Breaking a butterfly on a wheel

In the last few years, we've found that our unregulated masters of the universe have been inventing assets, borrowing against them and paying themselves astronomical bonuses from the profits.

And when the whole uninvestigated house of cards fell down around their feet, they simply shifted the risk on to us, walked away and continued behaving in the same manner all over again. Our grandchildren will be paying the bills that these thieves have handed us and they've already started preparing for the next raid in which they socialise their losses and privatise stolen assets.

They've been able to do this because of the largely unchallenged monopoly statuses that their employers have been allowed to gather to themselves, and they've benefited from an approach to shareholder control in which no-one scrutinises, makes judgements or asserts any level of restraint upon these corporations. In the US, a handful have had their collars felt. I don't think any have even had a visit from the Old Bill in this country yet.

They will continue to be able to get away with the assertion that their work somehow involves talent and insight and that they need huge incentives to create wealth. It doesn't.

They are already using their vast wealth to lobby against any regulation that will restructure their thieving industry in the public interest and if anyone doubts that they will largely succeed, I'd like to recommend this antidote.

The huge corporate PR and lobbying sector is testimony to how much this whole shooting match is worth. It's an industry that attracts shockingly low levels of curiosity from journalists. Under the umbrella of the term 'Corporate Hospitality', there is a another massive industry that effectively promotes the bribery of executives at the expense of shareholders - and ultimately pensioners. It sees the kind of sweeteners that MPs could only dream of being doled out daily to undeserving climbers of the greasy pole.

Hush money goes unchallenged and little cartels are cemented at the expense of shareholders, small businesses and - as often as not - the taxpayers who foot the bill either through corporate welfare, or the more straightforward processes of public procurement.

I could go on (believe me!), but all of this has happened with a acquiescence of our useless, lazy, incompetent, self-serving Fourth Estate. Freedom of Information has only served to dish regulators up on a plate for lazy hacks. For all we know, thousands of wealthy execs could be banging a string of underage hookers on beds of Angel Dust in mansions that are paid for out of shareholders funds and our media would ignore it because it's not something that you can bring to light with a tidily worded letter to the correct authorities.

So, beside journalists, who else is there to hold them to account? Well .... er... there's elected politicians. But we need fewer of them, don't we?

Just in case anyone thought that the anti-politics crusade that we've seen conducted over the past few years was about keeping Labour politicians in their place, we've all had a sharp reminder: If you put yourself up for public office and don't maintain standards that are infinitely higher than the unaccountable thieves that you are supposed to monitor (alone!), then don't be surprised.

Linking to your own posts

I think a lot of the better bloggers understand something that a lot of journalists struggle with a bit. Journalists are used to being given a word-length and a deadline: 600 words by noon. They write a set structure and each article is self-contained.

Two Northern Ireland-based bloggers that I quite like are a case in point. Take Malachi O'Doherty or Anthony McIntyre, for instance. Both people who have a long track-record writing for print, and both - I think - good honest writers by the standards of most journalism.

Contrast this with the way that Pete Baker writes on Slugger O'Toole. Each post of his almost contributes to a wiki designed to flesh out what Pete believes (and I'm not questioning his view here) to be a consistent world-view.

In Pete's case, its an update to a comprehensive very long post and in itself, I'd argue that it has to be a bit more honest than most journalist's articles (and blog-posts by journos). He creates a pressure on himself that journalists often manage to avoid.

I'm not saying this to have a pop at Malachi or Anthony either. Or anyone who doesn't fill their posts with hyperlinks to their previous posts. It's just I think that referring to your own previous posts is a daring rather than narcissistic act.

Stopped clock. Twice a day.

I've not said it before and I'll probably never say it again, but George Monbiot is absolutely right here.

It's true that the vacuity and cowardice of the local papers has been exacerbated by consolidation, profit-seeking, the collapse of advertising revenues and a decline in readership. But even if they weren't subject to these pressures, they would still do more harm than good.

Local papers defend the powerful because the powerful own and fund them. I can think of only two local newspapers that consistently hold power to account: the West Highland Free Press and the Salford Star. Are any others worth saving? If so, please let me know. Yes, we need a press that speaks truth to power, that gives voice to the powerless and fights for local democracy. But this ain't it.

State-subsidised journalism?

From The Washington Post (hat tip: Damian)

"The value of federal journalism subsidies as a percentage of gross domestic product in the first half of the 19th century ran, by our calculations, to about $30 billion per year in current dollars. It is this sort of commitment, established by Jefferson and Madison, that we must imagine to address the current crisis.

