tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post4160342457436886178..comments2024-02-06T16:17:25.826+00:00Comments on THE GRØNMARK BLOG: The BBC and the Gutter Press - not that different, reallyScott Gronmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-17619528399100695692011-12-09T19:42:06.709+00:002011-12-09T19:42:06.709+00:00Re the non-appearance of the Biometrics story - I ...Re the non-appearance of the Biometrics story - I guarantee that Susan Watts couldn't interest any Newsnight programme editors in doing it: the subject editors/correspondents have no control over what gets chosen and what doesn't, and science - apart from cloning and AGW and children's vaccinations doesn't interest them in the least. They can't even be bothered to properly report the waste of money on government IT projects. Too many English and Sociology graduates.<br /><br />As for Mason... I concede. I once had to work with Peter Jay when he was BBC Economics Editor, and he certainly had an academic background in the subject. And that was just as big a problem, because there was nobody to argue with him inside the Beeb: he just kept declaring that the earth was flat, and that was that. He was (like most of his BBC colleagues) forever stuck in the 1970s, and therefore wrong about absolutely everything. <br /><br />The problem is that, as Mason obviously wasn't chosen for his expertise in Economics - why did he get the job? Because he'd bveen involved with a few business mags (so what? his field is supposed to be Economics)? Or because he's a standard issue, chippy, gobby lefty with a regional accent and the usual set of prejudices? " Far more likely.Scott Gronmarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-41302300087885736752011-12-06T15:19:28.767+00:002011-12-06T15:19:28.767+00:00Paul Mason is Newsnight’s Economics Editor. He has...<i>Paul Mason is Newsnight’s Economics Editor. He has no academic or journalistic background in economics ...</i><br /><br />That is an issue. But then it's an issue for most Chancellors of the Exchequer as well.<br /><br />And it's not as though <a href="http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/10/whose-bust-is-it-anyway.html" rel="nofollow">the corps of academic economists</a> have done very well over the past few years.<br /><br />Jeremy Paxman has complained on occasion at how difficult it is to get Mr Mason to put a tie on. I think that's getting closer to the nub of the problem.<br /><br />Simon Jenkins (Greatest Living Welshman?) always makes the point that it's <i>politics</i> which is supreme, not economics. And he is, after all, Simon Jenkins, the Chairman of the National Trust – a title any politician would give his eye teeth for (or, more likely, our eye teeth).<br /><br />No, it's the cut of Mason's political jib which is the problem, not his academic background.David Mosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12345636878071983416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-87799290834837670062011-12-06T15:12:12.826+00:002011-12-06T15:12:12.826+00:00The problem with science stories on TV News is tha...<i>The problem with science stories on TV News is that 2'30" (sometimes less) simply isn't enough time to meaningfully explain their significance (if any)</i><br /><br />Jogged my memory.<br /><br />21 November 2007, 10:57, Susan Watts, Science Editor of <i>Newsnight</i> contacts me to talk about biometrics.<br /><br />I ring her and we talk about how <a href="http://dematerialisedid.com/Register/regBiometrics.pdf" rel="nofollow">flaky</a> the technology is and the way the public is being ripped off, to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds every year – the Home Office love biometrics and keep spending money on ePassports and (back then) ID cards and (still) biometric visas (see Brodie Clark) and <a href="http://www.dmossesq.com/2011/11/whitehall-on-trials.html" rel="nofollow">face recognition equipment at airports</a> and mobile fingerprinting equipment for policemen as a result.<br /><br />Stand by to appear on the programme, she says.<br /><br />In the event, nothing happens.<br /><br />I send an email every now and again in the ensuing years. Sorry, too busy on the UN conference on climate change, she says, 22 September 2009, 10:54. Otherwise she doesn't answer. No public interest, I suppose. Who's interested in the Home Office wasting our money? Not <i>Newsnight</i>, apparently.<br /><br />She'll do biometrics in the end ...David Mosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12345636878071983416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-12437478967133730292011-12-01T15:59:07.517+00:002011-12-01T15:59:07.517+00:00Talk about synchronicity, News Hound! I was watchi...Talk about synchronicity, News Hound! I was watching the BBC One O'Clock News today when the latest Stephen Lawrence murder re-trial item came on - and began shouting at the screen when they went in for a close-up of that jacket with that blood-stain on it. What i said was "This means nothing to me. Sort it out, then come back and tell me what's been decided!" <br /><br />Agreed about the victims of tragedies - also the use of the "real" person when discussing the impact of government policy on ordinary people - I never feel the need to heard Mrs. Ethel Quotts of Nuneaton telling me that losing £2.50 a week will mean she has to eat her children. It's a silly convention.<br /><br />The problem with science stories on TV News is that 2'30" (sometimes less) simply isn't enough time to meaningfully explain their significance (if any). It always comes across as news for simpletons. (Mind you, the newspapers are just as bad - it is now de rigeur to feature a statins story once a month, pro ant or neutral: how is that sort of approach meant to help???)<br /><br />It's been a long time since I worked in news, and I can't actually sit through a whole bulletin these days - none of the conventions appears to have changed since my day, except that there are more reporters doing live two-ways, waving, as you point out, their arms around as if they're signalling racing odds. To be fair, the graphics sequences are ever so slightly less silly than when I used to do them (my cheeks flame when I think of some of the nonsense I was responsible for!).<br /><br />War reporting seriously needs to be revisited - especially as it has become more and more dangerous, and sheds less and less light. The ridiculous thing about it is that when reporters are there on the ground, it's almost impossible to find out what the hell's going on around you.Scott Gronmarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-45866786976382336082011-12-01T09:02:45.409+00:002011-12-01T09:02:45.409+00:00An informative and interesting post. Thank you.
P...An informative and interesting post. Thank you.<br /><br />Putting the question of "nakedly biased reporting " to one side there is the question of the relentless "branding" of BBC TV News which I presume is part of the ratings war. Apart from the endless sequences of reporters walking along waving their arms about and trying to deliver lapidary statements and the fussy use of computer-generated visual aids to illustrate the simplest of points [is there a Presenter's Guide-Line manual to go with the Producer's?] which is irritating and gets in the way and slows everything to a crawl. There are three specific areas where TV News must clean up its act. Very briefly:<br /><br />1. Wars are there to be reported. They are not excuses for intrepid reporters to dress up in full battle kit and to be shot "going in harm's way" on camera. Leave the heroics to Ross Kemp. RIP Brian Barron.<br /><br />2. Tragedies. Sitting with victims' families in their living rooms holding the obligatory photograph and asking them questions in a creepy, funereal voice is bad taste and intrusive. Ditto endless shots of floral tributes "at the site" and their toe-curling messages ["Dwayne is sleeping with the angels."]. The greatest example of this was after the Beslan Massacre when a BBC reporter turned to camera and intoned: "The family has personally invited the BBC to attend the funeral of their four massacred daughters." Heh?<br /><br />3. No news programme is complete without some spurious science/medical story. NASA and that bloody Swiss collider provided wonderful fodder. And it also provides an excuse to shoot new footage of lab technicians peering at their test tubes before sticking them into a cauldron - again and again. Last night there a long sequence about Stephen Lawrence and a jacket and blood and saliva and a laboratory and ...It's meaningless to the ordinary Jo Blow. We don't want to know. Knock it on the head.<br /><br />Well, it will all be solved soon. The Olympics are upon us and Sue Barker and her little army of squeaky goodie-goodies must be vibrating like lemmings. Recession. What recession?News Houndnoreply@blogger.com