Why the Papers Say

I would like to look at 2 stories from recent weeks to illustrate, to a certain degree, how our press works. 1 of them is how a good PR person can guide a story and the other is a back-firing political story.
Let’s start with the political storm in a political tea cup first. A couple of week ago the press, particularly the anti-Labour side, were filled with stories about Gordon Brown being a bully. The accusations all stemmed from a book that was being promoted at the time by political journalist Andrew Rawnsley and were leapt upon by the right wing press. We had several days of headlines about people being pushed and shouted at and then a bullying hotline got involved. Television news also ran the stories and before long the modern political catch phrase of “We need a public enquiry” rang out for the Tories. Downing Street denied the stories.
Then something very strange happened. Before the mass reporting Labour, and particularly Mr Brown had been languishing in the Polls but in a survey conducted just after “Bully-gate” both Labour and Gordon’s ratings had risen significantly. It seemed that the voters really like, what they perceive as, a strong leader.
The story immediately stopped being reported. The right-wing press dropped it because they had a made a massive editorial and political misjudgement and it had actually had the opposite effect than planned. The Labour supporting press didn’t need to keep defending their party so they dropped it too and Television news only seems to be reading out what the papers have written anyway, so they stopped talking about it too.
It has been suggested, slightly sarcastically, by Simon Schama on his Point of View on Radio4 that it was all in the Labour plan, I’m not sure about that but it does show that newspapers only report stories that reinforce their ideological position and not the actual news. If this story was of importance then it should have continued to have been written about but it wasn’t. It was designed, be the time it reached the papers, to damage a political party but it didn’t work so was dropped.

The second story is about Take That’s Mark Owen. Now Mark Owen has had some affairs with quite a few ladies but has been treated very differently then, say, Ashley Cole. Why is that you may ask? You may not to honest because it’s not that interesting but worth a bit of a look I think.
There are 2 ways in which these stories come out. The famous person, usually, gets a call from the paper that has the story about them and they offer them the confession type of story that we have seen with Mark Owen. This is the more sensible approach because the famous person, or at least their PR advisor, can control the story. Mark Owen, for instance, has been on the front pages for 3 or 4 days now with a bit more to add to the story each day. Day One, “I have had some affairs”, day two, “I have a problem with alcohol”, Day three and four, “I need treatment, I’m going into Rehab”. Now I have no proof that the drinking problem bit of this story is true or not but it is a recurring theme in these PR stories.
What we have here is a well controlled story in which our sympathies are supposed to be with famous person.
Now, there is another approach. The famous person may choose not to talk to the paper in question. This is nearly always a bad idea. What then happens is that the paper will run a series of blow by blow (if you forgive the pun) account of the affair(s) with pictures of the lady(ies) in underwear probably insulting the size of the famous persons penis. There is another, much smaller, subset of these stories where the famous person sort of collaborates with the paper but not enough to give a tell-all interview. These stories can be spotted because when the woman in the underwear describes the sex she will be very positive about it. That is the famous person’s pay off for being a bit helpful.
I mentioned Ashley Cole at the beginning of this section so now back to him. He has been given a hard time by the press because he cheated on someone who is more popular than he is. He has fucked with an inexplicable nation treasure. He was always going to lose that battle in the press.
In this section on affairs I have concentrated on the man for one very good reason, men who have affairs are treated differently to woman. Any famous woman who has an affair will come off badly. There will be no sympathetic angle. You are a woman who dared to have some sex and therefore you are a slut. This will be reinforced by printing the story next to some pictures of you taken not wearing very much.

Diana Watch

I'm sorry, have I fallen asleep and woken up in the 1980's? (Although Homeopaths think it’s the 1880’s and Prince Charles, the 1780’s). Am I in Life on Mars? (or whatever the 80’s sequel was called)

 Monday night/Tuesday morning a car bomb exploded in Newry, Northern Ireland. Fortunately no one was hurt despite the fact that it went off whilst the area was being cleared.

 There has been a recent upsurge in terrorist attacks in that country with the murder of soldiers and several bombings.

 Will we now be having a War on Terror in Northern Ireland? Will those with a slight Irish accent face a tougher time going through Airport security? Will we have unofficial racial profiling? Will our right wing press slowly turn against a once valued section of society?

 Argentina is getting stroppy about us having sovereignty of the Falkland Islands again. Why could this possibly be? I mean, nothing against our only remaining colony but it mostly rock with some sheep and penguins on, that is about 2 mile from the coast of South America. Really, we have no good reason to be there. A regional conference has supported Argentina claim to the Islands. Let’s not make too much of a fuss over this pointless little place any longer.

 What’s that? There’s some oil there? It ours! All ours! Keep your hands of it! Send a task force I say! Gordon, there’s an election coming, this is something for the country to rally behind! (PS It worked for Thatcher)

Whilst we are talking about Mr Brown, “Is Gordon a bully?” seems to be the question of the week. This is based on a single source allegation from Andrew Rawnsley’s (officially the world’s most Tory looking Man) new book.

 Then some woman from an almost non-existent charity weighed in by suggesting that some employees of No10 had phone her helpline and was interviewed on Channel 4 news (I think the news programme won)

 To be honest I don’t know whether or not he is a bully and nor do you. We will probably never know and I don’t think that it was anymore more than a distraction.

 Is someone who has a tough job (Prime Minister is quite hard I’m lead to believe) not allowed to get a bit stressed sometimes because that is what is going to happen? And surely there is some context missing here. If your boss shouts out you at your advertising agency then that might be bullying but if your boss is trying to single-handedly save your countries banking system and you ask him if he wants a biscuit with his tea and he snaps at you? Maybe less so.

