Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

How to spot bollocks journalism

Inspired by my earlier link to a piece in New Scientist describing the tell-tale signs of a religious agenda, here's a quick guide on the words and phrases that indicate complete bollocks journalism as well as a hidden agenda.

CONTROVERSIAL - Is sprinkled in by shit journalists to give the impression that a person/thing/event has already been judged negatively. This ensures that your readers, whom you hold in complete contempt for being thickies, need to be told who are the goodies and who are the baddies. A simple word like "controversial" lets them know what side they're supposed to be taking.

CRITICS - We think X, but we can't say X, so we'll just say that 'critics' have said X. Such 'critics' never pop up on other stories, you'll notice, e.g. you don't often get "But critics of the Government said that rendering people to other countries and torturing them was a bad thing" or "But critics disagreed with rich people not being taxed very much" or "But critics last night were furious with the Government for pandering to the far right..." - no, these 'critics' only come out with views of a particular kind.

FEARS - We think X, but rather than say we think X, we'll pretend that Mr Y 'fears' X. "Yesterday's move sparked fears that the Government would set fire to children's cots and pour petrol down the throats of little babbies as they slept" - who's doing the fearing though? Is there anyone who actually fears this or is it just a load of shit to tell you which way to think on this?

FURY - As we've seen before on many occasions, 'fury' can come from nowhere, but it gets invoked when those thicko dumb bastard readers need a helping hand to let them know they need to get really, really angry and foam-flecked about something, rather than simply jiggling with silent rage. More often than not there's no fury at all, even if there has been a negative response; the 'fury' comes from the reliable rentaquote Astroturf numpties rather than anyone looking at the story from on objective and measured stance.

SPARKED - Incendiary device to tell you that some mooted decision somewhere was going to create an explosion of rage/fury/fear. What it really means is "We rang up someone who got a bit pissed off about this" or even "We couldn't even find someone to get pissed off about this, so we'll just say that it sparked fury, even though it didn't, except with us, and we're the ones who count, all right?"

TAXPAYERS' CASH - As opposed to all those saved-up 50ps from down the back of the sofa that the Government's squirreled away in a jamjar. How dare the Government spend tax money rather than having a whipround! To imply that hardworking families are having their hardearned nuggets plonked straight in the pockets of asylum seekers, gypsies, black people, the poor, the 'feckless' etc.

A lot of these are to be found in this stinking pan of balls in the Express, regarding the James Purnell business. To summarise:

LABOUR sparked fury last night by suggesting that ethnic minorities and other “at-risk” groups may get extra Government aid to help them through the recession.

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell indicated that hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash could be poured into finding jobs for women, the disabled and members of non-white communities.

But his remarks sparked fears that Labour will discriminate against white men.

To make it clear, no-one has said that Labour will discriminate against white men. No-one. The Express hasn't found anyone to say that, not even from the wingnuts they usually phone up. But that doesn't matter. It's 'sparked fears' of this, therefore it's sparked fears. Except it hasn't. There are no such fears, except in the Express newsroom.

And the use of 'non-white' is shabby in the extreme. Did Purnell use the phrase 'non-white' - really? Who would use that phrase, except a racist? The terminology is more than just a dog-whistle; we all know what this kind of language means and who it's intended to impress.

Critics pointed out that middle-class employees have been hardest hit by redundancies in the economic downturn.

Hooray! Here come the critics! Who said this? I'm not denying that this may indeed be a fact, as I have a vague memory of having read something saying this a while ago, but I don't see any evidence in the story. And let's not forget, shall we, that black people and disabled people are just as capable of being 'middle-class' as white able-bodied folk? The attempt is to link it all together in a NuLab discrimination against white men, as they've pretended earlier.

And...

The minister announced that the Government will work closely with the Equality and Human Rights Commission – led by Trevor Phillips – to “assess whether any groups are suffering disproportionately in the recession.”

Mr Purnell added: “My department and the Equality and Human Rights Commission will assess the impact of unemployment on ethnic minorities, women, the disabled, older workers and other groups.

“When we identify particular problems we will know we need to adapt our policies to make sure that no one is left behind this time.”

What Purnell is saying is that it will be looked into to see whether certain groups are suffering disproportionately, as they have done in the past; and then if - and only if - this is the case, then funds can be allocated. Makes sense, no? The Express's take is that these groups will get extra funding, regardless of whether or not they deserve it. But that's palpably false. And they know it's false. They've just decided to say it as if it's true.

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