Taking Out The Trash

Do adjust your set

The following is why trade unions matter - because they raise issues that otherwise get ignored or overlooked by middle class opinion formers.

The TUC will challenge the media to stop discriminating against people on low incomes by portraying them as 'scroungers' and 'benefits cheats', at the TUC's annual poverty conference in London today (Friday).

The conference Challenging Povertyism - held on World Poverty Day - will tackle the negative way people on lower incomes are stereotyped by the media, and challenge how the Government communicates with people living in poverty.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: 'All too often we see tabloid headlines slating people living in poverty as 'benefits cheats'.

'Popular television programmes like 'Shameless' and 'Wife Swap' portray people on low incomes as 'scroungers' and second class citizens, worthy of ridicule.

'But poverty is not a laughing matter. Nearly four million children in the UK - one in three children - are growing up in poverty, and we have one of the worst child poverty records in the industrialised world.

'Contrary to media stereotypes, people on low incomes are not all cheating the benefits system. More than half of children living in poverty have parents in work, but many are caught up in a cycle of low paid insecure jobs.

'The majority of people on low incomes want decent work but are struggling, particularly in the current economic climate.

'The UK has one of the lowest levels of social mobility in the developed world. Negative portrayals of people on low incomes in the media as lazy, feckless, scrounging on the dole and somehow worth less than the rest of society do nothing to help social cohesion.'

You can read the rest here.

The only time you see poor people on TV is as victims, perpetrators of crime or passive consumers. They're briefly interviewed on some news programme because of a crime or they've made it on to a game show or talent contest. They're lucky to get one dimensional treatment and when the BBC does a series on the white working class it makes it all about race.

And Mike Leigh films such as Life is Sweet aren't much better. Stick to Shane Meadows instead.

Sorry, rant over (and good on yer, TUC)

Paul Foot Award short (and long) list

In the end my entry didn't make any impression on the long or short list for this year's Paul Foot Award.
I comfort myself with the quality of those on it - with one caveat which I'll come to.

The short list is

Richard Brooks, Private Eye

Camilla Cavendish, The Times

Andrew Gilligan, Evening Standard

Warwick Mansell, Times Educational Supplement

Dan McDougall, The Observer

Jim Oldfield, Rossington Community Newsletter, South Yorkshire Newspapers

The longlist (or highly commended but no cigar) are:
Ben Leapman, The Sunday Telegraph; Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas, The Sunday Times and Heather Brooke, Freelance, Freedom of Information Campaigner

Nick Davies, The Independent, City AM, Private Eye and The New Statesman

David Harrison, The Sunday Telegraph

James Lewis, Legal Business Magazine and the Guardian 

You can see on the Private Eye web site what the individual stories were that won the journalists their place. Suffice to say that anybody who says investigatative reporting, local journalism and international affairs are dead isn't paying attention.
What was my caveat? I think Gilligan's reporting was part of a campaign by his paper, the Evening Standard, and even if his motives were objective I think the aim of his paper was objectionable.

Save Tribune

When you call something venerable it can sound like another way of saying 'on its last legs'.

Tribune magazine is venerable but is making every effort not to go under. Its list of previous editors and contributors is astonishing in its quality. The fact that I sometimes to book reviews for them and have written some articles gives me a small egotistical glow in knowing that I have shared a miniscule bit of history with such exalted names.

But selling 4,000 copies a week and relying on trade union donations isn't enough to keep it going and it needs to find a buyer and soon.

There is an editorial in it this week asking about expressions of interest in a reader co-op. I dearly hope Tribune doesn't go to the wall.

It's interesting if you compare it with The Big Issue (another magazine I've worked for). TBI found itself leading opinion ten years ago when it married the rise in social enterprise with an eye for the stories ignored by the mainstream. However, it didn't adapt to changing circumstances and is now shrinking rapidly. Another outlet for alternative viewpoints has been muffled.

As a Tory government looks more likely and the neo-con approach to economics collapses we need a critique from the other side (left, green or just plain angry). There is a hunger, I think, for this kind of news. The web-based media can't supply it all and old-fashioned sectarian ranting doesn't cut it.

There is some news and comment on the Tribune situation on Paul Anderson's blog on mediaGuardian and on Compass.

blue wire, red wire

Seem to be doing an awful lot of military stories at the moment.
Off to this place on Thursday to see some bomb disposal people at work.
The commissioning ed said I could do a Blue Peter-style first person report but I wouldn't let Phil "the shakes" Chamberlain anywhere near even a pretend IED.

Abuse of language

One could say that if you dish out you should be able to take it.
But Newcastle boss Joe Kinnear's torrent of abuse to journalists is really a sign of someone losing their grip and not holding the media to account.
As a journalist I think the reporters' responses are laudable in their restraint.
As a football fan I feel sorry for Newcastle.
And it makes Giles Coren's recent and more famous abuse memo to Times subs seem all the more pathetic. He threw his toys out because of one word, Kinnear thinks his whole career is being trashed.

The criticism that dare not speak its name

To a certain extent I'm not that sympathetic to the plight of Nick Clayton.
Clayton got sacked fom the Scotsman for a personal blog posting which reported the views of an estate agent that if he wanted to sell his house then  not to bother with advertising with paper.
Why the cold heart? Because newspapers are a tough business and if you're going to crap in your own nest make sure you carry a big brush.
Journalism.co.uk has a good summary of the spat.
Ultimately, I'm with Clayton because I think the Scotsman has simply behaved poorly - but part of me thinks "what did you expect?"

No apples required

Getting inducted at UWE tomorrow as my first visiting lecturer role in journalism is about to get underway.
And if the students get to do stuff half as interesting as Paul Bradshaw's lot it should be fascinating.

Police, camera, action

A National Union of Journalists (NUJ) campaign against the 'terrorising' of journalists by police has gained European support.
The European Federation of Journalists has said it is backing efforts by the to defend journalists covering protests and demonstrations.
Police Forward Intelligence Teams regularly record journalists covering demonstrations, especially on climate change.
The NUJ has posted a video explaining some of the issues.
Twas ever thus but things have quietly got more intense over the last few years. You can see some reports here and here.
Of course, everybody can take a picture so what has changed is that people are willing to turn the cameras on the accusers.

Top political journalists

Iain Dale is encouraging people to vote in a poll for the most influential political journalists.
You can vote here
The results will appear in a future edition of Total Politics magazine.
My tendancy in these things is to vote for people I like reading - it doesn't follow that they are influential. Also - is Richard Littlejohn a political journalist? I mean he commentates on political matters and is certainly influential. I guess it's a pretty arbitrary distinction.
And then when I came to think of people they all seemed to write for papers on the right.
Anyhow: Toynbee, Fraser Nelson at the Speccie, Ben Brogan, George Pascoe-Watson (he's still at the Scum, right?), Martin Bright, Michael White all swing some heavy lead. Oh, and Kevin Maguire who is almost as ubiquitous as Mr Dale.

Offensive editing

An American newspaper cut the last line from a paid-for death notice because it was "considered discriminatory or offensive".
And what was that last line?
"In lieu of flower, vote Democratic."
Michael Miner's Chicago Reader blog has the details.
Hat Tip: Utne Reader media blog