Afternoon All!
This post is in response to a few rants iv been having lately with colleagues and to, well just general discussions at the moment about universities, the press and just their beautiful, wonderful, fabulous ability to distort facts and print complete and utter crap!
Im jumping out of my usual sphere of linking this to my WWII coding project and just passing a few comments and thoughts - hope you dont mind (i wouldnt really care if you did mind but i thought i would be polite).
Last week The Western Mail decided to publish an article regarding the "shocking" story that Universities within Wales (Aberystwyth, Swansea Met and others) all accepted students with 80 tariff points –
two A-level passes – or less in September 2012, basically affording them a place for achieving an E grade or less. Now as someone who reads the newspapers everyday (the fact they're from 70 years ago is beside the point), i'm used to a little distortion and manipulation from the press, depending on your point of view but this article just made my blood boil!
Now naturally some might be exceptionally concerned about the possibility of a slip in standards amongst Higher Education establishments, especially regarding the rise in fees to £9000 a year. The effects of Universities "dumbing down" as the paper so eloquently put it would naturally be a worry for many parents, students and academics alike as it would undermine the very level of education the students hope to achieve, the lecturers want to provide and the education most parents are paying for and want to see a return from (i mean all parents want to see their children flourish with a good job and happy/fulfilling life after uni dont they?) How can high achieving and more naturally gifted students be expected to receive the same high standard of education if institutions such as Aberystwyth are making themselves cater to a set of students who clearly will not be able to cope with the rigorous level of work the University will expect/demand? SO OBVIOUSLY the University is allowing standards to slip
in order to make these students feel as though they
belong....also....grades would lower should these students be left behind.....confidence in the system would
fall.....better make it easier for them to cope and appear to get better grades......
Shadow Education Minister Angela Burns hoved into view with the opinion that these revelations “make a
mockery of entry requirements; this sends out a message that elements of the Welsh higher
education sector have bargain-basement entry requirements, are
dumbing-down and don’t appreciate the value of academic rigour,”
Ahem (excuse me a moment)
WHAT A CROCK OF B***S***
I AM SICK TO THE BACK TEETH OF THIS POLITICAL ARGUMENT THAT BECAUSE YOU DONT HAVE THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF UCAS POINTS YOU'RE CLEARLY NOT CUT OUT FOR EDUCATION AND SHOULD BE SHOVED TO THE BACK OF THE CLASS WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A BACKWARD GLANCE........
(breath breath breath.....sorry about that)
I'm angry on several points:
1.Yet again a newspaper has waded into the fight without actually checking the facts first. The article itself, while establishing a fact that yes, Aberystwyth does allow students to enter its ranks with less than standard UCAS points, the information obtained was completely taken out of context. It did not elaborate upon the fact that this institution takes people who come to University from a variety of different paths - for instance, people with foundation degrees and apprenticeships with no affiliation to UCAS at all, mature students who may not have ANY A-levels (omg they are clearly substandard human beings and should be shot for NOT HAVING A-LEVELS....jeez, i mean having life experience counts for nothing these days....did you lot not get the memo????). Also, Aberystwyth offers the chance for students to attend a highly successful and useful Summer University, helping them to improve their writing, reading and analytical skills in order to prepare themselves for a more rigorous undergraduate degree. I have several friends who help out with the teaching on it and many of them comment on how nice it is to see those students again in following years, knowing that yes, some may have struggled to begin with, but at least they were given the opportunity to improve and to see if Higher Ed was for them.
2. The article also made no mention of the hard work, from both staff and students alike, that goes into helping these students once they have crossed the threshold of the University. I've been teaching here at Aberystwyth now for several months and of course there are students who need a little more encouragement and help to get there than others. Yes, some students realise that Uni isn't for them and that they dont wish to continue. But many staff here work damn hard on behalf of ALL students in a fair and balanced manner, attempting to provide a solid basis of knowledge and confidence which will allow individual students to flourish and grow. To say that they are "Dumbing Down" is an insult to both staff and students alike and the work that does into developing and improving their grades and time on campus every term......
3. WHY DO THE PRESS NOT GET THEIR FACTS STRAIGHT AND EVEN IF THEY DO GET THE BASIC FACTS, WHY WHY WHY DO THEY KEEP TAKING IT OUT OF CONTEXT!?!?!? (breath)
4. This is YET AGAIN another attack on Higher Education by the Press and Government making out that education is only for a select group of people, coming from the CORRECT background and the right path which this Government has so lovingly set out for them. There is no thought for the individual. There is just an idea that because there is a slight drop in grades of SOME applicants that universally across the board, Universities MUST be lowering standards! This is just another example of un founded, ill advised, malicious and politically motivated attacks on certain groups which this Government think "aren't pulling its weight".
It all ties in to general Coalition policy.....if you're not clever or wealthy enough and arnt going to add to the coffers....dont wanna know! If you come from a poor, under privileged background with few opportunities....tough! Ever thought though that someone may be good enough and has just not been given a chance? Ever thought that yes, some people may struggle at school because maybe they might be a little shy? dont work well in large groups and prefer to study alone? that they come from a slightly poorer/run down area where the schools dont have the kinds of facilities that allow them to develop as much or as well as others?....through no fault of their own....maybe they haven't been given the ability to shine yet?!
Reason i'm having a bit of a rant is coz i'm proud to see Aberystwyth's very own VC having a pop back at the press with many of the arguments iv spouted above....and more.
Its nice to see someone standing up and having a shout back, going "UHHHH NO.....dont think so".
Some may call it cynical and poke holes.....some may say "yeh yeh but in practise...."
I dont care! i am proud of this retort and i wanted to share it with you all.
http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/news/archive/2013/01/title-125231-en.html
Have a lovely Friday all.....:D
Friday, 11 January 2013
Friday, 30 November 2012
Leveson: "We're doomed......"
Hear yee hear yee.....*clangs a big bell REALLLLYYYY loudly* THE REPORT IS OUT I REPEAT THE REPORT IS OUT!!!
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 8-10 months you'll know all about Leveson, phone hacking, Murdoch, New of The World....blah blah blahhhhh. Well oh happy day......the 2000 page report which presents the findings of the many wonderful and oh so distracting hearings from earlier on in the year is here......bom bom bommmmmm!!! (Also as a side note to this, i have discovered that my supervisor Professor Tom O'Malley's book "Regulating The Press" is cited by Leveson in the report on numerous occasions as a background to press regulation - to put it politely, he's in a very chuffed, happy, pleased as punch mood this morning.... making my 9am supervision with him today a rather jolly affair with many jokes that he's finally hit the big time.....ANYWAY.....moving on).........
What will the reaction be i hear you cry? Will politicians congratulate the report for its thorough and extensive work!? Will they now clammer for greater regulation? or sidestep the issue entirely.......burying their heads in the sand claiming they dont know what the problem is (yes .....im looking at you Jeremy Hunt) Or will they do what most politicians do which is throw out a couple of choice sound bites for posterity and the 6 o clock news which makes it SOUND like they're going to do something BUT actually if you listen carefully....yeh nothing will change (YEH IM LOOKING AT YOU CAMERON......)
From what we have seen in the last day or so, its the latter. It was always going to be the latter!!
Thing is, arguments about the press, its regulation, what newspapers can and cant do......its the oldest argument going in terms of the press and what its there for. THIS IS NOT NEW PEOPLE!!!
