Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Friday links 25/9/09

Haven't done one of these for a while, but here you go anyway. Enjoy.

Sarah Ditum on Jeremy 'Dunce' Hunt's call for there to be more Tories employed by the BBC to counteract a supposed liberal bias. If only they could employ the former president of the Oxford University Conservative Association to be their political editor, for example; or a well-known right-wing pundit to lead their daily political coverage. Ah well, they'll just have to make do with the existing bunch of Trots!*

Bloggerheads: Patrick Mercer has some explaining to do. It appears the MP is attempting to weasel out of his association with the now thoroughly discredited Glen Jenvey by claiming that he personally didn't speak to him, it was only his aide. We'll see whether that's true or not. And here's an update, in case you were in any doubt as to Mercer's confusion.

Tory Troll: Richard Barnbrook suspended for murder claims. In which the BNP's very own sandy-suited nonsense-monger gets told to take a course in ethics and is reprimanded for making stuff up to suit his agenda - I hope that course in ethics doesn't require an exam to be passed, or he'll never get his job back.

It should also be noted that the Telegraph was happy to keep his lies up on its website for a considerable time after they were first called out as such. What a fine journalistic institution, letting the BNP tell lies to the public. Well done, Telegraph.

Upon Nothing: The Daily Mail and bullying. Middle Britain's favourite paper might occasionally fake concern over bullying victims, but is happy to make nasty repeated comments about Natalie Cassidy's weight and appearance, for no justifiable journalistic reason whatsoever.

Johann Hari: The Queen Mum (gawdblesser) was actually a right-wing parasite. Well I suppose we all knew that, but it's nice to see it all laid out, especially the hypocrisy with which she was treated:

[WF Deedes] was in favour of the dole after all – provided it was worth three million pounds, and went to one single aristocrat.

Septicisle: The Lib Dem conference has been pretty underwhelming.

Chicken Yoghurt: Relations with Libya are a bit funny. Funny in the sense that while he's painted as a figure of ridicule, he's having the last laugh over us.

Feminazery: Why the Daily Mail thinks feminism is an evil scourge, and why one person's anecdotal evidence doesn't discredit an entire movement.

Daily Quail: Let's have more bombs, says Stephen Glover. While even the mainstream right are happy to order cutbacks in nuclear weapons, it takes a special kind of tool to argue that disarmament is a bad thing. Glover is that tool.

* Footnote to Andrew Neil's BBC blog: underneath there's the message "This blog is open for people to comment about the subject of Andrew's blog - but we reserve the right to delete entries which are excessively long or off-topic." Then they should delete all of Brillo's, surely?

Friday links 21/8/09

Hello! There may be proper writing of things later but for the meantime, here are some things I've read and enjoyed.

Five Chinese Crackers - Columnists: Creators of imaginary worlds

What the tabloid columnist usually does is act as Greek Chorus for the paper they appear in. The tabloids set the scene with their constantly repeated stories, with exagerrated figures, distorted coverage of reports that aim to invert their meaning and opinion dressed as fact - that happen to fit the targeted narratives they've created. But these will often be flawed by the balance that must be inserted (and mostly is) with a quote toward the end, or the inclusion of actual figures that readers might spot aren't quite as scary as the paper wants them to believe they are. So here the columnist pipes up and shows the reader what their ideal reaction should be.

A beautiful, thoughtful post examining why Richard Littlejohn and Kelvin Mackenzie are such hateful cunts.

The Daily Quail: Readers supportive of model's compensation claim

Compares

This cyber bully was clearly a very jealous and vindictive woman and I'm glad that she was been found out. Too many people come onto internet forums spreading lies and hurtful gossip. It's about time people grew up and considered other peoples feelings, how would they feel if the tables were turned?

with

If she wants to work in banking, she should grow some thicker skin. It's hard work being a girl working in a man's world, but if you don't react to silly comments, then they get bored and give up.

See, it's only fair for certain people to be cyber bullies and not others, OK?

