Monthly Archives: July 2006

Daily Express: no news is front page news

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The Daily Express has fallen on hard times.

For 30 years, it’s been under the shadow of its great rival, the Daily Mail. Under David English, the Mail brilliantly reinvented itself. By contrast, Beaverbrook’s flagship has slipped further and further behind.

Today’s front page lead story showed graphically the decline in the Express’s journalistic standards. It claimed house prices are set to soar for a decade. This bold claim was based on a desperately thin quote from a firm of estate agents – who are hardly likely to warn of an impending housing market crash. The logic seemed to go no further than: people need houses, nothing can stop the boom. The Express didn’t bother to provide analysis or statistics to back its claims.

The only thing to say in favour of this story is that it’s not about Princess Diana. The Express runs a Diana conspiracy story once a week.

What’s in a name?

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The tragic artwork accident in County Durham prompted the BBC to tell us how to pronounce Chester-le-Street. As ever when French words become English – and British – place names, the original pronunciation goes out of the window.

It reminds me of my university days in Leicester. I soon learned to say Beecham (as in the composer and medicine) rather than Beauchamp. Closer to home in Wales, I knew that Rogiet (just outside Chepstow) would fool me – the locals called it Roggit….

Mind, we don’t just mangle names with French origins. One of my student digs was in Beaconsfield Road, Leicester. We said it as it was spelt. Now I live in Buckinghamshire, I’ve learned to call it Becconsfield, to blend in with the locals….   

Shh! Library closing…

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Our local library is under sentence of death.

Chalfont St Giles – the village in which John Milton wrote Paradise Lost – could soon be a book-lover’s desert. Buckinghamshire County Council is pulling out. (Villagers and the parish council hope to save the day.)

We should all be ashamed. Libraries are the lifeblood of a civlised society. They spur curiosity about our world. True, the internet brings the world’s biggest library into our homes. But the power of the printed word is still supreme. I remember the joy as a child of browsing the shelves of the old Cardiff central library, knowing that I could sup from that treasure trove of books for a fortnight.

Then it all changed. I took greater pleasure in owning rather than borrowing books. I still enjoy reading – but I’ve lost the breadth of reading that a good library allows. I hope Chalfont St Giles library survives. I’d like to help keep it going. But what a tragedy that local and central government has done so little to celebrate and promote the glory of our public libraries. It’s madness that we squander so much attention on junk culture while our libraries wither away.

Newsnight: they’re watching us

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The online revolution has transformed the relationship between the media and their consumers.

We’re no longer passive readers, viewers and listeners. Media organiations are embracing interactivity. Media blogs are increasingly widely read and we have the chance to comment. The Guardian’s readers’ editor Ian Mayes has regularly written about how that paper has been influenced by reader’s emails and comments.

In a thoughtful post on the BBC News editors’ blog, Newsnight’s deputy editor Daniel Pearl reveals that he keeps a close eye on what bloggers are saying about the programme and him. Pearl goes on to say he find it strange that some bloggers have taken exception to his commenting on posts about Newsnight. Some think Pearl’s interest feels like big brother tactics; others regard their blogs as their own private space, shared only with their friends.

We bloggers should be delighted to find the Newsnight team taking an interest in our views. For years, we’ve complained that the media are self-obsessed and inward-looking. It’s a sign of progress that blogging is making an impact. But Pearl’s comments remind us of an obvious truth: a blog is open to the world to read and comment upon. The importance of this is easily overlooked, given the ease with which we can post our thoughts – however incendiary, obscene or libellous – in seconds.

I’ve no idea if Daniel Pearl will get to read this post. But if we take blogging seriously, we need to embrace comment. I remember the first serious reaction I got: from Councillor Bob Piper. Bob took exception to my comments in a post about Labour’s 1983 election manifesto. It made me realise that people do take notice and that I owe it to readers to get my facts right.

Guardian podcasts: comments not welcome!

