As a journalist I get a lot of news releases.  Once in a while I get one which just scrapes the bottom of the barrel for desperation.  PR has a place but the place for releases like this is the delete box or the trash bin. 

 

I cut and paste this one with no changes and in its entirety.  This has to be the crassest attempt to make a story I have seen in a long time.  The only comment I offer is, every cloud...

 

Libya’s ill wind turns up trumps for Gloucester bathroom company

One unwitting and unexpected beneficiary of the current upheavals in Libya is Gloucester bathroom supplier Biikini Bathrooms – thanks to a lucky twist of fate and some long standing customer loyalty.

For when Libyan based oil company worker Richard Barter, home on leave in Staunton, near Coleford, found himself ‘stranded’ in the UK, he decided to while away the time by having Bikini give his bathroom a total makeover – 15 years after fitting the original.

 

Richard and his wife Sue were among Bikini Bathrooms first customers 15 years ago when they fitted the couple’s existing bathroom and were so pleased that there was only one choice of contractor.

Richard and Sue made the 20 mile trip to Bikini’s showroom near Gloucester Docks, rather than use a more convenient local supplier in Coleford or Monmouth.

 

“The timing of the bathroom re-fit came about due to some extra-ordinary circumstances as I was worked as a land surveyor for oil companies in the middle-east and rarely got more than a few weeks off at a time,” said Richard.

 

“However I was working in Libya when the recent trouble started and was lucky enough to get out just two days before the real unrest and violence started and there was no way I could get back there.”

This provided Richard with the time off that was needed for the bathroom make over, and there was no doubt in his mind who should do the job.

“They did such a professional job the last time that they were our first choice,” said Richard.

“And I must say we were not disappointed. The service is as good as ever and we are delighted with our new bathroom. You get accountability with an independent local firm – something you don’t get with big companies.”

 

Bikini Bathrooms Manager Brendan Veale said: “We were obviously pleased that Richard and Sue thought of us again after all this time. It’s a first class endorsement of our service.

 

“My philosophy has always been that if you give people the right service at the right price they will come back and we have proved this time after time with a long list of loyal and regular customers.”

 

 

 

It's News To Me 31 Aug 2011

What is news? Who decides what makes a story?

I should tell you, in a typical newsroom the process of deciding whether something is newsworthy is often a dialectical process of analysis and scrutiny, looking at the key issues and testing a range of arguments and counter-arguments. The team will ask how a given story will impact upon the lives of the viewers, listeners or readers. How will the story evolve and what new angles might it throw up?

 

That’s what I should tell you, but I can’t. It’s all bollocks.

 

The journalist decides what counts as news. It might be purely arbitrary. It might be based on what most easily fills air-time or a column. It’s often the lowest hanging fruit of the news agenda. I work with one journalist whose favourite phrase is, ‘Well, I think it’s interesting’ as she pitches some dull-but-easily-knocked-off piece of filler.

 

Too often the key to whether a story gets on air is – how easy is it to do? Is there a talking head to whom we can always go? Can we illustrate the story with a vox pop? (See earlier rants). Is there some archive we can use to give the story ‘context’ and the illusion of background research? In other words, can we get a horse with a traffic cone on its head and tell people it’s a unicorn?

 

In theory you should spend as much time and effort proving something isn’t newsworthy as proving that it is. But it seems that if a journalist says a story doesn’t stand up that they have somehow failed – they have failed to recognise its newsworthiness. It is seen as their job to make news, not debunk it. If you knock a story down you are a crap journalist because that’s not your job.

 

There have been times when I have been asked to ‘stand a story up’ and I have actually concluded that it’s not newsworthy. You can see the disappointment in the producer’s face. You’d think that would be the end of it, but no. A couple of days might pass and then it is offered to another journalist who – hooray! – stands it up. They have succeeded where I failed; but actually I was right – it wasn’t a story.