Greenpeace: Greenpeace admits BBC got it wrong

Sackur claimed that we were predicting that all the ice in the Arctic -- including the massive Greenland ice sheet, which is on land, would be gone by 2030. That's NOT what we said. When we talk about "ice-free summers" in the Arctic, we're using the term the same way that NASA and climate scientists the world over use the term: to describe an Arctic free of sea-ice. And Sackur, or his researcher, would have known that if they read the entire article, including the next sentence: They say you can't be too thin or too young, but this unfortunately doesn't apply to the Arctic sea ice.

How journalists don't check things, don't bother to check things, and how opponents of environmental groups make stuff up to try and claim victory. Also: how being absolutely accurate is important for environmental groups.

Stumbling and Mumbling: Against a high pay commission.

Septicisle: The latest on Glen Jenvey. Jenvey has now not only admitted planting the 'Sugar Terror Target' quotes but also now says he has converted to Islam.

Lady McScamp: There are no ulterior motives here, move along now, nothing to see...

Jack of Kent: Quentin Letts and a frozen haddock (no, it's not 'spot the difference')

Sarah Ditum: Capitalism in action with playground conkers

Army of Dave: James Dyson is a slacker

Freemania: Turning Japanese (following on from John Band's lyrics quiz)

Friday fun 31/7/09

I'm off in a bit, but you can have a look see at some of these, all right? It's a real bran tub today.

The Guardian have done a shoddy, as if to prove it's not just the Mail who blame 'editing errors' for things like saying someone's a rapist when they're not a rapist. Simon Jenkins, who as a former newspaper editor should surely have bloody well known better, accused Jacob Zuma of rape, bribery and corruption. Now his paper's had to say sorry. An 'editing error'? Really? I think they mean "We should have edited the libellous shit out, but we didn't".

Meanwhile, today's Graun looks at how disturbingly nutty qualifications are regarded as being as kosher. If you're taught that the Loch Ness monster not only exists but is a dinosaur, and that apartheid was actually a rather good thing, and you agree with that, then you can win a lovely qualification which is being taught at private schools in Britain. And a Government agency says that should be regarded as fair enough. I imagine if the far right had enough money to teach Holocaust denial, that would be OK too?

Septicisle looks at the right to die decision, which is a surprisingly liberal thing to happen under this Government but which is still skirting around the issue:

The terminally ill here that want to end their life shouldn't have to travel to Switzerland or anywhere else to do so; they should have the choice to do so in this country. The two things that are holding back a change in the law, which is still surely eventually inevitable, is that politicians are scared rigid of an issue which is both incredibly difficult and which there is no party political advantage to be gained from, quite possibly the opposite in fact.

Chicken Yoghurt: What they say about the Iraq Inquiry and what they mean.

Sarah Ditum on the 'Journalists are blacksmiths' meme. If we're looking at a profession to liken journalists to, I don't think it'd be blacksmiths. I'd go for an amalgam of graffiti artist, data entry clerk, call-centre worker and assembly-line drone, with a bit of Vivaldi thrown in.

No Sleep Til Brooklands on how the Mail takes credit for shit it doesn't have anything to do with:

I'd link you to the original Mail article, but in accordance with their Dicking Around With Our Stories After We've Published Them Because The Internet Is Like A Big Etch-A-Sketch policy, they've just inserted the 'embarrassing U-turn' bollocks into the story.

The Daily Quail: Outrage at people getting jobs:

The TaxPayers’ Alliance insta-quote machine seethed nonsensically: 'The public sector has failed to cut back in the recession...soft jobs like Social Workers or Home Carers would be indulgent even in good economic times, let alone in the current climate. When times are tough we have to make sure they are even tougher for the poor and the vulnerable.'

Cath Elliott on the difference between how the papers report murders:

Did you know for instance that on Friday last week (24th July) a woman in Ipswich was (allegedly) killed by her estranged husband in the stairwell of the block of flats where she lived? Does the name Malgorzarta Lipinska ring any bells with anyone?
I seriously doubt it. Because the only media that have picked up this story so far besides the BBC have been the local media, and even then, the BBC only started covering it in detail after the perpetrator topped himself in Norwich prison on Wednesday.

