Leveson Inquiry

Maxticate

Is anyone following the evidence being given?

I have been listening to the live feed at work and some of the actions of the press have been quite eye opening.

Does anyone have any idea of what the outcome of this inquiry could be?

bails87

If you've found it enlightening: http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.com/ the site itself is good, as are most of the related links down the right hand side. Plenty of people have been pointing out the appalling behaviour of the press for a long time. Hopefully now people will start to listen.

The outcome will hopefully be a PCC that has the power to actually do something. you know, one that doesn't say that headlines can be completely false as long as the truth is somewhere (paragraph 38!) in the article. Or that columnists can present flat out lies as fact, and get away with it because "readers would be aware that the columnist was not accurately reflecting the government’s policy on the housing of immigrants, but that he was making an amplified statement for rhetorical effect".

Hopefully the press will act with a little more responsiblity and tact, but the long lens photos of Gary Speed's house that were in this morning's papers suggest that that is unlikely to happen.

rjsterry

High hopes. Low expectations.

bails87

rjsterry: Yep, more concise than me!

Maxticate

I haven't bought a newspaper in years and tend to read all my news via the BBC website and will probably continue to do so. But will people be outraged enough at the liberties taken by journalists in order to sell news stories that they stop buying newspapers and the tat-mags that are women's magazines such as closer, take a break, heat etc. I don't think so, and yet if their wasn't the audience clamouring for photos of "celebrity's" sweaty armpits then the market wouldn't exist and we might get to read of proper news stories.

rick_chasey

BBC news is sh!t.

Tabloids can go get f*cked.

It's nice to hear (some more than others) eloquent public figures giving tabloids sh!t, without fear of p!ssing off a load of voters.

I'd genuinely rather have the telegraph over BBC news.

Maxticate

Why is the telegraph better than BBC news (and I'm not saying BBC news is the best news service there is)?

Is any news channel likely to be truley free from bias?

Maxticate

Hearing Anne Diamond Speaking about the death of her child and the subsequent actions of the press I find myself wondering at what had happened to the moral compass of the reporters and photographers involved in trying to get the story.

rick_chasey

BBC news has a few problems.

#1 - it is always slow to get anywhere. Ever since the David Kelly incident, the BBC seems so burdened by its position as the state run news broadcaster that it's unbearabley slow at getting to the news - it's always a few steps behind.

#2 - it suffers - rightly - because it has to compete with more low-brow outputs that appeal to your average tabloid reader. BBC news TV for example, not only suffers from the well documented 24hr news problems, but also has to fend off from poor but "exciting" journalism from Sky news. As such, the quality is lower.

#3 - for both these reasons it always follows the 'discussion' on the news, rather than leading and informing it. The BBC love to put any news into a binary context in line with whatever tabloids are whinging about, and get vox pops from inane ill-informed people on the street.

#4 - the BBC also abuses its position as the most digested news source by creating the awful feedback loop, where they can tell people what to think about a story, and then report on people's reactions to said story.

At least with the telegraph they really try and do some good journalism. It just has an explicit right wing edge that's easily identifiable.

(I say this, in case you're not clear, as someone who by and large is a lefty who really doesn't like the telegraph)

notsoblue

Rick Chasey wrote:

BBC news is sh!t.

What makes you say that?

W1

Maxticate wrote:

Hearing Anne Diamond Speaking about the death of her child and the subsequent actions of the press I find myself wondering at what had happened to the moral compass of the reporters and photographers involved in trying to get the story.

Which surely only reflects the moral compass of the readership?

How do you balance a free press against a powerful regulator? Simply, you can't. What needs to happen is to make the law itself either much stronger, or with bigger, sharper teeth. Put real fear into editors so that they do their job properly, rather than making the decision on whether to print a story based solely on an economic calcuation of "value of fine less increase in circulation = decision."

dhope

W1 wrote:

Maxticate wrote:

Hearing Anne Diamond Speaking about the death of her child and the subsequent actions of the press I find myself wondering at what had happened to the moral compass of the reporters and photographers involved in trying to get the story.

Which surely only reflects the moral compass of the readership?

How do you balance a free press against a powerful regulator? Simply, you can't. What needs to happen is to make the law itself either much stronger, or with bigger, sharper teeth. Put real fear into editors so that they do their job properly, rather than making the decision on whether to print a story based solely on an economic calcuation of "value of fine less increase in circulation = decision."