 

The problem is that sometimes the news organisation has invested time and resources in investigating a story and feels it has to justify that expense by having something to show for it. The last thing it wants after dedicating a journalist to it is to hear, there is NO story. Then you have a deadline approaching and nothing to fill the air-time or the newspaper. Editors and producers no longer have the luxury of enough staff to take a journalist off-line to research a story which might not stand up. Nowadays if a journalist works on it, there MUST be a story to show for it. If you research it, you report it.

 

Sometimes when I have got as far as recording interviews and realised it’s a non-story and told the producer the reply has been, ‘Well do what you can with it.’ Never, ‘Ok let’s drop it.’ I am good at what I do and I can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. But is that a good thing? Is turning a dull story into something reasonably good a prostitution of my skills? I think it is. But my managers see me as a ‘good’ journalist because I have this ability to tell a story……even if it’s a story not worth telling. Putting brass door knobs on pig-sty doors a speciality.

A good rule of thumb on deciding whether something is newsworthy is, what is your second question going to be? If you can’t get further than one question then who’s interested?

 

Another problem with fishing in the shallows of the news is the repetition of ideas. There are many creative ways to tell a news story (and many more uncreative ways). Sometimes, when an idea works, there is the temptation to use it again……and again. In my opinion no idea should be used more than twice – no matter how successful it is. I accept it is really hard to ditch a successful idea, but you have to be ruthless, otherwise it becomes stale and the audience loses focus.

 

I have been guilty of over-milking an idea. Every year there is World Book Day which is designed to promote reading among children. I came up with the idea of reporting stories from classic literature as if they were contemporary news reports. For example, we had a ‘live’ report from Captain Ahab’s ship, the Pequod, as he battled the white whale, or a rescue operation to save an overweight bear stuck in a hole – all using the language and techniques of modern broadcast journalism.

 

This was a great idea for the first year. So successful that I was asked to write some new material the following year. I had my doubts but couldn’t think of a different way of covering the event. Then I was asked to do it again a third year. Again I agreed and I wish I hadn’t. By the simple process of repetition I had trashed the success of the first year. People would only remember the most recent, which was tired and bloodless. By agreeing to repeat the idea I actually stopped myself from coming up with something better; I immediately became focussed on that rather than working harder to find a better technique.

Journalism isn’t hard. Journalists will tell you it is. First draft of history? My arse. It’s just doodles in the margins.

 

 

I'm an interlekchool, I am. 26 Aug 2011

Mr Darcy never dived into that lake. The iconic scene from Pride and Prejudice is NOT in the book. Yet when people think of Jane Austen’s novel they think of that scene. Colin Firth dived into the lake in the BBC’s 1995 dramatisation and ITV attempted to recreate it with Matthew Macfadyen standing in the rain in the 2005 version.

 

It’s called a Received Media Image, where a scene is accepted as part of the real – even though it might not have happened that way, if at all. Another example is John Buchan’s 1915 novel, The 39 Steps. When Alfred Hitchcock filmed it in 1935 his screenplay differed substantially from the book – most notably in the escape from the train over the bridge. And in the 1978 version, with Robert Powell as Richard Hannay, he hangs from the hands of Big Ben to stop them triggering a bomb.

 

None of this is in the book. In fact the book is substantially flawed. For example, with the whole of the country to hide in Hannay travels to Scotland and seeks refuge in the very house where the leader of the spy-ring lives. Hitchcock did, at least, attempt to make that more plausible.

 

So in all these cases, is the film better than the book? The television adaptations of Pride and Prejudice at least add a bit of spice to a very demure 19th Century novel. And both film versions of The 39 Steps are more thrilling than the book. But can you say you really know a piece of work if you have only seen the film? Is it snobbery to say that you haven’t experienced it unless you have read the book?

 

One of my favourite films is Dr Zhivago. It’s stunningly filmed. But I had never read Boris Pasternak’s original. So could I claim to be au fait with the classic? I felt a bit of a fraud so I decided to read the novel. Abandoned it after about 10 pages. Both the film and the book start with the same scene – the funeral of Uri Zhivago’s mother. But after that the book turns to two old duffers wandering around a garden philosophising about revolution and religion. It was like wading through glue. In lead boots. And two broken legs. Am I being a little dilettantish? I am happy to rely on David Lean to do the interpreting for me and I will trust to his vision of the book.

