely?
Am offline for a week after this - enjoy the break, people, I'll be redecorating and someone else will be standing in on this page.
I love all these things and I hope they come out well. But do we really want this decade remembered as the time of the revamps in which original programming died the death completely?
Am offline for a week after this - enjoy the break, people, I'll be redecorating and someone else will be standing in on this page.
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Piers pierced
17/05/04 11:46 Media
issues Permalink
I suppose I ought to be feeling a little sheepish.
Last week I supported Piers Morgan, now the ex-editor
of the Mirror. and now he's gone and there's a lot of
agreement that the pictures he published were fakes.
Not only that - they were fakes that put British
soldiers' lives at risk in Iraq. I don't think that's
putting it too strongly.
Essentially I think they were right to sack him, because I now have more facts at my disposal. The pictures may have been fake, I said last week, but they drew to our attention important issues, stuff that has been going on.
What I didn't know at the time - and politics really isn't my beat, so it's an understandable error - was that the specifics raised by the Mirror's alleged witnesses were already under investigation and had been discussed in Parliament. I have to put my hands up and say I didn't know this, but then I wasn't responsible for plastering the pictures over the front page of one of the country's most popular tabloids.
Not a clever thing to do, and Morgan has paid the price. The tributes have been fulsome, citing the scoops he'd pioneered, most recently the Mirror journalist managing to get a job in Buckingham Palace security. I'm not so sure about that one myself - a scoop is surely when something actually happens, rather than when you set something up on your own initiative and then rather cleverly report on it.
He's been a mixed blessing but a flamboyant figure. His successor is almost bound to be less colourful, if only to appease the shareholders.
Essentially I think they were right to sack him, because I now have more facts at my disposal. The pictures may have been fake, I said last week, but they drew to our attention important issues, stuff that has been going on.
What I didn't know at the time - and politics really isn't my beat, so it's an understandable error - was that the specifics raised by the Mirror's alleged witnesses were already under investigation and had been discussed in Parliament. I have to put my hands up and say I didn't know this, but then I wasn't responsible for plastering the pictures over the front page of one of the country's most popular tabloids.
Not a clever thing to do, and Morgan has paid the price. The tributes have been fulsome, citing the scoops he'd pioneered, most recently the Mirror journalist managing to get a job in Buckingham Palace security. I'm not so sure about that one myself - a scoop is surely when something actually happens, rather than when you set something up on your own initiative and then rather cleverly report on it.
He's been a mixed blessing but a flamboyant figure. His successor is almost bound to be less colourful, if only to appease the shareholders.
Investigative journalism
14/05/04 11:45 Media
issues Permalink
Cracking story in the Mail today - about two Times
investigative journalists. They'd been trying to
infiltrate the Olympic Stadium in Athens to prove it
wasn't secure. They tried once and were turned away.
They tried twice and were turned away. They tried
three times...and were arrested.
Just how long does it take to persuade some people that their story really isn't standing up?
Have a good weekend.
Just how long does it take to persuade some people that their story really isn't standing up?
Have a good weekend.
Inaccuracies..?
It's always interesting to get the other side of a
piece in a paper if you thought it was particularly
slanted. I often get this feeling with my pet
bugbear, the Daily Mail, as regular readers will know
- to the extent that I quite wrongly criticised them
when they said Michael Parkinson was leaving the BBC
while he was still denying it.
But they do seem to go for the jugular more than a little when it comes to stuff like, oh, let's say Asylum seekers. Or enlarged Europe. They will tell you we're about to be flooded, there will be mass immigration and we won't be able to cope, et cetera. They have interviewed people intending to come to the UK and sponge off our benefits, so it must be true.
Or must it? Here's a link (click here) to a piece about a family the Mail profiled in late April. It would be naive to suggest the newer piece is any less slanted than the original, particularly coming as it does from a State agency. But it's worth reading, and points to several factual inaccuracies in the rather alarmist piece the Mail actually ran.
But they do seem to go for the jugular more than a little when it comes to stuff like, oh, let's say Asylum seekers. Or enlarged Europe. They will tell you we're about to be flooded, there will be mass immigration and we won't be able to cope, et cetera. They have interviewed people intending to come to the UK and sponge off our benefits, so it must be true.
Or must it? Here's a link (click here) to a piece about a family the Mail profiled in late April. It would be naive to suggest the newer piece is any less slanted than the original, particularly coming as it does from a State agency. But it's worth reading, and points to several factual inaccuracies in the rather alarmist piece the Mail actually ran.
Should Piers resign?
11/05/04 11:43 Media
issues Permalink
I've resisted shoving my oar in about the Iraqi
pictures, purely because I could think of nothing to
say that would advance the issue in any way. But it's
starting to get interesting, not because of whether
or not the pics in the Mirror were faked (it looks
increasingly as though they were), but because their
authenticity is increasingly a side issue.
The headline stuff is of course 'fake picture! fake picture!' But there is an increasingly loud undercurrent of 'and this was happening, and something else was happening too.' The Guardian today has a piece on the 'hooding' of prisoners when this shouldn't have taken place, for example.