Getting my "press historian hat" on for a few moments *rustles about in an old draw....dusts off an old fedora iv got hanging around* there are many contrasting theories and ideas about what the press should ideally be and what it actually is. Much of the work by historians on the history of the press has concentrated on the idea that ultimately over the centuries, the struggle for freedom of the press from state control was central to the development of Democracy in the UK. The cultural theorist Raymond Williams attempted to construct a significantly more complex model of press history during the 1960s but even he, who wished to help broaden the study of press history and bring the discipline out of its shell a bit, was still cautious of advocating state intervention in the press, warning against the 'radical confusion between popular interest and the state that could lead to forms of public intervention by people who for their own reasons, want a more visibly controlled and protected society'.
The Liberal theory believes that press freedom is paramount to its continuing existence - the removal of taxes on the production of newspapers in the 1840's allowed for a greater number of newspapers to be created, produced and circulated, bringing news and information to a wider audience. Liberals see the job of the press as a regulator, a fourth estate if you will, to keep the powers that be in check. The Marxist view of things sees things a little differently. They think that the press is and always will be controlled by the powers that be - a select group of people, often involving the long arms of the Government, who are usually the wealthiest in society. They produce the stories that they want the public to hear, keeping them in a state of perpetual "down troddeness" - Capitalism reigns supreme once more and they care not for the little man on the street. I am pretty sure that in these modern times, both of these theories are sounding pretty familiar and we can all give examples that would back up both beautifully, in regards to Leveson, phone hacking etc etc I mean on one hand.....without some under hand dealing and snooping by journalists we wouldn't have known about MP's expenses. But on the flip side....hacking a dead girls mobile phone? hmmmmmmm!
Previous attempts to control what the press can and cant say havnt always ended well either. Two examples from my period of WWII alone can tell you that. The first being the suppression and closure of The Daily Worker from 1941-1942; this Communist Party newspaper (highly Stalinist in its political views) was notoriously critical of the coalition Government and many saw its closure as a positive thing.
The Guardian wrote on Wednesday 22nd January 1941
"More recently the paper has largely devoted its columns to derogatory accounts of Service conditions on the one hand and to the encouragement of agitation among munition workers on the other. This might be excusable if the motive were honest, if it were really desired to help the country in its struggle to keep democracy alive in Europe. But the "Daily Worker" did not believe either in the war or in democracy; its only aim was to confuse and weaken. We can well spare it"
However, the many protests and exclamations which followed from the public and some in Government was enough to convince the Coalition that they had to lift the ban (all be it begrudgingly). Many felt that suppression and control of the press was precisely the kind of 'curtailing of fundamental freedoms' which they were fighting the war against - it was tantamount to a dictatorship of the worst kind!!
Non the less, the Government didnt stop at The Daily Worker. Churchill himself attempted to bully and harass The Daily Mirror after the printing of this cartoon on the 6th March 1942.
The cartoon featured a merchant seaman adrift in dangerous waters clinging to the remains of a ship, apparently torpedoed by a German submarine. The caption read: “The price of petrol has been increased by one penny – Official.” One of a series of pieces attacking profiteers, the original caption created by cartoonist Philip Zec was to have been "Petrol is Dearer Now." According to Zec, the cartoon was intended to illustrate that wasting fuel had serious consequences in terms of the risks taken (and the lives lost) by sailors bringing it to the country. However, Churchill and the Minister of Supply Herbert Morrison were outraged and disgusted. They interpreted the cartoon as a comment that petrol companies were deliberately profiting at the expense of British lives - particularly those in the Merchant Navy.....which is possible....but not the way i am sure Zec intended his cartoon to be interpreted. Zec went on to receive a half assed, wishy washy apology from the Governemnt in later years but exacted revenge on Churchill by being the brains behind the adopted Labour party slogan of 1945 campaign " Dont lose it again" - a take on another cartoon of Zec's from the VE day celebrations which depicted a wounded soldier handing over a laurel wreath representing peace and victory in Europe.
The caption read "Here you are, dont lose it again": it was used again on the July morning of the 1945 election on the front page of The Daily Mirror, and the accompanying text implied that to sustain peace and harmony in Europe - vote Labour! A suitable and sweet revenge to exact on a Government/politician who had hounded Zec for the way he had expressed himself and his political beliefs. Ok so iv shows two examples of how interfering in the freedom of the press, specifically in a wartime context i will grant you, can backfire and not be to the advantage of the expression of free thinking and diversifying opinions. We dont all think the same way even in wartime with a common enemy and foe - thats human nature, thats life..... However, there is another side.
In 1943, Ivor Thomas an MP and former Journalist for The Times admitted that 'misleading reports, misleading headings and even downright errors are commoner today than good journalists would wish', something that we coders have noticed from our many extensive hours perusing newspapers in The National Library of Wales. In the room that has privately, but very affectionately, become known as "The Cage" (the small glass room within the NLW where we code/discuss stuff/distract one another/slowly go insane over a period of months) there has been much discussion about the various stories in which we find ourselves engrossed. One of the main complaints, well not complaints as such more sort of highly interesting and startling comments, is that stories sometimes, and adverts in particular, seem to get away with saying quite a lot of things which they cant seem to corroborate. Many stories present themselves with no byline (no named writer....not even a casual "from our correspondent") and proceed to present their findings/ opinions in the most dogmatic and biased manner. Adverts are the worst for it (i know adverts should be taken in a separate context but if i have to read one more time how certain brands of cigarettes are good for Bronchitis sufferers or how Ovaltine and Liver bile salts will protect the whole family guaranteed....i think i may go spare......(as Kris so kindly pointed out the other day, Ovaltine cant protect you against the blackout or a burglar....yehhh in your face adverts.....the king of pedantic grammar has destroyed your argument and not for the last time...oh no sir!!!) In keeping with my WWII examples (sorry i havnt taken off my WWII press hat yet...i like it...it makes me feel kinda cool in a vintage press/mad men/the day the earth caught fire kinda way) i read an editorial from November 1939 the other day which pontificated and raged against rationing, slandered shopkeepers for being "high and mighty" as they merely attempted to curtail consumption on Governments orders. The unknown writer exclaimed that people "could be trusted to self regulate" that you didnt need to stop people buying things - there would be enough for all. Yeh Sorry mate not buying it. Are you perhaps invested in food industry and the stocks and shares which have just taken a bit of a plummit thanks to the start of a war? yes i thought you might be! And that lovely story on page 2 about the Empire and all its dominions donating money, arms and men into the picture to help our boys win the war......do you mind telling me where you got your facts and figures from? Oh you cant come to the phone right now? Are you by any chance inflating the figures to instill a sense of calm in the public so that it'll drown out the voice inside their heads, in the lilting style of Private Frazier, chanting "We're doomed....doomed" Thought you might be......
You might wonder where im going with this.....i'll tell you.
Papers all have differing opinions. They all have different agendas. Some are biased towards the left, others the right. Different people read different papers depending on their political views and ideas (this is so eloquently illustrated in this FANTASTIC video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M ) and very rarely do we find ourselves stepping out of that niche - i mean im a Polar Bear hugging, welfare loving Liberal.....therefore i read The Guardian .....no chance i am suddenly going to start reading The Daily Mail.......*shudders at the thought*
However, one fundamental thing is true. If the public doesnt trust the journalistic skills of editors and writers on any given paper.....how are they going to trust what appears within its pages?? How can we have faith that we are being provided with accurate information? I knew that some of the facts and figures i was reading in my 1939 paper were inflated and a little questionable because i've got history on my side....i can go and check. How about in 2012? how do you go and corroborate what a newspaper is telling you? The fact of the matter is....you cant really or at least its pretty difficult for your average man in the street! Yes there are plenty more outlets of mass media than there were in 1939 (i mean Twitter.....i love you....like so much....its basically the world passing notes in class and i cant get enough of it) but now that the trust has been removed (lets be fair was it ever really there in the first place?) what are we to do as newspaper readers? Do we allow the press to continue to provide us with stories that undermine and effectively destroy people's lives? That bully, cajole and force its ideas and stories through onto their pages by underhand means?