 

I also recently read The Master and Margarita by Mikhael Bulgakov because, apparently, it had influenced Mick Jagger to write Sympathy for the Devil. In the book the Devil and his entourage descend upon Moscow and wreak havoc among the vain, the corrupt and the materialistic. There is none of the ‘I rode a tank with a general’s rank/While the Blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank’ or ‘Who killed the Kennedys? When, after all, it was you and me.’ The song has a broader vision than the book; I like the storyline of the Devil appearing at significant points throughout history. Bulgakov’s novel is hard going, but at least I finished it. I prefer the four-minute song, though. Jagger tells the story much better (and concisely) than Bulgakov. Mind you, Russian literature is notoriously dense. Do they even have a Russian Tom Sharpe or a Terry Pratchett?

 

Talking of swords and sorcery, is Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy better than Tolkien’s opus? I think so – simply because of what modern cinema technology can add to the story. And did Tolkien really need to write out every song in full? (The test of a true disciple of Lord of the Rings is if they read all the songs or just skipped over them – like I did). So is someone who has only seen the film somehow less ‘intellectual’ – for want of a better word – than someone who has read the book?

 

I’m struggling to think of one book I have read which is better than the film. Ian McEwan’s Atonement, possibly. The film doesn’t quite capture that narrative side-step where it suddenly becomes one character’s idealised version of events rather than what really happened. To Kill a Mockingbird; Gregory Peck doesn’t do it as Atticus Finch for me.

 

Sometimes, though, the film can strip the heart out of a book – and this is illustrated beautifully in an episode of Seinfeld. George Costanza is taking an evening class in literature and one of the set texts is Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. George just can’t get into the book so he decides to watch the film instead. That way he can contribute to the class discussion.

 

When they discuss the novel George suggests that Paul Varjak is clearly in love with Holly Golightly. Another student asks how that can be if Varjak is gay? George is completely unaware that Paul Varjak is gay in the novel but given a sanitised Hollywood ‘straightening out’ for the film. The film also under-plays Holly’s prostitution.

 

So in this case is the film better than the book? Not this time. Blake Edwards’ film doesn’t just make changes to facilitate the telling of the story; it changes the story to accommodate the mores of Hollywood – stripping out the homosexuality and the prostitution to create a conventional love story between a red-blooded guy and a party girl.

 

The novel still has some cache that the film doesn’t – but it’s unjustified. A good film director or screenwriter can improve on the source material. One caveat, though; modern dramatists seem to slavishly replicate those speech patterns of the past. Much 19th Century literature could be half the length if the characters didn’t take so bloody long to say anything. ‘My lady, I would be so humbled if you would consent to do me the honour…..’ Oh, for crying out loud – he’s asking you to dance.

 

For many that language is the beauty of the period. For me it just gets in the way of anything happening. Modern screenwriters try to recreate it and you get this cod-early Victorian drivel. As for dramatisations of Dickens; it’s de rigueur to have an all-star cast and it’s a contractual obligation that they must over-act.

More ham than Dewhursts.

 

 

 

Life's a Riot 24 Aug 2011

On August 23rd, 2011, Channel 4’s Alex Thompson reported from Libya, where rebel forces had just broken into Colonel Gaddafi’s compound. He interviewed 18-year-old Abdullah, who’s actually from Manchester. He’d only just got his A-Level results and is planning to start a course at Manchester University in September. But here he was, in Libya, fighting with the rebels and helping overthrow 42 years of dictatorship.

