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Archive for the ‘The Media’ Category

I know that the Independent along with most papers in ‘Fleet Street’ is suffering financial problems since the “paid for by advertising” business model they all relied upon collapsed and to be honest, is not likely to return in the future but, that is no excuse to continue being stupid.

Although it is really a bit of a dead duck, in their main editorial today, Sunday, they return to the Lord Ashcroft story again. The last time they did this, some 90% of the people who wrote in dismissed the story as just Labour Party election campaigning and so on.

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I must admit to becoming a fan of one of the regular Independent columnists John Rentoul because although I think his natural instincts are likely left wing, his approach is very broad and he examines issues without bias and lots of common sense.

Today he was writing on the narrowing of the polls between Labour and the Conservatives, well worth a read: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-rentoul/john-rentoul-policies-smash-personalities-1912985.html

And another one but if one is crystal ball gazing, well worth a read: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/hamish-mcrae/hamish-mcrae-convention-says-voters-like-big-spending-governmentsits-wrong-1912836.html

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On Sunday we shall see Gordon Brown on the Piers Morgan on ITV Show, talking emotionally about the death of his daughter, Jennifer.

The Times in an Editorial has lambasted him for this and for their reasons follow this link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7024184.ece

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The loss yesterday of the US Senate Seat held by Edward Kennedy for almost 50 years to the Republican Scott Brown is seen as a blow to the Obama Presidency on his first anniversary of becoming President. This can be seen as a great snub to his plans for Health Care Reform and so on but in a sense, this is an inevitable step along the way.

Rather like the marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer all those years ago, the “expectations” of an Obama Presidency – “Yes We Can.” far exceeded any reality on delivery in a recession. In this though lies some serious food for thought for David Cameron and his Team as they prepare for Government…

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Although I might find what happens in other Countries objectionable, it has often occurred to me that the constant bitching about what happens in China, Burma, Iran and many others is little short of hypocritical In the sense that coming from the Western countries, it assumes that there is only “one way” that things should be done, “Our Way” which is total nonsense.

Today the 53 year old Akmal Shaikh, a British citizen was executed by the Chinese for trying to smuggle 4 Kilos of Heroin into China 2 years ago which is fair enough 50g is enough in most Far Eastern Countries to face the Death Penalty. Drugs are a problem there and the penalties are commiserate, just because you are a Westerner does not excuse you for breaking their Laws, you get the same sentence as a Chinese person would, it is their Country. When in Rome…

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I suppose with the year drawing to a close it would be obvious that there would be lots of “assessments” by journalists concerning Obama’s first year in Office and how the Hope he bought for change and a different approach has actually played out during that time.

Inevitably there will be many who start to wonder whether he will turn out to be a “One Term President”, my gut instinct is that it is far too early to say because often it is the unforeseen “events” which determine the fate of Presidents and Prime Ministers based upon how they react.

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In yesterday’s Times, a Murdoch owned newspaper, there was a leading Editorial called: “Preparing for Government” and subtitled: “David Cameron seems content to drift into power on the back of Labour’s unpopularity. Even if this strategy succeeds it will provide no mandate to govern”. As ever I give you the link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6948033.ece

I will start with a copy of my ‘unpublished comment’ and whilst one may say based upon the content, “Fair Enough” but to be fair to the Times, they have published similar from me before so, I guess it depends who is on the “desk” at the time. However, there are other issues here too which need to be examined…

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Rupert Murdock has been “banging on” about copyright stuff and wants to introduce some kind of charge for reading his newspapers over the web, indeed one of his US titles already does charge for on-line subscriptions and content access. Also James Murdoch giving the the MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival in August complained that organisations like the BBC made it “difficult” for other media organisations by which I think he meant to charge customers money for content. I have written on this before: http://baldysblog.co.uk/2009/08/29/a-murdoch-moan/

I am not opposed to Murdoch or any other publisher or writer getting paid for their efforts, I believe that they should however, the main failing in my opinion lies in these various media organisations not evolving a new business model and in effect, wanting to live in the past which is just not going to happen, clearly either they lack imagination and good management or are just plain stupid.

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Today was the first crisp cold morning as befits the First of December and considering that most of this blog is about my personal ramblings on ‘politics’, it set my mind to thinking around the current state of UK Politics with Christmas less than 4 weeks away and 2010 almost upon us.

Over these past couple of weeks, political journalism has taken a big nosedive and there is only one person to blame for this, Gordon Brown a politician who has not only passed his “Display By Date” long since but also the “Use By” one too, in short he is no longer fit for consumption and should have called a General Election in the Autumn.

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To much amusement, there was an Opinion Poll commissioned by and published in the Observer that showed that Labour was ‘closing the gap’ with the Conservatives but as usual in the Independent, the rather more sensible subscribers put that into some perspective and, amusingly so. The ‘blogosphere’ may be guilty of many things but “Comments” on the broadsheets can often be just so constructive and worth exploration.

This comment was priceless, do follow the links – “IPSOS Mori polls are biased towards Labour because they don’t politically weight their sample. And with small samples (like this sample of 1006) that is important. The explanation is here: http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/faq-weighting (scroll down to “Political Weighting” and then to “Ipsos MORI”). “

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