This is not the case in all newspaper and with all journalists and i know the dangers of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. But honestly, Leveson is not suggesting that one person will have complete control over EVERY SINGLE BLOODY NEWS STORY IN THE COUNTRY.....there isn't gonna be a little man with horned rimmed glasses sat in an office on Fleet street, with a direct line to 10 Downing Street, with a red rubber stamp entitled "approved", which he uses to stamp in the most authoritative manner going, every bit of paper that flashes under his nose! The Government isn't going to try and shut down every newspaper that threatens the 'delicate sensibilities' of the public and just have one state approved and sanctioned body which provides us with all our news. Thats just ridiculous. But the way the press and politicians were clamouring yesterday afternoon, thats just what you'd think was going to happen.....
Although i have mixed feelings about regulation (im a fence sitter....i like to see things from all angles....yeh i know....despite the awesome vintage fedora i'd make a crap journalist), i fundamentally believe that the consequences of Leveson must be CHANGE....and quick! Or else we'll be back here in another 20/30 years.......doomed to repeat the same argument we've been having since.....well iv lost count of the years this argument has been going on for!
"How justified are the press in behaving the way they do for the sake of "The Truth"? "Does Government have too much control in the workings and output of the press"? "How easy is it to fall down a slippery slope towards total state control of the press?" "Do papers have the right to print whatever the hell they like with no thought for the consequences to individual lives?"
Arnt we tired of asking the same old questions every few decades without actually doing something effective about it?
No alright....i'll see you in 2026 and we'll talk about it then.......
(All quotes taken from Regulating The Press by Tom O'Malley and Clive Soley (London: Pluto Press, 2000).
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 8-10 months you'll know all about Leveson, phone hacking, Murdoch, New of The World....blah blah blahhhhh. Well oh happy day......the 2000 page report which presents the findings of the many wonderful and oh so distracting hearings from earlier on in the year is here......bom bom bommmmmm!!! (Also as a side note to this, i have discovered that my supervisor Professor Tom O'Malley's book "Regulating The Press" is cited by Leveson in the report on numerous occasions as a background to press regulation - to put it politely, he's in a very chuffed, happy, pleased as punch mood this morning.... making my 9am supervision with him today a rather jolly affair with many jokes that he's finally hit the big time.....ANYWAY.....moving on).........
What will the reaction be i hear you cry? Will politicians congratulate the report for its thorough and extensive work!? Will they now clammer for greater regulation? or sidestep the issue entirely.......burying their heads in the sand claiming they dont know what the problem is (yes .....im looking at you Jeremy Hunt) Or will they do what most politicians do which is throw out a couple of choice sound bites for posterity and the 6 o clock news which makes it SOUND like they're going to do something BUT actually if you listen carefully....yeh nothing will change (YEH IM LOOKING AT YOU CAMERON......)
From what we have seen in the last day or so, its the latter. It was always going to be the latter!!
Thing is, arguments about the press, its regulation, what newspapers can and cant do......its the oldest argument going in terms of the press and what its there for. THIS IS NOT NEW PEOPLE!!!
Getting my "press historian hat" on for a few moments *rustles about in an old draw....dusts off an old fedora iv got hanging around* there are many contrasting theories and ideas about what the press should ideally be and what it actually is. Much of the work by historians on the history of the press has concentrated on the idea that ultimately over the centuries, the struggle for freedom of the press from state control was central to the development of Democracy in the UK. The cultural theorist Raymond Williams attempted to construct a significantly more complex model of press history during the 1960s but even he, who wished to help broaden the study of press history and bring the discipline out of its shell a bit, was still cautious of advocating state intervention in the press, warning against the 'radical confusion between popular interest and the state that could lead to forms of public intervention by people who for their own reasons, want a more visibly controlled and protected society'.
The Liberal theory believes that press freedom is paramount to its continuing existence - the removal of taxes on the production of newspapers in the 1840's allowed for a greater number of newspapers to be created, produced and circulated, bringing news and information to a wider audience. Liberals see the job of the press as a regulator, a fourth estate if you will, to keep the powers that be in check. The Marxist view of things sees things a little differently. They think that the press is and always will be controlled by the powers that be - a select group of people, often involving the long arms of the Government, who are usually the wealthiest in society. They produce the stories that they want the public to hear, keeping them in a state of perpetual "down troddeness" - Capitalism reigns supreme once more and they care not for the little man on the street. I am pretty sure that in these modern times, both of these theories are sounding pretty familiar and we can all give examples that would back up both beautifully, in regards to Leveson, phone hacking etc etc I mean on one hand.....without some under hand dealing and snooping by journalists we wouldn't have known about MP's expenses. But on the flip side....hacking a dead girls mobile phone? hmmmmmmm!
Previous attempts to control what the press can and cant say havnt always ended well either. Two examples from my period of WWII alone can tell you that. The first being the suppression and closure of The Daily Worker from 1941-1942; this Communist Party newspaper (highly Stalinist in its political views) was notoriously critical of the coalition Government and many saw its closure as a positive thing.
The Guardian wrote on Wednesday 22nd January 1941
"More recently the paper has largely devoted its columns to derogatory accounts of Service conditions on the one hand and to the encouragement of agitation among munition workers on the other. This might be excusable if the motive were honest, if it were really desired to help the country in its struggle to keep democracy alive in Europe. But the "Daily Worker" did not believe either in the war or in democracy; its only aim was to confuse and weaken. We can well spare it"
However, the many protests and exclamations which followed from the public and some in Government was enough to convince the Coalition that they had to lift the ban (all be it begrudgingly). Many felt that suppression and control of the press was precisely the kind of 'curtailing of fundamental freedoms' which they were fighting the war against - it was tantamount to a dictatorship of the worst kind!!
Non the less, the Government didnt stop at The Daily Worker. Churchill himself attempted to bully and harass The Daily Mirror after the printing of this cartoon on the 6th March 1942.
The cartoon featured a merchant seaman adrift in dangerous waters clinging to the remains of a ship, apparently torpedoed by a German submarine. The caption read: “The price of petrol has been increased by one penny – Official.” One of a series of pieces attacking profiteers, the original caption created by cartoonist Philip Zec was to have been "Petrol is Dearer Now." According to Zec, the cartoon was intended to illustrate that wasting fuel had serious consequences in terms of the risks taken (and the lives lost) by sailors bringing it to the country. However, Churchill and the Minister of Supply Herbert Morrison were outraged and disgusted. They interpreted the cartoon as a comment that petrol companies were deliberately profiting at the expense of British lives - particularly those in the Merchant Navy.....which is possible....but not the way i am sure Zec intended his cartoon to be interpreted. Zec went on to receive a half assed, wishy washy apology from the Governemnt in later years but exacted revenge on Churchill by being the brains behind the adopted Labour party slogan of 1945 campaign " Dont lose it again" - a take on another cartoon of Zec's from the VE day celebrations which depicted a wounded soldier handing over a laurel wreath representing peace and victory in Europe.
