Paxman has a general sneer at the world of the Media:
The Invention of News by Andrew Pettegree
The news – noisy, self-important and often pointless?
I wonder if he meant those lap dogs at Cardiff University who provide the BBC with so much academic cover for their bias when he said this?…..
Reporters in rehab (now often posing as professors of media studies) have endlessly tried to define precisely what constitutes this thing “news”.
Ah those terrible Murdoch/Dacre tabloids…
One newspaper tycoon after another has got rich by alarming us with tales of neighbourhood cannibals, killer diets and secret Liberal Democrat tax plans.
Paxman questions this conclusion by Alain de Botton:
News “now occupies a position of power at least equal to that formerly enjoyed by faiths”.
Paxman says: ‘The plain fact is the news is nothing like religion. It does not propose the existence of a supernatural being. It does not lay down rules for life.’
Unfortunately that’s precisely what the new priesthood of the media, the Leftwing media in particular, does do…they set out to preach, and regulate how everyone should lead their lives.
Paxman tells us…..De Botton’s cure for the indifference that afflicts so many of us when confronted with tidings of some awful human tragedy far away is for the news to be less preoccupied with accuracy and more with advocacy.
Well you know….that’s pretty much a description of the BBC’s news output now….more advocacy than accuracy.
Paxman continues: ‘The machines clank away noisily but not necessarily to any great purpose. It matters not very much whether anything important has happened, the TV and radio bulletins will make their self-important appearance at the designated hour and at the designated length. The newsreaders’ ponderous sobriety demands our attention. But why should we give it?’
The news – noisy, self-important and often pointless? asks Paxman……well he should know.
““If it’s news, it’s news to us”
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He may not be far wrong…
@BreakwellNeil: Tonight on #newsnight first interview with @HarrietHarman responding to Daily Mail accusation that she is an apologist for child sex abuse
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Better never as well as late.
So now that they have worked out what their story will be and learned all the lines Harman is going on the TV, not Sky or ITV but her Bessie mates BBC to be given an easy ride by a sympathetic Beeboid hoping for a constituency once their career at the BBC hits the buffers?
In the mean time they are smearing a Tory. How quickly the BBC lawyers work once a Tory is involved eh?
If the facts are sound, it is reporting and not a smear.
It can still be politically motivated, especially in how those facts are shared (‘sources saying’ when unsubstantiated, by useful 3rd parties, are now barely credible, vs. written statements by protagonists in the spotlight that are undoubted and in the public domain), and how often, vs. other stories perhaps handled with more circumspection for some reason.
I merely note that the BBC piece is littered with the words ‘allegations’ & ‘claims’.
So far, there is little more.
The Times (£) story quoted was Last updated at 10:00AM, February 25 2014, possibly written a day earlier?
The BBC (£ by unique means) has rushed to share this paper’s allegations 25 February 2014 Last updated at 08:29
One presumes the BBC lawyers were either consulted very quickly, proactive and/or came back with approval by return?
Making the difference in reaction by the BBC to accusations of impropriety with two political persons by two papers…. intriguingly different if legal matters are their driving concern.
BBC’s censorship of paedophilia scandal ‘reveals its left-wing bias’: Corporation accused of refusing to report story to protect the Labour party
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2567110/BBCs-censorship-paedophilia-scandal-reveals-left-wing-bias-Corporation-accused-refusing-report-story-protect-Labour-party.html
Clearly the Mail is right. There can be no other explanation for the BBC’s suppression of this story than the Corporation having decided to protect three senior Labour figures.
‘A BBC spokesman said: ‘BBC News is an impartial, independent news organisation and decides its editorial priorities based on merit alone and without external help.’
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Adding to the mounting confusion, its own journalists have provided contradictory excuses for why the story has been ignored.
While some claimed they were given ‘legal advice’ to drop it, an official spokesman insisted news bosses simply decided the story was ‘not new’.
Those ‘spokesmen’, eh? What are they like?