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You want the transparent organisation? You got it. It’s called the Guardian. An extraordinary exercise in transparent public disclosure is happening *right now* on Roy Greenslade’s blog. Go and read it.
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Genius, of course. And worth a million News 2.0 blog entries on “what’s wrong with the media”
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Thanks to Simon W for this: an eyetrack study that puts paid to the myth of continuous partial attention, at least when it comes to online news….
Great stuff from Richard Sambrook on authenticity - particularly in TV News - but his core point (see below) that news has to be refitted to be suitable for “a two minute report” is only part of the story. News also gets refitted so that it can become, well, news. The mere act of reporting something turns a happening into a news story, and that’s not always well understood. And, because a news story adds value to a journalist and a happening doesn’t, journalists are actively encouraged to turn a happening into a news story.
So, for instance, on BBC News in London last night, a story about a local councillor dressing up as Nelson Mandela got flipped by the reporter like this (I paraphrase): “There’s a national dimension to this story, too. We phoned Conservative Central Office and they said “No Comment”".
Translation: there wasn’t a national dimension to this story until I phoned Conservative Central Office, but now that there is a national dimension it’s an even more important news story (even though the catalytic happening is still just that, a happening).
Authenticity comes from transparency plus individual trust. If you know the individual, and you understand their motives, and you see how they work, authenticity flows back at you.
| None of these reflect what happens in real life - but they are necessary to present a two minute report which makes sense and works visually. Its always been this way and, for the most part, such devices are used in good faith as part of the visual grammar of TV and journalists are careful, even protective, of maintaining the integrity of their edit. |
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John Harris is on to something today in the Guardian, pointing out that the Killers can now cover Dire Straits without embarrassment and that the old “Maoist certainties” are gone. I don’t think this is totally a good thing, you know. It makes it very hard to say “this is crap” when you don’t have the coordinates to say why (as in “this is crap, it sounds like Duran Duran” was always more meaningful than “this is crap, I don’t like it”).
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Thus, I was reminded once again that cool no longer rules, and we are living through the tyranny of what might be called the New Wrong. A few examples: Sean Rowley’s Guilty Pleasures franchise is expanding so fast that it will soon have to simply rename itself Pleasures. Its latest in-concert wheeze found the audience dancing to the consummate bilge of Toto’s 1982 Africa, and specially-invited musicians covering songs by the likes of Bonnie Tyler, Neil Diamond and Electric Light Orchestra. Further down the age range, among music’s current hot hopes are the supposedly cutting-edge Enter Shikari and a gang of Brummies called the Twang; their very different touchstones are the uber-wrong dance attraction Faithless and Joshua Tree/string vest-era U2. Whether we blame the government, the iPod, or the fall of the Berlin Wall, it’s true: the Maoist certainties of yesteryear are gone forever.
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OK, this killed the pathos of the Johnny Cash version, but there you go.
I love the Guardian, I do, and I love Anna Pickard, I do, but Anna Pickard live-blogging The Apprentice - series three, episode one on a MediaGuardian blog leaves me wondering where real-life ends and arch, postmodern, ironic media begins. It makes my head hurt.
By Christ, it’s wrong and it’s IP-evil and it’s piracy and everything, but the fact that I can find all this Fry and Laurie stuff on YouTube must mean something good, mustn’t it?
So ID cards are going to be a disaster, almost by definition. Little database failures will cause enormous upset and inconvenience. What do I mean by a little database failure? Take this example from TV Licensing, which has a reputation for doing one thing very well: tracking TV retail sales and then mapping them onto licensed households. So my wife bought me a new telly for Christmas from Amazon. The TV’s very nice thank you. Amazon, as they’re required to do in Britain, informed TV Licensing. And this week we got a letter demanding she buy a TV Licence.
We of course have a TV Licence. It’s in my name. My surname is part of my wife’s surname. So despite knowing my postcode, address and surname, the vaunted TV Licence database was unable to make the connection.
What’s more they expect me to phone a national rate phone number and tell them the serial number of my TV licence. This is an “automated service.”
So this is how the ID scheme will work. Firstly, it will not be intelligent enough to make very basic freetext associations between records. Secondly, it will be clumsily automated. Thirdly, it will require citizens - sorry, subjects, always get that one wrong - to perform the function of the personnel who were not hired to run it by phoning near-premium phone lines (to cover costs) and correct the mistakes of the system.
So, remind me, for whose benefit is this system being implemented?
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