The caption read "Here you are, dont lose it again": it was used again on the July morning of the 1945 election on the front page of The Daily Mirror, and the accompanying text implied that to sustain peace and harmony in Europe - vote Labour! A suitable and sweet revenge to exact on a Government/politician who had hounded Zec for the way he had expressed himself and his political beliefs. Ok so iv shows two examples of how interfering in the freedom of the press, specifically in a wartime context i will grant you, can backfire and not be to the advantage of the expression of free thinking and diversifying opinions. We dont all think the same way even in wartime with a common enemy and foe - thats human nature, thats life..... However, there is another side.
In 1943, Ivor Thomas an MP and former Journalist for The Times admitted that 'misleading reports, misleading headings and even downright errors are commoner today than good journalists would wish', something that we coders have noticed from our many extensive hours perusing newspapers in The National Library of Wales. In the room that has privately, but very affectionately, become known as "The Cage" (the small glass room within the NLW where we code/discuss stuff/distract one another/slowly go insane over a period of months) there has been much discussion about the various stories in which we find ourselves engrossed. One of the main complaints, well not complaints as such more sort of highly interesting and startling comments, is that stories sometimes, and adverts in particular, seem to get away with saying quite a lot of things which they cant seem to corroborate. Many stories present themselves with no byline (no named writer....not even a casual "from our correspondent") and proceed to present their findings/ opinions in the most dogmatic and biased manner. Adverts are the worst for it (i know adverts should be taken in a separate context but if i have to read one more time how certain brands of cigarettes are good for Bronchitis sufferers or how Ovaltine and Liver bile salts will protect the whole family guaranteed....i think i may go spare......(as Kris so kindly pointed out the other day, Ovaltine cant protect you against the blackout or a burglar....yehhh in your face adverts.....the king of pedantic grammar has destroyed your argument and not for the last time...oh no sir!!!) In keeping with my WWII examples (sorry i havnt taken off my WWII press hat yet...i like it...it makes me feel kinda cool in a vintage press/mad men/the day the earth caught fire kinda way) i read an editorial from November 1939 the other day which pontificated and raged against rationing, slandered shopkeepers for being "high and mighty" as they merely attempted to curtail consumption on Governments orders. The unknown writer exclaimed that people "could be trusted to self regulate" that you didnt need to stop people buying things - there would be enough for all. Yeh Sorry mate not buying it. Are you perhaps invested in food industry and the stocks and shares which have just taken a bit of a plummit thanks to the start of a war? yes i thought you might be! And that lovely story on page 2 about the Empire and all its dominions donating money, arms and men into the picture to help our boys win the war......do you mind telling me where you got your facts and figures from? Oh you cant come to the phone right now? Are you by any chance inflating the figures to instill a sense of calm in the public so that it'll drown out the voice inside their heads, in the lilting style of Private Frazier, chanting "We're doomed....doomed" Thought you might be......
You might wonder where im going with this.....i'll tell you.
Papers all have differing opinions. They all have different agendas. Some are biased towards the left, others the right. Different people read different papers depending on their political views and ideas (this is so eloquently illustrated in this FANTASTIC video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M ) and very rarely do we find ourselves stepping out of that niche - i mean im a Polar Bear hugging, welfare loving Liberal.....therefore i read The Guardian .....no chance i am suddenly going to start reading The Daily Mail.......*shudders at the thought*
However, one fundamental thing is true. If the public doesnt trust the journalistic skills of editors and writers on any given paper.....how are they going to trust what appears within its pages?? How can we have faith that we are being provided with accurate information? I knew that some of the facts and figures i was reading in my 1939 paper were inflated and a little questionable because i've got history on my side....i can go and check. How about in 2012? how do you go and corroborate what a newspaper is telling you? The fact of the matter is....you cant really or at least its pretty difficult for your average man in the street! Yes there are plenty more outlets of mass media than there were in 1939 (i mean Twitter.....i love you....like so much....its basically the world passing notes in class and i cant get enough of it) but now that the trust has been removed (lets be fair was it ever really there in the first place?) what are we to do as newspaper readers? Do we allow the press to continue to provide us with stories that undermine and effectively destroy people's lives? That bully, cajole and force its ideas and stories through onto their pages by underhand means?
This is not the case in all newspaper and with all journalists and i know the dangers of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. But honestly, Leveson is not suggesting that one person will have complete control over EVERY SINGLE BLOODY NEWS STORY IN THE COUNTRY.....there isn't gonna be a little man with horned rimmed glasses sat in an office on Fleet street, with a direct line to 10 Downing Street, with a red rubber stamp entitled "approved", which he uses to stamp in the most authoritative manner going, every bit of paper that flashes under his nose! The Government isn't going to try and shut down every newspaper that threatens the 'delicate sensibilities' of the public and just have one state approved and sanctioned body which provides us with all our news. Thats just ridiculous. But the way the press and politicians were clamouring yesterday afternoon, thats just what you'd think was going to happen.....
Although i have mixed feelings about regulation (im a fence sitter....i like to see things from all angles....yeh i know....despite the awesome vintage fedora i'd make a crap journalist), i fundamentally believe that the consequences of Leveson must be CHANGE....and quick! Or else we'll be back here in another 20/30 years.......doomed to repeat the same argument we've been having since.....well iv lost count of the years this argument has been going on for!
"How justified are the press in behaving the way they do for the sake of "The Truth"? "Does Government have too much control in the workings and output of the press"? "How easy is it to fall down a slippery slope towards total state control of the press?" "Do papers have the right to print whatever the hell they like with no thought for the consequences to individual lives?"
Arnt we tired of asking the same old questions every few decades without actually doing something effective about it?
No alright....i'll see you in 2026 and we'll talk about it then.......
(All quotes taken from Regulating The Press by Tom O'Malley and Clive Soley (London: Pluto Press, 2000).
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
If only they were all like our Archie.......then again maybe not!
Alright? 4 months since my last blog post........ Yeh i
really am no good at this keeping up with the Jones of "witty banter and
hard hitting political commentary" but i will try harder in the future i
promise. In my defense, I am about to enter into my 8th year straight of
University education and i have to admit that this summer, if id picked up
another historical book/newspaper, i was more likely to burn it rather than
read it. So i took a bit of a break and i read fictional books (.....not 50
shades tho....i mean come on....i have respect for my brain cells) took my
first trip back to Italy (my spiritual second home) in 6 years and reacquainted
myself with Pizza, Prosecco and the joys of swimming in my friends lake for
6hrs a day, and just generally did bugger all! (i also got to see my hero Tony
Bennett live in concert so iv spent a good few months just singing his greatest
hits on a loop. Also, im just generally a bit rubbish at putting my thoughts
down on paper – I generally think that no one will read it anyways ….but you
never know….
Anyway....enough pointless info....lets get back to the
papers.
