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Mistaken Identity
2007-10-03 13:36:00
Apparently I am beautiful.I have been added to MSN by men from Argentina convinced that I am a woman on Flickr with the account name "brennybaby", as my hotmail address begins with "brenny_baby". Curiously though, none of them had found this blog. I discovered this on Monday night while spending half an hour or so on Facebook in a break from shorthand. An MSN window opened and one of the two screenames online that I did not recognise began to talk to me in Spanish. My understanding of Spanish, despite having a friend from that country, is worse than the acting in Hollyoaks so it was a relief when I found my message could speak English. After a short discussion, during which he told me "my friend says you are beautiful", we established who I was (although I am curious about the other brennybaby. I have seen her Flicker account but am curious as to what she does for a living). I also sent a link to this blog to him and others. If you received this blog link after contacting me thinkin...
More About: Identity , Mista

Dead or Alive?
2007-10-01 10:19:00
This morning's Express carries a large photo of Madeleine grinning. On each side are two columns. The first says "She's Dead ..." and gives reasons why she might be. The second says "She's Alive ..." and gives reasons why she might be. It's laid out rather like a "Top Trumps" card. Instead of ratings like "Engine size" or "Age", there are "Sedatives", "Mileage" and "Police Claims".And the tabloids complain about Patrick Kielty...

Freedom of Information
2007-09-29 18:44:00
This Friday’s lecture saw Richard Adamson talk on two subjects that any journalist must get his head around, local government and Freedom of Information . I do not want to blog on the former at this stage, but information on this topic can be found at http://uk.geocities.com/rich_houdini_wmin /index.html, Richard Adamson’s website. As a frequent reader of Private Eye and its monitoring of the means central (and sometimes local) government uses, I am keen to blog on the latter. Sadly, I don’t have a way to make this blog entry play different songs while you read, so it won’t be as jazzy as Richard Adamson’s powerpoint. Perhaps you can play some songs while you read. I recommend starting with KLF's "Doctoring The Tardis" and moving to Teddy Brown's "Rose Garden" by the third paragraph. Most liberal democratic governments desire to keep information from their citizens. Tony Benn’s diaries during the seventies (“Against The Tide” and “Conflicts Of Interest”) rec...
More About: Freedom of Information

Britain's homophobic culture must be shattered
2007-09-26 22:32:00
I was originally considering blogging about the Jeremy Kyle furore, and I will do in due course, but while searching for a review of Kyle's repeative show I found this excellent article by Johann Hari, which illustrates one small part of the work Gordon Brown and his frontbench have to do if they have the courage to succeed where Tony Blair (largely, in my view) failed, and rebuild a society destroyed by Thatcher and the greed of a minority of voters who prized owning their own home over decent public services.http://www.johannhari.com/archiv e/article.php?id=1181Although Hari does not mention it, Thatcher's government can even be blamed for the homophobia in our schools. In 1988 a revolting piece of legislation called Section 28 was brought in, ostensibly to protect children and their families, but in reality to strengthen the Tory vote, which began to decline after the 1987 election and continued to decline until Thatcher was prised out of Number 10 by Conservative MP's. The leg...
More About: Culture

Guardian McCann Poster
2007-09-22 19:26:00
Just a quick post to say the Guardian had a foldout poster of newspaper front pages during the McCann case (starting from the 4th May). Most of them are from the tabloids, but there is a upmarket sprinkling of broadsheet front pages in between the adverts for free DVD's. There is a moralizing paragraph to the left of the pages, intended to reinforce the impression that the Guardian (which appears only once on the poster, like the other featured broadsheets) is above speculative reporting.Madeleine became "Maddy" in the media the day that the story broke, and has also been spelt "Maddie" by some tabloids. It is ironic that a copy of the Daily Express with the headline "Body Thrown Into The Sea" is featured next to a copy of the Daily Mirror with the headline "The Tide Turns". Unfortunate headline for the latter paper at the least! The rollercoaster of news can be seen across the poster, from missing girl to named suspect to parental focus to police as desperate. The Daily Mirror are...
More About: Poster , Mccann

