Teaching journalism postgrads at Napier Uni about blogging. No blog = no job.
Off to a debate about the fate of the Scottish media at the Scottish Arts Club.
Am chuffed and intimidated that Sir Roy of Greenslade has picked up a post from my blog!
Just watched Vadim Gluzman perform girning wonders on Sibelius’s violin concerto.
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="225" caption="The West Wing title screen"]
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“Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that’s coming with us to the White House.”
Isn’t that a wonderful way to change the world? When I heard that I was greeting almost as much as Jesse Jackson.
Mind you, I was less impressed with the whole “yes, we can” business. You’d have thought Obama could have found better source material than Bob the Builder.
And, of course, like Bill Clinton Tony “Yo, Blair” Blair, Obama will disappoint. Though hopefully he won’t squander the excitement and expectation as much as they did. Setting aside the historic nature of Obama’s victory, it’s great to see a sensible, intelligent, rational person in the White House. It’s like the West Wing coming true.
But it’s like the West Wing in a more irritating way. The mood music is that Obama will be run a “big tent” administration, striving for consensus, building bridges with the Republicans.
Why do progressives feel the need to do this? Blair came out with this stuff as well and missed a once-in-a-lifetime to radically improve Britain. The Right never feels to be nice or gracious in victories. No, they destroy industries, impose poll taxes and start wars over personal grudges. And in the US, they appoint supreme court judges who are able to help out with any chad-related problems.
After Bush, after Palin, the American Right deserves to have its face rubbed in defeat and its hopes trampled mercilessly. Obama should appoint Scoop, Muck and Dizzy to his cabinet before he even thinks of inviting any Republicans.
The whole media world is diminished by the row over Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross and Andrew Sachs. I don’t mean the whole “offensive or funny” stramash but the disgraceful absence of ”who is man with beard” jokes.
Come on, people. We have Manuel. We have a man with beard. This is basic stuff.
Further, the transcripts are useless as the “offensive” elements are starred out. We are told that Ross shouted to Sachs’s answerphone: “He ****** your granddaughter!” or, if the media outlet’s being daring: “f*****”.
But if we’re going to get properly outraged we need to know what the overpaid choob actually said because that affects how serious the whole row is. Was it “shagged”? Because that’s no biggie. With the “f*****” version we know it was probably “fucked”? But maybe it was “fisted” or even “felched” both of which bring different layers of seriousness to the party.
God bless the Grauniad that at least dared tell its readers what they should be offended about. And I’d bless the Beeb for doing the same but I know they’ll hang a functionary out to dry and give the alleged stars the mildest of slaps on the wrist.
Just spent ages trying to get a panel of my picks from Amazon to appear on the blog. No matter what I did, nothing would appear. Wracked my brains for ages and then remembered: I browse with an ad blocker.
Duh!
So if you don’t browse with an ad blocker and are interested in some journo reading, here y’are:
I have just read Arthur MacMillan’s excellent autopsy of the corpse of Scottish newspapers in the British Journalism Review. It is a forensic examination of what’s gone wrong and why there is no hope. And it rightly fingers the muppets and Johnston Press and Gannet who have brought what we laughingly call Scotland’s quality papers to their knees.
However, the article falls into the trap of by implication exonerating Andrew Neil, who is as responsible for the demise of the Hootsmon as the overpromoted local newspaper crowd. While JP has had a massively detrimental effect on the paper and the website, Neil cannot escape blame. Here’s why:
Click to continue reading “Death of Scottish journalism: we name the guilty men”
Ah, what a tangled web we we weave when we practise to write silly season stories about things we know little about.
A key danger of being a journalist is writing about a topic when sections of your audience know far more about it than you. This danger is multiplied when you’re flamming up a total non-story.
Sun and Mail hackette Julie Moult knows all about this after scribbling up some desperate nonsense about a photoshopped image of a politician. (Incidentally, the paper used the image without permission despite repeated request by the creator to stop lifting his work). She made several basic errors in the piece – such as describing what had happened as Googlebombing. (My favourite is the fact-box that says the practice of Googlebombing began in the “early 1990s” – a good trick as the Google.com domain was not registered until 1997.)
Click to continue reading “The ‘Julie Moult is an idiot’ campaign: a modern journalistic fable”
Apparently Gordon Brown thinks he’s Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. The similarities are obvious : Byronic anti-hero driven wild by untamed passion and uncharismatic, prudence-obsessed bureaucat with a penchant for dropping his jaw open like a broken glove box.
Of course, he doesn’t say he is really like Heathcliff. No, even when it comes to literary characters Brown dithers. “Maybe an older Heathcliff, a wiser Heathcliff.”
An older, wiser Heathcliff. Wiser? Has Brown actually read the book? It is precisely because he lacks wisdom that Heathcliff is Heathcliff. A wiser Heathcliff makes as much sense as a more metrosexual James Bond, a more trustworthy Iago or a more laconic Stephen Dedalus.
But maybe Brown is truly like Heathcliff in one way. Perhaps we have misjudged him. Perhaps he is enacting a dark vengeance , the culmination of years of savage plotting after being spurned. Sadly for Labour, it was the party itself that spurned him by keeping out of the top job for so long. Now, he is exacting his revenge, wrecking its chances utterly.
I don’t know who’s tapping at the window but, sadly for Britain, David Cameron is hammering on the door. Given that Picture Of Dorian Thatcher scenario, you can’t blame Brown for retreating into fiction.
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