Chris Dillow on how inequality remains pretty constant, despite everything else:

what is striking is just how insensitive inequality is to either policy or to the economic “cycle.” Looking at this chart, you would struggle to identify either a change of government or any macroeconomic boom or recession

Army of Dave on the delights of Dale Arden from Flash Gordon. Ah, you're leaning against an open door with that one, though I'd probably say for me gawping at Kate Bush singing Babushka on Top of the Pops at the age of about 5 and thinking "I feel something rather strange about the nice lady and I don't know what it is" was what did for me.

Jack of Kent: Beware the Spinal Trap. Simon Singh's edited article about chiropractors is now everywhere, and deserves a reading.

A Very Public Sociologist on how the Tories don't understand blogs. I am surprised by the hostility towards blogging displayed by the Conservatives, who should know better, but clearly don't. But like the Tory hostility towards the likes of Esther Rantzen, who declared she'd stand as an independent MP, I think it's all anxiety about whether they'll stroll into a crushing election victory (despite getting nowhere near the majority of the popular vote, yet everyone somehow accepts that as being a massive mandate to rape the public sector and make thousands unemployed) or whether something will derail them. It's also a more familiar snobbery towards anyone who doesn't belong to their club, and in this Labour are often no better.

Uponnothing on the difference between Glenn Beck and Barack Obama, and how:

The Mail website isn't just home to British racists, it also holds great appeal to racists of other countries. The Mail online proudly lets commentators from across the globe write absolute rubbish which is welcomed onto the site by 'moderators' and voted up by other moronic readers. How else could you end up with Barack Obama being accused of 'hating whites' and Glenn Beck being labelled a 'libertarian'?

And finally Freemania has more of those pretty star pictures. I love them!

Friday links 24/7/09

The best thing I've read in ages is here, at Between The Hammer And The Anvil, which says that if blogs really are the future of our public discourse rather than journalism, then we're in for a pretty terrible time:

The form has its upside, allowing snarky, semi-literate smartarses like myself to put buckets on our heads and make like we're miniature Hunter Thompsons until the wife gets home and kicks off mental about the unwashed dishes. At its best, it's a knockabout club for sharp people with a talent for argument. At it's worst, it's a Comment Is Free pissfight about Israel-Palestine - about as edifying as a flock of half-spazzed, one-legged pigeons pecking each other to death over a pile of sick.

It's a truly wonderful rant:

Never mind blogs as a primary news source, I'm struggling to think of a handful of bloggers who would merit even the fabled fifteen minutes of fame. That's particularly ironic, since the vast majority of them certainly deserve chemical castration, and that's being charitable.
Iain Dale's running his annual Blog Awards wankathon as we speak - I defy any reader to deny that the world would be a richer, more rewarding and more just place if each of the top ten writers on his final list had been ripped to pieces by enraged mako sharks three seconds after they logged in to their first Blogger accounts.

In fact my only problem with it is, by being so bloody good, it's kind of self-defeating.

Jamie Sport reports on Richard Desmond's libel defeat:

Richard Desmond, philanthropist, pornographer, adherent of Godwin’s Law, and Great Architect of The Daily Express was jubilant last night after spending a jolly few weeks socking it to silly biographers in the High Court.
Desmond, once described as ‘an appalling man’ by Britain’s most appalling man, told his own newspaper: “It was worth it to stand up in court and set the record straight”, apparently unaware that he’d actually lost the case.

That's based on an abysmally bad story in the Express pretending that everything's all right and that his crushing defeat was actually a marvellous victory. I bet whichever poor hack had to cobble that crap together had to hold their nose while doing it. There's more on Dirty Des over at Paperhouse and Septicisle.

Justin has an excellent review of the latest Harry Potter film here.

There's a marvellous piece by Jon Stewart here which flays alive the idiots who've been talking about Barack Obama's birth certificate. Splendid journalism which rips apart the media's need to keep a crappy story kicking around, even when overwhelmed with evidence that blows it out of the water. Which kind of takes us back to the beginning, and Between The Hammer And The Anvil. Sure, blogs are quite often appallingly bad, but when the competition behaves just as badly, what do we expect? Who is it who's setting the bar so low?