That level of subsidy to journalism is found in Scandinavian nations, which are among the freest and most democratic in the world."

This bit is particularly striking:

For the first time in American history, we are nearing a point where we will no longer have more than minimal resources (relative to the nation's size) dedicated to reporting the news. The prospect that this "information age" could be characterized by unchecked spin and propaganda, where the best-financed voice almost always wins, and cynicism, ignorance and demoralization reach pandemic levels, is real. So, too, is the threat to the American experiment.

Our Constitution is, the Supreme Court reminds us, predicated on the assumption of an informed and participating citizenry. If insufficient news media exist to make that a realistic outcome, the foundation crumbles.

Sorry to repeat this, (it's not in that article, but it's pertinent):

“If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the latter.”
Thomas Jefferson

(Update: the blogger software appears to be dropping hyperlinks for some reason - no idea why. If it does it again, the Washington Post article is here):
http://tinyurl.com/yhjcsj4

Just seen....

The Pub Philosopher left a comment here, I visited his blog and saw this:

What passes for independent journalism at a Murdoch title. Could you imagine the BBC being allowed to give a BBC senior officer this obsequious ride?

BBC, BNP and 'balance'

Nick Cohen on Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time later this week:

A media interested in nothing so much as covering media stories will make the programme an event. Dozens of press articles and radio debates have already analysed the BBC's decision to allow the British National party on to its best current affairs show. The London media barely cover the ugly problems of Stoke-on-Trent, Burnley, Oldham, Dagenham and the other depressed areas where the BNP has made gains, but justifies its current focus on itself by insisting that Dimbleby's rigorous interviewing and the tough interventions of the mainstream panellists will expose the BNP.

Most of the other things worth saying about this have been said, but Nick's right here: The stupidity of the BBC allowing this knuckledragger onto their schedules is a symptom of a wider failure of journalism and commentary. An inability to challenge. A lack of self-confidence, and - yes - a moral re-lah-tiv-ism.

And this point:

"I speak from experience when I say that outsiders – journalists, comedians, celebrity dons – have it easiest. We can engage in a little rabble-rousing, while politicians know that the Westminster press will accuse them of a "gaffe" if they accidentally deviate from the party line. Griffin, who has been practising his sales pitch since he addressed the Ku Klux Klan leadership in 2000, will be composed. He may be surprisingly popular because Question Time cannot just be about racism, antisemitism and links between rhetoric and violence."

It'll be a car-crash, and it will highlight the fatuous nature of the BBC's notion of 'impartiality' - and especially the damage that it does today when there isn't a counterweight of balanced pluralistic journalism and commentary from other sources.

Qualifications

You'll have heard the old gag about ....

Those who can, do
Those who can't, teach
Those who can't teach, teach gym...

My wife informs me that this isn't funny.

Well, how about "those who absolutely fuck up everything they touch end up editing a newspaper?"

Paulie elsewhere

I posted this earlier on the new Left Foot Forward blog. Have a look?

Shorter version:

Rupert Murdoch's co-operation with new Labour didn't just buy a policy-veto. It cemented a regulatory free-ride for his companies that have earned him £billions.

Impartiality v plurality

Tory Culture spokesman Jeremy Hunt has surely got a point here about the BBC:

"I wish they would go and actively look for some Conservatives to be part of their news-gathering team, because they have acknowledged that one of their problems is that people who want to work at the BBC tend to be from the centre-left. That's why they have this issue with what Andrew Marr called an innate liberal bias."

All of that said, it's an odd observation to make at the moment. Nick Robinson - the chief BBC political correspondent - is the most overtly partisan journalist to hold that position in my memory (and I suspect, the most partisan since the post was created). His Tory credentials, and the bias of his reporting is barely veiled.

There's clearly a case for the BBC to abandon their quest for impartiality and embrace pluralism instead, as I argued here a while ago.

The biggest bias that they need to address is the metropolitan ex-public school Westminster insider one. The quality of political commentary would improve massively if they could deal with that....

Broadcasting levies

There is, to my mind, an unassailable case for the application of industry levies in order to secure the future for public service broadcasters, and to ensure a future alternative to what passes for non-PSB reporting in this country.

Jeremy Dear of the NUJ makes that case here. I would read it if I were you.

Update: The BBC have finally decided to defend themselves. About time too.

When Rupert send Mini-Murdoch in to bat for him last month, he really did send a boy to do a man's job, didn't he? I don't usually go a bundle on attacking Labour ministers, but Ben Bradshaw is a complete waste of space at the DCMS.