So, should Piers Morgan resign for printing inflammatory pictures which appear faked? Or should we be grateful that someone set these pictures up and sparked a debate that left us wiser about what was actually being done in our name all along? I'm inclining towards the latter - which, given my usual opinion of Morgan, is as much of a surprise to me as it is to anyone else.
The headline stuff is of course 'fake picture! fake picture!' But there is an increasingly loud undercurrent of 'and this was happening, and something else was happening too.' The Guardian today has a piece on the 'hooding' of prisoners when this shouldn't have taken place, for example.
So, should Piers Morgan resign for printing inflammatory pictures which appear faked? Or should we be grateful that someone set these pictures up and sparked a debate that left us wiser about what was actually being done in our name all along? I'm inclining towards the latter - which, given my usual opinion of Morgan, is as much of a surprise to me as it is to anyone else.
BBC in the clear
10/05/04 11:42 Media
issues Permalink
So there we have it -
the BBC is in the clear
and its inquiry suggests the editors of the Today
programme, no matter what Lord Hutton thinks,
followed established procedures.
Which is what an internal BBC inquiry would say, you'll want to point out, and you'll have a point. Except that Lord Hutton was apparently bemused at the resignations that followed his wretched document, presumably having failed to understand the nature of the language he'd used in it.
This is looking increasingly messy. I'll tell you what would be rather fun, though - if Hutton himself thought Greg Dyke was wrong to resign as director general of the BBC, why doesn't he simply apply to Michael Grade for his old job..?
Which is what an internal BBC inquiry would say, you'll want to point out, and you'll have a point. Except that Lord Hutton was apparently bemused at the resignations that followed his wretched document, presumably having failed to understand the nature of the language he'd used in it.
This is looking increasingly messy. I'll tell you what would be rather fun, though - if Hutton himself thought Greg Dyke was wrong to resign as director general of the BBC, why doesn't he simply apply to Michael Grade for his old job..?
Privacy and Naomi
So, Naomi Campbell has ushured in a privacy rule by
the back door. A judge overturned an appeal court's
verdict that it was in the public interest to have
pics of her coming out of a rehab clinic plastered
all over the Mirror. This will set a precedent
without an actual law being passed, hence the 'back
door' nature of the thing.
It's presumably just me, but it seems there's been a lot of bleating about this one - papers are having their rights infringed, we mustn't be gagged et cetera. But is there actually anything wrong with Campbell's initial assertion - that if she has a medical problem then she should have it without a paparazzi camera craning down her throat? I think not - and if self-regulation actually worked among certain elements of the press then back-door legislation like this wouldn't actually happen in the first place.
It's presumably just me, but it seems there's been a lot of bleating about this one - papers are having their rights infringed, we mustn't be gagged et cetera. But is there actually anything wrong with Campbell's initial assertion - that if she has a medical problem then she should have it without a paparazzi camera craning down her throat? I think not - and if self-regulation actually worked among certain elements of the press then back-door legislation like this wouldn't actually happen in the first place.
Soap trivia
06/05/04 11:41 Coffee machine moments
Permalink
Interesting to see that in spite of the amount of
Fleet Street baying for the scalp of Eastenders star
Leslie Grantham because of his
perversions/indiscretions/possible illness/whatever
you believe, the BBC appears ready to stand by him
and allow him to continue.
Which is good because he's there to act, not to stand up as an example of moral rectitude. But I trust, after all this, they will do the decent thing and reinstate Angus Deayton into his old job - I mean, it would be so hypocritical not to, surely?
Which is good because he's there to act, not to stand up as an example of moral rectitude. But I trust, after all this, they will do the decent thing and reinstate Angus Deayton into his old job - I mean, it would be so hypocritical not to, surely?
No dumbing down, no siree...
05/05/04 11:40 Media
issues Permalink
On the one hand it would just be cynical to suggest
the BBC is dumbing down. It's a chestnut, it's not
happening, et cetera et cetera.
On the other hand there do seem to be a lot of job cuts in the factual department. I suppose you can scrap loads of factual jobs and not dumb down, but it would be easier if you kept them, surely?
On the other hand there do seem to be a lot of job cuts in the factual department. I suppose you can scrap loads of factual jobs and not dumb down, but it would be easier if you kept them, surely?
The format or the host?
04/05/04 11:39 Media
issues Permalink
Interesting point made in a TV review of Ant and
Dec's takeaway show a few weeks back, suggested that
they were nice enough guys but without a good format
they were foundering. The format, suggested the
review, was everything.
At the time I agreed. Then today the BBC announced the axing of the show formerly known as Kilroy, now fronted by Nicky Campbell - it's going. It's not the sort of show I enjoy anyway so it's difficult to tell what went wrong - but you do wonder whether the personality is more important than the format in a number of cases. I hold now brief for Robert Kilroy-Silk, but it must by now be apparent to a lot of people that without him the show was more or less a dead duck.
At the time I agreed. Then today the BBC announced the axing of the show formerly known as Kilroy, now fronted by Nicky Campbell - it's going. It's not the sort of show I enjoy anyway so it's difficult to tell what went wrong - but you do wonder whether the personality is more important than the format in a number of cases. I hold now brief for Robert Kilroy-Silk, but it must by now be apparent to a lot of people that without him the show was more or less a dead duck.