Iv been fearlessly coding again
all week, which has strangely been a delight (ok delight may be a bit strong
but its been interesting shall we say). Twas good to get back into the world of
the 1940's tabloid and to read many an interesting story concerning everything
from vegetable crops being ruined in Dover due to frost, Craven cigarette
adverts where the tag line is "for your throats sake" (wow....just
wow) or the story of mysterious doorway 135 - the divorce courtroom that no one
could find....hence why divorce rates were down in Sussex. But a topic that
kept coming up again and again in stories, editorials and letters was The
Beveridge Plan and Britain's reaction to the report that would eventually
become the foundation for the Welfare State as we know it today. (For those of you who are not familiar with
the report - basically, it was chaired by William Beveridge, an economist, who
identified five 'Great Evils' within society which included squalor, ignorance,
want, idleness and disease and the point of the plan was to propose widespread
reform to the system of social welfare in order to address these problems after
the war. Published on December 2nd 1942, it was exceptionally popular with the
public and helped Britain and the newly elected Labour Gov. of 1945 to
develop systems to implement amazing things such as National Insurance and the
NHS - ok, factual bit over and il take my history teacher tweed jacket off now
:)
Now reading about the origins of the welfare
state struck a chord with me, not only coz i think its an awesome thing....like
amazingly brilliantly fantasticly fucking fabulous (i know it aint perfect but
still)...... it is, right now, in papers
across Britain and the world, being passionately debated as to whether this
Government and others like it can continue its spending on welfare. Questions
about its moral merits and affordability and the people who depend upon it are
a topic of daily discussion within the media. In America, at this very moment,
indignation is on the rise because Mitt "i think 47% of America are
slackers" Romney has not only threatened to dismantle the healthcare bill
known as 'Obama Care' (but still continue to provide healthcare for Americans
and all the lovely bits of Obama Care but basically remove the ‘taxes’ which
help pay for it…….yeh don’t ask me how that works either), he also wants to cut
millions from the Government budget which helps provide subsidies to things such as PBS. Basically Romney wants to
make Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch
unemployed.......anyone who knows me well (or even if u don't know me THAT
well), you'll know my love for Sesame Street knows no bounds! Mitt has taken on
Elmo.....and in my book....no one fucks with my favourite cute, red furry monster
and gets away with it!
Similarly on this side of the pond, our own
lovable David "im really just an old elitist etonian scumbag" Cameron
has outlined his plans for his ‘Big Society’, his ‘Aspiration Nation’ which
will once again make Britain great!! And
as we all know this makes some very fine words but in reality, the translation
is that he continues to support vast swathing cuts to the NHS, welfare, public
transport…..anything you hold dear and that you and I think makes this nation
REALLY great….Dai Cameron will probably be supporting a cut somewhere along the
line. These policies continue to widen the gap between rich and poor and as the
OECD's latest report on rising inequality in Britain indicates, the bottom 30%
of the population hold just 3% of UK wealth, while the top third controls
somewhere close to 75% (ARE WE SURPRISED I HEAR YOU CRY??”). Clearly….as always…..money
speaks louder than words. Anywho, I bet you are wondering where I am going with
this? I mean I could rant all day long about Tory policy….believe me I could….and
how much I hate and disagree with it on every fundamental level. However, there
is a point to all this.
As I say, I’ve been reading about
the opinions and thoughts of newspapers and ordinary folk during the 1940’s on
the creation of a welfare state and how successful they thought the Beveridge Plan
would address and hopefully eradicate the inequalities which permeated their
society….and which apparently still
dog us today (I say apparently in my most sarcastic tone coz according to the
coalition inequality and “class division” just doesn’t exist anymore….. yeh
white elephant delivery for Number 10). Unsurprisingly however, many of the
questions that are asked of welfare’s validity and practicality today were
naturally asked at its inception. The Daily Herald on January 6th
1944 reported of a meeting of over 2000 young adults, teenagers mostly, who
were raising their questions and concerns about the report and whether its
ideas could become a practical reality. One boy asked whether it was possible
to get rid of unemployment in Britain when it still relied upon a faulty
Capitalist system. Surely a model based upon the USSR would be better? (yeh the
less said about that the better…….) However, he did ask what precautions would
be made in the event of ‘wanton idleness’ amongst those who would come to rely
on welfare? Oh my yes…..my dear boy….The Daily Mail would be proud of you and
that question (ok it is a fair question I’ll grant you but that’s neh my point –
im just getting to that). The main piece of commentary about the report that
really caught my eye and that got me thinking were the comments by a VERY right
wing Tory back bencher (described by my supervisor as a raving lunatic who
caused nothing but trouble and whose policies and attitudes towards Beveridge
were considered to be “behind the times” over 70 years ago…..
……….good….i loves me a good old
fashioned batshit crazy right wing nutjob I can have a pop at) name of Sir
Archibald Southby (you cant make that name up….its a beaut). Here is the segment
in full.
“Sir Archibald
Southby, Conservative M.P for Epsom, still pursues an anti-Beveridge policy. He
told a meeting of naval ratings regarding the Beveridge Plan that if things
were all right after the war, we shouldn’t need the Plan. If they were not we couldn’t
afford it anymore. You can only have it,
apparently, if you don’t want it”
The
Daily Herald, 9th May 1944, pg 2.
So basically, in the words of our
Archie……you’ve got to NOT want it before you can get it. So ladies and gentlemen,
in this world of ever changing political rhetoric and language, maybe we’ve
missed a trick! It’s now pretty much commonplace amongst politicians/corporations/banks/universities
to replace words such as “cuts” with its more amenable counterpart, “economies”,
or “coverups” with the phrase “redistribution of the facts”……(I mean im gonna
keep it brief coz the list goes on and on – again I’ll be here all day) But
maybe it’s not the words we use anymore (coz as our FABULOUS example of a
Deputy Prime Minister Cleggy illustrates, the meaning of certain words and
promises mean nothing in this day and age) but our actions instead. So I say to
you good people, start acting as though you don’t give two hoots for the NHS.
Welfare state? What’s the point in that then? Never liked it….don’t want it…..get
rid of it please!If you’re over the other side of
the pond, please….for you own sake….pretend you never liked Elmo, Big Bird and
Cookie Monster. Counting with ‘The Count’? Dear god……my children don’t require
this kind of Liberal brainwashing. Take it away from my screen if you please …..
(btw Fox news honestly believes
that Sesame Street is brainwashing your kids….teaching them about healthy
eating, sharing, kindness…..yeh the mind boggles….watch Jon Stewart tear Fox
apart because of it – seriously it’s a work of genius) http://www.deadline.com/2012/10/the-daily-show-rips-foxnews-sesame-street-jon-stewart-muppet-video/)
(also….i need a Che Grovera t shirt….anyone…Christmas…just thought id mention
it) where was i…oh yeh…
ONLY THEN, when you have eschewed
everyone’s favourite furry red monster will Mitt leave it alone……
Only
one problem with this….i love Elmo…. I love Cookie Monster….i love the NHS and I
owe my continuing existence to the fact that as a struggling student who faced serious illness, i didn't have to choose between paying for my health or paying the rent. The men and women who work for it so tirelessly every
day to keep it running, for low pay and little gratitude, are to be applauded for their efforts! And if we all start
pretending we never wanted them then I’m afraid they’ll disappear for good with
no hope of their return. Shame many politicians these days can’t seem to see
that many within this country are proud of the creation and achievements of the
Welfare State – that this very monument, to what we see as the cornerstone of a
civilised, developed and moral society, is what really makes Britain
GREAT. These politicians who shout that
we can no longer afford to keep it, while refusing to act upon the closure of corporate
tax loop holes, should really take a leaf out of our Archie’s ‘political
rhetoric’ book…….its not what you say, but how you act!
Pity they also seem to have the mentality of a man who was ‘behind
the times’ in 1944…… and they say politics has progressed……..
