25 May 11, 10:05 PM
Incitatus
UK, 12 mths
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Ishmael wrote:
Essex_Slave wrote:
The media is responsible for the decline in society
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Parts of it certainly haven't helped - the tone of the tabloid press is a perpetual whine that everyone else has it better than we do, that immigrants are sponging off us, that the streets at infested with killers and rapists, that every worker wanting a living wage is a commie anarchist, and that the great and the good (ie royals, singers and footballers) all live in ivory towers of perfection, and that if they put a foot wrong the moral guardians of Wapping will ruin their lives for the entertainment of the masses.
It really is a very long way from the values of hard work, decency and fair play that were, at one time, seen as really rather admirable, providing one maintained one's sense of humour - in all probability, a time that never really existed.
Then again, there are so many ideas that were promulgated by the Thatcher government and have never really been refuted, like there being no such thing as society (while there quite obviously still is), and that greed is good (while it is quite palpably anything but), that everyone is - and should be - out for anything he or she can get as cheaply and as easily as possible, and that kindness, compassion, honesty, tolerance - the stuff that used to be thought of as 'goodness' - are really rather laughable, and generally embodied in people like Dot Cotton, where thay can be easily dismissed as inferior to the far sexier attributes of anger, agression, avarice, and prejudiced hatred.
And, while the kids once kicked each other's heads in over musical taste and fashion they now shoot each other dead over phones and postcodes, and the price of a life in Hackney is apparently just £200 (though that'll come down in January).
And, while we once had televison drama to be really proud of - like I, Claudious and Elizabeth R - we now have pointlessly stupid reality TV and inane shit about buying and doing up the house and boring rubbish about cooking conducted by presenters that seem to be devolving back to the level of pond life, and they've had to move Sherlock Holmes into modern times just so the really stupid won't find a period setting too difficult to understand. (The 70s might have looked stupid, but we never tried to tell each other that moronic idiocy was actually better than clever because more people could buy it). And they've ruined Dr Who.
No, we can't blame it all on the media, but they've pitched in very happily, in may cases doing their damnedest to make a bad situation worse.
At least we now have a society that is kinder to Gay people - and I am pleased that I can write that without the Sun Reader whine that I'm hard done to being het, white, male English and educated.
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I like this.
And I'm some weird combination of honoured and proud, to quote it in my first post to IC.
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26 May 11, 1:48 AM
AnEnglishMaster
UK(ME), 5 yrs
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Ishmael wrote:
Then again, there are so many ideas that were promulgated by the Thatcher government and have never really been refuted, like there being no such thing as society (while there quite obviously still is), and that greed is good (while it is quite palpably anything but), that everyone is - and should be - out for anything he or she can get as cheaply and as easily as possible, and that kindness, compassion, honesty, tolerance - the stuff that used to be thought of as 'goodness' - are really rather laughable |
Just to be clear - I never voted for Maggie. However, this is a particular bete noire of mine, and it is particularly apposite that it appears on a thread about distortion.
What Mrs Thatcher was doing when she said "there is no such thing as society" is exactly the opposite of how her words are portrayed.
She was pointing out that, too often, we rely on some faceless concept of "society" to shoulder the burden of those who need help. As it is often put.... "they" should do something. She was preaching the exact opposite of that. Rather than rely on "them" to do something when someone is in need, let us all take on board our responsibility that WE should do something to help.
In other words, she was highlighting the need for INDIVIDUALS to show compassion, kindness, and goodness - the virtues you (rightly) praise, rather than expecting that government, social services, councils - the "them" of our thinking - to do it for us. She wanted each of us to recognise that we all have a responsibility for each other.
It IS a distortion to claim that Mrs T was advocating "every man for himself" when she was actually encouraging the exact OPPOSITE. That we ALL need to think of others, and not just rely on "officialdom" to do our compassion for us.
English "It may be that your sole purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others" - Anon
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26 May 11, 4:52 AM
roblxxx
UK(PO), 17 mths
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Good_Pony wrote:
We're all entitled to our opinions
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Really? A bloke got arrested in Bournemouth a couple of yers ago when Tony Blair was Prime Minister. His crime? He wore a T-shirt on which was emblazoned the legend
Tony B-Liar
I'm a bad, bad boy, and I'm going to steal your love.
b-b-b-b-bad to the bone!
I make a rich woman beg, and a poor woman steal,
An old woman blush, and a young girl squeal!
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26 May 11, 5:18 AM
roblxxx
UK(PO), 17 mths
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Ishmael wrote:
And, while the kids once kicked each other's heads in over musical taste and fashion they now shoot each other dead over phones and postcodes, and the price of a life in Hackney is apparently just £200 (though that'll come down in January).
