journalism now.. but before 'now' because it would be better for it to be proof read...

The Daily Telegraph.

The Daily Telegraph’s demographic is hardly a secret; old, wealthy, Conservatives and usually middle upper class at that. Floating around in the ABC1’s has no doubt shaped the way in which The Daily Telegraph is written, with today’s (17^th Nov) front pages demonstrating the difference between the paper and it’s competitors. Whilst other papers covered the ‘bank crisis’ as ‘Jobless generation’ (The Times) and ‘Migrants grab 12,000 jobs a month’ (Daily Express), The Daily Telegraph looks upon the story from a purely observational standpoint, speaking of ‘growth forecasts’ and other such things, not once mentioning the effects on today’s youth, or the effect of immigration. This is presumably due to the fact that the readership of The Daily Telegraph will not be feeling the pinch of ‘the cuts’, merely observing them from the lofty heights of grandeur and wealth.

Another big story, that has been hit hard by the tabloids today, is the ignorance of Sepp Blatter (the figurehead of FIFA), which brings me to my second point that defines The Daily Telegraph for me: the lack of a sport’s back page. Not only this, the well-hidden 20-page pull out even manages to place football on the 8^th page, after straight Rugby Union (and no mention of Rugby League), another stereotype of the privately educated upper middle classes. Once you have found the football pages, you will not find a league table or a record of results, but a brief summary of the financial and legal troubles found outside of the game. It would be unfair to suggest however that any of the sports covered were done from the perspective of a fan of the game, with not one result (apart from the odd gaze back into the ‘good old days’), or, in fact, any record of anyone actually playing the sports (the exeption being the praise of Federer’s victories at the age of 30 which is a cause of constant reference. But even then, the story is a biography rather than coverage of the sport.). To me it seems obvious that these stories have been chosen for their retrospective viewpoint or for their relevance to business.

The Telegraph tells the news in facts and figures that fit the thinking of hard-nosed businessmen and other such stereotypes of the demographic. This is done by expressing, mostly, the financial and business sides of a story for those who may not understand contemporary references to mass culture or want to read about the way in which people are effected by stories, instead looking at what the facts and figures can tell us, with a business-like efficiency that makes for good journalism but doesn’t offer anything for the less-educated to grasp onto. To summarise, The Daily Telegraph reports stories that are opposite to how their readership likes their rooms: hard and cold.

media law and the innocence project.

Today we looked at investigative journalism, specifically in the area of miscarriages of justice (If a certain lager did morally upstanding journalism, this would be it.). This is a very relevant area for us a Winchester, with the innocence project being a fine example of investigative journalism into the miscarriages of justice: taking people who have been convicted and appealing on behalf of them if it seems that they have been wrongfully convicted.

More notable an example of evidence would be the M.P's expenses scandal that was exposed by The Daily Telegraph. The best defence for this form of journalism is having the evidence to prove it to be true in a court of law. However, besides this, the defence would be that the exposure was in the public interest, the three main components of a public interest defence are:

- Hypocrasy (meaning that the person is giving an image which is not true)
- Crime (the person or collective attacked are taking part in criminal activity)
- Public Safety (e.g. the council are putting heroin and cyanide in the water)

At this point in the lecture we drifted into the specifics of certain cases, which I am unsure is a topic befitting of this published blog, what with defamation of the police and legal system being a highly outcome.

Retired mediocre boxer predicts football score - NO WAY!

Way to go BBC Sport! you've really gone all out on this one with a fantastic story! well done indeed!

bbcsport_ticker BBC Sport Breaking 

Football: Man City fan Ricky Hatton predicts his side will beat QPR 8-0 on Saturday bbc.in/tqLRhH

On to a winol..

Today I was put to the undesirable task of critiquing the latest instalment of WINOL (so please excuse any mean and unfair things I may say about it, it wasn't my choice).

Not to worry though, the bulletin as a whole was exquisite and I was only able to pick a few things out, mostly stylistic choices regarding sound and video editing (but as of yet I can't do that yet, so I am inferior in that respect anyway). So here is my brief and pretty nit-picky list that will probably lead me to be the victim of some form of hate-crime in the near future:

- About 5 minutes in was when I spotted the first flaw; just a small editing glitch which I think was mid speech.

- Then at around 9 minutes in there was a brief drop in volume during a pretty extended pause at the end of the sports segment that could perhaps have been cut out altogether.

- At the end of the ad for the other production the music could perhaps have been faded and an outro perhaps done just to soften the transition from the ad back to the presenter.

- Then, last but by no means least, the only legal point that I could really spot as potentially dangerous: the interview with the Southampton MP (whose name escapes me) where he was defaming Ed Miliband, who should probably be defamed in all honesty but legally was a bit iffy. Which was a tiny speck on what was otherwise very newsworthy journalism.

Other than this however, it was precise journalism to be proud of. A thumb upwardly inclined from me.


Also, if you have no idea about anything I just said, here is the WINOL youtube page with an extensive backlog of other admirable student journalism: http://www.youtube.com/user/Winchesterjournalism

A Tea Towel Too Far... Revisited

At the risk of defaming any person, (in the world!) my house, this is the last straw (if it were true that; a person might soak my tea towel in cooking juices AGAIN! Not to mention the hideous state that the kitchen might generally be left in after they cooked (There may have been a crusty pan on the dining table yesterday that literally smelt like human feces)!

Now due to my current level of legal training, one might say that I am defaming this imaginary person, yet the simple fact of the matter is it could be true (which would be justification, with evidence), also, it is my genuine opinion that people who would be selfish, ignorant, thoughtless, arseholes (mere abuse - that's right, I genuinely think they would be arseholes), would do such a thing to my kitchen, if it were to happen (fair comment)!

It would also be justifiable to say if a person came into the kitchen with a plastic bag on their hand, so as not to catch any germs of us filthy folks in the same house, I would assume, to which I would say; why don't you just clean up after yourselves then?!?!? Then we wouldn't be risking our own mortality at the hands of salmonella every time we might make a sandwich! - I will be writing to my housing officer - maybe.