A former Corporal at the BBC, he's entirely immersed in a universe where we don't even pretend that policy-prescriptions can't be vetoed by powerful media interests.

The BBC and the BNP

The argument presented here by Dr Bart Cammaerts is good enough for me:

The liberal arguments won the fight in North Belgium and representatives of the extreme right started appearing regularly on the news, news shows, in election programmes, etc. Granting the extreme right a platform to disseminate their ideology proved to be a very slippery slope towards presenting them as legitimate political actors being good at their job of opposing the government. More and more representatives of the extreme right have gone through the same media training as democratic politicians and are quite savvy in grasping every opportunity to get their often vile messages across, in spite of über-critical interviewers.

In fact, representatives of extreme right parties often perform a sort of permanent underdog anti-politics that appeals to anti-establishment sentiments - an establishment to which the (liberally inclined) media elites are also considered part of.

He goes on:

I believe that extreme right parties should not be ignored altogether and the societal tensions and conflicts they are the symptom of, even less so. But the media should expose extreme right parties for what they really are and lay barren internal conflicts (just as with other parties) rather then give such parties and their representatives a platform to repeat their discourses of hate and exclusion.

Journalists should furthermore be very aware of the dangers of legitimizing extreme right discourses when reporting on the extreme right and when interviewing their representatives.

Pluralism should be radical in a democracy, but for vibrant multi-cultural and ethnical democracies to be able to survive, a common ground relating to basic values such as equality, respect, solidarity, difference, etc. is crucial as well. Popper’s paradox of tolerance sums it up pretty neatly, up until what point can intolerance be tolerated before it destroys tolerance all together?

The phrase 'so open minded that your brains fall out' springs to mind here....

Two BEEB-related articles

Two from Will who doesn't have a blog:

1. Public trust in the BBC going up, not down.
2. Charlie Brooker on James Murdoch

Choice bits:

Brooker: "Now there's a lengthy, valid, and boring debate to be had about the scope and suitability of some of the BBC's ambitions but, quite frankly, if their news website (a thing of beauty and a national treasure) helps us stave off the arrival of the likes of [Glen] Beck [of Fox News] - even tangentially, even only for another few years until the Tories take over and begin stealthily dismantling the Beeb while a self-interested press loudly eggs them on - then it deserves to be cherished and applauded.

Julian Glover: Asked to pick from a range of ways of funding the BBC, including the licence fee, a subscription service and selling advertising, more people back the licence fee than any alternative ........ The fee is backed by 43%, against 24% who think advertising should foot the bill and 30% who think people should pay to subscribe if they want to see BBC programmes. In 2004, only 31% backed the licence fee, 12 points lower than today.

Local councils v journalists

I generally don't promote the work of my Super Ego blog to you, the readers of my Id blog (explanation here), but I think you might be interested in this post?

Star hacks

An interesting question from Roy Greenslade: Do comment stars make a difference to newspaper sales? (Short answer: Roy thinks they rarely do).

The only example I can think of when I actually bought a paper I wouldn't do normally is - when in Ireland, and in a rural shop that doesn't sell the Irish Times anyway - I've bought the Irish Independent (a title I'd usually avoid) to read Kevin Myers.

He's exasperating, and after reading him for a while, I was a bit shocked to read a piece that had more than a hint of racism. But he's the only writer I can ever remember buying a paper for.

Don't underestimate Rupert Murdoch

Just off on holiday so I'll be a bit scarce around here for the next coupla weeks. Apologies to people who haven't had their emails replied to either. I've been really flat-out for the last few weeks.

I'll leave you with one quick unsupported thought. The majority of commentary that I've read about Rupert Murdoch's plan to charge for online content has been greeted with scepticism. A view that he may finally have made a commercial mistake.

I'd take a long article to argue it and I ain't got time to write it, but my conclusion would be different. I can't promise that it'll work, but I suspect that it will and that most professional journalistic commentators will be eating their words within three years.

If it does, it will underline the value of 'convening power' which Murdoch has in spades. It's a power that he should be stripped of for political reasons, but that's another matter altogether.

Help me find?

I really can't remember where I read it now, but I recently saw a great post that covered the whole News of the World phone tapping question, along with the nasty smearing job that the Express did on Dunblane survivors. I've done all of the searches I can think of but can't find it.

It wasn't this one either - good though it is. It outlined the way that the Express story - like the Coulson one - was rapidly shuffled off the front pages, and it illustrated the degree to which the print media seem be be able to collude to make instances of their own shitheadedness disappear.

