Recently, the BBC's flagship news show, Newsnight, was forced to replace its financial advice portion with a daily weather forecast, despite the opposition of the show staff. This is what transpired in the first four days of Jeremy Paxman, the show's anchor, providing the weather (transcribed by moi):
"Day 1: and now, on the theory that while some people are interested in markets, everyone is interested in the weather, here it is, the usual folksy nonsense about clouds bubbling up and advice about wearing wooly socks. Eastern parts will mainly avoid the rain, except for those that don't. Western areas will be cloudy with rain except in those places that don't have rain.
Day 2: and finally, by popular demand, the second Newsnight weather forecast. Take an umbrella with you tomorrow.
Day 3: We now take you directly to tomorrow's weather forecast. It's a veritable smorgasbord: sun, rain, thunder, hail, snow, and cold winds. Almost worth going to work.
Day 4: the forecast is ... it's April. What do you expect?"
The hilarity of this approach was brought to my attention by the excellent show Have I Got News For You, in which two duos of politically-knowledgeable comedians fight to get more points for making fun of the news. It may sound odd, but think about a 30-minute segment of SNL's Weekend Update if a) it was funny, b) it was British, c) it involved lots of pictures of Prince Charles and jokes about the pope's funeral, and d) was funny. I watched the same episode twice in two days when I was in Wales for the FA Cup Semifinal match (that's football/soccer for y'all) between Arsenal (my team) and Blackburn. Among the other things this show brought to my attention was that when David Letterman was a weather forecaster in Indiana, he once congratulated a tropical storm for being upgraded to a hurricane. Priceless.
-------
Also, while reading through the liberal paper The Guardian today, I came across numerous articles that served to highlight the sheer lack of objectivity that has destroyed the BBC's credibility in recent years. It turns out that, to help aid in the filming of a documentary on political protestors and hecklers, the BBC actually inserted protestors into Conservative rallies to cause scenes while being discretely filmed. It doesn't look like the BBC disrupted any other parties' rallies. The sad thing is, by this point the BBC isn't even trying to explain itself or apologize. I mean, I love the liberal media, but this kind of paper-thin journalism is the bane of serious journalism. Creating the news is obviously something the media can't avoid, because by deciding to report on something, the media is raising its profile. But it is easy, as someone with a journalistic background, to condemn active attempts to create events in which to portray news, even if it is in documentary format. Michael Moore may be able to get away with that, but when the BBC tries to sell itself as an honest source for news and investigation, sensationalization of this sort rubs me the wrong way.
Thus, this allows me to finally offer props to Willamette Week in Portland, where I interned two summers ago. It picked up a Pulitzer Prize this year for uncovering former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's 1980s affair with a 14 yr-old girl, an affair that the major state paper, the Oregonian, had chosen to ignore over the years despite being offered information several times. Integrity in journalism means not bowing to popular pressure in cases of wrongdoing (trite, but effective).
-----------
Finally, just to float an idea: if we are becoming disgruntled with our inability to affect war-making decisions, especially if said decisions are costing us hundreds of billions of our tax dollars, how does the idea sound of requiring a national referendum to be taken within one year of the initiation of any large-scale military conflict, which blocks the government from spending more than X billion dollars before receiving funding permission? If people vote on war funding like they vote on taxes, there will be fewer invasions and more multilateral efforts simply by economic necessity. I like the idea on first thought, and may develop it in the future.
-----------
Which one is truer? Or do they both work, but in different disciplines? :
Sherlock Holmes, Hounds of the Baskervilles: "It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has all the facts. Inevitably one twists the facts to fit the theory, rather than the theory to fit the facts."
Einstein: "If the facts dont fit the theory, change the facts."
"Day 1: and now, on the theory that while some people are interested in markets, everyone is interested in the weather, here it is, the usual folksy nonsense about clouds bubbling up and advice about wearing wooly socks. Eastern parts will mainly avoid the rain, except for those that don't. Western areas will be cloudy with rain except in those places that don't have rain.
Day 2: and finally, by popular demand, the second Newsnight weather forecast. Take an umbrella with you tomorrow.
Day 3: We now take you directly to tomorrow's weather forecast. It's a veritable smorgasbord: sun, rain, thunder, hail, snow, and cold winds. Almost worth going to work.
Day 4: the forecast is ... it's April. What do you expect?"
The hilarity of this approach was brought to my attention by the excellent show Have I Got News For You, in which two duos of politically-knowledgeable comedians fight to get more points for making fun of the news. It may sound odd, but think about a 30-minute segment of SNL's Weekend Update if a) it was funny, b) it was British, c) it involved lots of pictures of Prince Charles and jokes about the pope's funeral, and d) was funny. I watched the same episode twice in two days when I was in Wales for the FA Cup Semifinal match (that's football/soccer for y'all) between Arsenal (my team) and Blackburn. Among the other things this show brought to my attention was that when David Letterman was a weather forecaster in Indiana, he once congratulated a tropical storm for being upgraded to a hurricane. Priceless.
-------
Also, while reading through the liberal paper The Guardian today, I came across numerous articles that served to highlight the sheer lack of objectivity that has destroyed the BBC's credibility in recent years. It turns out that, to help aid in the filming of a documentary on political protestors and hecklers, the BBC actually inserted protestors into Conservative rallies to cause scenes while being discretely filmed. It doesn't look like the BBC disrupted any other parties' rallies. The sad thing is, by this point the BBC isn't even trying to explain itself or apologize. I mean, I love the liberal media, but this kind of paper-thin journalism is the bane of serious journalism. Creating the news is obviously something the media can't avoid, because by deciding to report on something, the media is raising its profile. But it is easy, as someone with a journalistic background, to condemn active attempts to create events in which to portray news, even if it is in documentary format. Michael Moore may be able to get away with that, but when the BBC tries to sell itself as an honest source for news and investigation, sensationalization of this sort rubs me the wrong way.
Thus, this allows me to finally offer props to Willamette Week in Portland, where I interned two summers ago. It picked up a Pulitzer Prize this year for uncovering former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's 1980s affair with a 14 yr-old girl, an affair that the major state paper, the Oregonian, had chosen to ignore over the years despite being offered information several times. Integrity in journalism means not bowing to popular pressure in cases of wrongdoing (trite, but effective).
-----------
Finally, just to float an idea: if we are becoming disgruntled with our inability to affect war-making decisions, especially if said decisions are costing us hundreds of billions of our tax dollars, how does the idea sound of requiring a national referendum to be taken within one year of the initiation of any large-scale military conflict, which blocks the government from spending more than X billion dollars before receiving funding permission? If people vote on war funding like they vote on taxes, there will be fewer invasions and more multilateral efforts simply by economic necessity. I like the idea on first thought, and may develop it in the future.
-----------
Which one is truer? Or do they both work, but in different disciplines? :
Sherlock Holmes, Hounds of the Baskervilles: "It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has all the facts. Inevitably one twists the facts to fit the theory, rather than the theory to fit the facts."
Einstein: "If the facts dont fit the theory, change the facts."
posted by The Oracles @ 12:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home