{/quote]
Most kids on the Naval Estate where I lived in Gosport in the 70s carried knives - and used them. It just didn't get reported as it does now. That estate, BTW, was voted as the worst in Britain a couple of years ago, so things haven't changed.
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And, while we once had televison drama to be really proud of - like I, Claudious and Elizabeth R - we now have pointlessly stupid reality TV and inane shit about buying and doing up the house and boring rubbish about cooking conducted by presenters that seem to be devolving back to the level of pond life, and they've had to move Sherlock Holmes into modern times just so the really stupid won't find a period setting too difficult to understand. |
The 70s was when they re-wrote the Bible (twice) becasue the language of the King James Authorised Version was considered too hard for people to understand. I also recall watching the NUT conference being televised with a representative telling Conference that children should be taught English Grammar at school because it would "ruin their creativity".
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(The 70s might have looked stupid, but we never tried to tell each other that moronic idiocy was actually better than clever because more people could buy it). |
No, we just decided to get rid of Grammar Schools, beaause they gave working class kids a chance of a good education. The Labour Partys preference is that NO kids should be given a good education unless their parents can afford it (like Tony and Cheryl Blairs could, for example).
A kid on a quiz show in the 80s, asked what tree produced acorns replied "an acorn tree" and was applauded for his effort not derided for his ignorance.
| And they've ruined Dr Who.{/quote]
I have not watched it since the script writer who announced that Primeval was a terrible program, not because the story lines and dialog were crap but because it didn't have many black actors, in it took over the writing.
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No, we can't blame it all on the media, but they've pitched in very happily, in may cases doing their damnedest to make a bad situation worse.
At least we now have a society that is kinder to Gay people
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...and gives gays more rights than Straights or Christians? Whatever happened to Equality?
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- and I am pleased that I can write that without the Sun Reader whine that I'm hard done to being het, white, male English and educated.
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Then you have Harriet Harman announcing that white, Working Class men should be 3rd in line when it comes to jobs, and wondering why, as a result, they voted for the BNP or the Conservatives. After all, how could they possibly take offence at being told that non-whites and women should get the jobs ahead of them regardless of suitability for the role?
It's not the press that created that situation, though, but the BBC only place job adverts in the Guardian. When challenged on this they replied "Because that's the paper the people we want to employ read". So you won's see job adverts for the BBC in the Telegraph because people who read the Telegraph have slightly Right Wing views and the BBC only employs people who can prove their left Wing credentials. |
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I'm a bad, bad boy, and I'm going to steal your love.
b-b-b-b-bad to the bone!
I make a rich woman beg, and a poor woman steal,
An old woman blush, and a young girl squeal!
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26 May 11, 6:36 AM
Mature_subbie
18 mths
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Beauxxxx wrote:
Jane_Fae wrote:
BBC recruiting
So. Are you someone who has had bad experiences with the press? Have you been exposed or otherwise hung out to dry by them?
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Ask Ryan Giggs, ask Imogen Thomas, ask Brooke Magnanti, ask Max Mosley, ask a close friend of mine who was outed for no reason other than it was a quiet news day.
Ask anyone who has had their private life splashed across the media to make lots of money for media moguls with no concern for the victims of this abuse.
Ask the "journalists" who write this crap and bleat about freedom of the press but never about the responsibility of the press.
Ask yourself.
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You say "ask Imogen Thomas". In fact Giggs' super injunction was intended to stop Imogen Thomas selling her story. She should not be included as a victim here, she was trying to make money from her relationship with him.
I am not a defender of the written press but to be fair they observed Giggs' privacy and honoured the super injunction and therefore his privacy up to the point the Libdem MP John Hemming used (abused?) parliamentary privelege to name him. The exception was in Scotland where the injunction has no force.
What is different now from the good old days is the internet. It gives us, the public, the opportunity to express ourselves freely and in considerable numbers. Before Hemming named Giggs, a quick google search that included "Giggs and Thomas" resulted in a zillion hits confirming that he and his lawyers were behind the injunction.
Throughout his career, Giggs has been portrayed as a role model, the perfect one club professional. Knowing what we now do, wasn't it just a little sickening to see him parading around Old Trafford with his family after winning the title on Sunday? Sometimes, it is important to know this stuff, to give some balance to the image of our heroes and role models.