 One of the many quotes floating around the internet was “If someone thinks they are being bulled then they are being bullied”, ummm, well sort of, ummm, well actually, no, not all the time. Someone I know complained that she was being bullied because when she went into one of the offices that she didn’t normally go into they stopped talking. She felt that they were blocking her out of their conversation. They weren’t. As she only went in there to ask for things they stopped talking to allow her to talk, not bullying even though she felt she was being bullied.

 I have mentioned before that news coverage, whether in papers or on television, has decided to remove context from its reporting so that we can all be more shocked/scared/offended by a story because we don’t know what has gone on before.

  A fine example of this happened on BBC Breakfast this week. “British Gas made profits of 58% whilst millions face high winter fuel bills”. Well sort of. British Gas is the only provider currently cutting its prices. The price of gas in Britain is 33% lower than the European average and electricity prices are 13% lower than the average but this was ignored on BBC Breakfast. Also, the average use of gas is down 7%, but the major fact that is being ignored is that the Gas Providers agreed a price for the gas you are using today 2 years ago so that is the price you are paying and not the current wholesale price. I'm not defending the pricing system or the profits; I'm just adding the missing context.

 We have some very, very stupid people in this country, I give you herb peddler Michael McIntyre who was on the Radio4 programme “You on Yours” on Tuesday afternoon, but these people really are not trying hard enough. America has, perhaps, the most stupid people in the world. This is not some silly generalisation about that country but I come to you with some proper examples.

 Example 1,

 State Delegate Bob Marshall of Manassas. This week he has said this, “The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,"

 That’s right; he is saying that having a disabled child is a punishment form God for having an abortion. Nice bloke.

 He was amongst a very small group of people who were handing a petition to stop state money going to help pay for terminations. One of the other signatories on this attempt at limiting the freedoms of the women of Virginia was one Pat Robertson. You remember him, “Haiti made a pact with the Devil, true story” bloke. What a great bunch of people they are. Really loving Christian types. “He is a God of love and forgiveness. Oh, except for you. Oh and you and you and you and you and you and you. Basically he’s my God and if you don’t do exactly what I tell you he will punish you.”

 Example 2,

 Ladies and Gentlemen I give you……… The Entire state of Utah! Well it’s State legislator anyway. Hey have managed to pass a bill that makes miscarriage illegal. In fact (not Martyn’s law there) they have defined it as "criminal homicide." No really, they have. I know I’ve linked to a blog but I’ve checked all the links and it’s true. Fuck people, what is wrong with you?

 They’ve not made abortion illegal (defined as “carried out by a physician or through a substance used under the direction of a physician.") but miscarrying if "intentional, knowing or reckless act of the woman". So if you have a drink whilst pregnant and then later miscarry, possible criminal homicide charges. I believe Utah is thinking of bring back witch trials.

The Award for Completely Wasting Your Life (The Carbon In You Could Have Made Something Useful Like Oil or a Pencil.)

This goes to Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP and an MEP. He gets this award not just because of the pointlessness of his Political Party but also for his piss-poor insult of new President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy.

 He described Mr van Rompuy as having "the charisma of a damp rag". Hello kettle, this is pot, you’re black. He also called Belgium as a "non-country".

 The man (van Rompuy) has been elected for months, he has had loads of time to prepare, and this was the best insult that he could come up with.

Mr Farage, a renowned twat, then confirmed his own ignorance by uttering what he, no doubt, thought was a very clever line "Who are you? I'd never heard of you, nobody in Europe had ever heard of you," Again pot, kettle, black.

 Some Belgians are not that impressed with Mr Farage and have made him a little poster. It contains a rude word and, more offensive than that, a picture of the twat in question, so click here if you want to see.

 If you ever think poorly of the EU think on this, we send them UKIP and BNP members and they send us lovely food and wine. If I was organising a party I would not invite England. We are the national equivalent of someone who comes to the party, eats all the food, drinks all the drink, insults your house and then leaves, and no one is really sure who invited them.

The Award For Really? Has A Woman Not Won That Yet? Are You Sure?

 Congratulations to Kathryn Bigalow who has won the Best Director Bafta for the Hurt Locker. It's 2010 and she is the first woman to win this ward. The event has been taking place since its birth in 1947. Has a woman not made a decent film in all that time? I find that very hard to believe.

 No woman has won a best Director Oscar either. Are we making any progress here?

The Award For Even A Stopped Clock Is Right Twice A Day,

The Daily Express is right about so very little that it is worth pointing out when they have reported something correctly,

If they are talking about Express readers then yes, they may have a point.

Laughing at another’s misfortune is bad. That is unless that person is Bono. Here is a video of Bono falling of stage.

 Oh come on that’s funny.

Haiku time,

Gordon may bully,

So we are all shocked and,

Ramsey gets a show.

Stories that haven’t made it,

The Daily Mail describes a picture that Peaches Geldof posts of herself on Twitter as “indecent” and then prints the picture. So is that the Daily Mail printing an indecent picture then?

Most expensive comic ever. A copy of a 1938 Action One comic has sold for a Dr Evil pleasing $1 million. The comic is significant (if a comic can be) because it is the first outing for someone called Superman.

Ed Balls is a pussy and has backed down over reforms to the sex education that young people get in faith schools. They were to be told to all teach the same as non-faith schools, i.e. how to use contraception etc, but he changed his mind and has said that they can teach within in the tenets of their faith. So, for instance, Catholic schools can say, “this is a condom but it is evil and you will go to hell if you use it.” Helpful.

 He did smackdown the BBC Breakfast presenters though over the bullying thing though and that was funny.

Hope your week is successful and fruitful.