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
Barry Pepper would definately play Eddie in Spielberg's version
You guys have all seen Saving Private Ryan right? i'm sure you have. If you havnt...go do it...go on...off you go....get down to BlockBuster (or wherever it is people rent movies from these days) and get it...and marvel at Spielberg n his ability to create cinematic brilliance (you may not agree but hey i dont really care....i frickin love it) Its your typical war movie....American and British War heroes...looking their 'best', diligently taking on the Nazi hoard with gusto and bravery (with enough firearms and explosions for all to enjoy).
Anywho, where am i going with this you may ask? WELL....i was reading the paper today (shocker) and i came across an article on the back page of the Daily Herald from 1944 (May 8th if ur curious.....) and there was a piece smack bang in the middle of the page which when read, came across as chirpy, happy, warm and lighthearted - but most importantly, overall, highly reverential! Now whats wrong with that you may ask? well nothing really....the article in question set the scene for its unsuspecting audience beautifully - the Italian countryside, an honest soldier hard at work, fresh from battle, covered in a thin layer of grime and beardy fuzz, exhausted but in high spirits, all very rousing and encouraging for civilians back home......Spielberg himself couldnt have done a better job in setting the scene!
...only the thing is....this article isnt talking about any old kind of soldier.....
its specifically dedicated to a sniper - and not only that, this article has been written simply to tell the world how GOOD this guy is at his job. Nothing else! He hasnt won a medal for his efforts - he wasnt part of any great battle which changed the course of the war - he's just a sniper...in the middle of Italy....picking off the enemy with ease and flawless dedication.
Now the way this guy is being portrayed and the story behind it is, to me at least, very interesting, and actually particularly poignant. If Corporal Eddie Mathews was in a Hollywood Blockbuster, Barry Pepper would be playing him -turn him into the All American Hero (theyd have to make him American....British peoeple in Hollywood are nearly always villains - or German - just ask Jeremy Irons and Alan Rickman) blonde hair, chizzled features, crucifix fixed firmly round his neck, with a frowny and quizzical far away look in his eye...like you just asked him to explain the inner complexities of String Theory...or something.
(see now why i asked if you'd seen Tom Hanks, Vin Diesel and this dude mooching round Northern France yelling out "OH!! MATT DAMON....WHERE THE FUCK YOU HIDING MAN???"....ok they didnt do that but if u havnt seen the film then you'll have to take my word for it). Right im gonna get to the point now (hooray i hear you cry)!
Basically, the thing that struck me about this article was (firstly)
1. The way this small, seemingly insignificant Corporal is raised onto the pedestal of 'hero of our time' for the number of knotches on his rifle butt......
(and secondly and MORE IMPORTANTLY)
2. How the words of the correspondant fail in any way shape or form to express any kind of sympathy (not that im expecting any...i mean it is WWII and it is the Nazi's....sympathy is thin on the ground amongst the press and public), or even recognition of the circumstances in which this man's victims are killed. I know its a warzone but the correspondant (as you will read) describes in relative cool detail how dedicated Eddie was in waiting for his unsuspecting victims and the poignancy of how these men died ...well...it kinda breaks ya heart just a bit. The main thought that struck me as i read it was "all he did was go for a pleasant walk, a cigarette.... you gave him a nickname ffs" And it just made me a bit sad! War can be a very cold business....but the press appeared happy to gloss over this with cheery and 'heartwarming' anecdotes about Eddie and his Girlfriend.....His apparant alloofness to the brutality of his job struck me hard!
I'm not making any grand statements or any real in depth academic revelations with this post....im just saying its sad and kind of tragic when you look at this story from the perspective of someone other than the man they're dedicating it to......(and i know that that perspective is coming from a dead guy so its bound to be bad...BUT STILL...)
Well have a read for yourself and you might see what i mean.....
Daily Herald May 8th 1944 pg4.
One-Shot Eddie: Gazed at Girl's Picture as he waited to Kill German
from Arthur Helliwell, Cassino Front, Sunday.
"Corporal Eddie Mathews had just come out of the Line. Two days growth of wheat-coloured stubble bristled on his cheeks.
A trickle of blood from a cut over one eye, where a piece of masonry hit him last night, zigzagged to his chin. He was dog tired and grimy after 12 days in Cassino, but he was cleaning his rifle. He grinned when he caught my eye. 'Always clean up my rifle before i start on myself' he said.
Mathews in a sniper. He can put 5 bullets into a halfpenny sized circle at a hundred yards range.
5 years ago he worked in a Hammersmith restaurant, and used to spend his surplus tips on shooting ranges in the funfairs. He did not know that his 'skill' at bowling over tin ducks and knocking celluloid balls off water jets would one day qualify him to carve a gunman's tally of notches on his riflebutt.
There are 13 notches. Each one represents a German killed with a single shot at ranges of between 50 and 500 yards.
Mathews once waited 10 days to kill a German sniper who was waiting to pick him off. On another occasion he watched a red haired German walking every morning for a week, in the orchard of a front line farmhouse before he got a shot at him.
'I got so used to him that i called him "Ginger", Mathews told me. 'He was cheeky. He used to stroll about whistling with his hands in his pockets. I couldnt get a decent bead on him because of the trees. One morning he stopped for a cigarette. Then i got him'.
The sniper's chief enemy is boredom. I beat that by propping up a picture of my fiancee by my side. We're going to get married when this show is over".
Just like Barry Pepper.....the image of the dedicated and brilliant soldier....but it leaves me cold everytime!
Anywho, where am i going with this you may ask? WELL....i was reading the paper today (shocker) and i came across an article on the back page of the Daily Herald from 1944 (May 8th if ur curious.....) and there was a piece smack bang in the middle of the page which when read, came across as chirpy, happy, warm and lighthearted - but most importantly, overall, highly reverential! Now whats wrong with that you may ask? well nothing really....the article in question set the scene for its unsuspecting audience beautifully - the Italian countryside, an honest soldier hard at work, fresh from battle, covered in a thin layer of grime and beardy fuzz, exhausted but in high spirits, all very rousing and encouraging for civilians back home......Spielberg himself couldnt have done a better job in setting the scene!
...only the thing is....this article isnt talking about any old kind of soldier.....
its specifically dedicated to a sniper - and not only that, this article has been written simply to tell the world how GOOD this guy is at his job. Nothing else! He hasnt won a medal for his efforts - he wasnt part of any great battle which changed the course of the war - he's just a sniper...in the middle of Italy....picking off the enemy with ease and flawless dedication.
Now the way this guy is being portrayed and the story behind it is, to me at least, very interesting, and actually particularly poignant. If Corporal Eddie Mathews was in a Hollywood Blockbuster, Barry Pepper would be playing him -turn him into the All American Hero (theyd have to make him American....British peoeple in Hollywood are nearly always villains - or German - just ask Jeremy Irons and Alan Rickman) blonde hair, chizzled features, crucifix fixed firmly round his neck, with a frowny and quizzical far away look in his eye...like you just asked him to explain the inner complexities of String Theory...or something.
(see now why i asked if you'd seen Tom Hanks, Vin Diesel and this dude mooching round Northern France yelling out "OH!! MATT DAMON....WHERE THE FUCK YOU HIDING MAN???"....ok they didnt do that but if u havnt seen the film then you'll have to take my word for it). Right im gonna get to the point now (hooray i hear you cry)!
Basically, the thing that struck me about this article was (firstly)
1. The way this small, seemingly insignificant Corporal is raised onto the pedestal of 'hero of our time' for the number of knotches on his rifle butt......