 

From Alex Thompson’s Blog:
“He’s been here since June, mainly fighting here in Zawiyah, but has seen action, he says, up the road in Tripoli. Ok, so there’s a bit of bravado with the long knife on his belt, and the bandana but hey, these guys have something to celebrate.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he told me, referring to the trashing of Colonel Gaddafi’s Bab al-Azizia compound, “that meant so much to me, to all Libyans and particularly to people in Tripoli too.”
I suspect he’ll be off soon to get in some celebrations in Tripoli”

 

Meanwhile, in a speech on August 9th David Cameron said:

“Let me, first of all, completely condemn the scenes that we have seen on our television screens and people have witnessed in their communities. These are sickening scenes – scenes of people looting, vandalising, thieving, robbing…… This is criminality, pure and simple, and it has to be confronted and defeated…….And I have this very clear message to those people who are responsible for this wrongdoing and criminality: you will feel the full force of the law and if you are old enough to commit these crimes you are old enough to face the punishment.”

 

Gaddafi could make the same speech. Wherever he is.

 

 

 

Vox Unpopuli 24 Aug 2011

I’m calling Lynn Reid Banks out. Writing in the Guardian’s G2 on August 15th, 2011, she said:

 

“We did pioneer new techniques of interviewing, including the vox-pop, where we buttonholed people in the street for their opinions.”
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/aug/14/tv-news-50s-the-hour)

 

So it was she who invented what has become the blight of broadcast journalism – the vox-pop. And she says it like it’s a good thing. Reid Banks was writing about the BBC drama ‘The Hour’ which is set in a BBC-type current affairs programme in 1956. She is scathing about its historical authenticity – but that’s another story.

 

It’s the fact that she claims to have created what, for me, is MacJournalism; the vox-pop. As a low-grade BBC hack, the vox-pop is the bane of my life. More and more frequently I am being sent out to gauge the opinion of the man and woman in the street on any given subject. It is like going to the theatre and being asked to perform the play yourself.

 

You are the listener; you know what you think. You don’t want to hear what you think on the radio or television. You want to hear some analysis, development or exploration of themes you hadn’t thought of. A vox-pop is just reading the news to yourself in a mirror.

 

They are a pain in the arse to do. Your ‘hit rate’ is generally low – more people turn you down than will talk to you. Some will politely decline, others will tell you they’re ‘too busy’ while they’re sauntering along at a snail’s pace and others will simply blank you. If you want to discover the secret of invisibility, go out and record a vox. No offence to Chuggers and opinion pollsters, but you become the white noise of the street – just another person to step round or avoid eye contact.

 

People have generally given very little thought to the subject you are asking them about. There they are, minding their own business – strolling back to work from lunch, on their way to pick up their dry cleaning – and suddenly they’re asked their opinion about some current news story. Most people don’t know or don’t care.

 

But because you have to make ‘engaging’ radio or television you select the most articulate, the unexpected, the unusual or the plain barking. Yet those aren’t representative – they are the ones that stand out. A truly accurate vox-pop on any given subject would be a minute of people mumbling, ‘Dunno, haven’t really thought about it, who?’

A vox-pop is the laziest and most unimaginative form of journalism. I have often been sent out so we can get ‘local voices’ on the air. Why not just ask people their name and where they’re from then? They are no more than a sort of shout-out to illustrate every story.

How can anyone take vox-pops seriously after they were so cuttingly parodied by Charlie Brooker on Newswipe? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGSXMuWMR4&feature=fvst)

   See what you have created, Lynn Reid Banks? Perhaps, back in the 1950s, vox-pops were new, cutting edge and insightful. Nearly 60 years on, though, they have become tired, hackneyed and dull – the go-to technique of the unimaginative producer looking to wobble those needles for a minute or so, giving the illusion of investigation and analysis.

 

The vox-pop is the cheeseburger of journalism.

 

 

 

Shit Happens 18 Aug 2011

I never knew her name. She was on the newspaper journalism course and I was on the broadcasting course. So, whilst we shared the same building and saw each other every day, we had no contact. She was attractive and there was a flicker of recognition every time we passed in the corridor. Had we shared any lectures it might have been easier and I would have had a reason to talk to her but I just couldn’t find an excuse to talk to her. I know, I know – why did I need an excuse? I’m more confident now, but back then I just couldn’t strike up a conversation with an attractive woman, let alone ask her out; I was just too shy to say anything so I settled for fancying her from afar.

