Corbs really must be the most effective politician in UK history. He managed to pull everything on the list off without even getting elected - move over, Machiavelli!
The Daily Mail highlights a serious problem with sewage in Cornwall, from a Surfers Against Sewage tweet. However, it is dangerous to rely on Twitter alone for research and while the terrible leak of shyte into the Atlantic was real, local expert and former Tory MP, Sir Michael Take, was not. Edit - thread details. https://twitter.com/michaeltakemp/status/1586844713373646854?s=46&t=dBW-Kz2VMIrf1IOp0SUUyQ
That is absolutely hilarious but also revealing. The poor quality of modern day "journalism" exposed for all to see....as well as the perfect example of confirmation bias. Why bother researching something that "you already know is true"!
Nile Gardiner proving that nothing, in the RW world, succeeds like failure: https://twitter.com/LiveFromBrexit/status/1592787582701965313
I havnt highlighted this before but have been thinking about it, the way they use photographs in articles to invoke an emotional response. We have this one today about the energy crisis and heating your home. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63704037 Sometimes they use people or couples in anguished states looking at their energy bills etc to get the emotional response they want. Or this one about the autumn statement, straight to the Foodbank with you https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63625510. I have seen alot of this during the "meme" stock frenzy also, "Why you should forget Gamestop" etc with concerned faces on photos. Keep an eye out for it. I will add more when I see it, feel free to do the same. Edit, just found this one. Woman in blanket and hat blowing into hands. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-63677931 The only emotional response they get out of me is anger. Dont be fooled, this sits in the same category as when music is used to convey a mood in tv or films.
I see where you are coming from but the fact is that all news is in some sense a construct. If it's not pictures, it's the words chosen to report it, the positioning on the webpage/in the paper etc etc: all combines to give a particular slant. And there's nothing new about this: just look at the graphic drawings showing Protestants being burned at the stake under 'Bloody Mary', or graphic scenes of Jack the Ripper murders etc.
Yeah, I have to say that it is possible to see conspiracy where there isn't one. Illustrating a news story about the exorbitant rise in energy bills with a photo of something cradling a hot drink or looking at a bill in anguish isn't falsifying the overall truth of the story. Having said that, all news is about emotion. That's how stories are selected in the first place and how they are subsequently portrayed. News rooms the world over are asking themselves whether a story or issue will resonate with their viewers, listeners or readers. It's why extremely serious, important but dry stories like the Public Order Bill get such inadequate coverage. They don't 'cut through'. We like to tell ourselves that what we want is just the facts, but actually that's not really true. What we really crave is confirmation of what we already think and feel. And that is precisely how much of the news works. It's why people continue to consume the media they consume and think that the 'other' side is biased or just plain wrong. If the news was just a dispassionate list of events that happened throughout the day, people would switch off. It's why the phone-in culture has taken such hold. A succession of people allowed to say what they reckon without any actual facts or evidence to support it, round and round, on a loop, all designed to elicit emotional responses – preferably angry ones. Far more sinister than using a stock agency photo of someone cradling a warm drink is the Russian-looking illustration of Jeremy Corbyn that Newsnight used a few years ago. Now *that* was specifically selected and designed to create a very particular emotion, which is the 'Reds under the bed' response. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/may/11/bbc-rejects-complaints-newsnight-corbyn-russian Two other things that are just as damaging are the tendency to hold the opposition to greater account than the actual Government, which happens day-in, day-out, and the way so much of the news has become a parade of talking heads, barely challenged, barely confronted when what they say is not true. What someone says (rather than what they do) is far too often 'the story'.
We got the full benefit of muddled right wing thinking when Truss took power. This whole mad Globalist/Socialist thing is doing the rounds on Twitter and elsewhere. But then people thought Brexit was for them. We need someone popular to do a TV programme on the different factions of the Ruling Class. Matt Baker perhaps or Fiona Bruce.
Corbyn was so close to gaining power in his first GE and was a direct threat to the rich and powerful, the next four years he was relentlessly attacked in a lot of the MSM oulets which the uneducated fell for. The way he was treated has made me take a bit more interest in people that get relentlessly attacked by the usual suspect MSM outlets, like Mick Lynch for instance, and why are they a threat to the cabal. I would be careful about throwing the conspiracy theorist label around personally. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, guess what, its a duck. Ok duck.
