Tag Archives: journalism

The weird world of the Daily Mail

Today the Daily Mail is complaining about a joke that was broadcast on the News Quiz in October last year. (Is it still considered news six months after the event?)

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend reading the article, so, to summarise:

  1. Broadcasting a joke that implies, but doesn’t use, a swear word is bad
  2. But printing the same joke in a newspaper is okay
  3. Broadcasting scantily clad women dancing is bad
  4. But printing pictures of the same is okay
  5. Putting quotes around a word to indicate disdain is good writing
  6. A single complaint represents The Silent Majority
  7. Mob rule would be a good thing
  8. Potentially causing offence is grounds for severe sanctions
  9. (But see bullets two and four for exceptions)
  10. Knee-jerk liberals — whatever they are — are a wide-spread problem
  11. Knee-jerk tabloids are okay
  12. Personal responsibility is good
  13. (Unless we have to exercise it ourselves)
  14. Your opinion is wrong
  15. Mine is right
  16. Banning stuff that we don’t like represents freedom
  17. Stating things as fact makes them true
  18. Black is white
  19. We’ve always been at war with Eastasia

I may have veered off target a little at the end but I think that’s pretty close to the core of the article. Did I miss anything?

My delicious.com bookmarks for December 31st through January 4th

  • Mike Ash on Private APIs – Nice discussion on the pros and cons of using private API's in your applications. The only time I've consciously used them was years ago with a large PL/SQL program on an Oracle database. I got all the upside (quicker development) without any of the down (having to maintain it). Yuk yuk.
  • Electric dreams for pop in 2009 – Apparently synth-pop is making a come-back for 2009. Yay! Less derivative guitar bands and more cheesy pop please!
  • 2008 – The Year in Pictures – Some really beautiful images in here. Wish my photography was up to their standard!

My del.icio.us bookmarks for January 29th through February 3rd

My del.icio.us bookmarks for January 8th through January 11th

  • Behind bars – Looks like another fascinating documentary by Louis Theroux.
  • Music lessons – Why the music industry as it’s currently structured is dying.
  • “You Don’t Understand Our Audience” – The whole spiel by Justin Long in Die Hard 4.0 about the media cynically manipulating audiences is much closer to the truth than most people would like to admit…