Something like a requirement that any apology or retraction must be as prominent and occupy the same space as the original story would be a fine start.

rjsterry

+1 on the BBC News vox pops. Who gives a flying **** what Shirley from Leamington Spa (who, to be fair to her, has clearly been given less than 5 seconds to compose an answer to 'what do you think about the relaxation of UK border controls?' or similar) thinks about anything. As if her instant response even gives a representative view of 'the British Public'. Also the obsession with reading out viewers emails and tweets - again, I don't care what someone, who has time to compose emails to BBC news at 7.30am, thinks about anything.

bails87

I think the readership are (or were, at least) largely unaware of how the stories appeared. If you write "a close friend of X told us yesterday......" you don't give the reader the same moral conundrum as writing "when we illegally accessed X's/X's husband's/wife's/parent's/child's/friend's/doctor's/lawyer's voicemail/computer/medical records/school records/police record/dustbins yesterday, we found that....." .

Most tabloid readers wouldn't agree that the mother of Hugh Grant's child should have allegedly received a late night phonecall telling her to "tell Hugh Grant to shut the f*ck up". But they won't know that this kind of thing goes on.

dhope

rjsterry wrote:

+1 on the BBC News vox pops. Who gives a flying **** what Shirley from Leamington Spa (who, to be fair to her, has clearly been given less than 5 seconds to compose an answer to 'what do you think about the relaxation of UK border controls?' or similar) thinks about anything. As if her instant response even gives a representative view of 'the British Public'. Also the obsession with reading out viewers emails and tweets - again, I don't care what someone, who has time to compose emails to BBC news at 7.30am, thinks about anything.

Charlie Brooker did a fine episode on this. Well worth a watch
Screenwipe - Rolling News

And the media's current role in creating and reporting on its own stories, fuelling hysteria through ill informed public opinion etc.

il_principe

Ian Hislop summed it up for me on HIGNFY. He pointed out that it was the press who broke the news on the expenses scandal, and on phone hacking. Not the government or the police, but the press. He went on to say that all the outcome should be is that the police do their job. Much of what the press have done to some of these people is basically illegal - i.e paps chasing Sienna Miller = harassment. There are laws in place to prevent these things, it's just that they never seem to be enforced. Muzzle the press too thoroughly and we'll have an even worse situation.

rick_chasey

S'a good point.

Never thought of it that way.

Then again, I never put harassing celebrities in the same pot as (say) proper investigative journalism.

Maxticate

Paul Mcmullen is a completely odious individual.

bails87

He seems to enjoy being an absolutely hateable 'typical' tabloid hack.

notsoblue

With regards to the quality of BBC News... I think theres quite a variation in the quality of its output depending on how you consume it. Shows like the Today Programme and to a lesser extent Newsnight are pretty much the highest standard available in popular broadcast news. This stands in contrast to the regular bulletins, breakfast news and 24hour news for the reasons stated above, however I think its a matter of per show audience targeting rather than the BBC's fundamental ability to be a good news provider.

rick_chasey

notsoblue wrote:

With regards to the quality of BBC News... I think theres quite a variation in the quality of its output depending on how you consume it. Shows like the Today Programme and to a lesser extent Newsnight are pretty much the highest standard available in popular broadcast news. This stands in contrast to the regular bulletins, breakfast news and 24hour news for the reasons stated above, however I think its a matter of per show audience targeting rather than the BBC's fundamental ability to be a good news provider.

You're probably right.

For some reason I seperate Newsnight from the BBC news output - given that they don't really report news, but comment on salient news issues. They can quite happily ignore stuff that would and should be reported at 6pm and 10pm.

walkingbootweather

I'm a cyclist I get the news I need on the weather report.

bails87

I hope we end up with more hard hitting PR....I mean reporting like this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z1f71pzB9g

Purely because it leads to comments like this:

All I need for total fulfillment every time is a picture of Richard Littlejohn, a chair leg, and half a pound of margarine. - Colin, London, 29/11/2011

W1

bails87 wrote:

I hope we end up with more hard hitting PR....I mean reporting like this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z1f71pzB9g

Purely because it leads to comments like this:

All I need for total fulfillment every time is a picture of Richard Littlejohn, a chair leg, and half a pound of margarine. - Colin, London, 29/11/2011

The Daily Mail comments section provides a terryfying/hilarious insight into the minds of the general public - beaten only by The Guardian, obviously.

rjsterry

W1 wrote:

bails87 wrote:

I hope we end up with more hard hitting PR....I mean reporting like this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z1f71pzB9g

Purely because it leads to comments like this:

All I need for total fulfillment every time is a picture of Richard Littlejohn, a chair leg, and half a pound of margarine. - Colin, London, 29/11/2011

The Daily Mail comments section provides a terryfying/hilarious insight into the minds of the general public - beaten only by The Guardian, obviously.

