UK News
Insights from the UK and beyond
from Sean Maguire:
The raw and the crafted
The Media Standards Trust has begun a lecture series on 'Why Journalism Matters'. It is disconcerting that it feels we have to ask the question. The argument put forward by the British group's director Martin Moore is that news organisations are so preoccupied with business survival that discussion of the broader social, political and cultural function of journalism gets forgotten. It is a pertinent review then, given the icy economic blasts hitting most Anglo-Saxon media groups, and notwithstanding the recent examples of self-evidently broader journalistic 'value' produced by London's Daily Telegraph in its politican-shaming investigations into parliamentarians' expenses.
First up in the series was Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times, who cantered through the justifications for a vibrant, independent press. Watchdog, informer, explainer, campaigner, community builder and debater - those are the roles that journalism plays. The value that it brings is most evident by comparison with the unhealthiness of states where the press is not free, noted Barber, citing the struggles of the citizenry in China and Russia to hold their leaders to account.
The FT's USP as a media group, according to Barber, is as an explainer and analyser of complicated events that play out across a global stage. But analytical reporting of global stories costs serious cash, he noted, in a question-begging aside. That you get the quality of journalism you are prepared to pay for, ultimately, is his response to the challenge posed to mainstream media by Internet-enabled communicators. For free you can have the rawness of a blog. For crafted journalism that is properly sourced, reviewed for taste and style and checked for accuracy, you must find ways to charge. At your peril do you blur the edges between the crafted and the raw world of easy comment, hasty opinion and rumour billed as fact, argues the FT editor. (There was a hat tip, however, to the bloggers that have broken news, such as Guido Fawkes who forced the resignation of an advisor to Gordon Brown by revealing his plans for a smear email campaign.)
So a sharp distinction was drawn between the value proposition of professional journalism and its unruly blogging and twittering cousin. No such clarity yet, though, on the funding model for the former when the Internet has made audiences expect to read most general interest news and a lot of specialised niche content for free. No secret that each and every news group is daunted by this obstacle, even the FT, which has not been immune to the downturn in advertising revenue.
We were left with a couple of clues on the way forward. Barber predicted that within a year all news organisations will be charging for online content in some way. (The FT's model is to allow readers access to a few articles for free and then charge for further use.) Will Google ever pay for content - unlikely says Barber. But at least they might be prepared to talk about linking via searches to articles requiring subscription, which they do not do currently.
And his flippant response to the demographic challenge posed to a print-based news organisation by the emergence of a generation of youngsters who get all their information from screens? People are living longer - they will still buy newspapers.
You know things are bad when..
- You know exactly what the population of Iceland is and can also pronounce the name of its prime minister.
- Even the word ‘crisis’ seems to have lost its currency.
- Countries pop up for sale on eBay for 99p and get few offers.
- Posters on BBC messageboards stop discussing the undulating pitch of Robert Peston’s voice and listen to what he’s actually saying.
- The speech bubble on Page 3 of the Sun is given over to discussing the credit crisis.
- Financial market updates displace stories about Jade Goody on the tabloid front pages.
- Bad news stories from government departments are rushed out day after day and not even the Opposition seems to notice.
- Estate agents finally admit house prices have fallen but tell you now is a really great time to buy because the market is stabilising.
- People marketing get-rich-quick property seminars don’t get taken seriously any more.
- The Chancellor, writing in the Financial Times, says that “now, more than ever, we need new ideas”.
- Your primary school-aged children know that credit crunch is not a type of biscuit and that IMF isn’t just a fictional organisation in Mission Impossible.
- You go for a while without noticing one estate agent’s mini and then you see a whole bunch of them on the back of a car transporter.
- A pensioner on the evening tube train from Canary Wharf gives up her seat to a banker because she reckons he might need it.
- The Ivy rings to ask if you’d like a table tonight or any night.
- There are no spare trolleys when you turn up at Aldi to do your weekly shop.
Do you have any better suggestions? All contributions welcome – please send in your selection.
You know things are bad when:
Staff sickness absence suddenly improves and everyone’s happy at work.
The sight of a yellow Netto carrier bag becomes familiar.
You discover the cat actually likes tinned cat food.
The family can’t tell organic from not.
A lot of people consider home made sandwiches are far better for one than bought.
Gordon Brown is photographed smiling.
Skiing holidays become unfashionable.
You find that last years winter coat still has a lot of wear in it.
The car doesn’t need as much petrol as once and seems to be running too well to exchange it this year.
You know how the balance of your bank account/ credit card.
Editorials praise Brown’s energy package
Unions and energy watchdogs lashed out at Gordon Brown’s aid package aimed at helping householders cope with soaring energy bills, saying it was ”too little, too late”. Even pensioners’ charities gave a frosty response.
But newspaper editorials on the whole were supportive, describing it as “bold politics. More importantly, it was good policy”, as The Times said.
From The Guardian to the Financial Times, the editorials praised the “eminently sensible” measures which concentrated on big companies helping householders to lag their lofts and cavity walls.
It may not have delivered on the pre-hype, but the editorials blame the government for bumping up the publicity in a desperate attempt to boost its poor showing in the opinion polls.
But the government resisted the temptation to impose a windfall tax on big power companies — a target on so-called excess profits.
Instead, the utility companies have been persuaded to invest 910 million pounds in helping householders pay the cost of insulating their homes.
The editorials said the government was right to resist pressure from Labour MPs and unions to impose a tax.
Editorials should not praise Brown’s energy package, but should point to his huge lies and huge hidden tax on energy
‘What on earth was Darling talking about?’ – media ask
The media is still confused about the motives behind the Chancellor’s observation that “(the times we’re facing) are arguably the worst they’ve been in 60 years”.
What about the 27 percent inflation and 12 percent unemployment rates the country endured during the 1970s and 1980s, they ask?
The country has not been forced to go to the IMF, cap in hand, as it did in 1976, nor is it 1992 and another Black Wednesday, leader writers point out in Monday’s newspapers.
The problem seemed to be compounded when Alistair Darling was then forced to explain in a series of TV interviews that he was talking about severity of current economic conditions — the global credit crunch and rising commodities prices — rather than predicting a great depression.
“The pity is that the public doesn’t know what to believe or who to trust,” the Daily Mail says.
Darling also frets in the Guardian article on the weekend about the state of the Labour Party, saying the cabinet was partly to blame for its recent electoral woes and poor showing in the opinion polls because it has ”patently” failed to explain the party’s central mission to the country.
Was Darling then being honest or foolish, newspaper editorials ask.
Alistair Darling is guilty of one thing only: telling some semblance of the truth. If everyone faced it we might reshape our spending and living habits to accommodate it.
Unfortunately, telling the truth is not in keeping with NuLab’s policy. Brown’s idea is that we go on in total denial on the sliver of a hope that the problem will go away before too many people are made homeless, bankrupt, dying of hypothermia, victims of a failed NHS etc.
Thursday’s front pages
THE GUARDIAN: Recession alert as Brown fights back
Gordon Brown’s drive to recapture the political agenda with a programme of new laws to create “an opportunity-rich Britain” was badly shaken yesterday by King’s warning.
“The nice decade is behind us,” Mervyn King declared in funereal tones, warning that the economy was “travelling along a bumpy road” as he predicted rising prices would put a squeeze on take-home pay for millions of workers.
Full story here
FINANCIAL TIMES: No rate cuts before 2010
Britons should not expect another cut in interest rates for at least two years, the Bank of England indicated yesterday as it warned that inflation would rise far above its previous forecasts and persist at levels well above the government’s target until early 2010.
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The Wall