Edited 26 May 11, 6:38 AM by Mature_subbie
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26 May 11, 6:51 AM
Ariane
8 yrs |
I've often wondered why the press can't use actual quotes. I do interviews and not once has an article come out without some phrase the journalist made up and attributed to me. At least the most recent one let me give feedback before publication so I had a chance to object to some of it. |
26 May 11, 7:37 AM
waggle
UK(B), 6 yrs
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Random_Dave wrote:
All_of_Me wrote:
SubWhisperer wrote:
SirOpenSource wrote:
Ask my chunk of Wenslydale. It had it's life ruined by a salacious sex-scandal article.
For gods sake isn't even cheese allowed privacy without a superinjunction?
SOS
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Ermmmm - yeah - sorry about that - (it was for the greater good)
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Surely you mean the grater good? 
I'll get me coat......
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Grating Wensleydale....  you've just outed yourself as a Sick Pervert!
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What about shaving parmesan is that acceptable?When there's no more room in hell, the waggle will walk the earth.
Edited 26 May 11, 7:39 AM by waggle
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26 May 11, 9:25 AM
Jane_Fae
UK(W), 3 yrs |
Ariane wrote:
I've often wondered why the press can't use actual quotes. I do interviews and not once has an article come out without some phrase the journalist made up and attributed to me. At least the most recent one let me give feedback before publication so I had a chance to object to some of it.
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because they don't do shorthand any more?
i was interviewed recently by an old school journo with 100 wpm shorthand and he took down pretty much every word i spoke as was.
When i interview people over the phone, i tend to type in their words as they speak, cause i probably average 80-90 wpm on the keyboard.
Afterward, though, i tend to extract the quote i want and give it to them as "readback": gives them the chance to say "i didn't say that". But mostly i'm doing features and have the joy of long-ish deadlines (two days plus).
If you're charged with doing a story in half an hour and you do the interview and even do the readback but the person on the other end can't be bothered getting back...what do you do?
The readback is not a requirement - its a courtesy.
And i also know that some organisations, often government ones - try to spike stories just by being hard to get back.
So you're left with the option of not quoting what might be an important point of view and trusting you wrote it down right frst time, not including that point of view at all, or somewhere in between.
In that instance, most journos will use what they wrote down and, espesh online, offer a chance for a rectification.
But...you say that others don't get what you say right: do you record what you said?
I am regularly surprised/horrified by the way in which some people express themselves, often in ways that do their own cause no favours whatsoever. A comment may SOUND clever when it is first made...but on the page it looks awful.
jane
xx Personal: http://janefae.wordpress.com
Political: http://sexualitymatters.wordpress.com
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26 May 11, 9:33 AM
x_Pan_x
UK(E), 8 yrs
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Mature_subbie wrote:
Beauxxxx wrote:
Jane_Fae wrote:
BBC recruiting
So. Are you someone who has had bad experiences with the press? Have you been exposed or otherwise hung out to dry by them?
|
Ask Ryan Giggs, ask Imogen Thomas, ask Brooke Magnanti, ask Max Mosley, ask a close friend of mine who was outed for no reason other than it was a quiet news day.
Ask anyone who has had their private life splashed across the media to make lots of money for media moguls with no concern for the victims of this abuse.
Ask the "journalists" who write this crap and bleat about freedom of the press but never about the responsibility of the press.
Ask yourself.
|
You say "ask Imogen Thomas". In fact Giggs' super injunction was intended to stop Imogen Thomas selling her story. She should not be included as a victim here, she was trying to make money from her relationship with him.
I am not a defender of the written press but to be fair they observed Giggs' privacy and honoured the super injunction and therefore his privacy up to the point the Libdem MP John Hemming used (abused?) parliamentary privelege to name him. The exception was in Scotland where the injunction has no force.
What is different now from the good old days is the internet. It gives us, the public, the opportunity to express ourselves freely and in considerable numbers. Before Hemming named Giggs, a quick google search that included "Giggs and Thomas" resulted in a zillion hits confirming that he and his lawyers were behind the injunction.
Throughout his career, Giggs has been portrayed as a role model, the perfect one club professional. Knowing what we now do, wasn't it just a little sickening to see him parading around Old Trafford with his family after winning the title on Sunday? Sometimes, it is important to know this stuff, to give some balance to the image of our heroes and role models.
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Just for clarity. Giggs had not obtained a "Super Injunction."
Just remember, when you think you're free, that crack inside your fucking heart is me.
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26 May 11, 11:31 AM
SubWhisperer
UK, 5 yrs
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Most journos use tape machines - easier and accurate - and has proof of interview content if questioned
These machines were invented decades ago ....... "because they don't do shorthand" is a pretty lame excuse
Next it will be "the pencil broke" ....... "my dog ate my notes" etc
Ever wondered who the devil comes to for ideas ?
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