If you think you know the one I mean, stick a link up in the comments here willya?

Update: Linda on Facebook has found the one - Charlie Brooker - I was thinking of - Will pointed to it (by email) and I forgot where I'd read it. Ta Linda/Will.

No news

No news to report here.

Anyone who doubts the ability of newspaper proprietors to entirely dictate the pace of public discourse will surely be revising their views today with the contrast between Coulston / NoTW hacking 1,000s of mobile phones (yesterday's news!) and long sagas of Damian McBride talking about the possibility of a bit of political black-baggery / BBC having to deal with a bit of over-the-phone rudeness to an ageing actor.

Kinda makes the previous post here look a trifle optimistic, dunnit?

So, instead, here's a link to The Boomtown Rats' 'Someone Looking At You.' They were actually a not-bad band towards the end. The whole Mondo Bongo LP is very good, and quite overlooked perhaps because it's bookended by the bigger selling earlier hits and Geldof's post-Rats big noise.

Hurts Hurts is standout from that one. 

#murdochgate

On of the upsides of the way that the Tories targeted Damian McBride earlier this year (getting Iain Dale sued in the Mail in the process) is that Andy Coulson is now fair game following #murdochgate (and if you're thinking of trying Twitter to see what it's for, now is a good time to start just to post things with '#murdochgate' in them).

Full story here. Let's hope that the Tories take a while to read the writing on the wall.

If they want to play the kind of war-of-attrition that they've started this year off with, they can start to see that it cuts both ways.

From Grub St to Westminster

Here's Hopi asking why lefty columnists don't make the transition to Parliament in the way that right-wingers do*. I'd agree with all of his conclusions.

I'd add that the Tories seem to be able to tolerate people doing something that Labour has never managed. Right-wing journalists - in opposition, without any fixed positions to defend, have said the kind of things that Labour don't want to hear. 

These are often nihilistic messages. Like The Housewives League of the 1940s, The Taxpayers Alliance (to give one example) has help to shift the debate rightwards. They've been able to do this, not by being coherent, but by helping to spread a damaging meme that necessarily reflects more badly on the government than the opposition.

And they're good at tarring Labour with the brush of profligacy and illiberality. Any columnist that took that semi-detached approach to Labour's policies would be decried as an apostate. And Labour aren't stupid in doing so either - it's here that you see the real political orientation of Grub Street. As Hopi says, Boris doesn't cause Cameron problems because it simply gets ignored.

Labour has never enjoyed that luxury.

*There is Martin Linton though - remember?

Small C?

I saw this in yesterday's Guardian: - a feature that starts off talking about Long Eaton - my old stamping ground when I was a kiddie, where I was at primary school. I remember the local journalists on The Advertiser - people knew who they were - they'd nudge each other when one of them passed on the street - did you see who that was?

"A lot of people are missing the Advertiser," says Keen. "This used to be a beautiful town. But it's not the town it was: it's got scruffy, it's got rough, and now we even lose the paper." For the older generation, these things matter. "They want to know who's passed away," says the barman at the Corner Pin down the road, "and to check it's not them."

But the younger generation don't much care. Carl and Katrina Smith, a married couple in their mid-30s, not only didn't know the paper had closed; they didn't even know its name - and they were born nearby and have lived in the town most of their lives. They did, though, occasionally buy the Nottingham Evening Post -mainly for the jobs. For this generation, Long Eaton as a place has almost ceased to exist, lost in a more amorphous Nottingham-Derby conurbation.

"It's only the older people who think of communities now," says Carl. "For us it's more a place to live than a community." He was an electrician's mate and worked all over the country (until he was laid off two months ago - people are as vulnerable as papers in the slump); Katrina works in Leicester. Long Eaton is a dormitory for them; they rent a house and say they have no idea who their neighbours are.

"It used to be a proper community, with the railway, the canals and the upholstery industry," says Carl, "but look round at the shops now. You've got Tesco and Asda, and everything else is in decline." There is one new shop in Long Eaton - selling Polish, Russian and Lithuanian food, to cater for migrants from eastern Europe. The shop even has free papers in those three languages, as well as Ukrainian. But they are UK-wide and won't record deaths in Long Eaton, in any language."

I know that everyone has acknowledged most of this, but it seems to me to be one of the great unanswered questions of our time: The small-c-conservative question: Do we want those communities back? The local paper, the street where everybody knows your name? The high street with a High Class Victualler that makes his own sausages, and the baker that isn't Greggs?

Do we want a locality at all? Or do we really want (as appears to be our revealed preference) dormitory towns?