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I like the Guardian’s online offerings. Comment is free is a worthy addition to the blogosphere. And I enjoy listening to Media Guardian’s podcast on my regular train journeys to Leeds and Chester.

But I wasn’t impressed by the feature on BBC salaries on the 14 July Media podcast. It was bar room banter with lazy, cheap shots about BBC’s top team salaries. Matt Wells and Emily Bell are entitled to question whether the Beeb’s top salaries are justified – especially if the troops get far lower increases – but their comments descended to the dubious reasoning that ‘the BBC is in the public sector and thousands would accept lower salaries to be DG’. Yes, I’d do the job for less. But I doubt that I’d enhance the BBC’s status as a world class media player. Bell’s comment that the private sector doesn’t pay bonuses for ‘just doing the job’ was laughable.

The Guardian’s podcast blog invited comments. I tried to leave a comment – but was told that comments weren’t allowed. So much for comment being free. But then the Guardian is a competitor of the BBC – so cheap shots are much more rewarding than reasoned debate.

Broadband Britain: new choices, new dilemmas

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I’m confused.

I’m a happy Virgin Net boardband customer. I was pleased when Virgin upped the speed to 2Mbps for free. The service is reliable. I have no wish to move.

But then Carphone Warehouse puts the cat amongst the pigeons with so-called free broadband for life. And Sky comes up with a ‘free’ offer.

Should I stay or should I go? Will Virgin repond?

It’s tough being a consumer.

Blogging: dear diary or citizen journalism?

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Blogging is in the news again. The BBC today reports on two surveys that claim to shed light on the essence of blogging today. BBC says that MSN Spaces found that 60% of people in the UK use blogs as an online diary. (Surely this should read that 60% of UK bloggers use their  blogs as online diaries – there can’t be 35  million UK blogs!)  A further survey in the US showed that 65% of US bloggers don’t consider their work to be journalism.

In short, claims of a boom in citizen journalism are overstated.

All this makes sense. When I sit down with a beer on a hot summer’s night and post my thoughts on news and trivia, I have no illusions that I’m a journalist. I’m simply sharing my views with the world – or more accurately my father…  Occasionally blogging can fulfil the definition of citizen journalism: eyewitness blog reports about events such as the London bombings can be as vivid as as anything you’d read in your daily paper. But these are the exceptions.

We needn’t be apologetic about this. Good journalism is worth its weight in gold – whether it takes the form of citizen or professional journalism. And the professionals don’t always justify their existence, as the latest contrived Daily Express front page lead about the death of Diana proves.   

Enron? I’m Bushed

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Anyone observing America from the outside will be as confused as ever this week.

Three Britons are extradited to America to answer charges about the collapse of the US energy firm Enron.

Yet George Bush senior, former president and father of current president George W Bush, is chief mourner at the funeral of Kenneth Lay, the chief crook in the Enron saga. The priest at the service compared Lay to Martin Luther and Jesus Christ.

Can anyone wonder why Europeans can’t understand America?

British v American justice: cool comment

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The weekend’s press carries some contrasting comments about the NatWest 3. Worth reading.

Simon Jenkins, Sunday Times
Poor Relations, Sunday Times Business
Justice isn’t always equal, The Guardian

Cateye Cordless: no thanks!

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Like many cyclists, I regard a cycle computer as an essential gadget. Today’s versions are a far cry from the mechanical mile-counters of the past.

Cordless computers are an obvious further improvement – if they worked. But they’re horribly prone to interference. I’ve endured a Cateye Cordless for two years, and have cursed its inability to record speed and distance accurately. (For all I know it might just cut the mustard as a clock.) The speed display continually flickers between the real speed and an imaginary one – which is invariably far slower.

The last straw came on a century (100 mile) ride. The Cateye Cordless underestimated the distance by 2 miles. As a result, I’ve consigned the miscreant to the darkest corner of the garage and replaced it with a corded computer.