I agree with you about Corbyn and that is not the point that I was responding to. There is absolutely no doubt that large chunks of the media allow their biases to show far too readily. We'll see it from the Telegraph and Mail (and others) as the election gets closer, for sure. We always do. The point I was responding to was the suggestion that using a stock agency photo of someone cradling a hot drink to illustrate a story on the rapidly rising energy costs, or a stock agency photo of an elderly couple looking concerned while holding a bill is evidence of some sort of media conspiracy. Energy prices *are* soaring and bills *are* a very real concern to large numbers of people and so it's not editorialising or leading people to a certain conclusion in anything like the same way. The fact is, the newspaper or website needs a photo of some kind – simply because the convention is that newspapers and websites use photos to illustrate or accompany articles. I suppose they could use an image of a gas flame or a thermostat or another inanimate object but, from my experience in news rooms and working on sub editing and production desks, the convention is to 'get a face on the page' because it's more engaging. Whether it also tugs at the heart strings or provokes an emotion would, in those cases – and purely in my experience – be very low down the list of reasons to select a certain photo. Hence why I think that while it's fair enough to see a machiavellian hand in some things, it's not really right to see one in all things.
Is the pink and brown noise thing about sex? About the main headline, I dont know if thats a good thing, I think most people if they could afford it would use private schools and private healthcare. Attacking upper middle classes is class war, they arent the enemy. Tax the big corporations and bring the public funded institutions up to the level of the private ones.
If you want to study to be a plumber or an electrician or most of everything else, you pay VAT. Like you do on food or energy or over the counter medicines. If you want to make education a commodity, then tax it like one.
As I utilise a couple of charities to aid in my son's development (SPACE and Potential Kids) it always refreshing to see, via going to hockey facilities at Public Schools, other charities doing better than barely breaking even helping the development of other children.
I think most people if they could afford one would buy a Ferrari, so let's scrap VAT on Ferraris so that the people who can afford one get them a bit cheaper and the tax can be saved and therefore not go into the system. Obviously, people who only have the budget for a Nissan won't benefit at all. A facetious comparison, perhaps, but when you start to think about the absurdity of a Government giving tax breaks to those who can afford to send children to private schools while encouraging society to think of those at the bottom of the pyramid as greedy, grasping shirkers ever on the look out for a handout the mind absolutely boggles at how effective the con job has been. Private education costs between £9,000 and £40,000 a year per child depending on the institution. Around 6% of children in the UK go to private schools. It's not class war to suggest that a relatively small number of the very highest earners should pay full whack for private education. There is no moral or economic justification for a tax benefit such as VAT exemption to be passed on to the wealthiest – especially when these institutions already benefit in a number of ways from having charitable status. The illusion is that somehow some people in the middle – perhaps those on the cusp of being able to send a child to public school, the mythical aspirational John Lewis-shopping grafter-made-good – will benefit. Actually all that happens is that the top 2% get to keep more of their money while segregating their children off from the rest.
Sadly I had the tv still on after the football and the two leading "news" stories on BBC 6 o'clock news were Englands victory yesterday??? and second was this Netflix program about Harry and Meghan, huh? What about the cold weather coming later in the week and millions of people not being able to afford to heat their homes while a Tory is saying NHS staff shouldnt strike to show Putin how strong we are as a nation, it beggars belief. WE ARE BEING TAKEN FOR MUGS!!! If we want to keep warm this winter lets go burn some tories homes and stand around the bonfires.
Very, very informative thread looking at the "OXFORD CLIMATE LOCKDOWN!!!!!!!!!" 'story' staring a list of talent such as GBNews, Piers Corbyn and Toby Young - the exemplars of 'quality' journalism: https://twitter.com/DrMatthewSweet/status/1602310532727439365
This has really got right wing Twitter and its great reset, anti-vaxx, replacement theorists all hot under the collar.
Ah here we go, sadly people will fall for this **** as usual but those numbers are dwindling thank goodness.