 

I still held on to that faint ember of hope that she found me as mysterious and attractive as I did her. And so this went on for months and months until I convinced myself there was a spark between us, although I still could not cross that gulf of awkwardness.

There was a Unisex toilet in the building, just next to the entry hall. One morning, as I arrived, I was dying for the loo before heading upstairs for the first lecture of the day. I opened the door and stepped into the darkness before the motion-sensitive light flickered on. The previous user had obviously had an attack of diarrhoea and failed to get it all into the bowl. Slicks of runny shit ran down the outside of the porcelain, some even on the floor. Soggy wads of brown-streaked toilet paper hung over the side like sick bunting. There was poo everywhere. It was almost as if the perpetrator had stood against the wash basin opposite and attempted to projectile-shit into the lavatory.

 

All this took me a few seconds to take in and decide to leave. I opened the door and stepped into the corridor only to be faced with She Who Was Out of My League. She smiled and stepped past me and into the toilet before I could think of what to say. Of course I knew what sight would greet her. But she had just seen me leave. Surely she would think I was responsible – it was almost the damning evidence of the smoking bum. I fled the scene before she, too, left the scene of the slime. Of course that must have seemed like the cowardly action of The Guilty.

How could I tell her it wasn’t me? Or would that be a case of ‘methinks he doth protest too much’? She must think it was me. Now, 20 years on, I think why should she? But I keep coming to the answer, of course she would. All my carefully cultivated cool and air of mystery, over the past couple of months, was blown away by the sheer bad luck of being in the wrong restroom at the wrong time.

 

I could never meet her eye again – which of course must have confirmed my guilt in her eyes. There were times when I wanted to stop her and say, ‘That toilet – I didn’t do it.’ After all those months of communicating only in body language, how could my first conversation with her amount to, ‘I didn’t shit myself in that toilet, someone else did it’?

For the remainder of the course my sense of shame and her suspicion hung between us like a fug of broken wind; unspoken, but an undeniable presence.

To this day, although happily married, it still bothers me that an attracted woman thinks I befouled a toilet. I still carry with me the smear of someone else’s faecal faux pas.

 

 

Radio vs Television 16 Aug 2011

Why being on the Radio is better than being on Television.

1.  Radio is the senior service in the BBC – we were the founders when the Company went on air in 1922.

2. Radio is more immediate.  I can pitch up at a story and be live on my mobile within seconds.

3. Radio is less of a faff.  Television is so much more technical and to do a story needs a cameraman, editing equipment, a broadcast vehicle.  With Radio it’s just me.

4. Radio stretches my writing skills.  Without pictures my words must tell the story.

5. Radio is less intimidating.  Sometimes people will talk to Radio, rather than Television because it offers anonymity.

6. Radio is less gimmicky.  It doesn’t need all the bells and whistles of fancy graphics, slo-mo and  pretty pictures.  It lets the story breathe.

7. Radio lets the listener focus on the words of the speaker without the distraction of cut-aways or how they look.

8. Radio is less filled with egos.  Not for nothing are television journalists called ‘Telly Tarts.’

9. Radio is more democratic, less cliquey.

10. Radio stations are the first targets for any revolutionaries for a reason.

Why being on Television is better than being on the Radio.

1.  People want to have sex with you.

Let’s hear it for the Telly – woo-hoo!

 

 

 

Riots and Wrongs 16 Aug 2011

Back in the spring wasn’t it marvelous how pro-democracy demonstrators used social media to organise their up-risings against oppressive regimes in Libya, Egypt and Dubai? Hooray for Twitter and Facebook.

 

Isn’t it terrible how hooligans and thugs are using social media to incite the mobs in our cities this summer?

 

   Ban it!