(and secondly and MORE IMPORTANTLY)
2. How the words of the correspondant fail in any way shape or form to express any kind of sympathy (not that im expecting any...i mean it is WWII and it is the Nazi's....sympathy is thin on the ground amongst the press and public), or even recognition of the circumstances in which this man's victims are killed. I know its a warzone but the correspondant (as you will read) describes in relative cool detail how dedicated Eddie was in waiting for his unsuspecting victims and the poignancy of how these men died ...well...it kinda breaks ya heart just a bit. The main thought that struck me as i read it was "all he did was go for a pleasant walk, a cigarette.... you gave him a nickname ffs" And it just made me a bit sad! War can be a very cold business....but the press appeared happy to gloss over this with cheery and 'heartwarming' anecdotes about Eddie and his Girlfriend.....His apparant alloofness to the brutality of his job struck me hard!
I'm not making any grand statements or any real in depth academic revelations with this post....im just saying its sad and kind of tragic when you look at this story from the perspective of someone other than the man they're dedicating it to......(and i know that that perspective is coming from a dead guy so its bound to be bad...BUT STILL...)
Well have a read for yourself and you might see what i mean.....
Daily Herald May 8th 1944 pg4.
One-Shot Eddie: Gazed at Girl's Picture as he waited to Kill German
from Arthur Helliwell, Cassino Front, Sunday.
"Corporal Eddie Mathews had just come out of the Line. Two days growth of wheat-coloured stubble bristled on his cheeks.
A trickle of blood from a cut over one eye, where a piece of masonry hit him last night, zigzagged to his chin. He was dog tired and grimy after 12 days in Cassino, but he was cleaning his rifle. He grinned when he caught my eye. 'Always clean up my rifle before i start on myself' he said.
Mathews in a sniper. He can put 5 bullets into a halfpenny sized circle at a hundred yards range.
5 years ago he worked in a Hammersmith restaurant, and used to spend his surplus tips on shooting ranges in the funfairs. He did not know that his 'skill' at bowling over tin ducks and knocking celluloid balls off water jets would one day qualify him to carve a gunman's tally of notches on his riflebutt.
There are 13 notches. Each one represents a German killed with a single shot at ranges of between 50 and 500 yards.
Mathews once waited 10 days to kill a German sniper who was waiting to pick him off. On another occasion he watched a red haired German walking every morning for a week, in the orchard of a front line farmhouse before he got a shot at him.
'I got so used to him that i called him "Ginger", Mathews told me. 'He was cheeky. He used to stroll about whistling with his hands in his pockets. I couldnt get a decent bead on him because of the trees. One morning he stopped for a cigarette. Then i got him'.
The sniper's chief enemy is boredom. I beat that by propping up a picture of my fiancee by my side. We're going to get married when this show is over".
Just like Barry Pepper.....the image of the dedicated and brilliant soldier....but it leaves me cold everytime!
Wednesday, 20 June 2012
Stick the kettle on would you? And butter me a crumpet while you're at it!
I've tried this blogging malarky once before....never really got off the ground if im completely honest! Mainly due to my own lazy disposition - actully no thats not fair - i never really had the time and seen as it wasnt an essential part of my every day to day being, it didnt seem important (Not that this blog is going to chained to me and my sense of self in any great depth - its not like i need another arm or leg or some hobby to fill my ever shrinking feelings of self worth within the academic community.... or something ....i have no idea what the hell im talking about...il shut up now) ANYWHO....
Whenever someone asks me what my job is i say i read newspapers for a living....its true! i do! they may be 75 years old - but i still get paid to read and write about newspapers (oh and film and broadcasting....my mum is convinced its just a ruse for me to watch and analyse my favourite film Brief Encounter...i can neither confirm nor deny this....who am i kidding ...i love that film :P)
I'm a first year, soon to be second year Phd student at Aberystwyth uni - i live in the back arse end of nowhere but i came here coz this was where the money was....who'd have thunk it! I'm part of Leverhulme funded 3 year project on World War Two Newspapers and the wider implications of Media within British culture at the time - there are 5 of us on this project, 2 Phd students (me and the delightful Kris, whose presence in my life with such statements as "Churchill really was a dick wasn't he?" will keep me grounded on this project) our Post Doc Marc (who also keeps me cheered and suitably merry with such hilarious gems as this on a wet n windy Wednesday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxEHi6Mlzmk dont ask us why we found it so funny and required a full 20mins away from our newspaper coding work to recover....we just did) and our two supervisors Dr. Sian Nicholas and Prof. Tom O'Malley (no he's not an alley cat as my friend Emily asked but a fantastic Prof. whose gonna get me through my Phd kicking and screaming....but one day iv threatened to sing that song from The Aristocats to him...maybe at the next christmas party after copious amounts of Bombay Saphire.....hmmmmmm) And the aim of our little humble gathering? Well, in a nutshell, it's entitled A social and cultural history of the British press in World War II and basically we're going to try and achieve a greater understanding of the content of newspapers during World War Two, to use the newspaper as a historical source in itself rather than a means to an end for another story and investigate what role the media played within society and culture as a whole (that is the greatly shortened version...come have a cup of tea with Tom sometime and hel wax lyrical about it all day long...go on you know you want to, hes great to listen to....:P
Hopefully by the end of it we'll have 2 new Phd theses and an edited collection of articles covering a wide range of topics including the structure of the wartime press, censorship,reporting the war at home and overseas, family life and its representations in the press, crime, sport, etc etc Obviously all this is still under construction and constantly changing but you get the idea. So where does this blog come in i hear you cry (or at least i thought you did...did you? i dont know...are the voices in my head at it again??) WELL......to get the raw data for this project, we are all going to be doing an awful lot of coding. What do i mean by this? literally - every day - turning the pages of our chosen sample of newspapers (we're still arguing about exactly what the sample will be as we are limited to the next 2 years to get it all done) and assigning a code to each story on each page of every newspaper. As you can imagine, this is hugely time consuming as each page of a newspaper has at least 20/30 items on it and we have to code everything and when i mean everything...I MEAN EVERYTHING (adverts, headlines....the LOT). And then factor in that each edition probably has at least 10 pages to it (as the war goes on paper rationing comes into play so newspapers were limited to about 4-6 pages...god bless paper rationing is all i can say)....and thats just one paper on one day...think of us trying to code several newspapers over several years....have you gone cross eyed with all that number crunching in your head yet? i did!! (But im crap at maths so what ya gonna do).
After we have got this beautiful, glorious, fantazmagorical raw data we can then start analysing it (Ooooooo) and start to draw some conclusions about the relationship between society and the press etc etc i bet your all on tenterhooks for the results....yessss i thought you might be!
I got sidetracked - where does this blog come in?? (come on girl concentrate please)....
Over the course of my coding already, iv been coming across some very funny, touching, lovely, scary and just downright wierd stories within our newspapers of choice and iv been sharing them with my friends and occasionally on twitter. Iv accumulated a bit of a back catalogue of articles which range from being hilarious to thought provoking - and i wanted to share them in this blog :) Also as we progress to the analysis stage i thought id share some of our findings as we go along. You know...just for a lark like!
