It may have happened fifteen years later than it needed to, but at the annual MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, BBC Director General Mark Thompson – and, presumably, his colleagues in the corporation have finally woken up to the real threat that the corporation faces: the downward pressure that is being placed [...]
Posts under ‘The media’
The value of a free press
Two stories – both from Roy Greenslade in recent days – that give cause to ponder the responsibility that the media bear. The first one is the old chestnut about the big lie splashed over the early pages followed by the retraction hidden under the Darts results. Given the fuss earlier this year around academics [...]
Moonbattery
George Monbiot is here writing about the Tea Party movement in the US. He argues that the European left could learn a thing or two from the US right. It’s an odd article. It contains this sentence…. “They have been promoted by Fox News – owned by that champion of the underdog Rupert Murdoch – [...]
Elections bring the best out in bloggers
I’ve tried to boil down the killer argument in the whole ‘blogger v journalist’ debate, and it runs something like this: Take the best article you’ve read in a newspaper recently. The one that was well-written and argued and the one that met a particular need that you have personally. You can be almost certain [...]
Straight answers and the Prisoner’s Dilemma
… or ‘we get the politicians we deserve, pt1′: Via Mick, this is worth a look over at the Daily Mail for people who recycle The Independent. “Academics …. found that “not giving straight answers to questions” scored an average of 8.45 when people were asked how much of a problem it was on a scale [...]
‘The ratio of substance to horse-race reporting remains low…’
Here’s Peter Levine on the way that the healthcare debate has been reported by the press in the US: “…the news media spent a year feeding American citizens a steady diet of stories about Congressional procedure, the possible impact of health-care reform on elections, and quotes that falsely described the bill or denounced its critics. [...]
Buzzing the broadsheets
This blog, titled as it is as Local Democracy but spending a fair portion of it’s commentary on social media technology, rests on the premise that local democracy will be profoundly affected by tech-driven changes in the way that the media works, and the way that people can associate with each other. It will change [...]
How bloggers can help people understand public service
One of the advances that the long tail of the blogosphere has brought us is that some social work gets reported properly. Not the way that newspapers often report them, in their need for sensationalism. And, of course, they do it all for nothing. Take Random Acts of Reality, for instance. The latest post is [...]
Liveblogging council meetings
That’s what the Manchester Evening News are proposing to do. They’re using CoverItLive. Here’s their coverage of Trafford Council meeting on the 2nd December. Now I’ve used CoverItLive a few times and its settings (if I recall correctly) can and usually do pick up anyone’s tweets. How long before Councillors cop on to this? And [...]
Minarets, trade offs and direct democracy
The recent outcome of a Swiss referendum in which a majority have voted in favour of a minaret ban has helped to highlight a few important issue around the question of direct democracy. Dan Hannan says that – while direct democracy is a great idea, this particular result is regrettable. Make of that what you [...]