 

And how come a Glasgow teenager has been arrested for allegedly inciting rioting on Facebook and yet the West praised its use in the Middle East last Spring?

 

Radio phone-ins are so depressing.  Listening to them, I realise how thin the veneer of civility is, covering an ugly savagery.  I’m talking about those who want to kill the rioters, use plastic bullets, calling them scum, cunts and animals. So how are you better than them if you say those things? They are in the wrong, but so are you.   The point is ‘mission creep’; if you go in hard this time, it’s easier to do it next time when it’s less clear, and so on and so on.  That way we sleepwalk into a brutalist society.

 

You shouldn’t put the public on the radio; they’re not qualified and those who do call are not typical of the many.  They are the ones who always shout loudest.  And radio panders to their views because they make ‘good radio’.  How often have we reflected on a good caller because they were passionate, mad or odd.  We are seduced not by what they say but the way they say it.  Mea Culpa.

 

A riot in Gloucester on Tuesday night.  Well, not a riot – more a riotette.  Sixty people in Barton Street smashed the windows of Coral Bookmakers and set a wheelie bin on fire.  Two got inside the bookies and lost fifty quid.  The police sent in mounted police, although they might have been a routine patrol since the cuts – hard to tell.  Or it could have been a posse looking to head ‘em off at the by-pass.

 

Meanwhile, we had a couple of journos driving around off-duty looking for the trouble just out of curiosity. We now have riot tourism.   I get the impression a lot of journalist colleagues are getting off on reporting this and getting a buzz from being part of the coverage.  I feel I’m working among erections and hard nipples.  The newsroom whiffs of testosterone – some of it from the men.

 

There was collective envy when one reporter got to wear a stab-proof vest on the streets of Birmingham.  Aw, cool!  A lot of journalists get a vicarious thrill from being there with the emergency services.  But we’re often told to stick with the police for safety.  But we are immediately taking sides.  We only see things from their perspective.  It was good to hear a reporter in Manchester interviewing some rioters DURING the unrest.

 

The BBC can always be relied on to over-react to any situation.  We’ve all had an e-mail saying we have to have mandatory training in reporting from volatile situations – as if it’s going to become an everyday part of our job.  I overheard on journo saying, ‘Can I play a rioter?’  Truth is, people are getting hurt and killed. This isn’t a bullet point on a future CV, it’s peoples’ lives.

 

We’ve just taken delivery of safety gear.  There’s a face-mask for protection against tear-gas and CS spray.  There’s a helmet which is going to make you look like a police riot officer.  Couldn’t see the t-shirt with the target on the front.  Most bizarrely of all – white cotton gloves.  Why the fuck would I need white cotton gloves in a riot?  Am I going to be asked to direct traffic or conduct an orchestra?

 

Apparently the rain kept them indoors last night.  They’re too busy looting sports shops for Nike trainers when they should be looting Blacks for some sensible outdoor clothes.  Me, I’d trash Damart for comfortable underwear.  Part of me thinks, if the limit of your ambition is stealing trainers then you go ahead.  Take all you want.  You can raid any shop you want with impunity and all you want is shoes?  Well, knock yourself out.  OR you could break into Waterstones – at least you might learn something.

 

200 riot-trained officers on the streets last night.

 

What, are they giving lessons now?

 

I went walkabout with the Chief Constable in Gloucester’s Barton St after the mini-riot.  He pointed to one building and said, ‘I see that one’s been badly damaged.’  Councillor showing him round said, ‘No, it’s always looked like that.’  

 

It started badly; we were led off in wrong direction. The journalists were all muttering, ‘I thought it all happened down there.’  But we were all too sheep-like to speak up.  Eventually we  found a Williams Hill bookmaker with cracked windows.  The Chief Constable, the Mayor with chain-of-office and the Dean in dog collar huddled round the counter while TV crews filmed them.  It would make a great picture for a caption comp or Have I Got News For You; if this comes in I’ll get 50 extra officers and you’ll get a new church roof.