I love reading the newspaper; i devour editions of the Guardian, The Observer, Independent etc on regular occasions and can describe myself as a Liberal, left winger who adores things such as the NHS and Polar Bears :P You will NEVER catch me reading The Daily Fail or The Torygraph (only good thing in that is the Matt cartoons and i refuse to spend hard earned cash for a cheap 20second laugh....although he is bloody hilarious...so u never knw). However, many of the newspapers we're looking at include The Daily Mail, The Express, News of The World, (as well as looking at The Guardian ...cant help myself....although its a tough read back in the 1940's...u ever tried to code a page of classified adds? it gets dull real bloody quick :S) and within this blog i want to document how these papers present key events to the public and how their attitudes/tone/political allegiances are possibly different to their modern day equivilant...... (trust me The News of The World aint changed much by all accounts...its got an obsession with Bigamy stories....3 on 1page in one edition....seriously 3...how interesting is Bigamy i ask you?!!?) I also believe that a look back at newspapers and the media during the 20th Century will be an exceptionally revealing exercise especially considering that the news/twitter/fb has in recent weeks/months been filled with discussion of the Leveson Inquiry and our current modern day relationship between successive governments and the press! This has sparked my interest on a historical level - just how far back does this 'close' relationship between press and government go? How integrated and influenced were our politicians by great Media Moghuls such as Lord Beaverbrook? (god this is beginning to sound like the introduction to an essay or one of my chapters...il stop now...you get the point and i dont want to show you all the goods up front hehe)
I might occasionally share other stuff as well (i do go on political rants from time to time) but primarily this blog will be sharing the content of 6 glorious years of newspaper content - the wierd and wonderful, the hilarious and sometimes the downright heartbreaking (war isn't all fun and games you know).
So here goes....grab a cup of tea and a selection of lovely biscuits (coz whats a peruse of the morning papers without a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive...or crumpets...i like crumpets :P) and i do hope you enjoy reading the paper with me :D
TTFN xxx
ps. isnt he a cutie? This is what i look like while reading the paper....sans Whiskers u understand...
Whenever someone asks me what my job is i say i read newspapers for a living....its true! i do! they may be 75 years old - but i still get paid to read and write about newspapers (oh and film and broadcasting....my mum is convinced its just a ruse for me to watch and analyse my favourite film Brief Encounter...i can neither confirm nor deny this....who am i kidding ...i love that film :P)
I'm a first year, soon to be second year Phd student at Aberystwyth uni - i live in the back arse end of nowhere but i came here coz this was where the money was....who'd have thunk it! I'm part of Leverhulme funded 3 year project on World War Two Newspapers and the wider implications of Media within British culture at the time - there are 5 of us on this project, 2 Phd students (me and the delightful Kris, whose presence in my life with such statements as "Churchill really was a dick wasn't he?" will keep me grounded on this project) our Post Doc Marc (who also keeps me cheered and suitably merry with such hilarious gems as this on a wet n windy Wednesday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxEHi6Mlzmk dont ask us why we found it so funny and required a full 20mins away from our newspaper coding work to recover....we just did) and our two supervisors Dr. Sian Nicholas and Prof. Tom O'Malley (no he's not an alley cat as my friend Emily asked but a fantastic Prof. whose gonna get me through my Phd kicking and screaming....but one day iv threatened to sing that song from The Aristocats to him...maybe at the next christmas party after copious amounts of Bombay Saphire.....hmmmmmm) And the aim of our little humble gathering? Well, in a nutshell, it's entitled A social and cultural history of the British press in World War II and basically we're going to try and achieve a greater understanding of the content of newspapers during World War Two, to use the newspaper as a historical source in itself rather than a means to an end for another story and investigate what role the media played within society and culture as a whole (that is the greatly shortened version...come have a cup of tea with Tom sometime and hel wax lyrical about it all day long...go on you know you want to, hes great to listen to....:P
Hopefully by the end of it we'll have 2 new Phd theses and an edited collection of articles covering a wide range of topics including the structure of the wartime press, censorship,reporting the war at home and overseas, family life and its representations in the press, crime, sport, etc etc Obviously all this is still under construction and constantly changing but you get the idea. So where does this blog come in i hear you cry (or at least i thought you did...did you? i dont know...are the voices in my head at it again??) WELL......to get the raw data for this project, we are all going to be doing an awful lot of coding. What do i mean by this? literally - every day - turning the pages of our chosen sample of newspapers (we're still arguing about exactly what the sample will be as we are limited to the next 2 years to get it all done) and assigning a code to each story on each page of every newspaper. As you can imagine, this is hugely time consuming as each page of a newspaper has at least 20/30 items on it and we have to code everything and when i mean everything...I MEAN EVERYTHING (adverts, headlines....the LOT). And then factor in that each edition probably has at least 10 pages to it (as the war goes on paper rationing comes into play so newspapers were limited to about 4-6 pages...god bless paper rationing is all i can say)....and thats just one paper on one day...think of us trying to code several newspapers over several years....have you gone cross eyed with all that number crunching in your head yet? i did!! (But im crap at maths so what ya gonna do).
After we have got this beautiful, glorious, fantazmagorical raw data we can then start analysing it (Ooooooo) and start to draw some conclusions about the relationship between society and the press etc etc i bet your all on tenterhooks for the results....yessss i thought you might be!
I got sidetracked - where does this blog come in?? (come on girl concentrate please)....
Over the course of my coding already, iv been coming across some very funny, touching, lovely, scary and just downright wierd stories within our newspapers of choice and iv been sharing them with my friends and occasionally on twitter. Iv accumulated a bit of a back catalogue of articles which range from being hilarious to thought provoking - and i wanted to share them in this blog :) Also as we progress to the analysis stage i thought id share some of our findings as we go along. You know...just for a lark like!
I love reading the newspaper; i devour editions of the Guardian, The Observer, Independent etc on regular occasions and can describe myself as a Liberal, left winger who adores things such as the NHS and Polar Bears :P You will NEVER catch me reading The Daily Fail or The Torygraph (only good thing in that is the Matt cartoons and i refuse to spend hard earned cash for a cheap 20second laugh....although he is bloody hilarious...so u never knw). However, many of the newspapers we're looking at include The Daily Mail, The Express, News of The World, (as well as looking at The Guardian ...cant help myself....although its a tough read back in the 1940's...u ever tried to code a page of classified adds? it gets dull real bloody quick :S) and within this blog i want to document how these papers present key events to the public and how their attitudes/tone/political allegiances are possibly different to their modern day equivilant...... (trust me The News of The World aint changed much by all accounts...its got an obsession with Bigamy stories....3 on 1page in one edition....seriously 3...how interesting is Bigamy i ask you?!!?) I also believe that a look back at newspapers and the media during the 20th Century will be an exceptionally revealing exercise especially considering that the news/twitter/fb has in recent weeks/months been filled with discussion of the Leveson Inquiry and our current modern day relationship between successive governments and the press! This has sparked my interest on a historical level - just how far back does this 'close' relationship between press and government go? How integrated and influenced were our politicians by great Media Moghuls such as Lord Beaverbrook? (god this is beginning to sound like the introduction to an essay or one of my chapters...il stop now...you get the point and i dont want to show you all the goods up front hehe)
I might occasionally share other stuff as well (i do go on political rants from time to time) but primarily this blog will be sharing the content of 6 glorious years of newspaper content - the wierd and wonderful, the hilarious and sometimes the downright heartbreaking (war isn't all fun and games you know).
So here goes....grab a cup of tea and a selection of lovely biscuits (coz whats a peruse of the morning papers without a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive...or crumpets...i like crumpets :P) and i do hope you enjoy reading the paper with me :D
TTFN xxx
ps. isnt he a cutie? This is what i look like while reading the paper....sans Whiskers u understand...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)