I dunno, the Times and the Telegraph are pretty fruity too. It makes you realise what a (relative) oasis of sanity and moderation this place is.

greg66_tri_v2.0

notsoblue wrote:

With regards to the quality of BBC News... I think theres quite a variation in the quality of its output depending on how you consume it. Shows like the Today Programme and to a lesser extent Newsnight are pretty much the highest standard available in popular broadcast news. This stands in contrast to the regular bulletins, breakfast news and 24hour news for the reasons stated above, however I think its a matter of per show audience targeting rather than the BBC's fundamental ability to be a good news provider.

Hmm. I find the Today Programme a bit variable. Humphreys is a disgrace. He can't distinguish argumentative hectoring from a probing interview. I like Evan Davies, but I wonder that he's a bit soft on interviewees. Naughtie is consistently good, despite being a misguided leftie. Esp like it when he calls a minister a cun t and has to suppress his giggles. Peston's pieces have almost become self parodies.

greg66_tri_v2.0

rjsterry wrote:

W1 wrote:

bails87 wrote:

I hope we end up with more hard hitting PR....I mean reporting like this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z1f71pzB9g

Purely because it leads to comments like this:

All I need for total fulfillment every time is a picture of Richard Littlejohn, a chair leg, and half a pound of margarine. - Colin, London, 29/11/2011

The Daily Mail comments section provides a terryfying/hilarious insight into the minds of the general public - beaten only by The Guardian, obviously.

I dunno, the Times and the Telegraph are pretty fruity too. It makes you realise what a (relative) oasis of sanity and moderation this place is.

Pretty much any media outlet that invites and reproduces viewers'/listeners'/readers' views makes me very nervous that the right to vote is so freely doled out int this country.

cjcp

Greg66 wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

With regards to the quality of BBC News... I think theres quite a variation in the quality of its output depending on how you consume it. Shows like the Today Programme and to a lesser extent Newsnight are pretty much the highest standard available in popular broadcast news. This stands in contrast to the regular bulletins, breakfast news and 24hour news for the reasons stated above, however I think its a matter of per show audience targeting rather than the BBC's fundamental ability to be a good news provider.

Hmm. I find the Today Programme a bit variable. Humphreys is a disgrace. He can't distinguish argumentative hectoring from a probing interview. I like Evan Davies, but I wonder that he's a bit soft on interviewees. Naughtie is consistently good, despite being a misguided leftie. Esp like it when he calls a minister a cun t and has to suppress his giggles. Peston's pieces have almost become self parodies.

+1. Quickly went off the Today Programme.

Peston does my skull in. (A modern classic: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php ... &Itemid=59)

Dateline's good.

I wish R2 would ditch the Jeremy Vine Show. Dreadful. What a waste of airtime.

That said, the BBC is much better than CNN. My god...

notsoblue

Greg66 wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

With regards to the quality of BBC News... I think theres quite a variation in the quality of its output depending on how you consume it. Shows like the Today Programme and to a lesser extent Newsnight are pretty much the highest standard available in popular broadcast news. This stands in contrast to the regular bulletins, breakfast news and 24hour news for the reasons stated above, however I think its a matter of per show audience targeting rather than the BBC's fundamental ability to be a good news provider.

Hmm. I find the Today Programme a bit variable. Humphreys is a disgrace. He can't distinguish argumentative hectoring from a probing interview. I like Evan Davies, but I wonder that he's a bit soft on interviewees. Naughtie is consistently good, despite being a misguided leftie. Esp like it when he calls a minister a cun t and has to suppress his giggles. Peston's pieces have almost become self parodies.

Agreed on Humphreys, but to be fair sometimes the alternative to argumentative hectoring is sitting back while a politician reads back a prepared statement. They also have the habit of bringing in people with opposing views specifically to provoke an argument. Graham Linehan has written about his experience of it. Was quite a funny bit to listen to. The Today Programme has its faults, certainly, but my point is that you'd be hard pushed to find better (And if you have, please do let me know!). Presenters like Justin Webb, Naughtie, Davies and Montague are brilliant imo.

I'm a big fan of Channel 4 news, but it's biases are less well hidden.

greg66_tri_v2.0

notsoblue wrote:

(And if you have, please do let me know!).

I don't! Always have it on in the house in the mornings.

If I take the car though, I tend to listen to Crapital for a bit of brain bubblegum in the morning...