 

I spoke to the local Tory MP.  I put to him some of the comments I’ve seen that this is a repeat of the ‘80s and ‘90s and how we always seem to have riots under the Conservatives.  ‘Outrageous,’ he said.  He immediately blamed Labour for saying it, even though it wasn’t.  I told him it wasn’t and he seemed disappointed.  Then he said the reason there are so many riots under the Tories is because they have to implement tough policies to clean up messes left by Labour.

 

And so the politicians returned to Parliament to debate the riots.  Admittedly there wasn’t the finger-pointing you might expect – even a degree of unanimity between the parties.  Until you remember that together they form ‘the establishment’ and they will always close ranks when their little status quo is challenged.  Like the band of the same name, they might say the songs are different but the riffs are basically the same.  Never mind recalling Parliament, they should recall the schools.

 

As expected there were some ding-bat contributions to the debate.  One Tory backbencher suggested spraying rioters with dye to aid identification.  It’s not actually an offence to be PRESENT at a riot – there are many reasons why other people might be there.  Me, for example.  I might be there reporting on it and I might get sprayed.  Even police officers might get some dye on them.  And if I was rioting and I was arrested I would say I was an innocent by-stander the dye came off the clothes of the police officers.  Or I came into contact with people who were looting. 

 

Proving I was there doesn’t prove I was taking part.

 

The arrested looters start appearing in court.  Say what you like about young people they do care about their appearance.  Many turn up in the top designer brands and the latest trainers.  One judge tells some looters ‘you are a disgrace to your country’ again revealing how out of touch the establishment is.  Does he really think these people give a shit about patriotism?  Are they really going to care if they’ve let their country down?  Naive.  But all the suits, the wigs and the hats can do is come up with the same tired old responses.

 

And please, please, please can we not have a call for the return of National Service?  Oh, the Daily Express just did.  Why would the army want to take on the training of tens of thousands of young people who don’t want to be there?  Hasn’t it got enough on its plate with commitments around the world on a shrinking budget without having to train up sulky teenagers?  And what are you going to get at the end of it?  Pissed off youths who know how to snap a neck and improvise a grenade. Yeah, thanks for that Daily Express.

 

The Broadcaster’s Fear of Silence. Sitting in the newsroom ear-wigging programme ideas. A quick-win-story presents itself; easy to set up but not very exciting. Quick justification – eg, our listeners will have children/grandchildren who do that. Interpretation; that’ll keep the needles wobbling for another three minutes. DULL, DULL, DULL.

 

I pitched an idea that we should explore the demonization of youth in all this.  While the numbers involved might seem big, in fact most teenagers weren’t out rioting.  It’s lazy thinking.   I suggested taking some of the comments posted on-line and some of the callers to phone-ins and re-voicing them – substituting the words ‘teenagers’ and ‘young people’ with ‘black’.  Suddenly you see how distasteful the comments actually are; no one would dream of using racial epithets (well, most) but it is quite ok to broadly condemn young people.  It is legal to put a sign outside a shop saying, ‘No children’ but not ‘No blacks’.  Yet BOTH are unacceptable.

 

But no one was interested in the idea.  Not necessarily, I think, because it wasn’t editorially sound but because it was harder to set up.  There isn’t the will.

 

And youth clubs; how tired a cliché is that?  The suits can only come up with same old solutions.  Young people have far more entertainment at their fingertips than ever before; they have access to computers, gaming, downloading music.  What relevance is a youth club?  They don’t riot because there’s nowhere to play table-tennis.

 

In Gloucester the local Tory MP happened to be opening a youth centre the day after the unrest in the same area of the city.  They were so excited that 30 young people had signed up already.  That’s a crap response out of the thousands in that part of town.

According to the Conservatives, civil unrest was a sign of Broken Britain.  When it happens under the Tories it’s because they’ve been forced to implement tough policies to clean up the mess left by Labour.

 

And finally, David Cameron makes a keynote speech on the way forward after all the looting.  His opening words; ‘It’s time for Britain to take stock.’  Nooooooo, Dave!