Expatriate Newspapers
2007-09-20 18:32:00
Continuing my habit of starting a new blog post for each topic, rather than for each blogging session, I managed to pick up "South African" and "Australian Times" outside Kenton tube station, which is a short walk from the Harrow campus.Although the front page is mostly filled by a single story on President Thabo Mbeki's speech to a Steve Biko memorial lecture in Cape Town, much of the paper seems to be targeted at white South Africans, a minority group within the country. Therefore, most expatriate South Africans in Britain must be white, as it would make sense for the paper to appeal to as many South Africans as possible. The paper claims to have 105,000 readers every week, and is on its 227th issue. It is funded wholly by advertising, and attracts most of its adverts from the niche market catering to South Africans in Britain. Examples include cheap calls to South Africa and subscriptions to South African newspapers. Zimbabwe features in the paper with an article on the use of...
More About: Newspapers , Expat

First Impressions
2007-09-20 18:15:00
This morning myself and the other MA Journalism students convened in the Newsroom and met the course tutors and technicians. It was an interesting and productive day, even if my head was spinning by the end of it, which is why I'm having a quiet night in with a Day Today DVD and a book on postwar Europe since 1945 (due back at the end of this week).I was particularly interested by the importance of blogging. David Dunkley-Gyimah is the module leader for the web element of the course, and today he hold us that papers such as the Guardian would not consider us without a blog. Broadcast news, however, would be less bothered about the existence of a blog, although as few people in broadcast news understand blogging in depth bloggers are very much in demand. I am on the print pathway, so over the next few weeks I must sharpen my blogging skills!I do hope the topics I have blogged on so far are of interest to journalists reading the blog. Although I have examined the style, content and d...
More About: First Impressions , Impressions , Impress , Impression

Senselessness and Sensibilty
2007-09-13 13:03:00
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/ 6992601.stmIt seems that we no longer have the right to watch films that have similarities to real events. Buena Vista International have postponed indefinitely the UK release of "Gone Baby Gone", based on the Dennis Lehane novel, just in case it "touches a nerve".I'm sure the family of Madeleine McCann and their army of yellow-ribboned helpers have better things to do that worry about what film is on at the cinema. It seems that it's okay for a stream of homophobic and sizist jokes to spew across comedy shows on terrestrial television, but not for people to see a fictional film that mirrors real life. It's okay to release films that allow Hollywood to do down the British role in World War Two, such as U-571, but not to mirror real life.Well, I suggest buying a copy of Dennis Lehane's "Gone, Baby, Gone" to read about what we're not allowed to watch for a good while just so a film company can enjoy good PR. The book is about two private e...

The History of The Times: The Murdoch Years
2007-09-09 11:26:00
Graham Stewart’s book on the Times (owned by Rupert Murdoch ) is published by HarperCollins publishing (also owned by Rupert Murdoch). This makes it questionable as to how unbiased Stewart’s account of The Times since the mid-seventies actually is. Certainly, Stewart views Murdoch’s purchase of the newspaper as a good thing, and provides plenty of evidence to support this, and in this review I shall focus on the Wapping dispute. The Times before Murdoch is depicted as a struggling paper at the mercy of powerful and corrupt print unions, and is alleged to have been “losing money for the vast majority of the twentieth century”. Print employees are shown as strike-happy and demanding, a view borne out by former Times employee Bill Bryson, who began work at the Times in the dying days of its ownership by Thomson and regarded Fleet Street as “out of control” when writing about it for his autobiographical account of his life in Britain in “Notes From A Small Island”. Alle...
More About: History , Years

She's got Maddie McCann's Eye
2007-09-05 16:29:00
A few months ago a friend forwarded me an e-mail linking to a press release telling me to look out for Madeleine's unusual eye. Now I walk down the street, lifting young children up and inspecting their eyes. Or at least until the police stopped me...No one has anything but sympathy for Madeleine. However,the public reaction is totally selective. Why care about this disappearance and not others? Is it the age of Madeleine?Here is a link to a UK Missing Persons siteIn the South East of England alone, 5800 people are missing. Perhaps the hordes of grief tourists who put up posters of Madeleine thousands of miles from where she went missing, and the footballers who try to get their name in the paper by wearing Madeleine T-shirts could spare a few people to help look for them?
More About: Maddie , Mccann